Eminence Grise Quotes

“For one can no more live without leaving tracks than one can without casting a shadow. S., as his eminence grise, is stealing his tracks, and he cannot fail to sense the magic to which he is being subjected. He is being photographed incessantly. The photograph here has neither a voyeuristic nor an archival function. Its simple message has the form: at this location, at such and such a time, in this particular light, someone was present. But at the same time it conveys the following: there was no point in being here, in such and such a place, and at such and such a time - and in fact no one was here; I was the one who followed him, and I can assure you that no one was here.
It is of no interest to know that someone is leading a double life. It is the tailing itself that supplies the other with a double life. The most ordinary of lives may be transfigured in this way; likewise, the most extraordinary of lives may be rendered trite. In any case, life thus succumbs to a strange attraction.”
― Jean Baudrillard