More bonds

Last night I dreamed I was having a lively discussion with someone about the merits of the graphic work of Saul Steinberg. Dad was much intrigued by Steinberg’s fine covers for The New Yorker and I rather think his own line drawings were at times influenced by him, though not quite as much as they followed the prompts of Daumier’s gens de justice series, with a dash of Doré and even Goya thrown in for good measure. Certainly there were large-format, lavishly-illustrated books about Steinberg at 18 Denham Place, and I remember as a child poring over them with real fascination, and trying my best to imitate his style. Only now do I realize that Steinberg must have played an important part in steering me towards art in the first place, thanks above all to our wonderful father, and maybe also latterly towards old bond certificates. For in the frigid light of this morning it struck me with sudden force that Steinberg must have studied them closely. Throughout The Passport (1954) for example, he paraphrased portions of their stylistic vocabulary with rare wit, capturing that overinflated Neronian pomposity and plutocratic flamboyance in controlled fits of high Modernist, steel-nibbed satire. There is the neurotically minuscule “small print,” the showy signatures, the cartouches, sunburst striations, the trophies, the armorial bearings, the banner-swoop arabesques, and the flutter of all those intricate marginalia. The bonds were not his only source, however, for Steinberg threw in the posturing habits of more recent forms of official documentation. This portion of his restless mindscape embraced the certified public accountant, the university registrar, the consular section, and rubber-stamp customs and excise officials with every bit of the enthusiasm with which he took aim at the banks and brokers responsible for pumping up the Gilded Age bond market. Still, this is a source and, now, an essentially Edwardian residue, that I never recognized before this morning, thanks to that strange dream. Visual memory is evanescent, but apparently jogged powerfully by sleep. Come to think of it, there is something tangibly Edwardian about that too.

The Peach

Last night I had a curious dream about Uncle John, which took in the ghost of a recollection he once shared with me in Adelaide. Uncle John was an inveterate window-shopper. Some time in the mid-1970s, at the height of the oil crisis and in the pit of England’s cold-war malaise, he was immensely tickled by a summer display mounted behind one of the windows of Fortnum and Mason, presumably on the Piccadilly side. The window was exquisitely framed with brocade draperies held in place by silk rope, and bordered with a fringe of tassles. The commodious compartment within was lined, carpeted, and enclosed with panels of biscuit-colored suède. In the center, from an elaborate base rose a marbled half-column supporting, at eye level, a large, plump cushion of red velvet, on which someone had placed… a peach. To some extent this crazy contrivance says all that need be said about Fortnum’s, but, as I now remember remarking to Uncle John at the time, wasn’t there also a glimmer of wit and interpretative sunshine in evidence on that far-off, inevitably dull summer’s day in Piccadilly, at least in the mind of at least one, probably more of Fortnum’s apparently wistful London window-dressers? For, among all the fruits of the world, is there anything lovelier or more seductive than a perfectly ripe peach? Some may argue for the simplicity of the orange, the intensity of the cherry, or the fragrance of the strawberry, but for the sheer magnitude of sensual experience, heightened by the long period between seasons, what competes with the peach? Really? Leaving aside the invidious choices to be made between hesperidia, cucurbitaceae, and drupes—I am a drupe man—and, thence, between apricots, nectarines, mangoes, plums, and peaches, I find there is simply no adequate counter-argument. To me the peach is the queen, the Koh-i-noor, the Cotopaxi, the Angkor Wat, the Bach unaccompanied cello suites of fruit. In the dream, my brother Nick gave me a peach, and, led by Uncle John, the assembled staff of the Alice Springs Regional Base Hospital broke into loud and hearty applause.

The Yale Endowment

Last night I had a vivid dream in which the man from PriceWaterhouseCoopers was conducting an audit of my kitchen cupboards, and eventually broke it to me, in song, that the accrued value of all assets contained in them had declined by 25% to $17 billion.

I was naturally concerned, but then, while my director, Amy Meyers, prepared for me a soothing cup of hot gin, and her deputy, my friend Cecie Clement, was busily counting the dried apricots (just to make certain), Regina Starolis, who has worked for many years in the President’s office, popped her head out of the refrigerator and, shaking her index finger with authority, challenged the PriceWaterhouseCoopers man. She told him that there must be some mistake, because dessicated coconut has definitely retained its value.

I suppose there is some truth in that, so in the midst of financial gloom let us be grateful for small mercies.