The Tobin Tax

What would a 0.05% tax on bank transactions raise? Richard Curtis (the writer behind Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually) brings in Bill Nighy (Underworld, Love Actually, etc) to help explain just what it could mean to the Uk and to those of us in the rest of the world.

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Disaster Movie!

Pick 4 numbers between 0000 and 9999 and then head over to the Random Filmpocalypse Plot Generator at the Guardian, and find out what movie you've created. And then think about how many films like that one you've actually seen. When film-making becomes this by-the-numbers (I don't want to say Avatar, but there you are...), you know something's gone very very wrong. It's okay to tell the same story again, but you're supposed to add something to it with each retelling--and that doesn't mean bigger explosions and stupider, more impossible escapes.

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L'Homme qui marche

Alberto Giacometti's sculpture L'Homme qui marche, it is reported in the Guardian, has sold for north of $103M US. It really is an extraordinary work of amazing potency. I remember the impact it had the first time I saw a photo of it--even mediated through a picture, it bowled me over. Some years later, for a show called "Seat Specific"  here in Victoria, I paid hommage to Giacometti with a piece called "Hungry Ghosts Walk the World, and it's Time They Had a Chance to Sit Down: A Chair for Alberto Giacometti." It was a spindly-legged Douglas fir chair, 3 metres tall, which I had textured with pigmented plaster to simulate the effect of the tortured bronze used by Giacometti. I was gratified by the response--even though it didn't sell and was eventually trashed. I've since managed to see some of his work, and he remians, for me, one of the great artists of the last century.

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Techniques of Communication

Once upon a time, rap was the underground CNN. Very serious people like Chuck D used the form to communicate some fairly complex ideas. Herewith, for your edification, two white guys laying down some oldschool education.

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