“DEAR LEADER”

Here are a few more resources to help you understand your future.

1- On the Threshold:
2- Evidence from cases.
3- The project on:
4- Environment, population and security:
5- Environmental Scarcity and Violent Conflict: The Case of Pakistan
6-Clausewitz vs. The Scholar:

I’ll stop right there for now, will add to it later….. Enjoy. Sweet dreams.

At the bottom of a returned email. Adrienne woke up in Taipei and sent me an email telling me she was awake. Somehow, overnight, the signature morphed into a mantra…..

I have to admit that texting or emailing, in real time to my girl(in Asia) is a real pleasure.

“Driving to taichung, sleepy. This guy had a radar detector that blares something in mandarin every 5 mins. You might like it actually. I should try and get u this detector. Its called THE SNOOPER. Practice yo mandarin.”

She knows what I like…..can’t wait for my SNOOPER.

Yes this is a Rube Goldberg, no tricks. It required 606 takes and cost $6 million to shoot and 3 months to complete.

Alexandre, here is your answer. I hope this helps. Enlarge by clicking on the image.

A little image searching today, instead of doing what I am supposed to…. Keyed in different “Jesus”(G-Zeuses). A nice smorgasbord to store away, for future inspiration.

German Jesus:

West Texas Jesus:

Dear Permian Basin,

If my people will pray, and stop their wicked ways, I’ll forgive their sins and heal their land. Love God. (Nice scientific use of Geological term in the prayer there, preacher…. Dem Christians are crazy bitches…).

Golfing Jesus: Hey, just key wording.

Indian Jesus:

and last but not least a little a black Jesus: Oh Lordie, lord, I shutter to think, where honkey would be, without thee….

 

 Wanna: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Great interview with George Soros in the New York Review of Books. Been thinking the same kinds of things for a while now but could never have sat down and put it all together like that. Not my skill set, that’s for sure….. I highly recommend it.

Not that he is says anything new but it is about the best synopsis of the world today I have read in a long, long, time. Kinda reminds me of reading Robert Kaplan’s “The coming Anarchy” in 1994. That also was a fine piece of intellectual ass….. and all along, ya’ll thought I was an idiot……

Now then; now that we have laid the ground work for Miaes (pun), it stands to reason that I might deservedly, so to speak, perform a public function and post a little human anatomy.
For those of you who come to me, “Dear Leader”, by any other means than the photographic, please ignore my creatives, and rather, study the anatomy of a certain aphorism, a general truth and function of our common and quite unique bipedal reality.

The posteriora, the first and last part a lover sees and the first of the lares and penates one yearns to kick as it propulses one forward and onward, quite nicely.

And, if you shall be so bold as to click, you shall be rewarded with a larger posteriori.

PS: Part V: The Lower extremity. Fig 430: The middle and deep gluteal muscles and the Sciatic nerve.
Anatomy. A Regional Atlas of the Human Body. Carmine D. Clemente. 3rd Edition. Urban & Schwarzenberg.

Looks good enough to eat….

Click to enlarge, and peer into my arse’s future…… and this has nothin’ to do with mules and donkeys. Just my ass, a scalpel and a little post operative pleasure to boot(no pun intended)…. Precarious, any thoughts on the matter, and don’t fucking tell me it’s not your bag of prunes(a pun, one intended)….

May be I should move to Brazil and leave those puritans behind……Nevertheless, seems like Ms. Juliana Paes, a big soap opera and Samba star in Brazil, is not afraid of her body and of a little humor at her expense. I’m next….So stay tuned.

So who’s YOUR Massa? It’s Dear Leada !!! Rest of pics HERE.

Northern France, Tuesday:
In 1940, my father was four, and a refugee, fleeing the Germans and their armies.

In the back of the cart, my uncles and father looked up at the sky and listened to each brother call; softly they spoke of the dunes, the marsh and of the perils of the road.

It had been three days since they had looked up and seen Stukas. They had looked like they had, flying, arms stretched out and above the See grass; each dropping a single bomb on the farm, between the pasture and the pond, showering the lillies with lead, thermite and rust .

