Observations from the Window 10.26

the calm before the storm on flickr

You can probably guess that the main topic of conversation around here today has been the impending frankenstorm, snor'eastercane, or just plane big ass storm otherwise known as Hurricane Sandy for short.



At the moment I really don't have much to say about Sandy other than it's supposed to hit somewhere in the vicinity of New York in a few days. Personally I think it's bad karma because there have been altogether too many blizzards and hurricanes hitting the Village since I moved here but my brother swears it's just climate change in action.

Earlier today we were reading what I wrote last year during Hurricane Irene. Taken together the Irene posts are one of my most read series of posts so I thought I would take a look back here too. This wasn't my first post about Irene but I like it because it contains a very serious list of items we stocked for the storm. As I write this tonight I think the VQs are probably out buying the very same items. If you want to read the full series just click the Irene tag.

Saturday, August 27, 2011
Observations on Irene 8.26

I thought maybe I would take some early morning photos so I rode an empty subway train down to the soon to be forbidden zone of Battery Park. Truth be told I didn't take much of anything because it was just a cloudy dreary humid morning and on top of that the Starbucks was closed. If this is the calm before the storm I think I'll pass.

Irene came ashore in North Carolina around 7AM as a category 1 storm. The weakening doesn't change the situation much here as the problem is how long the storm will batter the city and how much water will be pushed into the harbor, the rivers, and down the street. Later today ConEd will decide if it is going to shutdown the power to lower Manhattan. Because the cables are all underground they are vulnerable to saltwater if they are in use but not if they aren't in use. Now I understand why there are no batteries to be found in the Village.

Everybody says be prepared so we stocked up with the following ...

One case of Corona, one case of Corona Light, and two bags of ice in the freezer. Multiple bottles of red and white wine because Ash can't decide which is the right one for a hurricane and one must follow the wine rules at all times.   A bag of limes and one bottle of Jose Cuervo Black Medallion tequila because one shouldn't ride out a big storm with cheap tequila.   One carton of Misty Menthol Ultra Lights otherwise known as Misty Silver under the theory that people think ultra-light smoke is healthy and will think silver isn't.   One carton of Marlboro Menthol 100s because Chloe isn't a lite weight like me and smokes a real cigarette, or so I am told.   New lighter to light those above named cigarettes.   Two camera and two laptop batteries charged.   A camping lantern and flashlights along with a jumbo pack of priceless D size batteries. The latter I am tempted to sell on the street because, well, they really are priceless right now.   My older digital camera packed in a towel and zip-lock bag. Don't ask on this one because I'm not going to tell.   Shit I forgot to get food.

A bit of worthless hurricane trivia that doesn't seem so worthless now. If the storm is a category 1 at ground level it is a category 2 ten stories up. I can hear the glass raining down already.

No subways running down below and it just started raining in the Village. I suppose this really is the calm before the storm. Let the games begin.

update - Due to some concern I would like to add that we have cookies, coffee, and two cases of bottled water too.

Observations on The 2012 Election 10.25

There are only 12 days left until the election but it's not too late to donate to one of the four state marriage equality campaigns and hopefully be part of history. Or you could donate nationally. I'm not one to beg, I'm more one to say why the hell not?

Maine, Why Marriage Matters
Maryland, Equality Maryland
Minnesota, Minnesotans United for All Families
Washington, Washington United for Marriage

Nationally, Human Rights Campaign

Observations 10.25

Marriage for All Families: Stories from Maryland

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Published on Oct 23, 2012 by NewLeftMedia

The final of our four-part series made in each of the states that have marriage equality votes this November, this short shares the experiences of same-sex couples who want to get married in Maryland. They have the same challenges, responsibilities, and aspirations as any other couple, but they are strangers in the eyes of the law. That's why marriage equality is so important: it aligns personality reality with legal reality, as a simple matter of fairness.

The series is produced in association with The Four, a social media campaign to support marriage equality in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington State. Learn more and get involved at TheFour.com.

Film produced by Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll.
Music by Timmy's Work.

