The Purple Decades (2 page)
Read The Purple Decades Online
Authors: Tom Wolfe
Or in
Radical Chic,
as Wolfe observes the socially elite of Manhattan indulging the fad of inviting members of the Black Panthers to their opulent parties, he poses the theory that the ostensible desire for social justice and the display of generosity involved had somewhat less to do with the proceedings than had the secret motive, which was the longing of the aristocrats to feel in its fullest degree the heady sensation of “How chic we are.” Switching his angle of vision diametrically in
Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers
, Wolfe shows, hilariously, how enterprising blacks gleefully intimidated, outwitted, and hoodwinked social-agency do-gooders during the heydays of the poverty program.
Radical Chic,
as Wolfe observes the socially elite of Manhattan indulging the fad of inviting members of the Black Panthers to their opulent parties, he poses the theory that the ostensible desire for social justice and the display of generosity involved had somewhat less to do with the proceedings than had the secret motive, which was the longing of the aristocrats to feel in its fullest degree the heady sensation of “How chic we are.” Switching his angle of vision diametrically in
Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers
, Wolfe shows, hilariously, how enterprising blacks gleefully intimidated, outwitted, and hoodwinked social-agency do-gooders during the heydays of the poverty program.
All these perspectives arise out of a sense of the moral insufficiency of the participants and reveal Tom Wolfe pointing a finger and laughing wholeheartedly at what people do when they fly in the face of the hard facts about their own natures or their unconscious or concealed motives or aspirations. The merriment is intense; the laughter is real. But there is little cause for feeling vastly superior to the miserable fools, tarnished folk heroes, rebels, fanatics, and hustlers from Wolfe's rogue's gallery of humanity. For lurking just beneath the swirling surface of his prose is the sobering realization that the potential for vanity of similar proportion is common to us all.
One indirect moral service that great comedic writers perform is to promote self-awareness, and Wolfe's major contribution here has been his emphasis on the hidden and sometimes peculiar manifestations of
status-seeking in American life. In the manner of a conscientious Martian anthropologist, he has tried rigorously to apply the principle that all primates, including humans, organize their societies according to status hierarchies and struggles for dominance. The importance of status behavior as the source of society's most mysterious subtleties has, of course, been recognized and studied by the social sciences for years. The proof of the existence of such behavior is not original to Tom Wolfe, but the wholesale exploration of its features in American culture and its exploitation for comical purposes are certainly important aspects of Wolfe's novelty and uniqueness. The tool of status-analysis, and other gleanings from the social sciences, has led Wolfe, over the last two decades, to these basic assumptions about American life: (1) That the fragmentation and diversity of American culture resulted in the emergence of subcultures or enclaves that have evolved their own bizarre art forms, life styles, and status rituals independent from the “elite” culture of the past, the “high” culture of the American Northeast via Europe (“the big amoeba-God of Anglo-European sophistication”
11
), or other common references. (2) That these enclaves, generally ignored by serious social observers, deserve the closest scrutiny, both because they are the truest, most authentic, examples of “the way we live now” and because they illustrate comically that human nature follows the same quaint, barbaric patterns regardless of class, region, or circumstance. (3) That fragmentation of American society has sometimes caused rampant status confusion (as in
Radical Chic
);
emphasis upon enunciating weird new tribal identities (as in
The Pump House Gang
,
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
,
or
The Right Stuff
);
the evolution of status dropouts who discover they can compete more favorably with some new set of rules in life style (as in “The Mid-Atlantic Man”); and a remarkable array of bewildering or ridiculous behavior (as in “The Voices of Village Square” or “The Girl of the Year”)âall ripe for Wolfean analysisâincluding the widespread frantic search for spurious forms of salvation (as in “The Me Decade” or
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
).
