The top ten posts from the first year of The Rich Life

As we approach the end of the first year of The Rich Life, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the ten posts that have received the most hits. Here they are, in order, according to the WordPress hit counter:

• From the sublime to the ridiculous, get ready for the Michael Jackson auction

• Let’s dissect Bernard Madoff’s American Express bill

• The difference between good art and bad art

• The upcoming election in Palm Beach

• Fine, I apologize

• Bernard Madoff’s Palm Beach mansion has been redecorated

• A modest proposal

• A typical day in Paris

• Get ready to bid, the Yves Saint Laurent auction at the Grand Palais begins today!

• It is prudent to adhere to the speed limit while driving your Bentley in Palm Beach

Consistent with my intentions for this blog, the most popular posts are divided among current events, with the Michael Jackson auction far in the lead (in fact, there was such a spike in hits on the day of his death that I thought that the WordPress hit counter was broken) and Bernard Madoff’s American Express card also attracting a great deal of attention, and miscellany related to Palm Beach and Paris.

If you are a new or inconsistent reader of The Rich Life, I encourage you to click on the links shown above and read each of these posts. Consider them to be a “greatest hits” of The Rich Life.

David Desmond

The Palm Beach social season in 1895

Here’s a link to today’s column in the Shiny Sheet.

David Desmond

Writers on film

Many novelists prefer to express themselves through their books, and, perhaps for that reason, it’s remarkably difficult to find interviews of certain writers on film. After an exhaustive search of YouTube, I have selected the following videos of ten of my favorites. I hope you enjoy them.

David Desmond

Samuel Beckett:

Aldous Huxley:

Evelyn Waugh (audio only):

Martin Amis:

Julian Barnes:

Kazuo Ishiguro:

J. G. Ballard:

Haruki Murakami:

Mario Vargas Llosa:

Gabriel García Márquez:

The Palm Beach Code of Conduct

Here’s a link to today’s column in the Shiny Sheet.

David Desmond

If you’re driving a Bentley, I guess you’re out of luck

I was out on a long run last weekend when I happened upon this sign, which is located just off Worth Avenue next to the Everglades Club. It stopped me dead in my tracks:

At first I thought it might be a joke, and I probably would have been right if I had been in any town other than Palm Beach.

David Desmond

New York is a great place to leave, especially if Palm Beach is the destination

Here’s a link to today’s column in the Shiny Sheet.

David Desmond

The waiter must have been thrilled

Take a look at this receipt from Nello’s in New York City:

Forget the wine, who charges $30 for asparagus?

Reportedly, the customer who accrued these charges was Russian oligarch and billionaire Roman Abramovich, although he did receive some assistance from five of his friends.

Where do I begin? Well, when you break down the charges, the cost for the food was a relatively reasonable $1,162, or $194 per person, not out of the realm of possibility during an evening out at Café Boulud in Palm Beach. On the other hand, Abramovich was very generous with his guests regarding the assortment of drinks that he ordered (I’m assuming that he shared), which totaled $35,425, or $5,904 per person. Even more disturbingly, that breaks down to almost two bottles of some combination of champagne, wine, port, and whiskey per person, which is a lot, unless, of course, you’re either Russian or from Palm Beach.

Although I’m sure that Abramovich and his friends had a very nice time, nobody ended up happier than the waiter, who pocketed more than $12,000 for his efforts (i.e., delivering a few plates of pasta, pulling a few corks, and steering clear of Abramovich’s girlfriend). $12,000? But the bill lists a tip of only $7,328.20. Yes, $12,000, because, as reported by TMZ, Abramovich threw in an additional $5,000 on top of the standard 20% tip to ensure that the waiter’s compensation would be sufficient.

Oh, and, by the way, these charges were for lunch.

David Desmond

My new weekly column in the Shiny Sheet

That’s right, I’m happy to report that I’ve been invited to write a column for the Shiny Sheet. It will appear every Sunday, and my first column can be found here.

I hope you enjoy it!

David Desmond

Oliver Booth and his “Twits”

That’s right, it seems that Oliver Booth has discovered Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/oliverbooth

This means that Twitter has now become universal, or, more likely, that its days are numbered.

David Desmond

A Confederacy of Dunces

I recently had the chance to spend some time in New Orleans, the setting of one of my favorite comedic novels, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. For those of you who might somehow be unfamiliar with the book, it introduces the unforgettable character of Ignatius J. Reilly. The writer Walker Percy described Ignatius as a “slob extraordinaire, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one,” a description that could also be applied to Oliver Booth, and his adventures are absolutely hilarious.

Here is the first paragraph of the book:

A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly’s supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. Holmes department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person’s lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one’s soul.

A Confederacy of Dunces can be purchased here.

David Desmond

David Desmond and the statue of Ignatius J. Reilly located outside the former D.H. Holmes department store in New Orleans