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FAKE heads, REAL flowers:

Ponderings on the Rich & Eccentric

I stared at the vast room of heads. Antelope, deer, tigers, elk. There was even an elephant's foot, chopped right at the stump, cured or taxidermied or whatever process is that they do to make them last, and then made into an end table.

I was repelled and intoxicated at the same time. This man was made of the kind of fortune handed down, not earned, and he seized his day in the only way men of that kind of birth-wealth know how to do it. By covering his walls in trophies. Bold statements about traveling the world and facing danger, and limp attempts at claims of great human triumph, like, "I wanted to see the rainforest before I died. And by God, I've done it!"

            The fact that he was conquering instead of paying homage to it seemed to be an irony lost on him.

            Why couldn't he claim worldliness and acculturation by bringing home some original Chagalls or a piece of the Great Wall?

            I walked into his guest bathroom, which smelled of hotel disinfectant, admired the floral arrangement that would've been too large for my living room. I leaned over to smell them and was stunned (but, really, should I have been?) that they were made of silk and plastics. Uncanny looking. Someone out there was actually the artisan of these fake flowers. What a strange thing to claim as your medium.

            "I work in oils."

            "I dabble in red clay."

            "I make fake nature."

            And all I could think was how backward this man with one of the wealthiest wine collections in the world had gotten it.

            I shook my head and muttered to myself, as I went back out to mingle with the hired help:

            "Dude, FAKE heads, REAL flowers. Not the other way around."

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