Chubby Banker Bunker

"I saw that my uncle was about to be metamorphosed into the fearsome Professor, and I made no reply.
'Now,' he went on, 'look at the manometer. What does it say?'
'It indicates a considerable pressure.'
'Good. You can see by descending gradually, and accustoming ourselves little by little to the density of this atmosphere, we have avoided any sort of inconvenience.'
'Except for slight ear-ache.'
'That's nothing, and you can get rid of it by breathing quickly, to equalize the pressure inside your lungs with that outside.'
'Yes, of course,' I replied, determined to say nothing more which might annoy my uncle. 'It's even a positive pleasure to live in this dense atmosphere. Have you noticed how clearly you can hear everything down here?'
'I have. A deaf man would soon come to hear perfectly in these conditions.'
'But won't this density increase?'
'Yes, in accordance with a rather uncertain law. It is true that the weight of matter will diminish as fast as we descend. You know that it is at the surface of the globe that weight is most perceptible, and that at the centre of the earth objects weigh nothing at all.'
'I know that; but tell me, won't this air we are breathing end up by acquiring the same density as water?'
'Probably, under a pressure of 710 atmospheres.'
'And lower down?'
'Lower down the density will increase even further.'
'Then how shall we continue our descent?'
'We shall have to fill our pockets with stones.'
'You have an answer for everything, Uncle.'"

Jules Verne, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, p. 145.

Dotted i's and crossed t's

"Lastly, if I may be forgiven a spasm of self-consciousness, I wish to state that, even had it not so befallen that much of this book was written during a time of almost unexampled crisis, I should have been under no illusion about the importance of my subject. The mind of one who happens to have an eye for a comma is not necessarily incapable of comprehending larger issues or embracing wider interests.

                                                                                        G.V.C.

Boreham Street

January 1939"

G.V. Carey, Mind The Stop: A Brief Guide to Punctuation, p. 10.

Passionately Swiss™

In Lehman’s London office, the bridgehead for the Wall Street firm’s international expansion, many were evidently determined to minimise their status as creditors to the firm.

“Some have more than £100 on their pre-pay canteen cards, [so] they’re buying hundreds of bars of chocolate, bags of roasted coffee and anything that’s non-perishable,” said one employee.

Others were more actively seeking employment. Recruiters were stationed at Canary Wharf coffee shops to collect curriculum vitae.

Some staff said they had been banned from sending e-mails, adding that BlackBerrys and mobile phones no longer worked.

“I’ve had people calling me from telephone boxes. In the old days you’d just pick up your Rolodex and you’d bugger off. Now everything in your life is with the company,” said a former employee.

- Financial Times, Shocked Lehman staff told to ‘move on’. Published: September 15 2008 21:42 Last updated: September 15 2008 21:42

Reverse Kapitalistischen Realismus

"Hey, who turned out the lights?"

Footnotes Good/Endnotes Bad

1. 

Nervous Habit

Hot Box

"Like the suspect smoke of hot tobacco in the pipe clenched between my teeth, my irritated ideas waft in shapeless currents, traceless after collision with solid objects. And there are so many solid and semi-solid objects. Shapeless smoke and ideas slither against them..."

- Jeanne Randolph, Ethics of Luxury, p18. YYZBOOKS, 2007.

DADA JAZZ CALIFORNIA (Flin Flon, Manitoba)

Take a look at this image. Where do you see your mother in the picture?

"The word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else."

- George Orwell, What is Facism? 1944.

Masculine Silk Factor

US Patent 7159994 - System and method for generating a flickering flame effect

The generation of a flickering flame effect is important in entertainment applications, since it provides a mechanism for simulating the flicker of a candle without actually using a candle. This is important since it provides numerous safety benefits as well as an ability to keep the artificial flame "burning" in the presence of significant air pressure variations.

One type of device that generates an artificial flame is commonly known as a "wiggle wire ball." Specifically, this device is a relatively large ball that has a flat filament, wherein the current in the filament takes a random path which alters from time to time, thereby simulating a flickering flame effect.

Another such device includes a series of orange and white LEDs that are cast in resin having a flame shaped surface. A current supplied to the LED's in a particular sequence gives rise to a flickering flame effect.

Yet another device is commonly referred to as a "silk flame." The silk flame includes a piece of silk that is blown upwards by a fan, causing it to undulate. A light projected on the silk piece is reflected off of the silk while it is moving, thereby creating a flickering flame effect. Another device for generating an artificial flickering flame effect is a lamp having a flicker wherein the flicker circuit is used to modulate the glowing light source within the bulb, thereby giving an appearance of a candle burning inside a lantern or a sconce.

