The nadir of 1964 coincided with Lenny’s imprisonment and Ron Rice’s death

Evidence

The World’s Fair year ended on a dismal note. On December 21, Lenny was sentenced to four months of hard labor. Christmas Day, Ron Rice died of pneumonia in Acapulco, Mexico, where he had fled after the Flaming Creature bust. He was twenty-nine. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 627

Categorization

• XREF: Ron Rice’s death after fleeing a drug bust — a member of the scene lost to the enforcement apparatus — records the real price of the illicit economy that underwrote the downtown art world, consistent with the book’s emphasis on illegality as one of the material conditions of the scene.