We buy them. We buy that. He gets a delicate fan for his daughter, a wedding registry dated for his birthday in 1921, and an old Marvel comic book. We then perform the aforementioned reverse-panhandle and return to the couch of the New Age hucksterism emporium where we met. They were institutions, not just some product of my imagination, and that gave me the idea that there were other traditions in this world that could sustain and could nourish.
W E GET UP and approach the shrine room.
A tiny pair of gold sandals sit reverently outside the door. They look perfectly in place. Returning to our cars, my reporter's instincts are dismayed. I have spent the greater part of one entire day with Rob Brezsny only to find that he likes to eat beets and that he drives an abhorrently filthy car. In a pathetic attempt to cull meaty information, I have already promised not to ask him what type of toothpaste he uses.