Another flickering flame device is a light bulb inside a flame shaped plastic object, which has wires incorporated into it. The wires interact with electromagnets causing the flame shaped object to tilt from side to side under control of an electronic circuit.

COWBOY MUSIC

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnnycash/onepieceatatime.html

Perruque

Flaring Circle; Sweaty Punctum; Sultry Diurnal. 2008

Here's your chance to rid yourself of narcissism, to regress to infantilism, to reach a zen-like state

Le Smoking

"Is Montreal the new Vancouver?"
Sarah Milroy, the Globe and Mail, May 30, 2008

Liberté Toujours

Lord Byron's view of the Hoi polloi

"Vogue Menthol Superslims

British-American Tobacco, lightly perfumed.  The first cigarette I ever smoked was a Vogue, and they still keep me company in my studio and in social situations. Their elegant, slim look and sublime taste do not help one entertain the thought of quitting.  (They do, however, help one entertain the thought of owning a fur coat.)  They've recently become available in a pink orchid-emblazoned special edition pack.  But don't try to call them ladies' cigarette - plenty of blokes smoke 'em too."

-Paulina Olowska, Artforum "Top 10", summer 2007 XLV no. 10

Before Distribution, after Décor: Eloge Du Sujet

Two right hands

"Common friendships can be shared. In one friend one can love beauty; in another, affability; in another, generosity; in another, a fatherly affection; in another, a brotherly one; and so on. But in this friendship love takes possession of the soul and reigns there with full sway: this cannot possibly be duplicated. If two friends asked you to help them at the same time, which of them would you dash to? If they asked for conflicting favours who would have the priority?" 

-Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Montaigne XXVII: Of Friendship (1580).

The Ralph Lauren paint rep only visits stores in places navigable by yacht

Me: What's it like, Ralph?
Ralph Lauren: (laughs and nods) It's incredible. I like your shirt.
[I was wearing Polo.]
Me: Thanks, I like it too.
Ralph Lauren (to Kate): I like yours too.
[she was wearing my Polo sweatshirt]
Kate: Thanks, it's his.
Me: How long have you had it?
Ralph Lauren: About a year now.
Me: Did you just take it out from your ranch?
Ralph Lauren: Yeah.
Me: I can imagine.
Ralph Lauren: What do you think of it?
Me: It's beautiful. Absolutely incredible.
[short pause]
Me: Sorry about all this.
Ralph Lauren: Don't worry about it.
Me: Thanks so much for bringing it out.
Ralph Lauren: Sure.
Me: Goodbye.
Ralph Lauren: Goodbye.

May 31 2008

A provisional artwork by Knowles Eddy Knowles as response to the artist Lawrence Weiner in the interview with Cliff Lauson in the pages of Fillip 7 (Editor Jordan Strom), made from 'Type' lifted (from John Baldessari's late 60's paintings) by the curator Joseph Del Pesco for the purpose of "The Black Market Type & Print Shop" exhibition at Articule, Montreal.

You are looking for something that's already here

DJ

"The art of our time, a thousand years from now, will be ceramic sinks and toilets, the only plentiful and durable objects. The ancient masters will be Kohler and American Standard, the latter obviously at the heart of American values."

- Donald Judd in Donald Judd: Architecture, Hatje Cantz Verlag

Silk Survives and Succeeds

Out of the Grauniad

Quand la fumée de tabac

sent aussi de la bouche 

qui l'exhale,

les deux odeurs

s'épousent par

infra-mince

Marcel Duchamp's back cover design for "View" (NY, V, nr. 1, March 1943)

4.1 Crumpled Sheet Structures:

"...

Crumpling a sheet means a ruleless deformation of a flat sheet through uncoordinated forces.  The act of "crumpling" is the result of the disordered impact of non-cordinated forces on an object.  Crumpled sheets are produced by a deliberately disordered action applied to a sheet.  In my experiments, I have applied crumpling to wire meshes and thin metal grids.

I do not find such crumpled sheet structures to be less solid than those folded in regular patterns.  Crumpled sheets can be easily represented, as they actually were, in a Fourier analysis, as the sum or as the interference pattern of different regularly undulated 2-d surfaces of sinusoidal character.  Their deformation under pressure is difficult to predetermine.  As a consequence of this, crumpled surfaces are uncomfortable to calculate and are thus neglected by engineers. 

