I am an obsessive garage cleaner - my wife and the neighbors make fun of me. I remember that my father was the same way and now when I'm out there unearthing things in the garage I realize I am becoming my dad!

Behind every small business there's a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities the restaurants cleaners gyms hair salons hardware stores - these didn't come out of nowhere.

All of Koons's best art - the encased vacuum cleaners the stainless-steel Rabbit (the late-twentieth century's signature work of Simulationist sculpture) the amazing gleaming Balloon Dog and the cast-iron re-creation of a Civil War mortar exhibited last month at the Armory - has simultaneously flaunted extreme realism idealism and fantasy.