You gotta be rich.

Actually, first we stopped in Harvey Nichols. All the men’s clothing is on the first floor, broken down by designer, and if I had 5 or 10k to spend I could change my entire look and be happy with it. But that ain’t gonna happen.

At Harrods the women’s stuff is on the ground floor. And the amazing thing is a lot of these handbags, the Louis Vuitton, the Balenciaga, have no price tags. If you’ve got to ask…you’re not going to be able to afford it.

And to tell you the truth, I didn’t see many people buying. Actually, at that point it was just us and the help. Seems that everybody slept in after a long night, they showed up around noon.

And when they did…

MAGA won’t like it in London. Because of all the ethnicities.

Now the funny thing is if you mix and mingle, your anxieties and prejudices evaporate. Not everybody has met a Jew, never mind a Muslim. I saw women covered head to toe regularly. Arabs are not a rarity.

Then again, this is the land of Brexit, this is the land where Elon Musk stoked riots based on a falsehood. That’s the power of social media, which is why Brazil is banning X. Enough with absolute free speech. That’s never existed anywhere, not even in the U.S.A. But free speech is the new gun control. What I mean is you’ve got to have words and guns to stand up to the government, which is going to take all your rights away, after it taxes you and wastes the cash on losers. I’m not saying the U.S. was ever cosmopolitan, but the last time I remember this south versus north divide was during the redneck era. Actually, when the devil went down to Georgia, Charlie Daniels was a Democrat, but that didn’t last.

I guess I’m saying you walk the streets of London and you feel insignificant, in a good way. Maybe it’s the living history, all the buildings that have been around forever. The landscape remains, you’re just here temporarily.

As for the men’s floor in Harrods…

Completely mind-blowing… It was the SHOES!

I read about high end sneakers in the “Wall Street Journal,” a grand a pair, but it seems like everybody except the super wealthy is still wearing Nikes and Adidas and Hoka and On in the U.S., along with some Brooks, Asics and Puma. But in Harrods… There was room after room of sneakers, one high end brand after another that I’d never heard of, many models.

And there was a room of Nike and Adidas, but they had many more models than you see in a store in the U.S.

And I actually recognized a few of the sunglass brands, but 395 pounds is out of my ballpark, especially when you can get ’em online for nearly half off.

And they had Moose Knuckles and not Canada Goose, which cracked me up. Jake told me in Aspen that he’d gotten a Moose Knuckles jacket for free, that it was a Canada Goose competitor. I thought it was a cheap imitation, maybe it’s the other way around.

And there are so many things you don’t see anywhere else, like you used to see in F.A.O. Schwarz in the sixties. Like kid cars for 50k. Multiple ones. Oh, and they had F1 simulators too. I counted four of them. You could get in one for 10k, but there was another one for 60k. You do know that the Formula One drivers actually practice on these things. And it’s not like footballers playing Madden, it actually helps.

And then there were the TVs. More B&O stuff than you’ll ever see in one place.

I was looking for the Wilson speakers. I once saw a pair of the top of the line in a corner, as if you could buy ’em for under 100k. But now Harrods no longer sells Wilson, they focus on Focal, the French brand, whose speakers I have in my car.

And they had a whole headphone section. And the prices were listed. They had the Sennheisers for multiple grand, but there was a brand I’d never heard of that wanted eight grand for the top of the line. EIGHT GRAND FOR HEADPHONES! Are they worth it? Who is buying this stuff?

And the truth is they wouldn’t make it if no one was buying it.

Everybody thinks they’re going to be rich. But the truth is they’ve got no idea how the rich really live.

Forget the anomalies, the Kardashians, Taylor Swift…

There are a lot of guys in finance who don’t think twice about these prices, it’s just a matter of if they want the item.

Like I saw this Christian Dior jean jacket in Harvey Nichols. I knew it was Christian Dior because it said so, in embroidery, right on the front. I don’t know what doofus would buy this stuff, but could a doofus afford 2k? That was the sticker price!

Maybe this is coming out wrong. Negative. But that’s not what I felt.

I felt like a kid in a candy store that had every treat available, but they were all off limits.

Actually, amazingly, we got free samples of this passion fruit chocolate bon bon. It was delicious, what would you expect?

And that’s why I wanted to go to Harrods, for the food halls.