...

The problem of implementing crumpled patterns in architecture arises less out of the technical problems involved and more out of the emotional reasons they raise.  In spite of our familiarity with such shapes, in many cases, we find them aesthetically repulsive since they hurt our instinct for order.  "Homo Faber" tries to impose his/her own geometric mind onto artefacts he/she creates.  But is this attitude the only possible attitude?"

Friedman, Y. (2006). Pro Domo.  Barcelona: Actar

"In particular, the extension to an ever greater number of wage-earners of the lack of any distinction between time and work and time outside work, between personal friendships and professional relationships, between work and the person of those who perform it - so many features which, since the nineteenth century, had constituted typical characteristics of the artistic condition, particularly markers of the artist's 'authenticity'- and the introduction of this 'modus operandi' into the capitalist universe, can only have contributed to disrupting reference points for ways of evaluating people, actions or things."

Chiapello, E & Boltanski, L (2005). The New Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Verso

Gallerist-Collector-Masterbator

Lil' Babylon

image found by Kerry Byrne(artist) via the internet.

The way some people do it (says a friend of mine from Argentina) is to submit project ideas, unsolicited, to spaces. This came up when I was saying that after June, the summer looks pretty open.
I told him it is bad taste.

United States Patent D474573: The lozenge-shaped snack has a bulging and rugged aspect.

'Land reserved for future expansion viewed from the Tarzan's Treehouse in Adventureland'

"Here, Courbet shows himself as a wanderer who has returned home, recalling his declaration in 1850: 'I have just embarked on the great wandering and independent life of the bohemian.'"
-Wall text to The Homecoming (1854) on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

"(...) Everybody must have projects all of the time. The maximum must be extracted from leisure. This is planned, used for undertakings, crammed with visits to every conceivable site or spectacle, or just with the fastest possible locomotion. The shadow of all this falls on intellectual work. It is done with a bad conscience, as if it had been poached from some urgent, even if only imaginary occupation. To justify itself in its own eyes it puts on a show of hectic activity performed under great pressure and shortage of time, which excludes all reflection and therefore itself. It often seems as if intellectuals reserved for their actual production only those hours left over from obligations, excursions and appointments and unavoidable amusements. There is something repulsive, yet to a certain degree rational, about the prestige gained by those who can present themselves as such important people that they have to be on the spot everywhere. They stylize their lives with ham-acted discontent as a single acte-de-presence. The pleasure with which they turn down an invitation with reference to another previously accepted, signals a triumph between competitors. As here, so generally, the forms of the production process are repeated in private life, or in those areas of work exempted from these forms themselves. The whole of life must look like a job, and by this resemblance conceal what is not devoted to pecuniary gain. But the fear thus expressed only reflects a much deeper one. The unconscious innervations which, beyond thought process, attune individual existence to historical rhythms, sense the growing collectivization of the world. Yet since integral society does not so much take up individuals positively within itself as crush them to an amorphous and malleable mass each individual dreads the process of absorption, which is felt as inevitable. (...)"

-Theodor Adorno, Vandals in 'Minima Moralia', (written 1945, first published 1951), p. 138.

I hope that having worked with me for the last while it is clear that I am seldom an opportunist; neither is it the case here.

"As soon as the reverie becomes concentrated, the genie of the Volcano appears. He dances on 'blue and red embers... using as his mount a snowflake carried along by the hurricane.' He carries the Dreamer away beyond the quadrangular monument whose founding is traditionally attributed to Empedocles. 'Come, my king. Put on your crown of white flame and blue sulphur from which there comes forth a dazzling rain of diamonds and sapphires.' And the Dreamer, ready for the sacrifice, replies: 'Here I am! Envelop me in rivers of burning lava, clasp me in your arms of fire as a lover clasps his bride. I have donned the red mantle. I have adorned myself in your colors. Put on, too, your burning gown of purple. Cover your sides with its dazzling folds. Etna, come, Etna! Break down your gates of asphalt, spew forth your pitch and sulphur. Vomit forth the stone, the metal and the fire!' In the heart of the fire death is no longer death. 'Death could not exist in that ethereal region to which you are carrying me... My fragile body may be consumed by the fire, my soul must be united with those tenuous elements of which you are composed.' 'Very well!' said the Spirit, casting over the Dreamer part of his red mantle, 'Say farewell to the life of men and follow me into the life of phantoms.'
-Gaston Bachelard quoting George Sand, Psychoanalysis of Fire, p. 18.

