plywood plinth/stand
“Paint It Black”: Gloom was the official on-stage state of mind at this year’s Davos. The toxic combination of the euro crisis and the ubiquity of longtime Cassandras such as George Soros, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times and Nouriel “Dr Doom” Roubini was more than enough to give anyone a 19th nervous breakdown. In private conversations, however, there was a bit more optimism, though no one was getting carried away. Cautious encouragement was taken from better recent economic news in America and, above all, a shift towards activism by the European Central Bank, which was seen by many as greatly reducing the risk of a catastrophic failure in the banking system.
Bigger, faster, sweatier, skinnier, whiter, blacker, Gracer.
New Year’s Day Haiku
Il modo in cui comprendiamo il presente è umano. Passa per: membrane, martelletti, filamenti, tosse, nonni, sonnolenza, farmaci, denti, casse, pagine, soffitti, campane, Parigi, Tagliacozzo, calendari, lucine, caramelle, succhi. La banalità è che ciascuno lo comprende a suo modo. Ma limitiamoci…
(via Ivo Andrić)
Leonard Cohen cover
By a strange coincidence Marcel Proust, Paul Eluard and Man Ray all died on November 18 - albeit in different years…
Man Ray of course famously photographed Proust on his death bed, 1922 - above:
“Ravaged by bronchitis and pneumonia, Marcel Proust spent the last night of his life dictating manuscript changes for a section of his famous novel Remembrance of Things Past.
Man Ray did not know Proust, but he had become such an important photographer that mutual friends dispatched him to the celebrated French author’s bedside to make a final portrait two days after his death. The side view associates Man Ray’s photograph with a tradition of postmortem photography dating back to the inception of the medium.” (Source - The Getty)
