But oh dear, I'm forgetting my manners. Please allow me to introduce myself. Mr. Kite here, ever at your service. As you can see from my attire, I'm as fine a 19th century gentleman as you're likely to find anywhere these darksome latter days. Which is why I was amazed -- nay, astounded -- to find this picture of myself in the Microsoft Clipart and Media Gallery.

And I must say, they're doing a bangup job over there. Take the fellow I think of as Biz Guy, for example. Now this, if you'll allow me to point out, is an exemplary piece of neo-cubist post-socialist realism. Picasso would be eating his heart out.

Of course the dada-surrealist school is also represented...

And what collection would be complete without what was once called, in less politically sensitive times, "primitive" art?

It is nearly inconceivable that all these styles are the the output of a single Microsoft artist. But it's true. She is disconsolate, however, as she just got a bad review from her manager, and now she's thinking she'll have to get a job on a tuna boat.

But what does all this have to do with HighBeam Research, you ask? And I knew you were going to ask. In fact, I was hoping you would. Because you see, nothing demonstrates the utility of a fine historical document recovery system better than just such answers to just such questions. And here you thought I was merely fooling around. Hah!

Seattle is becoming an art mecca. Bill Gates, whose mother is director of the Seattle Art Museum, is a museum member, and both Sotheby's and Christie's have Seattle branches. Computer industry nouveau riche are becoming art investors.

CULTURE FOLLOWS MONEY. It was that way in the time of the Medicis, and it's that way in the time of cyberwealth. Notes Patterson Sims, the former associate director of the Seattle Art Museum, speaking of Seattle's new cyberrich: "It's not going to take two generations for these people to realize that they should collect art. They're exercising stock options and doing it now."

from: Swapping options for art: Microsoft and its new millionaires have made the Emerald City a hot market for contemporary art
by Doris Athineos
source: Forbes, 2 December 1996
via: HighBeam Research
Copyright © 1996 Forbes, Inc.