Harrods smokes its own salmon, and there are multiple models, depending on how smoked you want it.

Reminded me of the pillow department. Not only did they have down pillows, but they were filled with feathers from multiple countries, Bulgaria, Canada…I mean how do you choose?

Oh, and they said certain pillows were best for side sleepers and…

I almost wanted to buy one. Actually, once you get off the first floor there are plenty of things you can afford, that you don’t have to mortgage your house for. But this was Disneyland, no way was I going to buy anything. I can barely decide what I want for dinner. I need to go alone and focus before I can buy clothing, and sometimes I still get it wrong. I need to get the right thing, and I’m so fearful of getting the wrong thing, that oftentimes I can’t buy anything at all!

Now there are multiple restaurants, I couldn’t even begin to describe them, but back to the food halls…

There’s the Iberian ham. The fish on ice. Do they really sell it through? This stuff doesn’t last that long.

And there was great takeout stuff too. Little lobster salads, actually not so little, for fifteen pounds. Better than Whole Foods and about the same price!

We ain’t got nothing like this in the U.S.

And there was a whole room of chocolate. And if you recognize the brand names, you must be Willy Wonka.

And we wanted to get a bite to tide us over until dinner. We ended up getting hot dogs at Darling’s.

Spencer gave us the whole rundown. Harrods doesn’t charge rent, they just take a percentage. But the dim sum place didn’t make it. But they had a brand name fish and chips shop… Well, it wasn’t actually a shop, every area, and there were about six of them active, from ramen to sushi to pasta to…had a counter like the Apple Pan.

I mean get older and you look at this fried stuff and wonder how you ate it with impunity when you were young, the Cokes with sugar too. You didn’t think twice. Talk about smoking taking years off your life, the American diet… Actually, I read a story in the WSJ about this area of Scotland where everybody has heart surgery in their forties, because they eat fried food and no vegetables.

I took a sneak peek. Actually, unlike Arthur Treacher’s, the fish had a very light batter. The chips… Were kind of like steak fries, but they weren’t slick on the sides. Actually, I felt that would have been a good choice.

In my mind I wanted to sit at the oyster bar. But just like the Wilson speakers, they don’t have that anymore.

Ultimately I burned out Felice and we left, but I could have spent hours more in the store. It’s a cultural experience. It’s an education. All those brands, entire spheres of products, all in one place. I buy almost everything online these days, but Harrods is retail therapy, entertainment. And there’s nothing like it in the U.S., nothing close. I’m not saying the U.S. ain’t great in certain ways, but not all ways. I mean at Harrods they even had a dinosaur head for sale! I thought it was a museum piece, but Felice asked. We didn’t get the price. I’m sure if you actually want to buy it, you can negotiate. But staring at it connected me to back then. These things really walked the earth all those years ago? And why are the bones always found in Montana…was Montana the New York City of the dinosaurs?

And it was hot and I took off my sweatshirt and when I went to check out the Leicas the sales agent immediately commented on my Submariner. Little does he know it’s nearly fifty years old, little does he know that I got it way under a grand, my mother’s cousin was in the business, list was $495, and I got it wholesale.

Yes, signifiers. I’m sure you can go places and people recognize the brands you bought at Harrods. They’re signifiers amongst the elite. Anybody can buy a Benz or a BMW, but are you really going to drop four or five figures on clothing?

And it’s not like there was a ton of inventory. This was not the Gap, with a back room full of duplicates. How much of this stuff could a company move in a year? That’s one reason it’s so expensive. But also, to be exclusive.

Did you read that Burberry is screwed? They dropped prices, everybody bought the stuff and now they’re over it. So Burberry is trying to move upscale, but they don’t seem to be able to do it. Their outlet shops are not helping them.

Isn’t Bernard Arnault one of the richest men in the world? Google tells me he’s worth $180 billion, that’s where luxury goods will get you. Then again, Bloomberg says Arnault has lost more money in 2024 than any billionaire.

But do you want to focus on money?

Actually, most everybody does, to some extent, it’s no fun to be broke. But in too many areas it’s now all about the money. Isn’t art supposed to be the antidote?

So, Spencer at the hot dog counter asked me if I could get him Oasis tickets. I told him I’d seen the band at the Whisky. He’d never heard of the Whisky.

Was he that big a fan of Oasis?

