Keeping It Real: extreme of scarcity is intensified by the extreme of ubiquity

The NY Times Has some interesting things to say about “real” vs. reproductions. The Magna Carta itself is a nice reminder of how costly it once was to store and spread information. Now, the same free flow that makes information cheap and reproducible helps us treasure the sight of information that is not. A story gains power from its attachment, however tenuous, to a physical object. The object gains power from the story. The abstract version may flash by on a screen, but the worn parchment and the fading ink make us pause. The extreme of scarcity is intensified by the extreme of ubiquity.