Go Spain!!!!

La Furia Roja (?!)

I am OBSESSED with World Cup 2010, which isn't surprising when you have a soccer playing Spanish father and grow watching futbol and toros. ;-) Although I am still learning the rules, (according to my shrink I also haven't learned The Rules) I have gone to unprecedented lengths to watch even (gasp) going to a bar to watch a sporting event. A plus is the hot players. Another plus is the unparalleled bonding opportunities with my father that this provides. Still to be determined is if it will help me to meet a single (preferably European) man (although the one I fell madly in love with quixotically likes....baseball?!?).

I never understood why people would congregate at a bar to watch a sporting event, even though I have hosted a Miss Universe watching soiree, complete with guests donning national dress (loosely interpreted). Also, I attend the best sporting event of the art world - the Venice Biennial or the art Olympics- every chance I get. Now I am participating in yet another artworld bonding/collective spectator sport: watching the heinously embarrassingly bad "reality TV" show "Work of Art" on Bravo. First, I began live tweeting, tossing back insidery snarky ironic or funny 140 character or less asides with a crew of artworld nerds such as myself. The hashtag is, as often the case, better than the thing you are tweeting about (not true of Spain trouncing Portugal today in the World Cup!!!!!!). Soon I will take it to the next level and meet a bunch of other artnerds at a bar, watch the show on a big split screen that has a crawl featuring our tweets as well as others, since we will be on our crackberries, iphones, or (Mac) laptops participating. I kid you not. It's an artworld video game, the best one since Corey Arcangel's I Shot Andy Warhol piece.

For nice re-caps of the live tweeting nerdolicious action, go here:

http://artlog.com/posts/1531-talk, here http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/06/work-of-art-on-twitter.html and here http://hyperallergic.com/7080/work-of-art-recap-tweet-digest/

If you want to laugh out loud, go to Twitter and type in #workofart (some of us spell it workoFART) or just go here http://twitter.com/#search?q=workofart.

One of the very best things about the World Cup is the announcers on Univision. The football match becomes as melodramatic as a telenovela or zarzuela. (because I know absolutely nothing about opera, but grew up with the latter, light opera?) It's never just a gol it's a GOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!! or better yet, a GOOOOOOLAAAAAAASO!!! (spelled golazo of course but pronounced with the soft s). The huge letters expand, contract, and seem to jump out of the screen. Very thrilling! And they refer to many of the goals as SABROSO as if they had just been served a delicious meal. OMAIGA! AILOBIT!

Join the fun here:

And what's not to love when the announcer says things like these (as taken from my twitter/facebook status feed):

[When a goal set up goes terribly wrong, spelled as he pronounced the word] MEESCOMUNIQUEICHON if only #univision announcer was narrating my love life....

Golaaaazoooo. Ese poema de 3 letras. GOL #univision #worldcup #awesome

When a player falls down to convince referee that there was a foul: El arbitro Le dice como a Lazaro. Levantate y anda! #worldcup #univision

I don't believe it, but I can dream......

An italian friend just shared this gem with me, my favorite childhood show, The Love Boat, was shown in Italy but there, the song was different. Best line: I don't believe it, but I can dream.....

When Reality TV and Politics Collide

England's Poet Laureate' Ode to Becks

BBC News published an article about the latest work by England's Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, who was inspired by Becks' injury which will keep him from playing in the World Cup. You MUST NOT MISS hearing the Bard herself reading her radical poetic masterpiece as her delivery only adds to the potency of her rhymes. You can read more and watch her read the poem here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8570282.stm

Achilles by Carol Ann Duffy

Myth's river - where his mother dipped him, fished him, a slippery golden boy flowed on, his name on its lips.

Without him, it was prophesied, they would not take Troy.

Women hid him, concealed him in girls' sarongs; days of sweetmeats, spices, silver songs...

But when Odysseus came, with an athlete's build, a sword and a shield, he followed him to the battlefield, the crowd's roar,

And it was sport, not war, his charmed foot on the ball...

But then his heel, his heel, his heel...

