Jeffrey Epstein: The 21st-Century Rasputin

The Jeffrey Epstein saga never ends.

The mysteries around this dead pedo -- gone but not forgotten (nor mourned) -- seems to become bigger and bigger as time goes on. We appear to know so much more yet so much less at the same time.  

It's been hopelessly politicized, and I won't get into that miserable drama here. But what fascinates me about this whole saga is who Epstein was -- and why the media and public hunger for him can never be sated. 

Then it hit me: he's Rasputin!

Epstein is a 21st-century American version of the shadowy, sexually devious early-20th century Russian figure who seemed to come out of nowhere and became a friend and corruptor of the rich, powerful, and famous.

And like Rasputin, Epstein died under bizarre and shocking circumstances. 

The parallels are not exact: Rasputin was a staretz, a spiritual guide. Epstein was financier, a finance guy. Rasputin came from poverty in Siberia. Epstein came from a lower middle-class background in Brooklyn. He also became super-rich and was deeply vain, while Rasputin, for all his notoriety, did not seek riches, dressed like a slob, and smelled. And while Rasputin actually attained more direct power -- becoming so close to the last Russian Imperial family that he was eventually running the government -- Epstein's proximity to power was much more transactional and opaque.

Yet there is one big, overarching similarity of Rasputin and Epstein -- namely,  they beg the question WHO THE HELL WAS THIS GUY?

Rapsutin was a charlatan, he wasn't even a real priest. He said he spoke to God and could cure diseases when all he really did was utter platitudes, prayed with people, and "laid hands" on them. And yet it led him into the heart of late-Russian nobility and monarchy -- and, with that, he got power and influence and a place in history.

Epstein now has a place in history too, and its all the more remarkable considering that he wasn't really anybody important. He was rich, yes, and that got him access to the famous and powerful (although when you splash around cash its not hard to get doors opened to those kinds of people). But Epstein had no real institutional power nor public-facing career. He wasn't the CEO of a publicly traded or financial company, he didn't run a media or entertainment or real estate empire or any kind of big business, he wasn't a politician nor served in government, and he didn't run or manage or own anything big or well-known. All he did (supposedly) was manage money for rich people. 

And yet Rasputin and Epstein managed to work their ways into the heighest echelons of society and power in two of the most powerful empires on earth.

To a certain extent there's a degree of snobbishness in how people regard them: who are (or were) these people to think they could come from places like Siberia or Coney Island and rub shoulders with the mighty? They were climbers, upstarts, wannabes, who crashed the gates and should have been kicked out by their betters.

That's one way of looking at them.

But another way to view them is as examples of rot -- and how great countries wither and die from the inside. 

In the history of the Russian Revolution, Rasputin and his power and influence have become examples of how delusional, corrupt, and stupid late Imperial Russia had become. And Epstein -- with his private plane, Carribean island, big houses and weird artifacts and pedophilia -- is an example of late-stage capitalism, and how morally bankrupt, debauched, and nihilistic American society is today, fueled by greed, and abandoning the common good.

And in early-20th century Russian and early-21th century America, the public and the powerful allowed themselves to be controlled by gross con artists -- and we have (and will) rue the day.

Rasputin and Epstein are now no longer simply creepy wannabes who died -- they are myths, dark haunting figures that say something damning about our lives and times, about our societies, and what we have all, one way or another,  sadly become.

They are the stench left behind of dead and dying empires.  

Scenes from the Columbia University Protests -- April 30, 2024

Little did I know, as I approached the periphery of the Columbia University campus, that the weeks-long protest/sit-in/riot -- whatever you want to call it -- was in its NYPD-enforced final hours. 

Before around 200 cops stormed the campus that night -- breaking up the encampments, cleaning out Hamilton Hall, arresting people -- I walked around the walls of Columbia in waning daylight to see what was going on.

Honestly, at the time, not much, but here is a short photo-chronicle of what I saw:

First, there were multiple helicopters overhead, a symphony of chopper blades soon becoming a kind of unremarkable white noise.

I then approached the campus on 120th street, walking down Amsterdam Avenue, where the bulk of the protestors outside the campus were congregated. There was a heavy NYPD and campus police prescence, urging us pedestrians to move on and not gawk. There were multiple signs indicating that university ID was needed to enter the campus.

There were also multiple areas cordoned off for the media, plus lots of news trucks on the streets. Interestingly I walked right past the bestselling author Michael Wolff, obviously looking to find a juicy story to write about. 

I walked down to 114th street, crossing over to Broadway, then up to 116th to the main grand entrance of the Campus. There was no crowd there, no protestors, just a lot of bored-looking security standing at the barricades or before the locked gates or coming and going. It was actually (relatively) quiet.

