Nearing end of term so I've been getting homesick (man up, right?). I've started blaring the stuff I used to listen to growing up (i.e. my father's music). So lots of Bob Dylan- Desire, Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding (I'd link but Bob seems to be quite anal about his music on youtube).

Also Neil Young - Freedom, Harvest and After the Gold Rush.

Miles Davis and Coltrane also popped up.

Hit me with quotes.

I finally got around to reading The Laundry Files and I'm loving it.

Book three, The Fuller Memorandum, opens up with

“I wish I was still an atheist. Believing I was born into a harsh, uncaring cosmos – in which my existence was a random roll of the dice and I was destined to die and rot and then be gone forever – was infinitely more comforting than the truth. Because the truth is that my God is coming back. When he arrives I’ll be waiting for him with a shotgun. And I’m keeping the last shell for myself.”

It's super new-atheist-edgy at first, totally admitting that. However it also connects to this sub-theme of a lot of other urban fantasy taps into in different ways, the idea that there are incomprehensibly powerful, negative forces at play in the world and there is real bravery in opposing them with every possible resource. In The Dresden Files this comes across as Dresden's cheek and wise-cracking even in the face of titanic magical opposition like Faerie Queens, literal fallen angels and dark hoary old gods, as well as their literal conflict. Butcher plays this off as just a character quirk but it's a great piece of characterization (That worked really well for Spiderman) that serves to give an extra layer of meaning to the various challenges that Dresden overcomes.

Bob Howard of The Laundry Files is damn close to British Harry Dresden. There is even a scene in The Fuller Memorandum where Bob is having a contemplative moment on a train after finishing a book that is blatantly described as being about a wizard private eye in Chicago, so this whole thing is very self-aware. Charles Stross knows his audience and caters heavily to the 'geek' crowd in that way. In fact there has been a case made that a lot of urban fantasy is essentially a power fantasy for kids who grew up reading Harry Potter.

Anyways, post your quotes. If you've read Dresden or The Laundry recently I'm happy to discuss. I'm starting The Apocalypse Codex today.

Cheers

there are shades of polyamory that range from "bob and jan at the swinger's club" to "emily, emily, daisy, and emily in the 1-bedroom portland apartment" and they all come with different commitments and different sets of baggage. you both have things you want and things you don't want: just talk to each other. the only discovery that polyamorists have made is that relationships are contracts and if you want to get what you want, you need to put that shit in writing

who are you coming home with at the end of the day? does anybody get placed higher in each others' hierarchies? are you a couple +X associates, or a eunuch's court of supposed equals?

do you feel comfortable with dating somebody who's having sex with other people? do you feel comfortable dating someone who's potentially developing some emotional connections with other people? are you okay without the guarantee of "you're my number one and my only one, I'm not gonna even try to get into any potentially compromising situations because that's how important you are"? because that's what the difference between bob and jan and the rest are, you know what i mean? being poly is different than just sleeping around

there's only so much love in you to go around, and so much time in the day to go around. the more you divvy it up the more (at a minimum) complicated it gets. you can't just be open to it, you have to want it. you have to want an open relationship actively and enthusiastically more than any other option for it to work, because otherwise it's something you're going "wellll, maybe until... for now i can... if it's what they want then..." in your head the whole time

I've never watched a TED talk. I've probably read an article or two about them, when they were new, but I don't remember the content. What are they?

Remember those %%%%%%%%%%%%%☆TheMoreYouKnow things that NBC used to run?

These?

Imagine if those ran 12-30 minutes, and were intended for curious autodidacts instead of bored couch potatoes.

That's a TED talk.

Why are they popular?

'k. So TED ("Technology, Entertainment, Design") has been running conferences since '84. They've been running conferences yearly since 1990. They are invite only, they cost a shit-ton to attend, and they are sort of Bilderberg Lite®. The idea is to gather a bunch of luminaries in Monterey for the weekend and rub them together so their different colors of luminary-ness will rub off on each other. The TED "talk" is literally "Hi, I'm Ben, I'm from France, I make pretty pictures from math" for pompous intelligentsia.

The idea being, once Bob explains what a Mandelbrot set is, people will come up and talk to him after drinks to learn what importance chaos theory has in, say, weather prediction. Meanwhile, Bob will be inspired to apply Stewie's ideas about sustainability to his closed mathematical sets. The "whole world" benefits from this cultural cross-pollination, everyone takes a tax deduction, and the little people are kept out where they ought be.