Not really, but he wanted to be included.

So who else are you into Spencer?

He drew a blank, and after pondering the question he said music was in a bad space right now, and he couldn’t name any contemporary acts he liked. And this guy is in his TWENTIES!!

Think about that. The labels are investing in and purveying music that gets all kinds of ink, that they tell us is driving the culture, but then you talk to the average person, this guy was hip, and they shrug their shoulders.

It’s kind of like when you hang with music business people. They might talk grosses, but really they want to talk television.

I remember when going to the record store was a ritual. And don’t complain about the death of retail, it was what was in ’em that made it so great. This was mecca, this was a museum, you went to marinate in the vibe, commune with greatness.

Now you get that at Harrods.

Ain’t that a shame.

But really, Harrods is one of the few things in life that lives up to the rep. In a world of overhype, Harrods delivers. And it’s only one store.

Amazing.

Tune in Saturday August 31st to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

“A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon”: https://t.ly/udYKu

This is an adventure book, but instead of going up, they go down, and across.

I’ve been to the Grand Canyon twice. It’s amazingly beautiful, but what I felt most was fear, of falling off the edge. You’re right there, a stumble and you’re gone. And you’re gonna die. Happens on a regular basis. Did you read about the gymnast who just fell off a mountain while shooting a selfie?

“Tragedy as star gymnast, 23, plunges 260ft down mountain to her death ‘while taking a selfie’ during a sightseeing visit to German ‘Sleeping Beauty’ castle”: https://t.ly/lTREs

Yes, that’s a link to the “Daily Mail,” but don’t let that turn you off, the story was everywhere.

As are the stories of people being killed elsewhere while taking selfies. Frequently by stepping outside the guardrail.

And then there was that woman who slipped to her death climbing down Half Dome in Yosemite.

People are convinced they’re immune, and that if something does happen someone is responsible, and they will be held liable and have to pay.

This is patently untrue. Mother Nature is a cruel mistress. Even if you’ve got a lot of experience in the wilderness.

So Kevin Fedarko has a lot of experience in the Grand Canyon, but down below, on the river.

Fedarko, an Ivy League graduate, has dedicated his entire life to the outdoors, and writing about it. Living on the edge of poverty to pursue his dream.

This was more of a thing in the sixties and seventies. But even then it was not easy to make ends meet. Or, if you could, one disaster, a problem with your health, your car, would push you over the edge. But in today’s cutthroat world of income inequality, people want a safety net, a guarantee that they won’t fall to the bottom. Which is why so many breakthroughs are made by those outside the educational system, because those who pay their dues studying want a dividend for that work.

Now Fedarko has got this photographer buddy who is always proposing these trips that are not completely thought through, and he tells Fedarko they should walk the Grand Canyon.

Easier said than done. As a matter of fact, very few people have done it at all! The Grand Canyon itself has not been fully explored.

Man, we’ve gone to the moon, and we still don’t know what is happening here on earth?

Everywhere you go you’re not the first. But in the Grand Canyon?

Now it turns out there are people who’ve dedicated their lives to the canyon, whose names you’ve never heard of and probably never will. Some have great jobs, traditional jobs, are experts in their field, but they’re drawn to the canyon, they hike it every chance they’ve got, they plot it… Once again, today everybody does it for the money and the fame. Just to do it because you love it, that’s rare.

And you may not have been to the southwest, to the desert, it’s very forbidding. Scary. And it’s one thing to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon and look, but the thought of going down in it…

That’s another way people regularly die. They start hiking down and the heat and the lack of water ultimately gets to them. They set out in their sneakers, on a lark, and they come home in a body bag.

There are so many ways to die on the established routes, but hiking the entire length of the canyon, that’s asking for it.

Now Fedarko is a bit too self-deprecating for my taste. But that doesn’t undercut the basic narrative. You can feel the heat, the risk is self-evident. This is a dangerous trip and he and his partner are often not up to it.

Actually, canyon experts insist on coming along for parts of the trip, for fear that the two will buy it. As do expert canyoneers all the time.

Yes, your life is at risk. And the elements can turn on you instantly. Like those deaths in flash floods in the west just this past week.

Fedarko is not the usual adventure writer. Straightforward in simple language. His is a more literary style, which makes the book a bit more dense and harder to read. It is not the breeze of Krakauer.

