Modern Maidens Redux

Third in the series of paintings re: bubbles and crashes.

It would seem that the poster from the 1920's Joan Crawford flick which had set off an earlier blog post found a way of staying with me until I could exorcise it !

Latest Painting

Just completed this. Submitted it to an international competition. Limited expectations, but simply knowing that it would be judged provided some extra motivation.

More info on my site:

http://www.danielgagnon.artspan.com/large-view/Acrylics/553002-1-0-6472/Painting/Acrylic/Landscape.html

The Harper budget

The media is abuzz with what is being described as a Liberal budget coming from the Tories, etc etc ...

Given the world economic climate, it's not surprising to see an interventionist budget coming out of Ottawa. First of all, they have no choice whatsoever. Every government on the planet is trying to build levees against this storm. Holding out for ideological reasons just gets one kicked out of the club.

And there's an interesting precedent. Very few of us remember this (and those that do are for the most part confined to nursing homes) but it was the Tories who introduced unemployment insurance in Canada back in the 30's. Then as now, things had reached critical mass. And the previous (Liberal) government's policy of carting off the unemployed to work camps in the bush had yielded dubious results at best: the camps were taken over by the Canadian communist party; the inmates took over Vancouver for three weeks and hijacked eastbound trains with a view to seizing power in Ottawa and declaring a Communist government. It all ended quite badly with a blood-soaked showdown with the RCMP in Regina.

But there are even further parallels to be drawn:

1) The Tory government of R.B. Bennett was under pressure to institute reform due to Roosevelt's sweeping " New Deal " in the US - witness the situation today with Obama.

2) The Liberals (under Mackenzie King) surprised everyone by supporting Bennett's budget. in fact, Mackenzie King was the wiliest politician in Canadian history. He supported Bennett's reforms and introduction of U.I. not only because they were necessary, but because he wanted to leave the Tories in power while the feces hit the fan. Recovery would come eventually, and with it long uninterrupted years of Liberal majorities. Ignatieff ?

Crash of 29

2nd in a series of commissioned paintings depicting market bubbles and crashes in history. This one is eerily contemporary considering the current situation in the U.S.

First in a series of 6 paintings

First in a series of 3 x 4 ' paintings depicting market bubbles and crashes throughout history. This one is about "Tulipomania", a craze that swept 17th century Holland.

My latest painting

Latest in a series of math-inspired paintings. More on my artspan site:

http://www.danielgagnon.artspan.com

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More from Gibbon

Still working my way through Gibbon - now at volume V.

The following is his way of saying that those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it:

" The experience of past faults, which may sometimes correct the mature age of an individual, is seldom profitable to the successive generations of mankind. "

Gibbon, Edward

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Volume V, page 132 (Folio edition)

Roman Lawyers

I've undertaken a long-term project, namely reading Edward Gibbon's 18th century opus "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". Widely criticized for his secular views, it would seem however that the Church wasn't the only thing Gibbon disliked. Here's what he has to say about the practice of law in the 4th century:

“ The noble art (of law), which had once been preserved as the sacred inheritance of the patricians, was fallen into the hands of freedmen and plebeians, who, with cunning rather than with skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade. Some of them procured admittance into families for the purpose of fomenting differences, of encouraging suits, and of preparing a harvest of gain for themselves or their brethren. Others, recluse in their chambers, maintained the gravity of legal professors, by furnishing a rich client with subtleties to confound the plainest truth, and with arguments to colour the most unjustifiable pretensions. The splendid and popular class was composed of the advocates, who filled the Forum with the sound of their turgid and loquacious rhetoric. Careless of fame and justice, they are described for the most part as ignorant and rapacious guides, who conducted their clients through a maze of expense, delay, and of disappointment; from whence, after a tedious series of years, they were at length dismissed, when their patience and fortune were almost exhausted. “

It's been a while ....

... Since I posted anything here it seems. Between LinkedIn, Facebook, Gantthead, my Artspan site, work and life, time just seems to fritter away.

Hope to be back with something worth saying shortly.

Image is everything !

My close friend Steve has an uncanny knack for carefully mulling over any idea or issue you throw at him, and coming back with an elegant solution or response.

In the "As if I didn't have enough things going to fill my time" category, I've recently taken up an interest in amateur DJing. Obsessively image conscious as I am when it comes to pretty much everything, I naturally felt that I immediately needed a moniker and a corresponding logo - even without a gig in sight. Well actually I *do* have a gig coming up now, but I didn't at the time when decided I needed an "image". Just shows to go (sic) - you can never be too prepared.

