The times of falling wariors?

Watching closely American vertigo could be sometimes savagely terrifying. Vengeful narcissism vs. pussy warriors revolution, sanctuary cities target, hold up of immigrants at the airports or "starving" democracy to death by cutting federal funds are just another examples of American dynamics that make some of us physically ill. Could Silicon Valley be the only one that will prove that smart resistance is negotiable and efficient in resisting deadly cascades of toxic trumpism?

Henry Moore "Falling Warrior"

Americans with their flashy and obnoxious attitude secretly know that success is very often tedious, diminishing, repetitive, sometimes very slow, and uneventful. Often there is no place for transparency or fireworks. Is it the time when colossal and wounded America will master again hypervigilance, silent consistency and restless thrive for empirical evidence what's right to save its falling warriors... Democrats today: victims of Pompeii, flash-heated to death by explosion of Trump.

Silicon Valley "Among the disrupted"

Leon Wieseltier: "Meanwhile the discussion of culture is being steadily absorbed into the discussion of business. There are “metrics” for phenomena that cannot be metrically measured. Numerical values are assigned to things that cannot be captured by numbers. Economic concepts go rampaging through noneconomic realms: Economists are our experts on happiness.

Where wisdom once was, quantification will now be. Quantification is the most overwhelming influence upon the contemporary American understanding of, well, everything. It is enabled by the idolatry of data, which has itself been enabled by the almost unimaginable data-generating capabilities of the new technology.

The distinction between knowledge and information is a thing of the past, and there is no greater disgrace than to be a thing of the past. Beyond its impact upon culture, the new technology penetrates even deeper levels of identity and experience, to cognition and to consciousness. Such transformations embolden certain high priests in the church of tech to espouse the doctrine of “transhumanism” and to suggest, without any recollection of the bankruptcy of utopia, without any consideration of the cost to human dignity, that our computational ability will carry us magnificently beyond our humanity and as the director of engineering at Google says: “allow us to transcend these limitations of our biological bodies and brains. . . . There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine.”

Is greed for art better than greed?

Is currency of art stronger than other currencies? Art, Devil's currency and source of unlimited pleasures of Gods. Invented in Renaissance by The Medicis and cultivated in today's capitalism at the speed of light.

Collateral damage, circulation of life

Literature is about failure, not about success. We don't like rich characters. We prefer poor. Money and likeability are not going together. John Lanchester

Fantasy of immortality

Perfect weekend. Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi with her Nobel Peace Prize on tour in Europe. I'm listening to old songs of Nina Simone "Feeling good". Radio France International is arguing philosophical aspects of face and hand transplants successfully performed in France every month. However one of the patients of double hand transplantation surgery requested amputation of his hand transplants years later. Psychological effects?

Delightful Japanese tea garden in the Golden Gate Park. I could touch new sculptures of Jun Kaneko exposed in front of the San Francisco Opera House. Warm Marina evening makes me flying with bloody butterflies of the expanding sunset behind the Golden Gate Bridge. Sweet, deep and thick oranges on the sky. Wide open arms of the Pacific Ocean invite loudly to savor the moment. 

Technically we can repair almost each of organs through micro-surgery these days... We play with fantasy of immortality and Aretha Franklin sings "Fever" on my iPhone. Steve Jobs would smile at her. Perfect weekend.

Evolution through sexy revolutions

Foreign Policy Magazine, The "Sex" Issue. Mona Eltahawy.

Luscious Rula Jebreal, hot-blooded Mona Eltahawy and charming Elias Khoury arguing about Arab Spring, Israeli government and sex at the "PEN World Voices" festival in NYC.

Two days later, Salman Rushdie at The Cooper Union in NYC... about erotic and glamour steam of Arthur Miller's literature, censorship, wars and irrelevant name of "Arab Spring", invented by Western - bored to death - consumers of fresh news... 

"Art is not an entertainment but revolution!". Salman Rushdie

Las Vegas Gambling

"The secret affinity between gambling and the desert: the intensity of gambling reinforced by the presence of the desert surrounding the town. The air-conditioned freshness of the gaming rooms, as opposed to the radiant heat outside.

