Running Theft
$92,000 pays for 2 four-wheel drive vehicles, radio equipment and field gear for 40 rangers in the antipoaching unit at Royal Bardia National Park in Western Nepal. On a Friday afternoon in early August, Calvin Klein sits on a sofa, comfortably rumpled in black CK jeans and sockless CK oxfords. "I'm a typical American," he said. Most small-town theaters were family affairs--several generations in succession shared popcorn-selling, ticket-taking, and sweeping-up duties.
$5,000 finances a Christmas meal in one shelter for an average community. At a New York Chinese restaurant, the designer deemed the wonton soup too salty. He explained that he was Calvin Klein and that if he says the soup is too salty, then it's too salty because he understands what America wants. The price of admission--originally a nickel, but ultimately 35 cents--was low enough for all comers.
$50,000 will restore and preserve a classic color film. $25,000.00 for black and white. "I don't think anyone who's been writing about me really knows about my personal life," Klein says. Throughout the 1950s, the country's booming post-war economy sustained a constant flow of new movie theaters, but the decade also began to spell the end of the Main Street movie house.
$100,000 sponsors LA Alive!, a weekend festival featuring entertainment, performances, arts workshops, and demonstrations. $50,000 will pay for the restoration of a Louis XVI side chair in the New York Historical Society's Collection. As he pulled the CK ads last week, Klein insisted that he was not trying to protect his other ventures. "Everyone likes what he sells," said a 16-year old Chicago female. "How can anything be wrong with that?" Like the great movie queens, they (the theaters) remain flawless, radiant, forever larger than small-town life.
A Winter's Tale
The wind had stung my ears as I briefly stood motionless before the trio of doors. My feet and toes were bitter cold and dangerously close to the earliest stage of hypothermia. I found a rusty shovel leaning up against the side of the building and scraped away the snow which prevented me from entering. With a damp mitten, I brushed off some of the flakes that had pummeled the windows. Dark inside, but warmer I prayed.
I had wanted the winter air to freeze my thoughts, let them shatter and drop behind me. To be one with the trees draped in this season's first flurries, the bushes whose branches were heavy with accumulation and ready to break, the well-worn path now solid and invisible under the white powder.
Upon prying one of the doors open, a musty odor seeped up my nostrils as I squinted to adjust my eyesight. It was moody and full of memories inside. I was just grateful I could no longer see puffs of air hovering beyond my lips each time I exhaled. I gazed out at the trees from a caked window on the other side of the room. I suddenly enjoyed being able to view nature from a safe haven, a solid distance between myself and the elements enticing me to rejoin them in their all-pervasive silence.
The walls inside were lined with shelves made of ancient wood, crooked but sturdy. Canned goods coated in dust were stacked on them. I imagine different family members taking turns picking out the jars of fruits and vegetables that, over time, left this crazy quilt puzzle after everyone moved out or simply died of old age.
In the corner, I notice a cast iron heater chugging contentedly and I inch closer to it. My body moves as though it is balancing on sticks riddled with sharp needles shooting pain and misery through them. I look up at the sky through the last ash-covered window. It is grey, thick, impenetrable. I hear dogs barking far away, on the next farm, their furry coats permitting them to frolic in my absence.
© Cindee Segal