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the mimetic function in art hasn't so much declined as mutated. The tools of metaphor have expanded. As the culture becomes more saturated by different media, artists can use larger and larger chunks of the culture to communicate. Warhol's Marilyn Monroe silk screens and his Double Elvis work as metaphors because their images are so common in the culture that they can be used as shorthand, as other generations would have used, say, the sea. Marilyn and Elvis are just as much part of the natural world as the ocean and a Greek god are. Anything that exists in the culture is fair game to assimilate into a new work, and having preexisting media of some kind in the new piece is thrilling in a way that "fiction" can't be." Amen--more remixed wisdom from Reality Hunger: A Manifesto--David Shields.