The challenge of all the artificial lights to the violence of the sun rays. Night of gambling sunlit on all sides; the glittering darkness of these rooms in the middle of the desert. Gambling itself is a desert form, inhuman, uncultured, initiatory, a challenge to the natural economy of value, a crazed activity on the fringes of exchange. But it also has a strict limit and stops abruptly; its boundaries are exact, its passion knows no confusion.

Neither the desert nor gambling are open areas; their spaces are finite and concentric, increasing in intensity toward the interior, toward a central point, be it the spirit of gambling or the heart of the desert - a privileged, immemorial space, where things lose their shadow, where money loses its value, and where the extreme rarity of traces of what signals to us there leads men to seek the instantaneity of wealth."

Jean Baudrillard on Las Vegas

Selling milk on Wall street

Photo perso: "Occupy Wall Street" movement, NYC, Zuccotti Park, November 2011

Helicopters are occupying "my sky" next to magnificent Beekman tower by Frank Gehry and watching the park around the NY City Hall. Lower Manhattan is getting nervous, protestors are screaming, police officers everywhere...

No sunrise behind the Brooklyn Bridge, industrial colors and cloudy atmosphere making the lady "Liberty" depressed. No tourists in waiting line for water taxi. Barricades everywhere. No more clients at my favorite fresh milk mini-shop on Wall Street. Bankruptcy of the old farmer first. Pedestrian traffic control killed the traffic and his business.

Quiet evening at the NY Press Club yesterday before midnight, supporting "Occupy Wall Street" movement. And an aggressive clean up of Zuccotti Park from sleeping protestors last night. Reports say: "Sanitation issue". Is democracy becoming unsanitary and dangerous? Law Professor Robert Hockett is the only one screaming "Shame on you Mayor Bloomberg!".

In the time of solar storm

The Sun. Hot plasma that never sleeps. "Magnetic Dynamo theory" describes the process through which a rotating, converting, and electrically conducting fluid acts to maintain a magnetic field. It uses magnetohydrodynamic equations to investigate how the fluid can continuously regenerate the magnetic field.

According to NASA, a giant solar flare leapt from the face of the sun on Monday, February 14th, and sent masses of charged particles outward into space, including toward Earth... Media hysteria in the US. But in Europe it brings up these delicious memories of making love to Olafur Eliasson sun in The Turbine Hall of Tate Modern in London. Exceptional art exhibit. For American public: Happy Valentine's Day in the time of solar storm radiation.

Vandalized silence of The Pacific Ocean

From the fresh coast deep into dry, salty and earthy continent... Distinctive boundaries of The Mojave Desert. You can hear noisy sizzle of morning dryness of the air, bored to death. Divine carcasses of pre-September 11 airplanes entering the scrapheap... Great business deal though.

Local teenagers are getting ready for Junkyard Mega Wars at the bar. Who wants cheap but ice cold Corona beer? Blond American lolitas are giggling in queue for push up bras with gelatinous boobs mini-implants, heavy makeup and fake long eyelashes. All excited for the last desert race tonight. Perpetual search for being high on sugar, on drugs, on porn. America - mega sugar-cult in the noisy sizzle of the desert...

The Cure playing in my mind, Prayers For Rain?

Polish Parliament prays for rain occasionally and I don’t look at it as a synonym of hopelessness anymore. After several years spent in other exotic countries, those spectacular prayers of Polish political elite during parliamentary sessions became joyful to me. Over 94% of the entire population declares itself Catholic. Polish hotel in Warsaw or Cracow will never put on the pillow the same note as I find in New York City, Dubai, London or Shanghai:

“This hotel respects the religious background of all of our guests. We invite you to call out Guest Services department at any time during your stay to request your preferred book of worship:

Buddhism: The Dhammapada
Christianity: The Holy Bible (King James Version)
Judaism: The Torah
Hinduism: The Bhagavad Gita
Islam: The Koran
Confucianism: The Analects by Confucius
Taoism: The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu."

Temporary dictatorship of The Urgency

The fast devours the slow... This mastery of short-term-ism and unnecessary agitation around all kind of activities might be efficient in gaining power, for sure...

