It is well memorialized: when I was twenty two I had a woman wipe her ass with pages she ripped out of my (prodigious) copy of the mots of Baltasar Gracian. This was in a casino I do not care to name. She was thirty eight. She was tired of losers, amongst which she counted students of the humanities. She wanted men who could make money (so she could take it). There were questions as to why I couldn't study business in the university, go to Wall Street, make money. Business. I said "Look, cunt - what is it about business that you need to know, exactly?" I showed her my copy of REALITY IN ADVERTISING by Rosser Reeves. It appeared, somewhat amazingly, that she remembered Reeves' immortal Anacin ad from the early 1960s. Too, she had knowledge of "It melts in your mouth, not in your hands." This was a bitch who understood the power of the belly button 20 years before Britney Spear, yunnerstan? Yunnerstan?

If she were here today (she's not) (she's exanimate, she's inorganic), I would tell her this - "Look, cunt - I read a 700 page biography of Howard Hawks and there is nothing in it like Mariah Carey or Kanye West showing up drunk and appearing on camera on awards shows. Beauty is beauty, and this is all you need to know."

I think I'm a pretty qualified member of what David Brooks calls the "educated class," but I agree with almost none of it. I just can't get behind compassion via paperwork.