Finally I walked back down to the entrance of WKCR radio, the Columbia University radio station, where I talked to two young ladies standing outside. To be honest, they seemed bored with the whole protest but I told them that, in the 1990s, we college students were totally politically apathetic. One of the ladies subsequently shamed me by saying, "There was the AIDS crises ..." And, needless to say, I then felt like a bigger-than-usual asshole. I wished both ladies well. 

Then I left.

Honestly,  I saw more security than protestors and obviously I couldn't get on the campus or really take any pictures despite my best efforts. I only wish that the US Capitol had been this well patrolled, or that law enforcement had been this aggressive, on January 6, 2021 (but, you know, I think we know why). 

And, later that night, in came the cops to shut it down.

Much like the whole Israel-Gaza situation/war, there seems to be no ground for reason or compromise or mutual understanding. For so many it seems to be either/or, one side against the other, no debate, no concessions, nothing but anger and violence. It's really sad. 

But Columbia has big history of sit-ins and protests -- this is just another one in its long, long history. 

Review: "The Ninth Gate" (1999)

Big movie directors and huge movie stars always have a few films on their resumes that fans and audiences generally overlook. Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate starring Johnny Depp probably qualifies. 

Yet it's an interesting movie and falls firmly into the category of New Yorkers who travel abroad and get into trouble.

Depp stars as Dean Corso, a ruthless and ethically dubious NYC rare book dealer, who is hired by a rich and strange man named Boris Balkan to authenticate one of his books -- supposedly written by Satan himself. Call The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, it's suppose to contain information about how to open "the Ninth Gate" and summon up the Devil himself. There are only three known copies of the book in existence, and Balkan tasks Corso to go to Portugal and France to examine the other two copies and verify his book's authenticity. Very early on, it becomes excruciatingly clear that this book is bad news -- it's previous owner killed himself the day after selling it to Balkan, and now his widow is harassing Corso, as he travels with it to Europe, to get it back. Corso meets with the other two copies' owners, only to find out later that they've been killed. Along the way he is trailed, and then joins forces, with a gorgeous woman who both helps and mystifies him. As Corso delves furthers into the legend of the Nine Gates, more and more craziness ensues.

Is the book genuine? Will Corso survive to find out? And can it or any copy of it open up ... the Ninth Gate!

If you like smart thrillers, this is your movie. If you like the occult and movies about dark creepy people then this is really your movie. And if you're a big Johnny Depp, it really really is your movie. For my money, the best performance is by Frank Langella as the creepy Balkan who is a sinister prescence in the film even when he's not on screen.

The Ninth Gate is very reminiscent of Polanski's other thrillers, the classic Chinatown and his later The Ghostwriter -- a cynical professional gets hired to figure something out and stumbles upon a scary mystery that threatens his life. Obviously recommending a movie with the problematic Polanski and Deep is perhaps a tad gauche these days but, as a work of cinematic art, it's worth checking out.

Sam Kinison & Lou Reed on "Saturday Night Live" -- November 15, 1986

It's hard to imagine that an episode of Saturday Night Live like this would ever air today -- one hosted by the most outrageous comedian of his time and, as the musical guest, one of the darkest and most groundbreaking musicians in rock history.

But this actually happened on the night of November 15, 1986 when bad boy comic Sam Kinison -- riding high as a comedy king and coming off the success of his movie Back to School -- hosted the show for the second time. He was his usual over-the-top self, jamming with the band, performing an over-the-top monologue, and yelling and blazing his way through several sketches. There was no comedian quite like Sam Kinison before or since. Sadly he died in 1992 in a car accident, but his comedic legacy lives on.

I can't find any clips of Lou Reed from this show but, according to the information I have, he perfomed the songs "I Love You, Suzanne" and "The Original Wrapper." I've posted those songs here. 

This was just one of many shows in the long, long history of SNL -- but it was also a moment in time when the rebels, the contrarians, the lunatics of comedy and music crashed the gates and ran the asylum ... at least for this one night.

Classic Mr NYC

Last year I blogged about a Broadway show that failed -- in fact, it never debuted in the first place. It was a musical about the early years of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates that was weeks away from premiering until the money vanished and the show was cancelled. It made me think about "the delusion of art", about how artists are people who have odd, purely inspirational, delusional ideas to create something (a painting, a statue, an instillation, a movie, a book, a musical, a play, anything) and are also delusional enough to think that anyone will care about it or want to work on it or finance it or finally go to see it when it's completed and put on display.

Works of art can enshrine their creators into history, give them legacies that long outlast their lives, become part of the public consciousness and culture -- or they can fail, disapear, their creators efforts all for nought, sometimes even leading them to ruin.

