burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

So we went to the Rare Book Room for Romantic class today. I was there for English Language class last semester, but we looked at different stuff this time. One of the things we looked at was a large book of Blake's Songs of Experience with photographs by this guy Vitkin (i forget his full name and have had no luck on Google). The photographs weren't taken for the book but were chosen from his ouevre for the book. The cover is leather -- goatskin dyed purple. I shivered. The smell of leather disturbs me. But anyway, it's an interesting book because the photographs are so disturbing. The publisher just came out with Songs of Innocence which Smith didn't buy, but i would be really interested to see it because this guy's photographs hardly lend themselves to "innocence." But the point of this entry is that Smith bought this book for... $5,000; and the price it's selling for, even though it only came out a few months ago, has gone up to $12,000. I said the idea of paying that much money for, well, anything, was staggering (i didn't say obscene) to me.

( this is where i babble and come to conclusions -- or not -- as i go along )