Note the subtleties of her poem. First there is the tragically serendipitous nature of Becks' injury. Second is her audacious anachronism. Third is her post-Modern appropriation of Classical myth to bring such tropes closer to the British, privileging the global/glocal mass cultural form that is football. Third, her way with words. Rhyming "sarong" with "song" which although geographically incongruous might be seen as in the interests of melodious rhyme and as a post-Colonial move to undermine the hegemonic role of Western culture. She could have gone another route, the sartorial and temporal incongruity, selecting "thong" to rhyme with "song" and thus inserting a meta-reference to Posh and Becks' well-known fashionista tendencies and recent underwear advertisements. Here she would have fused several mass cultural forms - fashion, print culture, video, the internet, and football. So, one might say, in passing over "thong," she dropped the ball. Ah, her heel, her heel, her heel.......

The Christian Side Hug

Thanks to my favorite pop culture blog, D-Listed, I learned that the Born-Agains don't just do Salsa and Merengue. They also do do (a very Caucasian hot mess version) of "hip-hop." I had read that this thing called a "side hug" was a way in which to avert any temptation caused by frontal body-to-body contact, both hetero and (gasp!) homo-social. This song posted on D-List is propaganda for the chaste "Christian side hug" - so again, no body to body contact, brethren. This reminds me of dances at Catholic school where chaperones would pry couples apart paradoxically saying "leave enough room for the Holy Sprit."

Merry Christmas??????

Photo: AP (K. Mohammed)

I am resting at an undisclosed warm-weather location, living the Real Housewives of Atlanta lifestyle, if they were retirees looking at Social Security checks in the mail each month. Each morning's newspaper headlines bring a surrealist haiku. For example: "Missing Elf in Sanibel," or my personal favorite "Deputies Arrest Lewd Santa at Wal-Mart." Of course, after yesterday's tragic incident in Los Angeles where a guy in a Santa suit murdered several people, set fire to a home, and then killed himself (why don't these murderous people ever kill themselves first before going on these horrific rampages?), the molesting Santa harassing a woman at a big box union-busting schlock shop seems less shocking.

But the photo I saw in USA TODAY (as my late, beloved ex used to refer to it "The McDonald's of newspapers.") this morning -see above- took the sinister Santa trope to a whole new level. Now no one would belittle the sacrifices made by our troops in Iraq, especially when they are away from home for the holidays. But you have to acknowledge the creepiness of the petite soldier, almost child-like, sitting on Santa's lap while wielding a massive machine gun. And a nice touch is the Crucifix on the ground. (wouldn't that be sacrilegious?) Merry Christmas! Is this like the latter-day Crusades? Is the point to send the propaganda message: Bow down to us, infidels? I find the image absolutely terrifying and abhorrent. But that's because A. I am a lapsed Catholic who objects to most of what the institution of the Papal Catholic Church has ever done, and B. I am a pacifist and this war was based on lies and Bush's goals for imperial profit.

No comment

You better go to the gym: Or you'll burn in HELL

These "divine sightings" are starting to become a little leitmotiv here, the vision of Jesus in the moth's wing, the cheeto shaped like a crucified Christ, hell, I might have to create a whole new label for these posts!!!!!! There is just so much to love in this video: the nature of these "exercises," the looks the women are rocking (note the applique cotton top), the dingy drop ceiling transformed into a vision of the Redeemer. I believe that the woman was just suffering from Beef Jerky and Chips Ahoy withdrawal. 

The End is Near Part 2

Evidence # 1: 

Billionaires' greed and criminal actions drive their companies into bankruptcy in part thanks to their exploitative lending practices that have driven millions into foreclosure. The Bush Administration does nothing. The lenders and Wall St. investors that capitalized on middle class taxpayers' (and, admittedly wealthier real estate speculators flipping properties) are now bailed out by us, the taxpayers. Most of us will then see cuts in social services, education, and Social Security (assuming it even exists in the future), as well as watch as our paltry retirement accounts wither. And a working class person in Bed Sty who foreclosed on their home is in part paying for Dick Fuld's mistakes. As one reader's comment cleverly described this plan: "No Banker Left Behind." No politician (including Obama) dares to ask: Why can't these FORBES Billionaires give back some of their hundreds of millions to pay down the debt that they created? 

Evidence # 2: 

Sarah Palin instituted a policy to charge rape survivors for the cost of the swab tests police take to gather evidence. Sarah Palin cut funds for disabled people. Sarah Palin had huge ties to lobbyists now under investigation and arranged through them to gain tens of millions in Congressional earmarks. She is describing herself as a maverick, paragon of ethics, mother who defends the disabled, and model of political opposition to lobbyists and pork. 