I just read another story about a show that had been in the works for many years and almost made it to Broadway -- until its star created all sorts of trouble, leading to its closure off-Broadway, any hopes of big money and Tonys shot. It's a depressing story, reminding you of the perils, but how people pursue it because they love it, delusional, for better or worse, forever. 

Christo RIP

The conceptual artist Christo died this week at the age of 84. He was famous for erecting enourmous temporary exhibits where he'd wrap or drape or insert huge canvasses or objects around man-made structures like buildings or bridges or natural wonders like islands or sea coasts and give them an entire new dimensionality, a new way of looking at them, that had never existed before.

Along with his longterm partner Jeane-Claude, Christo's career spaneed decades and continents. 

In NYC, Christo is best remembered for The Gate, his huge early 2005 projects where he took over Central Park, all three miles of it, and erected pale orange "gates" up and down the paths of the city's most popular park. The exhibit was a sensation, a truly memorable and amazing thing to behold (I remember it well) and I blogged about it on The Gates 10th Anniversary in 2015. 

RIP.

The Delusion of Art

Whenever I see a great or terrible work of art in any medium, a question recurs in my mind: "Why exactly did the artist want to create this? How and why did this come into the world?"

If you think about it, there's no compelling reason why any work of art should exist. As great as, say, Hamilton or the Mona Lisa or Game of Thrones are, they aren't curing diseases, providing shelter, winning wars, or generally improving the general welfare. They simply exist, for better or worse, to elevate culture.

A work of art is like a tree house: it has no real reason, no requirement to exist -- it doesn't fill any societal need at all -- except that someone at some point in time got the idea for it and then went about the difficult, delicate, sometimes exilerating, often frustrating work of creating it, hoping that people will like the finished product, and very often recruiting others along the way for assistance. Often, this assistance is financial.

One of my favorite books, as I've blogged about before, is Final Cut, about the movie debacle Heaven's Gate that destroyed United Artists. What's fascinating about it is that it's a keyhole view into the miserable, decidedly non-glamorous work of making a movie -- and how and why things can go so wrong. When you read it, you are mesmerized by the egomania and irresponsibility of the director, the bad decisions of the studio executives, the viciousness of the press, the careers and relationships made and destroyed, the complete delusion involved -- and for what? For a movie that, hopefully, a few people would pay a few bucks to see and spend a few hours at before going back about their lives. 

I just read a story about a massive Broadway musical debacle: three years ago, there was a new musical called Nerds about the early years of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Many thought it would be another Book of Mormon and it had been in the works for years -- work shopped, cast and rehearsed, and was just weeks away from debuting. And then? The money vanished, the show was cancelled, careers were deeply impacted -- and now there are lawsuits and all sorts of legal miseries. It's what happens when all of that effort fails and is for nought. It's about the dark side of creativity, the emptiness of failure. And for what? For something that didn't even need to exist in the first place.

As you read this story, you read about everything that goes into making not just this show but any piece of art: the hopes and dreams of the creators, their hard work to bring it into the world, the money and people who are needed to help it along the way -- and, most importantly, the delusion that everyone involved is required to have.

You have to be somewhat delusional to be an artist of any kind because, if you aren't, if you are strictly logical, no one would work on any show or big piece of art because ... why should anyone care? Why should this exist? Turning Victor Hugo's massive and depressing novel about failed French revolutionaries into a musical? Making a hip-hop musical about the Founding Fathers? Taking TS Eliot's book about cats and making that into a musical? The fact that people thought those were good ideas and turned them into brilliant shows still amazes me. Their creators were totally delusional enough to think that anyone would care to see these works of art -- and yet they were totally right. 

In the end, a successful show, a successful work of art, comes down to execution -- how it's actually made. If a tree house is well-built, it's a thrilling and fun place to go. No one can wait to clamour up it. But if it's badly made, it's creaky and quickly falls to earth and might really hurt someone. Then people avoid it like the plague. And you can never guess how well or badly something is executed until you try to do it.

If you think about it, turning George RR Martin's massive Song of Ice and Fire books into a TV series was a bold, really delusional thing to do -- the books are long, the plots complex and depressing, beloved characters are killed, they're kind of a mess. And yet ... it's one of the greatest shows ever, thanks to the people who created it, who executed it. Or this person, who makes sure that Scorsese's NYC movies get made just the way he wants.   

That's the mystery of art -- how a combination of pie-in-the-sky delusion and real-world hard work can either create something memorable or something that can lead to ruin. 

