leonardcohenforum.com

http://cgi.ebay.com/Autograph-Signed-Bo ... dZViewItem

Nasty, starts at $99!

The sad thing is, I'm probably going to bid

How sad . The opportunistic nature of it . The starting price is "nasty" ~ you're right. If only NO ONE would bid.

~ Lizzy

There goes the moral one again!
I find nothing wrong with what this person is doing.....its not not as if this person is deceiving anyone. She bought the book/signature and like a good business person is selling it at a higher price. And obviously people are willing to pay for it. Indigo is doing something very similar too....they are selling a signature in order to make more money so that more people buy. Ebay is the Boogie Street of internet - Boogie Street is romanticized in a Leonard Cohen song well here it is in real life...this is what happens on Boogie Street everyday.
If I needed the money I would do exactly the same on eBay and advertize that fact here ---if only to piss off some of the goody goody upright moral folks here.

"The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again"

I agree with you Liz. It certainly smacks of opportunism. On the other hand, maybe the poor soul is desperate and really needs the money. I tried to buy a signed copy from Indigo, but I was a day too late. I will not be bidding, though. I think if I am ever meant to have one, one will turn up somewhere, someday in less ‘opportunistic’ circumstances. Am I pissed off? No. If I had been lucky enough to buy a copy fairly, at the same price as everyone else, then I would have considered it a treasure and kept it. I would not be trying to flog it on e-Bay. If that makes me a “goody goody upright moral folk,” then so be it. I guess I’ve been called worse things in my life.

Dem, you quotation is so apt.

Sherry

I downloaded the picture from e-bay and made it bigger.So now i have
one page from "The book of longing"and Leonards autograph.
When the book is on sale in Norway i can buy it, print out the page and
put it in the book.Then a happy Norwegian will also have a signed copy!
It's all about using ones fantasy.

Interesting reading on this moral debate would be The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber. In this essay, Weber suggests the dialectics of Instrumentalisation of the world versus Reenchantment of the world. Leonard Cohen is Reenchantment, E-Bay is Instrumentalisation. The key here may be for anyone to find his or her own Boogie Street balance between de two.

Yeah, I'm afraid I agree with Kush. If it wasn't for opportunists, I'd never get a second chance at obtaining one of those books!

Perhaps, if the opportunist[s] hadn't struck, you'd have had a legitimate chance to get your own, original one, Baldwyn [Sherry, as well, of course ].

We all have our own standards of ethics, Kush... it doesn't warrant "There goes the moral one again!" however. I also would hope I'm not the only "moral one" here . Like Sherry, however, I've certainly been called worse ~ and will be again; just as Dem's appropos quotation regarding the holy dove will be bought and sold again. Good choice, Demetris.

~ Lizzy

I see a lot of myself in this person who is selling. So you call me an opportunist, I call you the moral one.

(not that I have a problem being an opportunist....I could almost take some pride in that)

Hmmm... I don't recall calling you an opportunist, Kush, but if you insist...

"There goes... again," of course, has its own intonation, in addition to "the" and "moral one" ~ rather like a Sunday morning, preaching, pulpit image ~ which doesn't happen to look like me at all, baby .

If pride's the issue, mine would be invested in not being an opportunist. To each his own pot of gold.

~ Lizzy

Υeah!
Long live the opportunists and the black-marketers!

What if harrietbrown, the eBay seller, does not value the haecceity (thank you Nightstalker) of Leonard's signature? What if she sells stuff that she knows some people do value and will be willing to pay for, and then sends that money to the Red Cross in New Orleans to relieve pain and suffering because she believes that it is what Leonard’s poetry should contribute to do. Does that change the debate? Anybody here knows her personnally?

Simon :

if harrietbrown, did that for charity should have stated this openly in her item listing on eBay.

As long as she doesn't do that she is just a black-marketer for her own
opportunistic reasons.


Dem

Oh it doesnt matter to me what Harriet Brown is doing it for...if I needed the money or if Ebay was a regular source of income for me I would do it no question.