Mick Hartley

Living in the third lane

How socialism works:

North Korean exile Jung Jin-hwan comes from Pyongyang. He had this to say about the South Korean speed limit regulations. “After adjusting to my new life in South Korea, I went to the beach with some friends. I found it very strange that here, if the speed limit is 100km, everyone going through that section of road must abide by the limit, and if the limit is 90 km, likewise. In North Korea, each lane has a different speed limit, regardless of what section of road you are on.  The first lane is reserved for senior officials, so they can drive at whatever speed they want. It amazed me that in South Korea, regardless of who you are, you can be reported for violating the speed limit.

Driving in North Korea, the speed limit regulations change depending on which lane you are driving in.... The North Korean authorities enforce its rigid social hierarchy not only through having separate lanes for different classes, but also through an explicit signposting of separate speed limits.

For those living in the ‘third lane’, not only is there no possibility to change lanes, there is no freedom even to drive fast. In most of the world, speed limits exist for safety considerations. In North Korea, speed limits exist only to reinforce the social hierarchy that one is born into.

Penis worship

More words of wisdom from those nice Islamic preachers, courtesy of MEMRI. Here's Egyptian cleric Abu Islam, on Al-Omma TV:

I swear to God the Almighty – and believe me, I am not lying – that the Church worship originated in the worship of the penis. I swear to God. This is documented in dozens of pictures.

Let me tell you something – it's indecent, but true. Take a look at a picture of Jesus, and you'll see a penis, right here. Or is it on this side? Oh, it's on the right side. A penis, right here. There are many pictures like this. They worship it. […]

[Christian women] raise cats and dogs as a substitute for husbands. They train their dogs to play the husband. I swear to God, I am not lying. They buy dogs for this purpose. They train dogs to play the husband on them. Christian women do that.

Building interfaith dialogue, brick by brick.

Parking, Greasing

Service station in Washington DC, 1939:

[Photo: Shorpy/David Myers]

One-trick pony

I think it'd be fair to say that Roy Lichtenstein, a major exhibition of whose work just opened at Tate Modern, is more popular with the general public than with the critics. A Lichtenstein poster is ubiquitous bedsit material - bright and colourful, yet also signalling your familiarity with the modern art world. Street artists pay homage, in the knowledge that everyone will be aware of the original. And the show, at least according to Tate Modern, is pulling 'em in. It was certainly crowded when I went last week.

The attitude of the critics, on the other hand, can be summed up in the phrase used by James Fox in the Times (£): Lichtenstein's a one-trick pony. He had the one idea and repeated it for 40 years:

With the help of the celebrated New York dealer Leo Castelli, Lichtenstein’s pictures sold like pop-cakes from the start. He became rich and famous overnight. And he was never afraid to offer his services to the highest bidder. In fact, his very last commission was to design a logo for DreamWorks Records. Moreover, since his death the demand for his work has only increased. Last year one of his paintings fetched $44.8 million. Was this a genuine reflection of its quality? Or could it have been just another expensive addition to a shiny office lobby?

In fact, everyone can own a Lichtenstein now. In the Tate shop you can buy Lichtenstein cushions, Lichtenstein coffee cups, Lichtenstein cufflinks, Lichtenstein laptop cases and Lichtenstein T-shirts. This in itself isn’t alarming. What’s alarming is how good his pictures look reproduced on such products. One could be forgiven for thinking that it was their destiny all along. We’re told his art was an indictment of capitalist consumption, yet now it lends itself happily to its own commodification. Lichtenstein’s paintings have become little more than an advertisement for the merchandise on which they are emblazoned.

This isn’t Lichtenstein’s fault, of course. It’s our fault. It’s the fault of a society that prefers the gift shop to the exhibition; the poster to the original; the shiny surface to the hidden treasure.

In the Tate exhibition there is a room filled with such shiny surfaces. They are beautiful, haunting paintings of mirrors — the best pictures Lichtenstein ever made. For me, the most haunting thing about them is their emptiness. I stared into each of those mirrors hoping, vainly, for a glimpse of myself, a glimpse of anything. But nothing came; nothing but a vacant reflection. And I think that’s when I finally understood:

it’s not Lichtenstein who’s vacuous;

it’s us.

