Montage Art, books, diverse creations

14 Bluffer-in-Chief 15 Arts Imbalance 16 Off the Shelf 17 Vegan Hedonism 19 “Absolutely Beautiful” 20 Chapter and Verse

homes. And film director Lauren Greenfield ’87 was there to capture their financial downfall, from Jack- ie Siegel’s $1-million clothing-bud- get zenith to the family’s stuck-in- coach-class nadir. The drama of Greenfield’s recent documentary, , first gripped audiences at the 2012 Sundance Film David and Jackie Festival in Jan- Siegel relaxing at uary. Screened home in The Queen of Versailles on the open- ing night, the film won her an award for best director and has since become one of The Queen of Versailles the most-watched documentaries of the year, prompting speculationthat it could A documentary film turns a lens on the “1 percenters.” earn an Oscar nomination. (The DVD is to be released in mid November.) “It was by laura levis the same [old] story about the Ameri- can dream, but really about the flaws as n certain ways, David and Jackie Sie- sprawling, 90,000-square-foot mansion much as the virtues of that dream, as well gel were just trying to live the American in Orlando, Florida, modeled after the as about the mistakes that were made Dream: succeed at business, own a big French palace of Versailles, complete with because of the economic crisis,” Green- I house, enjoy the spoils of their labor. But a bowling alley and roller-skating rink, a field says. “Jackie and David’s story, even after achieving those dreams, they found wing for the children, 10 kitchens, and $5 though it was extreme, was kind of sym- themselves wanting more—much, much million of marble. bolic of the mistakes we all made on dif- more. But when the U.S. economic bubble ferent levels.” Their 26,000-square-foot house was burst, the Siegels, who were so wealthy In one scene, a nanny asks Jackie—a simply not enough. Happiness could be they seemed untouchable, turned out to be former beauty queen from a small town, found, the couple thought, only by build- no different from the tens of thousands of who’s 30 years David’s junior—if one large, ing the largest house in all of America: a families who lost their far-humbler dream cavernous room in Versailles is a future

12 November - December 2012 Photograph courtesy of /Lauren Greenfield Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage

bedroom. “No, that’s my closet!” Jackie President Dwight Eisen- exclaims, her eyes wide, grinning as if she o p e n b o o k hower remains a vague almost can’t believe her good fortune. Later figure (genial, a golfer) in in the film, after the family arrives in an public memory, a cipher airport after having flown coach (a first for Bluffer-in-Chief between the feisty Harry the children), Jackie walks up to a rental- Truman and the glamorous car counter and asks the clerk earnestly, John F. Kennedy. Focusing “What is my driver’s name?” New York Times on the ultimate issue—the threat of nuclear war—Evan Thomas ’73 finds in Ike film critic A.O. Scott ’87 wrote in his re- tactical brilliance and, where needed, ruthless efficacy. From the introduction to view, “Schadenfreude and disgust may be his new book, Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World (Little, unavoidable, but to withhold all sympathy Brown, $29.99): from the Siegels is to deny their humanity and shortchange your own. Marvel at the Eisenhower was an expert at bridge, had commanded a conquering army in ornate frame, mock the vulgarity of the im- an activity now associated in the Ameri- a world war ended only by the use of ages if you want, but let’s not kid ourselves. can mind with middle-aged or elderly two atomic bombs. Though he posed as If this film is a portrait, it is also a mirror.” people sitting around a table staring at a poor farm boy, he was a scholar who Greenfield became interested in the cards. For Eisenhower, who played as had closely read Clausewitz’s treatise lives of the 1 percenters as an undergradu- much as possible, the game was a relax- On War, and took to heart its basic, if ate, where she studied photography under ing way of doing what he did all day: read- overlooked, message: that small wars Barbara Norfleet, Ph.D. ’51, then a lecturer ing minds, weighing and curator of still pho- options (his own tography at the Carpenter and others), think- Center for the Visual Arts, ing ahead, and con- who had produced a book cealing his inten- called All the Right People, tions. Eisenhower, about the WASPs of the who generally radi- Northeast. “Part of what ated warm sinceri- drove her [Norfleet] to ty and whose emo- make that book was that tions were easy to in the archives there were read, was actually very few photos of rich a great bluffer, and people,” Greenfield says. not just at cards. “The photos that existed… Eisenhower’s ba- were only commissioned sic policy through- portraits by the subjects out his presidency themselves, or society pic- was known as Mas- tures which didn’t have sive Retaliation. It any context because they was, in essence, a threat to use nuclear Ike, in a photo likely taken in the late weren’t natural moments. For me, when I weapons against Communist aggression 1940s when he was Army Chief of Staff, started the Queen of Versailles, it was a little playing bridge with General Alfred wherever and whenever it might occur. Gruenther bit similar. We see so much of the life of Even in his most private councils, Eisen- the affluent as these packaged, manipu- hower remained vague about what he can become big wars, and that a nation lated reality-TV shows, or advertising. I might or might not do in crisis. His clos- fighting for survival will stop at nothing. wanted to do a real-life look at this fam- est adviser, General Andrew Goodpas- Eisenhower managed, by cleverness, in- ily, particularly because Jackie and David ter, guessed Ike would never use nuclear direction, subtlety, and downright de- had this other quality—a down-to-earth weapons, but others weren’t so sure, and viousness—and by embracing the very American quality. They came from humble Eisenhower wasn’t about to tell them. weapon he could never use—to safe- origins and were a rags-to-riches story.” Indeed, Eisenhower sometimes sound- guard his country and possibly the rest of Greenfield met Jackie Siegel by chance ed as if he regarded nuclear weapons as mankind from annihilation. As the United at a Hollywood party and immediately fell conventional weapons—“like bullets,” States and the Soviet Union created the for the couple’s tale. (The filmmaker had he once said. Other times he seemed power to end the world in the 1950s, the asked if she could photograph Siegel’s os- determined to rid the world of their genial old soldier with a weakened heart tentatious metallic purse; the image even- scourge.…Eisenhower’s mission, which contrived to keep the peace. He did so in tually became one of Time magazine’s “Pho- he achieved after he extricated America his own distinctive way. He was honor- tos of the Year,” illustrating the “high life” from the Korean War in 1953, was to able but occasionally opaque, outwardly and “gilded age” of America). But that was avoid any war. As a general, Eisenhower amiable but inwardly seething. in 2007, when David Siegel’s company— the largest privately owned time-share

14 November - December 2012 Photograph courtesy of the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage

company in the world— in Coconut Creek, Florida, had netted him a billion and has had her photo- Increase dollars. When Greenfield graphs published in The

began filming in 2009, she owit New York Times, Vanity Fair, Your ROI didn’t expect her little , and National (Return On Ivy)

movie (she and her hus- oxanne L

R Geographic—got to know band, Frank Evers ’87, fi- her subjects intimately, nanced the film, calling it practically moving in with “a labor of love”) about the them as she filmed up to biggest McMansion ever 12 hours a day. She and built would even be seen Jackie became friends. But in theaters. But as the Sie- Greenfield admits she was

gels’ fortunes plummeted courtesy of Magnolia Pictures/ appalled by their inability unexpectedly before her Director Lauren Greenfield to control their spending, camera’s lens, Greenfield even when everything knew her film would have a far wider ap- pointed to impending disaster. The tipping peal. point was David’s refusal to sell his other Greenfield—a photographer and film- obsession, a $600-million, high-end time- maker who has captured youth culture share complex on the Las Vegas strip that You’ve reaped the bene ts of through projects like HBO’s THIN, a docu- he’d personally financed through loans. By investing in an Ivy League mentary about an eating disorder center 2010, the time-share market had dried up education. Now let your business reap the bene ts of advertising in the Ivy League Arts Imbalance Magazine Network. Join the list of automotive, This past summer, a temporary art installation titled Arts Imbalance brightened travel, nancial, and corporate the days of many in downtown . On July 1, a dozen volunteers, working from advertisers who use the ILMN a small boat on the water and a scissor lift on land, strung a 300-foot-long yellow to reach the most af uent, tightrope across the city’s Fort Point Channel, anchoring the ends to the Summer in uential, and educated Street and Congress Street bridges. A pair of life-size, aluminum, sheet-metal fig- audience in print. ures—modeled on a classic wooden artist’s manikin—coun- terbalanced each other above and below the rope. They were To advertise, call Larry Brittan, coated in refractive dichroic film, which transmits certain Associate Publisher, wavelengths of light but reflects others, treating observers at 631-754-4264. to prismatic displays of reflected sunlight. Now and again the figures moved in reaction to the wind. The installation was the work of Peter Agoos ’75, a multimedia artist who has trained in stage design, sculpture, graphic design, and film

