MIKE NEVINS WOULDN’T GET OUT OF BED one morning. They came into his room and remonstrated, urged, threatened, but, lying in his cot, he refused. I knew him mostly as the boy who put raw alcohol on his open acne sores. His parents came for him and by lunchtime he was gone. Even though his method was passive, there was a shock to his departure that I’ve never forgotten.

I asked her if she painted or made objects when she entered into a relationship. She paused for a good long moment. I wondered if she’d heard me. She had. She was thinking of what has been important to her. “When I start a love affair; I just sort of throw myself into it. No, I don’t paint then.”

I WANTED TO PUT WES Anderson in the company of some of his regular collaborators: Tilda Swinton, the cousins Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola (who both write with Wes), Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston, and the Wilson brothers, adding a little Rushmore action figure. I’d e-mail the images to Wes, and, via the same method, we’d have little chats. I first thought of making cowboys out of the characters. The Stetsons and sombreros took up too much room, but I kept Wes holding a pistol.