Enter Steve. He found the name and designed the logo.
It's a reference to the character Lestat in Anne Rice's vampire novels. It's also a reference to - OK here it comes - a sort of nickname I've been stuck with for several years. Actually it refers more to a sort of ... grinning, mischievous alter ego who's been known to *ahem* ... take over my person from time to time.

But I'd best leave that for another post. Or two. Or none !

Deep Thoughts ... but without Jack Handy

Time for a change of tone around here.

Between Vonneguts, I recently finished reading Monty's memoirs. One excerpt struck me as being particularly applicable to life as a whole:

" To exercise high command successfully one has to have an infinite capacity for taking pains and for careful preparation; and one has also to have an inner conviction which at times will transcend reason. Having fought, possibly over a long period, for the advantage and gained it, there then comes the moment for boldness. When that moment comes, will you throw your bonnet over the mill and soar from the known to seize the unknown ? In the answer to this question lies the supreme test of generalship in high command. "

My friend Sherman's take on this is worth sharing:

" It's not just generalship. Let's say you're trying to prove a theorem. There can come a time when you have to commit a large block of effort to an approach which no logic can establish will work, or ought to work. You only have your intuition to go on, and that, in the teeth of the fact that others before you, and better than you, have not found a solution.

Let's say you're on a hike. There can be a point of no return. That is, if you go on past that point, there won't be time or strength to return the way you came. You will be committed to succeeding with your planned hike, even parts of it that for all you know may involve difficulties which your preparation and map study didn't reveal. If you go ahead, you're going ahead in part on faith.

And then there's getting married.

Even for ordinary life, and ordinary people, there come times when decisions of the greatest moment must be taken although the consequences are incalculable. Having done what one can to think things through, the day comes for throwing the bonnet over the mill. "

Maybe part of my problem these days is that I may have read waaayyy too much Vonnegut in the past few weeks. But once you get going with him, it's hard to stop.

After Deadeye Dick, Jailbird, Player Piano and Mother Night, I'm currently finishing Hocus Pocus. A quick excerpt:

" Life was like an ocean liner to a lot of people who weren't in prison, too, of course. And their TV sets were portholes through which they could look while doing nothing, to see all the World was doing with no help from them.

Look at it go ! "

OK one more:

" Crucifixion as a mode of execution for the very worst criminals was outlawed by the first Christian Roman Emperor, who was Constantine the Great.

Burning and boiling were still OK. "

I suppose there's a half decent case to be made for the theory that just about every epoch has possessed its own firm notions of what constituted " Modernity ". Probably ever since archrivals Grokkk and Thorgg beat one another senseless with gazelle tibias for the right to mate with Uuja.

Ok, maybe not that far back. For argument's sake, let's say the Renaissance.

Witness this image, a poster for an MGM flick from the 1920's entitled "Our Modern Maidens".

Surely if anything could provide an interesting starting point for a Modernity vs. Postmodernity debate, this would rank high. I actually thought about this for a while today, and it was a welcome change of pace from Austria-Hungary.

But then it got a bit tiresome, and I found myself daydreaming about assembling a time machine from old washing machines and a few interlinked Nintendo consoles, and setting the dial to 1923. Mission: Meet some Modern Maidens. Hang out, maybe go dance a Charleston or two, see where things led from there.

Then - mercifully - the train reached my stop.

On a different note ...

This photo was taken by our cousin, currently serving with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan. A supply convoy making its way through ... nothingness. Emptiness can be deceiving ...

Then of course, there's always Albania. A friend of mine, also a consultant, just got back from a gig there a while back. He managed to bring me back the one thing I'd asked for - an original printed-in-Tirane edition of anything by Hoxha. My glee cetainly must have provided Judy with yet further evidence of my questionable mental stability.

Then we rented the recent Clive Owen vehicle " The Inside Man ". A decent flick, entertainment-wise. I like Clive.

Anyway - without giving away the plot - a recording of a speech by Hoxha is used as a plot device at one point in the movie.

Funny isn't it how life works - you hear nary a word about Enver Hoxha for years, and then suddenly * wham * - books, movies ...

Just thinking about the Austro-Hungarian Empire today (again.) The thing was litterally blown to smithereens by the end of World War I. Today, over 15 countries - most of them impoverished and unstable to this day - can be found in the South Eastern part of Europe the Empire straddled in 1913.

Running the place must have basically been like watching a schizophrenic try to herd a dozen rabid cats.

They sure had beautiful paper money, though.