Just then, they might have felt their fate, between their fingers and their thumbs; but only when they slept could they see their hands grasp the blows and the bombs and hurl them back forward, and further from the house.
Slowly, inching their way forward, they could see better, and further; over the tiles, over the cows, over the farms; but a hand on their arms pulled hard, snatching them back and inside the safety of the stones and the barn.

And then it was slow, dark and cold, but not until a distant thud cloaked the silent farm again that it came; and with it, that puff of summer air whistled soft under the shuttered doors, and with it, all of a spider’s dust, and the vapors, the ambers and the coals.

Mother had run to the kitchen to grab a couple pots: three tomatoes, yeast, water and some yellow Gouda. She wanted to leave before the house burned and to the ground, torched by their hands and those Germans. And the black soot fouling the wheat, the barley and the beets.

They cut the dogs loose and lashed them one last time, filled the bedroom chests, blankets and tablecoths, with sweaters, boots, woolens, socks; attached the breastcollars and the reins and whipped the ox towards the reeds and the swamps.
And, upon the marsh’s edge, the beast and its breath soon were left, the meat shared, and in, deeper they went…

Into these morasses my father fled, stopping only to stuff a few frog’s eggs and his farm boy frowns, into the half torn pockets, of his apron and his pants.
To be continued…….

It’s been 12 months since I started this blog. Now what? Much is brewing, but none will be revealed. I had thought that I would let the readers of this blog in on it but it shan’t come to pass, or at least not yet and not on this watch. You are going to have to figure out which new and recent blogs have seen the light of day and divine which one or two of these, are mine to claim, and yours to find….. Happy hunting…!

But in the meantime, here’s “Dear Leader” looking at you.
Thanks y’all for reading. Hope it has been entertaining, amusing and mildly revealing!

“Ad captandum vulgus….”

You mean like “Thomas Kinkade”. Anyway, Lucy, in the recent past, a couple people have mentioned that my work reminds them of Greg’s affectations. To such unwarranted insults, I swiftly and generally respond by quite vigorously head butting the culprits and/or accompanying genomic companions.

You should try it as well, as it is rather effective, surprising and amusing, especially when considering the circumstances leading to such allocutions, as one may be, with said company, engrossed in intellectual conversations relating to my original, primary and previous proposition.

Given that I am endowed with a very prominent brow, I should point out that I am seldom pained and/or damaged by such actions, which, if you care to consider the underlying implications, is rather entertaining when one ponders how much damage one can inflict with a part of the skull whose sole purpose and function is the protection of a part of the brain one might affiliate with cognitive reason and whose so-called executive functions involve the ability to recognize future consequences resulting from current actions and/or override and suppress unacceptable social taboos and conventions.

Needless to say such sudden, swift and unexpected action can be very surprising to both a Maya linguist and a theoretical physicist whose life long intellectual expectations, at the institute, have not prepared them for such violent and visceral responses to such thoughtless and mischievous affronts.

“I had to fold my bicycle and stow it in the shed, between the road and the garden, but when I came downstairs and didn’t want to play, I came to think that may be her pedal car was still there, in between the fields, just beneath the corn and the plow. But instead, some spider’s web made my skin crawl, the good crawl, and just as I looked inside as you would a mole’s hole, I saw one or two spindly legs fold; but since I could not move or know, it seemed neither alive nor dead“.

Excerpts from a dream I had last night and which I wrote down this morning. Since my dreams often include childhood cartoons, I searched Youtube to see if they were here nor there. Lo and behold………

and here’s another.
So, If you have small children, between the road and the shed, show’ em these toons and tell them “Dear Leader” sent’ em.

I have no comment at this time.

I know this is beneath me, being an intellectual and all, but sometimes you just need to leave the serious and committed artist behind and cotton up to a little R&R.
Joerg, this one’s for you, as somehow, this makes some sort of nefarious symphonic sense; as if two intemporal harpsicords strings had been plucked to reveal some inaudable cord, only cats and indonesian fruit bats can fully comprehend; but also because my therapist suggested I also do this to expunge some of my personal demons by typing random word associations into search engines. This helps us both focus and expand the scope of our analysis in between thrice weekly sessions.

I had originally linked to this video thru YouTube but it suddenly got yanked???. Since I have the original, I am posting it as a link. Clink the link below and it will set you free. You need to let it download first and then click play.

iraq-speed-bump.wmv

I shot this self portrait yesterday. I plan on carefully etching my liking* into my black marble, Eero Saarinen, dining room table. Will post results on this blog.