Well of course he doesn't really mean that. He means: it's you. You're vacuous. He - James Fox - isn't vacuous. He sees through the hype because he's an art critic. But it would seem a touch, well, arrogant, just to come out and say that. 

Alastair Smart at the Telegraph has the same reaction:

Lichtenstein duly became a brand, lucrative but repetitive; a one-trick wonder, seemingly intent – after his long, early years as an outsider – to stick with a winning formula once he’d found it. 

It's easy to understand, of course, this critical consensus. It must have been a eureka moment for the young Lichtenstein, back at the start of the Sixties when he was a struggling artist - and at 37 in 1960 not that young either - trying to make a name for himself in the heady days of Abstract Expressionism, when one of his sons pointed to a Mickey Mouse comic book and said; "I bet you can't paint as good as that, eh, Dad?" Bingo! That year, 1961, he produced his first Pop Art work, Look Mickey, and in the same year produced six other works with recognizable characters from gum wrappers and cartoons. He was up and running. Suddenly he had a style - the thick outlines, bold colors and Ben-Day dots, as if created by photographic reproduction. His work was instantly recognisable. Never again would he have to sit in front of his easel, with furrowed brow, searching for inspiration. The whole world was out there, waiting to be given the Lichtenstein comic-book treatment.

So yes, it's easy to see him as glib, compared to the great names of New York Abstract Expressionism, like, say Mark Rothko, whose brown and purple splodges of colour were seemingly dragged agonisingly from deep within his soul; who couldn't bear for his Seagram works to be displayed in a restaurant; who finally killed himself in his studio. Compared to Rothko, yes, Lichtenstein does seem a bit of a light-weight.

Also, there's the fact that Lichtenstein's easy to get. Just about anyone can see what it's about. And critics hate that. What they want is to be given the opportunity to demonstrate why they're art critics and you're just some dumb schmuck who doesn't know much about art but knows what he likes. If they started lecturing us about how Lichtenstein is commenting on mass reproduction and popular culture, we'd say, well of course he is. 

That's one mark against the man. Another may be that, despite all the attempts to portray his art as somehow critical of the popular culture of the times, and by extension of the rampant greedy capitalism of post-war America etc. etc. together with the sexual stereotypes of those ditsy romantic blondes and macho soldiers from the comic books, it's fairly clear that Lichtenstein, far from mounting a biting critique of US imperialism, was in fact celebrating rather than condemning the sheer vibrancy and energy of the visual world he lived in - of New York in the Sixties. Of course he maintained an ironic distance, but he was no revolutionary, no radical subversive - except in the sense that he saw popular culture as a suitable subject for high art.

And the "one-trick pony" criticism hardly stands up to scrutiny. What? - compared to Rothko, with his trademark slabs of colour? - or Jackson Pollock, with his instantly recognisable drips and squiggles? 

In fact the Tate show demonstrates above all what an intelligent artist Lichtenstein was, and how well he used his "one trick" style throughout his career, not just in the familiar comic book works, but also in his take on modern masters like Picasso and Matisse, and even, at the end of his life, in his Chinese landscapes. Imagine, that rarity: an artist who seems to have been happily creative throughout his career; who was fascinated with the mechanics of painting and how to represent three dimensions on a flat canvas; and who produced some gorgeously vivid paintings on the way.

It's a fine exhibition.

The Yellow River

From photographer Zhang Kechun's photo series of China's second longest river (via):

[Photo: Zhang Kechun]

Beppe Grillo

A light-hearted piece from the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago - Italy’s sausage-fuelled comic is an election sizzler (£):

To Beppe Grillo, the rented Fiat camper van from which he is waging his general election campaign in Italy is “a revolutionary cell” that is about to overthrow much of the country’s corrupt political class.

“You want to come to bed with me?” joked Grillo, as he emerged from a cramped bedroom at the back of the van after an early afternoon siesta.

The bearded 64-year-old is a former stand-up comedian, whose maverick grassroots movement has become the country’s third political force.

