Walking past the little free library in my neighbourhood the other day, I saw this book, Caravaggio by Gilles Lambert.

Whenever I see a secondhand book about Caravaggio, I feel compelled to take it home. His face, or a likeness of it, painted by BC artist Sheryl McDougald, hides behind a bike cassette on the cover of my first book Pedal. 

I knew Caravaggio was an excellent painter, an asshole with a fatal temper and possibly a pedophile. But in this book, I learned something new. There’s an old adage among heterosexual women: if you want to know what sort of date you’re on, watch how he treats the server. Caravaggio once threw a plate of steaming hot artichokes into a waiter’s face, striking him with the earthenware dish.