status-seeking in American life. In the manner of a conscientious Martian anthropologist, he has tried rigorously to apply the principle that all primates, including humans, organize their societies according to status hierarchies and struggles for dominance. The importance of status behavior as the source of society's most mysterious subtleties has, of course, been recognized and studied by the social sciences for years. The proof of the existence of such behavior is not original to Tom Wolfe, but the wholesale exploration of its features in American culture and its exploitation for comical purposes are certainly important aspects of Wolfe's novelty and uniqueness. The tool of status-analysis, and other gleanings from the social sciences, has led Wolfe, over the last two decades, to these basic assumptions about American life: (1) That the fragmentation and diversity of American culture resulted in the emergence of subcultures or enclaves that have evolved their own bizarre art forms, life styles, and status rituals independent from the “elite” culture of the past, the “high” culture of the American Northeast via Europe (“the big amoeba-God of Anglo-European sophistication”
11
), or other common references. (2) That these enclaves, generally ignored by serious social observers, deserve the closest scrutiny, both because they are the truest, most authentic, examples of “the way we live now” and because they illustrate comically that human nature follows the same quaint, barbaric patterns regardless of class, region, or circumstance. (3) That fragmentation of American society has sometimes caused rampant status confusion (as in
Radical Chic
);
emphasis upon enunciating weird new tribal identities (as in
The Pump House Gang
,
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
,
or
The Right Stuff
);
the evolution of status dropouts who discover they can compete more favorably with some new set of rules in life style (as in “The Mid-Atlantic Man”); and a remarkable array of bewildering or ridiculous behavior (as in “The Voices of Village Square” or “The Girl of the Year”)âall ripe for Wolfean analysisâincluding the widespread frantic search for spurious forms of salvation (as in “The Me Decade” or
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
).
Thus, Junior Johnson's stock cars of “The Last American Hero,” as seen through Wolfe's eyes, are like the totems of the Easter Islanders or the formal architecture of the Regency period, critically important cultural artifacts that are the focus of both veneration and status competition for their creators. Or, as in
The Right Stuff
, among the test pilots, the fraternity of “the right stuff” is the basis for the display of almost incredible forms of heroism, which Wolfe clearly admires. But, even here, it is the fierce status competition within the group that serves to motivate the men, a desire for the “sinfully inconfessable ⦠feeling of superiority, appropriate to him and his kind, lone bearers of the right stuff.”
The Right Stuff
, among the test pilots, the fraternity of “the right stuff” is the basis for the display of almost incredible forms of heroism, which Wolfe clearly admires. But, even here, it is the fierce status competition within the group that serves to motivate the men, a desire for the “sinfully inconfessable ⦠feeling of superiority, appropriate to him and his kind, lone bearers of the right stuff.”
Grounding his insights about human nature firmly on his belief in the potent force of status in human affairs, and its expression through fashion, Wolfe claimsâin
The Painted Word
and in
From Bauhaus to Our House
, for instanceâthat styles in contemporary painting and architecture can be understood more plainly by examining the ambitions and status games of influential artists, architects, critics, and patrons than by trying to comprehend their creations as personal miracles, a position that has been somewhat less than stupendously popular in the art world.
The Painted Word
and in
From Bauhaus to Our House
, for instanceâthat styles in contemporary painting and architecture can be understood more plainly by examining the ambitions and status games of influential artists, architects, critics, and patrons than by trying to comprehend their creations as personal miracles, a position that has been somewhat less than stupendously popular in the art world.
As his career has matured, Wolfe's aspirations as a cultural chronicler have been greatly enhanced by his ability to grasp, to digest, and to stimulate human interest in large, sometimes esoteric, subject areas usually thought to be the domain of art historians, sociobiologists, or other specialists. Few would have dared, as Wolfe does in
The Painted Word
, for example, to take on the whole bloody history of Modern Art and to offer a waggish, but devilishly shrewd, critique of how Modern Art came to serve fashion and theory instead of humankind; or, as in the scorching sequel,
From Bauhaus to Our House
, to deal with “what went wrong” during the past fifty years of American architecture.
The Painted Word
, for example, to take on the whole bloody history of Modern Art and to offer a waggish, but devilishly shrewd, critique of how Modern Art came to serve fashion and theory instead of humankind; or, as in the scorching sequel,
From Bauhaus to Our House
, to deal with “what went wrong” during the past fifty years of American architecture.
Wolfe's unfailing wit and his faculty for selecting the truly memorable example are undoubtedly a part of this ability to assimilate, transform, and humanize his subject matter. “Yale had completed a building program of vast proportions,” he explains in
From Bauhaus to Our House
, “that had turned the campus into as close an approximation of Oxford and Cambridge as the mind of man could devise on short notice in southern Connecticut ⦠For better or worse, Yale became the business barons' vision of a luxurious collegium for the sons of the upper classes who would run the new American empire.” But when an addition was built for the Yale art gallery after the Second World War, “the building could scarcely have been distinguished from a Woolco discount store in a shopping center” and the interior “had the look of an underground parking garage.” And all this in the name of “unconcealed structure”âanother instance for Wolfe of how mindless fashion and buzz-word aesthetic theory were allowed to undermine good sense and consistency of designâbut also an instance of how Wolfe is able to concretize and persuade by skillful elaboration of the perfect example.
