$25 Metropolitan Museum of Art

My dear Met President and CEO Daniel Weiss:



First of all, until all this controversy arose about the new entrance fee to The Met, I had no idea you weren't simply a President, but are also a CEO. Good for you. Nothing nowadays says "The screams of the little people won't distract me from doing the proper thing" like the title "CEO". You have surely shown your mettle in this regard already. I hope they give you a couple Rembrandts along with a noble title like that.

Since your announcement of the new entrance fee you have no doubt had to endure a good deal of complaining and criticism. Perhaps you are afraid this will be just one more letter berating you for your decision. Well, yes and no. I certainly am not mad at you for introducing a $25 entrance fee for the out-of-towners. This has been a long time coming in my opinion. No, rather my complaint, Sir, is that you have set this levy far too low. Can I just say here that your lovely museum has been too crowded with smelly poor people and foreigners for many years now. Their uneducated gawking at our finest works of art is distracting at best, unhygienic and wasteful at worst. I feel setting a much higher barrier than you have recently instituted would demand the kind of commitment and sacrifice from the masses suitable to your august institution. A far more demanding fee would surely weed out the all too many who don't really belong there and likely don't feel comfortable there anyway. 

But I am not the rabble to yammer at you to get my way. I have a proposal for you. I have means but no wish to see my name scrawled uncouthly upon your fountains and doorways. I prefer to build a more suitable world. And so I offer you a gift of two million dollars for every dollar you raise your entrance fee. Raise it to $30 and you will see a small but useful gift from me and a trifling improvement in your clientele. Raise it to $200 and you shall be a richly endowed paradise for art lovers of true refinement and taste. Let the filthy Museum of Modern Art charge mere pocket change for entrance, the Met deserves a serious crowd of refined people like yourself and I.

With deep regards from one CEO to another,



Yours,



F. Calypso
Founder and CEO of Clerkmanifesto