Exit
a video for Fashion Week.
By now the hors-d’oeuvres had
vanished. A nearby 18th-century
crystal bowl made in England,
which had been full of gold-foiled
Rolos at the start of the night, was
empty. We were drinking on what
felt like empty stomachs, egged on
by waiters in suits who seemed to
be switching out our glasses constantly, each time whispering the
new cocktail’s ingredients.
Jesse was beginning to feel less
like a new friend and more like a
lonely kidnapper. We extracted ourselves. A maple gateleg table caught
our eye. It stood at the center of a
large stall, its elegantly arched legs
topped with a plank half smooth
and half spider-webbed in white
scratch marks. In a sea of $1,800
porcelain snuff boxes, it stood out
as respectably used, and useable.
A man approached us. “Excuse me,” he said. “Are you really interested?”
We indicated yes. It took
nothing to be interested: the table was as enchanting as a table
can possibly be.
“It’s $60,000,” he told us. The
scratches, he said, were from baking pins. The table’s smooth half
had mostly been folded out of sight,
in a home in Rhode Island where it
CULTURE
HUFFINGTON
03.10.13
had spent most of its days.
He was shouting. “Diamonds,”
the Rihanna song, was on high,
spun by someone advertised on an
entry sign as DJ David Chang.
We shouted back that we
wished we could afford it, and the
seller bowed his head with a woeful smile. The song wound down.
“It’s quite alright, that’s how it
goes,” he said. Around us, young
collectors were collecting mostly
‘I expect to sell
everything here in the
next five minutes,’
the seller told us sternly,
in a British accent.
‘That’s the way to think.’”
their coats, from the coat check.
Days later, a spokeswoman let
us know the results by email.
No one bought the $1.2 million
desk and chair, or a replica of a
famous dog sculpture that Barbara had told us was the most
interesting piece in her stall. But
plenty of people showed up. East
Side House Settlement made
$175,000 in ticket sales, enough
to buy two German war
helmets from the 1600s.