From Bauhaus to Our House
, “that had turned the campus into as close an approximation of Oxford and Cambridge as the mind of man could devise on short notice in southern Connecticut ⦠For better or worse, Yale became the business barons' vision of a luxurious collegium for the sons of the upper classes who would run the new American empire.” But when an addition was built for the Yale art gallery after the Second World War, “the building could scarcely have been distinguished from a Woolco discount store in a shopping center” and the interior “had the look of an underground parking garage.” And all this in the name of “unconcealed structure”âanother instance for Wolfe of how mindless fashion and buzz-word aesthetic theory were allowed to undermine good sense and consistency of designâbut also an instance of how Wolfe is able to concretize and persuade by skillful elaboration of the perfect example.
Typically, as Wolfe unspools yard after yard of theory, he forces us to test it against our own understanding of the nature of things. And he compels us to ask questions: Why in the name of God should painting and architecture in our time have become so trivialized, so specialized, so uniform? Why would an accomplished, clever man want to give up his work and French-fry his brains and invest his earthly
time tooling around the countryside in a psychedelic schoolbus? Why in the world would a normal, sane, healthy person want to risk his life on a day-to-day basis as a test pilot or an astronaut? Why do people
behave
as they do? How do we live? How should we live?
time tooling around the countryside in a psychedelic schoolbus? Why in the world would a normal, sane, healthy person want to risk his life on a day-to-day basis as a test pilot or an astronaut? Why do people
behave
as they do? How do we live? How should we live?
Clearly, as Wolfe has grown in stature, he has become more interested in reform and more concerned about what he sees as “the wrong stuff” and “the right stuff.” At the heart of
Bauhaus
and
The Painted Word
is a straightforward wish to humanize art and architecture by showing how “the freight train of history”
12
got off on the wrong track by the most ludicrous sort of historical coincidence. All of Wolfe's recent books, and many of his earlier essays, are also parables offered as intellectual history. They show how political power and orthodoxy and fashion-mongering have often run roughshod over originality, virtue, fair play, exuberance, and panache. The moral would seem to be that those who succumb to the temptation to aspire to the merely fashionable, who thus sacrifice the noble impulse toward individual vision, may end up “succeeding” and thereby mucking up whole centuries. This failing, he seems to warn us, is so common that all of us should be on guard against it, lest we, too, be tempted to repeat it. Substance over surface, he proclaims, should be our guideâbe alert to the frailties of human nature and pay attention to values that truly matter. Yet there is nothing self-righteous in Tom Wolfe's moral stance, and it is so well disguised that the average reader often may be unaware that an implicit moral position is being assumed.
Bauhaus
and
The Painted Word
is a straightforward wish to humanize art and architecture by showing how “the freight train of history”
12
got off on the wrong track by the most ludicrous sort of historical coincidence. All of Wolfe's recent books, and many of his earlier essays, are also parables offered as intellectual history. They show how political power and orthodoxy and fashion-mongering have often run roughshod over originality, virtue, fair play, exuberance, and panache. The moral would seem to be that those who succumb to the temptation to aspire to the merely fashionable, who thus sacrifice the noble impulse toward individual vision, may end up “succeeding” and thereby mucking up whole centuries. This failing, he seems to warn us, is so common that all of us should be on guard against it, lest we, too, be tempted to repeat it. Substance over surface, he proclaims, should be our guideâbe alert to the frailties of human nature and pay attention to values that truly matter. Yet there is nothing self-righteous in Tom Wolfe's moral stance, and it is so well disguised that the average reader often may be unaware that an implicit moral position is being assumed.
After roughly twenty years of developmentâby combining the methodology of the journalist with his own special sense and sensibilityâthe young writer whose life was forever changed by one amazed afternoon at the Coliseum at the Hot Rod & Custom Car Show has gone on to become the most astute and popular social observer and cultural chronicler on his generation. If Tom Wolfe sometimes interprets the American scene with the apparent detachment and freedom from constraints of a visiting Martian, he remains a Martian with an enviable sense of humor, energy, and playfulness. If he is often the maverick skeptic among us, the ultimate “King-Has-No-Clothes-On” man of principle, he is a skeptic with the power of empathy. If, at times, he seems to be viewing his own culture like an anthropologist studying the strange habits of the Trobriand Islanders, he is an anthropologist with an ear for every kind of idiomatic speech, loaded language and the multiple meanings it contains, and a conviction about the value of skewering pretentiousness wherever it may be found. No other writer of our time has aspired to capture the fabled Spirit of the Age so fully and has succeeded so well.
