Sunday, December 07, 2008
Decaf Architecture
Wolf D. Prix, do Coop Himmelblau, sobre a proposta do curador Aaron Betsky para a Bienal de Arquitetura de Veneza 2008 / "The danger is that by putting the building process aside, that the architect is not important anymore. Meaning that the intellectual discussion replaces the real building. And that brings me to the problem of Decaf Architecture. Because if an architect doesn't want to change the world by his buildings, he stays a builder" http://tinyurl.com/5qfokt / + "This year's curator was Cincinnati Art Museum director Aaron Betsky and his topic of choice "Out There - Architecture Beyond Building".
Monday, November 17, 2008
Prince, testemunha de Jeová
Ele vai de casa em casa, em Hollywood, fazer proselitismo - acredita? / (...) Prince had his change of faith, he said, after a two-year-long debate with a musician friend, Larry Graham. "I don't see it really as a conversion," he said. "More, you know, it's a realization. It's like Morpheus and Neo in 'The Matrix.' " He attends meetings at a local Kingdom Hall, and, like his fellow-witnesses, he leaves his gated community from time to time to knock on doors and proselytize. "Sometimes people act surprised, but mostly they're really cool about it," he said.
New Yorker
New Yorker
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Why I'm Happy the Stock Market Crashed
(...) A political consultant explains how cheap cash and quick loans of the past exposed three myths for a better financial future / Here's how repulsed I've been by the inane decoupling of risk and reward in the financial markets over the past five years: I quit. I spent a decade clawing my way into prominence as a financial journalist and commentator--a television gig, books, a column in this magazine. And the reason I quit opining about finance for a living basically boils down to disgust. Mostly with Alan Greenspan's pathetic desire to preserve his own reputation by flooding the globe with cheap dollars, no matter what the long-term costs. But also with the market's willingness to accommodate those dollars, regardless of how obvious it became that such madness was unsustainable. - Ken Kurson
Esquire
Esquire
Um mercado pós-moderno
Melting into air
Before the financial system went bust, it went postmodern
(...) finance, like other forms of human behavior, underwent a change in the twentieth century, a shift equivalent to the emergence of modernism in the arts—a break with common sense, a turn toward self-referentiality and abstraction and notions that couldn't be explained in workaday English. In poetry, this moment took place with the publication of "The Waste Land." In classical music, it was, perhaps, the première of "The Rite of Spring." Jazz, dance, architecture, painting—all had comparable moments. The moment in finance came in 1973, with the publication of a paper in the Journal of Political Economy titled "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," by Fischer Black and Myron Scholes.
(...) With derivatives, we seem to enter a modernist world in which risk no longer means what it means in plain English, and in which there is a profound break between the language of finance and that of common sense. It is difficult for civilians to understand a derivatives contract, or any of a range of closely related instruments, such as credit-default swaps.
(...) If the invention of derivatives was the financial world's modernist dawn, the current crisis is unsettlingly like the birth of postmodernism. For anyone who studied literature in college in the past few decades, there is a weird familiarity about the current crisis: value, in the realm of finance capital, evokes the elusive nature of meaning in deconstructionism. According to Jacques Derrida, the doyen of the school, meaning can never be precisely located; instead, it is always "deferred," moved elsewhere, located in other meanings, which refer and defer to other meanings—a snake permanently and necessarily eating its own tail. This process is fluid and constant, but at moments the perpetual process of deferral stalls and collapses in on itself. Derrida called this moment an "aporia," from a Greek term meaning "impasse." There is something both amusing and appalling about seeing his theories acted out in the world markets to such cataclysmic effect. Anyone invited to attend a meeting of the G-8 financial ministers would be well advised not to draw their attention to this. - John Lanchaster
The New Yorker
Before the financial system went bust, it went postmodern
(...) finance, like other forms of human behavior, underwent a change in the twentieth century, a shift equivalent to the emergence of modernism in the arts—a break with common sense, a turn toward self-referentiality and abstraction and notions that couldn't be explained in workaday English. In poetry, this moment took place with the publication of "The Waste Land." In classical music, it was, perhaps, the première of "The Rite of Spring." Jazz, dance, architecture, painting—all had comparable moments. The moment in finance came in 1973, with the publication of a paper in the Journal of Political Economy titled "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," by Fischer Black and Myron Scholes.
(...) With derivatives, we seem to enter a modernist world in which risk no longer means what it means in plain English, and in which there is a profound break between the language of finance and that of common sense. It is difficult for civilians to understand a derivatives contract, or any of a range of closely related instruments, such as credit-default swaps.
(...) If the invention of derivatives was the financial world's modernist dawn, the current crisis is unsettlingly like the birth of postmodernism. For anyone who studied literature in college in the past few decades, there is a weird familiarity about the current crisis: value, in the realm of finance capital, evokes the elusive nature of meaning in deconstructionism. According to Jacques Derrida, the doyen of the school, meaning can never be precisely located; instead, it is always "deferred," moved elsewhere, located in other meanings, which refer and defer to other meanings—a snake permanently and necessarily eating its own tail. This process is fluid and constant, but at moments the perpetual process of deferral stalls and collapses in on itself. Derrida called this moment an "aporia," from a Greek term meaning "impasse." There is something both amusing and appalling about seeing his theories acted out in the world markets to such cataclysmic effect. Anyone invited to attend a meeting of the G-8 financial ministers would be well advised not to draw their attention to this. - John Lanchaster
The New Yorker
Viva a Cebola!