*ha-ha, herro, plis to forget typo, i mean like-ness, not liking, ha-ha.

Dear Leader,

Since I am in the process of comparatively studying the class and cultural similitudes in the finer arts as compared to its more reviled commercial and propagandistic brethrens, I would once again like to turn your attention towards the works linked in the next paragraph, and the South Korean video embedded below.

Go to this link first and from the pull down menu select “Crisis” and then “Pain”.

Same fucking, and none too subtle diff; but might I assume, richer fucking eyeballs… Anyway, care to disagree?

Class struggle baby… and oh yes, I actually happen to like the video better; far more, how to say, culturally intriguing in it’s narrative bluntness?
I get another worldly cultural kick out of it by reveling in its teenage candor. As opposed to Elinor Carruci’’s heavy handed stills of upper middle class emotional entitlementos!

And yet, I wonder how her work might (to) be perceived by my Korean brethren-o-parts, and how, and when, this table might well be turned to reflect their own personal attraction to more or less explicit work?

So, as the economic coin flips, so will the socio-cultural value of its arts to increasingly reflect the added value richer cultural institutions place, on more enigmatic and less accessible forms of artistic expression(ista)?

As wealth and economies mature, direct forms of communication become less and less successful and are replaced by other, more “indirect” forms of self and cultural expression. This serves to subtly differentiate the so called “cultural” classes from the less educated, but often equally affluent, classes vying to culturally influence at the top, or rather, as “they” (cabal*) like to call it, ” The Center”. *(a clique, as in artistic, literary, or theatrical circles).

By using such means to separate socioeconomic and cultural institutions, the so called cabalinlligentsia* maintains its perceived and sometimes real “intellectual” and cultural hegemony over the “Finer Arts”; narrowing the playing field. All the while preserving its economic and cultural dominance over its closest cultural and economic competitors. *(a clique, as in artistic, literary, or theatrical circles consisting of intellectuals when considered as a group or class, or as a cultural, social, or political elite).(again).

By intuitively or purposely manipulating these finer institutions they are able to influence its self perpetration and assert their role as the arbiters of cultural and artistic acceptability. With this comes more self perpetrating wealth, power, moral and artistic dominance for themselves and their progeny (who are probably fucking each others brains out in exclusive art schools, as we speak, think about it, imagine the possibilities!) and over the rest of society.

Reminds me of the old feudal and pre-French Revolution aristocratic system, whereas the children of the aristocracy would join the military, the clergy and the political classes to preserve their wealth, authority and power.
A more contemporary vision of this would be for a powerful family or several children to each enter, the judicial, political, executive and cultural classes to continue to dominate as institutionalized families. Thereby creating large family monopolies whose purpose was to control every and all component part of the society it wishes to tax and rule (taxing, isn’t it?), indeed, indeed.

Sincerely yours,

Donald De Freeze.

Notes: Summer retreat and party plenum. Newport, Rhode Island. August 13, 1953:

We the People, in order to form a more perfect monopoly, establish benefits, insure hegemony, provide for the common stock, promote the corporation, and secure the blessings of liberty to enrich ourselves and that of our future prosperity, we do ordain and establish this constitution to benefit all multi-national institutions, and in order to better and perpetually confer onto this “system”, a set of reciprocal legal and financial obligations among our warrior and excecutive nobility.
That every man be the vassal, or servant, of his lord, that “they” swear homage to him, and in return this/these lord(s) shall promise to give him protection and to see that justice and recompense is received. That this monopoly shall be the expression of a society in which every man be bound to every other by mutual ties of loyalty and service. That said monoply shall be marked by vast gulfs between the very few, very rich, landholders and the masses of the working poor who toil for the profit of this Union…

Photo by: Tom Nagy

This shall serve to confuse and dissuade our intentions of creating a more dystopian vision of a society, whereas the many, shall benefit the few ….
To promote and project a more perfect monopoly we shall promote our present policies concerning literary and artistic work, in as much as it shall be used to market a more benevolent image of this noble Union….