Obviously, you can't assemble egghead parties like this for fifteen years and have proles not saying "I wish I could be a fly on the wall." So they released the recordings. Yeah, you're not rubbing shoulders with the guys at the cocktail parties, but you can watch what they have to say and feel smart.

You're not learning as much as you think you are, though. The point of the "talks" is as a jumping-off point, and when you're an end-user on the internet, they're the alpha-omega. Yeah, maybe they inspire you to do some web searching. But really, you're watching TV. You'd get a lot more edification from an issue of Science News… except those take a lot more than 12 minutes to digest.

So what you're left with is "youtube for nerds." They're bite-sized, survey-grade overviews of one particular individual's area of study, presented in the best light they can come up with to get people to talk to them at cocktail parties. Granted - lots of these people have lots of cool things to say but every.single.one of them has a better venue to present their ideas to you. Read their book. Use their software. etc. But again, that takes more than 12 minutes.

The "TEDx" thing basically came from TED licensing the idea of getting a bunch of people in a room together to talk one-by-one in front of cameras. Yeah, you don't get paid. Thing was, if they really wanted you to speak at the TED conference, they'd comp or deeply discount your admission to the conference. TEDx? That's whatever bullshit you can get people to show up for. And that's why dude's all up-in-arms over not being paid by TEDx - it's a dumb thing down on the corner. TED? That's an egghead retreat somewhere people want to vacation. I mean, who doesn't want to be celebrated as a genius among geniuses especially when they make you stay here?

I believe I've mentioned before that my cat, Bonehead, can really take a punch. There's a reason for this. When he was just a young kitten, he used to ride the rails, hoboing, playing blues harp for food and a place to throw down for the night. He spent many years tramping around the South, played standup bass for Muddy Waters for a while, but got addicted to heroin and couldn't keep a gig. One night in a drunken haze, he and Jack Kerouac, stole a car, picked up two fifteen year old prostitutes in Kansas City, and headed west. He lost Jack on the road when he stopped to buy a nickle balloon and forgot to come back. Many of these adventures were chronicled in Jack's diaries, though Jack takes undue credit for some of Boner's more creative moves.

He ended up in San Francisco, working the bathhouses for a living until he was shanghied into China. Actually there are a couple of explanations for his Chinese period: Some say he may have gone there to begin fomenting revolution over human rights violations. There is some evidence to support this in the Congressional Record. It is also rumored that he went to star in porn films for John Woo in the early years. Yet another story claims that he went there to kick his heroin addiction. Wherever the truth lies, his story really begins with the Dali Lama.

He was washing dishes in a Shanghai whorehouse, when he met the boy who would eventually become the man known as the Dali Lama. Little did he know that this chance petting would later save his life. He traded in his white cap and apron for saffron robes and a shaved pate. After a year spent in deep meditation and spiritual examination, he emerged, a new cat...stronger, yet gentler, focused and in control of his destiny. He had a message and that message was, "Racial Harmony."

Returning to the States, he tried to bring his message to his native land. For a time, he grew disillusioned with White America, and retreated to the Badlands of Montana where he studied Native medicine and spirituality. It was there, on a dream quest, that he learned his spirit animal was a cat. He was brought before the elders and given his name, "He Who Has Head of Bone" and it was written into the tribal records. He endured the Sun Dance ceremony...six nipples pierced and hung from a pole. He walked with his ancestors, then, and became whole once more.

Free of addiction and finally with his head on straight, he wrote his first novel . We all know it was a best seller but there was more to it than that for him. He felt as though he was finally getting his shot at speaking to a broad audience. Sadly, though sales were high, little came of it aside from a few talk shows and an inclusion in "People" magazine's year end, "Fifty most beautiful People" issue.

There are several long periods of time in his lives which are unaccounted for. Bob Dylan mentions him in the liner notes to "Highway 61 Revisited" and I don't doubt his influence on the man (though neither one could sing for shit). There are bootleg tapes of an unreleased album with Bone, John Lennon, and Harry Nilsson. He jammed with Miles Davis at the Newport Pop Festival one year, and was later reported to have substituted for Bob Weir on the Grateful Dead's '78 tour.

Touring with the Dead was a constant trial for him. Resisting heroin was not his strong point. He left the tour as soon as Weir's hand healed and was once more on the road.

