Published: May 10, 2008 11:57 pm            

WOLCOTT: The answer to recession, a 7 cent nickel and Groucho Marx

Thomas R. Marshall, who was vice president under Woodrow Wilson, once said, “What this country needs is a really good 5 cent cigar.” That was 1920 and even then a nickel was not what it used to be.

During the Depression, Groucho Marx coined the 7 cent nickel and the mustached comic made sense. “One nickel carefully used would last a family a lifetime,” Marx reasoned in Animal Crackers. A nickel is no longer what it was 10 years ago and even 15 years ago going back to 1492, Marx added, and that’s nearly 100 years with daylight saving time.

Marx even advocated an 8 cent nickel. That way, a person could buy a 3 cent newspaper and get the same nickel back. One could use the same nickel over and over again in a three-penny store.

Goofy as that sounds, it now costs 7.5 cents to make a nickel because of the soaring costs of zinc, copper and nickel.

Call it inflation, a recession or the bridge to depression, economists aren’t sure what we have now. Whatever, Congress might bring back the steel-made coins of World War II.

A steel nickel? Sounds like an oxymoron. What this country really needs is Groucho Marx — and a good 3 cent newspaper.

•••

They shoot horses don’t they? The question was raised when Eight Belles was euthanized after finishing second in the Kentucky Derby. The filly was game at the finish, but broke both front ankles at Churchill Downs.

Why do they put horses to sleep? Dad, who grew up in Wyoming County, didn’t explain it when he told the story of one of the work horses on the farm. The horse was blind, stepped in a hole and broke its leg. I guess they shot Tony.

Sue Miller, who owns Abdullah, one of the top 50 horses of the 20th century explained why horses are euthanized. “Horses are terrible, terrible, terrible patients,” the owner of Williamsburg Farm in Middleport said. “Physically, they have to be on their feet. When a horse lies down, his lungs are so big he groans to breathe when he’s down. He’s a flight animal. They get scared and run a way.

They are meant to be on their feet. A horse cannot lie down and be fine.”

•••

Contemporary art and I are not at war. I just don’t understand it. It needs an explanation.

However, there’s a contemporary exhibit at the Albright-Knox Gallery that needs no words. It’s the Jennifer Steinkamp exhibit. See it. Be part of it and just say “wow.”

It’s difficult to know how someone could imagine it, much less produce it. The video and new media artist creates stunning shows and the viewer can step into it.

The upstairs exhibit costs $10, but folks who take advantage of Gusto at the Gallery on Friday nights can get it free after 9 p.m.

Tell them Groucho sent you.

Contact reporter Bill Wolcott at 439-9222, ext. 6246.

        

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