Capital of the World

Robert Macaire discount broker: “Here are my conditions.” - Honoré Daumier Le Charivari 27 September 1836 Jean Baudrillard once suggested an important correction to classical Marxism: exchange value is not as Marx had it a distortion of a commodity’s underlying use value; use value instead is a fiction created by exchange value. - n+1 Magazine Death by Degrees He had ferreted so much collected so many clues that he could have prophesied how the new neighbourhoods would look in 1870. Sometimes in the street he would look curiously at certain houses as if they were acquaintances whose destiny known to him alone deeply affected him. - Émile Zola The Kill Our new Gilded Age looks a lot like the 19th century version as seen and annotated in Rob Kovitz’s Capital of the World with words and images collected and remixed from Émile Zola Honoré Daumier Lewis Lapham Baron Haussmann Sam Lipsyte n+1 Magazine and various others. ‘You’ll see’ murmured Monsieur Hupel de la Noue ‘that I have perhaps carried poetic licence too far but I think my boldness has worked. Echo seeing that Venus has no power over Narcissus takes him to Plutus the god of wealth and precious metals. After the temptation of the flesh the temptation of riches.’ ‘That’s very classical’ replied Monsieur Toutin-Laroche with an amiable smile. ‘You know your period Monsieur le Préfet.’ - Émile Zola The Kill *** treyf adj. [Yiddish] - not kosher unclean. Treyf Books by Rob Kovitz are unusual books of an indeterminate type sort of story-picture montage-remix books for people who can’t stomach any more schmaltzy Chicken Soup for the Soul. Treyf Books are cooked up using texts and images compiled from various sources usually obsessively related to one or more themes and then recombined through a process of highly subjective editing ordering and juxtaposition. “Strange and clever.” - Globe & Mail “Funny but deep.” - Umbrella “Is this a new form of discourse in step with its multivalent chaotic times or just an excuse for intellectual laziness? Only the author knows for sure.” - Canadian Architect