Hell, he aint no anti-Christ.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
FBI Has Copy of Jonestown Radio Messages by Charles A Krause,
January 29, 1979, Washington Post, FBI Has Copy of Jonestown Radio Messages by Charles A Krause,
were transmitted -- apparently enough to get the message across
were transmitted -- apparently enough to get the message across
This message was received, according sources , by three persons then in the radio room at the Georgetown house. Among those there at the time was Lianne Harris, Amos daughter by a first marriage, who indicated over the radio that she wanted to die along with those at Jonestown, the sources said.
Charles Beikman, a temple member, and Stephan Jones have been charged by Guyanese police with the murders of Amos and her three children. Sources who have knowledge of the radio message transcripts said that even if Harris indicated she was prepared to die, that would not necessarily mean she and the others were not aided in killing themselves by someone else. Almost everyone familiar with the manner in which Amos and her children died agrees that they could not have slashed their own throats without assistance.
According to those familiar with the transcripts now in the FBI's possession, the decision to monitor the Peoples Temple radio link was made more by accident than design. The shortwave radio operator in Georgetown said he had inadvertently learned the frequency used by the Peoples Temple and decided to listen in on the communications being sent back and forth because the operator knew that Rep, Ryan was at Jonestown.
[Good fucking point! Do you think Guyanese and American embassy officials in Georgetown, as well as the wider world of Concerned Relatives and government officials in Washington would likewise stay tuned in
and even record the transmissions.
and even record the transmissions.
Apparently, since the FBI questioned everyone who returned to the United States about drug and gun smuggling, and money laundering, there stood the slightest chance recreational pig-latin wasn't being employed as an innocent lark, in which case full logs and a cracked decoder ring should have been established.
Apparently some third-party source just turned up with this wonderfully clarifying new evidence.
By the way, Jim Jones' one-time Guyanese attorney, Sir Lionel Luckhoo, was named Most Successful Lawyer in the World by the Guinness Book of World Records, for having won 245 consecutive acquittals for defendants charged with murder between 1940 and 1985 (when he entered politics.)
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Mr. Holman Hunt on the Restoration of the Jews. The Spectator, February 29, 1896, Pages 298-300.
_____________________________________________________________________________
January 29, 1877, The Daily Graphic, Page 610, Column 3, Sale of the Holy Land,
Will the Jewish Kingdom Be Restored With Disraeli as Monarch, Or Will Brigham Young Move From Salt Lake To Palestine?
[From the London Spectator.]
A curious rumor is afloat, for which we do not vouch, that the Porte, in its eagerness for money, has offered to sell the Hereditary Pashalic of the Holy Land to any candidate accepted by the Jews in return for a loan. The transaction would be one of the most singular in history, but it is not beyond the range of possibility. Palestine needs nothing but irrigation and trees, and though the Jews dislike agriculture, fellaheen sufficient might be attracted from Egypt. The restoration of the Jews, with Lord Beaconsfield for first king, would be an incident romantic enough to satisfy even the imagination of the author of "Alroy." If the Jews refuse, the Turks should ask Brigham Young to make a bid. His agents were said, twelve months ago, to be sounding the Porte and studying the capabilities of the country, and the Mormon leader would glide easily into the position of a Pasha.
___________________________________________________________________________
England in Palestine by Norman Bentwich, K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., 1932
[From the London Spectator.]
A curious rumor is afloat, for which we do not vouch, that the Porte, in its eagerness for money, has offered to sell the Hereditary Pashalic of the Holy Land to any candidate accepted by the Jews in return for a loan. The transaction would be one of the most singular in history, but it is not beyond the range of possibility. Palestine needs nothing but irrigation and trees, and though the Jews dislike agriculture, fellaheen sufficient might be attracted from Egypt. The restoration of the Jews, with Lord Beaconsfield for first king, would be an incident romantic enough to satisfy even the imagination of the author of "Alroy." If the Jews refuse, the Turks should ask Brigham Young to make a bid. His agents were said, twelve months ago, to be sounding the Porte and studying the capabilities of the country, and the Mormon leader would glide easily into the position of a Pasha.
___________________________________________________________________________
England in Palestine by Norman Bentwich, K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., 1932
Monday, November 28, 2011
Use of Cocaine in South.
