Will Obama's hope lead us to new riches?
Magazine reporter Ryan D'Agostino wanted to know what it was like to live in the toniest neighborhoods in America — so he walked around, knocked on doors in the wealthiest ZIP codes and asked the people who answered how they got there. The result is "Rich Like Them: My Door-to-Door Search for the Secrets of Wealth in America's Richest Neighborhoods." In this new period of economic uncertainty, finding out how to get rich sounds like a great idea.
D'Agostino's book might present a slightly skewed perspective — he didn't get to talk to the people who were at an office instead of at home, who let their household help answer the door, or who were disinclined to talk to a reporter. Most people who talked to him had earned their wealth, rather than inherited it; they wanted to tell their stories.
One of these is, improbably, a bookstore owner. Harvey Jason — who, technically, lives not in but adjacent to Beverly Hills (90210 is the 64th-most-wealthy ZIP code in the U.S.) — is the proprietor of Mystery Pier Books on Sunset in West Hollywood. A longtime character actor, Jason's ties to the movie industry have helped foster a trade in first editions and movie-oriented collectibles, like Harvey Cobb's "Paths to Glory" signed by Kirk Douglas, who starred in the film version. Harvey Jason told D'Agostino:
If I made a list of all the things in life I thought were coincidences and then looked back at them, I would see they weren't coincidences at all.
If we're happy, we make other people happy. If we're miserable — well, you know how contagious misery is.
Gratitude is the single emotion that propels me through life. It's the only emotion, I believe, that is thoroughly incompatible with negativity. And without negativity, you can have optimism — and optimism creates more optimism. I look over my shoulder and say 'This happened because of this and this and this.' Today I'm an optimist, but I'm an optimist based on my own experience.
As Obama said in his inauguration speech, "we gather because we have chosen hope over fear." If under the new Obama administration we all — even booksellers — can have hope and optimism, things might be looking up.
— Carolyn Kellogg
Photo: Cher's Malibu Mansion, courtesy of Sotheby's