Tyranny of the clocks in today's daily human routine, contemporary politics and business of emergency procedures are getting boring.

Who will take over the challenging position of "master clock"?

Meeting violence with violence

Smoky opium perfume, an oriental blend of spices and fruits, gold, sandalwood, plum, coriander, myrrh, patchouli, cinnamon, pepper, and human blood... Music by Zakir Hussain and show by Alonzo King Lines ballet. Is it really different dancing in New York City than Jerusalem or Dubai? Well sculptured brown skin male-torso-beauty, shaved head, magnificent muscles, half naked, with his waist slaved in heavy blood-red, and long taffeta skirt... is just magnetizing the public with his oriental-spicy Scheherazade ballet on East Coast tour.

Scheherazade. Every day Persian King would marry a new beauty and send yesterday’s wife to be executed, as a relief after having found his first wife cheated. He had killed one thousand such women by the time he saw Scheherazade, well bred lover who studied philosophy, history, politics and arts. She volunteered to spend one night with the King to save other women’s life with her wisdom, imagination and clever idea.

Why “stoning to death” on YouTube is more shocking to Americans than their “electric chair” or “lethal injection”? There are still 35 “death penalty states” in the US. George W. Bush ran for president in 2000 when, as governor of Texas, he had presided over the largest number of state executions ever carried out in a single 12-month period (a total of 40!). Almost 1 legal execution of human being a week!

Support for death penalty allows politicians to show that they support law enforcement and they are cost conscious. As they say “it’s easier and cheaper governing crime” with death penalty “handy”. And stimulating emotional hysteria around each process helps tremendously in maximizing the votes. This cynical “political exchange" and cultural expression of local American communities seem to be obvious benefits of the "death penalty" in the US. As Professor Garland concludes "penal instrument that puts persons to death became a peculiar institution that puts death into discourse for political and cultural purposes". American Vertigo... And weekly executions in Texas are not much different from today's stoning to death in Asia.

Artoholism or just political advertising

- Charles Saatchi, why are there no Israelis in your show "Unveiled: New Art From The Middle East"?
- Good question.

The Saatchi brothers were born into a family of Iraqi Jews in Bagdad and created in 1970 Saatchi & Saatchi, the most sparkling advertising agency in London. The Saatchi Gallery has been opened by Charles in 1985 and it's still considered as a major influence on contemporary art. Using art in selling the most power hungry psychopaths or combining politics and media headlines to sell art - used to be a very successful business strategy in the 80's. Is is still useful to rate art with any type of politically offensive shock value as "exciting" to increase pricing of new contemporary art pieces? Or the mood for political advertising of art has passed?

"Whatever you think, think the opposite". Paul Arden

Sublimation of crime

“Terrorism? Fast track humanism. It is a way of hastening the advent of civilization by liquidating the representatives of the old order. No flesh and blood beings are targeted but the bourgeoisie and capitalism – this is to say, the system that inhabits and manipulates man. Through this double sublimation – of homicide into the birth of the new, and of the person into abstract entity – the very consciousness of having committed a crime is erased"... Alain Finkielkraut from "The Wisdom of Love"

Culture, Coolture, Googlture...

"Fresh Hell", all pop, no culture at The Palais de Tokyo. According to Wikipedia, the term "Culture" has various meanings e.g. it's an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning or excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities. From the Latin "cultura" stemming from "colere", means "to cultivate, protect, nurture, worship, honor"... What's the official Google's position on that? Should I just google it?

Touching Abakans or balancing mood swings with Wurm

Magdalena Abakanowicz  "Abakan Red"

Hysterical infantilism in today’s art makes me looking for the “exit” sign. It must be a result of sensory overload of human brains, hi-tech overdose, or just my age.

Sure, it is perfectly enjoyable to give yourself goose bumps by entering the horror land of Ron Mueck’s hyper reality and get back this limitless pleasure of being a child again while standing tête-à-tête with his gigantic and sweaty sculpture-dolls. Big cartoon eyes of contemporary fairy tale.

