To the editors:

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I wouldn’t waste space with any brief treatise on the language of painting, art history, and where great artists like Claude Mount and Gustave Caillebotte fit in. Nor will I join in on any futile condemnation of particular financial trends in the global art market and the “sitcom Ellens” of society. Instead, I’d like to impart a little advice to Mr. Frank, who I perceive as rather young and fresh: remove the newly acquired U. of Chicago or Northwestern U. sheepskin from the wall, pack up and go back to the north shore or whatever suburb that bred you, and beg mum and dad for a few more sheckles (I know they’re already bogged down by your outrageous tuition debt) to get the fuck out and see the world! “Shock the bourgeoisie” (!), you are the “bourgeoisie” unless you forget this lame terminology and begin to understand that there are more important responsibilities of a journalist than generalizing and categorizing society and unjustly shitting on the names of reputations of great people who actually created something of beauty during their lifetime, dumb ass!

Chicago

But to tell the truth, I’m gratified by Mr. Polo’s response. The braying incoherent rage into which my tongue-in-cheek attack on Monet propelled him augurs well for my scheme against the worldwide art markets. Remeber how Dada worked: by attacking the icons of bourgeois taste and stirring the “Marco Polos” of the world into exactly this sort of fury. If we can cause an angry right-wing backlash in defense of Monet, well, hell, we’re halfway to global economic chaos already.