Don’t Touch that Table! 

By Patrick F. Cannon 

I’ve been watching Antiques Roadshow since it first aired in 1997. From time to time, I’ve also watched the British original when it has occasionally popped up on the Bravo or Ovation channels. It started in 1979 and is still going strong.

In case you’re not familiar with the format, people haul their (hopefully) valuable antiques and collectables to a local venue, where experts from various fields (furniture, art, ceramics, dolls, toys, etc,) either confirm or dash their hopes. Most episodes have a surprise or two, like someone finding an old picture in grand dad’s attic that turns out to be a Winslow Homer water color worth $100,000.

People will discover that some antiques are worth more when they look shiny and new (porcelain, for example), but that others had better show their age.

“This is a fine bronze, beautifully cast. But you shouldn’t have cleaned and polished it, for the market demands patina, and even though it’s by an acknowledged master, it’s only worth $10,000 instead of the $50,000 you could have gotten.”

“Can I ask? Was it refinished at all? Ah, I was afraid so. It’s a common mistake, unfortunately. If it were dark and dingy as one would expect after 250 years, it would probably fetch $500,000 at auction, but…”

If you’re a regular watcher, these quotes will have a familiar ring. I’m sure many viewers have looked at that old desk that Uncle George refinished for them a few years ago and broken into tears of regret. Oh my God, what have I done?

I suppose there are good reasons why the experts prefer the dingy to the clean. For one thing, it presumably makes it easier to date the piece. They like nothing better than pulling drawers out, turning things over, and muttering about oxidation, primary woods and the lovely gloom that generations of dirt and grime can produce. Being an expert on the effects that coal fires and candle smoke can have on finishes gives them an edge over the hapless layman, after all. And it’s certainly true that today’s craftsmen can produce superb fakes of anything done by masters of the past.

So, if you have an old piece of furniture or a bronze (or any number of things) and have had it cleaned , repaired or in any way refurbished, you’re probably sunk, even though it might look absolutely lovely to the uninitiated.

Why am I troubled by this? Probably because I find myself wondering what the original creator of the piece in question would think of today’s passion for dirt and grime. Would Thomas Chippendale really be happy to see a chair, upon which he lavished so much attention, now dark with the pollution of the ages, and with threadbare upholstery to boot? Somehow, I don’t think so.

After finishing the chair, he would have stained it in the shade he or the customer wanted, and then added some varnish for protection. If he came down from the cabinet maker’s heaven today and saw it covered with dirt and discolored varnish, does anyone doubt that he would be appalled? I should think he would immediately roll up his puffy sleeves, strip off the dirt and old varnish and restore it to its original glory. “Why,” I’m sure he would think, “would anyone want a dirty old chair?”

When an artist finishes something – whether painting, statue, chair or building – it seem to me that it looks the way he wanted it to look forever. While the artist may have had some vague feeling that nothing actually lasts forever, he is unlikely to lose any sleep over it, since life was and is short. He moves on to the next project and hopes for the best.

If you’ve been in any of the world’s great art galleries, you’ve surely looked at paintings so dark with age that significant details are no longer visible. I can assure you that the artist who painted them wanted you to see and appreciate the smallest detail. If they remain uncleaned, the artist’s intentions have been lost.

On a more personal note, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio in Oak Park, Illinois, where I have given tours for many years, has the dining room table and chairs he designed for it. Some years ago, Wright’s widow, the exotic Olgivanna, donated the table and six chairs to the now museum. They were refinished to the original natural Oak shade. Later, two additional chairs were sent on permanent loan by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. They are as nearly black and they can be, standing in sharp contrast to the others. As the Foundation still owns them, their decision to leave them alone must stand.

If Wright would come down from Olympus (where he surely resides) and visit his old house, would he not say: “If I wanted those chairs to be black, I would have painted them black! They better be refinished the next time I see them!”

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Turn of the Screw 

By Patrick F. Cannon

(I recently found this piece, which I wrote for a magazine 30 plus years ago. I think it still says something about the human comedy.)