Observations on Art 10.24

I have been saying for years, in writing and in person, that it isn't just me, artists are just generally a weird breed. Finally I don't have to argue that point anymore because I now have video proof. We've watched this quite a few times and I can't stop laughing at the sheer 'what the hell' weirdness of it all. In a video just released today, Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, Gangnam Style ....

草泥马style

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Published on Oct 24, 2012 by 未未 艾
No description available.

10/25 update - Ai Weiwei offered a bit of explanation today for the video which is already banned from Chinese websites. "We feel that every person has the right to express themselves, and this right to expression is fundamentally linked to our happiness, and even our existence. When a society constantly demands that everyone should abandon that right, then the society becomes a society without creativity," Ai Weiwei said in an interview. Also the characters he replaced Gangnam with in the title mean "Grass Mud Horse" which in Mandarin supposedly sounds like something rude you might do to your mother. It was meant as a snub to censors and evidently had that effect.

Observations on the 2012 Election 10.24

With election just a couple weeks away now it's easy to concentrate on the presidential race at the expense of all the others. What gets lost doing that is the fact that this could end up being a truly historic election for multiple reasons. Gay marriage has been voted on 32 times since 1998 and lost all 32 times. This year it could pass in not one but three states; Maine, Washington, and Maryland.

But the subject of this brief post is that this year a record 141 women are running for Congress and another 18 for the Senate. In 1992 a total of 24 women were elected to Congress which was the most ever, hopefully that will pale next to this years total. It could also include Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin who would be the first openly gay member of the U.S. Senate.

In the 2012 United Nations' survey of women in parliaments around the world the United States came in with 16.8% or 78^th which ties it with Turkmenistan. In comparison, Afghanistan had 27.7% and
Pakistan 22.5% women in their respective parliaments.

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has been one of the forces behind the drive to have women run for office and take responsibility for issues important to women. In 2010 Gillibrand won a special election to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat and is running for re-election this year. On Mother's Day of last year she wrote; "Now more than ever, we must get more women engaged at every level of public life. Because if women don't get off the sidelines, there are decisions being made every day about every aspect of our lives and they might not like what they find."

Kirsten Gillibrand: Standing Up For Women

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Published on Oct 15, 2012 by GillibrandForSenate

Observations 10.23

Marriage for All Families: Stories from Washington


link

Published on Oct 16, 2012 by NewLeftMedia

The third of our four-part series made in each of the states that have marriage equality votes this November, this short shares the experiences of same-sex couples who want to get married in Washington. They have the same challenges, responsibilities, and aspirations as any other couple, but they are strangers in the eyes of the law. That's why marriage equality is so important: it aligns personality reality with legal reality, as a simple matter of fairness.

The series is produced in association with The Four, a social media campaign to support marriage equality in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington State. Learn more and get involved at TheFour.com.

Film produced by Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll.
Music by Timmy's Work.

update - It was announced today that on October 15^th Bill and Melinda Gates donated $500,000 to Washington United for Marriage for its campaign to pass Ref74 which would uphold Washington's marriage equality law which brings the total amount raised for the campaign to almost $12 million. In the latest polls 57% of likely voters support the referendum despite the National Organization for Marriage pouring money into the state. Yesterday New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg a $250,000 matching donation to the campaign if the local organization could raise an equal amount.

Observations on the 2012 Election 10.23

Last night was the third and final presidential debate between President Obama and Willard. I don't think they have been anywhere near as important as some would have us think. The polls really are skewed in a way but not by any side or the other trying to make them look good. They are skewed by the facts of a modern election. Despite all the Republican attempts to stop it in some states for the first time more people may have voted before election day than actually vote on it. Also I don't see how it is possible to look at these two men and be undecided, seriously, if you are undecided at this point you are probably undecided about a lot of things in life.

But if you really are still undecided I'm writing this in an attempt to sway you. Below you will find all you need to know about Willard Romney. What he wrote about the auto industry bailout in The New York Times back in 2008 and what he said on the same subject during last night's debate. I think the few paragraphs I'm posting are enough to make my point but if not at the bottom you will find links to the complete Times piece and the full debate transcript.

