Yesterday, Charles’s closet. (Skeletons aside, his actual closet was a magical kingdom with twenty-cents worth of penny loafers, a riot of red socks, a rodeo of dungarees, a Savile row of suits and ties – but also puppets and ribbon and flags. He could make anything look amazing.)
Today, his hallway, shared with two neighbors. For a long time, it was the ugliest hallway in the building – possibly in the entire neighborhood – but somehow no one did anything about it. Finally, a few weeks ago, Charles took charge. Designs were designed, frames framed, contractors contracted with, carpet squares ordered. Two weeks ago today he said, “I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I don’t want to die until they finish the hallway.” I briefly thought of asking the workers to slow down, but he really wanted to go and, in any event, it was hard to imagine they could work any slower, so I went out into the hallway and explained the situation. Two days later, it was done – the sharpest hallway in the building, possibly the entire neighborhood. Here (and here).
Tomorrow, his library. You know the Clinton Library in Little Rock? The Kennedy Library in Boston? This will be a little less grand, but we’re packing his 30 years’ of collected art books and fashion books and design books . . . along with all manner of Nolan sketches and garments . . . and donating them to New York’s High School of Fashion Industries (“We design the future”) which has agreed to dedicate a large room — that some of the school’s more than 1,700 students will help design and keep fresh — to the Charles Nolan Collection.
GOLD
Janet Tavakoli on Huffington Post (aka AOL): Gold Game Changer: JPMorgan Accepts Bullion as Money. As in: don’t sell your GLD, up about 42% since first suggested here two years ago.
It’s so obvious that the dollar will have to fall in relation to gold in the years to come that maybe it won’t happen (markets are funny that way). But as a hedge? I still own it.
WALMART
Alan Wenker: I had some of the same reservations about buying shares of Walmart as the emailer you mentioned in yesterday’s post. What I’ve found with nearly all investments is the good corporate citizen record is mixed. In the case of Walmart, last year I watched a piece on Charlie Rose as to large companies (and Walmart was specifically mentioned) are working to become more energy efficient as well as reducing waste as yet more means to cut costs. Typical of Walmart, once they do this for themselves they then work on their suppliers to do the same. Walmart also recently announced their line of packaged foods will be made healthier. Walmart may be motivated solely by profits to do this, but we will all have a cleaner environment and customers will have lower cost, healthier food. I wish McDonalds would do the same. I rarely shop at Walmart, but they do provide low income people a means to stretch their money further. Like most large, multinationals, Walmart is not perfect, but certainly not all evil. That said, I’d never buy a tobacco stock.”
