If There Are No Photos

IF THERE ARE NO PHOTOS, DID THE PLUTOCRATS HAVE A GOOD TIME?

So far I haven't found photos on-line about Tuesday's swanky PEN Gala, except for one on the New York Observer site of Edmund White looking like an enormous whale (www.observer.com/2009/daily-transom/publishing-gathers-around-dinosaur-pen-literary-gala-guests-discuss-merits-and-pi -). THERE's a writer who hasn't missed any meals of late! Some writers scramble for survival like Francois Villon, while others apparently exist in an endless cycle of banquets like the PEN one.

Before this year's PEN Gala I mailed out a few dozen copies of a pamphlet I put together gently mocking the event, with a couple pictures of rich people in top hats. I was trying to embarrass the literary aristocrats. They prove to be beyond embarrassment-- or at least hold the philosophy that if they ignore corruption it doesn't exist. If they close their eyes and ears they're not forced to acknowledge it.

With that spirit they didn't cancel their party (despite the hard times), the reason-for-being for the PEN edifice, but so far have stopped public photos of it. Wouldn't look right, you know. Appearance is important.

If anyone finds some good photographs of the lit-world's piggy plutocrats celebrating themselves, please let me know! (I should've crashed the event, or gotten someone inside as a waiter or such.)