Pure Imagination
I suspect most of you have heard about the incident in Glasgow, Scotland, in which parents and children alike were beckoned to buy tickets to have a "chocolate experience" created by none other than Willy Wonka which would be "a chocolate fantasy like never before". Fanciful images were offered to suggest the kind of sensational, vibrant paradise that could be experienced at this one-of-a-kind event.
Well, perhaps it's a life lesson for the little tykes, but the hype and breathless promotion didn't quite match the reality when mom, dad, and junior showed up in a dismal warehouse and were greeted by the following scene where, I suppose, they were expected to "capture the enchantment", as the graphics pledged. I suspect having a suicide hotline handy would have been thoughtful.
Here's another view. I suppose one could sit at a table for a while and, once they were ready, a person could elect to walk beneath the hastily assembled rainbow, after which time they could be seated again.
Once one's visual senses were feeling overwhelmed, they could turn themselves over to the pleasures of taste, in which one of Mr. Wonka's meth lab workers could prepare you something to enjoy. I've read that the event was so poorly supplied that the folks working this event were instructed to give each child a single jellybean, and that, for parents, no jellybeans at all would be forthcoming.
And, just in case an entire jellybean required a cool beverage to wash it down, they've got you covered: a fifth of a cup of store-bought lemonade is ready for libation.
I only offer you these images since I think it so perfectly captures the state of the worldwide equity markets.
The pledge and the promise are the liberation of humanity thanks to artificial intelligence, endless profits as Nvidia accrues another $1 trillion market cap each and every week, and the main occupations of people henceforth to be playing Beat Sabre with their new Meta Quest goggles.
And, once we arrive at the promised land, what are we going to find? A pissed-off unemployed actress who has been hired to dole out single jellybeans and apologize that things aren't quite what they were supposed to be.