Not that I want to denigrate Krakauer, I love his immediate style. But Krakauer always leavens his stories with his personal experience. He adds life to the adventure. Fedarko speaks of his ill father, but most of the time is spent down in the canyon. And that can get old, but…

It’s no walk in the park. But it is. There is no safety net, you may not be able to be rescued. And slipping and falling to your death is a constant possibility. The earth might move, having nothing to do with what you did. That’s nature.

Now “A Walk in the Park” got great reviews, and it was recently on the L.A. “Times” best-seller list. But reading it is…no walk in the park. You have to dedicate yourself to it. At times it’s relentless. Dry. But when you’re done…

It’s just like completing the hike itself. You’re satisfied, you feel you’ve done something special, and it’s nearly impossible to forget.

Once again, it’s hot and dreary and you’re out there alone and there’s no established trail.

You know if you want to read this book.

But, once again, it requires dedication. But there are rewards.

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/death-of-an-artist

I had no idea “Anita de Monte Laughs Last” was based on a true story.

Turns out minimalist Carl Andre pushed his artist wife Ana Mendieta out the window and got off and lived… Happily ever after?

What you’ve got here is Helen Molesworth, a curator who lost her job at MOCA, telling the story. And it’s not deep history, it all went down in the eighties.

Molesworth sets the scene, very clearly, and then there’s the trial.

Really, it’s riveting until…

There’s a heavy dose of feminism and MeToo that ultimately overshadows the story in the later episodes, but the podcast does recenter.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with talking about feminism and MeToo, it’s just that it makes Molesworth look somewhat myopic, it takes the focus off what’s most important here, Andre’s bad behavior and how he got away with it.

As for the vagaries of the legal system, they’re involved in every trial. Molesworth has a hard time believing someone who is obviously guilty gets off. She starts debating “beyond a reasonable doubt”… This is what lay people don’t understand about the law, emotion doesn’t come into play, there are rules, which must be abided (unless, of course, you’re the Supreme Court).

Molesworth is frustrated that Andre escaped unharmed and Ana and her work were buried. But in truth, Mendieta’s star has been rising for decades. Seems like the truth always outs.

And there’s a lot of insight into how the art world works, how it’s a closed community almost exclusively run by white men.

But when Molesworth becomes conversational and introspective at the end… This is the problem with too many podcasts, they’re focused on the hosts as opposed to the subject/guests. When Molesworth talks at the end about her feelings… They do not have the gravitas or the meaning that the raw facts of the story have. Like how could Ana have fallen out of the window when the ledge was up around her chest and she was short and had a legendary fear of heights?

But not everything could be introduced at trial. There are rules of evidence.

But despite all of Andre’s buddies rallying around him, he may not have ended up in jail, but he definitely paid a price.

This is very good work. I’m just pointing out some of the flaws so you don’t come back to me and complain.

Also, like too many true crime podcasts, there’s overproduction. With the music, the dramatic sounds. Podcasts are a storytelling format, the facts should be enough, the audience doesn’t really want a return to radio dramas, never mind these elements give the feeling of “Dateline,” a lowbrow production that focuses on sensationalism and has none of the ultimate effect of “60 Minutes,” never mind print.

But if you do listen to this podcast, you will have to endure the commercials read by Malcolm Gladwell, a principal in Pushkin Industries, the producer of this podcast.

I’ve been down on Gladwell ever since he excoriated Bowdoin College and was wrong and wouldn’t admit it, he doubled-down.

And I like him better as a writer than a podcaster. But people go where the money is, irrelevant of their talents.

And then there was Gladwell saying that L.A. is known for its luxurious golf courses. I’ve lived in L.A. for decades, and I’ve never ever heard ANYBODY say this.

So Gladwell’s credibility is cratering. He fits the facts to his theories. But why I’m mentioning him at all is the tone of his voice. An orator who knows more than you do, who is coming down from the mountaintop to deign you with his brilliance. The elocution is so offensive. Just talk like a regular person. Furthermore, when you use this fake gravitas in support of your sponsors, it makes my stomach turn. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.

P.S. My original post on the book “Anna de Monte Laughs Last”: https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2024/08/21/anita-de-monte-laughs-last/

P.P.S. “Death of an Artist – Season 1” is available on all podcast platforms, just search.