Those of you with artistic leanings may want to catch up with this ongoing thread at Artblog, in which I trade views with a couple of artists, chiefly on the subject of public funding. It’s informative and fun, if you like that kind of thing. I learned, for instance, that,
Art is for the people. But I would never leave it up to the taste of “the people” or “taxpayers” to get it done.
Bold, very bold.
Ed Driscoll quotes Kevin D Williamson on the joys and innovations of socialist thinking:
California is running out of things in the present to tax, and its future does not look terribly bright, so it has resorted to taxing the past. A combination of judicial shenanigans and legislative incompetence resulted in California’s reneging on tax incentives that had been offered to some businesses — and then demanding the retroactive payment of taxes for which businesses had never been legally liable. Small-business owners, some of whom had sold their businesses years ago, suddenly got demands for taxes running well into the six figures. And, California being California, it had the gall to charge those businesses interest on taxes they had never owed.
Via sk60, students demonstrate their grasp of a certain event in 20th century history:
We found all of the students who participated in our survey to be very bright and articulate. If they did not know the answer to any of the questions we posed, it is because they were never taught it in public school.
Greg Lukianoff on pretentious grievance and its advantages:
[Jonathan Rauch] talks about the idea of an offendedness sweepstakes. That essentially, if you make the argument that “I’m offended” is the ultimate trump card on what people are allowed to say, you shouldn’t be surprised that the standard for being offended gets lower and lower and lower. It’s only human nature that if you have a trick that lets you win any argument, you’re going to play it.
Lukianoff provides some vivid examples of this manoeuvre. If you want to see the kinds of people to whom it appeals, see also this.
And Theodore Dalrymple on the anti-capitalist millionaire named Banksy:
Banksy is a cartoonist and social commentator whose works appear on buildings, bridges, and other constructions rather than in newspapers or in The New Yorker. He has turned himself into a Scarlet Pimpernel figure, whose aversion to public appearances has proved the best possible publicity. His work is often witty and pointed, though his choice of targets for satire is purely conventional and precisely what one might expect of a privileged member of the intellectual middle classes. Only in his manner of proceeding is he truly original. In other respects, his work seems that of a clever adolescent — one who is now approaching middle age.
A longer, more detailed profile by Dalrymple was quoted here previously. As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments.
Once again it’s time to poke a stick in the mental bog of performance art. And so readers are invited to sample the aesthetic wares of Rocío Boliver, an “underground cultural icon” whose career spans musical performance, video, raves and “porno-erotic texts.” Ms Boliver describes herself as “a 56 year old woman living in the 21st century,” a “devotee of transgression” who “aims to demystify the horror of old age in an ironical way,” while “questioning the capitalist system that’s imposed on women in this stage of life.” Her Artistic Statement (NSFW) tells us, “Doing performance art is the only way I can get my own back on life… I feel blessed when I leave those who watch what I do flabbergasted. Happy to wipe their stupid Hollywood smiles off their faces.” She describes her performances as “electroshocks… applied to listless, alienated minds… speechless idiots.” No sell-out flattering of the audience, then.
Highlights from Ms Boliver’s recent triumph Between Menopause and Old Age can be seen in the video below. Its transgressive anti-capitalist electroshocking will,
I’m sure, shake your world. Readers are advised there is nudity throughout, along with barbed wire, self-harm, a bicycle pump and large amounts of Sellotape.
Brace yourselves, people, I’m elevating the tone and it’s a steep incline. Prepare to weep with delight as your very soul is embiggened. Thanks, of course, to our old friend the “much praised” Bulgarian performance artist Mr Ivo Dimchev, whose theatrical stylings, “impressive physical idiom” and “gripping sensitivity” have thrilled us previously. Here, we turn to Mr Dimchev’s epic 75-minute collaboration with sculptor and fellow artistic titan Mr Franz West. The project, titled X-ON, features the bare-breasted gyrations of Yen Yi-Tzu, Veronika Zott, Christian Bakalov and of course Mr Dimchev, who also had a hand in the musical score and whose talents clearly extend beyond mere human measurement. The piece – of which the video below is, sadly, but a small taste – will be featured at the Vienna International Dance Festival on Sunday July 21st, and is summarised thusly:
Dressed only in high heels and sumptuously decorated panties, bald-headed and endowed with the voice of an opera singer, the queer diva Lili Handel moves about and manipulates sculptures by the famous Austrian artist Franz West. And three figures, who are tourists at first but then mutate into muse-like creatures, dance with her to the spherical and powerful music by Philipp Quehenberger. According to Ivo Dimchev – alias Lili Handel – the point is not “to find ways to accommodate West’s works to the dancers’ bodies and the stage but to find out in what way ideas of the theatre, of music and of the performative body must adapt and transform themselves to establish contact with these sculptures.”
