“Damien Hirst, the British artist most famous for displaying sharks and sheep floating in formaldehyde, has just sold a platinum cast of a human skull, covered in 8,601 diamonds, for $100 million… It’s said that the only thing an auction record proves is the existence of two dumb rich guys, competing to pay more for something than anyone else on the planet has ever thought it was worth. [But] you could say that the price tag, with its nice round number trailing all those lovely zeros, is the most important and valuable art supply that went into the piece, and is what makes it work.”