Clapton’s Magic, for Sale

Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency - Some of the guitars owned by musician Eric Clapton that are part of an auction to be held at Bonham’s in New York


Why would someone create a replica of Eric Clapton's beloved Fender Stratocaster, named Blackie, complete with every single nick and scratch, including the wear pattern from Mr. Clapton's belt buckle and the burn mark from his cigarettes? And why is that replica expected to fetch at least $20,000 at auction, probably much more?

Coz they got no life? And money to burn?

Fortunately, social scientists have been hard at work on the answers. After conducting experiments and interviewing guitar players and collectors, they have just published papers analyzing “celebrity contagion” and “imitative magic,” not to mention “a dynamic cyclical model of fetishization appropriate to an age of mass-production.” 

If Clapton touched it, the guitar has magic. If it resembles what Clapton touched, it also has a certain sort of magic.

Some bidders might rationalize their purchases as good investments, or as objects that are worth having just because they provide pleasant memories and mental associations of someone they admire. But those do not seem to be the chief reasons for buying celebrity memorabilia, according to a team of psychologists at Yale.

John Lennon

30 years ago today (not "It was twenty years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play") John was shot and killed.

Ray Davies writes:  It had just turned December on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I was on my customary morning jog, heading out of Central Park toward 72nd Street. The sun was out but it was treacherous underfoot. I’d slipped on some ice and gone tumbling, to be rescued by a group of college boys.


“Are you all right, sir?” they asked, sounding concerned in a way that indicated that I might have looked frail, fragile and quite possibly old. I felt like saying, “Of course I’m all right, man, can’t you see that I am a globe-trotting rock star?” But I saw the genuine concern in the boys’ faces and thanked them, cautiously continuing my run.

Poignant seems too much of a cliché, but so it is.

Yoko Ono writes:  The most important gift we received from him was not words, but deeds. He believed in Truth, and had dared to speak up. We all knew that he upset certain powerful people with it. But that was John. He couldn’t have been any other way. If he were here now, I think he would still be shouting the truth. Without the truth, there would be no way to achieve world peace. 

On this day, the day he was assassinated, what I remember is the night we both cracked up drinking tea. 

They say teenagers laugh at the drop of a hat. Nowadays I see many teenagers sad and angry with each other. John and I were hardly teenagers. But my memory of us is that we were a couple who laughed.

Another appreciation: We remember what we remember of Lennon, and of that night. When I was young, he was the only adult that mattered outside my family — the Beatle of Beatles. I loved his wit; his irony; his “Help!”; his urgent, reedy voice; his unceasing transformations. Like everyone else who loved him, I can’t help grieving, even now, for all the transformations we lost 30 years ago when John Lennon was only 40.

A nice picture gallery at the Washington Post. And another tribute. And a gallery of pictures from 1980: curious to see an NYPD officer wearing a tie.

Took out and watched  The U.S. vs John Lennon.Very enjoyable, touched a nostalgic nerve.

His books include Skywriting by word of mouth, and other writings, including The ballad of John and Yoko, and In his own write & A Spaniard in the works.

John Lennon at 70

Google had this doodle on its home page yesterday and today in tribute to Lennon.

John Lennon would have turned 70 on Saturday, and the anniversary has occasioned a flood of events and releases to commemorate the songwriter and his work. In a way, Lennon’s stature — the reason for the celebrations — makes some of them seem beside the point. Since he was murdered outside the Dakota, 30 years ago in December, Lennon has remained a powerful presence in the culture, both for his songwriting and performances as a Beatle and for his post-Beatles life as a peace crusader, born-again feminist and alternately strident and affecting solo artist. Do we really need to be reminded about John Lennon? 

An iconic picture.

Numerous concert tributes will celebrate Lennon too, including a concert by the surviving members of his first band, the Quarry Men, at the Society for Ethical Culture on Saturday night.