Let Detroit Go Bankrupt
By Mitt Romney
Published: November 18, 2008
"If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.
Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check...."

Presidential Debate
October 22, 2012
Romney: "I’m a son of Detroit. I was born in Detroit. My dad was head of a car company. I like American cars. And I would do nothing to hurt the U.S. auto industry. My plan to get the industry on its feet when it was in real trouble was not to start writing checks. It was President Bush that wrote the first checks. I disagree with that. I said they need, these companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy. And in that process, they can get government help and government guarantees, but they need to go through bankruptcy to get rid of excess cost and the debt burden that they’d, they’d built up."
President Obama: "Governor Romney, that’s not what you said…"

As I said last night; game, set, match President Obama.

Romney Opinion Piece
Debate Transcript

Observations 10.22

Ash showed me an old blog post she thought I would like and I thought I would do my own version of it. I seem to have lost the link but I remember the quote by Robert Brault it started with; "Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." It was a list of the thirty little things that matter in her life, small things that normally get overlooked or are taken for granted. Hers was maybe a bit too faith based for my liking but still it was a good idea, for what it's worth here is my much shorter list. It was off the top of my head so don't give it more weight than it deserves.

The color black. Yeah I know, is black even a color? By definition black is a total lack of color because it absorbs all light and with it all color. I had an 'argument' with a professor once because I said if black absorbs all color isn't it a saturation, or combination, of them all? To this day I stick by my argument whenever I see him.

The color blue. Indigo, turquoise, and all 60 shades in between. Good coffee and music. The smile on the face of a total stranger. A warm bath with candles on a cold night. Cold nights. Art museums, granted this isn't a small thing or always cheap but it's my list and I love museums, all the paintings and the smell of old oil paints. Chili peppers.

I haven't had this happen in some time but that feeling I get when I work on a painting than suddenly step back and realized it's finished. You can't understand it unless its happened to you and photos don't count, I've found it just isn't the same.

A good movie, the kind you watch, go back to the beginning, and watch all over again. The moments before a snow storm when it is totally calm and quiet. Walking barefoot on a wet beach. Books, real paper in the hand type books. Getting the Sunday New York Times before the sun comes up, a weirdly priceless thing. Vintage photos. van Gogh. Paris.

My last two are in no way small things but I can't make any kind of list of this sort without mentioning them. Talking to a small group of close friends that have been with me for years, like my sisters. And finally, my family, always my family, any time I can spend with them. I should add I mean my immediate family and not the conservative branch that thinks I am the devil's daughter incarnate.

Did I mention politics? I thought so.

Sunday Observations 10.21

I'm going to try something a bit different that maybe will continue on Sunday's or maybe not, we shall see. I've mentioned before how I constantly take notes on my comp, phone, and even a tablet I always have in my pack. Some of the things I use, some never are thought of again. Some things are worth mentioning but don't really need a full post and those will be the things I use here.

Rihanna by Annie Leibovitz

I have never been fond of cats, I just don't like them, but in the November issue of Vogue there are some shots of Rihanna where she reminds me of, well, a cat. A sexy cat I wouldn't at all mind having wander around the apartment.


I could have used this is my previous post but didn't. Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D) is running for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin. I read an opinion from The Washington Times that calls her a 'radical lesbian' and and all but predicts the end of the Christian world should she win. Baldwin would be the first openly lesbian senator in history. What I wanted to share was a comment from a man whose name I forgot to keep and which is now buried deep in the comments section. "Thanks for letting me know about the lesbian menace. I normally don't contribute to out-of-state campaigns, but your article prompted me to donate $100 towards her election. Keep up the good work, and God bless." Sounds like something my dad would write.

Art Review magazine released its annual 'Power 100' list this week and once again I wasn't on it. I don't know what they are thinking.

If you haven't seen it yet President Obama's "Romnesia" speech is totally worth a look. Too funny and it spawned yet another hashtag at Willard's expense, Romneyshambles was the first and still the best. Little known fact, the Romney campaign has actually purchased the rights to certain hashtags, AreYouBetterOff is one, and has them promoted by Twitter. It backfires every time.

