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Non olet pecunia!

PaulEberhardt

on Aug. 4, 2012

[p]Non olet pecunia - money doesn't stink! That old Roman emperor knew what he was talking about! ;) For a time, I toyed with the idea of having Christian change into a Megadeth-shirt and calling the page "Pee sells… But who's buying?" However, I eventually thought that would be stressing it a bit too much.[/p]
[p]This page, if not this entire story, had two major inspirations in real life. Unfortunately, the part where I get money is entirely fictional.[/p] [p]The first inspiration was an arts exhibition I saw many years ago, which left me with the impression that, as long as you have the right connections and put enough conviction into declaring it a work of art, people will buy just about anything. The object I have in mind was an ordinary rock suspended from a washing line, that was in turn tied to another washing line between two trees. The artist had put a price tag on it that displayed a three digit number. More strikingly, it was actually labelled "sold"!*[/p]
[p]The other inspiration was a seminar in "Cultural Studies". A major topic was the discussion about "the alienation from nature as a defining feature of industrialised societies" (or something along these lines, I can't really remember). This, and my lifelong addiction to bad puns, prompted me to spend most of these one and a half hours drawing naturist aliens, much to the amusement of my seat neighbours. :P[/p]
[p]* Still, it must be said that he or she was in a way successful in presenting this thing as art: I can still remember it very clearly after all those years. Please don't get me wrong on this: there is lots of modern art that I think is really great and that there are many artists that totally deserve the recognition they get. But this… damn it, it was just a rock tied to a washing line. The main effort obviously went into selling it for a few hundred Deutschmark (yep, it's that long ago). Actually quite a feat, come to think of it.[/p]
[p]Have a nice weekend, and thanks for reading and commenting![/p]