In an interview with The Sunday Times in the car park of a bed-and-breakfast near Padua, northeastern Italy, he predicted that the Five-Star Movement he founded in 2009 will win the February 24 election.

He was exaggerating his optimism, perhaps, but an opinion poll late last week credited him with 14% of the vote, behind the centre-left frontrunner Pier Luigi Bersani on 37% and the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on 30%.

Pollsters said Italy’s undecided voters — about 25% of the electorate — were rallying behind Grillo amid widespread anger at austerity, unemployment and political corruption. His movement could win 100 seats or more in the 630-seat lower house of parliament....

“People give us ham, sausages, oranges. We sleep at their homes, or we spend €30 on a B&B. I’m the only candidate who is against the system. I don’t take public money, we’re funding ourselves with donations,” said Grillo, who been married twice and has eight children.

Despite his modest resources, Grillo has built up an army of supporters on the web — 800,000 followers on Twitter and more than 1m on Facebook. His blog has 250,000 hits a day. “Something’s going to happen — people want to kick them out,” said Grillo, who drew tens of thousands nationally with his V-Day demonstrations — the “V” standing for the Italian for f*** off.

By “them”, he means the political classes. He calls them “zombies”. Berlusconi is “psycho dwarf” and Mario Monti, the outgoing prime minister, “rigor Montis”.

Funny guy!

Now, after the Italian election, Grillo [BBC profile] is centre stage, having won 25% of the vote. Coverage here in the UK seems largely to follow the line taken in that Sunday Times piece: some bemusement, but generally positive. Here's Jamie Bartlett at CiF:

What accounts for this meteoric rise? Two weeks ago, Demos released a report based on a survey of almost 2,000 Facebook fans of Grillo and his Movimento 5 Stelle [M5S] movement. The answer is a fascinating and powerful mix of anti-establishment rhetoric, new technology and old-fashioned rallies and local action. Head on the internet, and feet on the ground, as Grillo himself puts it.

His message is a simple one – that Italian politics is corrupt, elitist, and closed – and it is striking a chord. His supporters come from across the spectrum; they are neither clearly left nor right. They are all, however, angry about the state of democracy in Italy and Europe. Our survey showed only 2% trust parliament and only 11% trust the press.

Grillo appears to be an authentic, straight-talking alternative....

Other parties will try to replicate his success. In some ways, they will struggle. I can't see Ed Miliband holding a "fuck off" day aimed at the establishment, or Nick Clegg calling David Cameron a "psycho dwarf" any time soon. But the appetite for anti-establishment parties is growing.

Grillo's message has resonated in a country where faith in government, parliament and the media is low and falling. According to recent surveys, the UK public feels much the same: while 88% of Italians don't trust political parties, 80% of Brits feel the same way. Social media politics as pioneered by Grillo – citizen-led, brazen, open, democratic – is what happens when politicians appear too distant, too elite, too different from the people they represent. The established parties need to take note.

Not everyone, though, shares the general enthusiasm. Here's a piece at American Thinker, which suggests that dear old Beppe may be something of an anti-Semite:

Says Beppe:

'I would never trust somebody with a hooked nose and I will send him to make a long walk to Gaza with a Jew skullcap on his head...''

That always gets a big laugh.

It gets even murkier:

Beppe tells the world that "Everything I know about the Middle East I learned from my father-in-law!" 

After marrying his Iranian wife, by some miracle, Beppe suddenly got a lot richer. His public career took off, and from being a comedian he became a politician. Or maybe just an idealistic truth-teller to a corrupt Italian state.

Beppe bought his motor yacht and his Ferrari, then purchased three separate villas.

Dad-in-law runs a giant construction business in Iran, where he has to lie in bed with the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards every day of his life.

So Beppe learns everything about the Middle East from his dad-in-law, who maybe gets it straight from the Ayatollah himself. (Who heard it directly from Allah.)

A couple more pieces have appeared at American Thinker since, by the same authors - here and here. And here's today's article, where the theme is continued: Grillo is an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist who may possibly be getting funds from Iran. 