It is one of life’s truisms that if you go up a ladder with a screwdriver to remove, let’s say, a drapery rod, you will find – as you sway back and forth – that you have brought a regular screwdriver when, in fact, all the screws have Philips-heads.

So it’s back down the ladder and out to the kitchen to root through the tool drawer. There will be no Philips-head screwdriver, even though you own three of them. Regular screwdrivers will, of course, abound. So will various hammers, hundreds of nuts an bolts (none of which will match), odd pieces of sheet metal of no apparent utility, nails either too large or too small for any earthly use, tubes of pipe joint compound that will have disappeared by the time you need them, rusty razor blades, two cores that once held electrical tape, a full roll of masking tape that won’t come off in pieces longer than two inches, various pieces of string that might someday be tied together to wrap a package, worn out sandpaper, a wrench too small for the next pipe that bursts, three blown fuses and copious amounts of the kind of fuzz usually associated with pants pockets and cuffs.

You will ultimately discover – when it’s too late – that one of the Philips-head screwdrivers is in the backyard, hidden in the grass, waiting to be chewed up by the lawnmower. Another is in the glove compartment of the car. The third is in the pocket of your son’s winter coat, now hanging in the cloakroom at school. He will not recall why he put it there.

Muttering, you will go back up the ladder with the wrong screwdriver. The passage of an hour will find you sitting quietly, staring out the window. Your color will be returning, the sweat drying on your forehead. When you wife walks in the door, she will start to greet you, think better of the idea, and proceed to the liquor cabinet. You will resolve for the hundredth time to make sure that tools are returned to the drawer after each use.

You will, of course, be lying to yourself. Some things, after all, are beyond human control (and understanding, for that matter).

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Let’s Encourage the Others

By Patrick F. Cannon

In 1757, the British Royal Navy court martialled Vice Admiral John Byng for dereliction of duty, deciding he failed to give vigorous enough battle with the French in their successful attempt to take Minorca. The British government of the time was in trouble for a variety of reasons, and decided that making an example of poor Byng would show how determined they were in prosecuting the war against their ancient enemy. Byng was found guilty and executed on the quarter deck of HMS Monarch by firing squad, which apparently was less humiliating than being hanged, although the result was roughly the same.

When he heard of this, Voltaire included a similar incident in Candide, where the hero witnesses a similar  execution in Portsmouth and is told that it is good to kill an admiral from time to time “pour encourager les autres” (to encourage the others).

(A small digression. After fighting the French for a thousand years, the British victory at Waterloo ended the military phase of their competition. But old animosities die hard. I remember a television interview with an elderly Church of England Vicar when the Channel Tunnel was being dug. He was asked what he thought of soon being able to get to France in minutes instead of a long ride on the ferry. His response: “why would anyone want to go to France?”)

Anyway, it appears that our own government preferred to levy huge fines on corporations found guilty of financial shenanigans during the late troubles, rather than sending the corporate leaders to prison as a way of “encouraging the others.” Alas, the firing squad is no longer considered an option. It may be that their own sense of guilt in fostering the housing bubble by essentially forcing mortgage companies to lend money to unqualified borrowers had something to do with it. A series of highly publicized trials could well have rubbed both ways. Better apparently to just fine the corporations (thus sticking it to the stockholders) than send the guilty executives to jail.

An investment banking firm with a trillion dollars or so of assets hardly misses 4 or 5 billion, and probably gets to write it off its tax bill anyway! How much more satisfying it would have been – both to most Democrats and Republicans – if a few of the worst offenders had been sent away to join the legendary Bernie Madoff in the Federal pen “pour encourager les autres.”

No wonder that other famous Bernie, the venerable Sanders, has gained so much traction with young people and left wing Democrats (who yearn wistfully for the final triumph of Marxism).  They see the fat cats getting a slap on the wrist, while the poor shmoe who gets caught dealing a bit of weed gets years of hard time. Some of them, of course, did lose their jobs, but how many of them actually lost their ill gotten gains?

I’m for the absolute minimum of financial market regulation, but when the laws that are on the books are broken, the culprits should be dragged to the quarter deck just like the unfortunate Admiral Byng and made to understand that the rule of law applies to everyone. I’m OK with fining their employers too, because they almost certainly looked the other way as long as the profits kept rolling in.

