     | september 10, 2010
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| september 10, 2010
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Salt Proposes: A Return to the Client-Patron Relationship of Ancient Rome Catherine Price -- 07/20/2004  My friend Josh is a Harvard graduate who is saving money on rent by sleeping on a mattress under his friend’s kitchen table. But maybe he should change his grassroots approach toward becoming a writer and look for some corporate sponsorship instead. As reported in The New York Times, the Ford Motor Company recently struck a deal with British chick-lit author Carole Matthews: a hefty sum of money in return for crafting a main character, young, feisty and consumer-friendly, who drives a Ford Fiesta. In the spirit of helping to fund creative efforts (including, perhaps, Salt contributors), I'd like to point out that this isn’t the first example of literary product placement. In 2001, author Faye Weldon published her commissioned novel, The Bulgari Connection, and the book Love Over Gold, inspired by Taster’s Choice coffee commercials, was released in 1993. As someone moonlighting as a Latin tutor to pay the bills, I’m not against the idea of authors and artists receiving sponsorship for their work—-I just think we could do a classier job. To this end, I suggest a return to the client-patron system of ancient Rome. Back in the glory days of the Roman Republic, rich and influential Romans would adopt “clients”—plebeians that sometimes included promising artists and writers—and provide them with money, market opportunities and legal representation. In return, clients would help their patrons’ public images by working on their political campaigns, accompanying them in public to make them seem popular, or advancing their patrons through art, as Vergil did when he used The Aeneid to help justify the rule of his patron, Caesar Augustus. Deals like Ms. Matthews’ agreement with Ford do help writers by creating an expanded market for irate editorials about the “selling out” of American culture. But instead of encouraging more product placement, I think that individual patrons should move in a different, more personal direction—like inviting clients to live in their homes. This arrangement would provide an obvious service to aspiring writers struggling to both pay their rent and buy food; it would also allow them to end calls to editors who owed them money with the threatening statement, “Yeah, well expect a call from my patron.” However, the system would also benefit the patrons themselves. Everyone knows that being rich can be lonely. Writers can provide valuable companionship and intelligent conversation when needed but, thanks to their reclusive tendencies, require less care and attention than other household pets. Their meager incomes foster loyalty. Non-existent paychecks also prevent the purchase of extraneous possessions and this, combined with struggling artists’ stereotypical scrawniness, means that resident writers would take up little physical space. Like hide-away ironing boards, they could be used as necessary and then tucked out of sight when their patrons expected company. Best of all, common afflictions such as “writer’s block” and “chronic procrastination” make writers prone to sudden, overwhelming urges to do anything other than actually put words on the page—a condition that could be manipulated by patrons to get their clients to vacuum, do laundry, entertain party guests, or help the patron’s children with, say, their Latin homework. end of page 1 [ 1 ] read more ... [ 2 ][ 3 ] |