April 28, 1911, Albany Evening Journal, Page 4, Column 6, Use of Cocaine in South,
(Reprinted from the Washington Post)
(Reprinted from the Washington Post)
"One of the growing evils among the negroes of the South is the use of cocaine," remarked E. W. Boyd, a lawyer, of Charleston, S. C. "This is particularly the case with negroes employed in the large lumber camp's in those sections where there is local option. The taking away of the opportunity for them to procure liquor has led them to turn to cocaine, and the effects, you may imagine, are infinitely worse than an indulgence in whiskey. In nearly every large lumber camp in the South scores of negroes can be found lolling around under the influence of cocaine.Well, this lets the C.I.A. off the hook from the charge made by paranoid conspiracy theorists like myself that The Company deliberately introduced crack cocaine into minority communities in the early 90's (that would be the 1990's dear,) as a genocidal ploy of their hegemonic dominance. (If you want to cop in any city---certainly it's true in Florida---just locate that town's Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.) It is remarkable what knowledge can die out when it's limited to just living memory. A generation or two is all it takes.
"The authorities have sought to prevent the sale of this drug by restrictive ordinances, but in every community there are to be found two or three venders of the drug. It can be had in quantities. Cocaine used to be sold in the ordinary state in which it is handed out over the counters of drugstores, but now it is to be had in crystal form, resembling rock candy.
"Now, while I am opposed to the indiscriminate sale of liquor to the negroes, I believe that the use of cocaine is far worse. How to overcome the conditions is a problem the solution of which is worrying the owners of the big lumber camps and the factories where a large proportion of employes are colored."
Sunday, January 23, 2011
John & Martha Mitchell
I haven't been motivated for half a year to post anything over here at my context-creating effort, the spacey Steven War Ran Blogspot. But when I ran across these photographs of my mother, I felt the stirring that I may have not only a personal, but possibly historic message to deliver.
The image is of my mother, a reporter for The Tennessean newspaper at the time, interviewing U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell. Taken by Bill Preston, a staff photographer at the paper, it bears newspaper library stamps for January 17, 1971, and June 26, 1972, and was probably taken on, or shortly before the first date.
The family file from which I snatched it also contained a letter on newspaper stationary, dated October 5, 1977, that explained its origins
My mother's files were filled with old photographs, taken while she was on the job, in which her appearance was clearly incidental, outside of the action the photographer intended to capture. It's a common courtesy amongst news professionals I guess, that if a shot was flattering, or might be of some personal interest to a colleague, it's maker would run off a copy to give them. Many of hers bear funny, moral-boosting balloon captions---applied the old fashioned way, with handwriting, paper and rubber cement.
But this photograph wasn't taken casually, or by happenstance. It is of high resolution and in very sharp focus. Given her outfit and grooming, I suspect a stylist above my mother's station has been at work. I don't recognize the coat and it may have been lent to her. With the access to a high-level government official on display, combined with the powerful cultural message it seems designed to encode, it appears to me like she is being professionally auditioned.
I doubt she was aware of any of this. She may have been thrilled with the moment---at the "lucky breaks" coming her way; at any newfound attention from powerful people; by the assists from "helping hands," who could suddenly materialize to lend support at some crucial pass.
This is the process every successful journalism career must go through I'm sure. The rich and powerful throw enormous resources at the mechanism that governs public perception. They attempt to influence the course that reality will take, and then govern the history that accrues behind it.
The following picture is also of my mother, along with a woman who, I believe, is Martha Mitchell.
It was taken by Tennessean staff photographer Dale Ernsberger, and is dated February 2, 1974. It bares many of the same hallmarks as found on the previous image. My mother appears animated. Some elevated process is underway, extraordinary from her previous development. She has been spotted and chosen for something, but then it will be her choice to cooperate. Opportunities like this don't come around every day, so she may have to sacrifice something minor, like her scruples. It all progresses from there. I don't think this is really one of her coats either.
It isn't hard to understand the risks and rewards of a media career. My mother had had two children in her teens, and was divorced by 23, having never gone to college, when she first started working at a newspaper. This was in the last class of journeymen reporters---before the job became professionalized, and college a prerequisite. She worked as a gumshoe in a man's world, at a time when most women were only employed on the woman's desk. But she was smart, good looking, and ambitious. She wrote features; worked a police beat; covered state court, then for a long time, the federal court---finally becoming a Washington correspondent for the state newspaper of record.
