Archive for September, 2008

An interesting and charming work by the French photographer Laurent Nivalle, posted with his permission:

More work by Laurent can be seen on his website

One news item that strangely hasn’t been covered widely today: new mortgage funds showed a 98% decline in freshly closed mortgages in the US in August 2008. That is a massive decline that points to a total crash of the housing market in the US. I don’t think there has ever been such a sharp decline in the history of the mortgage market before: its certainly interesting but also devastating news since such decline in interests in buying houses will certainly mean the property prises will plummet.

It’s not strange, of course, that no one wants to buy a house at the moment. You must be somewhat insane if you buy a house now, with the prospect of seeing you money vaporize before your eyes. Since housing prices will almost certainly take a fall people wait to see when they will hit rock bottom. For the mortgage industry this is, however, more bad news on top of the bad mortgage assets problem and it’s a good example of the domino effect a crisis can have.

That said, I have always thought there is so much beauty in crisis. Artists should be painting these domino movements of the crashing markets, poets should write poetry that reads like massive inflation. To live in a challenge is the only life worth living – it is exactly when things get rough that the beauty of it all also surfaces.

If there are any artists, poets or musicians out there who want to collaborate on a project evolved around crashing markets, Loewak would gladly hear from you.

So, Congress is now going to vote over the 700 billion dollar bailout plan that is doomed to fail. Why is it doomed to fail? I will explain. It’s quite simple really: Bush and consorts claim that these ‘bad mortgage assets’ can be bought now and sold at a higher price later on. I don’t think he has paid much attention: these are BAD mortgage assets. This means they are mortgages from people who can’t repay their houses. NO ONE SANE will ever want to buy these mortgages from you, it’s like offering a shipload of fake golden watches. So we have the US government buying a shipload of fake golden watches for 700 Billion dollar, claiming to the tax payers that they will be able to sell those at a higher price later even if everyone knows those watches are fake.

This is insane! What’s also insane is to see Bush address the nation telling everyone they are bailing out Wall Street so they can borrow more money, to send kids to school, for example. Borrow more money! Has this guy totally lost it, or what? He wants to borrow 700 Billion dollars to buy a shitload of fake golden watches, and why, oh because then you, the taxpayer, can keep borrowing money and put yourself into more debt!

I dont think I have ever seen a more insane line of logic. We borrow your money, buy fake shit with it, so you can keep borrowing more money too. Oh, and we will lower your taxes too while we’re at it. Let’s borrow, for there ain’t no tomorrow!

It seems like ‘borrow’ is some sort of Financial mantra in the States. You want a soul? Just borrow one. You want to have a plan? Just borrow someone’s brain. You want your life back? Some day you will be able to borrow it from the only bank left, the Federal Reserve.

M.H.Benders, 29 September 2008

I stayed up last night to watch this presidential debate. I thought it was a failure on all points, first and foremost because of the debating formula that was used. There was a guy asking the most bland of all questions and there were two guys allowed to spit out pre-studied speeches. The failure here is clear: there should be a third independant party present that can ask tough questions, not just some old man who reads questions from a paper a 7 year old boy could have thought up.

The US largely is a mytholomanic country: it operates on the presumption that if one repeats a lie often enough and with enough conviction it sooner or later becomes a truth. Both candidates essentially have the same policies, one wants to put more soldiers into Afghanistan for-this-reason and the other one wants to put more soldiers into Afghanistan for-that-reason. Nobody present to ask any tough questions, such as why Russia is supposedly evil for responding when its soldiers were attacked by Georgia but for us its okay to occupy two countries on the other end of the world for more than 8 years.

Frankly, I see very little difference between these candidates. Both try to be hawkish warmongers that want to attack people based on nothing but a fable, both are idiotic enough to suppose that we should expand Nato right to the Russian border, both are talking about giant tax cuts in a time where the US is completely bankrupt and both want to spend more on the military too.