JOE DAVID BELLAMY
NOTES
1
Tom Wolfe,
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968), p. 39.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968), p. 39.
2
Joe David Bellamy,
The New Fiction: Interviews with Innovative American Writers
(Urbana, Chicago, London: University of Illinois Press, 1974), p. 80.
The New Fiction: Interviews with Innovative American Writers
(Urbana, Chicago, London: University of Illinois Press, 1974), p. 80.
3
Tom Wolfe,
The New Journalism
(New York: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 31.
The New Journalism
(New York: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 31.
4
Wolfe,
Journalism,
p. 34.
Journalism,
p. 34.
5
Wolfe,
Journalism,
p. 19.
Journalism,
p. 19.
6
Wolfe,
Journalism,
p. 21.
Journalism,
p. 21.
7
Wolfe,
Journalism,
p. 17.
Journalism,
p. 17.
8
Thomas R. Edwards, “The Electric Indian,”
Partisan Review
, 3, 1969, p. 540.
Partisan Review
, 3, 1969, p. 540.
9
C. Hugh Holman, William Flint Thrall, and Addison Hibbard,
A Handbook to Literature
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972), p. 108.
A Handbook to Literature
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972), p. 108.
10
Tom Wolfe,
Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976), p. 145.
Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976), p. 145.
11
Tom Wolfe,
The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), p. 82.
The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), p. 82.
12
Tom Wolfe,
Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970), p. 17.
Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970), p. 17.
L
ook! She beckons! With those deep high-class black eyes! Here at a dinner party in Alfred Barr's apartment, in a room full of men who get their shirts hand-laundered at 90 cents a shirt by Forziati on East 74th Street and women who start getting ready for dinner with, first off, a little hair action at 4 p.m. by Kenneth on East 54th Streetâhere in this room she beckons. Liza, Liza Parkinson, Mrs. Bliss Parkinson, president of the Museum of Modern Art, daughter of Cornelius Bliss, niece of Lillie P. Bliss, who was one of the founders of the museum, sister of Anthony Bliss, the president of the Metropolitan Opera AssociationâLiza, the very embodiment of all that is most social, high class, Protestant tree-of-life and embossed-watermark-writing-paper in this whole art world social thingâLiza beckons to Spike. And Spike catches Bob's eye across the room. And Bob gives Spike the high sign. Go, girl, go. This is the momentâbeckoning black eyes!â
ook! She beckons! With those deep high-class black eyes! Here at a dinner party in Alfred Barr's apartment, in a room full of men who get their shirts hand-laundered at 90 cents a shirt by Forziati on East 74th Street and women who start getting ready for dinner with, first off, a little hair action at 4 p.m. by Kenneth on East 54th Streetâhere in this room she beckons. Liza, Liza Parkinson, Mrs. Bliss Parkinson, president of the Museum of Modern Art, daughter of Cornelius Bliss, niece of Lillie P. Bliss, who was one of the founders of the museum, sister of Anthony Bliss, the president of the Metropolitan Opera AssociationâLiza, the very embodiment of all that is most social, high class, Protestant tree-of-life and embossed-watermark-writing-paper in this whole art world social thingâLiza beckons to Spike. And Spike catches Bob's eye across the room. And Bob gives Spike the high sign. Go, girl, go. This is the momentâbeckoning black eyes!â
Bob and Spikeâ
Spike
âwhen Bob, Robert Scull, America's most famous collector of pop and other avant-garde art, first met his wife, Ethel, Ethel Redner of West 86th Street, on a blind date back in 1943, he said to himself, “Ethel, what a terrible name.” So he called her Spike. Spike's family had some dough, but Bob and Spike were so broke that they were living in one room on West 56th Street with a Murphy bed. They got a $12 membership in the Museum of Modern Art, three blocks away, on West 53rd Street, and used the museum, the garden, the restaurant and everything, as their living room, to entertain guests in. Is that irony or isn't it? Bob got very interested in
