Morbid Preoccupation

"La Belle Rosina" by Antoine Wiertz 1847

"While seeking out the dead I see nothing but the living."

~ Honoré de Balzac

Look at her voluptuous nudity. The childlike gaze of curiosity. The contrast of spindly skeleton to velvety flesh. Is is death that mocks life or life that mocks death?

Endless forms most beautiful

Gregory Crewdson from Natural Wonder series

"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us...Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of species by means of natural selection..." (1859)

A Childhood Note to No One in Particular

"Morning Dew" by tamsen ellen

"As I walk down the street I hear the chirp of a bird. He's probably building his nest and working hard at it. People work hard too, but it is depressing to think that many people walk down the street, while the bird is chirping and no one hears that bird. They are too busy in their own heads to hear that one chirp or the rustle of a leaf. Maybe if one person who cared heard that bird that person could get it through to other people to listen the those lovely things God gave us."

written age 13-14

A Painful Pill to Swallow

"Make Believe Damien Hirst For The Love of God" by Jim Riswold

I don't understand our economy. How can it be possible that telling Americans to borrow more money is good for the economy, when we're all already in debt above our eyeballs. And how does it make sense that lower gas prices aren't good for the economy? Is it just that the oil executives aren't making their multi-million dollar profits? And how come retail prices coming down from their inflated levels is bad for the economy when no one's incomes are going up?

So here's another question, how is it that Damien Hirst, one of the world's richest artists, who made £111 million British pounds selling his artwork at his latest auction (just his latest folks), how come he now has to "be mindful of the current economic climate." Just this week Hirst canceled the contracts of many of the poor sods that work for him for a measly £19,000 a year, 17 of the 22 artists that make the pills featured in a number of his works. However, "In June 2007, Lullaby Spring, a cabinet filled with hand-painted pills, sold for £9.65m."

Am I missing something here? Well, it turns out he wants to stop making his pill cabinets, but still...he can't find other work for these artists? All together their wages are a measly £323,000 a year.

According to an article in the Guardian, "Last week, Hirst admitted that art had probably become too expensive in recent years and said he welcomed the prospect of selling his work at cheaper rates in the present climate of recession." Hmmmm, seems to me he could just sell his work for less. How much less could he possibly pay his workers?!?!

I say it makes no sense and he's being a scrooge, breaking the news that by years end they'll be out of a job! It's shocking and despicable!

Bah Humbug.

Which American car would you buy?

A friend sent me the following article from the Huffington Post....awesome...gotta love American cars.

"I guess I've rented American cars..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/whats-good-for-cerberus-c_b_144759.html

Last night on Charlie Rose, the talking boobs (i mean heads) were having a heated debate. The guy from the NT Times was arguing for Chapter 11. The Auto Industry Rep was arguing the biggest doom and gloom if we don't give em money. But then he admitted that 25 billion wasn't really enough. And he didn't know what number would be enough. The NY Times guy was explaining that US car manufacturers BY LAW can't afford to stop producing a particular brand IF THEY WANTED TO. There are state laws that make it prohibitively expensive to close dealerships...over a million dollars a dealership. So, if they went into Chapter 11 they could re-organize for less. Hey, if it worked for uh United Airlines, Delta, Northwest, and others....it can work for the auto industry. The airlines got to shirk their debts, screw the labor unions, as well as their their employees, reorganize, and come out of Chapter 11....making lawyers rich in the process. yup, it's a lose/lose situation.

http://www.247wallst.com/2008/11/airline-chapter.html

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9591

Sign of the Times

Not my typical post...but last night my sister and I spent some time talking about the possible bailout of GM. It's a complicated issue and I don't think anyone really knows if giving the car industry money right now will really prevent them from failing, or prevent the devastation of massive joblessness.

Well, check the piece "A Sea of Unwanted Imports" in today's NY Times. Frankly, if no one's buying cars, giving GM an unlimited supply of money, let alone some tens of billions, isn't going to get them selling more cars. It's like putting the proverbial finger in the dyke hole. It really looks like we're entering a new era, people. We've stopped shopping and, won't recognize the future we're about to enter. I fear the human despair. But hopefully we will adjust to the seismic shift of having and needing less quickly, and the change will be in time (and enough) to prevent the collapse of our planet.

Change

"Broadway Protest" by Jerry Spagnoli

Back in December 2006, Barack, Michelle and eight others were in Axelrod’s office in downtown Chicago. If Barack was going to run, he had to decide quickly, a point the group made by laying out primary schedules and game plans for fund-raising and building an organization. Insights were offered from around the room.

It was Michelle, Axelrod remembers, who stopped the show. “You need to ask yourself, Why do you want to do this?” she said directly. “What are hoping to uniquely accomplish, Barack?”

Obama sat quietly for a moment, and everyone waited. “This I know: When I raise my hand and take that oath of office, I think the world will look at us differently,” he said. “And millions of kids across this country will look at themselves differently.”

Obama understood, through his own search for identity, how America’s seminal struggle over race was part of a wider story, of a search for dignity and hope that defined the lives of countless people throughout the world. A battered America, he felt, was ready, even anxious, to prove the truth of its sacred oaths — liberty, justice and equality. To show the world. If, through his own ambitions, he could offer his country a chance to step forward, it might rise to the occasion.

What started as a story about race became a larger story, by day’s end, about America. The transforming promise of the nation, after all, is the idea of welcoming the stranger, the outcast, to a place of limitless possibility — a place where each of us might discover our best self, be comfortable in our skin and find a home.

Excerpt from Change by Ron Suskind in NYTimes