Finally, I should make it clear that the financial markets generally work just fine, Bernie Sanders to the contrary. The tendency to demonize whole groups for the misdeeds of the few is a regrettable feature of our recent public discourse.

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Mistaken Perhaps, But Evil? 

By Patrick F. Cannon

I can believe that President Obama made a mistake in forcing through the Affordable Care Act without making a serious effort to accommodate the ideas and concerns of the Republican members of Congress. Had he done so, perhaps many of the obvious failures of the act might have been avoided.

One might also question his handling of foreign policy, particularly as regards Syria, and his tendency to use executive action to get around the gridlock in Congress on immigration and gun control.  At the very least, it smacks of a kind of “I know better” arrogance. But nearly everything he’s done is consistent with his essential political philosophy, i.e., progressive liberal activism.

While I might not agree with most of his policies – in fact, I strongly disagree with much of what he has done – my opposition is on purely political grounds. I do not hate President Obama. I’m able to make a distinction between the policies and the man. The man has a wife and kids, and loyal friends, just like most people. He has a dog, always a plus with me. If we broke bread, it’s likely we would find things in common as well as areas of disagreement. You know, just like your friends. Or do your friends have to march in lockstep with you and your politics? Is that all that matters?

If you listen to conservative talk radio, or watch the pundits on Fox, you might be forgiven for thinking that all the President really cares about is screwing over you personally. He’ll begin by taking your guns, and then force you to like illegal immigrants, abortionists and gays. After that, he’ll grab your dough and give it to the undeserving poor.

This kind of partisan hatred is, of course, nothing new. George W. Bush got pretty much the same treatment for this two terms (what President would actually want to serve more)? In his case, the attacks came from the hard left; insert MSNBC for Fox, and Bill Maher for Rush Limbaugh. Bill Clinton was a special case with his sexual peccadilloes, but presidents before him really didn’t have to undergo the same level of demonization that seems to have become common in the age of partisan 24-hour news outlets and the internet.

It’s far too early to say what history will make of either Obama or Bush. It’s only fairly recently that we have come to really understand the malignancy of Andrew Jackson, for example. Other bad presidents (but not necessarily bad men) include Tyler, Buchannan, Pierce, Fillmore, Grant, Harding, Hoover and Carter. Aside from Jackson, it’s hard to summon up much hatred for any of them. Grant and Harding, for example, trusted people they shouldn’t have. And Hoover was a great engineer, but a lousy economist.

Of the presidents who have served in my lifetime, I can summon up genuine animus for only one: Richard Nixon.  And even he has some apologists! So, let’s save our hatred for terrorists and the creators of reality television.

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Would You Believe It? 

By Patrick F. Cannon

Before the Guinness “Book of World Records”, the shabbier supermarket tabloids and the more dubious television “magazine” shows began to feed our apparently insatiable appetites for the bizarre and just plain goofy foibles of people and things, about all we had was that old standby, Ripley ‘s “Believe It or Not.”

Ripley’s oddities (the man himself died in 1949) always seemed to be the product of simpler days and simpler tastes. A typical entry might read: “John S. Tiresome, inventor of the tire patch, never learned how to drive!” or perhaps (and these were especial favorites): “Farmer Jones, of Hicksville, Illinois, has a cow with six legs and two heads!”

This would be illustrated with a drawing of the cow, with Farmer Jones in proud attendance.

How did Ripley find these gems? Well, aside from the historical stuff (Napoleon, only five feet three in his stocking feet, had to use a ladder to ascend the Imperial Throne!), I guess people just dropped him a line. I imagine that if I went to the barn one morning and found such a cow, I’d want to tell someone.

But the new purveyors of the bizarre are after more adventurous stuff As a result, folks don’t wait around anymore in hopes of digging up a potato that looks like a cocker spaniel, or of harvesting a 600-pound squash. Instead, they try to break one of Guinness’ so-called “world records,” or perform some foolish stunt that will get them on television.