I’m not sure about asexual bold and busty women painted by John Currin. They nervously titter in my mind and their seduction performance is worse than hysterical American porn movie.

Well, playing with instant mood swings of Erwin Wurm could be certainly refreshing. Suddenly this pop media hysteria becomes funny and playful like a Lolita teenage girl. lol.

But still, I miss “The Uncanny” effect of art. Damp-smelling disturbing thanatos by Madgalena Abakanowicz at the National Museum of Art in Cracow or Tate Modern in London. Familiar, yet uncomfortably strange sensation of touching her Abakans reminds me of “Home” (?). In France they would say “heavy Eastern European art. Impossible to get it. Let's have lunch!”.

West Coast rush hour of the gods

United Church of Christ, Sokoji Soto Zen Buddist Temple, Muhammad Mosque, Or Shalom Synagogue, Dakini Temple, Affirmation-Gay & Mormons, Evergreen Taoist Church, Temple Emanu-El, Japanese Baptist Church, Samoan Full Gospel, Alsabeel Masjid Noor Al-Islam, Sri Sathya Sai Baba Center, Greek Orthodox Church, Congregation Sherith Israel, Chinese Lutheran Church, Baha’i Faith, Sikh Center, Cao Dai, Wiccans, Zoroastrian Center, Korean Evangelical Church, Society for Krishna Consciousness, Ma-Tsu Temple, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientology, Gold Mountain Monastery, Russian Orthodox Church... and many others.

San Francisco, a medium-size American city with almost 809,000 people rushing every day through this gorgeous coastal city. Almost 20% of the local population is more than wealthy (millionaires or billionaires, Californian sugar daddies and hot mammas). A true Golden Gate City! Only 43% of San Franciscans declare themselves religious. And although there are no consequences for human beings to believe or not believe in God, the number of local San Francisco churches - of different faiths - varies between 1089 and 1167! Diversity? Yes, diversity of mass delusion. "L'asile de l'ignorance".

Tokyo suburbia

Ryuichi Sakamoto's rain. The metropolitan highway system from Narita airport. Tokyo suburbia. The tyranny of the average urban ugliness. Terrible "orthopedic architecture" mistakes. Hard to trust Haruki Murakami here but the acid taste of Araki's madness suddenly becomes legitimate. Being exactly as intended.

“When man shall build a building, a society, a life, as himself, training his imagination to see life, the nature of the time, the place, and the hour, eager to be himself, harmonious with nature, then the individual will rise high in the communal life of a civilization. And, supreme to “all about him”, he can’t fail to make the communal life the richer for his own riches. Human values are life giving not life taking”. Frank Lloyd Wright from "Critical Writings on Architecture", 1930

Sensual iconolatry de la République irréprochable

Aubade "La leçon de séduction"

Sparkling champagne for Coco Chanel, Sylvie Guillem ballerina, sensual Emanuelle Béart, passionate Patricia Kaas, delicious Sophie Marceau, Catherine Deneuve… Camille Claudel, Simone de Beauvoir…

The French woman, contemporary goddess of sensuality: La Perla, Lejaby, Lise Charmel, satin embroidery, silk corsets and bow garters, subtly perfumed with “Nue” by Yves Saint Laurent, pure indulgence of appetite!

Superiority of banning the burka in France? The black veil described by French desperate resistants' as "muzzles" and "walking coffins", has become a new flag of surrender of French Republic. Cheap artificial fabric with the label "Made in République irréprochable". New "leçon de séduction" by French political thinkers? France became politically bankrupted and desperate, old post-menopause courtesan that is still trying to seduce with cheap lace. Mazouted bird. Simply defeated...

Iran nostalgia with Stephen Kinzer

Persians are masters of the powerful affirmation of life and they will take their sweet time to get their free Iran back. America has no caliber or wisdom to understand this 25-century old “devil”. Houses of torture, the public executions of homosexuals, stoning to death, the wild open massacre of anti-regime opposition are the reality of today’s Iran and America has been a shameless co-creator of that reality. It’s irritating to watch “kocholo” sanction proposals as a “peaceful” strategy to steal the Iranian nuclear diplomatic card! Ya rab!