Evidence # 3:

Women who were supporters of HRC are willing to vote for a woman who is opposed to abortion even in cases of rape or incest.

Evidence # 4:

McCain is showing in the best case scenario, signs of striking foreign policy ignorance in not knowing who Zapatero is - the PM of Spain- and confusing him with a Latin American leader in an interview. Worst case scenario, this is one of several gaffes that is an early sign of senility / Alzheimer's. 

Evidence # 5:

As an email a friend forwarded to me read: "Sarah Palin's email is hacked and this is an appalling invasion of privacy, criminal in nature. Our emails may be read by the Federal Government, and this is OK: it's called the Patriot Act." 

Make the Best of Things

I haven't had the time nor energy to write since it seems that in the past few days we've careened further into the oncoming Apocalypse: Obama down in the polls (I am volunteering, and so should everyone else!!!!!), the new Great Depression, and various chaotic incidents in my daily life (and those of various people I know) involving technology, transport and other issues. Of course, I read the horoscopes and saw Mercury is in retrograde, so the cliche is true. Below you'll see two guys making the best of the situation. Let's hope we can all emulate them in doing so.

Dedicated Lawmaker Takes a Break from his Favorite Activity (it's not what you think!) to Nail Palin and her First Dude

This afternoon, while getting my breaking news fix on MSNBC, I was DELIGHTED to see the following headline: "Lawmakers vote to subpoena Todd Palin. Alaska lawmakers vote to subpoena 13 witnesses in Troopergate probe"

Not only am I happy to know that Gov. Palin's corruption scandal is hitting the fan, but also to see the "First Dude" is getting in on the action. But I had no idea what joy was in store for me as I began to read and found this:

Sen. Charlie Huggins, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla, appeared in camouflage pants on a short break from moose hunting to cast his vote. He lamented the political maneuvering that he saw as trying to interfere with the investigation.

"I see all this duck-foot action under the water," Huggins said. "Let's just get the facts on the table.


Ladies and gentlemen, this is the best paragraph I have read in a news article. Ever.

To go to the story, cut and paste the following url into your browser: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26677221/

Palin's Church Offers "Gay-conversions"

Palin church promotes gay-conversion event
Gov. Sarah Palin's church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through prayer.

Sept. 6, 2008
By The Associated Press
ANCHORAGE — Gov. Sarah Palin's church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through prayer.

"You'll be encouraged by the power of God's love and his desire to transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality," according to the insert in the bulletin of Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed for about six years.

Palin's conservative Christian views have energized that part of the GOP electorate, which was lukewarm to John McCain's candidacy before he named her as his vice-presidential choice. She is anti-abortion, opposing exceptions for rape and incest, and opposes gay marriage and spousal rights for gay couples.

Focus on the Family, a Christian fundamentalist organization, is conducting the "Love Won Out" Conference in Anchorage, which is about 30 miles from Wasilla.

Palin has not publicly expressed a view on the "pray away the gay" movement.

Larry Kroon, senior pastor at Palin's church, had no comment.

Gay activists in Alaska said Palin has not worked actively against their interests, but early in her administration she supported a bill to overrule a court decision to block state benefits for gay partners of public employees. At the time, less than one-half of 1 percent of state employees had applied for the benefits, which were ordered by a 2005 ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court.

Palin reversed her position and vetoed the bill after the state attorney general said it was unconstitutional.

But her reluctant support didn't win fans among Alaska's gay population, said Scott Turner, a gay activist in Anchorage.

"Less than 1 percent of state employees would even apply for benefits, so why make a big deal out of such a small number?" he said.

Who Says Men Are Afraid of Commitment?

photo: gawker.com

Note the romantic gesture that self-proclaimed "red-neck" Levi made for his fiancee, Bristol Palin. A totally jacked up jail house name tattoo in his ring finger. Guess he changed his mind about not wanting to have children. (I happen to know such trivia because I've obsessively googled blog posts on Gov. Palin as have apparently all of my friends, and I got an email with a link to the contents of his, since removed, profile on a social networking site.)

Palin's "family values" and "feminism"

Here is audio from a radio appearance in which Palin laughs as a broadcaster refers to a colleague and cancer survivor as a "cancer" on Alaska, among other choice insults. 