He moved to Santa Fe and joined the Free Mexican Air Force, running reefer up from Guadalajara. He was never meant to live the straight life and he knew it. That's how I met him. He dropped a kilo on me from two hundred and fifty feet and almost killed me. He visited me in the hospital. He was a good cat. I forgave him...after all, he let me keep the key.

He's been "my" cat off an on now for the last eight years. I dunno, we just sort of..clicked. He lost his plane to Carlos Medina (El Coyote) and needed a place to hole up. I told him he could stay here. He's a tough cat, a sensitive cat, a...great lover and a stalwart friend. He can take a fall from great heights, he can roll with a punch...but he STILL can't play poker for shit!

-- Reverend Mutha Tarla, Little Sisters of the Perpetually Juicy, A Proud Jism Schism of the Church of the SubGenius, Worshipping "Connie" Dobbs and Juicy Retardo since 1986

(from alt.slack, 1/27/96)

August 18 1998 10:00 CDT (August 18 15:00 UTC)

Transcript of Fossett Press Conference -- August 17, 1998

Mark Wrighton: You've had a great and successful mission.

I'm joined here by members of the media, with your

Mission Control director Alan Blount. So good to have

you back on Earth.

Steve Fossett: Well, frankly Mark, it's good to be alive.

MW: Well, we were all very worried about you yesterday,

I can assure you of that. It was a harrowing

experience for you as you've given an account of it.

I'm sure people here would like to hear first-hand from you.

SF: OK, I'd be glad to do that.

Judy Jasper: Go ahead, Steve.

SF: OK, so I had left Australia and flying at 29,000 feet.

And we felt that was high enough to clear and go over

the top of the thunderstorm. And somewhere around, well,

the middle of the night, I started a decent at only 500

feet a minute. But apparently, I was pulled down. I looked

outside and I was still above the clouds but I was

pulled into the thunderstorm, and then the hail that was

being thrown off the top of the thunderstorm cooled off the

balloon and I started a 1,000 feet a minute descent. I

turned on the burners to try to reverse that and the balloon

started going up 1,000 feet a minute. And then I was solidly

in the thunderstorm and started the up and down draft

motion, going down at 1,500 feet a minute and then up at

1,500 feet a minute. At that point, I believe the balloon

ruptured on the ascent because it's only designed to take

about a 1,000 feet a minute. So then I started a descent,

and my bariometer maxes out at 2,500 feet a minute and it

was pegged at the maximum going down more than

2,500 feet a minute descent all the way. So then I turned

on the burners full blast to try to -- even though I had a

ruptured balloon -- there's some hope of slowing it down

with a lot of hot air. And as I was going through the

thunderstorm the balloon was just being thrown from one

side to another. It was visibly tearing and tremendous

amounts of hail -- the hail would just come in just huge

sheets and cover me. And I looked around and looked

again at the bariometer and saw that I was still descending

in excess of 2,500 feet a minute and I said out loud,

"I'm going to die." So I decided to keep on working and

keep the burners going, and then when I got to only

1,000 feet off the ground I cut away a lot of tanks hoping

that would give the balloon some lift and soften the

impact. And then I laid down on the bench in the capsule

for the impact. And happily, the impact wasn't too bad. I

had no injury whatsoever from the impact, even though I was

apparently in excess of what was believed to be

survivable in a balloon. And I think that's probably because

not only laying on my back, but also the capsule

absorbed the impact in the water. The capsule immediately

turned upside down and started filling with water. And

since the burners were still going full blast, that started

a fire with the propane tanks and started to burn the capsule

from the outside, and the capsule was being filled with fumes

from the resins, fumes and smoke. And it was half full

of water. I managed to get my EPIRB, which is a satellite

locator beacon, and a life raft, and then dove out of the

capsule -- which then the hatch was below me - dove out of

the capsule with EPIRB and life raft in hand. So,

once I got out of the capsule with those two items, I had

known that I would live.

MW: Steve, that's just an incredible account. I don't know

how you can remember all those details, but you're an

extraordinary person. We are really fortunate to hear

first hand from you, and we're so grateful for your safety.

Alan Blount is here with us. He's been director of Mission

Control. A lot of people, Steve, have been working

very hard on your behalf -- both in the Washington

University community and your Mission Control team. I

thought I'd give Alan an opportunity to speak with you

here, and then perhaps to invite the media to ask questions.

Alan Blount: Steve, as I said earlier, we're just absolutely

delighted to hear that you're OK. We were very

concerned about you all day, and as you probably understand

it was many many hours before we had any detail.

All we could do, and all the press could do and anybody

else could do, was just guess and conjecture at what

your condition was.

SF: Well, I think at first my first reaction when I realized

the balloon was tearing was what a disappointment this is

that I was probably closer to success at that point than --

well, we really expected to be successful. And then, my

first realization was that this was such a good shot at

this and that my team -- many of them had been working on

this full time for the past month and some had been working

all since January -- that there is a huge amount of

commitment by the team, so this is a disappointment all

the way around. And then you just have to be thankful for

what you do have and I realized that, well, forget about

the disappointment of the mission failing, it was time to

worry about surviving.

JJ: Well, Steve, we know you went into the raft with only

your EPIRB. What has happened to you since then and

what was the rescue like?

SF: At first I tried to hang on to the balloon to maintain

contact with it so, hopefully, I could get back into the

capsule when the fires would die down. I did that for about

an hour while some of the tanks were exploding. But,

it was quite a storm and so the balloon was being blown

around. I was having a hard time holding on to it. And

then, twice the balloon came down on top of me -- I was

in the raft. I was being suffocated by all the fumes and

having this heavy balloon on top of me, so I got out and,

unfortunately, I didn't have any line and I lost contact with

the balloon envelope. Floated the rest of that night until,

oh, probably 9 o'clock in the morning time, and then the

French -- because see, I was in French rescue territory

associated with New Caledonia -- the French came by in

a jet search and rescue airplane and dropped a life raft

to me. So then I was protected from there on as far as

from the cold and the elements. Then, the Australian

rescue forces came out and maintained a watch until a boat

could get to me -- middle of the night. So, this was 24

hours after the crash when a schooner named Atlanta

picked me up with its crew of 4 sailors, who were doing an

around the world sailing trip. I spent last night, then, on

this boat, Atlanta, and then this morning, I was transferred

onto the New Zealand ship Endeavor, which is where

I'm calling you from now.

JJ: Steve, we'll go ahead and take questions from the media

and I'll repeat them to you so you can hear.

SF: OK.

JJ: The question is how do you maintain your calm and your

wits about you coming down like that so you can

think clearly and you can try to save yourself?

SF: Well, it's a lot of pressure, and if you don't already

know by experience what to do and by prior knowledge

-- if it isn't ingrained into you -- you won't be able to

figure it out in that type of extreme situation. So, I think

I've been trained well in balloons. I've had a lot of time

in this type of balloon -- Rosiere balloons -- and so, I think

I made the correct decisions when I was coming down. Without

very much experience I never would have had a chance to make

those correct decisions.

JJ: What is the key to your survival?

SF: Well, I've realized from my sailboat racing and ballooning

that the key is the satellite EPIRB. You must be

able to take that with you when you abandon ship -- whether

it's this balloon or whether it's a boat -- because

that's the only way of putting out a beacon telling the

rescue services where you are. They can't find you otherwise.

So, the key to the success was getting out of the balloon with

the EPIRB and also the small 12 pound life raft that I

had, so that I was able to not suffer from exposure during

that first night.

JJ: Steve, when did you activate the EPIRB? Did it activate itself?

SF: Well, they come both ways. This one is a manually activated

EPIRB, and so I turned it on as soon as I was --

I turned it on during my descent and I had it on a test

mode. Apparently, it did send out an initial beacon, but it

didn't continue when it was in test mode. And then when it

got daylight -- see, I had no head lamp or anything, I

couldn't see exactly what the settings were on the EPIRB --

when it got daylight, then I turned it to the proper

on-transmit position and transmitted continuously until the

French rescue plane dropped a raft to me.

AB: Steve, I have a question. Do you know what time it was that

you started to descend and what time you hit the water?

SF: No, I don't. I think perhaps you have my latest automatic

position report. I think that's as close as we can get,

is the latest report you got in Mission Control.

AB: Unfortunately, we were about 2 minutes away from the

hourly downloads so that entire last 58 minutes or an

hour is not available.

SF: But you had one from the previous hour, is that correct?

AB: Yes, we did from the previous hour. It doesn't show

anything unusual. I don't know if there's any way to

retrieve the information from the Aerobot science package

in the capsule. You might have Atlanta look into that, if

there's anything they can bring from the Aerobot. I think

that that's a possibility. You might also be interested in

knowing that there is a scientist from Florida who e-mailed

us a photograph that he had taken of that storm. He

specializes in photographing lightening strikes. That storm

that we thought was so benign as you approached it had

10,000 lightening strikes that night.

SF: The crew of Atlanta told me that it was a real fireworks

show that night and so that was quite a surprise to us.

We didn't expect anything nearly that severe a storm.

JJ: The question is what kind of damage has been done to the

capsule, and what do you plan to do with it?

SF: The capsule is a partly burned after the crash...

(Phone contact with Steve is lost. Press conference continues

with Alan Blount.)

AB: ... three computers which, if they're full of salt water

now, they're ruined I'm sure. There were some cameras

that were placed on by a documentary company, and they are

going to try and retrieve the film from that as I

understand. But this was film that was taken of him inside

the capsule during the flight.

Reporter: As he was going down?

AB: Possibly, yeah. And there's some thought that some of

that film, even though it might be wet, should be

salvageable. And then there's the burner and so forth, which

has some value. He has a parachute there. I don't

know if -- you know a lot of the stuff when it gets wet,

it's probably not worth a whole lot. But I'm sure they're

going to save everything that they can and go from there.

Reporter: Will they sink the capsule?

AB: That was the impression I got, yes.

Reporter: What are his plans now, once he reaches Townsville?

AB: He plans to be in route to Townsville for 2 1/2 days.

After reaching Townsville, he plans to go to Sydney.

And then after Sydney, I don't know. He didn't tell me.

Reporter: Mission Control alerted him to the storm. How

instrumental was that?

AB: We knew the storm was there. It was a slow moving storm,

but there wasn't a great deal we could do about

it. The impression that we had -- and Bob Rice and I had,

and Bob Rice and my brother, who preceded me, had

some conversation about it -- and the indication was that

at 29,000 feet he shouldn't have had any problem

climbing and getting over the storm. He was fairly

close to his pressure ceiling, which means that there

wasn't a whole lot further that the balloon could go without

a serious penalty in helium and the possibility of rupturing

with going too high, too fast, anyway. So there was a limit

on how much we could do. He was tracking towards the

north end of the storm, and from the looks of what we'd

seen on the satellite photographs, he really just got into

the very very edge of the north end of the storm anyway.

So a few miles further north and he probably would have

missed it, based on what we could tell. Any other

questions that I could handle?

Reporter: Did he say whether or not he's going to do this again?

AB: He did not say. I did hear one report earlier that he

wasn't even discussing that at this point, and my

experience with him is that he'll spend some time to think

it over and make a decision.

Reporter: Did you learn anything new from his comments tonight?

AB: Oh, I learned a great deal new, yeah. It's not too

many pilots who go through the center of a thunderstorm

and can tell what the experience is like in any kind of

an aircraft.

Reporter: Was that the best route to take do you think,

in the southern hemisphere?

AB: Through a thunderstorm? (laughter) Yes, yes, it is

the best route that I've seen so far in respect to

thunderstorms. There are thunderstorms in the northern

hemisphere just as easily [as] in the southern hemisphere,

so that's not different. Last January he encountered a

thunderstorm, and when he approached that thunderstorm it

was off the south coast of Ireland and then throughout

Europe. We were advised by the meteorologist at the time

that the storm was up near his height, that he could expect

to go through cloud and that, at that time, there was the

possibility of embedded thunderstorms in the cloud, which

is a very similar situation to what we had here. He was

lucky that time. Fortunately, this time he was over water.

He wasn't over water part of that trip.

Reporter: Would you characterize his survival then as miraculous?

AB: I think you can categorically say that anybody who flies

or is in the middle of a thunderstorm and comes out

the other end alive is miraculous.

JJ: I think we have a satellite problem. I'm sorry. Are there

any more questions for Alan? (pause) I'd like to thank

you all for your patience, and for following this story.

Thank you to those of you on the bridge. It is our plan to

close the media center shortly. Hereafter, we will continue

to post bulletins on the hotline and the web page as

things come up. If you'd like to schedule an interview

with Mr. Fossett or whatever, I'll be talking to him about

what his plans are -,ward to visiting with you soon, where

he's going to be, where he might hold a press

conference and what the situation is. We haven't had any

conversations about that yet. So thank you all very very

much.

(Phone contact with Steve is restored.)

AB: Steve, Buddy is here and he's been in touch with Joe.

Joe has made arrangements to salvage the capsule if

you are interested. If so, we'll give him your phone

number and have him call you tonight. Is that something you

want to pursue?

SF: We have a salvage operation underway right now, where

the schooner Atlanta is going to go out and they're

going to retrieve certain things like a briefcase, cameras

and film out of the capsule. The rest of the capsule is

destroyed, and so they'll scuttle the capsule and they'll

pick up the balloon and the fuel tanks -- just to get them out

of the water so that they'll not be floating around -- and

get those back to Australia for disposal.

JJ: Steve, how are you feeling and what did the doctor say?

SF: Actually, there's nothing wrong with my health at all.

So, I'm just feeling perfectly normal.

JJ: How are your burns?

SF: There's still a little bit. You can still see the

leftover burns, one on my wrist and one on my nose. They're

very small, just half inch burns each one of them.

JJ: Here's the classic question. Are you going to try this again?

SF: Well, in any event I would not be able to get ready for

the winter season in the northern hemisphere, which is

December and January, because I've had a total loss of

equipment and it would not be possible to be ready. I

have some serious questions whether I should keep on trying.

See, each attempt represents a risk, and you just

can't go out and expose yourself to those risks over and

over again. I may never try again, or I may wait and see

how the other teams do for a year and then consider it.

But no, I will not be going this winter season. I will be

watching the other competitors.

AB: You are about to, at some time tonight, have a call,

I think, from Richard Branson, so I'm sure he'll be

interested in that answer.

JJ: And Alan Noble has tried, and he's been calling daily

to check on your welfare. He was very concerned. Are

there more questions?

SF: Oh, that's really nice.

AB: Baron Hilton also called with concern. He was very concerned

about you also, Steve.

SF: OK, great.

JJ: Basically, the question is your competitive spirit,

and if the other teams went if your competitive spirit would

encourage you to do so also.

SF: Well, of course I'm very competitive, but this is not

the only form of competition. I'm more likely to turn this

over to the competitors and let them take their best shot

at it, and just myself continue in sailboat racing for my

competitive objectives.

JJ: Was this the most serious risk you've faced, and was

it the most dangerous situation in ballooning or any other

sport you've faced?

SF: Yeah, this was the closest to being killed ever in my life.

JJ: Has that changed your perspective?

SF: It highlights the danger of ballooning. There are

certain things that we're able to prepare for. For instance,

doing an ocean landing, just a normal ocean landing, as I've

described satellite beacons, all of this is presumably

survivable but high risk. But having the balloon rupture

is not something we're prepared for, and especially in a

thunderstorm, so I would say this is outside the bounds

of anything we can possibly control. And the only way to

avoid exposure to that is either fly at much higher altitude

in a pressurized capsule or not fly at all.

JJ: If you never try again, is the distance record enough

of an achievement?

SF: Well, I'm rather proud of setting a new distance record,

and we did some other things on this flight. It was the

first crossing of the Southern Atlantic and the first

crossing, and I might predict the last crossing, by balloon

of the Indian Ocean. I think we will be able to look back

on this flight as being a successful flight in so far as

it did set some fine records.

JJ: What did your wife have to say when you talked to her?

SF: Oh, she was just very glad that I'm well and wanted to

know what she could do to help figure out how I'm

going to get home.

JJ: Do you have anything special you want to do once you get home?

SF: I'd like to sit back and smell the roses and live a life

like a normal person for a while.

MW: Well Steve, this is Mark Wrighton again. All of us at

Washington University are extremely proud of you.

You should be very proud of Alan Blount and those responsible

for your mission. It has been extraordinarily

successful. We're very grateful that you're back safe,

and I'll look forward to visiting with you soon to help you

enjoy some of the finer aspects of life. Congratulations

on a great mission.

SF: Thank you.

JJ: Thank you Steve, and I'll talk to you soon.

SF: OK, very good. Bye.

Quite a few people posted variations on, “what is even the point of art critics?” So let me say what purpose an article like the one I wrote might serve.

First: With regard to the paintings themselves, simply repeating press-release hype isn’t healthy for anyone. It happens all the time that artists get stuck doing whatever first brought them success, and dealers or marketers encourage them to just do the same thing because it’s the easiest thing to sell, thereby undermining what could be a more enduring career.

This is patently false. Art and art critique is entirely about repeating press-release hype, particularly if you're writing for ArtNet. This is very much as if eBay wrote an article saying "Beanie Babies are hyped and not worth collecting, as the hype is part of the art." I mean, yes? But eBay doesn't exist without Beanie Babies, and art doesn't exist without hype.

That brings me to the second point, which is where the case of Devon Rodriguez is specifically interesting. Basically, I’m arguing that we should think of his social media posts as part of his practice, to be reviewed in and of themselves. These are, after all, not just how he got famous; in some sense they are what he is really famous for. And they are in many cases clearly staged.

This is ArtNet arguing that the art itself lacks value because the value is in the TikTok posts. Which, also, duh. But the whole of the article makes the point that art such as this is flash-in-the-pan bullshit and that any collector might as well go buy jpegs.

So the surprise at the backlash is disingenuous, particularly when the artist straight-up calls out the author for "gatekeeping." Which is exactly what he's doing. That's all fine art is, really; does Charles Saatchi vouch for it? Well then it's worth a bajillion dollars. Try and explain Warhol's valuations to the Instagram audience, I dare you. That's the whole point: if rich people think it's worth money and you don't, then it's worth money. They are rich, therefore their tastes are refined, and the further from your tastes their tastes are, the more refined they are.

UTA spent a lot of money to convince the public that their flash-in-the-pan street busker was actually a prima ballerina because UTA is all about convincing the public. The art world went "nah" because the art world is all about eschewing the public. I reckon Ben Davis doesn't much write for the public, or he'd realize that his whole role in this affair, as far as UTA and Devon Rodriguez are concerned, is to make Youtube Reaction Face to his brilliance. Except I think Ben Davis knows this, and knows that the hoi polloi losing their minds over the fact that Maxfield Parrish still isn't a "true artist" is the whole schtick.

Rich people get to anoint their artists while alive by buying early and selling to their hangers on (IE, the crypto ICO model). Poor people get to anoint their artists by pointing out that their shit is still good when they're decades dead.

That's a David Hockney. It sold for $26m in 2020.

That's a Bob Ross. They sat in PBS offices around the US until the early 2000s, when the wave of nostalgia finally convinced some to try selling them on the open market to make ends meet.

Ben Davis is in the business of telling the world that the David Hockney is worth $26m and the Bob Ross is not for the express purpose of pissing off Devon Rodriguez fans, so that David Hockney fans can see how unlike Devon Rodriguez fans they are celebrate their fine appreciation of Jeff Koons and gossip about bananas duct-taped to the wall of Art Basel which is in Miami for grift purposes.

I've been championing Paul Carr, Mark Ames and John Dolan since The eXile. They get themselves in trouble by being snarky assholes... but sometimes, snarky assholes speak more truth than polite assholes.

I champion them because they're doing the same sort of stuff as Consortium News, who I used to support but sort of stopped because Bob Parry stopped writing about things I consider important. I championed Bob Parry because Bartcop told me to.

I read Pando because when NSFWCorp went tits up, it got absorbed into Pando... which meant 10% NSFWCorp, 90% Silicon Valley bullshit. However, since they've decided that the (failed) NSFWCorp model was the way to go with Pando, they're about 50% NSFWCorp, 50% Silicon Valley bullshit. They shuffled off a few great people in that Pando thing, in particular, Olivia Nuzzi. She's now writing for The Daily Beast but her stuff isn't nearly so interesting. It's a shame.

Anyway. I back Brecher/Dolan because of this article. He was the one guy who actually said "holy shit - Warsaw pact heavy armor vs. NATO heavy armor and nukes aren't even flying. It's a brave new world."

See, this is the war that I used to see in the paintings commissioned by Defense contractors in Aviation Week and AFJ: a war between two conventional armies, both using air forces and armored columns, in pine-forested terrain. That was what those pictures showed every time, with a highlighted closeup of the weapon they were selling homing in on a Warsaw Pact convoy coming through a German pine forest. Of course, a real NATO/Warsaw Pact war would never, ever have happened that way. It would have gone nuclear in an hour or less, which both sides knew, which is why it never happened. So all that beautiful weaponry was kind of a farce, if it was only going to be used in the Fulda Gap. But damn, God is good, because here it all is, in the same kind of terrain, all your favorite old images: Russian-made tanks burning, a Soviet-model fighter-bomber falling from the sky in pieces, troops in Russian camo fighting other troops, also in Russian camo, in a skirmish by some dilapidated country shack.

D00d I can beat that.

Nixon’s former chief of staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman wrote in his book The Ends of Power that Nixon had explicitly outlined a version of the strategy the previous summer:

“I call it the madman theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe that I've reached the point that I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that, ‘for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he is angry — and he has his hand on the nuclear button’ — and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.”

never mind that it didn't fucking work

Nothing personal francopoli, but I kind of hate videos like this.

sigh

They're destroying video as a medium.

It's worth noting that they exist only on Youtube. Vimeo doesn't have shit like this. Amazon doesn't have shit like this. Youtube videos look like Youtube videos for the same reason that the most successful locksmith back in the days of paper phone books was "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Locksmith."

Youtube viewers have the attention span of gnats. They'll add something to the queue if it looks good in a thumbnail. Excessive, dumb graphics look good in a thumbnail. They'll switch away the minute things are boring. That's okay because on Facebook it's a view after three seconds. Youtube is now claiming it's 30, but last year it was 6, so WTF ever especially since they're currently experiencing a catastrophic advertiser revolt. So you get this kind of video - stupid voiceover graphics that mean nothing.

But wait! There's more! It's a social network so if I like your gaming channel and you like my gaming channel and we all like John's gaming channel, Youtube is going to suggest you, me and John to anyone who clicks you or me or John so you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. And if Bob watches John, and Jim watches John, then if Sam watches anything Bob or Jim watch Sam will also get John because really? Youtube exists to force-feed you bullshit on autoplay so they can count views so they can charge advertisers for it.

And the content? The content doesn't fucking matter. It's for people who can't get away from the computer long enough to boil a cup o'noodle so they sit the laptop or the phone or WTF ever on the counter and let it chatter at them while they sit there fondling their balls and wait for the microwave to ding. They'd be reading memes on Reddit if they weren't busy actually using their hands for something so it's a good thing there's a charming British dude to tell them shit they already knew about rocket launchers while showing them footage from video games.

You know, video games. You've played a few, right? Here's "fair use"-length clips from all of them stolen without credit so that you'll relate to at least a handful. Fuck yeah. (that game). Fuck yeah. I used to love (that other game). Didn't we all? Oh, yeah. Follow this channel and we'll remind you of other things you already like.

Nobody on the planet ever said "I'd like to watch something that tells me something I already know that I don't really have to pay much attention to that the people producing it don't give a fuck if I watch more than a few seconds of whose primary value comes from the fact that it's very much like all the other superficial shit I don't pay any attention to" but that's what Youtube rewards. The Youtube model delivers payouts to exactly.that.bullshit so that's the bullshit we all get.

Know what drives me up the fucking wall? Unprofessionalism is a style now. See this guy?

https://www.youtube.com/user/marquesbrownlee

One of the top tech bloggers on Youtube. Know what he shoots on?

Know why? Because it's super-duper fetish gear if you're a Youtube punter and he gets enough hits he can afford it. But you know what would make his shit look even better?

Two fucking iphones instead of one so he wouldn't be doing that bullshit jumpcut farklefuck that every youtuber used to do because they only had one camera but now every youtuber does because that way you know they're legit or some shit.

Cinematography and editing are a settled fucking thing. Fucking Merian Cooper used the same techniques for Grass in 1925 that Warner Fucking Herzog used last week: A roll, B roll, voiceover, maintain continuity in the cut. Youtube? Youtube has decided that jarring is good because 99.9% of their content is jarring so if you edit like a human you're pretentious or some shit.

It is the worst fucking thing in the world and I hate it so much. There's 300 hours of fresh and shiny new useless bullshit uploaded to Youtube every minute and Youtube gives not the first fuck if any of it is good, they only care about finding ways to force you to sift through it so they can charge advertisers for whatever pearls you pluck out of the shit. Except the pearls aren't pearls, they're horse apples and seriously. How many gamers are there out there that don't understand how a rocket launcher works? It's a rocket. In a tube. That launches.

Jesus.

Sorry. Struck a nerve. I didn't realize how much I hated Youtube until I found myself with two roommates who blast it at 110dB for hours at a time without ever once being in the same goddamn room as the panel on which it is playing and none of it - NONE OF IT is even vaguely illuminating.