Special thanks to Gloria Loomis, for whom the title “agent” comes up short. For reading this book in several unfinished forms over eight years, for pushing me to realize it fully, for not letting me destroy the project six years in when I became hopeless, I will be eternally grateful.

Thanks to Geoffrey Sanborn for putting me in the place to get into this work and showing me the intellectual path to find my way out of it.

Thanks to the United States Artists Foundation for providing the support that further enabled this work to be produced.