A few weeks ago there was some sort of a 'to do' up in Chicago about Donald Trump having his last name emblazoned on one of his buildings in very large letters, no doubt to match his ego. The people of Chicago, or at least most of them, hate the idea. He, on the other hand, doesn't care what the people think, he wants his last name on a building and he's going to have his last name on a building. I thought the episode rather amusing. In truth this is really Trump l'oeil, you know, the artistic term for making something phony look real. Oh, wait, I'm wrong, that's trompe l'oeil... well, isn't it kind of the same thing? Just because something is solid doesn't mean it has substance. I was at the Trump Casino in Atlantic City a number of years ago and was simply amazed by how superficial everything was, how the eye was meant to stray not focus. It was like being on a Hollywood set where illusion fools the eye. Putting his name on a building in Chicago is the same thing simply because there is no permanence there. Fifty years from now that building may have been razed to make way for something even more grandiose, or it may be a park, or, most likely, a slum tenement. Things change.
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| Trompe l'oeil, the real thing |
At 68 years of age, Mr. Trump may have 15 to 20 years left before he shrugs off his mortal coil. Shortly there after, if not before, what ever relevance he had will begin to fade. Those few people who actually cared will die off as well. This is how history builds itself, with the passing of time. A century from now no one will care about his silly sign, or his silly ego, they will have been forgotten. Not that there will not be digital pictures, but the people one hundred years from now will look at them with the vague, passing interest we look at those take in the early 1900's. This is nothing more then the blink of an eye, truly a Trump l'oeil.
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