The Publisher asks Chris Burden a question about money

Watching the scrap metal being lifted and pummelled and placed in neat piles at a salvage yard at Hunter's Point, the publisher remembered hearing that there was big money in scrap metal.

And that he'd once asked Chris Burden about the role money played in making or not making ambitious art projects. He couldn't remember what Burden had said, only that money was a big factor.

In the 1966, the writer Richard Brautigan reported total earnings for the year of $1, 356.75, acc. William Hjortsberg in his tome-ic new book, Jubilee hitchhiker, the life and times of Richard Brautigan (Counterpoint, 2012, $42.50.)

1966 is the year the publisher's father died, deeply in debt and leaving a $2,000 insurance policy to his wife and two young sons.

A nice video art project might someday be made--of the scrap metal crane lifting the long twisted pieces of metal in the air, dropping them from the jaws of the machine into the steel bin and pounding them into total submission--for practically nothing.