Little Gem
In this Guardian story based on a book about the way money and power seem to kill what little aesthetic exists in the people who acquire them.
It's writing like that that made me a follower of the arts sections of the Guardian in the old days. That had consequences, as I was engaged in conversations on their message boards -- about art, food, literature, life -- when Sept. 11 happened, and I was utterly repulsed by the reaction. It was part of what alienated me entirely from anything left of center.
An ancient rock'n'roll legend has it that some time in the 1960s, somebody - often named as Little Richard - who visited Ike Turner at the peak of his success was later asked what the interior of the Turner mansion was like. The reply was both exemplary snobbery and astute summation of what results when money and power go unbalanced by taste and restraint: "Man," goes the punchline, "I didn't realise you could spend a million dollars in Woolworth's."
It's writing like that that made me a follower of the arts sections of the Guardian in the old days. That had consequences, as I was engaged in conversations on their message boards -- about art, food, literature, life -- when Sept. 11 happened, and I was utterly repulsed by the reaction. It was part of what alienated me entirely from anything left of center.
