My Paparazzo

Julia Roberts and Jason Patric in the back of a taxi © Ron Galella

I just read this Wired article wherein the author hires her own paparazzo at $500/hr to stalk her throughout the day. The goal is to take "artful images that look unstaged and off-the-cuff."

First, the images do not look like paparazzi images so much as the photos they find taped all over the bedroom walls of the quiet neighbor who just stalked you for three years before murdering you in the elevator.

Second, this is further evidence that our cultural engine is running on fumes. I have not put the numbers into the computer yet, but I have a theory that our culture is about to become so self-referential that it collapses under it's own weight of ironic self-awareness and forms a giant black hole of metaness.

Further Evidence of an Impending Apocalypse

From Best Week Ever:

For some reason, esteemed celebrity photographer Martin Schoeller, who has created stark portraits of Hollywood legends, such as Angelina Jolie, Christopher Walken, Jack Nicholson, and Tom Hanks, was convinced to use his time and talent taking pictures of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt. The results? Terrifying.

I'm imagining an episode of Antiques Roadshow airing 150 years from now, in which a hillbilly comes in with these two portraits, having purchased them for $5 at a garage sale. The appraiser goes into a long explanation of the genius and value of Martin Schoeller's work. You can see the excitement in the hillbilly’s eyes as he starts to believe that he has something very valuable on his hands. Then the appraiser says, "Now, if you had brought in one of Schoeller's portrait of say, Bill Clinton or Sting, they would have been worth upwards of $400,000 each. But these two aren’t in demand and represent the later years in which Schoeller's work greatly slipped in relevance, and they’re worth virtually nothing today." The hillbilly slinks away in defeat.

See the carnage here.