What's It Worth To You

This week my Ralph's paper grocery bag says, "Kids! Color this bag in celebration of Earth Day 2004 and we'll give you a nickel!" At first I was like, "I understand why the supermarket unions went on strike," because Ralph's is ouuuut of touch. Back in the early nineties, the Tooth Fairy was already pricing one of my teeth at a dollar. If you take into account inflation and the reality that a colored paper bag, while it may approach art, is no Seigel molar, I'd at least figure a decorated bag at fifty cents- enough to get one of those sticky hands or "Homies" figurines from the quarter machine.

After finishing a book about J.S.G. Boggs yesterday, I began to think that Ralphs isn't just naive and cheap, but perhaps cynical. Boggs made a name for himself drawing scale versions of real currency that he went out and attempted to spend at real businesses. For instance, he'd go into a restaurant, run up a hundred dollar tab, and offer to pay the waiter with either a real hundred dollar bill or his artistic (yet realistic) version of the hundred dollar bill. If the waiter agreed to take the latter, he would have to bring Boggs back correct change and a receipt, as both became part of the final piece. Anyway, Boggs' point in completing these transactions was (and is) to raise questions about how worth or value is determined, where worth lies, and the mystery of our faith of the worth of essentially worthless objects (real bills). He was continually bewildered that people might refuse a one of a kind drawing that he had spent hours and hours on, but would unthinkingly take a mass produced dollar that the U.S. government didn't even provide gold backing for anymore. I have a feeling Boggs would be wrecked by the idea of a second grader taking time and effort to render the paper bag as more than a paper bag, and then to be compensated for it as though it were a static, fixed-price item. Ralphs has some nerve not only asking these kids to invest energy into these bags for a laughable sum, but also, more importantly, setting the worth of each, custom bag at an objective limit. On a related note, I'm really pissed authors don't get paid more.

Comments

[Pauly D]

I'll jump on that "authors don't get paid more" thing. I was amazed to find out that when you try to sell a second book to your first book's publisher, they look to see how much you would have made in the first year of the book (which isn't a whole hell of a lot unless it was a best seller) and not (normally) think of paying you any more than that for a second book advance!

[Sally]

Hi! I just read your book and thoroughly enjoyed it. Moreover, I looked at your information on this website, and I really just wanted to tell you how much I admire and respect you. You manage to balance intelligent humor with beautiful prose, and I hope you continue writing, despite the dismal pay. :)
Sincerely,
Sally

[Jennifer]

Hi,
I also just finished reading your book. I really enjoyed it, as well. I'm graduating in two weeks with my Master's in Counseling and I love to read fiction that deals with adolescents who are in pain. I hope to become a writer one day and I am slightly jealous that you are a year younger than me and already published. But more power to ya. Good luck! And I hope to read more from you.