Creative Capital Archives - Pittsburgh Quarterly

I’d returned to VA after visiting a crazy lady’s house and was heading up to my room to sleep off all the beer I’d drunk. Unfortunately, Meg and Terry had heard the Vespa and they came rushing through the kitchen calling my name. My heart sank. Previously in this series: Genny Cream Ale“Thank God you’re …

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Creative Capital

Genny Cream Ale

by Greg Curtis

The VA building had many quirks, probably because no one had ever thought through anything – stuff was just added on when it was needed, without any relation to what was already there. Previously in this series: Enter: The Ill-fated LovebirdsOne of the oddest quirks wasn’t structural, though – there was a large, overstuffed, living …

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Creative Capital

The Ill-fated Lovebirds

by Greg Curtis

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s chauffeur-driven Cadillac had stopped at VA for directions. and I’d offered him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, to the immense amusement of Rich Bolotin – and of Solzhenitsyn himself. Previously in this series: Enter: The Man of MysterySolzhenitsyn’s party was headed to Island Pond to look at a house that was for …

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Creative Capital

Enter: The Man of Mystery

by Greg Curtis

The weekend after a brick had been thrown through VA’s front window, I rode the Vespa back to campus and returned with my hunting rifle, a Winchester lever-action Model 94, chambered for a 30-30 round. I carried the Winchester in a faux-leather rifle case and most people assumed I was some sort of musician. Previously …

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Creative Capital

A Bloody Face

by Greg Curtis

I’d been on the couch at VA with Meg and Terry Petronius when the front window exploded with a sound like an atomic bomb. Previously in this series: Under AttackThe three of us screamed and fell to the floor in a tangled mess, covering our heads. Then tires squealed out on the road and I …

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Creative Capital

Under Attack

by Greg Curtis

I’ve mentioned that I’d been flirting like crazy with Meg Petronius – The Most Perfect Girl in the World – from my first day at VA, but with dismal results. At one point I’d gotten so desperate I even flirted once with her older sister, Terry, who job-shared with Meg. Previously in this series: The …

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Creative Capital

The Flinty Vermonter

by Greg Curtis

I had left the repair of the Trombley barn’s floor for last because it seemed as if it would be the simplest part of the job. I was way wrong. More of the joists were rotten than I had anticipated, and the work mostly had to be done while standing in the barn’s disgusting basement. …

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The Hole that Swallowed Eddie

by Greg Curtis

The VA kids and I had returned to the Trombley barn to finish painting it, except that the first coat we’d put on two weeks earlier had completely disappeared, soaking into the old wood as if it’d never been applied. Previously in this series: The Charm OffensiveWhen I reported this catastrophe to Rich, he looked …

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Creative Capital

The Charm Offensive

by Greg Curtis

As I’ve mentioned, pretty much everyone in the Northeast Kingdom hated VA. But according to Rich Bolotin, who ran VA, this was no more than a minor misunderstanding – a little re-education would turn these folks around in no time. Previously in this series:MomSpecifically, Rich’s idea was that the kids at VA would perform a …

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Mom

by Greg Curtis

More of my experiences at my summer job at VA, a halfway house for juvenile delinquents in Stilton, Vermont. I forgot to mention that everybody in the Northeast Kingdom hated VA. When I first started, Meg had said to me, “The dopes up here think the girls are going to seduce their sons and the …

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Creative Capital

Losing It…

by Greg Curtis

Although Meg Petronius had warned me that working at VA was no walk in the park, I found it pretty much to be a walk in the park. Maybe that was because I was a teenager myself. I was nineteen and not much older than the kids, and most of the things that interested them …

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Creative Capital

Meeting Miss Perfect

by Greg Curtis

I’d just come face-to-face with The Most Perfect Girl in the World and I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Oh, sure, The Most Perfect Girl in the World just happened to be hanging out in Stilton, Vermont, population 124.” Previously in this series: Surprise, Surprise…Allow me to explain. You see, every guy has his …

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Creative Capital

Surprise, Surprise…

by Greg Curtis

The lady at the artists’ colony had told me, just before slamming the door in my face, that Vermont Academy was the “next house.” I looked up that way but didn’t see a next house. Previously in this series: VAI sighed, climbed back on the Vespa and headed north. Almost immediately the next house came …

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Creative Capital

Where is This Place?

by Greg Curtis

I was calling Vermont Academy to set up a summer job interview. In those days the protocol was that you let a phone ring 10 times – if your party hadn’t picked up by then he was either on the can or he didn’t want to talk to you. Previously in this series: VAI’d just …

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Creative Capital

VA

by Greg Curtis

It was May, near the end of my freshman year in college, and I was wallowing in the bottom five percent of my class. A lot of people would probably be embarrassed about that, but not me. I’d gone to a lousy high school, had never studied, and didn’t even know how to study. Yet, somehow, almost …

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Creative Capital

Recalling the End of a Fascinating Company

by Greg Curtis

Last week I described one of the existential challenges that faced the Butler County Mushroom Farm – intense competition from China and, later, other Asian countries, who shipped massive volumes of low-quality mushrooms into the US. Previously in this series: Bye Bye FungiAs BCMF’s revenues and profits declined, another existential challenge arose – the company’s …

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Creative Capital

Bye Bye Fungi

by Greg Curtis

“The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.” — Dick the Butcher in Act IV, Scene II of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II Following the successful sale of stock in Butler County Mushroom Farm to its employees, the company entered into a long and sad decline. I wasn’t around for that unhappy ride because …

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Stock for the Mushroom Workers

by Greg Curtis

“The way to make money in the stock market is to buy a stock. Then, when it goes up, sell it. If it’s not going to go up, don’t buy it.” — Will Rogers Previously in this series: Meddling with MushroomsMy biggest legal project for Butler County Mushroom Farm was also my last. Mr. Y, the …

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Creative Capital

Meddling with Mushrooms

by Greg Curtis

“A meal without mushrooms is like a day without rain.” — John Cage Previously in this series: Basking in the Mushroom Limelight“I learned more about psychology in the five hours after taking these mushrooms than in the preceding 15 years of studying and doing research.” — Timothy Leary It’s almost impossible to exaggerate what an extraordinary …

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Basking in Mushroom Limelight

by Greg Curtis

“Mushrooms have many helpful nutrients, including beta glucans for immune enhancement, ergothioneines for antioxidative potentiation, nerve growth stimulators for helping brain function, and antimicrobial compounds for limiting viruses.” — Paul Stamets, American mycologist Previously in this series: The Life and Death of Moonlight Mushrooms “Falling in love is like eating mushrooms, you never know if it’s …

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Creative Capital

The Life and Death of Moonlight Mushrooms

by Greg Curtis

“All mushrooms are edible, but some are edible only once.” Philip Hanes, mushroom expert quoted in the New York Times I was just out of law school, working for a huge law firm and still trying to figure out what the practice of law was all about. One day I received a call from the secretary of …

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Creative Capital

The Perils of Fed Speak

by Greg Curtis

“Our regulators are proving worse than the Bourbons: they have learnt nothing and forgotten everything.” — Martin Sandbu, Financial Times, quoting Talleyrand Previously in this series: Can the Fed be Saved?For nearly three decades the U.S. Fed has followed easy money policies regardless of economic conditions, giving birth to a series of economic crises unlike any the …

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