For no apparent reason today, I was reminded of a scene in “I, Claudius.” I blame having recently discovered my old friend Bjorn here on LJ. He introduced me to the British miniseries by the expedient of having them playing more or less constantly in the background. There’s nothing like Caligula dismembering people to really gloss over an awkward pause in conversation, believe me.

Anyway, during this one fantastic scene, the nymphomaniacal wife of Emperor Claudius, Messalina, challenges a prostitute (Thracian? Sicilian? Can’t recall.) to a contest in the sort of thing one would expect a prostitute to be good at. Messalina wants to compete for the honor of Best Lay in Rome, but the prostitute has no interest in the honor and insists on money. “The problem,” (I’m paraphrasing badly here) “is that my job happens to be your hobby. Now, my hobby is gardening, but I don’t expect anyone to pay me for it.”

If you substitute art for sex in this metaphor, I think this pretty much says it all, re the tiresome and not-to-be-rehashed-here art and money debates. And that made me happy, because any time I can compare art to ancient Roman orgies and/or politics makes me happy. Why this particular metaphor drifted through my brain while painting on the Hanged Man card for the wombat tarot, with nothing remotely Roman in the vicinity, I don’t know, but I’ll chalk it up to fate.

Also, Snorkus, Liberator of Goldfish. No, I don’t know either. But it’s for sale!