For centuries, walls have told the story. Now that the gods have fallen, and history seems to be one long sequence of mistakes, city walls have not ceased to be a place of celebration and teaching. Where gods, heroes, or events of the past once towered, common, everyday objects now appear: the open-air morality of the contemporary city, advertising, continues to speak to us about the good, but it does so through cars, telephones, razors, clothes, food, and what we are used to calling goods.