the art there and started a phantom art collection, writing down the names of pictures he wished he had, on a piece of shirt cardboard in his wallet. In 1947 or 1948 Bob started in the New York taxicab business, which was a very rough business at that time, full ofâwell, don't ask. Half the guys were rejects from the Mafia shape-up for hotel house dicks. But Bob started making money, and the rest is history. He started actually buying pictures himself. He had to put up with a lot of ridicule and everything, like the time in 1959 when he bought Jasper Johns's beer cans, two cans of Ballantine Ale, as a matter of fact, but everybody called them the beer cans, and the magazines and newspapers came around to take pictures, and he was very proud about buying Jap's beer cans. Would you believe they were only making fun of him? Yeah! Kids used to come to his kids in school and say, “Hey, is your old man the nut who bought the beer cans?” But he kept on collecting, and pretty soon Robert Scull became synonymous with pop art, and Bob and Spike are just getting in tight with the very social Museum of Modern Art crowd and finally here is the big dinner in Alfred's apartmentâAlfred Barr is the curator of the Museum of Modern Artâ
Spike
âwhen Bob, Robert Scull, America's most famous collector of pop and other avant-garde art, first met his wife, Ethel, Ethel Redner of West 86th Street, on a blind date back in 1943, he said to himself, “Ethel, what a terrible name.” So he called her Spike. Spike's family had some dough, but Bob and Spike were so broke that they were living in one room on West 56th Street with a Murphy bed. They got a $12 membership in the Museum of Modern Art, three blocks away, on West 53rd Street, and used the museum, the garden, the restaurant and everything, as their living room, to entertain guests in. Is that irony or isn't it? Bob got very interested in
the art there and started a phantom art collection, writing down the names of pictures he wished he had, on a piece of shirt cardboard in his wallet. In 1947 or 1948 Bob started in the New York taxicab business, which was a very rough business at that time, full ofâwell, don't ask. Half the guys were rejects from the Mafia shape-up for hotel house dicks. But Bob started making money, and the rest is history. He started actually buying pictures himself. He had to put up with a lot of ridicule and everything, like the time in 1959 when he bought Jasper Johns's beer cans, two cans of Ballantine Ale, as a matter of fact, but everybody called them the beer cans, and the magazines and newspapers came around to take pictures, and he was very proud about buying Jap's beer cans. Would you believe they were only making fun of him? Yeah! Kids used to come to his kids in school and say, “Hey, is your old man the nut who bought the beer cans?” But he kept on collecting, and pretty soon Robert Scull became synonymous with pop art, and Bob and Spike are just getting in tight with the very social Museum of Modern Art crowd and finally here is the big dinner in Alfred's apartmentâAlfred Barr is the curator of the Museum of Modern Artâ
Here amid the crystal and the silver asparagus holders and the Forziati ironing jobs are people the magnitude of Liza and Philipâthat's Philip Johnson, the architect, socialite and art savantâand Bob and Spike are looking great. Bob, who is 49, is just emerging, sartorially, from the 57
th
Street Biggie phase. The 57
th
Street Biggie look is the look of the men in New York who are in their 40
s
or 50
s
and the money is starting to come in and their hair is thinning in the crown but they comb it straight back like the real studs of the American business world do, like Lyndon Johnson does, as a matter of fact. They are getting an opulent plumpness about them, not fat exactly, and they don't have double chins, just sort of a great smooth tan fullness in the jowls set off by some good Sulka shirt work and a little Countess Mara in the necktie and a suit from Frank Brothers and a wife with apricot-colored hairâthey all have wives with apricot-colored hair for some reasonâand they take the Christmas cruise on the S.S.
France
. Only Spike didn't go the apricot-hair route. She has already graduated to the big time in fashion. She is slender and quite pretty. Her hair, which is mostly kind of pineapple blond, is great, and Kenneth does it. Her dresses come from St. Laurent, Dior, Chanel, Courrèges, Mainbocher, Cardin, Ken Scott, you name it. And she didn't like the Christmas cruise on the S.S.
France
. All the women came to the breakfast table wearing furs and enough diamonds to sink the boat. Spike took to her stateroom and wouldn't come out.
th
Street Biggie phase. The 57
th
Street Biggie look is the look of the men in New York who are in their 40
s
or 50
s
and the money is starting to come in and their hair is thinning in the crown but they comb it straight back like the real studs of the American business world do, like Lyndon Johnson does, as a matter of fact. They are getting an opulent plumpness about them, not fat exactly, and they don't have double chins, just sort of a great smooth tan fullness in the jowls set off by some good Sulka shirt work and a little Countess Mara in the necktie and a suit from Frank Brothers and a wife with apricot-colored hairâthey all have wives with apricot-colored hair for some reasonâand they take the Christmas cruise on the S.S.