3 reclining nudes

"Obsessed with creating his sculptures exactly as he envisioned through his unique view of reality, he often carved until they were as thin as nails and reduced to the size of a pack of cigarettes, much to his consternation."

My dog understands me but I do not understand it. Who is more stupid?

QUESTION:

Can you tell me where to buy and how to store my pseudo drugs?

ANSWER:

Pseudo drugs can be purchased from:
Sigma-Aldrich,
3050 Spruce Street,
St. Louis,
MO 63103.
1-800-325-3010

At this time they have the following scents available:
- Marijuana
- Cocaine
- Heroin
- LSD
- Cadaver

At this time they do not have a meth scent for sale.

http://www.leerburg.com/

The Good Enough Mother

a cover of a cover of a cover of a cover of a cover

Anne Collier
Smoking 2, 2005
C-print, framed
1025x1279mm
Edition of Five + 2 AP

Swiss Solutions

"(...) In 1835, a young civil servant and aristocrat from France, named Alexis de Tocqueville, would publish a book about America that still resonates today.
The book is called "Democracy in America," and in it this young Frenchman said that the secret to America's success was our talent for bringing people together for the common good. De Tocqueville wrote that tyrants maintained their power by "isolating" their citizens -- and that Americans guaranteed their freedom by their remarkable ability to band together without any direction from government.
(...) Our Founders rejected both a radical individualism that makes no room for others, and the dreary collectivism that crushes the individual. They gave us instead a society where individual freedom is anchored in communities. And in this hopeful new century, we have a great goal: to renew this spirit of community and thereby renew the character and compassion of our country.
First, we must understand that the character of our citizens is essential to society. In a free and compassionate society, the public good depends on private character. That character is formed and shaped in institutions like family, faith, and the many civil and -- social and civic organizations, from the Boy Scouts to the Rotary Clubs. The future success of our nation depends on our ability to understand the difference between right and wrong and to have the strength of character to make the right choices. Government cannot create character, but it can and should respect and support the institutions that do.
Second, we must understand the importance of keeping power close to the people. Local people know local problems, they know the names and faces of their neighbors. The heart and soul of America is in our local communities; it is in the citizen school boards that determine how our children are educated; it's in city councils and state legislators that reflect the unique needs and priorities of the people they serve; it's in the volunteer groups that transform towns and cities into caring communities and neighborhoods. In the years to come, I hope that you'll consider joining these associations or serving in government -- because when you come together to serve a cause greater than yourself, you will energize your communities and you will help build a more just and compassionate America."
-George Bush

The trauma from the last post made me start smoking

Adam MCEWEN
One Concept
2007
C-print
83,2 x 15,9 cm
image courtesy Galerie Rodolphe Janssen and the artist.

The Avant-Garde in Minnesota

Image via Leisure Projects
www.leisuregallery.ca

***

KVLY-TV
updated 2:13 p.m. ET, Tues., Feb. 26, 2008

A creative way to get around the statewide smoking ban is spreading like wildfire around the state. Dozens of bars are expected to stage so-called "theater nights'' this weekend, in which all the patrons are dubbed actors. That qualifies them for a loophole in the state smoking ban, which permits performers to smoke during a theatrical production. Mark Benjamin, a lawyer who first had the idea, estimates 50 to100 bars around the state could hold theater nights this weekend. Officials with the state Health Department said earlier thisweek they were waiting for an opinion from the state attorneygeneral's office on the legality of the theater nights. State legislators who championed the ban said last week the loophole will likely be plugged.

Frozen

Marcel Broodthaers, »Cover des Ausstellungskatalogs Marcel Broodthaers. Cinéma«, 1968 – 1972
1997 | Fotografie | © Estate Marcel Broodthaers; VG Bild-Kunst 2004

Turning Points

Q: Is that your birthday suit? **************************************************************************** A: Well it isn't my Sunday best!

"My eyes followed the smoke which curled and uncurled in the dappled light. And my mind mingled in the smoke and slowly vanished in blue wreaths. After a long interval, without having any recourse to logic, I could see with utter certainty the origin, the growth and the disappearance of the world. It was as if I had once more plunged into Buddha, but this time without the delusive words and insolent acrobatic tricks of the mind. This smoke is the essence of his teaching, these vanishing spirals are life coming impatiently to a happy end in blue nirvana..."
-Nikos Kazantzakis Zorba the Greek, p. 49