When James Thurber's short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty became a movie in the 1940 the protagonist's name instantly entered the language: Walter Mitty is a synonym - the synonym -- for any ordinary Joe who harbors fantasies of being heroic, superhuman, celebrated, larger-than-life.

But the original Walter Mitty never lived out his fantasies -- his heroics as a combat pilot and a surgeon remained figments of his imagination.

Today the lines in the culture between fantasy and reality are much much blurrier. Today, American Walter Mittys are encouraged to make their grandiose dreams come true. And today, practically everything can be had for a price.

Last month, you could've become the conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic if you'd paid $8,000. The chance to conduct the orchestra performing the Star Spangled Banner at the Hollywood Bowl was up for auction on the eBay online auction site for two weeks. Not that some real commitment wasn't also required as well as mere cash. According to the fine print under eBay item #1439479225, quote, "Auction winner…must participate in one rehearsal with the Orchestra."

Pay to conduct the LA philharmonic…or pay to have your fiction published in America's most prestigious literary periodical -- the New Yorker. Earlier this year, the magazine's ad sales geniuses announced to book publishers that they could, for the right price, run tantalizing bits of any of their new books in the magazine -- in other words, advertisements posing as book excerpts.

This kind of free market real-life cultural Walter Mitty-ism has been on the upswing for a while; since the 1980s to be precise. It's how the zillionaire real estate developer Mort Zuckerman became a columnist for US News and World Reports, by buying the magazine in the early 1980s. Which happened to be right around the same time that Gilbert Kaplan, a zillionaire magazine publisher, launched his remarkably serious second career as a conductor of Mahler's 2^nd symphony. By hiring a Julliard conducting teacher and a symphony orchestra and a concert hall in New York.

I'm all in favor of amateur passion. Some music lover in LA did buy the LA Philharmonic's conducting gig last month-not through e-bay it turned out and the money paid by this wannabe conductor went to a good cause.

But I must admit I was pleased when I heard that the New Yorker's publisher had been embarrassed into canceling his play-for-pay book excerpt scheme… It's nice these days when merit and money remain distinct. It's nice when some Walter Mitty fantasies remain just that.

I'm Kurt Andersen in Studio 360.