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Sherlock Holmes and The Whitechapel Murders: An account of the matter by John Watson M.D.

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Mark Sohn

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“He drew an oval shape to the left of the board, a doorway to the centre and a noose to the right. ‘Here-’ - he indicated the oval- ‘We have the population of London, gathered together in a single mass. Our door here will admit just one of these millions, so acting as a filter. This individual is the one suited for the noose, the man we shall see hang.’ ‘But, Holmes-how do we make the correct selection?, the odds must be several million to one.’ ‘Let us see if we can lower those odds. - Holmes to Watson, Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders”

Sherlock HolmesJack The RipperSherlockWhitechapel
Book:Sherlock Holmes and The Whitechapel Murders: An account of the matter by John Watson M.D.
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“The city reeked of death, and the savages that resided within its imposing starkness existed in fear of their lives. They had been shocked by the recent bloody Whitechapel murders, as if starvation, disease, moral degradation, and perpetual smog drowning all color in gray wasn’t enough to bring home the pathetic reality of their miserable existence. The police were no nearer to capturing the monster that lurked in the crevices, and London seemed stiller in the dark, the streets devoid of hope.”

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“Her voice was soft and numinous, as befitted any Aizian singer, yet it was not just bells and melody. There was something else in her tune, a strand of solemnity that no Aizian could possess, for it yearned for something far away, whereas Aizians needed only open their eyes to behold the greatest wonders. Yes, she was in Aizai now, but she hadn’t always been, and for how much longer was impossible to say.”

WonderMusicFantasyMelancholyFar AwayEldoraAizai
Book:Aizai the Forgotten
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“The most intensely value-laden artifacts of human creativity - works of art - are now the purist examples of that old capitalist alchemy: turning human value into exchange value. At a certain point, and that point has been passed, the art market will only be a mathematical exchange. Art is worth money, but what’s money worth? Money is the ultimate numbers game. What the furor over the art market brings tantalizingly close to the surface is the fact that it is not just the value of art that is dependant on a shared fantasy, it is also money itself. Warhol is not the name of an artist, it is the name of a currency. “Warhol” is a big number because its denomination (soup cans, Brillo box simulacrums, etc.) is presumed to be stable and growing. But it can inflate or deflate like any stock or bond or national currency. Jeff Koons is also a currency but less stable. The only thing that really changes hands are the numbers that are for some reason associated with these opaque talismans called “artworks.” The billionaire buyers of these works have been reduced to South sea natives who insist on the magical properties of certain queer objects - a cornhusk doll with pearls for eyes and a colourful ribbon about its head - but are unable to say why they are so important or why their world would collapse without them. Investors in the art market need to fear bot only the economic boogies of bubbles and ponzi schemes but also that dreaded moment when they look at one another in panic and say, “What were we thinking? What is this stuff? What could have possessed us to say that a glass balloon dog is worth thens of millions? Sell! Sell!”

HumansArtCapitalismEconomicsBubblePonzi
Book:We, Robots: Staying Human in the Age of Big Data
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