Please, Sin & believe for a while you can possess a concentration of the universe as resumed in my bedroom #77

... but remember afterwards you cannot patent the attributes: Patents on genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer are invalid, ruled a New York federal court on 29 March.

2008 / ..., Credit-crunch got me but not my faith in the need to be a little improbable #43

Europe is a work-in-progress with no final definition (& indeed, as proposed hereabove with the first picture, it is after all easier to accept it as a phantasm). Like riding a moto, its exciting practice is against common sense (but one always needs to be a 'little improbable', don't we?). Nevertheless, before any major new achievements take place in particular regarding a possible frame to soften the economy, one can still try to portray it with a more or less emphasized scepticism: that is what 'Europe by designers' delivers.

Epiphany is hard Labour too #40

Algerian artist living in NYC: Adel Abdessemed, 'Salam Europe' (2006)- made with 16 km of barbed wire (i.e. the shortest distance between Europe and Africa. It appears to be nowadays an inspiring idea.

Please, Sin as if you were able to fully envisage me #76

(Italian illustrator & graphic designer with a name of a EU Directive regarding prevention of hazardous accidents: Alberto Seveso)

Please, Sin a bit #75

"I will lay my hands
on your nape
& appease your day
I will lay my hands on your softness
& cream the booty
I wil lay my hands on your gentleness to the world
& hear what it says
I will lay my hands
& try to appease what lies behind your securing urban smiles
I will lay my hands on your terror if you concede it
I will lay my hands on your breast as if it was burning luck
I will lay my hands as if for fucking once you were true & I could see it."
Jim Moronson, Hands Latitudes, French people are strange (1967).

2008 / ..., la crise m'a peut-être eu mais pas les bretons toujours capables de mettre minables les nantais #43

4.000 rennais pour un apéro géant: certes, mais les brestois ridiculisent le record chaque vendredi soir que Bacchus fait (et renvoient derechef les nantais aux prisons de Nantes). Evidemment les pouvoirs publics dénoncent l'ode à l'ivresse.

Please, Sin in confidence as I will hold each inch of my suggested promises #74

Please, Sin & do not be afraid of the laudative quills simmering in my Cyclops' eye #73

Please, Sin & release me from that elusive and rough temptation pecking on my back #72

Please, Sin & dive into the Eden of my Semblants #71

Please, Sin as if you believe in my disclosures #70

Avoiding disclosures might even be a fundamental right according to conservative catholic in Spain who are obviously not of the opinion that La Movida was of benefit for the country and who are decided to challenge the scholastic-noisy-exciting lessons on the puberty's revelations (see "Catholics sue Spain over sex education classes" on Euractiv) (Besides, 'want a piece of lasered milk?)

Epiphany is hard Labour too #39

French artist: Estelle Hanania.

Epiphany is hard Labour too #38

Counterpoint.
Gray Down.
Architect's Brother.
American artists in intense dialogue with Eros and with Thanatos: Robert & Shana Parkeharrison.

les psychotiques sont des animistes comme les autres #27

London-based artist: Sam Spencer, Bloom (2007) for 'Yellow since 1877', a celebration of champagne house 'Veuve Clicquot' and its yellow touch (pantone reference #137c)). Yellow is hard to censor; not conformists.

2008 / ..., Credit-crunch got me but not, at last, the needed solidarity for a civilized healthcare in Obama's USA #42

... in spite of well-informed worries on the secret identity of the US President. (lifted from Libé)

XXIst century's icons & myths mapping our daily roaming en el Laberinto de la soledad #20

(British Graphist: hereigo)
No one knows the future of the book's paper-version - especially if the 3D-TV arrives in 2010, a next step could be the 3D-fantasy of a reader with Cybel's shapes reading to your hairy ear the e-book's paragraph of your choice and sparring the old-fashioned effort of turning pages-, but eBook or not, irony is still valid: in the globalised nowhere of the Society of Spectacle, you may stay loyal to your taste for derision and create - just the sake for it- a fake subject of that Spectacle who takes care to collect all the serious symbols of it (e.g. Emile Ajar, The Yes-Men).

Obviously, irony is tastier if incidentally you may cock a snook to conventions of that Society: a French writer anxious of being actively involved into that Spectacle - for allegedly Humanist reasons- let himself be tricked by its conventions and based a philosophical demonstration of his last essay on the developments of a fake-author.