From there she moved into a job as deputy press secretary for Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, who was majority leader, and a leading candidate for nomination to be President of the United States. She once described for me a scene in Senator Baker's private office at the Capital during the 1981 funeral of Senator Hubert Humphrey, to which three U.S. presidents repaired with a small group for privacy, and where Sen. Baker, an amateur photographer, took some, not very good, images.
Heady stuff, for a single woman from a working-class background who was entirely self-educated. But then the test finally came in and she didn't respond. Despite her intelligence, the code governing her advancement was inexplicable to her, so she was fired from her job, and couldn't get an important job again. The Washington Post published an op-ed article she wrote then, titled, "Is There Life After Macaroni & Cheese," referring to the 20-cent boxes by Kraft she was reduced to eating. She lost her house on Capital Hill before moving back home to finally get a master's degree at age 60, and begin life anew.
For decades I thought that my mother had failed at some important life task because of this turn. We both lacked the perspective to understand how the world really worked. Enormously talented people of good will have always been able to oppose the negative force that attempts to shape our destiny, while still achieving successful careers. But that force has gained the upper hand in recent decades, making the moral option next to impossible for the average person with a dream. Success today comes with a higher price tag, and I have no illusions about the goodness of media stars who run in the control booth, or the minions forced to do their bidding.
Once great newspapers have become shams of their former selves. The Tennessean, "Established in 1812," according to its letterhead, may have always been just another over-class tool of privledged white people, but John Seigenthaler, its publisher when my mother worked there, had his skull cracked open by a policeman's nightstick during the violence over integration. Can you imagine anybody at Gannett, the paper's current owners, having such an experience today? It is not the internet that is destroying anything. Newspapers and other traditional media destroyed themselves, and the internet is our only hope for salvation.
I recently stumbled upon a letter posted at Scribd from an environmental scientist named Cate Jenkins, who works for the EPA in Washington, which she wrote to Robert S. Mueller, the director of the FBI, to plead them to investigate the falsification of data in studies of the World Trade Center disaster---scientific fraud committed by her own agency, and other officials. That the government bureaucracy is still working in even this small way is encouraging to me. The courage, clarity and moral purpose of Dr. Jenkins' attempt at forcing truth to power makes me hopeful that the system can self-correct, however painful that promises to be.
What other choice do we have? Thoreau said, "Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." But we are being bound by illusions that have the power to rule the world, while the truth is being kept at bay. Something has to give. Macaroni & Cheese or the White House? Which is it to be?
ADDENDUM: Click on the expanded view of the first photograph and tell me who you think is peering over John Mitchell's shoulder, just off camera.
The image is of my mother, a reporter for The Tennessean newspaper at the time, interviewing U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell. Taken by Bill Preston, a staff photographer at the paper, it bears newspaper library stamps for January 17, 1971, and June 26, 1972, and was probably taken on, or shortly before the first date.
The family file from which I snatched it also contained a letter on newspaper stationary, dated October 5, 1977, that explained its origins
Dear Pat:At first I was shocked that the newspaper would crop it into a head shot of Mitchell. I realized my emotional reaction to it was personal, especially since it captured my mother in her supreme, if not archetypal, Cruella de Ville mode, but the image's broader meaning seemed to derive from both her stance of aggressive questioning, as well as Mitchell's pose of attentive listening. But then I began to see a deeper significance to it than Woman's Lib.
We found this today, and decided that you should have it. Obviously it only ran as a head shot of Mitchell. You really look like you are giving him hell. Anyway, if you end up in the White House, maybe it will keep you humble.
Let me know if I can ever help you,
Sandra Roberts
My mother's files were filled with old photographs, taken while she was on the job, in which her appearance was clearly incidental, outside of the action the photographer intended to capture. It's a common courtesy amongst news professionals I guess, that if a shot was flattering, or might be of some personal interest to a colleague, it's maker would run off a copy to give them. Many of hers bear funny, moral-boosting balloon captions---applied the old fashioned way, with handwriting, paper and rubber cement.
But this photograph wasn't taken casually, or by happenstance. It is of high resolution and in very sharp focus. Given her outfit and grooming, I suspect a stylist above my mother's station has been at work. I don't recognize the coat and it may have been lent to her. With the access to a high-level government official on display, combined with the powerful cultural message it seems designed to encode, it appears to me like she is being professionally auditioned.
