Continuing to exploit his brief [Ed. Note: This is brief? We should all be so lucky!] moment in the sun via a freelance magazine career, Dana Vachon pops up in the September issue of Departures, which you only get if you are in possession of an American Express Platinum or Black ("Centurion"?) card or a dentist. Dana's story is about a former J.P. Morgan analyst (like Dana!) who left the firm to pursue the quixotic dream of becoming a gajillionaire by starting an obscure, high-end liquor company in Brazil. So far, he's not having much luck. Anyway, Dana's contributor's bio (click to enlarge!) is a masterful stroke of image creation.

A couple weeks ago, we learned that Dana's "Night Out With" in the Times Styles section wasn't really him; apparently his publisher had told him to "ham it up," to make it seem like he was a character in his own book. Mmmmkay! We wonder, did s/he have a hand in what he wrote in this bio?:

In my opinion, beauty is that which naturally pleases the senses. Style is an artificial attempt to help beauty along and is often confused for beauty itself.

We suppose this is what passes for deep on Wall Street. Also, one gets style at "Gucci, Turnbull & Asser, Stubbs & Wootton." Of course.

In This Issue [Departures, password protected against poor people]