From Livestock to the Stock Exchange

From Livestock to the Stock Exchange. © Sally Cochrane All Rights Reserved

Artist’s description: This is a brief visual history of trade, reading left to right. The first “money” was cattle, represented by the cheese. Ancient Mesopotamians kept track of their cattle exchanges on cuneiform tablets like receipts (we have some at the Oriental institute of Chicago!). The root of the word “pecuniary” comes from the root “pecu” meaning “cattle.” Cowrie shells were another early form of currency for trade, and beaver fur, which was very valuable, was used in barter when Europeans discovered the New World. The coins and stock ticker tape represent the modern end of the history. July 2013. 8"x 16" oil on canvas.

Original here with many other sizes.

Sally says the beaver fur was inspired by a Russ Roberts EconTalk podcast, interviewing Timothy Brook on his book Vermeer’s Hat. “Part of the book talked about how valuable beaver fur was for making hats that ended up in the Netherlands during Vermeer’s lifetime.” I don’t know how many other artists listen to EconTalk while painting…

Anaphylaxis

My daughter Sally is at the Grand Central Academy of Art in New York. This is one of her still lives (yes, it’s a painting). See if you can figure out what it means. Then click on the figure for an explanation. Don’t miss “ceci n’est pas une molécule d’histamine." 

Yes, this has nothing to do with economics. It’s just cool.

Mermaids

This has nothing to do with economics or finance, but it’s way cooler…If you or your teenage children are into young-adult fiction.

My wife  Beth’s young adult novel, Monstrous Beauty, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, will be released September 4.

Fierce, seductive mermaid Syrenka falls in love with Ezra, a young naturalist. When she abandons her life underwater for a chance at happiness on land, she is unaware that this decision comes with horrific and deadly consequences. Almost one hundred forty years later, seventeen-year-old Hester meets a mysterious stranger named Ezra and feels overwhelmingly, inexplicably drawn to him. For generations, love has resulted in death for the women in her family. Is it an undiagnosed genetic defect … or a curse? With Ezra’s help, Hester investigates her family’s strange, sad history. The answers she seeks are waiting in the graveyard, the crypt, and at the bottom of the ocean—but powerful forces will do anything to keep her from uncovering her connection to Syrenka and to the tragedy of so long ago.

There will be a launch party at 57th street books in Chicago, Tues. Sept. 4, at 6 PM. A second larger coming out will happen at the Plimoth Plantation, Plymouth MA (the book is set in Plymouth, and partly on the plantation) Sept. 7, at 5 pm, information here.

Then Beth will be off on Macmillan’s Fierce Reads Tour with three other YA authors.

• September 18: Changing Hands Bookstore, Pheonix
• September 19: Tattered Cover, Denver
• September 20: Left Bank Books, St. Louis
• September 21: Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinatti
• September 22: Next Chapter Bookshop, Milwaukee
• September 23: Malaprop’s Bookstore, Asheville 

For a taste of Beth’s mermaid lore, try the extra short story “Men Who Wish to Drown” on tor.com, (cover art to the left).

Monstrous beauty at Amazon and the publisher’s website 
 
Visit Beth at her blog and on Twitter

(My plot suggestion, “Syrenka, Libertarian Mermaid” went nowhere. I guess I’d better keep my day job!)