I doubt she was aware of any of this. She may have been thrilled with the moment---at the "lucky breaks" coming her way; at any newfound attention from powerful people; by the assists from "helping hands," who could suddenly materialize to lend support at some crucial pass.
This is the process every successful journalism career must go through I'm sure. The rich and powerful throw enormous resources at the mechanism that governs public perception. They attempt to influence the course that reality will take, and then govern the history that accrues behind it.
The following picture is also of my mother, along with a woman who, I believe, is Martha Mitchell.
It was taken by Tennessean staff photographer Dale Ernsberger, and is dated February 2, 1974. It bares many of the same hallmarks as found on the previous image. My mother appears animated. Some elevated process is underway, extraordinary from her previous development. She has been spotted and chosen for something, but then it will be her choice to cooperate. Opportunities like this don't come around every day, so she may have to sacrifice something minor, like her scruples. It all progresses from there. I don't think this is really one of her coats either.
It isn't hard to understand the risks and rewards of a media career. My mother had had two children in her teens, and was divorced by 23, having never gone to college, when she first started working at a newspaper. This was in the last class of journeymen reporters---before the job became professionalized, and college a prerequisite. She worked as a gumshoe in a man's world, at a time when most women were only employed on the woman's desk. But she was smart, good looking, and ambitious. She wrote features; worked a police beat; covered state court, then for a long time, the federal court---finally becoming a Washington correspondent for the state newspaper of record.
From there she moved into a job as deputy press secretary for Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, who was majority leader, and a leading candidate for nomination to be President of the United States. She once described for me a scene in Senator Baker's private office at the Capital during the 1981 funeral of Senator Hubert Humphrey, to which three U.S. presidents repaired with a small group for privacy, and where Sen. Baker, an amateur photographer, took some, not very good, images.
Heady stuff, for a single woman from a working-class background who was entirely self-educated. But then the test finally came in and she didn't respond. Despite her intelligence, the code governing her advancement was inexplicable to her, so she was fired from her job, and couldn't get an important job again. The Washington Post published an op-ed article she wrote then, titled, "Is There Life After Macaroni & Cheese," referring to the 20-cent boxes by Kraft she was reduced to eating. She lost her house on Capital Hill before moving back home to finally get a master's degree at age 60, and begin life anew.
For decades I thought that my mother had failed at some important life task because of this turn. We both lacked the perspective to understand how the world really worked. Enormously talented people of good will have always been able to oppose the negative force that attempts to shape our destiny, while still achieving successful careers. But that force has gained the upper hand in recent decades, making the moral option next to impossible for the average person with a dream. Success today comes with a higher price tag, and I have no illusions about the goodness of media stars who run in the control booth, or the minions forced to do their bidding.
Once great newspapers have become shams of their former selves. The Tennessean, "Established in 1812," according to its letterhead, may have always been just another over-class tool of privledged white people, but John Seigenthaler, its publisher when my mother worked there, had his skull cracked open by a policeman's nightstick during the violence over integration. Can you imagine anybody at Gannett, the paper's current owners, having such an experience today? It is not the internet that is destroying anything. Newspapers and other traditional media destroyed themselves, and the internet is our only hope for salvation.
I recently stumbled upon a letter posted at Scribd from an environmental scientist named Cate Jenkins, who works for the EPA in Washington, which she wrote to Robert S. Mueller, the director of the FBI, to plead them to investigate the falsification of data in studies of the World Trade Center disaster---scientific fraud committed by her own agency, and other officials. That the government bureaucracy is still working in even this small way is encouraging to me. The courage, clarity and moral purpose of Dr. Jenkins' attempt at forcing truth to power makes me hopeful that the system can self-correct, however painful that promises to be.
What other choice do we have? Thoreau said, "Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." But we are being bound by illusions that have the power to rule the world, while the truth is being kept at bay. Something has to give. Macaroni & Cheese or the White House? Which is it to be?
ADDENDUM: Click on the expanded view of the first photograph and tell me who you think is peering over John Mitchell's shoulder, just off camera.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Robert Wilson's Watermill Center Gala 2010: Paradiso
All the usual suspects were there---like jackthedripper, tryviolence, and bitchy michell.