France
. Only Spike didn't go the apricot-hair route. She has already graduated to the big time in fashion. She is slender and quite pretty. Her hair, which is mostly kind of pineapple blond, is great, and Kenneth does it. Her dresses come from St. Laurent, Dior, Chanel, Courrèges, Mainbocher, Cardin, Ken Scott, you name it. And she didn't like the Christmas cruise on the S.S.
France
. All the women came to the breakfast table wearing furs and enough diamonds to sink the boat. Spike took to her stateroom and wouldn't come out.
Finallyâthe moment arrives. Bob and Spike are both eating with
the Continental style they now use, holding the fork in the left hand and the knife in the right. Liza Parkinson beckons, motions to Spike to come aside so she can talk to her. Those deep dark aristocratic eyesâshe is the
whole thing
in the whole social thing of the art worldâand Bob gives Spike the high sign, and right away, without having to say a word to each other, Bob and Spike both figure the same thing. This is the moment. Liza is going to say to Spike something like, Could you serve on this board or whatever, or could we get yours and Bob's advice on this or that vital project, or, at the very least, would you come to such-and-such a dinnerâyou know, something that will symbolize the fact that Robert and Ethel Scull are now in the inner circle of the whole thingâand Liza draws Ethel aside and then Lizaâregal eyes!âpops the questionâ
the Continental style they now use, holding the fork in the left hand and the knife in the right. Liza Parkinson beckons, motions to Spike to come aside so she can talk to her. Those deep dark aristocratic eyesâshe is the
whole thing
in the whole social thing of the art worldâand Bob gives Spike the high sign, and right away, without having to say a word to each other, Bob and Spike both figure the same thing. This is the moment. Liza is going to say to Spike something like, Could you serve on this board or whatever, or could we get yours and Bob's advice on this or that vital project, or, at the very least, would you come to such-and-such a dinnerâyou know, something that will symbolize the fact that Robert and Ethel Scull are now in the inner circle of the whole thingâand Liza draws Ethel aside and then Lizaâregal eyes!âpops the questionâ
Afterwards, when Spike comes back, Bob can hardly wait.
“What did she say?”
“Are you all set?” says Spike.
“Yeahâ”
“You sure your heart's O.K.?”
“Yeahâ”
“She said, âEthel, would you mind telling me who does your hair?'”
Who does your hair?
“Wellâwhat did you say to that?”
“I told her.”
“Then what did she say?”
“She said would I ask him if he could do hers.”
“That's all she said?”
“No. She wanted to know how much it was.”
Well, there it is. It is just an incident, but it gives an idea of what Bob and Spike are up against in this whole art world thing. Bob does everything right, better than right, in fact. He rises out of the Lower East Side and its psychological affiliates, the Bronx and Long Island, to an eight-room apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking the park and a summer place in East Hampton. He amasses a collection of pop art and op art and primary art, in fact, everything since abstract expressionism, that is actually better than the Museum of Modern Art's in that area. Like a lot of ambitious guys who had to take the night-school route, he studies his field very thoroughly, talks to the artists themselves for hours on end, until he probably knows more about pop art and post-pop art than anybody in the country except for Leo Castelli, Ivan Karp, Henry Geldzahler and a couple of others. He probably knows a lot more about it than Alfred Barr. Yet what do they want from Bob and Ethel Scull at the Museum of Modern Art? They want $1,000 a year so they can be on the International
Council and they want Ethel to help organize a partyâand where does she get her hair done?
Council and they want Ethel to help organize a partyâand where does she get her hair done?
Who needs that? This season Robert and Ethel Scull are transferring their backing from the Museum of Modern Art to the Whitney. All right, the whole art world is not going to flip over backward like Charlie Brown in the comic strip over this, but it's a sign of this whole social thing in the art world that nobody knows anything about. They can talk about
modern art and contemporary art
all they want. But it's the same old social thing that's been going on in art for a hundred years, the flutey bitones of the Protestant cultural establishment, andâ
modern art and contemporary art
all they want. But it's the same old social thing that's been going on in art for a hundred years, the flutey bitones of the Protestant cultural establishment, andâ
But then Spike looks at Bob, and Bob looks at Spike and he shrugs and wraps his clavicles up around his head and breaks into a smile, in a primordial gesture of the New York streets, the What Are You Gonna Do Shrug, and he says:
“Spike, you know what my philosophy is? My philosophy is,
Enjoy
.”