Taking time to check the reliability of his philosophical sources, turn pages, learn more about this fake-author Jean-Baptiste Botul creating fake-concepts ('The Sex Life of Emmanuel Kant', 'Nietzsche, or The Midday Demon') easy to subscribe to because they look familiar with their numerous symbols of seriousness and, then, learn it was pure derision: those were not needs for the Spectacle. But the NYT loved it.

No time yet for Serenity, even for a Brestoise #20

Collage Artist: Scrapatorium.

Please, Sin with me as if innocence was still an available option #68

Please, Sin & bow to the stars I am ready to fulfil you with #67

(Drawing from the Breton graphist & KouignAman-eater Camille Grolleau)

Epiphany is hard Labour too #37

(“The poet's business is not to save the soul of man but to make it worth saving.” James Elroy)

Former doctor, very probable reader of 'Le Petit Prince' & Russian artist anxious of lightness that René Magritte would have welcome: Leonid Tishkov, Journey of the private moon, 2009 (Paris). Click here for the G-key.

I put light in my paintings that does not exist in my country #37

Lifted from the more or less sober nights in New-York of The Arab Parrot loyal to the 'O tempora, o mores' saying.

XXIst century's icons & myths mapping our daily roaming en el Laberinto de la soledad #19

tiré du recueil L'Os à Moelle, Ed. Julliard 1963 / Livre de Poche 1978 et repris de l'excellent Muller-Fokker.

Please, Sin, make me flesh & bone, & concede deep inside you have always been a pure pleasure seeker #66

Isn't it? Pour faire l'amour avec son cerveau, son imagination pas trop falsifiée et une capote sur mesure, c'est ici.


"Consider visual images, for example. We live in an unending rainfall of images. The most powerful media transform the world into images and multiply it by means of the phantasmagoric play of mirrors. These are images stripped of the inner inevitability that ought to mark every image as form and as meaning, as a claim on the attention and as a source of possible meanings. Much of this cloud of visual images fades at once, like the dreams that leave no trace in the memory, but what does not fade is a feeling of alienation and disconfort.
But maybe this lack of substance is not to be found in images or in languages alone, but in the world itself."
Italo Calvino, Six memos for the next millenium (unachevied lectures for Harvard university, 1985).

Please, Sin as the opening of my gaze in your defenceless universe permits no other choice #65

(starring the French Brigitte baby doll Bardot in the early 60's)

No time yet for Serenity, even for a Brestoise #19

Please, Sin well but sin fast as I do not feel comfortable with those mum's ears #65

"To sin or not to sin, that is the whole damn' question" Mike Mohan, director of the self-distributed movie "One Too Many Mornings".

Please, Sin with intensity & take me to unformulated places that lie in me #64

Please, Sin & release me from public & private constrictions that unfold me more and more closely #63

(Photo: Jindrich Styrsky)

Please, Sin with me & try to pacify the malign anger that constantly shivers my tan #62

(Click on Artemis to become a prey)

2008 / ..., Credit-crunch got me but not my imagination of a water-skyscraper #41

In a Madoff-mood because you are fed up with the top of your skyscraper and its contact with the CO2-cumulus? Take a rest and chill out in the ocean's depth as you are now proposed to be in contact with the polluted abyss.

A recent skyscraper concept competition - "EVolo Competition"- yielded this concept of Mr Sarly Adre Bin Sarkum’s “water-scraper” for a self-sufficent floating city. Click here to learn more on your new balcony.

XXIst century's icons & myths mapping our daily roaming en el Laberinto de la soledad #18

Anonymous (?) tribute to 'pop' Roy Lichtenstein.
("I don't know what psychotherapy does. I have been seeing the same person for 26 years now." Jim Harrison)

2008 / ..., Credit-crunch got me but not the MEPs' willingness to reform Financial Services #40

US Artist: Hanna von Goeler
British Artist: Justine Smith

An overwhelming majority of MEPs on 10 March pushed the EU executive to weigh up the costs and benefits of a possible tax on financial trading to compensate taxpayers for bank bailouts and plug public deficits. American economist Jeffrey Sachs also launched a campaign for a broad-based tax on banks and encouraged the EU to go it alone if the US moves too slowly. Clich here for details.