The actress Sharon Stone functioned as an auctioneer. She got a flying insect caught up under her dress, which led to much shimmying and shaking. A lesbian photographer eventually had to get up in there with her hand to get it out. False flag?
This fellow's name was Clive, or Rodney, or Blaine. That's it---it was Blaine something or other.
I love to photograph Bill Cunningham of the New York Times for some obscure reason.
It had to have been the hottest evening of the year. Everybody simply melted, which made me feel I was in good company.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Kindra Arnesen, of Venice, Louisiana, at the Gulf Emergency Summit
"That's my coon-ass."
As somebody who spent many years in the trenches of local town-hall government, speaking before various governing bodies whose main job was to sit patiently and tolerate the abuse we amateur foot-soldier pawns heaped upon them, which is the facade behind which a failed American democracy hides the truth of an ascendant American fascism, I can identify with Ms. Arnesen, and appreciate the skill with which she has done her job in double crossing BP's co-opting of her activism. Her message is terrifying. It is worth a 16-minute viewing.
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Eva Cassidy Updated
Eva Cassidy - Live at Blues Alley, 45:53
Eva Cassidy singing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow.' Superb.
Eva Cassidy - Somewhere Over The Rainbow, 5:30
Eva Cassidy - God Bless The Child (solo), 5:18
Eva Cassidy - What a Wonderful World, 5:30
Eva Cassidy - You Take My Breath Away (HQ), 5:39
Eva Cassidy singing 'Fields of Gold', 5:01
Eva Cassidy singing 'Autumn Leaves', 6:38
'Time After Time', 4:11
'Danny Boy' OMG, 3:44
'Imagine', 4:36
A most beautiful version of 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters', 4:12
'Yesterday', 3:10
'Early One Morning', 2:20
Eva Cassidy-Stormy Monday, 5:46
72VIDEOS
Best Eva Cassidy playlist
by Elelith1980,
5:08, Eva Cassidy - Fields of Gold,
3:55, Eva Cassidy-Songbird,
View full playlist (72 videos)
Friday, April 09, 2010
Dennis Hopper and Tony Shafrazi: Get Well Soon Dennis
In response to an article in the New York Times on April 7, Madman, Perhaps; Survivor, Definitely, by Manohla Dargis, about the life and career of Dennis Hopper, I realized I had failed to keep a promise I made to the art dealer Tony Shafrazi when I was at a museum opening back in January.
I had taken the only pictures of a moment Tony designed to send a message of love and support to a very ill Hopper, and I'd forgotten to email Tony the results for him to send along to Dennis as I had promised.
Back in the sixties, Hopper had taken a famous photograph of Roy Lichtenstein sitting on the floor beside some of his iconic paintings, a photograph which was blown up into a wall graphic that served as the introduction to the exposition. Tony, along with a couple of other friends from back in the day, wrote on the back of an art poster, "To Dennis, get back on your feet," and posed with it with their thumbs up.
II am very glad that Dennis Hopper is still with us, and apparently doing well. His career was an absolute uniquety---and the very definition of a well-rounded artist, in my humble opinion.
I don't know much about Tony Shafrazi's career, except that as a young man in 1974, he spray painted the words "Kill Lies All" on Picasso's Guernica at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The vandalism was cleaned off within a day, according to the New York Times, so perhaps he was more interested in the publicity then the sentiment, but he was a striking looking vandal nonetheless.
If I tried a stunt like that today in order to publicize my work, I'd be sitting in the Navy Brig in Charleston, South Carolina undergoing sensory deprivation torture, which is what it feels like most of the time here anyway, for an under-appreciated 9/11 truth questling such as myself. But I'll take the moral of Dennis Hopper's uncompromising world view to heart, and let it provide me with some sustenance. I also hope he stumbles upon this little message of love and support from his friends on the internets.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Zip Lining the Forest Canopy in Costa Rica
My first YouTube video! OMFG!
Taken by my Jaco Beach "work-out" buddy Erick. Here he is landing on the platform from the previous run.
Barnetta Carter
May, 1974. Junior/Senior prom. I was the junior and she was the senior. She had her first drink that night. What a good girl she was.R.I.P. March 2010. Dead from complications of diabetes.
I remember she was insulin dependent back then; never planned to wed, as having children was deemed too risky.
