It is a thin line between madness and art; between madness and riches

Americana, California, Psychological Musings

We went to see the Green Prix in San Jose over the weekend. Why is sort of a long story. Michael Moore sent me several pictures his brother had taken at Burning Man. One of them was of a  '60 Chevy -  '94 Komatsu1 mutant vehicle called Maria del Camino.

'60 chev

Mike also sent along a URL that referenced that the mutant vehicle would be in an artist parade in San Jose.

So we were lead to "Build Your Own World,” ZER01 in San Jose. It was billed as an biannual event that in collaboration with dozens of partners,
will present over the course of 4 days, from September 16-19, hundreds
of artworks, performances, events, and artist talks, which not only
imagine the future of the world but begin to build it. Not including participants but including us, I think there were about twenty six people there.

Green Prix-0201

Many – probably the majority – of the participants were just goofy. Many – probably the minority – required a lot of work and it got me wondering, What is art?

To paraphrase Stalin who once said Quality is important, but quantity has a quality of it own; lots of work is art of it's own. Somehow a goofy project done with sincerity and an investment of work, becomes art. Take Watts Towers

25p1watts
or many of the parade floats – or whatever – at the Green Prix.

I was reminded by the Green Prix that, to create art, we have to be goofy; I know that, to have any chance of creating art, I have to be willing to risk it. I am reminded that the risk may result in my falling flat on my face but being safe only guarantees that I will be safe. There were not many spectators, but there were quite a few participants willing to be unsafe.

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Green Prix-0207

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Interestingly enough, the New York Times – that's The Time to the cognoscente – in an article entitled Just Manic Enough: Seeking Perfect Entrepreneurs,  says almost the same thing about guys trying to raise money for new ventures.  

Green Prix-0230 

Probably it's a comment on life.

Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms…Churchill

Current Affairs, Obama, Politics


Dictatorship2 


This is a picture, released by the White House, of the principal players in the Palestinian – Israeli peace talks walking out of a meeting. That is Hosni Mubarak – the "president" of Egypt – on the far left. Below is how the picture was printed in the Egyptian newspapers. After all, it would be unseemly for Mubarak to be following anybody else.

Dictatorship1
 

Hero worship….role model…. whatever

Uncategorized

Fernando Alonso won the Grand Prix of Italy in a Ferrari last weekend and I am – sort of – happy about it. A couple of years ago, when he was driving for Renault, was the underdog, and was young and innocent; I would have been much happier. But Fernando has been caught cheating several times and he now seems to have feet of clay.

Yea, he is a superb driver, but as a human being…meh. And – maybe – that is what makes him such a successful driver. Certainly other athletes fall into the category, Berry Bonds come to mind.

I have always had heroes. People who I have admired for what they have done and – then – that admiration got carried over to who they were. When I was a teenager, I had a picture of Sterling Moss on my wall. My mother was afraid I was gay but it still makes sense to me.

M.i.stirling.moss_.victory.1955.mille_.miglia

But it does make me wonder about hero worship and role models and how much we are willing to forgive and overlook in those distant demigods. It seems to me that, once our admiration of their talents crosses over to devotion, we are willing to overlook alot. Right now, I have a commemorative medal of Ulysses Simpson Grant  1832-1885 on my desk – his real name was Hiram Ulysses Grant, by the way.

Grant is a man I greatly admire and he did some very stupid and mean spirited things I am willing to overlook. I have friends who hate Sarah Palin and justify that hate with the fact that she is a lier but are perfectly willing to overlook lying in Bill Clinton. 

I have no point to make here except that we hold on to our believes fiercely. We think those beliefs are products of our logic and reason but they aren't, they come from some deep and hidden recesses of our being.


 

Disney is in the teaching English biz in China

Americana, China, Current Affairs

Disney-china

According to the Economist, in an article titled Middle Kingdom meets Magic Kingdom, Disney has ten English schools in Shanghai and five in Beijing. At first, I found that pretty surprising because it is such small small potatoes for Disney.Teaching English is like a classic cottage industry.

But I was reminded that we live in a time when nothing is considered too small if it makes money for the Mother Corporation. Maximizing profit is now considered the highest ideal. Banks charge fees for any service they can; including parking. The avowed goal of any company is to make as much money as possible. In 2007, before everything fell apart, General Electric made one and half times more profit in lending than any other GE division.

My childish fantasy is that – when I was young – General Electric made stuff, banks made loans, and Disney made cartoons and had Disneyland. Sure, they all made money, but that was a byproduct of their raison d'etre which was the service they provided. I think that this same childish fantasy was held by Obama, Geithner, et al when they bailed out the banks.

If they just got the banks – who were in trouble over their greed – some money, they would lend it to needy borrowers to get the economy going again. Of course, that is not what happened. The banks took the money and loaned it back to the government – in the form of safe government bonds – and started making even more money. This new, safe, profit was then used to pay themselves nice big bonuses. 


Athena

Uncategorized


Athena

Michele happened to be at a pet shop before our Mono trip where she saw a cat. What she was doing at the pet shop, I don't know – she says she was there to buy fish food – but, while there, she saw a cat that was up for adoption. Not being in the market for a cat, she just talked to it for a few minutes and left.

When we got back from our trip, the cat was still there. Maybe Michele had gone back for more fish food. The next week, she was still there and Michele started to get concerned that she would not be adopted. It turns out that the cat is a is only nine months old and is a mother. When she had her kittens, her owners – who must have been new owners, after all – dropped her off at a Feral Cat Feeding Center.

I am not sure that I even know what a Feral Cat Feeding Center is and I certainly don't know where one is. But it doesn't sound good. The cat had a micro chip so it was easy to track down the soon- to-be-ex owners who confirmed that they had named her Athena and now didn't want her. So, when Michele ran into her – at nine months – she had been adopted once, had kittens, had been abandoned, and now – then, really – lived in a cage.

You know where this is going. 

We are now the proud owners of Athena. Proud may not be the right word, and owners definitely isn't. When Michele first started talking about Athena – back when she was still a cat, before she was even the cat – I kept saying, Yea, but a cat would be a real pain in the ass. Now she is living in our home and Athena is pretty painless. Mostly because she is very shy and almost out of sight.


Athena-1
She spends most of her time under our bed coming out to look at us from across the room. When we call her name and make eye contact, she will come running across the room only to stop when realizes there is no cage wall between us. Today, I did manage to get her on top of the bed so I could take her picture. But, she was hyper-vigilant.

It will be an interesting journey.