I remember some years ago reading about several men – and one woman -who were trying to break the somewhat dubious record for living (if we can put it that way) the longest time in a cage filled with poisonous snakes. The record was a month or thereabouts. As I recall, a few bites had been recorded, but no actual deaths had occurred among the lunatics involved (no word on the health of the snakes, however).

Alas, Ripley was not immune to these hijinks. I remember one entry (this one actually appeared) that showed a young couple looking at a great white orb, with the following caption: “A baseball owned by Gloria and Mike Carmichael of Alexandria, Indiana, is 55-3/ 8 inches in circumference and weighs 180 pounds – over a period of three years that have added 10, 000 coats of paint. ”

Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t even begin to imagine what would possess anyone to take brush in hand and start painting a baseball. And then keep right on painting. Or, why anyone would care whether or not someone had managed to create the world’s largest Jell-0 mold; or indeed the largest cheese cake, a pizza ample enough to feed Kalamazoo, or a string of  jellybeans that stretches from Paris to Rome.

In many cases, these stunts are the result of some publicist’s fevered imagination, or the belief of some citizen of India or Bangladesh that breaking a record will confer an immortality surer than religion. But all they really insure is that someone lurks somewhere ready to sleep with snakes for just one day longer, or create an even bigger tuna casserole.

Oh, how I long for farmer Jones!

(P.S. I just noticed that the new edition of the Guinness Book of World’s Records is high on the New York Times best seller list. Oh, and you can find Ripley’s web site and see what amazing stuff they’re still unearthing.)

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

What is Art, Actually?

By Patrick F. Cannon

In his opinion in a case involving the definition of pornography, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote (in part): “I shall not…attempt…to define…hard-core pornography…but I know it when I see it…”

I wonder if he would have said the same about art, that most subjective of human endeavors?  I can imagine a prehistoric man looking at cave paintings and exclaiming to the struggling artist: “You call that a deer? Looks more like a cow!” And the critics have been at it ever since. I’m old enough to remember the reception Jackson Pollock got for his abstract expressionist drip paintings in the 1950s. “Why, a monkey could do that,” the average Joe said, whereupon some enterprising person got some chimps together with cans of paint and canvasses and, lo and behold, they produced their own brand of Abstract Expressionism.

You could check out the chimps paintings on the evening television news or in the movie newsreels (this was the 50s, after all), and chuckle along with the rest of us. But the folks who bought Pollock’s tortured musings eventually sold them for millions, while all the chimps got was some bananas.

Now, I’m not a fan of Pollock or the other Abstract Expressionists like Rothko and DeKooning, but I can appreciate there is a great difference between their paintings and the efforts of those who thought they could do the same thing by flinging paint against a canvas. While we may not like the results, we can see the skill and hard work involved in producing it. If, for example, you look carefully at one of Rothko’s apparently simple color-field paintings, you’ll see how carefully the paint is applied and how the different colors are related one to another. All of these artists were academically trained. They knew how to paint realistically before they chose another path.

So, my first rule for fine art (as opposed to “outsider” art, primitive art, or the art of spray painting squiggles on other people’s property) is that it is not done by amateurs. Fine art is intended, and is done by trained professionals.

In the 400 years or so since he wrote it, thousands of actors have played Shakespeare’s Hamlet, many admirably, but in the end it is the play that is really the thing. Thus, my second rule: art must be produced by an individual, not a factory.

Although he is not alone, Jeff Koons is perhaps the best living example of the factory approach to art (he owes a great debt to Andy Warhol). He has been unabashed in saying that he is the “idea” man who leaves the actual creation of the work to his employees. Thus, he decided it would be amusing to have balloon animals blown up to giant size and executed in colorful metal instead of latex. Sounds ridiculous, and is to me, but Koons sells this stuff for millions of real dollars, while the clown at the birthday party probably is lucky to get a hundred bucks for amusing the kiddies with balloon animals.

Contrast this with Rembrandt laboring over a sheet of copper to produce an etching. In some cases, we have various stages showing how he worked and reworked the plate until he finally got the effect he wanted. The end result – let’s say of his series on the Crucifixion – is both complex and emotionally powerful. And let us not forget that he had to do it all in reverse so that the print would present a positive image on the paper.