Barnetta was a gifted actress who taught at Herbert Berghof in New York for many years. More recently, she ran a summer stock theater near Rochester. She had been declining for several years, becoming more agitated with her developing dementia. I had no contact with her through this period as the thought of it was almost too much to bear.
She had a devoted companion, David, who was with her until the end, along with her three siblings, who were also at her bedside. Her funeral is Saturday in Nashville, and I'll be there, along with many others flying in to honor her as the great star she was.
P.S. She made that dress! That's the way it was done back in the day!
Addendum:
Some pictures taken at 87th Street during a visit Kent made to New York in April 1984. This is how I will always remember her---and she would be happy with these pictures too.
Barnetta and her love, John Avril.
John, Barnetta, Kent, Michael Fields, Rolf Scholander [?] and John Dunn
Me and Barnetta
Kent, Barnetta and I
Rolf, Michael and Zoe Walker, who replaced Nell Carter in Ain't Misbehavin' within her first six months in New York.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Italy Without Simon
It just wasn't the same. Not that anything in the temperature-inverted city of Milano reminded me of my recent trip to Rome and her surrounding hills. Even the Duomo seemed a spaceship apart.
But having been cut adrift by Mr. Simon Shack---at the behest of some duck named donald---I had to find my way somehow through the cruel, lonely streets of an unfamiliar Italian city. Simon and I had talked about his bringing his crew up to join us for several days of shows and fetes and galas. Alas, it was all for naught, as Simon chose to withdraw his affection from me. If it were a test Simon, you failed.
In the absence of his warm embrace, I even got to the point of socializing with rightist politicians, such as Letizia Brichetto-Arnaboldi Moratti, the mayor of Milan. She was kind to me! And I returned the favor! Any port in a storm, I say!
(She ran as a candidate for Mayor of Milan in the 2006 municipal election, winning the election with over 52% of the votes. She is a businesswoman who worked in insurance and telecommunications, is married to the oil magnate Gianmarco Moratti, brother of Massimo Moratti. Between 1994 and 1996 she was president of the Italian state television company RAI. In 1999-2000 she was responsible for the growth of Rupert Murdoch's group in Europe. From 2001 to 2006 she was Education Minister in the second and third Berlusconi cabinet.)
And I'd even dine with Berlusconi if he'd have me! The food is better! (With apologies to Christina.) So, when it's time for heads to roll, I'll be happy sitting with the friendly fascists of Italy, and not the loathsome duckian liberals of Scandinavia!
We went to a mad party at the house of rich modern-art collectors named Orsi---who collected bears too, out the kazoo. Let me just say, their food was fabulous!
Their collection of memento-mori was also most impressive.
There were more galas then you could shack a stick at---and if I meant shake I would have said it.
At the big dinner at the Triennale Design Museum, on one side, I sat next to Pepi Marchetti Franchi, who recently opened Larry Gagosian's gallery in Rome...
and on the other side, I sat next to an old friend, Barbara Bertozzi Castelli, the widow of Leo. It must not have been easy adjusting to a marriage with an over 50-year age difference between the partners. When people mistakenly asked if she was Leo's daughter, she would say, "oh no, Leo's daughter is 68!"
Oh well, the spy business is fraught with soured relationships and broken love affairs I'm learning. But, if I ever got the chance to say I'm sorry to Simon, I would, because---I am. I'd even apologize to that old duck guy. Till then, I just have to pumpitout, I guess.
But having been cut adrift by Mr. Simon Shack---at the behest of some duck named donald---I had to find my way somehow through the cruel, lonely streets of an unfamiliar Italian city. Simon and I had talked about his bringing his crew up to join us for several days of shows and fetes and galas. Alas, it was all for naught, as Simon chose to withdraw his affection from me. If it were a test Simon, you failed.
In the absence of his warm embrace, I even got to the point of socializing with rightist politicians, such as Letizia Brichetto-Arnaboldi Moratti, the mayor of Milan. She was kind to me! And I returned the favor! Any port in a storm, I say!
