If You Wear A Suit, You Can

It Is No Accident That Banks Resemble Temples, Preferably Greek, And That The Supplicants Who Come To Perform The Rites Of Deposit And Withdrawal Instinctively Lower Their Voices Into The Registers Of Awe. Even The Most Junior Tellers Acquire Within Weeks Of Their Employment The Officiousness Of Hierophants Tending An Eternal Flame.

Tardiness Is Next To Wickedness In A Society Relentless In Its Consumption Of Time As Both A Good And A Service--as Tweet And Instagram, Film Clip And Sound Bite, As Sporting Event, Investment Opportunity, Tinder Hookup, And Interest Rate--its Value Measured Not By Its Texture Or Its Substance But By The Speed Of Its Delivery, A Distinction Apparent To Andy Warhol When He Supposedly Said That Any Painting That Takes Longer Than Five Minutes To Make Is A Bad Painting.

The Playing Field Is More Sacred Than The Stock Exchange, More Blessed Than Capital Hill Or The Vaults Of Fort Knox. The Diamond And The Gridiron -- And, To A Lesser Degree, The Court, The Rink, The Track, And The Ring -- Embody The American Dream Of Eden.

Further Strengthenings Of The Self-centered Instinct For Survival Recruit Even Greater Numbers Of People Into Some Sort Of Ring Of Fellowship (church Or Gender, Red State Or Blue) By Populating The Terra Incognita Outside The Ring With Enough Barbarians To Verify The Existence Of A Civilization Within--to Define The Preferred Stock By What, As All Good People Agree, It Decidedly Is Not.

If You Wear A Suit, You Can Talk To Anybody.