I was introduced by a local smiling snob, in between cocktails, to the concept of "magnata of castilla-leon", a kind of epitome of chav-like high-income vulgarity...
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Oskar Kokotchka
Stereotyping the aborigines...
I was introduced by a local smiling snob, in between cocktails, to the concept of "magnata of castilla-leon", a kind of epitome of chav-like high-income vulgarity...
I was introduced by a local smiling snob, in between cocktails, to the concept of "magnata of castilla-leon", a kind of epitome of chav-like high-income vulgarity...
Alain Ginsberg
Drug Wars...
Is grass better than alcohol? Joke heard at a dinner-party: "Kids, don't drink and drive... (handling a joint) .. smoke and fly! "..
Charles Saatchi
Power in the Art World ...
An article in Weekend FT (june 3rd) by Anthony Haden-Guest reviewing "Avant-Garde to Pluralism" (essays by Irving Sandler) about the distribution of (taste-making) power in the art world. By art world Sandler meant 'certain artists, certain art editors, art critics, and a few historians, certain museum directors and curators, dealers, collectors', all networking. Before the advent of the (art) market as such, power (taste-making power) was mostly with artists. (say until the 50s). When Europeans and then American begin to buy contemporary art (mainly abstract expressionism) power shifted to collectors. When the abstrexssionist bubble blown up power shifted to critics. Critics were Kommissars of the ideological purity of artistic "schools", having to denigrate in an anti-trotskiite stalinist fashion those who belong to the "wrong" school. Colour-field abstraction, minimalism and pop art were the "isms" that critics championed with exclusivist love and hate. The big critics era (who got the highly talented deserved flak from Tom Wolfe in his famous essay "The Painted Word") was also short-lived. By the late 60s power begun to shift to art dealers. For some time, with the decay of importance of schools as such announcing present day pluralism, dealers were in control. In our time, Sandler defends, power has shifted to collectors (collector-dealers as Saatchi or dealers-collectors). They in turn have highly-paid consultants, rather than rely in art-critic journalists. ( What about artists that seem critic-proof, asks Haden-Guest, don't they have power?). Who has the power now but the Pinauds and Berardos, says I.
An article in Weekend FT (june 3rd) by Anthony Haden-Guest reviewing "Avant-Garde to Pluralism" (essays by Irving Sandler) about the distribution of (taste-making) power in the art world. By art world Sandler meant 'certain artists, certain art editors, art critics, and a few historians, certain museum directors and curators, dealers, collectors', all networking. Before the advent of the (art) market as such, power (taste-making power) was mostly with artists. (say until the 50s). When Europeans and then American begin to buy contemporary art (mainly abstract expressionism) power shifted to collectors. When the abstrexssionist bubble blown up power shifted to critics. Critics were Kommissars of the ideological purity of artistic "schools", having to denigrate in an anti-trotskiite stalinist fashion those who belong to the "wrong" school. Colour-field abstraction, minimalism and pop art were the "isms" that critics championed with exclusivist love and hate. The big critics era (who got the highly talented deserved flak from Tom Wolfe in his famous essay "The Painted Word") was also short-lived. By the late 60s power begun to shift to art dealers. For some time, with the decay of importance of schools as such announcing present day pluralism, dealers were in control. In our time, Sandler defends, power has shifted to collectors (collector-dealers as Saatchi or dealers-collectors). They in turn have highly-paid consultants, rather than rely in art-critic journalists. ( What about artists that seem critic-proof, asks Haden-Guest, don't they have power?). Who has the power now but the Pinauds and Berardos, says I.
Karl Popper
God-like Physics...
An example of a Calabi-Yau structure...
An example of a Calabi-Yau structure...
Supersimmetry, multidimensional superstrings and Calabi-Yau manifolds are some of the hermetic jargon that identifies a scientist "lost for ever" for science, who entered the realm of the theoretical physics that try to explain the ultimate universal truths of the cosmos. As they put, modestly, no more no less than a "theory of everything". Their leader, whom his highly IQ groupies call The Pope, is Edward Witten, a charismatic professor at Princeton. Robert Matthews wrote about this charade in the FT, reviewing Peter Woit's "Not even wrong". Apparently the theory - called M theory in its latest incarnation - is failing Popper's number one rule, the so called 'falsifiability' principle. Not one single prediction has been produced so there's no way to confront the theory with some stern realities out there. The theory then becomes the worst sort of theory, according to the words of the great physicist Pauli: it's not even wrong!
Grand Prince Vassili III
œcumenism..
UNESCO's world heritage site Novodevichy Monastery, Moscow
The gloriously beautiful Novodevichy Monastery, built to commemorate the conquest of Smolensk by Vassili III in 1514, was where Sebastian joined last week the ranks of Roman Orthodoxy. Under the patronage of Mstr.Freddy, of shared DNA, a near free-thinking Roman Catholic. Where does this blogger of yours stand in all this religious œcumenism, the Right Honourable Reader might ask Himself? I will keep the answer to that legitimate curiosity outside the frivolous borders of this blog, if the Right Honourable Reader will allow me.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Santiago Carrillo
Madrid, 17 September 2006,
The "Fiesta" of the PCE (Partido Comunista de España) - courtesy EFE
Vladimir Nabokov
Plagiarism in the nymphets-world?...