INVESTING IN AMERICA IS A VOTE (http://agoos.com). “I’ve lived here for more than 30 years andOF CONFIDENCE. IN YOURSELF. walked over those bridges thousands of times,” says Agoos,

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Harvard Magazine 15 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage

because so many buyers had overextend- money to buy big buildings and I thought ill will: at a recent premiere of the film in ed themselves on their unit mortgages. “I it would go on forever, and when they took Tampa, David and Jackie rented out two wasn’t rooting for David to keep the tower, away the money I was like, ‘Whoa.’ theaters and showed up in a party bus to because I think it was a valuable lesson “In that sense there is a happy ending, watch the movie with all of their friends), learned, in terms of the overreach,” she because you see what’s really important she still says she wouldn’t have changed says. “I think that’s the power [of the mov- to them,” Greenfield continues. “For us as anything. “I was extremely lucky because ie]. David speaks the morality tale at the viewers, it gives us a chance to think about they opened their doors wide when things end when he says, ‘We what’s important, what our values are, and were great, but they kept those doors open need to learn to live what is enough.” equally wide when things got tough,” she Visit harvardmag.com/ within our means, we Although David Siegel is now suing explains. “Jackie would often say, ‘Our story extras to watch a clip need to get back to re- Greenfield for defamation (Greenfield in- is like so many other people’s, but on a big- from the film. ality. I was using cheap sists the lawsuit is more about money than ger level and with bigger proportions.’” Vegan Hedonism Plant-based pleasure with spirit and sizzle by betsy block

ne sentence—one word, really—in the book Eating Animals by O Jonathan Safran Foer changed John Schlimm’s life. When Schlimm, Ed.M. ’02, read about “unloved” Thanksgiving turkeys, “something shifted,” he remembers. “I stopped, highlighted the word ‘unloved,’ underlined it, circled it. It mm chli

was a light-bulb moment for me.” b S His life, he says, “took on a whole new h: Bar and wonderful direction.” Not as a cook- p book author—he’d already writ- ten seven, including The Ultimate Beer hotogra

Lover’s Cookbook. Not as a teacher—he’d uthor p already taught at a local university. In- oth; A stead, that one word transformed him from the guy who had helped at his y Beadle R

brother’s meat-processing business— Am skinning deer, cutting meat, and the Straub John Schlimm, his vegan cookbooks, making sausage—into someone family, which and Presto Pesto No-Bake Lasagna who wouldn’t eat or wear animal runs one of the For Schlimm, food is all about flavor products. The son of a small-town country’s oldest and enjoyment. Vegan hedonism? Isn’t Pennsylvania butcher, Schlimm, breweries. He that a contradiction? Not with Schlimm’s who grew up in hunting country, wrote one of his recipes, filled with spices, fruits, nuts, became a vegan. That moment also first titles,The wines, and other alcoholic spirits. He calls inspired him to write two vegan Straub Beer Cook- his cookbooks “parties between covers.” cookbooks, The Tipsy Vegan (2011) book, in partner- Consider “Bruschetta on a Bender,” which and Grilling Vegan Style (2012); anoth- ship with the combines fragrant fresh thyme and oreg- er, The Cheesy Vegan, is on the way. brewery, and ano with a couple of dashes of vermouth. How did someone who never The Tipsy Vegan, “Baked & Loaded Acorn Squash” contains went to culinary school or worked in a unsurprisingly, includes some sort of al- rich fall flavors like cinnamon and nutmeg, restaurant become a cookbook author? cohol in every recipe. He also has a team warmed up by a hit of Calvados. Manda- Schlimm explains that he’s the son of two of people who help him develop and test rin oranges, water chestnuts, and ginger fantastic cooks as well as a member of recipes. dot his “Wild Rice Under the Influence,” a

Harvard Magazine 17 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746