Enjoy
.”
Â
Enjoy! So a few things aren't panning out here at the top of the ladder. The main thing is that you're up here. Right? That is one thing nobody ever seems to understand about people who go through something like the Lower East SideâWest Bronx route and make it in New York. A few slights, a few disappointments, a little sniggering along the wayâyou're going to cut your throat over that? The main thing is that Robert and Ethel Scull are one of
the
great social success stories of New York since World War II.
the
great social success stories of New York since World War II.
In eighteen years they have
made it
all the way, or practically all the way, from point zeroâup from the Lower East Side, the West Bronx, up from that point just eighteen years ago when Bob Scull was a nobody, a 31-year-old businessman whose business had gone down the chute and he and Spike woke up every morning in that Murphy bed, to ⦠Today. Today they have made it to the greatest address in New York, Fifth Avenue across from Central Park, and not just in terms of money, but right into that whole world of opening nights and the parties they write about in the papers, chauffeurs who are practically one of the family, apartments where the lobby and the doorman look so great you feel like you have to dress up to step on the sidewalk or you're letting down the building, esoteric New York day schools for the younger children and boarding schools for the older ones, lunches at La Grenouille where expensive matrons in Chanel suits have two bloody marys and smileâteeth!âat tailored young men with names like Freddy, Ferdi and Tug, petite plaques on the exhibition wall that say “from the collection of Mr. and Mrs.
Robert C. Scull,” photographs in the women's magazines in court-photographer Shah and Farah Diba poses, fashion stories in which they say that this new madras wool gabardine coat is on the backs of Mrs. William Paley, Mrs. Palmer Dixon, Mrs. Samuel Pryor Reed and Mrs. Robert C. Scull, and a social set in which Chester is Chester Beatty who owns the diamond mines, and Nicole is Nicole Alphand the wife of the former French ambassador, and Bob is Robert Kintner the former chairman of NBC, Susan is Susan Stein the heiress, Alex is Alex Liberman the editorial director of
Vogue
, Marina is Marina Consort the wife of Prince Michael of Greece, Jap is Jasper Johns the painter, Dean is Dean Acheson, Sammy is Sammy Davis, Ave is Averell Harriman, Andy is Andy Warhol, Lady Bird is Lady BirdâAll right! People are getting shot and blown up in Vietnam. China is a restless giant. The black ghettos are brandishing the fist of liberation. God has gone and died. And yet what Bob and Spike have done, made it, is still the only name of the game in New York. What is more, they have made it the way people dream of making it in New York; namely, right now. The hell with just making the money and setting things up for your children and waiting for the reflected glory of it when your daughter at Wellesley, the bird-song genius, gets invited up for a weekend in the country at the Detergent King's in North Egremont.
made it
all the way, or practically all the way, from point zeroâup from the Lower East Side, the West Bronx, up from that point just eighteen years ago when Bob Scull was a nobody, a 31-year-old businessman whose business had gone down the chute and he and Spike woke up every morning in that Murphy bed, to ⦠Today. Today they have made it to the greatest address in New York, Fifth Avenue across from Central Park, and not just in terms of money, but right into that whole world of opening nights and the parties they write about in the papers, chauffeurs who are practically one of the family, apartments where the lobby and the doorman look so great you feel like you have to dress up to step on the sidewalk or you're letting down the building, esoteric New York day schools for the younger children and boarding schools for the older ones, lunches at La Grenouille where expensive matrons in Chanel suits have two bloody marys and smileâteeth!âat tailored young men with names like Freddy, Ferdi and Tug, petite plaques on the exhibition wall that say “from the collection of Mr. and Mrs.