Please, Sin as if innocence was a recent surrender #61

(Amsterdam-based artist and designer: Handiedan)

XXIst century's icons & myths mapping our daily roaming en el Laberinto de la soledad #17

Having a Love affair is a French atavism we are proud about and that protocol does not erode.
Discretion is optional behaviour.
But nasty Albion's newspapers love to unveil the option and it is the Daily Telegraph that makes more than clear today that our French President's couple is in pink trouble (see on the attached cover the article 'Sarkozy affair rumours sweep France').
Political marketing finds unexpected limits in atavism and the French Berlusconi, autodesignated as 'king of willingness', is unable to keep his wife Mrs Bruni at home.
The very recent icon introduced in France with Mr Sarkozy's election of the perfect and successful couple embodying the successful political ideas of the French President is from now obsolete.
Replacement of the icon will come very soon: nowadays in France, sucessful political ideas cannot remain without female incarnations.
Mariane has gone, Cybele is back.
Fine. But androcracy may have to adapt.
Updating: History will tell whether it was a clumsy hoax or just a bothering truth, but the French newspapers which originally published the news presented its excuses and claimed ultimately the reported disappointments in love of the official Couple were not true.

New updating: Former French cabinet star, Rachida Dati, has had her government security team withdrawn after being blamed for spreading rumours about the state of Nicolas Sarkozy’s marriage. Too bad for my line on atavism but, praise the Lord, the icon is finally safe.

Style is what remains once chaos put you down #9 (Eunice Kathleen Waymon, February 21, 1933 (Tryon, USA)–April 21, 2003 (Carry-le-Rouet, France))

"I will never be your clown, (...) God gave me this gift — and I am a genius. I worked at my craft for six to 14 hours a day, I studied and learned through practice. I am not here just to entertain you. But how can I be alive when you are so dead? SING! You owe me. I don’t wear a painted smile on my face, like Louis Armstrong.”
Nina Simone, shouting at a restless nightclub audience in Cannes in 1977, as reported in 'Princess Noire, The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone' by Nadine Cohodas.

XXIst century's icons & myths mapping our daily roaming en el Laberinto de la soledad #16

(French Ail-Phone)

No time yet for serenity, even for a Brestoise #18

Artist: Zach Johnsen, Stressed 3, 2009.

It is reported that in Sweden, a judge with the support of the ombudsman admitted last month that religious belief prevails on equality between man and woman.

"More than four years ago, Alen Malik Crnalic entered a course with the Swedish Public Employment Centre (Arbetsförmedlingen, af) in order to find a job. In May 2006, he was on an interview in Älmhult for a trainee job as a welder, and during that interview, he refused to shake hands with the ceo of the company. The ceo happened to be a woman, and as an active Muslim, Alen Malik Crnalic says he's not allowed to touch women outside his own family. Apparently, he also avoided eye-contact with the ceo during the interview, and rather stared to the ground."

"It should probably not come as a surprise that Alen Malik Crnalic didn't get the job. According to the company and the Public Employment Centre, he wasn't qualified for the job. Later he also lost his employment benefits. Alen Malik Crnalic didn't agree with that, and instead appealed the decision to the National Labour Market Board ('djihad-litigation practice'). The Board rejected his appeal, but then it was picked up by the 'Ombudsman for Discrimination' (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen, do), and brought to court. There, the judge overruled the National Labour Market Board's decision, and awarded the man a 6,000 euro compensation. According to the judge, the claim by the man that he cannot shake hands with a woman because of religious reasons is valid."

"The 'Ombudsman for Discrimination' Katri Linna on her side welcomed the court's decision. In a comment, she said that it is unreasonable to cancel somebody's unemployment benefits simply because he refuses to shake hands with a woman in accordance to his religion and beliefs. According to her, Sweden is a multicultural country now, and has to accept that people have different ways to greet other people."

As there was no appeal from the State against that decision, we will never know whether the Swedish Supreme Court and/or the European Court of Human Rights share the reasoning. We will have to wait for an another maniac of God and for an another case of law so that Supreme judges have the opportunity to recall good sense and to make clear that there is no fake excuse for allowing the end of equality of genders.

In the meantime, conservative political parties may win one or two governments in Sweden and may spread more conveniently their approximations and exaggerations on muslims and coran in Europe.

French article reported in Courrier International is here.

Original Swedish article is here.

"L'homme n'est ni ange, ni bête, et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l'ange fait la bête."(Pascal, Pensées, fragment 572).

I put light in my paintings that does not exist in my country #36

Bruxelles, Halles Saint-Géry.