Many of Rembrandts etching plates were never destroyed; so impressions continued to be made after his death. But even an impression from his own hand might be bought for tens of thousands of dollars instead of tens of millions. A better bargain in every way, it seems to me.

And yes, I have heard the argument that many Renaissance artists had assistants who did some of the work. True enough, but what they mainly did was prepare the canvas or board, mix paints and sometimes paint in backgrounds, and then only for large-scale commissions. And I suspect no one helped Velasquez paint his famous portrait of Aesop, whose model is thought to have been an entirely human local beggar.

(I should mention that images of the Aesop painting and others mentioned here are easily found on the internet.)

About Koons, I could eventually be proved wrong. In 400 years, he may be as revered as Rembrandt is today.  Fashion in art is a funny thing. We now revere the somewhat overexposed Impressionists, and have largely forgotten their far more successful French contemporaries, much of whose work has been consigned to storage or the walls of small provincial museums.

I thought about those once famous artists when I recently visited the Art Institute of Chicago to view the new galleries of contemporary art, including many works recently donated by Stephan Edlis and Gael Neesson. It occurred to me that they were wise to donate these works at the height of their value, thus maximizing their tax benefits. I think it would be a safe bet that in 50 years some of them will have found their way to the Institute’s storage rooms.

I visited between Christmas and New Years, and it was interesting to see the reactions of the larger than usual crowd. Many were families with children, and it was amusing to see parents trying to explain abstract paintings to their confused children. The reality: the paintings usually have no meaning beyond the viewer’s personal reaction. What possible deep meaning could there be in an Ellsworth Kelly triptych of three squares of color?

Looking at it reminded me of the Pantone color system, which includes numbered color swatches of seemingly every possible shade of every possible color. Graphic artists and designers use the system to specify to a printer, for example, the exact color they want. Each has a number, and I suspect you could find a Pantone color to match each color that Kelly has chosen.

Which leads me to my final rule: the more human the art, the finer it will be. I have already mentioned Velasquez’s Aesop, whose subject convinces us that we are looking at a man whose experiences could indeed have resulted in the wisdom revealed in his fables. A late Rembrandt self portrait will also reveal a man who has suffered but nevertheless prevailed. Something of the same humanity has been revealed in the contemporary works of artists like David Hockney and Lucien Freud.

I mentioned the Impressionists. Their landscapes represent a human response to what they saw in the natural environment, as did the paintings of predecessors like Turner and Constable.  Now, if we didn’t know that Jackson Pollack was a tortured, neurotic alcoholic – and see his paintings as a reflection of his struggles – what we would think of them?  And what would we think of Rothko and Kelly if we knew nothing about them? But does it matter what we know of Velasquez when we look at his masterpiece, Las Meninas?

If you have seen this painting at the Prado in Madrid, you will have seen the work of a committed professional, who has stamped it with his particular vision. The human subjects are revealed to us as Velasquez saw them, with all of their qualities exposed. How different it is from Pollack, Rothko and Kelly. And in every way, it seems to me, finer.

While this essay has discussed painting, the qualities of professionalism, individuality and humanity are equally relevant to the other arts. You may not agree with me that these are the most important qualities of any work of art, but if you value the arts – and not everybody does – than you should at least have a set of standards by which you can judge them.

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Bad News from Local Television 

By Patrick F. Cannon

Some of you may remember Floyd Kalber and Len O’Conner, the long ago anchor and commentator respectively on Chicago’s Channel 5 News. I remember both with fondness as entirely professional, no nonsense newsmen. Kalber was a particular hero of mine, as he once talked the folks at Channel 5 into letting him just read the weather report, rather than having a dedicated weather person stand in front of a map and parse the forecast for valuable minutes that could have been devoted to real news.

Predictably, his good sense approach to the weather forecast was doomed. Eventually, Kalber decamped for New York and the Today show, where he did the news every morning and reported occasional stories for NBC News. He later returned to Chicago and ended his career at the local birthplace of “Happy Talk” news, WLS-TV, Channel 7. It must have been bittersweet.