It shall stand to reason that today’s writers and artists who cling to an individualist, arty-bourgeois stand cannot truly serve the Union’s benefits, as their interest is mistakenly and mainly focused on a small number of arty-bourgeois intellectuals whose interests are to promote themselves, and not our afore mentioned Union.

Photo by: Tom Nagy

These intellectual workers should eventually be made to serve the visual guidelines of the Union, to craft a new visual and literary ideology as “The people” still have many shortcomings and have retained many arty bourgeois ideals; and while both the working class and the urban petty bourgeoisie have heartily embraced our ideology, we have still been hampered by “their” struggle to contradict. But, we shall be patient and spend a longtime in educating them and helping them to combat their own arty errors and shortcomings, so that they can advance with great strides towards our more perfect and consumptive vision.

The purpose of our meeting today is precisely to ensure that art and literature fit well into the whole beneficiary machine as a better component part and/or that they operate as a more powerful weapon for uniting and educating the people, and for attacking and destroying the “People’s” established fiduciary institutions to create a new and more perfect Union.

This is it. I have decided to terminate “Dear Leader” and move on to other things. I will continue writing but not on this blog. My intentions are to start something else and see where it takes me. It should certainly be interesting, if anything. Of course, I won’t say never but I don’t think that I’ll be back, but who knows?
Anyway, if you are interested in following my new idea and check out what I am up to, do not hesitate to email me privately and I will provide you with access to this new project. It’s been fun and as soon as I get a few moments to thank all those I have met and conversed, I will do so. Thanks. Olivier. Email:olivier@olivierlaude.com

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons - (AAOS) is in town this week, so my brother, followed these migratory birds to San Francisco to teach and learn the latest surgical techniques to the assembled hippocratic masses. Since he recently acquired his pilot’s license he rented a plane in San Carlos, twenty minutes down the peninsula, and we went flying around the bay.

I have, of course, landed at SFO and flown around the bay in a commercial airliner many times, but to do so in a Cessna 172, a four seater, is a real pleasure. Flying over downtown, half moon bay and the Golden Gate reunited us with the joy of flying and how we used to feel as kids(one I have never really lost, but still, the economy lifestyle jet set has a way of beating you over the head, after a while) when we boarded the old “Caravelle”, to fly to Corsica for summer break.

So next time you come to San Francisco, pull out your wallet and go for a flight around the bay, it’s not as expensive as you may think and it’s a great way to rediscover where you live. If, like me, you get to do it with your brother, trust him with your life, and only call your mother after the fact, it certainly is an added pleasure.

On the other hand, if you find yourself with less than twelve cents, you might want to close your eyes and try riding any free, windowless, imaginary speed boat to come to suddenly and freakishly realize that you are plunging to your death and to the cold, hard, and soon to be bloodied concrete sidewalk, below.

The circle jerk is unbroken, or may be just now finding its flying wings but it seems that my earlier vow of not mentioning my innumerable achievements, is fast fading. To complete the gnashing of teeth and anguished wringing of omniscient hands, I am pleased to announce the next entry, seamlessly jointed to our recent series of interviews dedicated to revealing the inner machinations of all top producing bloggees(in this case, that would be me).

Eyemazing, from what I gather is a well know and respected photography magazine out of the Netherlands, founded and edited by Susan Zadeh, who it so happens will be jurying the upcoming AP24 along with many other such photo luminaries. This interview and text, courtesy of Eyemazing and the lovely and talented Anna Holtzman took place, on a sunny day, sometimes in October 2007, in San Francisco. Please run out and get your copy of Eyemazing. For world wide availabilty, please check the Eyemazing website.

Olivier Laude is speaking on his cell phone from the rooftop of a Costco warehouse in San Francisco, elevated above the terrestrial streets where he finds his subjects and transplants them into his constructed fantasy tableaux. The photographer – whose varied life has lifted him from the rural Corsica of his childhood, to a career’s worth of world travel as a photojournalist, to the Bay Area metropolis he now calls home – talks to Eyemazing about his work.