It’s not hard to see that which such candidates the US is pretty much doomed. What we have here are two people who claim that more spending is the answer to enormous debt. They both want to give 700 Billion dollars to the banks and, guess what, on top of that want to introduce tax cuts for the tax payers. Well, that is pretty brilliant. So where is all that money going to come from again?

What we essentially see here is that elections have become a marketing event without any real difference of opinion. The basic solution both have to everything is: more war & more spending & less tax will solve everything. Obama totally blew the little credential he had left with me when he mindlessly repeated several blatant lies and even tried to be more hawkish than McCain was over Pakistan. How can anyone in the same breath be a finger pointing moralist about Russia and publicly exclaim we should attack Pakistan whenever we want if we see reason for it. The same old mindless propaganda, repeated over and over again and the worst thing is it will probably end up in our history books, because, as Mark Twain wrote once: history is nothing but our prejudices written down with blood. Both these candidates are essentially proponents of the ‘Might is Right’ doctrine: it is enough to have powerful convictions, we, the public, don’t need reasons anymore. We don’t need reasons as to why the Nato should be expanded, we don’t need reasons as to why the Taliban must be ‘stamped out’. It’s enough to hear some lunatics say with great conviction that we should. That’s what politics has come to the last decade, and sadly Europe is sheepishly following in its trails.

The Vienna Secession was the first movement that I consciously identified with. I remember seeing Schiele’s drawings in college and thinking “Man, that putrid green and pus colored prostitute is soooooo hot. And look at those tortured lines.” But that was art. And then when I began to study design I was also set on fire by the secessionists’ astoundingly fresh and vigorous design work. Klimt, Moser, Kokoschka, et al were just amazingly gifted designers. Their poster work was one of the main inspirations for the entire 60s psychedelic look in America. Not to take anything away from Victor Moscoso or Wes Wilson (everyone has their artistic heritage), but without the Secession and Jugendstijl there is no psychedelic poster.

And then a few years ago my friend, last-of-the-sages Kenneth Smith, introduced me to the Viennese artist Ernst Fuchs. If the Secession was the first conscious influence in my artistic self-culture then Fuchs may be most profound. For those that have ears let them hear, and eyes, let them see. For Ernst Fuchs is the creator of some of the most powerfully spiritual and visionary art since the likes of Bosch, Grünewald, Blake and the few others like them. His work is invested with a living energy that simply cannot be denied by anyone with open orifices and an unshriveled mind.

So, you can imagine my delight when Mary and I traveled to Vienna for our honeymoon. I was able to visit the Olbrich designed Secession building and see Klimt’s Beethoven frieze. And I was euphoric at Professor Fuchs’ museum. Designed by Otto Wagner and refurbished and embellished by Fuchs himself the place was simply astounding. Professor Fuchs’ paintings virtually glow in person and to be in a room in which every piece was painted specifically for that spot was just awe inspiring. Next time you are in Vienna go check these places out. Until then I have some photos.

The Secession

The Fuchs Museum

One of the rooms in the museum (all the furniture is also designed by Professor Fuchs)

Professor Fuchs contemplating my sketchbook (Imagine my delight when I was told he happened to be in town on business. He lives in France these days.)

Inside the temple designed by Fuchs, next to the museum

Original post by Jehosephat Sunrays

Betelnut is a stimulant sold in many Asian countries. It’s a red wpowder you chew and it’s supposed to make you relaxed. They use it a lot in India and it gives people that famous red tongue. I tried it, but I didn’t like it much. It didn’t make me feel relaxed at all!

Betelnut is often sold by sexy dressed young girls in small streetside booths. A couple of years ago, artist Annamarie Ho recreated a Betel nut booth as a gallery installation commenting on this “sexually provocative sales style” in which, it would seem, customers are buying interaction with the salesperson as much as they’re paying for the Betelnut. For the next two weekends, Annamarie is reviving the piece, Binlang Xi Shi (Betelnut Girls), but this time in the more unpredictable location of a New York City storefront.

Visit Betelnut Girls