While the local ABC affiliate was the groundbreaker in softening and cheering up the news, all of the local Chicago stations now follow its lead. In a 30-minute newscast, with approximately 22 minutes devoted to content, there will be two weather forecasts. The first one will give the basics, but if there are any rain, snow or temperature extremes within 1,000 miles of the city, it will end with “the teaser of doom.”  In the later forecast, always longer and more detailed, the impending winter storm will turn out to be flurries. This is not to say that the weather folks don’t do a good job when there is an actual weather event; they do. But is there any excuse for devoting so much time to the weather when it’s just normal for the season? And for the seeming competition among female meteorologists to see who can wear the tightest dress?

While the overemphasis on weather is annoying, the flagrant promotion of network entertainment programming as part of the newscast is infuriating.  If ABC wants to promote “Dancing With the Stars,” it should do so in a commercial, not have its news anchors, presumably professional journalists, debase themselves by pretending that what fading actor is attempting to rejuvenate his or her career by dancing the tango with some hard body, is actually just as worthy of coverage as the latest failure of the political class to solve the state’s fiscal mess.

Thank God for newspapers, even though declining circulation and ad revenues make them a dubious investment for their corporate owners. What would television news directors do if they couldn’t depend on their local newspaper to uncover the stories that they piggy back on for their own content? Their own “investigative” teams are largely a joke.

Thirty years ago, newspapers were a hot investment item. Family owned papers began to sell out for the exorbitant amounts corporations were willing to pay for what were then considered cash cows. Then appeared the internet and a new generation that seemed unwilling to tear themselves away from their computer and phone screens, and who seem increasingly unable to tell the difference between unbiased reporting and opinion.

If great newspapers were still privately owned, they might be better able to weather revenue decline without having to worry about panicked stockholders.  I wish someone would buy the Chicago Tribune as a civic duty, just as Jeff Bezos of Amazon has bought the Washington Post. In the meantime, everyone who cares about unbiased reporting should subscribe to their local paper for the real news, and then depend on their local TV news for entertainment and the weather forecast.

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Poor Little Rich Girl 

By Patrick F. Cannon

The recent divorce saga of Illinois billionaire Ken Griffin and his wife Anne reminded me of a similar story a few years ago. Another billionaire, who died last year and shall remain nameless, was in the news because his ex-wife had asked the courts to increase his child support payments for their daughter to $320,000 a month from $50,000.

We were told that the tycoon had the child out of wedlock in 1999. The gallant fellow agreed to make an honest woman out of her, but only upon the understanding that she would then file for divorce, receiving $50,000 per month for the child, but nothing for herself.

Now, the last time I looked, $50,000 a month only adds up to $600,000 a year. As we know, grown men make far more money playing children’s games like baseball and basketball, so it hardly seems fair that an actual child should have received so little, particularly a child who was both the daughter of a billionaire and lived in Southern California.

Although it hardly seems relevant, I should mention that the child was then three, the mother 36 and Mr. Moneybags 84.

If we examine the reasons for needing $320,000 a month (or $3,840,000 a year), all might become clear. Travel, for example, was projected at $144,000 per month. Surely, you might say, one would have to be on the road continuously to spend that kind of dough.   But this is to completely misunderstand the requirements of the rich, particularly the rich in any way associated with Hollywood (the father owned one of its major studios).

Travel broadens one, even a three-year-old. Let’s say a trip to Paris seems desirable. No child of that age can travel alone. She’ll need mommy, nanny and a security guard. Four first-class tickets from LA to Paris would be about $40,000. Upon arrival, mom and the kid would likely share a suite, say at the Ritz or the George V. A week could run another $30,000. Nanny and the security person would rate only single rooms, but two could add another $10,000. At Paris prices, meals could easily add another $10,000. I think that totals $90,000 for a week in Paris, leaving a mere $54,000 to last the rest of the month. It might well be even less, as a prudent mother of a billionaire’s daughter might well opt for a private jet to avoid any possibility of a kidnapping enroute.