The images seen here are part of a long-term project that “expresses ideas I have about myself and who I am in the world,” says Laude. “Some people say they’re portraits, but they’re not – These people [the models] are tools to express who I am and what I’m thinking.” Each image is carefully staged and orchestrated. Laude brings meticulous attention to casting his subjects and styling their wardrobes, and particularly to scouting his locations. Laude finds that the best way to describe his photography is “photojournalism of the mind” – a term he frets is perhaps cheesy, but nonetheless expresses what the work is about. “I’ve led a fun and exciting life,” he states. “I turn my experiences into this highly vivid, absurd vision.”

Every morning, Laude has a ritual of waking up and going to his regular coffee shop in San Francisco, where he runs into the same people over and over again. This is where he comes across many of the models that wind up in his photographs. One of these, an older man named Charlie, is perhaps Laude’s favourite subject to work with. “I use him to express certain things,” the photographer says. “He’s very malleable, and he enjoys it. We decided that I’d even photograph him when he’s dead.” Charlie is 60 years old, and Laude, who is 20 years his junior, hopes that the post-mortem photographs will not happen any time soon. Laude describes his muse as an eccentric older gay man who is also a log cabin Republican – and manages a recycling centre where the homeless bring in bottles for cash. “He embodies a lot of contrarianism. He grew up in a cult in Vermont. He’s intelligent and well spoken, and he’s a great model.”

Laude has had his own eclectic personal history. Having grown up in France and Corsica, he came to the United States when he was 14, which, he says, gave him an early sense of independence. A self-taught photographer, he says that he did not flourish in the educational system during his youth, which he attributes to having both dyslexia and ADD. “But I turned it to my advantage later on,” he says.

For years, Laude worked exclusively as a photo-journalist and travelled the world: “I’ve seen everything from war zones to Amazon tribes to Mormons. I don’t like to travel without working. If I see gang members in Cambodia, I want to hang with them and see how they’re living. And the camera is a great way to do that.” However, he ultimately found himself wanting to tell stories with a greater breadth than was possible in his constant travels and fleeting observations. His personal photography is a project that has developed only in the past six years. “I needed to express myself,” he says. “It’s almost like a second stage of my life. It’s the most thrilling and exciting [experience].”

Laude’s productions are very much a DIY affair, with the photographer doing everything from casting and location scouting to styling and lighting. He shoots with and an 8×10 camera and negative film, taking between five and ten sheets per situation. He then has a high resolution scan made and adjusts his colours with only the simplest Photoshop tools.
“I don’t like 35mm digital cameras,” he asserts. “A lot of people’s work gets worse with the digital camera, because you can second-guess yourself.”

For Laude, scouting the locations may be the most important aspect of planning a shoot. “Being a little boy and growing up in Corsica – the Mediterranean is very sunny,” he recalls. The photographer remembers spending idyllic summers on the mountainous island, while dreary winters were spent at school in France. During the vacation months, he says, “I was almost hypnotised by the light, the sun – I could almost see the photons in the air. There’s an intensity to the blueness of the sky there.” Laude brings this vision with him when searching for environments to photograph in. “I look for the radiant happiness that nature can bring us,” he relates. “I always feel a high endorphin level in a natural environment, whether it’s the Amazon or the North Pole.” He continues, “This whole idea of having very vibrant, radiant light is important to me, so I tend to shoot at the same time of day – in white light. I’ve almost become like a light shaman – I’m always looking at the position of the sun and the angle of light, the time of year, how oblique the sun is, how it’s going to hit things. It puts me into a trance. California is a great environment for that because it’s very responsive. There’s something immediate about it.”

Laude compares the act of creating to an out of body experience, saying that when he looks at the images he’s made, he doesn’t entirely know where they’ve come from. He maintains that the joy he gets from realising these visions outweighs any need for accolades, and that he hasn’t yet approached the gallery world with his work. He does hope that someday the work will support itself, giving him the time and flexibility to concentrate on his creative pursuits alone. “But if I won the lottery tomorrow,” he concludes, “I’d just do my work… I don’t need an audience.”

Text by Anna Holtzman

PS:……come, come, kitty, kitty, I give you a big wet kissy on yo pink wet kitty lips, and then I stick my tongue-tongue throat kitty; pass those big kitty sharp, cerated kitty teeth, and with my thieving tongue-in-cheek kitty, I pull a big “wad-o-cash” money; and then we’d run back to his kit-kitty house and count how much “wad-o-cash” we got from cash-kitty…..