Listening to the nocturne volcano of Hayedeh’s prayer “Ya rab” or obsessing about Rumi’s fever could be an instant relief on this pathetic American TV show.

America makes Persia sexy. And Iranian-Americans become suddenly "sharp, highly educated, rich, confident and as flashy" as the best Oscar ceremony! Reps of the 1.5-million Iranian community have picked for their residence the best multimillion-dollar mansions around Los Angeles, called Tehrangeles. Beverly Hills had to elect its Mayor from among noble Iranian individuals to satisfy the needs of the richest of Persian heritage...

The Director of NASA, Agassi, the founder of eBay, leaders of Google and Apple, record-setting pilots, successful artists, top political officials in Washington, academics, thousands of Iranian doctors practicing in the best American hospitals, all just contribute and are the additional A-grade saffron’s flavor to this rich community in the US. Young Iranian-Americans publish, sing, dance, and produce movies. Gorgeous Persian women are queens of their own modern harems, don’t avoid sex drugs, and keep playing with the latest plastic surgery procedures just for fun. They're confident and passionate “beasts”. Tehrangelinos are ready to rent for tonight’s party “meshki” Armani suits, Cartier jewelry and Lamborghini cars just to show they're on top of the game.

Self-confident and empowered Iran? A big temptation… but to empower the devil you have to have extensive experience in hell. The bitter taste of saffron in Obama’s mouth… Even America doesn't have enough to offer right now to be a “preferred customer” at Lucifer’s boutique.

The unbearable pleasure of contemporary politics

Zenko-ji Temple in Nagano City, Japan. Dalai Lama’s visit this weekend. The strategy of peace and human affection. Still I can’t stop the „Tsunami” piece by Master Tanaka from drumming in my mind... Saffron-robed monks are staring right into my "décolleté". „I do not judge the universe”. „Practice compassion, take universal responsibility”. „Human affection is the necessity"... Efficient slogans to keep the level of violence low...

Sylvie Guillem, French ballerina

A year ago in Japan, Sylvie Guillem mastered Boléro forever on the bloody-red platform of the Tokyo Theater. The violence of Ravel’s rhythm re-created by Maurice Béjart testosterone movements. Wild red-haired dancer in the dark was teasing the public for hours and hours, playing with different levels of human excitement, violence and unbearable pleasure...

An unapproachable dictator assuming absolute power over the red platform of the Tokyo stage. Dancing violence! Dancing excitement! Unbearable pleasure of never-ending tease... Only solitude and the lack of human affection can create unique art masterpieces like this one.

Human affection is not a necessity but an efficient tool in contemporary politics or business. If reinforced with electronic media it creates "Obama’s success story". If applied in business, it stops suicide waves within corporations. For smaller organization - since I decided to replace business meetings and heavy SOP's with masala ginger chai with Indian managers or a Norooz celebration with Persian supervisors and cancel major operations during Ramadan for Muslim employees or send handwritten "Happy Hanukkah" messages to our Jewish directors, the annual company revenue increased by 17%. Human affection helps to succeed in today's politics or business. But it kills fine arts. „Sleep is the best meditation” as His Holiness Dalai Lama says.

California Mammalia

A blue ocean coast under California sunlight. Eucalyptus perfume filling the air. A colony of wild green parrots in San Francisco Pacific Heights. Butterflies getting high on white sunlight and nectar from gorgeous and mega pompons of heavy flowers. All kinds of red carnations around The Golden Gate Bridge. The Gold Rush. American confidence and functionality. Marble lions getting lazy in front of the Golden Gate villas. Solar power on roofs. A wind turbine of the noisy slogan “Who controls the future, controls the present.” Schwarzenegger’s California.

The Tenderloin District is the heart of San Francisco. Empty and exhausted buildings and homeless tired crowd everywhere... certainly not a Hockney painting, nor O’Keeffe’s fertility of flowers. “Just a kind of blue” like Miles Davis used to play here in local bar…

Photo: Annie Leibovitz, California Baby!

- Dr. Nobel, is the Tenderloin the same as a Chateaubriand steak?

