For some time I found I was consumed by the kind of dithering that professional tennis players call "the yips." I could start—did start—any number of paintings of Haile Selassie, and set him amongst any number of strange landscapes, but I could not find one that was both utterly foreign and still entirely appropriate to the man. I was blocked, and not all the meditation or medication or sex that I could put together seemed to unblock me. I painted, recanted, scraped away oil and started again—and again, and again. I knew the contours of my Emperor’s face better than I knew my own, knew his modes and moods, his action and hesitation; I could draw him a thousand different ways and each of them was perfect. But the rest! The rest was dross. The background overwhelmed the heart of any image I put together, and I knew that that penetrating gaze would see a less-than-sincere effort for what it was, and—at best—dismiss me.