This link from Alternet.org will give you the full story
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/97081

Case Closed.

You Can't Make This Sh#$% Up

No, this is not a still from a John Waters film, a B-52's video, or a do-it-yourself You Tube freaky animal fetish video. This ladies and gentlemen, is the GOP pick for the office of Vice President of the USA. At one point, perhaps due to illness, I began to wonder if this was a big joke played on us by The Colber Report or The Onion. Because Dan Quayle is Churchill, and elder statesman, by comparison. 

However, to the Fox crowd, the people who fill the stands at the televised mega-prechers' stadiums, the small-town gun-toting hunters (I grew up in the small town South with kids who were given their first gun to go "hunnin'" at the age of 5), people who are cool with using the N-word and fly the Confederate flag, this woman plays really well. So let's not get too cocky. My own Wal-Mart shopping, rabidly anti-choice mother who prays the rosary in front of abortion clinics, thinks this woman is the bomb. And she was none too excited by McCain, I can tell you. 

I am glad people are starting to ask about her family life. Usually the "family values" pols that instrumentalize their family history for political points are the first ones to go down for alleged "scandals" involving cheating spouses, porn habits, cruising for gay sex in airport bathrooms,s stealing from the taxpayers, abusing their political power (and we know Palin is under investigation for trying to get her brother-in-law fired) and the like. 

Personally, I find it very distasteful that she is using the fact that her son has a disability as a political talking point. When the child is older, how will he feel when he learns that his parents are taking credit for "not having aborted him"? Perhaps with his level of disability, he will never know, but his siblings surely do. And is anyone asking how she is taking care of the little guy? Because I am close to people who have kids with DS and can tell you that this is a FULL TIME job. The kids require constant rehabilitation type exercises as soon as they are born to develop their muscle tone, verbal abilities, reflexes and the like. They don't just learn how to walk, or even hold up their head, or roll in their crib automatically. And you can't just drop them off with the physical/speech/whatever therapist you need to be there yourself so you can learn the drill and reinforce at home later. In any case, the GOP misses the fact that the decision to terminate is a PRIVATE issue that is up to a woman to make. 

UPDATE: There are allegations swirling on the web that her fifth child is actually her teen-aged daughters. These accusations originate from Alaska and have been investigated by local press after locals noted several bizarre aspects of the pregnancy (These include that she never looked pregnant, that she gave a speech after her water broke, going into premature labor, and then flew 8 hours to Alaska, to be driven 45 min. so she could deliver in her town's little hospital, coincidentally, her daughter was pulled out of school for months due to "mono" but when last photographed, looked pregnant. Palin's office pulled photos of the Governor dating from the period when she was supposed to be pregnant, but did not look it, from the official website.)

UPDATE 2 Sept. 1: 

Here is a link to photos an aide posted of the Gov., looking pregnant. So the missing bump is found (unless these are from a previous pregnancy, but that seems very far-fetched) http://www.flickr.com/photos/30076181@N02/

However, Bristol, the 17 y.o. is pregnant NOW - no mention of the identity or age of the man who is now her fiance. Of course, this scandal will play well with the fanatics because they will think it's great that Palin forced her daughter to breed and to marry, ie. right her wrong.

But of course they miss it because under their administration, if McCain gets elected, they will have the power to nominate Supreme Court justices and this is serious if you care about choice and many other issues. We saw in the election that Gore won, how the Court shut the process down. We saw under Bush how the checks and balances system can be thwarted to undermine our constitution and promote surveillance of law abiding citizens at home and torture abroad. So head's up Hillary supporters: this ticket does not support equal pay for equal work, either. Palin is the typical "minority" beloved by the GOP - they are brought in as a token as long as they stand for things that harm others of their own race/gender/ethnicity. And for women, if McCain wins, it's Taliban time - the GOP version. 

Here She Is.........

Source of photos: TMZ

McCain's VP Choice: Miss Alaska????

My anonymous poster has a very good sense of humor, see the comment below, and here is a photo of the Alaskan politician to which s/he refers. LoL!

McCain's VP Choice: Miss Alaska????

Mc Cain's VP pick. It is almost parodic. This hot tranny mess is the Gov. of Alaska. 

