As a sensitive aesthete, I greatly enjoyed The Epicurean Dealmaker's latest foray into meta-sarcasm, this time directed towards the obsession that the nouveau -riches have with preposterously expensive art.
The Epicurean Dealmaker: L.H.O.O.Q.
Now the cynics among you (surely not among my readers?) might sigh and shift impatiently in your seats, expecting some hackneyed jeremiad about conspicuous consumption, invidious consumption, and fine art as a Veblen good. But no, my hackneyed jeremiad will address one or two far more interesting subtleties which I perceive (or am willing to invent) as characterizing the current phenomenon of hedge fund barons spending their ill-gotten gains on art.
I give TED top marks for both using the phrase "Veblen good" and for refraining from referring to the Feast of Trimalchio from Petronius' Satyricon, which was the most obvious, and sophomoric, parallel to draw. TED of course is beyond such pseudo-learned posturing, unlike myself.
The Epicurean Dealmaker: L.H.O.O.Q.
Now the cynics among you (surely not among my readers?) might sigh and shift impatiently in your seats, expecting some hackneyed jeremiad about conspicuous consumption, invidious consumption, and fine art as a Veblen good. But no, my hackneyed jeremiad will address one or two far more interesting subtleties which I perceive (or am willing to invent) as characterizing the current phenomenon of hedge fund barons spending their ill-gotten gains on art.
I give TED top marks for both using the phrase "Veblen good" and for refraining from referring to the Feast of Trimalchio from Petronius' Satyricon, which was the most obvious, and sophomoric, parallel to draw. TED of course is beyond such pseudo-learned posturing, unlike myself.
I did have to deduct a mark for his failure to bridge the title of his essay back to whether or not Ken Griffin or Stevie Cohn have a nice butt. It might not be central to TED's thesis, but it would have been a nice bonus.
2 comments:
You're right, once again, Lee: I anticipated that readers would want to know who has the hot hand *er* ass in collecting nowadays. Unfortunately, by the end of the piece I had run out of quarters to feed my blogging machine, so I had to stop.
(It's part of my settlement with the Feds. Too complicated to explain here.)
Cheerio!
Wow, they must have really had you by the short & curlies if you didn't manage to wriggle away with only an agreement that, while not admitting guilt still had you promising to never do it again.
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