“Never varies” is the slogan for a well-known brand of scotch. The fruitier precincts of the art world might consider adopting it for their own use. We are prompted to offer this suggestion by George and Martha, a “satire” by the “performance artist” Karen Finley, who catapulted to dubious notoriety some years ago when it was revealed that the National Endowment for the Arts had subsidized a “transgressive” performance that involved Ms. Finley parading up and down on a stage, naked, smeared with chocolate, skirling about the evils of patriarchy, America, etc., etc. It was an inappropriate use of the taxpayer’s money, to be sure, but even when first performed, Ms. Finley’s act had the moth-eaten aspect of cultural senility. Sure, it was rebarbative. It was embarrassing—imagine, a grown women behaving like that. Most of all, though, it was boring. Ms. Finley’s foray into literature is equally boring. The George is—yes, you guessed it—George W. Bush, the Martha is Martha Stewart. The story is a twisted pornographic fantasy that a troubled fifteen-year-old boy might find amusing. Like so much that happens in the art world today, Ms. Finley’s offering has nothing to with art and everything to do with sociopathology. It’s the same old thing we’ve been seeing for years, sad, repellent, but also tedious beyond measure.