The Marketplace No Place At All

The Da Vinci code reporting reminded me that we have lost a quality in our culture that used be not less commercial, but less mercantile. A property ( let's say a manuscript) always needed an investor to produce the work. Leonard and Virginia Woolf published books, invested time money and energy, but worked the press and set type. They published poetry,essays, and fiction. James Joyce had a patron and found a publisher who owned a book store and was willing to take a chance on him. Today an author is truly property. An army of commercial interests descend on a property and divide it up into square feet of interests that eclipse the author/creator and mark out little squares of ownership almost losing sight of the work as art. The work appears and the investors hold their breath. One day makes or breaks the bank. A work standing on its own merit is ancient history. If a creation can be inflicted on the public by elaborate marketing strategies, it stands a chance of at least a small success.. The public will eventually catch on to a flop, but not because the creator failed, but because the marketing failed...so they think.