(She ran as a candidate for Mayor of Milan in the 2006 municipal election, winning the election with over 52% of the votes. She is a businesswoman who worked in insurance and telecommunications, is married to the oil magnate Gianmarco Moratti, brother of Massimo Moratti. Between 1994 and 1996 she was president of the Italian state television company RAI. In 1999-2000 she was responsible for the growth of Rupert Murdoch's group in Europe. From 2001 to 2006 she was Education Minister in the second and third Berlusconi cabinet.)And I'd even dine with Berlusconi if he'd have me! The food is better! (With apologies to Christina.) So, when it's time for heads to roll, I'll be happy sitting with the friendly fascists of Italy, and not the loathsome duckian liberals of Scandinavia!
We went to a mad party at the house of rich modern-art collectors named Orsi---who collected bears too, out the kazoo. Let me just say, their food was fabulous!
Their collection of memento-mori was also most impressive.
There were more galas then you could shack a stick at---and if I meant shake I would have said it.
At the big dinner at the Triennale Design Museum, on one side, I sat next to Pepi Marchetti Franchi, who recently opened Larry Gagosian's gallery in Rome...
and on the other side, I sat next to an old friend, Barbara Bertozzi Castelli, the widow of Leo. It must not have been easy adjusting to a marriage with an over 50-year age difference between the partners. When people mistakenly asked if she was Leo's daughter, she would say, "oh no, Leo's daughter is 68!"
Oh well, the spy business is fraught with soured relationships and broken love affairs I'm learning. But, if I ever got the chance to say I'm sorry to Simon, I would, because---I am. I'd even apologize to that old duck guy. Till then, I just have to pumpitout, I guess.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Christmas 2009: You've Come a Long Way Baby
X-mas 1964
X-mas 2009
I spent Christmas in the city, staying with a friend in her townhouse on Washington Street, which is a very old thoroughfare in downtown Manhattan, running up from the Battery to the World Trade Center site, whence in disappears within modern development, only to reappear in Tribeca, where it continues to run about 40 blocks up to 14th Street.On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, I foolishly opened the front door from the inside without checking and set off an alarm. By the time it could be shut off, ADT had called the New York City Fire Department, and within 10 minutes an engine company and a huge ladder truck showed up at the door. The firemen were dressed in their full turnout coats, with Scotts packs on their backs.
I found it odd that an alarm company would summon the fire department for a burglar alarm being set off. While the responders couldn't have been nicer or more polite, the essential difference between firemen and police, I should think, is that firemen don't need a warrant to enter a private residence.In any event, it seemed like a big waste of energy---both of the human and carbon variety. I saw other such fire department over-responses happening everywhere I went in the city during this trip. Luckily, I didn't note what was visible on other recent trips into the city---and that was the large American flags unfurled from the backs of speeding fire department equipment, flapping furiously in the breeze, and not looking especially fire-retardant in the process.
Or maybe I've just become sedentary in my old age, and am easily overstimulated. Whatever the changes afoot in fire department processes and procedures---if any---the members are surely earning their salaries now.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Went to Aggie's for "Cocktails," and to See the Iconic Works
What a privilege this evening was. I really don't understand how someone as transgressive as I am is allowed within kneeing distance of a major Mark Rothko, let alone the archaic Chinese bronzes. In any event, I do know how to mind my manners amongst such graceful perfection.We'd spent half the week in the city, just doing this and that. I'd never walked along the new city park, The Highline, which were old elevated train tracks running down through Chelsea and the West Village. Whomever, did a superb job transforming the industrial wreakage into one of the most pleasant jaunts imaginable.
It is my understanding that sex exhibitionists perform in the southern windows of the Standard Hotel on Saturday nights for the delectation of park habitues.
I just love the city.
Monday, November 16, 2009
I Wasn't Going to Mention It,
but then newyorksocialdiary.com went and published a photographic image!Last Wednesday night at the Tribeca Rooftop at 2 Desbrosses Street, Yaz and Valentin Hernandes, Cynthia and Dan Lufkin and Laura and Richard Parsons co-chaired the American Folk Art Museum Gala celebrating advocates for the arts.
I sat next to an honoree and the museum's director Maria Ann Conelli, with honoree, Adam Gopnik, to her right, and a third, Arki Busson, sitting within spitting distance.
I really don't understand the universe that puts a transgressive figure such as myself in an expensive seat. It is too hot in the spotlights near the dance floor! I want to sit off to the side near an air-conditioner vent!
Some have called me a CIA agent disguised as a schizophrenic New York left-wing, literary art fag, but I'm just your typical everyday anti-banking anarchist with a chip on his shoulder.
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