Salvador Dalí: Self-Promotion, Madness, Genius, Hucksterism & Fakery...

"Dalí and I: Exposing the Dark Circus of the International Art Market" is a book devoted to the thesis that self-promotion, hucksterism and fakery are the only way to get ahead. They were certainly the basis of author Stan Lauryssens’s career, when he graduated in the Seventies from pasting together fake interviews with Hollywood stars for a Belgian magazine to flogging fake pictures by the biggest fake of all: Salvador Dalí.

When he enters the art world, Lauryssens knows little about his golden goose, except that Dalí means money. As the months pass, and he disposes of works of ever-decreasing quality for ever-increasing prices, he realizes the Dalí market rests on a gigantic con: thousands of works are being certified that cannot possibly be by Dalí.

In one instance, he buys a stack of prints from one of Dalí’s authorized dealers, only to discover that they are unsigned. When he returns the next day, Dalí’s signature is on every one.

Eventually, the titanic swindle, in which Lauryssens has only a small role, unravels, along with his extravagant lifestyle. And it is here that the book gets most interesting. After a cursory imprisonment, and a dark night of the soul that features some hilariously overwrought writing – “I was a fox in a trap. For the fox, the trap means death” – Lauryssens hightails it to his girlfriend in Catalonia. Here he finds himself both a neighbour of Dalí, and on the periphery of his circle, at last able to winkle out some of the truth.

And that truth is a sad business. Originally, Dalí seems to Lauryssens like a mad genius, a showman whose career is a cheerfully orchestrated fraud on the world, whether it be signing blank canvasses, ordering muses to drink his urine “to raise your genius level”, or hosting orgies based around demands for “2,000 live ants, four transvestites, a white Arabian stallion, 300 dead grasshoppers, four dwarfs, four giants and the suit of armour of Jeanne d’Arc”.

But the real Dalí is more pitiable – not just because of the crippled state in which Lauryssens finds him on their one meeting, but because of how he has become a prisoner of his greed and pathologies, to the extent that, according to Lauryssens, he maintained a “secret studio” of artists who did virtually every work of his final decades. Even Dali's moustache was a fraud: hair extensions wrapped around drinking straws.

In an interview with The Herald newspaper, Lauryssens says he believes the famous painting " Christ of St John on the Cross " was in fact painted by one of Dali's assistants. He claims Dali did not have the artistic skill to paint the image of the body of Christ. “If you look at Christ of St John on the Cross, you can see that it is made by two different people. It's basically two different paintings. The part below, the seascape – that is 100 per cent Dali. But on top you have Christ seen from above – that is not a Salvador Dali painting. It was painted by others because Dali couldn’t paint living flesh.” Lauryssens says he’s even seen film that shows an assistant drawing the life model who appears as Christ in Dali’s masterpiece. But art critics and the painting’s owners, Glasgow City Council – which bought the painting now estimated to be worth upwards of £60m for a bargain £8,200 – have rubbished Lauryssens’s claims.

It is sensational stuff, fantastic in every sense. And whether it is fact or fiction, it seems to capture two essential truths about Dalí: both his work and life could mean anything and everything, and that there is always a more astonishing story around the corner.

-Robert Colvile (Book Review: "Dalí and I: Exposing the Dark Circus of the International Art Market," Telegraph UK, 2.17.09. Image: -Salvador Dalí, "Christ Of Saint John On The Cross," Glasgow Museum, Scotland, 1951).

The Holy Grail Of Victory: Death Will Be Our Darling & Fear Will Be Our Name...

The United States began its war in Afghanistan 88 months ago. "The war on terror" has no sunset clause. As a perpetual emotion machine, it offers to avenge what can never heal and to fix grief that is irreparable.

For the crimes against humanity committed on Sept. 11, 2001, countless others are to follow, with huge conceits about technological "sophistication" and moral superiority. But if we scrape away the concrete of media truisms, we may reach substrata where some poets have dug.

W.H. Auden: "Those to whom evil is done. Do evil in return."

Stanley Kunitz: "In a murderous time the heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking."

And from 1965, when another faraway war got its jolt of righteous escalation from Washington's certainty, Richard Farina wrote:

"And death will be our darling and fear will be our name."

Then as now came the lessons that taught with unfathomable violence once and for all that unauthorized violence must be crushed by superior violence.

The U.S. war effort in Afghanistan owes itself to the enduring "war on terrorism," chasing a holy grail of victory that can never be. Early into the second year of the Afghanistan war, in November 2002, a retired U.S. Army general, William Odom, appeared on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" program and told viewers:

"Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It's a tactic. It's about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and expect we're going to win that war. We're not going to win the war on terrorism."

