“To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as a camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a subliminal murder—a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time.”

*

Everyone in New York has a story about a close-call with a celebrity. In a city that's home to one million millionaires and almost 80 billionaires, a run-in with the rich and famous is bound to happen eventually. I don't frequent the right ticketed sex parties and don't have the foresight to book tables 10 months in advance, so this is a rare occasion for me. But one time, I showed up to an indie zine fair allegedly 10 minutes after Jeff Bezos, his body-double, and a bodyguard detail, left.

My only regret in my entire six years as a Brooklyn resident is not leaving my apartment for this event even 11 minutes earlier. Not because I need to get a glimpse of that shiny head perusing anti-capitalist art, but to get a peekie-see at his feetsies.

Months later, I found myself standing at the entrance of the Liberty Ferry in Battery Park on a 30-degree day, gazing at a spot where Bezos walked last spring, closely examining the stones where his shoes once tread. How big were those shoes, I would ask myself on this unholy pilgrimage.

To the general public, the size of Bezos' feet is a mystery no one seems to have the answer to except the man himself. I sought to discover it.

THE CURRENT CLAIMS

There are dozens of websites devoted to celebrities' bodily measurements, including statistics about their height, weight, eye color, age, and astrological signs. Most of these sites include an entry for Bezos and on average, they agree on the basics: He's five feet, seven inches tall, weighs around 154lbs, is 57 years old, and has brown eyes.