Allô? Please, Sin & relieve the weight of that sunset from my forlorn back #60

Please, Sin and play with me in the unlighted archives of my inheritance #59

2008 / ..., Credit-crunch got me but not the permanent president of the European Council #39

"The first phase was economic globalisation. This phase came into full swing with the events from 1989. A result of economic globalisation was more prosperity for more people in many parts of the world, from Poland to Vietnam, from Uganda to China. The United States and Europe were proud that their way of life had universal attraction, they were happy that millions of people climbed out of poverty thanks to global trade and technology. Negative effects, like growing inequalities, were brushed aside. The gist of this phase was captured in book titles such as The End of History (Fukuyama, 1989) or The World is Flat (Friedman, 2005). Now this phase seems over.

One could call the new phase: political globalisation. What happens? Simple. The new economic strength of the emerging countries crystallises into political power. This is no surprise. The nexus between money and power is as old as money itself. The credit crisis has accelerated the process. It is most visible in the unprecedented financial leverage which China has gained over the US.

Two events stand out in this respect.

The first is the founding of the G20 at the height of the credit crisis in the autumn of 2008. This was a turning point. Emerging countries – India, China, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey – got seats at the table of world leaders for the first time, next to the old G7. They could no longer be excluded from deal-making forums. The credit crisis also discredited a certain triumphant style of market economy. Even investment bankers today admit that stronger rules and a vigorous state are required. Sometimes economies have too much regulation, sometimes they have dramatically little.

Let’s not forget that the Europeans took the initiative to upgrade the G20 to summit-level. This was due above all to President Sarkozy during his EU Presidency and Prime Minister Brown. Europeans can still be decisive in shaping global governance!

The second event in the public awareness of global power shifts was last year's Copenhagen Climate Summit. I have already mentioned it. Here also, we Europeans were leaders in bringing others to the table and in setting a standard for emission reductions. Chancellor Merkel was very active on this. Without us, the others would not have committed as much as they did in Copenhagen. The fact remains, though, that we were left out of the final deal between the US and four big emerging countries. We learned that a strategy of moral persuasion, of leading by example, does not suffice to win an argument.

(...)

In order to confront such changes, the members of the Union need to be strong and need to be

united. Therefore I believe that the two most important domains of the European Council are

economic policy and foreign policy. Simply put: economic policy to be strong, foreign policy to be united."

And then follows a presentation of two reforms - not in the texts but in the attitude- proposed and implemented by the new-appointed president of Europe. Rest of the speech is here.

Needless to say those two reforms have been promoted by some Member States and fighted for years by others.

Needless to say that such a clear vision and a frank wilingness has not been heard during decades in the EU.

Needless to say this is a surprise for the pragmatic president of the Commission and a worry for the Member States's leaders who, at first glance, thought to have appointed a low-profile politician at this major position.

For recall, EU's history has been made on crisis but also on personalities featured by a discreet, unspectacular but firm strength.

XXIst century's icons & myths mapping our daily roaming en el Laberinto de la soledad #15

Since it is a matter of no other choice at all and since we are in a globalised nowhere and acting in a 'liquid modernity', let us accept a past invitation spread in East Village's streets in January and survey a public reading of the novel 'Sweets and other stories' happily written during rehabs.

Under the patronnage of POETRY PROJECT FRIDAY NIGHT READING SERIES, the former soul singer and recent author Andre Williams along with the unsatisfied Nick Tosches (i.a. he confessed that night he aims at "trying to fix what Homer fucked up") read and tore pages in a New-York'schurch on 1 Feb. 2010. Click on TOO LATE to get the report.

In echo of Henry Chinasky mesmerized by his discovering of John Fante, hereafter is the foreword (with a patronizing forefinger pointed in conclusion to the liquid consumer) Tosches decided to offer to readers in the book 'Sweets & other stories' after he saw his reflection in Williams' efforts:

"And sure as the God in that Baptist church in which he sang as a boy was made of plaster, those juices surely did flow; and from them grew this book, which is to be taken more seriously than most other books that are published in these gone-dead days. Andre Williams is a real, natural-born, blown-in-the-glass writer, the kind they hardly ever make anymore. When I first peered into this book and saw the words “Sweets got in the cab and asked the driver to take her to a good fortune teller,” I was mesmerized, drawn in by what I knew to be a rare new voice in American fiction. Andre Williams has proven himself to be a survivor. The stories he has here written deserve to survive as well. They most certainly deserve to be read, as the rewards they offer are many and fine.

Heed what I say. Otherwise you got nobody but your own self to blame."

I put light in my paintings that does not exist in my country #35

Bruxelles, place de Brouckère; click on the blackness to receive the look.