Auctions

Not so long ago, it was advantageous to attend an auction in order to do well at it.  Only then could you get the best price; could you watch the other bidders and decide whether you could compete with them or not; could you see an opportunity and jump in to grab a bargain.

Not so long ago, if you stayed at the auction to the very end – long after others in the room had spent their allotted funds or gotten what they wanted – you often found that there were so few left in the “competition” that you were able to win many prizes on a small budget.

Not so long ago, knowledge could mean the difference between success and failure.  Once, for example, as the only ones at an auction who could read German, we scored a fabulous book which no one else in the room could know was fabulous!

Not so long ago, happy chance could mean the difference between victory and defeat, between a bargain and paying top dollar.  At one auction, somehow, the other bidders didn’t make the connection that Henry George Wells was H.G. Wells, so I was able to walk off with a manuscript for half of what I’d expected to pay.

Not so long ago, attending an auction was like participating in an interactive-theatrical event, with the excitement and the anticipation and the unexpected all unfolding as part of a drama.

No longer.

At a big New York City auction yesterday, I felt that “not so long ago” was very long ago, indeed, and that everything I’d known about auctions was no longer true.

Now, everyone in the room knows everything:  if they hadn’t already “googled” it, they are busy on their “smart phones” getting the information then and there.

Now, you have huge numbers of invisible bidders from all over the world bidding against you, not just by phone, but also via the Internet! 

Now, you can’t see most of your competitors, so you don’t know whether they are knowledgeable bidders or just rich folk who are used to getting whatever they want at whatever the price; you don’t know whether they’re bidding from Paris or from around the corner; you don’t know whether they’re buying for resale or for themselves.

Now, there is no advantage – none! – to being in the auction room, as the internet bidders have become the preferred ones. 

Yesterday’s auction was held up several times – once for about 40 minutes! – in order to accommodate a slow or failing internet feed.  When the bidders in the room grumbled about this, we were admonished by the auctioneer that these were “serious” bidders and that the “house” just “couldn’t go on without them.” Someone shouted, “We’re serious bidders, too.”  But all that got for us were some pastries, as we continued to wait….

Over and over again, the internet bidders were given preference over the bidders in the room.  Whereas we in the room were pressured into making quick and sometimes hasty decisions –

“Fair Warning:  Going Once, Twice, Sold” –

the Internet bidders were told,

“Fair Warning:  Going Once ………….. Going Twice…………. Are you sure?…………….  Fair Warning:  Going Once………. Going Twice………” 

You get the picture.

The prices were incredibly, sometimes laughably high, and the “professionals” in the room kept shaking their heads in amazement.  (And aren’t we in a recession?  Aren’t we supposed to be getting these things for a song now?)

The internet bidders seemed to have limited knowledge and unlimited funds.  And the bidders in the room served the auction house well by bidding up items before dropping out and leaving the field to the internet ones; then we [with our pastries] got to listen silently as these invisible bidders bid against one another:   Fair Warning:  Going Once……….. Going Twice……….. Are you sure….?

Not surprisingly, the only items that sold for amounts below their estimates were the ones on which no one in the room bid against their internet competitors.  Loud complaints were expressed as the people in the room made their way out the door at the auction’s end.

I was hot and tired and disappointed, but I’d always chided myself for not attending these auctions, and now I’d learned an important lesson:  I don’t have to take a 3-hour trip into Manhattan; I don’t have to deal with the traffic and the noise and the heat of the city; I don’t have to worry about finding a cab or getting a good seat at the auction. 

Instead of being in the auction house and bidding up the prices for them, I can claim the internet bidder’s advantage and do it all from the comfort of my living room.  And I will. 

Fair Warning.

Jude Law as HAMLET

As much as I hate to agree with Tolstoy (see:  Would you believe,WAR AND PEACE?), HAMLET has never been one of my favorite plays.

I’ve seen innumerable productions, both live and on film, including a memorable one at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, MA, in which a real mother-and-son duo played Gertrude and Hamlet – thus bringing to the fore the incestuous nature of that relationship, which more typically hovers a bit below the main action....

I always find HAMLET one of the most frustrating of plays:

Is he or isn’t he?

Should he or shouldn’t he?

Will he or won’t he?

Does he or doesn’t he?

Well, he finally does – but rather too late, I think; as during the interim before he finally does, it causes a lot of unnecessary fall-out, including the deaths of innocents. (Today we might call it “collateral damage….”)

But I’m always eager for an excuse to go to Manhattan, so I thought that a star-turn by a movie actor trying his hand at HAMLET was excuse enough.

The play was in a fairly small theater which made it easy to see the actors’ faces, but I think the sets – mainly a dark bare stage with an occasional huge door or wall and the like – took away from the potential intimacy that this small theater afforded. 

On a grand scale, too, were the white lighting effects that swirled over the stage from time to time.  This lighting, along with a dramatic musical accompaniment that foreshadowed the action – much as in a film – were a bit jarring.

I wasn’t crazy about the costumes either, as it was all “modern” dress.  Most wore black:  black leather bomber-jackets, tight black jeans, gray tee shirts, and the like.

I guess with the costumes, sets and lighting, the director was trying to make this a “current” tale.  You know:  “Hamlet is just like us.”  (I don’t think so…!)  In any case, it didn’t work for me – but then, I’m a sucker for costume dramas, so I may be a bit biased here.

The acting, however, was very, very good.  Some actors played several parts, and they so disappeared into their characters that you often didn’t notice that it was the same actor until you looked at the Playbill.

And Jude Law was brilliant:  the best Hamlet I’d ever seen.

His performance was very athletic, very physical – no moody Dane he!  This Hamlet was bristling with a kinetic, manic energy; and he seemed ready to burst, to explode!  One felt that from the first, he knew what he had to do; that from the first, he had decided to murder his father’s murderer – despite that this murderer was Claudius, his uncle and now stepfather.

Throughout the play, it felt as though only the force of will prevented Hamlet from doing what he knew must be done.  How can he make a widow of his mother yet again?  How can he kill Claudius while he was engaged in prayer and thereby send the murderer’s soul straight to heaven?

The questions for this Hamlet – using the very same words as every other Hamlet! – seemed never to be “should I” or “could I,” but only “how to” and “when to.”

And in his delivery, Law also managed to find a tongue-in-cheek humor that really did make this Hamlet seem more “human” than most; and which also helped illuminate some of the self-deprecating undercurrents in the character’s thoughts.

But most memorable was the sheer physicality of Jude law’s performance.  He was all over the stage:  sometimes flying like a dancer; sometimes squatting heavily on the floor as if to control himself, as if to hold himself back, hold himself down….

His hands, too:  like a dancer’s.  Every muscle, every movement, every gesture, told us something about this loving but tormented man.

I loved this HAMLET – all 3 & ½ hours of it!

Bravo, Jude Law.