Anyone else seeing a great similarity with history from the ancient Roman empire playing itself out in the USA and the rest of the developed world with sports and entertainment and memorabilia? I have a friend that built a themed restaurant and I don’t have the heart to tell him that probably half the stuff he bought is a fake or a forgery.
“But it comes with a certificate of authenticity!”
“Do you think that if they write a fake autograph that they have a problem printing a fake certificate of authenticity?”
a friend in Europe was giggling that someone paid a few million dollars for the note I mentioned in yesterday’s blog from albert Einstein. it had me think back to when I was a kid and once a year my uncles would take us to a baseball game at Yankee stadium. of course as a kid we were praying a foul ball came our way, or during batting practice we could get a ball in the stands, walk down along the outfield line and stand there with a pen and the ball/program and wait for one of the players to come by and give us an autograph. there was no money exchanged, no lines, no one working to sell the signature to someone else. it was simply a great memento to take home and keep from a great trip to see a baseball game with my uncles.
I am not sure when we created the insane market for anything signed and or the current VIP experiences with entertainment and the where sport is now entertainment? I find it really bizarre that any human would spend the amounts of money they do for a signature. it reminds me of the history of the roman empire where the mass urban populations was kept in line with bread and free entertainment that progressed from circus maxiumus and the chariot races to the gladiators in the coliseum killing each other off in ever increasing spectaculars to keep the public happy and unfocused on the issues of the day and what was actually being done at the top levels of the power chain.
I see this process with academics the past 10 years where there is a rush for money and we have saddled our kids with debt loads and telling them if they have degrees. but very few industries have done as well as that as education with the world of not for profit status. just look at the revenue for college athletics and the pay of coaches to fill in the “ancient Rome” analogy.
and then this morning, I made the mistake of looking at some Instagram research to help a friend who is a gifted and talented sculpture maker – and I went, “huh? Instagram is getting worse? more selfies? more people posting pictures of what they look like?”
I wonder if I can start the anti-Instagram club – for people who are concerned for their friends. we send them a spiffy mirror they can give to their friend. either they will get a clue and say, “woah, I had no idea how strange posting pictures of myself was” or, they will stare into the mirror all day, “I am so purty! look at all the purty images (that look oddly the same) of me!"
dunno…and I really don’t want to know what the people would do. they would stare into their mobile or a mirror. is there such a thing as the lesser of two evils?