“Parties and play dates” were estimated at $14,000 a month. For a child whose first birthday party cost $70,000, this does not seem excessive. As a child, I simply went next door and knocked on the back door to see if Jimmy could come outside and play. But of course I didn’t live in Bel Air or Beverly Hills. Can we reasonably ask a child to scale an electric fence with razor wire at the top to play with the kid next door?

An additional $2,500 a month was set aside for movies and outings. While movies may only be $15 a ticket, the usual entourage increases the tab to $60, not including popcorn. Because she lived in the film capital of the world, and her father was deeply involved in the business, we would naturally expect her to keep up with the latest releases and trends. And all parents know that Disneyland, Universal Studios and Knotts Berry Farm don’t come cheap.

Other expenses listed by the Associated Press seemed equally reasonable: $1,400 for laundry and cleaning, $1,000 for toys and books, and $436 “for care of Kira’s bunny and other pets.” Actually, Ms. Kerkorian might want to revisit the pet care costs. My own experience with a poodle of delicate health and constantly growing coat suggests it might not be enough.

You may have noticed that the expenses listed only totaled $163,336 per month. But of course that doesn’t include the costs of housing, food and staff, which could quite easily eat up the remaining $156,664.

Many of you will recall F. Scott Fitzgerald’s comment that the rich are different than us, and Ernest Hemingway’s famous rejoinder, “yes, they have more money.” Well, as you can see, they actually need it.

Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

What’s in a Name?

By Patrick F. Cannon

Some years ago, I was driving from Munich to Vienna. The day was fine and the road splendid. After traveling for some time, I thought I should soon see a sign heralding my imminent arrival. Nothing of the kind. Thinking perhaps that I had somehow gone astray, I pulled into a rest stop and sought information from the Information kiosk. I explained my dilemma to the attendant, who laughed heartily, as Austrians often do. When he caught his breath, he told me that Vienna was actually Wien in German. Why then do English speakers call it Vienna I asked? Warming to the subject, he said that the Italians called the city Vienna and that since the English seemed to prefer the Italians to the Austrians, they had taken to using the Italian word.

I was on the point of asking why the Italians thought it necessary to come up with their own name, but decided I might never actually get to Wien, so I decided to leave well enough alone. I heartily enjoyed my visit to Wien, but it has caused me problems ever since. When extolling the virtues of Wien to my friends, I am often greeted with blank stares. Wien? Never heard of it! After patiently explaining that it’s often called Vienna by English speakers, I often have the feeling that they think that perhaps I had too much wine in Wien.

What to call things is a serious problem for travelers. The French call London “Londre”, the Italians “Londini.” On the other hand, the English spell Paris just like the French do, although they pronounce it with an “iss” instead of an “eee.” A Spaniard thinks he’s going to Nueva York instead of New York, but generally manages to get there anyway. One often wonders, of course, why there’s no Spanish word for “York.” Nueva Yorka has a music that Nueva York lacks.

Germany also presents problems. If you go there, you’ll discover that the locals call it Deutschland, which must mean “land of the Dutch.” I had always supposed that the Dutch lived in Holland, but perhaps I’m mistaken. It may just be that the Germans grabbed the name first, leaving the Dutch to settle for Holland, which must be a made up word. By the way, the French call Germany, Allemane, which makes no sense to anyone.

What one should name people is also a problem. Italians persist in calling Julius Caesar “Giulio Cesare.” But the English seem perfectly content to leave Benito Mussolini as it is instead of changing it to “Benny Muscles.” I wondered if the Italians call Alfred the Great “Alfredo il Magnifico,” but didn’t bother to check.

To give another illustration, we call the saint who could charm the birds out of the trees, Francis. The Italians call him Santa Francesco and the Spanish San Fernando. You would think that we would call the famous valley in California the Saint Francis Valley instead of the San Fernando Valley, but we don’t.

And I’m sure many of your friends have told you that “I’m off to England for a vacation.” But aren’t they really going to the United Kingdom, or is it really Great Britain? If you’re planning a trip to Ireland, is it the Republic of Ireland, or Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, but not Great Britain?

Of course, I haven’t even gotten to place names in the Orient. For these and other distant climes, let me refer to the standard reference work: The Thomas Cook and Company Guide to Curious Foreign Place Names, From Aachen to Zanzibar. Any respectable bookseller should be able to hunt down a copy. It may explain to you why the city is called Beijing and the duck, Peking.

Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Stuff I’ve Never Worn 

By Patrick F. Cannon

I’m not too quick to adopt new styles of dress or grooming. In fact, quite a few trends have come and gone while I decided whether or not to catch the wave. Here are just a few.

I never wore a Nehru jacket. While they looked good on him, I was never convinced that the look was appropriate in America’s heartland. Besides, I owned dozens of ties and worked for a company that preferred its executives to look more like the man in the gray flannel suit. Since Nehru wasn’t hiring in Chicago at the time, I took a pass.

I’m afraid I did buy a double-knit suit and sports coat when they were in vogue in the 60s. The suit wasn’t so bad, but I remember looking in the mirror one morning and asking myself why on earth I hadn’t noticed that the sports coat was orange – maybe the lighting at Marshall Fields was deceptive. I never wore it again. As for the suit, it started pilling after a few cleanings, so I donated it to the Salvation Army, that sad repository of failed fashion. Ever after, I’ve worn only all-wool or all-cotton suits.

Apropos of plastic, I never owned either a white belt or white patent leather shoes. I rather regret this, since it’s obvious that they would have lasted forever (based on what one sees in places where senior citizens gather).

This may seem perverse, but once I grew up, I never wore jeans again. In my mind, they’re associated with cowboys, laborers and kids. Isn’t there something vaguely silly about a sixty-year-old man (or woman) wandering around in blue jeans? (I know. Wandering around in anything but jeans seems silly to the majority.)

I have never worn a tie shaped like a fish, nor one that advertises a product, or celebrates a holiday like Christmas. I am guilty of wearing a tie with shamrocks (small, discrete ones) on St. Patrick’s Day. I owned a similar pair of socks, but even my Irish heritage wouldn’t get them on my feet.

I was drafted into the Army, thank God, so I never had to wear bell-bottomed trousers. Why so many non-sailors chose to wear them in the 60s and 70s is still a mystery to me. Ditto for the tie-dyed shirts that seemed to go with them and the horrendously clunky shoes that completed the look.

Those, of course, were the days of “flower power,” a definite insult to flowers everywhere. Men took to long hair, a fashion that persists in some quarters, along with biblical beards. Aging hippies can still be spotted on the streets, their graying, thinning hair gathered by a rubber band into a lank and ancient ponytail. The parents they were rebelling against are either dead or too old to care.

The rebellious young people of today seem inclined to basic black, bare flesh and mutilation. The earrings that sprouted on young men in the 70s have been augmented (in both sexes) by more ambitious piercings. Today, one sees rings and other hardware in eyebrows, lips, navels and tongues (and, I’m told, in more naughty places). And tattoos, of course, are epidemic.

These aren’t the tattoos that sailors have sported for generations. A well-bred young lady might have a charming butterfly on her shoulder or lower back or next to her navel, all areas in plain view these days. My son, for reasons known only to him, has a smiley face on his shoulder. I rejoice in this, for some parents see lurid skulls (or worse) on the fronts and/or backs of their sons and, increasingly, daughters.

I’ve never been even faintly tempted to get a tattoo. Frankly, I’m stuck in a time warp. When I was in high school, the so-called “Ivy League” look was au courant. For me, it has never quite left. Most of my dress and casual shirts still have button-down collars. My suits have natural shoulders and I have always owned a blazer. Stripes dominate my tie rack. My dress shoes could have been made anytime in the last 50 years. You won’t be surprised to discover that I wear no jewelry.   Even my watches had leather bands until I developed an allergy. And the thought of wearing one of those “skinny” suits with the short trousers and sleeves gives me the horrors

I find all this very comforting. Everything I’ve always worn is still being sold (although I have to concede that ties do seem to expand and contract a bit in width from decade to decade). So, if you see a gentleman of a certain age wearing powder blue linen slacks and a green silk shirt, with a pink sweater casually tied over his shoulders (along with Italian loafers but no socks), you can be confident it ‘s not me.

Copyright 2015, Patrick F. Cannon