…then I could afford this lovely $18,000 chandelier.
Also, the house with the high-ceilinged dining room that it would fit in. And the mortgage payments that would go with it. All for a pretty luxury that lights the room less well than the mundane light fixture in our ceiling right now.
Looter class? Arrrrrr.
Having to regularly dust that thing without breaking off something would give me the willies.
@Larry:
If you own it, you’re not going to be the one cleaning it.
Larry@2,
But of course if PZ were a member of the looter class, it would be a servant who had that duty, and risked her* job if she caused damage.
*It almost certainly would be “her”.
I have got a high-ceiling room in my new apartment where I very probably could hang that thing. Almost directly above the computer, too. It’s the eighteen grand that I’m not so keen on parting with…
As for dusting, the mildly deranged penguin will think of something. Probably involving dynamite. (Which may also solve the problem of in hades to open the skylight in said room — her current proposal is to convert the shaft leading to the skylight into a missile silo, taking advantage that it is almost directly above the spiral stairs leading down to the front stairs.)
You LIE: you ARE a member of the elite bourgeois looter class! I have PROOF!!
PZ is just another example of the man trying to bring us all down with his fancy job in his fancy school with his fancy Trophy Wife® and his fancy Cat!
He probably has one of those gaudy chandeliers in EVERY WING OF HIS MANSION!!! And in his summer home in Carmel.
All for a pretty luxury that lights the room less well than the mundane light fixture in our ceiling right now.
This kind of attitude is why you’ll never be a 1%er. You think the only reason to spend gigantic piles of money on something is because it has a practical use. Our glorious job creator overlords know that the real reason to purchase gawdy chandeliers, shiny cars, and giant yachts is for the sick sadistic satisfaction of knowing theirs literally billions of people out their struggling to get food in their bellies who you culd have helped with that money and didn’t.*
*Aside from you’re relatively tiny ‘charity’ donations which your team of accountants have planned to the last penny to make sure you get it all back and more on your taxes.
If I could afford to buy it I’d smash the ugly looking thing and put in a nice fluro.
Mmmm, I like the idear, but that is gaudy. This isn’t a chandelier, but it’s a lovely piece of cephalopod art made from a vintage light source. Doesn’t cost a fortune, either.
That’s kind of expensive, but here’s what 2 orders of magnitude more expensive looks (or looked) like.
http://elitedaily.com/envision/kuwaits-most-expensive-chandelier-destroyed/
Wait a minute! An artist designed and made that one of a kind object. It may not be what you want to spend your time and/or money on, but isn’t calling for it to never have been made as it is only for the “looter class” a bit odd? Do we really want to say that if he isn’t doing art that glorifies the proletariat and uplifts the oppressed and feeds the hungry, or something, he is free game to be vilified? You may think the thing is overpriced (well, I do, too), but we have the only sure right to decide what his time and talent are worth to us by not buying it. We do not have to denigrate his choices of how he uses his talent at the same time. If he had designed it a smaller, less detailed, less artistic, and much cheaper chandelier and had it mass produced in plastic and tin in a place with low pay scales and no environmental protection so more people could afford it and he made the same $18,000 by selling thousands of them, would that somehow make it a better use of his creativity even if his talent demanded to make this kind of detailed, unique, and expensive piece?
Gwynnyd:
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don’t go making artists out to be sacred cows, please. Us artists deal with enough pretentious bullshit throughout our lives. Yes, most artists are seriously underpaid peons who would simply like to make what our time and effort is worth, however, there are plenty of artists who have a very inflated sense of self, and go way overboard on their pricing.
The larger idea here is that the item in question is a luxury, in every sense. It’s not a practical lightsource, so the whole chandelier thing is a bit silly. (My 2 cents as an artist). Making a number of smaller stained glass cephalopods, as an art sculpture, could have been sold for a reasonable price, eh? You just ran to the other extreme, without considering any of the options available to an artist. As for unique, well, it was obvious to me that the chandelier in question was attempting to mimic a Tiffany. :shrug:
You can hug it and love it and call it George for all I care, but don’t get all breathless silly over artists, please.
Oh, and Octopus chandeliers? More than you think.
Somebody has to invent the Octopus Chandelier with Writhing Arms.
Also, that one looks a lot like a Mimic octopus: which of course means that the invention should also be able to change color patterns and mimic.
I’m torn. On the one hand, anyone who can afford that sort of money is either obscenely rich or buying for a museum. On the other hand, paying large sums to independant craftspeople (who will then presumably spend most of it on local goods and services) is a fairly efficient way to redistribute money in the direction of the 99%. Short of major socio-economic reform, persuading the rich to buy luxury items that have a lot of labour costs sunk into their manufacture seems like an actual job-creation stimulus.
Being a fan of the new LED light bulbs I don’t think that really goes with our decor, but I still like it. If someone can afford it, I say why not?
Of course El Poopyhead may actually want a cephalapod house decoration more like this.
For the more modest tastes there’s always this lamp.
The Corning Museum of Glass has a rather more understated version.
Carlie @ 17, the Folpo Nero is gorgeous, much more than the tiffany knock off posted here.
You could also afford this cutie:
http://snakesaretailswithheads.tumblr.com/post/63635396340/farewellstars-look-at-the-little-octopus-look
@ Caine – No, of course artists aren’t sacred cows, but if what they make is not exactly to your taste or you think it is overpriced, it still need not be smashed, as grumpyoldfart 8 at suggested is the best use for it.
Well this is interesting. Paul has become such a dreary monomaniac on the atheism thing that all the life has drained away from his occaisional forays into the running cephalopod gag.
Come on guys, you can do better than this – we’ve all seen it.
Ah, that’s not an octopus chandelier.
Now *this* is an octopus chandelier.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lymypcjQmt1qa4wgqo1_500.jpg
Mortgage payments? Please. Those are for teachers. A savvy member of the looter class owns majority control of a company, buys the house for cash, sells it to the company at a loss (writing the capital loss off zir personal income), and leases the house back from the company at WAY below market rate (for a loss that can be written off for the company). One can do the same thing with cars, for example (hence the popularity of company cars).
It’s only called defrauding investors when one gets caught AND can’t spin some plausible-sounding rationalization (“retaining talent”, guaranteeing a “suitable dwelling” or “suitable vehicle” for “essential” employees, etc.) for whatever SEC official gets the case.
Flying Spaghetti Monster?