We all went up to Stone Road Mall this morning to make images of 'exotic cars.' Exotic? I suppose so, though the socialist in me views them somewhat more as 'conspicuous.' Funny how a catch-phrase such as 'conspicuous consumption,' so popular in the early 90s of the last century should have lost currency the way it seems to have done in the past decade. There was a time when these cars were regarded quite simply as the very apex of conspicuous consumption. This was when the concept of consumption was still regarded with some nominal degree of sanity.
Let's not go crazy with heady discussion of concepts here, BUT, if we accept the hypothesis that cinema, in whatever form it is being consumed, is the current and most accurate reflection of where North American society is at, we can draw all sorts of conclusions. Case in point: I saw a promo on TV the other day for the new Michael Douglas film. This is the ongoing saga (it would seem) of one Gordon Gecko.
I don't pay attention to ads very often. Truly. There are times, however, when it is difficult to ignore whatever steaming pile of crap is being served up. In this instance the promoters had very carefully set off the key phrase from the original flick, the words which were meant to make it simple for all of us to 'grok' the film and its ideas before we ever get near the product itself. IMO this is most often done nowadays (tying the current offering to its far greater precedent) when a picture is weak and the boys upstairs wish to get the maximum number of butts into expensive cinema seats before the picture tanks and goes to cheap mass consumption.
Gordon notes that 20 years ago greed was good, now it's legal. We all remeber 'Wall Street' don't we? Gecko was a really slimy villain who would do just about anything to turn a decent buck. He has just emerged from jail, doing the time for the his crime, of course.
Gordon was terribly greedy, even in the slothfully coke-ridden, hopelessly meaningless 80s paradigm. Bad Gordon! No small irony I suppose, not even having seen the picture, that what Gordon did his time for in the 80s has become the cornerstone of a shaky foundation in 21st-century society in America. Thanks Dubya . . . .
I have no idea why I have attempted to make that correlation with my images of 'exotic cars' taken earlier today but there you go.
Honestly? I could care less if only one edition of each car was ever constructed so long as I had the opportunity to go and look at that car and take pictures of it. I know less than nothing about the nuts and bolts of any automobiles, never mind the high performance expensive models like these. I adore them because they are beautiful. For me the cars are works of art. Sculpture. Small symphonies in form, light, and texture. Someone had to get seriously creative in the first place to put up a design for each of these creations.
Now . . . when some wealthy moron (oohh Dave, lighten up!) wants to pay 1/4 million dollars for any inanimate thing, a car in this instance, to reassure him/her self that they are indeed wealthy enough to do so, who am I to pass judgement. *smile*
P.S. I have specifically avoided sax and violins in our wee diatribe. Things could have grown messy in a big hurry trying to sort allof that layer out. I have barely, barely scratched the surface of that which I have chosen to write about.
Sure are pretty cars, ain't they?