Para além do cinismo, um texto do "The Onion" sobre a vitória do Obama
Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress
4.11.2008
After emerging victorious from one of the most pivotal elections in history, president-elect Barack Obama will assume the role of commander in chief on Jan. 20, shattering a racial barrier the United States is, at long last, shitty enough to overcome.
Although polls going into the final weeks of October showed Sen. Obama in the lead, it remained unclear whether the failing economy, dilapidated housing market, crumbling national infrastructure, health care crisis, energy crisis, and five-year-long disastrous war in Iraq had made the nation crappy enough to rise above 300 years of racial prejudice and make lasting change.
"Today the American people have made their voices heard, and they have said, 'Things are finally as terrible as we're willing to tolerate," said Obama, addressing a crowd of unemployed, uninsured, and debt-ridden supporters. "To elect a black man, in this country, and at this time—these last eight years must have really broken you."Added Obama, "It's a great day for our nation." (...)
The Onion
The Buffet Effect > The Bradley Effect
(...) But there also may have been something of a "Buffett effect" that countered the supposed "Bradley effect" — white voters telling pollsters they'd vote for Obama but then voting for the white guy. The Buffett effect was just the opposite. It was white conservatives telling the guys in the men's grill at the country club that they were voting for John McCain, but then quietly going into the booth and voting for Obama, even though they knew it would mean higher taxes. -Thomas L. Friedman, 4.11.2008
The New York Times
The New York Times
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Johnny Cash for president
Músicas do Johnny Cash que representam os candidatos à presidência dos EUA nesta terça-feira.
Barack Obama
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oooh sometimes it causes me to tremble
Were you there when they crucified my Lord
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?
Oooh sometimes it causes me to tremble
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Oooh sometimes it causes me to tremble
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb
Well were you there when the stone was rolled away?
Were you there when the stone was rolled away?
Oooh sometimes it causes me to tremble tremble
Were you there when the stone was rolled away
John McCain
Five feet high and risin'
How high's the water, mama?
Two feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Two feet high and risin'
We can make it to the road in a homemade boat
That's the only thing we got left that'll float
It's already over all the wheat and the oats,
Two feet high and risin'
How high's the water, mama?
Three feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Three feet high and risin'
Well, the hives are gone,
I've lost my bees
The chickens are sleepin'
In the willow trees
Cow's in water up past her knees,
Three feet high and risin'
How high's the water, mama?
Four feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Four feet high and risin'
Hey, come look through the window pane,
The bus is comin', gonna take us to the train
Looks like we'll be blessed with a little more rain,
Four feet high and risin'
How high's the water, mama?
Five feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Five feet high and risin'
Well, the rails are washed out north of town
We gotta head for higher ground
We can't come back till the water comes down,
Five feet high and risin'
Barack Obama
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oooh sometimes it causes me to tremble
Were you there when they crucified my Lord
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?
Oooh sometimes it causes me to tremble
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Oooh sometimes it causes me to tremble
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb
Well were you there when the stone was rolled away?
Were you there when the stone was rolled away?
Oooh sometimes it causes me to tremble tremble
Were you there when the stone was rolled away
John McCain
Five feet high and risin'
How high's the water, mama?
Two feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Two feet high and risin'
We can make it to the road in a homemade boat
That's the only thing we got left that'll float
It's already over all the wheat and the oats,
Two feet high and risin'
How high's the water, mama?
Three feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Three feet high and risin'
Well, the hives are gone,
I've lost my bees
The chickens are sleepin'
In the willow trees
Cow's in water up past her knees,
Three feet high and risin'
How high's the water, mama?
Four feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Four feet high and risin'
Hey, come look through the window pane,
The bus is comin', gonna take us to the train
Looks like we'll be blessed with a little more rain,
Four feet high and risin'
How high's the water, mama?
Five feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Five feet high and risin'
Well, the rails are washed out north of town
We gotta head for higher ground
We can't come back till the water comes down,
Five feet high and risin'
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The Economist + New York Times + New Yorker
The Economist / The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.
The Economist / New Yorker / The New York Times + Bob Dylan
The Economist / New Yorker / The New York Times + Bob Dylan
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
We don't take kindly to yer type 'round here
prioridades. (...) Meanwhile, the McCain campaign launched an ad Wednesday attacking Obama for his 30-minute special, saying: "Behind the fancy speeches, grand promises and TV special, lies the truth: With crises at home and abroad, Barack Obama lacks the experience America needs." (...) The Republican National Committee also blasted the timing of the ad, which pushed back the start of a World Series baseball game. "It's unfortunate that the World Series' first pitch is being delayed for Obama's political pitch. Not only is Obama putting politics before principle, he's putting it before our national pastime," RNC spokesman Alex Conant said.
CNN
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