- Rather a soup kitchen or a bread line close to the Cadillac Hotel! I regret they don’t have that private furrier anymore! Winter in SF can be really cold. Homeless crowd everywhere...

Gambling life with "Care but Not Cash" political slogans? Three of the largest San Francisco homeless shelters: Next Door, Hamilton Family Center, Multi-Service Center South are full.

Police officers flirting with Tessie Wall girls. And then SAGE. The soft underbelly of young prostitutes, “lady-loins, tender-loins”. Nobody knows origins of the name of this Tenderloin District in the heart of San Francisco. Street-dwelling alcoholics, the Wine Country still confused. Skin rash, eye infection, Kikki Smith’s naked organs. Not men or women yet, just prostitutes. They clean themselves while eating next to a pancake café; they prefer sugar to plain water. No tourists around?

The cruelty of the Californian Tenderloin free clinic. No soap. No toilet paper. No tampons. Maybe tomorrow. Fear- and disease-generating basements. A spider’s unprotected silk egg sac. A dirt bag. Homeless crowd of California Mammals, as Louise Bourgeois would call them. Homeless ghosts in the richest state of gold predators. Homelessness is the heart of The Golden City of San Francisco.

But you can still buy delicious homemade thick-cut French toasts, buttermilk spiced with ginger and cinnamon, maple syrup, cappuccino "mousse" at Dottie’s Blue Café. Tenderloin here is not a Chateaubriand steak, not a Hockney oil either. Not a gold rush anymore. Just a rash. Mr. Newsom, how many bars of gold would that cost... the healing process of the Tenderloin District?

Le vrai cul du diable

The exhibition of huge red sculptures by Anish Kapoor: “Blood stick”, "Drip", "Ishi's light" or the gigantic sophisticated golden phallic dildo exposed at the Palais des Papes in Avignon. Is it a sex toy for a Pope? Kapoor's political proposition in response to the troubles of the Catholic Church? Promoting the "Good Vibrations" products among the bishops?

I’m not sure if comparing Anish Kapoor to Brancusi should make him feel flattered, but Jean de Loisy compliments him tremendously by classifying his work as – “le vrai cul du diable”.

Yes, Kapoor's red sculptures make my mind face the discrepancy between what I know and what I acknowledge having felt. The sensation of being simultaneously present and absent. Limitless suggestions. Central void inside. Like traveling through wild Asia without specific destination. My subconscious starts leaking. Invasive and disturbing masterpieces. Superior seductiveness that I'm not sure to want to embrace...

Sotheby’s hostess in turquoise tulle, like the Parrish blue kind of blue

“Waiting” with Amos Oz at the mahogany bar at the St. Regis in New York, sipping sweet ‘n’ oily Grand Marnier in front of red-painted court jesters. The majestic wall painting “King Cole” by Maxfield Parrish. Storm in town, Tuesday evening traffic jam, Moroccan taxi driver cursing at his Indian fellow driver! Manhattan is getting nervous. Too many helicopters in the air. Another Obama visit.

The Sotheby’s Art Auction House on the Upper East Side. Founded in 1744...

Sotheby's Auction of Art, NYC

Why is Jean Baudrillard constantly confusing art itself and the business of art? Many people prefer to invest their money in art instead of the stock market. Up to a 57% return on investment if you buy an artist like Warhol. The evening auction went beyond my expectations. Of the 53 works by blue-chip artists on offer, the sales transactions totaled $190 million. Ford sold his violet Warhol “Self Portrait” for $32.6 million (above its $15 million high estimate). You can't call it the "advent of banality"...

”Art has lost all desire for illusion.” Yes, but this is great news for investors, Professor Baudrillard... And we could always hire more of hostesses in mini black silk, turquoise tulle, Coco Chanel bows around the neck and high heels with red bottoms... It’s called the superior seductiveness of art by Christian Louboutin, Professor... Toxic love à la intensity of turquoise poison extracted from cobalt salts... Evening auction in Parrish blue. High ROI guaranteed...

”The Conspiracy of Art” by Jean Baudrillard, Sotheby’s Auction of Contemporary Art. New York