Finally, next Saturday night Ohio State will travel to Happy Valley to play Penn State in a game now known as the Ineligible Bowl. The two best teams in the Big Ten, both ineligible for the conference championship or any NCAA bowl bids. Rather fitting. I'm sure there is some lesson in that but I have no clue what it is.

Observations from the Window 10.20

I was going to write this earlier but I thought it would be better if I waited till I wasn't quite as irritated as I was. Irritated isn't the right word, I was totally disgusted. At Tuesday night's debate Katherine Fenton, a 24 year old kindergarten teacher, had the gall to ask Willard what he would do about the gender wage gap. In his answer Romney explained how hard it was to find qualified women to serve in his administration in Massachusetts and dropped the now infamous "binders full of women" line. For her efforts, and like Sandra Fluke before her, Fenton has now had her name trashed from coast to coast by the neanderthal press.

Nobody has of yet called her a slut but they have called her a feminazi, a party girl, and a member of some phantom left wing conspiracy to destroy the American dream by making women equal partners in it. They scoured her Facebook page and Twitter account, which has since been deleted, and discovered that, omg, she liked drinking and sex. She wasn't ladylike enough, she likes manly things, and to top it off she wrote about in public when she should have at home cooking dinner. The wingnuts love to talk about terror and well they should because they win more elections on pure fear than anybody has since the Civil War. Isn't something like this just terrorism in a different form? When it's a man it's a "pointed question" but when it's a woman asking it suddenly becomes personal, your'e just a slut.

I've never really thought of myself as a feminist, I don't like having to 'be' anything, but maybe it's time I did. Seriously if the wingnuts and angry old white men are so scared of the term it must be good for something. Just think about it, if women were to trash a man for asking a simple question there would be hell to pay. But they are allowed. Don't dare call fat Limbaugh fat but somehow Candy Crowley's weight can be an important issue for post-debate discussion. They are allowed. Think women are equal in today's America? Like many minorities they may feel equal but under the nice calm surface of equality a woman is one pointed question away from being just another slut.

I was going to leave a link to the article that totally disgusted me but I changed my mind, why give them the traffic, and after my rave review you probably wouldn't read it anyway. Instead I'll leave a link to a Raw Story article on it and finish with a paragraph from the same.

"The article, published anonymously, alleged that Katherine Fenton’s Twitter account “reveals that purple Joose is her choice to get blackout drunk and she has a history of getting wet at happy hour.”
The article also highlights sexually suggestive messages Fenton allegedly sent from her Twitter account. The Twitter account cited in the article no longer exists."

Published anonymously, fucking cowards.

Observations 10.19

"Corporations are people, banks are people. People are just empty vessels through which Facebook expresses itself." Well ....

Corporations are people my friend


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Published on Oct 18, 2012 by SchlepLabs
in association with Actually.org

Observations on Art 10.18

Yes I know, yet another art heist post. The whole affair just intrigues me so I was reading what I could find about it and came across something I wanted to share. it's an opinion piece from The National which is the English publication of the Abu Dhabi Media Group. I know, now you are wondering what the hell I am doing reading a newspaper from the Emirates and I'll get to that after the opinion. I wanted to share this in its entirety because it says a lot of what I was trying to say and maybe says it better.

Painted Into A Corner
National Editorial
Oct 18, 2012

"Art heists capture the imagination like few other crimes do. Is there some secret cabal of art aficionados willing to pay millions for stolen masterpieces? It might make a good movie, but in real life, probably not. In fact, the thieves who lifted seven works, including paintings by Picasso, Gauguin, Monet and Matisse, from the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam this week may well have been amateurs who knew their supposed value - in the tens of millions of dollars - but had no understanding of the art market.

While it's possible the paintings were stolen to order, either to pay off a debt or to satisfy somebody's personal whim, FBI art crime team founder Robert Wittman told The Atlantic magazine that even black-market buyers wouldn't touch such high-profile stolen goods - because their value resides to a great extent in ownership of legal title. If the works are offered for sale, the "buyer" could well be an undercover cop. More likely, Wittman says, they will sit in storage, for years or even decades, and will eventually be recovered. Or possibly destroyed.