Unlike in his previous offering, Mr Dimchev doesn’t masturbate with a wig. He does, however, extract some of his own blood before smearing it on a chair. So there’s that. Yes, I know. You’re champing at the bit, itching to become one with the cultural elite. And stocked up on liquor, I hope. So. On with the show…
Jim Treacher notes the totally non-racist racial fixations at Netroots Nation, where the ‘progressive’ left rubs its collective rhubarb:
Sharon Kyle writes, “For social justice advocates, Netroots Nation 13 is the place to be… I was a member of the panel selection committee. As we prepared to make our selections, we were instructed to dismiss any panel that was comprised entirely of white males.” Good idea. Everybody knows that people with the same skin colour are all alike, and people of the same gender are all alike. What happens when you put together a bunch of people with the same skin colour and the same gender? I hope I never have to find out! I mean, what’s diverse about that? It looks really bad on camera. Well, that’s assuming they’re white males. If not, the preceding paragraph is racist. See, we must have diversity of appearance, not of thought. We need to get people of all races, colours, and creeds to come together and agree with Sharon Kyle. What’s the point of engaging in meaningful dialogue if other people are going to disagree with you?
When faced with strident “diversity” blather, it may help to remember the acronym LETELU. Looks Exotic, Thinks Exactly Like Us.
CJ Ciaramella* mingles with the moral heavyweights at
Netroots Nation:
There
were “80 panels, 40 training sessions, inspiring keynotes, film screenings and
other engaging sessions designed to educate, stimulate and inspire the nation’s
next generation of progressive leaders,” according to the conference website… I
found myself at a panel titled: Free your
Ass: Defining and Creating a Progressive Sexual Culture. Panellist Favianna
Rodriguez, a new media artist, talked about her explorations into polyamory and
kink. “I’ll close it out with this image I created of an awesome sex party I
went to,” Rodriguez said, displaying one of her paintings. It was full of
psychedelic colours and an arrangement of Picasso-style figures entangled in
various sex acts. Kind of like Guernica,
but with erections.
Chris Snowdon on “health inequalities” and unspoken causes:
Public health folk would argue that such choices are not rational (because of hyperbolic discounting and suchlike) and sociologists would argue that they are not free (because accidents of birth make them more likely to choose the unhealthy option). I have little time for such arguments. Accusations of irrational consumption invariably revolve around the moral judgement of the accuser while choices, even if constrained by imperfect information and financial circumstance, are still choices. The fact that the smoking rate is higher in Glasgow than Sevenoaks, for instance, in no way predisposes a Glaswegian to smoke. It is not ‘victim-blaming’ to point this out.
Tim Worstall adds this.
And Jim Goad is amused by the cannibalism of the self-designated “oppressed”:
So much for transcending labels and viewing one another as individuals. These people want to institutionalise such labels. They balk at the concept of “assigned identity,” yet they also seem unable to live without it. So many of these multitudinous oppressed “identities” seem like nothing more than cheap cloaks to mask nakedly annoying personalities. People with bad personalities seem to have a built-in defence mechanism that makes them believe you actually hate them for any other possible reason besides their bad personalities. With all the banter about oppression, it’s hard to think of anything that stifles free speech and free expression more than such strident humourlessness.
Readers who wish to behold the endpoint of competitive victimhood are welcome to revisit this glorious incident. Part
2 here. And, because you’ll need them, some explanatory notes.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets. [ *Added via the comments. ]
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