The man who walks

The sculptor Alberto Giacometti is in the news since a long-lost small coffee-table sculpture that belonged to the architect Phillip Johnson has been found. Internet-surf-around type guy that I am, I took an interest in Giacometti's work and found the piece pictured at right. It's called "L'Homme Qui Marche I," which is Italian for "The Man Who Walks 1"

"L'Homme Qui Marche I" is five- or six-feet high. It's quite nice, don't you think? And it looks like a Sacramento homeless guy, if you asked me. He may be on the skinny side for a Sac'to homeless guy, but I like that he is taking a long stride. He is not a trudger; he walks with purposeful intent. Onward, Mighty Homeless Guy.

The sculpture sold for -- get this -- $104.3 million at auction at Sotheby's in London in 2010. In the depths of the worldwide Great Recession that we're in, while England was flailing from a Republican-style austerity program, somebody came up with the scratch to buy this bit of bronze -- or whatever -- that if you melted it dowm would be worth about $4.27

While, truly, I do admire the art, I do think it QUITE MAD that a small hunk of metal is thought to be worth so very much. Just think what Homeless World Sacramento could do with $104.3 million if you could get that much money directly into poor people's hands without the homeless-help industry first taking its -- I dunno -- 80% cut.