Like clockwork, from 1958 to 1993, the Model Railroaders Club would meet every Tuesday night near San Diego, in a hangar at the Del Mar Fairgrounds on Jimmy Durante Boulevard, and run model trains. The word ‘hobby’, implying the business of amateurs, is surely too moderate for the concerns of these ‘train people’, for whom work and leisure are seemingly indistinguishable.

In the November 2000 issue of Artforum, Richard Hawkins concluded his ‘Top Ten’ list — which included everything from Robert Altman’s 1977 film Three Women (number 6) to ‘Good stuff on TV this summer’ (number 2) — with a rave for ‘Any painting made without using masking tape’, immediately followed by this zinger: ‘If the masking tape factory burned down, there’d be no painting in LA for at least a season.’ If you were cruising the galleries in southern California circa Y2K, you’d know he was hitting below the belt. Ouch.

Director/producer Roger Corman titled his 1990 memoir “How I Made a Hundred Movies and Never Lost A Dime.” In Corman’s classic horror comedies A Bucket of Blood (1959) and Little Shop of Horrors (1960), his inimitable talent for lightning quick schedules, minuscule budgets, and uncanny storylines transcends all expectations.