It seems Nabokov helped himself of large parts of a German written Lolita... The difference in literary quality between the earlier work and the Nabokovian masterpiece is such that the discussion doesnt really quite start...
Alexander III
Back in Moscow
The Bolshoi Theatre under wraps...Moscow, Russia. Same feeling of a hot–blooded city compared to which all European capitals seem to have red currant stuff in their veins. Feels good to witness again urban life as a rapidly evolving draft, as a work in progress. Even the most dynamic cities in Euroland give you the sensation of “finished oeuvre” about it. Moscow might sometimes be ugly, brutal and on the eve of explicit violence but it’s invigorating and keeps us going with a refreshing buzz. It’s like a dive on a surf-waving Atlantic rather than a pleasant bath on the Mediterranean waters. Maybe it’s an acquired taste. Many very good things in life are acquired tastes though: caviar, non-fiction writing, arty cinema, very intelligent women..
Friday, September 15, 2006
Pierre Louÿs
Dopellganger
A shadow, an alter ego, a doppelganger...
This blogger of yours was 15 minutes late to a dinner-party at the heart of toff Madrid last Wednesday and that meant being first guest to arrive. The only other early-bird, Notalmodovar, might have had some English punctuality inherited from the blood of his famous family namesake. He was supposed to come with his sister, Alba Nelson, but something had prevented them from travel together. BlondLou, the Dear Hostess, was relieved when told that she had not mixed up e-mails. There is another Alba Nelson, apparently. Same age, same school, same gym. Notalmodovar knows all about that other girl. He keeps hearing from friends in parties though that she either had just left or that they were still expecting her. “But have you actually seen her?” – I ask. “In fact, although I’ve been close to it for the last ten years I’ve not actually met her”- he answers back … and that’s when the “Doppelganger” theme infected, as an operating system's virus, the whole dinner-party.
The blond Alba arrives in the mean time and confirms she had indeed met the brunette Alba (or was it the other way around?) . How can you keep your sense of self if someone robs you of that most precious self-identity tool, the unique unbreakable combination of your first name and your family name? (To illustrate my point let us say that I would plan for the murder of any Jorge Ryder who would come my way).
Someone says that the only doppelgangers in real-life, not alter-ego shadows of oneself but actual replicates of one’s identity are monozygotic twins. To the surprise of most of us we had one half of a twin pair and one third of triplet trio at table! The JusticerodeCastellana has a twin, who was the first to emerge into this world and therefore the elder brother according to the law but the youngest one according to biology. Is there a “second son” syndrome among twins? ( The Iron Mask story comes to one’s mind).
Delightful LouÿsScholar is a triplet and she confesses that the situation might sometimes not be that easy to deal with. She makes that statement with serious but tender almost sad eyes, and a Bilitis Song fragment comes to mind:
" Ouvre sur moi tes yeux si tristes et si tendres/ Miroirs de mon étoile, asiles éclairés,/ Tes yeux plus solennels de se voir adorés,/ Temples où le silence est le secret d'entendre.//Quelle île nous conçut des strophes de la mer? /(...) "
So we sailed on, around the dinner-table, keeping the conversation journey close to the wind of dual-identities.
Was Sagenevesse a pure French-Swiss or a Swiss-French? Paris-Genéve or Genéve-Paris? Was the twin a Pasha-goer or a briefcase-carrying CEO? Was the triplet a student of Pierre Louÿs’ serious stuff or a secret admirer of his more licentious, and celebrated, poetry?
We even got into a lengthy and slightly bizarre argument of a very peculiar case of double-self. Is there a physical virginity of Virgin Mary distinct from Her theological virginity (Immaculate being the absence of the stain of the Original Sin) ? Catechism had been taught so many decades ago that consensus was unreachable. Even the most pro in Religious Affairs among us, who would have considered being a priest if only the Church could accept it, was not sure about it. By the time we switched subjects, if this blogger of yours can recall it, Saint Anne herself was about to become a Biblical virgin..
Immaculate Conception is not your day to day subject at a dinner-party, the Right Honourable Reader might agree. The SeñoraCura made the point that Our Lady of the Conception was the Patroness of Spain and I stepped in, deciding that I would have none of it. It is a well known fact that Our Lady of Conception is “ours”, being the Patroness of Portugal since medieval times. She disagreed: the Patroness of Segovia and of Spain since the XIII, she said. “What Spain in the XIII century ? There was no Spain then.. ” - I counter-argue. Our national and Catholic identities became embroiled.
- Tribe and Religion, one always doppelganging the other...
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
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