This will be cold comfort to the Triton Foundation, which owns the paintings, but it will illustrate the chestnut that crime doesn't pay."

And why was I reading The National today? Because the United Arab Emirates, including Abu Dhabi and Dubai, probably have one of the largest concentrations of mega art collectors in the world. In the next few years branches of both the Guggenheim and the Louvre will open in Abu Dhabi and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a Gagosian Gallery spring up somewhere in the region. Last November Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the daughter of the Emir of Qatar and head of the Qatar Museum Board, was named the most powerful person in the art world by Art & Auction magazine. At about the same time that same board paid $250 million for Paul Cézanne's The Card Players from a group that included a secret partner rumored to be, that is correct, Larry Gagosian. So maybe now you can see why I check The National art section from time to time.

As for crime not paying, I'm not so sure I agree with that line in this situation. Personally I think there is more 'commissioned' art theft than anybody in the market wants to admit. There is just too damn much money involved for there not to be.

Observations on Art 10.17

The Thomas Crown Affair, 1999 remake, historically I don't think its ever actually happened quite like this. Still, it is a good scene and an awesome tune if you like classic jazz. Enjoy ....

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In case you wondered, the tune is Nina Simone's Sinnerman.

Observations on Art 10.16

Claude Monet, Waterloo Bridge

I don't think I have ever written about an art heist before but last night's was a major topic of conversation today. I want to say from the start that, contrary to a twitter rumor spreading from Sweden, I had nothing to do with it. Around 3 AM thieves broke into Rotterdam's Kunsthal Museum and made off with seven paintings worth in excess of $100 million. They entered through the back of the museum, swiped the paintings, and were gone when police arrived just five minutes after the alarm sounded. This was one of the topics discussed, the growing trend of museums using just electronic security. It may save money but in the long run it just isn't enough as last night proved.

The Kunsthal may have state of the art electronic surveillance and alarms but it has no "down time" security officers. In contrast over half of The Louvre's staff of 2,000 are security related and the Museum of Modern Art just completed a huge security upgrade in anticipation of showing Edward Munch's The Scream beginning next week.
The Scream was sold in May for $120 million. Granted these two museums are in a league all their own but is one guard too much to ask?

Whatever the case the thieves had exceptionally good taste. The haul was made up of Picasso's Harlequin Head (1971), Monet's Waterloo Bridge and Charing Cross Bridge (both 1901), Matisse's Reading Girl in White and Yellow (1919), Paul Gauguin's Girl in Front of Open Window (1898), Meyer de Haan's Self-Portrait (1890), and Lucian Freud's Woman with Eyes Closed (2002). I don't understand the final one but than I had nothing to do with it. The Kunsthal has no collection of its own, all the paintings were on loan from the collection of the Cordia family.

When I write about art I like to try and teach something and here is the lesson for any budding art thieves out there. As I said the seven paintings are worth over $100 million but that is an auction/insurance figure. As far as the current 'owners' of the works are concerned they are all but worthless unless they have some totally immoral collector already lined up. That is always a possibility but more in the realm of Hollywood than in the real art world. Also unlikely, but still possible, is that the thieves will try and ransom the paintings through the insurers. One thing is certain, they wont be turning up at a flea market.

If not recovered quickly the paintings may not be seen for generations if ever. Over twenty years ago 13 paintings, including two Rembrandts, at the time worth $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston. The museum offered a reward of $5 million for the paintings safe return, as always worded so that the thieves themselves aren't eligible to collect. None have ever been recovered in what is still the largest art heist in history.

And no, I was only 10 years old at the time.

10/17 update - There is a good article in today's New York Times that includes this; "Marc Masurovsky, a historian and an expert on plundered art in Washington, noted the possibility that the theft was "a contract job," adding: "These works were picked out. Could it be they had been targeted well before the theft, and the exhibit was the opportunity to strike?"'