Robert C. Scull,” photographs in the women's magazines in court-photographer Shah and Farah Diba poses, fashion stories in which they say that this new madras wool gabardine coat is on the backs of Mrs. William Paley, Mrs. Palmer Dixon, Mrs. Samuel Pryor Reed and Mrs. Robert C. Scull, and a social set in which Chester is Chester Beatty who owns the diamond mines, and Nicole is Nicole Alphand the wife of the former French ambassador, and Bob is Robert Kintner the former chairman of NBC, Susan is Susan Stein the heiress, Alex is Alex Liberman the editorial director of
Vogue
, Marina is Marina Consort the wife of Prince Michael of Greece, Jap is Jasper Johns the painter, Dean is Dean Acheson, Sammy is Sammy Davis, Ave is Averell Harriman, Andy is Andy Warhol, Lady Bird is Lady BirdâAll right! People are getting shot and blown up in Vietnam. China is a restless giant. The black ghettos are brandishing the fist of liberation. God has gone and died. And yet what Bob and Spike have done, made it, is still the only name of the game in New York. What is more, they have made it the way people dream of making it in New York; namely, right now. The hell with just making the money and setting things up for your children and waiting for the reflected glory of it when your daughter at Wellesley, the bird-song genius, gets invited up for a weekend in the country at the Detergent King's in North Egremont.
Make
it
â
now!
it
â
now!
That cry, that cry, burning like valvulitis in so many hearts in New York tonight â¦
Bob and Spike are the folk heroes of every social climber who ever hit New York. What Juarez was to the Mexican mestizoâwhat John L. Sullivan was to the Boston Irishâwhat Garibaldi was to the Sardinian farmersâwhat the Beatles are to the O-level-dropout £8-a-week office boys of Englandâwhat Antonino Rocca is to the Garment Center aviator Puerto Ricans of New Yorkâwhat Moishe Dayan is to the kibbutzim shock workers of the Shephelahâall these things are Bob and Spike to the social climbers of New York.
In a blaze of publicity they illuminated the secret route:
collecting wacked-out art.
It was a tricky business. Art has been a point of entry into New York Society for seventy-five years or more. Duveen, of course, made millions selling
cultural immortality
to John D. Rockefeller and Henry Clay Frick in the form of Old Masters. After World War I the Protestant elite turned to Recent Masters as well. The Museum of Modern Art, after all, was not founded by intellectual revolutionaries. It was founded in John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s living room, with Goodyears, Blisses, and Crowinshields in attendance. They
founded the museum in order to import to New York the cultural cachet of the European upper classes, who were suddenly excited over the Impressionists and post-Impressionist masters such as Cézanne, Picasso, and Braque. In either case, Old Masters or New, the route was through art that had been certified in Europe.
collecting wacked-out art.
It was a tricky business. Art has been a point of entry into New York Society for seventy-five years or more. Duveen, of course, made millions selling
cultural immortality
to John D. Rockefeller and Henry Clay Frick in the form of Old Masters. After World War I the Protestant elite turned to Recent Masters as well. The Museum of Modern Art, after all, was not founded by intellectual revolutionaries. It was founded in John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s living room, with Goodyears, Blisses, and Crowinshields in attendance. They
founded the museum in order to import to New York the cultural cachet of the European upper classes, who were suddenly excited over the Impressionists and post-Impressionist masters such as Cézanne, Picasso, and Braque. In either case, Old Masters or New, the route was through art that had been certified in Europe.
Bob Scull had started out collecting Renaissance bronzes, but he quickly found out two things: (1) after World War II the prices of certified art, even in an esoteric field like Renaissance bronzes, were rising at a rate that made serious collecting out of the question; (2) the social world of certified art, even modern art, was a closed shop controlledâdespite a dazzling aura of cultural liberalismâby the same old Protestant elite.
Then, in the late 1950's, a great thing happened: Pop Art; and pop publicity for Pop Art. In the financial world they speak of the tens of millions a man would be worth today had he invested $10,000 in IBM in 1926. But who ever has the daring or the foresight to do these things at the time? Bob Scull. Socially, Scull achieved a stock coup of IBM magnitude by plunging on the work of a painter, Jasper Johns, in 1959 and 1960. Rather amateurish stuff it was, too, renderings of flags, targets, numbersâand two bronzed ale cans.
How they sniggered over
that!
But Johns became the “axe man for abstract expressionism,” as Scull likes to put it. The ten-year-rule of abstract expressionism, which had seemed like
the final style
, was over, and in came a new movement, with Johns and Robert Rauschenberg as the key figures. Two years later, in 1962, it picked up a name: Pop Art.
How they sniggered over
that!
But Johns became the “axe man for abstract expressionism,” as Scull likes to put it. The ten-year-rule of abstract expressionism, which had seemed like
the final style
, was over, and in came a new movement, with Johns and Robert Rauschenberg as the key figures. Two years later, in 1962, it picked up a name: Pop Art.
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