Once a year, this guy I know named Nic has an open house and invites everyone to come by and check out his place. It’s a big draw and the line is huge. Even with my connections I spent 4 hours watching the sun rise and shuffling slowly with the crowd. Here’s the last ~90 minutes’ worth of the queue of Nic’s friends.
Finally we got to the garden entrance and baggage scan. They were checking for hidden hamburgers and soft drinks, as this was strictly croissant and coffee territory. During the queue we saw cops dutifully munching on them.
Behind that gate was certainly the largest private garden and security detail in the city.
At the moment, Nic is seeing someone new named Carla. This is her office, which looks out on the garden. The book on the top of her desk is called “Work Hard, Be Nice.” It’s about inner city charter schools and Amazon reviewers said it was “inspiring” but “needs a little more meat” - two criticism that would be familiar to its reader.
Their dining room takes up an entire wing of the building, and it is fantastic. The room is so grand that it changes your perspective; either you feel very grand, too, or you feel very small - depending on whether you expect to eat like this ever again. I left before dinner, but the table setting looked delicious.
Nic’s office is upstairs. He prefers a crappy wicker chair (1900’s era Aeron precursor). In terms of technology, he uses lots of telephones and a TV, which was tuned to channel 154, aka “Tele Melody” specializing in 60s/70s/80s music videos. Lots of fancy fountain pens and inks. A table full of medals and swords. No sign of a computer or laptop anywhere, not even a power cable.
