J. Paul Getty and Friends

It was unconscionable of writer Robert Lenzer, his editor, and Crown, his publisher, to have used this wonderful photograph on the back jacket of his 1985 biography of the oilman, but not to tell us who these marvelous ladies were, describing them only as "friends."
I'll say. They make heterosexuality look like fun, even to me. Getty was said to have adored the company of women, and it shows---everyone looks like they're thriving in this atmosphere. Of course, I'm sure the billions of dollars had something to do with it too. That tasteful jewelry looks real, and really expensive. Spreading the necessary task aspects of servicing an old goat amongst a crowd of beauties also just makes good business sense. I see nary a catty internecine attitude undermining the evening's voluptuous calm and luxe. There's enough to go around for everybody!

The two dolls who sit most intimately with Sir Paul sure look sophisticated to me. They're definitely MILF-material. I bet they didn't leave that corn-fed 20-year-old standing sweetly there alone with the old man. Not when they could practice their sensual arts while passing on a few secrets. And one spring chicken is clearly enough, the rest is conversation.

And qu'est-ce que c'est...who do you think took the unattributed photo??

But look at the splendid canapés! I think something with a sexual theme is afoot in those Berain-esque shells-with-pistils numbers. I used to serve a simple and delicious hors d'œuvre comprised of a cocktail frank stuck inside a pitted prune and baked off. I called them Pudenda et Wagina.

Now, the bits about the armed guards in his bedroom and the pay phone for guests is merely grist for the tabloid mill. Important, and worthy of a reread, is his early spotting of the potential of Arab oil---along with his love affair with Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Maybe we can gain some insight into how we ever arrived at such a sorry predicament in the Middle East! Could anybody ever have seen it coming, I wonder? Oh well, wash it down with a bit of bubbly, I say.

The Tower of the Tarot

THE TOWER (Many thanks to the Aeclectic Tarot)

Basic Card Symbols

A tower on a rocky outcrop, a powerful bolt of lightning, one or two figures falling from the tower, sometimes waves crashing below.

Basic Tarot Story

As the Fool leaves the throne of the Goat God, he comes upon a Tower, fantastic, magnificent, and familiar. In fact, The Fool, himself, helped build this Tower back when the most important thing to him was making his mark on the world and proving himself better than other men. Inside the Tower, at the top, arrogant men still live, convinced of their rightness. Seeing the Tower again, the Fool feels as if lightning has just flashed across his mind; he thought he'd left that old self behind when he started on this spiritual journey. But he realizes now that he hasn't. He's been seeing himself, like the Tower, like the men inside, as alone and singular and superior, when in fact, he is no such thing. So captured is he by the shock of this insight, that he opens his mouth and releases a SHOUT! And to his astonishment and terror, as if the shout has taken form, a bolt of actual lightning slashes down from the heavens, striking the Tower and sending its residents leaping out into the waters below.

In a moment, it is over. The Tower is rubble, only rocks remaining. Stunned and shaken to the core, the Fool experiences grief, profound fear and disbelief. But also, a strange clarity of vision, as if his inner eye has finally opened. He tore down his resistance to change and sacrifice (Hanged man), then broke free of his fear and preconceptions of death (Death); he dissolved his belief that opposites cannot be merged (Temperance) and shattered the chains of ambition and desire (The Devil). But here and now, he has done what was hardest: destroyed the lies he held about himself. What's left is the bare, absolute truth. On this he can rebuild his soul.


Basic Tarot Meaning

With Mars as its ruling planet, the Tower is a card about war, a war between the structures of lies and the lightning flash of truth. The Tower, as Wang points out, stands for "false concepts and institutions that we take for real." When the Querent gets this card, they can expect to be shaken up, to be blinded by a shocking revelation. It sometimes takes that to see a truth that one refuses to see. Or to bring down beliefs that are so well constructed. What's most important to remember is that the tearing down of this structure, however painful, makes room for something new to be built.

Thirteen's Observations

No card scares a Tarot reader like the Tower - or the person they're reading for if that person knows anything about Tarot cards. It is however one of the clearest cards when it comes to meaning. False structures, false institutions, false beliefs are going to come tumbling down, suddenly, violently and all at once. What's important to remember as a tarot reader is that the one you're reading for likely does not know that something is false. Not yet. To the contrary, they probably believe that their lover is being faithful, that their religious beliefs are true and right, that there are no problems in their family structure, that everything is fine at work...oh, and that they're fine. Just fine, really.

Alas, they're about to get a very rude awakening. Shaken up, torn down, blown asunder. And all a reader can really do to soften the blow is assure the Querent that it is for the best. Nothing built on a lie, on falsehoods, can remain standing for long. Better to tear it all down and rebuild on the truth. It is not going to be pleasant or painless or easy, but it will be for the best.

The Hamilton Palace Sale of 1882

Part One: Fourteen lots are illustrated, all with the most amazing images for that era and for a catalog!

June 17, 1882,

The Duke of Hamilton outdid them all in 1882. Never before or since, I'd hazard, has such a lofty ducal seat been disassembled at the rank hand of commerce. I can't rank the pictures, but if they're anything like the holdings from the ancien regime of the Bourbon family, then they're splendid.

The secretaire a abattant, Lot #518, with the female figure in marquetry holding her finger to her lips in the universal sign for silence is a part of the Vanderbilt bequest to the Metropolitan Museum of New York. Enjoy fans of FFF!













Lot 162. "A Pair of Tall Oviform Vases, of old gros-bleu Sèvres porcelain, mounted with ormolu, with bird's-head handles and festoons of flowers and foliage, chased in high-relief by Gouthiere. 14-inches high." I wonder if this is more what we would call an mottled egg-shell finish. In any event, the taste is the most austere neo-classicism imaginable, the gilded bronze work of a quality never to be repeated, in three colors of red, yellow and green gold, matte and burnished, and so finely chiseled the details were microscopically sharp on the neck's of the bitter swans forming the carrying handles.


























184 The d'Artois Cabinet, a Louis XIV commode, of ebony inlaid with fine panels, by Buhl, of brass and white metal on tortoiseshell, mounted with massive handles and ornaments of or-molu, chased with bacchanalian and other masks in high relief, the monogram C.A. and the arms of France surrounded by boys with garlands of flowers forming the key plates, and steel key with openwork handle, surmounted by a fine slab of malachite -- 5 ft. 4 in. by 2 ft. 2 in., branded with Monogram ME










































Numbers 301, 302, and 303 ensuite, by Jean-Henri Riesener for Marie Antoinette (at Versailles?) He was the most ruinously expensive of the Corporation des Menuisiers-Ébénistes, even the crown had to give him up, but not until the fully expressed neo-classicism of these pieces. I must trace if they are still together. Look at the prices! 6000 guineas! Wasn't the yearly income for a char-something about 12?


















Part Two has 19 illustrations, coming up soon! Then there's a third, forth, and fifth portions!
Hamilton Palace Sale, Second Portion,