By Richard Michelson What shall I ask of this sixteen-year-old girl, born in the final years of the twentieth century, who has tattooed her great-grandfather’s camp number onto her forearm?  No, she is not my neighbor, or grand niece, but only one more of too many applicants hoping to beef up their college résumé. Beauty, she explains, is her calling, why she was put on this earth. And at sixty I try to remember my teenage self, averting my eyes in the temple, or around the dinner table. Did art ever save anybody? I want to argue, even one of those children, younger than you, who drew such dazzling yet delicate butterflies at Terezin while their interned teachers extolled creativity? Still, we make art everywhere, anonymous or signed, and wonder why else our own fragile lives are worth living? And so I am looking beyond her at red flowers and blue sailboats, and even...

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