Tuesday, August 29, 2006

For sale!

You can sell anything these days. Consider the lady – or was she one – space on her own body to marketing whizkids! Or the boy who wanted to sell his baby sister for a new Beyblade! Or even the thousands of wannabe models, artists and assorted entrepreneurs who want to make a little money selling whatever they can, from a pen to a castle. And now there is the concept of selling – and so buying – art on the Internet. It goes from seller to buyer with little effort, no noise and very little room for the classic Bolly-Hollywood scenario of goons beating up the gallery owner to lower the price. But that is reel and not real life, I add hastily.

I have never been to an auction, though I have seen them on television and in movies and read about them in books. None of them reality, almost all with a denouement attached, lots of drama and, inevitably, a beautiful woman. In a very fun (albeit not funny) novel called a Calculated Risk, by Katherine Neville – who regrettably does not write as much and as fast as I wish she would! – two beautiful women, one old, white Russian and aristocratic, the other young, black and very modern American attend a very special auction. They are there to buy, of all things, an island, bang in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, consisting of little but a vast rock in the midst of scrub jungle. There are hot springs and orchids, fresh fish caught in the tiny village at the base of the rock and an ancient castle atop it. But the charm for the women and the furtherance of the plot is that the island, when owned, would be a tax haven on which to park illegally gained funds. There is drama, there is history, there is ulterior motive and adventure in the story, one that moves from the icy waters of the coast of New York to the chessboards of the world to the revolution that changed Russian history. The island is bought with money that is not theirs, but with a panache that carries the scene to its fascinating climax.

Of course, there is the dramatic auction of Phantom of the Opera, where the musical box with the figure of monkey goes under the hammer. It is orchestrated with tremendous bashings of the cymbals and the bass drum, with fire added by the sonorous voice of the auctioneer. As the opening scene of the Lloyd Webber production, it has flair, verve, noise and fury, setting the stage, as it were, for more, all culminating in the death of the Phantom and the success of the Christine-Raoul romance.

The auction scene in Hum Hai Rahi Pyar Ke ends the film with as much drama, but with lots of melo- prefixed to it. There is a collation of baddies gathered outside the house, who want to buy it from the beleaguered owner, Aamir Khan, who arrives at the proverbial nick of time with his cohorts in a tourist bus, all raring to save the day. An egg fight ensues that adds to the overall manic hilarity of the plot, and the villains are forced to retreat, egg-covered, admitting ignominious defeat. The house is saved, the hero wins, the heroine is won – after a short battle with her father – and the good guys live happily ever after, Japan-returned manager and all.

More recently there was an auction on the television soap I sometimes watch while I am getting ready for bed at night and dodging the resident kitten’s sharp claws and teeth. The house of the heroine was being sold, under her very feet, as the cliché says, and an anti-hero-ish character whom I have lost track of since then comes to the rescue. Just as the gavel went down on the final “SOLD!”, the saviour and his coverts of lawyers step in and save the day, the house and the izzat of the family. Drama indeed.

With these as examples, I wait for real-life drama when art goes up for bids over the next month or so. Whether my craving for a good adventure story will be satisfied, I don’t know, but I wait and hope…

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