A runner up in the Miss Alaska pageant (and you can see her pageantry hair to the left, worn with what looks like a North Face fleece and white pearls, naturally!), where she won Miss Congeniality. And we can see why, since they called her "barracuda" during her school days due to her competitive sports demeanor. She is apparently pretty butch, since besides basketball she is also a life-time NRA member who loves to hunt and fish (see above). Besides the NRA, she belonged to the "Felllowship for Christian Athletes" and is part of "Feminists for Life." She is also a Creationist!!!! There are many cynical aspects to this. 

I can only hope that this "Feminists for Life" membership , along with her pageantry background,  will hopefully insult disgruntled female HRC supporters, who will see through this ploy. She has five kids, one is in the Army and one is a baby with Down's Syndrome. The Governor says she kept her son because she is against abortion. That's a great way to instrumentalize the child for political PR purposes.

Clearly, McCain wants to siphon off disgruntled racist, working class gun toting males (the "hard working" people HRC referred to) who were supporting the Senator. But if he is saying Obama has no experience, then why is he picking a 44 year old woman with ZERO experience? Lest we forget, McCain is the second-oldest Presidential candidate (the oldest was Reagan, and we now know that he had the onset of Alzheimer's during this second term).






It also seemed an incredibly cynical choice to me, when I read that her husband is a Native Alaskan (Eskimo) and works for the BP oil company! Clearly McCain is doing a balancing act to try to appeal to the racist right winger groups who love guns, oil, and Jesus as well as hate choice. But at the same time, he is obviously trying to attract moderate HRC supporters with the illusion of "change" and "equality" that this choice might suggest. But I wonder, will those people support a woman? Likewise, would they accept a Native Alaskan, if they were too racist to accept a bi-racial man? Well, here is my answer, I just googled her again and found that her husband is 1/8th Native Alaskan, so it's a non-issue. Here is a photo of the Governor posing with her husband Todd, and her baby (who has Down's), Trig.

Groovin' pandas

If you go to cnn.com international and then find the videos, you must search for the phrase "groovin' pandas." There you will find a video of children dressed as one of the Olympic mascots, the panda, doing a dance that is a hybrid of hip hop and Tai chi. Intended to be cute and impressive as a spectacle, as one friend noted the outfits are ill-fitting and appear to be made of cheap polyester. There is a sinister tinge to the zoomorphic dancers, something disturbingly grotesque along the lines of Matthew Barney, surely un-intended. 

I believe this footage was of a rehearsal for Friday's Opening Ceremonies, and all I can say is, I am counting the hours, minutes and seconds until they take place so that I can see the entire thing. 

Since I saw the video on CNN International a couple of days ago, I've watched this kitsch spectacle- over and over again. The night it was aired they ran it a couple of times and the news casters had some of the inflatable plastic versions of the mascots as well, of course they were laughing about this whole aspect of Olympics 2008 Visual Culture (as my genius friend calls it). And someone in the CNN editing booth must love the tape as much as me because they ran it again, tonight as the backdrop for the credits when the World News ended.

Hopefully, it's not just the pandas and at the Opening Ceremonies they will incorporate all of them.

According to one article in the Los Angeles Times blog, "The blue fuwa, Beibei, for example, is female, gentle and pure in personality. She was inspired by the traditional Chinese New Year depiction of lotus and fish and represents prosperity and the aquatic sports. Jingjing, a giant panda, is male, honest and optimistic, and represents happiness, weightlifting and judo -- though not necessarily in that order. The red fuwa Huanhuan, inspired by the Olympic flame, is a male extrovert whose ideal is passion and who represents the ball sports. Yingying, the yellow fuwa, is a male Tibetan antelope who is lively and vivacious and represents health and track and field." 

(article URL - http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/olympics_blog/2008/08/yeah-but-could.html)

The Tibetan antelope mascot is also quite sinister, they enshrine a little animal symbol of the region as part of China, and the gendering of these mascots surely deserves much study. But I am not equipped to deconstruct the cultural symbolism of this manifestation of Olympic Visual Culture, I defer to my brilliant friends, who hopefully might comment on this post.

Who would have thought to create a hybrid choreography - part hip hop, part tai-chi, part cheer leading, and part Rockettes? I think I need say no more. Fabulous.


Here is the URL
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/08/
05/vo.china.panda.dance.ap?lref=videosearch