Gotta Love New Yorkers

Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first: NYC produced both Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. This is a sad, depressing fact of life. These awful men are currently terrorizing the country, trying to obstruct justice and explaining away moral turpitude, making our city and our country the laughing stock of the world. It's an embarassement, a painful thing to see. 

So it's good to remember that there are New York who have made the world a better place.

Like Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the brilliant artists who gave us The Gates in Central Park back in 2005. Did you know that in 1968 they tried to "wrap" MoMA? After "wrapping" the Reichstag in Berlin, these two French immigrants came to NYC and attempted to turn the city's leading modern art museum into a work of modern art itself. It didn't happen but, for decades to come, they would continue with such projects, culminating with The Gates. And they remained New Yorkers for the rest of their lives.

And speaking about parks, there's a new exhibit of 60 photographs taken in various city parks and playgrounds in the summer of 1978. There was a newspaper strike that summer and the parks department hired out-of-work photographers to take over 3000 pictures of people enjoying themselves. Look at these pictures if you want to see New Yorkers hanging out over 40 years ago. 

Finally, the most amazing New Yorker of them all: a 96-year old legal secretary named Sylvia Bloom who died in 2017. Turns out, she was worth $9 million that she built up over the years through smart investing. In her will she donated almost $7 million to the Henry Street Settlements group and $2 million to Hunter College. Can you imagine the current president or former mayor being that generous? Me neither.

New Yorkers -- famous or not famous, generous or selfish, for better or worse, we're a wild bunch.

Ai Weiwei: Good Fences, Good Neighbors

Ever since the amazing The Gates in Central Park exhibition in 2005, I've become a lover of public art. There's nothing cooler than seeing the streets and parks of NYC turned into a canvass for a creative vision. NYC is always interesting but is made only more so when parts of it are re-imagined, temporarily, as something else. That's the glory of art, one of the things that makes NYC great.

The famous Chinese artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei has just mounted one of the most ambitious public arts projects in NYC history. It's called Good Fences, Good Neighbors and it's a multi-borough exhibit of fences -- yes, fences -- that highlight the plight of refugees and migrants who are fleeing wartorn countries and natural catastropheos. Fences can protect but they can also exclude -- something that refugees are keenly aware of but that most of cannot really appreciate 

-- and this exhibit drives that point home.

What makes this exhibit so particularly interesting is how is both grand and small. Some of the installations are tourist heavy, obvious places like Washington Square Park and Flushing Corona Park -- and others are on bus stops in Brooklyn and shelters in The Bronx. There is also an audio visual component to this exhibit too, with videos showing the plight of refugees in many far-flung parts of the world.

This project seems like a once-in-a-lifetime, you-were-there, blink-of-you'll-miss-it experience so, if you're in NYC, try to find it and check it out.

It runs until February, 2018. For a comprehensive list of locations, go here. 

The Gates @ 10

Ten years ago one of the most fascinating art exhibits in NYC history debuted in Central Park. It was called simply the Gates. Created by the eccentric artists Christo and Jean-Claud, at over  twenty-five years in the making, the Gates unfurled for the public on February 12th, 2005.

The Gates was a massive sprawl of Japanese inspired "torrii gates", made out of saffron-colored nylon fabric, which covered the entire expanse of Central Park from 59th to 110th Streets. (Torrii gates appear at Japanese Shinto shrines and are symbolic portals between the physical and spirit worlds). For the last two weeks of February 2005, this public art exhibit transformed Central Park, pulled in over 4 million visitors, and generated over $250 million in revenue for NYC. It made the Central Park of our loving collective conscience into something different, something exquisite -- like looking at your child dressed up in a beautiful custom.

It was an amazing sight to behold.

Walking through the Gates, as I did one chilly Sunday afternoon with my mother, was a wonderful experience. Having walked through Central Park many times in my life (and many times with my mom), strolling through the Gates with her felt like we were walking in the park again for the first time. And, of course, we were not alone -- many other people were also milling around us, amazed by the splendor of the exhibit. And that's what was so incredible about the Gates -- it made you look at something you had seen before many times but differently, it created a unique experience, and it brought you closer to the people you were sharing the experience with. It was very special. 

And then ... it was gone ...

Obviously, the Gates was meant to be temporary. By the end of February 2005, they had vanished, never to return. And that was part of the experience of the Gates: its very nature was ephemeral. It wasn't meant to last. The Gates was meant to be an experience, a moment in time to remembered and cherished. And now, ten years later, it still is.

P.S. There was a live blog of the Gates back in 2005 that is still, thankfully, available to peruse. It's a wonderful real time like at this amazing, once in a lifetime exhibit. 

P.S.S. The pictures of the Gates that you see here were taken by a family member of mine back in 2005 and are exclusive for Mr NYC readers.