Bernard was quoted in a profile the New York Times Magazine saying that he just didn't think that anyone who didn't have a 20 x 20 foot wall space in their house really needed to have one of his paintings.

It wasn't Bernard's profile, exactly, though there he slouched on the cover of the Magazine. It was a profile of the architect who'd designed one of those very houses for Evander Corbin, the collector. What does it take to get a definite article epithet from the New York Times? What's the measure of such greatness? For it was not Evander Corbin, a collector: it was Evander Corbin, the collector, because everyone is supposed to know his name. And if you don't (there must be some such poor benighted souls, otherwise why bother with the epithet at all?) you are to be made to know that you are supposed to know. Do they keep a list? "Famous People -- don't use these names without the definite article"?

It so befell that Evander Corbin, the discreet -- Evander Corbin, the old-moneyed -- he was himself not photographed for the story -- had collected some of Bernard's paintings, and was in mind to put one up on the 20 x 20 wall that Julio Castaneira, architect (who according to the Times in fact merited at least an indefinite article, which I omit out of spite) had designed.

The vague theme of the story was that big was in again, where houses were concerned. Bernard approved of Mr. Castaneira's work.