But the "war on terrorism" rubric -- increasingly shortened to the even vaguer "war on terror" -- kept holding enormous promise for a warfare state of mind. Early on, the writer Joan Didion saw the blotting of the horizon and said so:

"We had seen, most importantly, the insistent use of Sept. 11 to justify the reconception of America's correct role in the world as one of initiating and waging virtually perpetual war."

There, in one sentence, an essayist and novelist had captured the essence of a historical moment that vast numbers of journalists had refused to recognize -- or, at least, had refused to publicly acknowledge. Didion put to shame the array of self-important and widely lauded journalists at the likes of the New York Times, the Washington Post, PBS and National Public Radio.

The new U.S. "war on terror" was rhetorically bent on dismissing the concept of peacetime as a fatuous mirage.

Now, in early 2009, we're entering what could be called Endless War 2.0, while the new president's escalation of warfare in Afghanistan makes the rounds of the media trade shows, preening the newest applications of technological might and domestic political acquiescence. And now, although repression of open debate has greatly dissipated since the first months after 9/11, the narrow range of political discourse on Afghanistan is essential to the Obama administration's reported plan to double U.S. troop deployments in that country within a year.

"This war, if it proliferates over the next decade, could prove worse in one respect than any conflict we have yet experienced," Norman Mailer wrote in his book "Why Are We at War?" six years ago:

"It is that we will never know just what we are fighting for. It is not enough to say we are against terrorism. Of course we are. In America, who is not? But terrorism compared to more conventional kinds of war is formless, and it is hard to feel righteous when in combat with a void..."

Anticipating futility and destruction that would be enormous and endless, Norman Mailer told an interviewer in late 2002:

"This war is so unbalanced in so many ways, so much power on one side, so much true hatred on the other, so much technology for us, so much potential terrorism on the other, that the damages cannot be estimated. It is bad to enter a war that offers no clear avenue to conclusion. ... There will always be someone left to act as a terrorist."

And there will always be plenty of rationales for continuing to send out the patrols and launch the missiles and drop the bombs in Afghanistan, just as there have been in Iraq, just has there were in Vietnam and Laos. Those countries, with very different histories, had the misfortune to share a singular enemy, the most powerful military force on the planet.

It may be profoundly true that we are not red states and blue states, that we are the United States of America -- but what that really means is still very much up for grabs. Even the greatest rhetoric is just that. And while the clock ticks, the deployment orders are going through channels.

Now, on Capitol Hill and at the White House, convenience masquerades as realism about "the war on terror." Too big to fail. A beast too awesome and immortal not to feed. And death will be our darling. And fear will be our name.

-Norman Solomon,("Why Are We Still At War?,"Common Dreams, 2.3.2009. Image: -Jaqian, "Lost Holy Grail," Street sign found on telephone pole, Flickr, 2007).

Albert Einstein: On God...A Product Of Human Weakness...

"In 1954, Einstein wrote the following letter to the philosopher Eric Gutkind who had sent him a copy of his book "Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt." Bought by a private collector in 1955, the German-language letter will be auctioned on May 15th by Bloomsbury Auctions in Mayfair, England and is estimated to sell for 16K. In it, Einstein rejects the idea that the Jews are God's "chosen people" and clarifies his views during this time on God, organized religion and his own Jewish faith:

ABRIDGED
"... The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the priviliege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolisation. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, ie in our evalutations of human behaviour. What separates us are only intellectual 'props' and 'rationalisation' in Freud's language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things. With friendly thanks and best wishes

Yours, A. Einstein"

" In Einstein's later years he referred to a "cosmic religious feeling" that permeated and sustained his scientific work. In 1954, a year before his death, he spoke of wishing to "experience the universe as a single cosmic whole". He was also fond of using religious flourishes, in 1926 declaring that "He [God] does not throw dice" when referring to randomness thrown up by quantum theory. His position on God has been widely misrepresented by people on both sides of the atheism/religion divide but he always resisted easy stereotyping on the subject.

Despite his categorical rejection of conventional religion, Einstein became angry when his views were appropriated by evangelists for atheism. He was offended by their lack of humility and once wrote. "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."

-Albert Einstein (Abridged Letter translated to English from German. Content is a response to Eric Gutkind re: his newly published book, "Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt", 1.3.1954. Excerpted Additional Text by James Randerson, " Childish Superstition", Guardian UK News 5.13.2008. