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Interesting that in 2011, a “lost” Leonardo da Vinci painting is “found” and that in 2012, a “lost” work of Johannes Brahms shows up.

Star Trek nerds will get this.

White-out & ink on a Cadbury wrapper.

From the 9/11 drawing series.

Santiago Sierra and the Art World Politics of Rejection | Selby Drummond

It’s hard to imagine, given these parameters, a country from which Sierra would accept an award. And, with this in mind, even harder not to conclude that Spain virtually volunteered itself to go like a lamb to the slaughter. Conflating notions of artistic gesture and political protest, Sierra’s work has pretty much been sending Spain this same rejection letter since, like, 1999, in so many words. The artist has paid Chechen refugees minimum wage to remain hidden inside cardboard boxes in a gallery for long stretches (2000), Iraqi immigrants to stand docile while he sprays them with insulation foam (2004), prostitutes [whom he paid in heroin] for the privilege of publicly tattooing their backs (2000), and African immigrants to dye their hair blonde (2001). Sierra uses money to buy people and subject them to degradation and abuse at so low a price that the audience is forced to wonder if endemic government failure hasn’t flat-out subsidized the transaction, let alone created the conditions for its occurrence. Taking a page from the terrorist strategy book, Sierra makes a gratuitous show of ethical violence in order to mirror and expose its proliferation in what we might call “society.” And the show goes on because of, as Sierra says in his letter, “the freedom… art has given me… which I am not willing to resign.”

curation.ca/673/

Dear Mother and Dad,

The new cookies are fine, even though not as good as old standby. So is the bread. You’ll only have one more lot to send this year, that is if you want to.

Last week was much cooler again and there hasn’t been any more swimming since I wrote you. We are also mowing lawn here, though I don’t have to mow as much as I would if I were home.

I’m sorry to hear the old car is acting up, though apparently this wasn’t anything serious. When my license renewal blank comes I wish you would send it here (or if it doesn’t come, send the old stub and I’ll get a blank.) I can fill it out an have the license sent home again.

This week we took all day trip in Farm Management. We went through Geneva and saw the Agricultural Experiment Station, then north to Lake Ontario, stopping to see three farms on the way. It was the first time I had seen the lake and it is quite like the bay at home. Of course, you can’t see the other side, and it is not as blue as the bay.

Two of the farms are in the fruit belt along the lake, and are little more than big orchards. The cherries were in blossom and the apples were just ready to come out. The trees there don’t seem to be much hurt by the winter cold.

This weekend several hundred high school boys who expect to come to Cornell soon were up to visit the place. It is a new thing this year, called Cornell Day, and seemed to go off pretty well. Two boys stayed here in the house and seemed to enjoy themselves.

Did you see any of the dust cloud the papers were talking about over New York? It must have missed us. It is pretty dry even here, though.

Friday night George and I walked down to see George Arliss in “The House of Rothschild.” It was one the best I have seen him in.

Saturday night there was an electrical exhibition in the Electrical Engineering College. They had artificial lightning, power line connections and generators, teletype, telegraph, telephone, radio, and a lot of other exhibits, all very interesting. They advertised it by a loudspeaker hung out the window. You could hear it easily a quarter of a mile away, but it was very distinct also. There was also a track meet Saturday, in which we beat Penn. very easily, so that it wasn’t very interesting.

It’s warmer now – maybe there will be swimming this afternoon.

Love,

Orville

I’m not sure if this is a problem of social myopia (birds of a feather flocking together) but it seems I both keep hearing & reading that people want to vote for Joe Pantalone but feel that’s it’s a wasted vote. (I myself expressed as much in my last blog posting a week ago). Thus, everyone who’d like to vote for him is now of the mind to vote strategically. I write this because I’m now under the impression that maybe there’s a silent majority of people out there who favor him but who are being frightened into voting for his rivals.

It doesn’t help that the Globe and Mail “guardedly” endorses Smitherman while only mentioning Pantalone once in it’s 800word endorsement. The context is notable:

Mr. Fords [...] is an instinctual person, lacking in analysis, and his plans have gaps and inconsistencies. His propensity to impetuous words and deeds could be embarrassing and possibly harmful to Toronto. Nonetheless, the surge in support for a man with these characteristics, in a sophisticated, cosmopolitan city, amounts to an extraordinary indictment of the status quo. It is a phenomenon that all Toronto’s politicians must take seriously; Mr. Smitherman has already repositioned himself, shifting on the ideological spectrum from where he probably would like to be. Where Mr. Ford is unrealistic, Mr. Smitherman is vague. The risk in supporting Mr. Ford is what he might do as mayor, the risk in supporting Mr. Smitherman is what he might not do. The latter of the two has failed to articulate a vision or a strategy of his own, and he could easily end up as a second David Miller – what Joe Pantalone, the third candidate, openly promises to be.

I resent the idea that I need to fear either rival, and that I should vote for Smitherman for any reason not of my choosing. I resent the media casting this (and thus skewing the pole results) as a two-person race. I resent the blackmail that a vote for Pantalone is an indirect vote for someone who is “potentially embarrassing and harmful”.

I’m going to vote for Pantalone. If Ford wins, at least we’ll have a shake-up of the status quo. If Smitherman wins, well, at least he’s not Ford. If Pantalone wins, well, at least we might finally get bike lanes and continued marginal improvements in TTC outpaced by increased fares.