In which we interrupt our neglect of materials

You can always tell, you are

not in Palm Springs, when your

perch is a deck made of wood.

This noble building material

is not a feature of desert ar-

chitecture, although surely if

a ship can be sent to Arizona,

twenty idiots may have spec-

ified Jamaican mahogany for a

pool deck, in that happy out-

post of Los Angeles.

I have a friend who is, at 

the moment, wandering the

globe to visit the sources

of various architectural 

materials, no doubt to ver-

ify that they have a place. 

It seems a sound undertak-

ing (besides, he is young,

and has the time) in this 

age of gaudy prosthetics

and synthetic derivatives. 

Too bad he isn't in banking.

Of course this is nothing

more than the miner's sup-

erstition, that gold would

come from particular hills,

and not from some idler in

the bowels of Wall & Broad.

That said, 20 idiots revis-

ing the ecology of Palm

Springs represent nothing

more than a coincidence of

vanity; while it seems, if 

you could put 20 bankers in

touch with each other on a

pipe-bomb of that kind, you

could wreak some lovely sight.

One always used to associate

anarchism with unfortunate

tailoring. You well remember

how Emma Goldman helped to

raise funds, to clothe Mr 

Frick's unlucky assassin. 

But there you are, the mot-

ility of language seems to

have balked at this latest

migration in antecedents,

from illusion to capital.

Possibly if we could dress

the mind with that prescience

with which fashion is cred-

ited, we'd command at least

a better price.

If one could contribute

through mirth and lark,

in some small way to the

measure mankind will one

day take of that scourg-

ing, calculated, knowing

rip-off of human life,

centered in American bank-

ing in the Age of Bush, one

could almost feel recom-

pensed for having lived so

long as to see an icon of

Stalinist art traded in the

millions for some pantry in

Palm Springs.

ii   Offices of J.P. Morgan

     23 Wall Street

     September 16, 1920

v   Konstantin Somov

     The Boxer

     1933

     Christies sale: $1,195,830