I have no idea of the truth of these accusations. I don't speak Italian, so I can't judge for myself. American Thinker is a conservative online magazine, sometimes referred to as "neocon". It's not, I have to say, one of my regular reads. Rush Limbaugh can be quoted approvingly - never a good sign. And the idea that Iran may be funding Grillo's campaign seems to be heading into that same conspiracy-theory territory they so decry in the man himself. On the other hand I have no difficulty in believing the anti-Semitic charge. (In fact I have no difficulty in believing all kinds of nasty stuff about this kind of populist demagogue.) Though, if true, it's at least slightly curious that no one else seems to have picked up on it.

I guess we'll find out more soon enough.

Red faces

Japanese macaque monkeys huddle together against the cold at Awajishima Monkey Center on January 26, 2013 in Sumoto, Japan:

[Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images]

From Winter Weather at The Big Picture.

Australia, 140 years ago

Herbert Street, Gulgong, 1872:

[Photo: State Library of NSW]

The Gold Rush of the 1870s in New South Wales and Victoria, as documented in the Holtermann Collection, and newly digitised at the NSW State Library (via):

In 1951, a hoard of 3,500 glass plate negatives from the nineteenth century was discovered in a garden shed in Chatswood. In time, the find proved to be the most important photographic documentation of goldfields life in Australia.

The photographers responsible for the images were Beaufoy Merlin and Charles Bayliss of the American and Australasian Photographic Company, who had travelled to the town of Hill End in 1872 to record the rush. From there, they also recorded the burgeoning Gulgong and Mudgee goldfields.

In October 1872, the world’s largest specimen of reef gold, known as the Holtermann nugget, was unearthed at nearby Hawkins Hill and Merlin and Bayliss were there to record it.

In an extraordinary act of patronage, the newly rich Bernhardt Otto Holtermann used some of his wealth to employ Merlin and Bayliss to photograph other gold producing areas and cities in NSW and Victoria for exhibition overseas. Proud of his own success, he believed that his travelling exposition would encourage immigration to Australia....

In 2008, plans were made to digitally scan the Holtermann Collection at very high resolution and this became reality through the generous assistance of the Graham and Charlene Bradley Foundation; Simon and Catriona Mordant; Geoffrey and Rachel O’Conor; Morningstar and numerous other benefactors.

For the first time in 140 years, it is possible to see what Merlin and Bayliss photographed, with astonishing clarity and fidelity.

Then and now.

Mural Shoreditch

Yes Cynthia, despite the increasingly bizarre tale of the missing Wood Green Banksy, there are still a few remaining street art pieces to be seen around the place. In Shoreditch, for instance...

Dale Grimshaw on Clifton Street:

A new mural on the Village Underground wall at Holywell Lane:

And this, above the car park next door:

All soon to be shipped off to America, no doubt.

Party Politics

An important piece from Nick Cohen on Labour's cynical opportunism as it destroys efforts to pass a bill amending the UK's absurd libel laws:

If it dies, the bill's proposed ban on corporations, following the example of McDonald's, suing individual activists will die with it. If it dies, the proposed limits on the libel tourism racket that have allowed Russian, Ukrainian and Saudi billionaires, Icelandic bankers and African dictators to punish their critics in London will die with it. If it dies, the new public interest defence for contested speech, which is essential for bloggers and small publishers as well as investigative journalists, will die with it. If it dies, the planned defence of "honest opinion" that would have allowed the Simon Singhs of the future to criticise alternative health quacks without risking a £500,000 bill will die with it.

Labour doesn't care. "It is playing incredibly opportunist politics," said Michael Harris, spokesman for the Libel Reform Campaign and himself a Labour councillor. They party just wants to embarrass Cameron about his failure to agree with everything Leveson said. That's all that matters to them. So there you have it. Labour is prepared to break a manifesto commitment, weaken its adherence to the Human Rights Act and destroy the hopes of all those who want to use the freedom of the web to argue and publish without fear of disproportionate punishment. For what? For a handful of headlines in the papers. For a slot on the rolling news.

The absence of serious principle tells you much about the modern Labour party....

Worth reading in full.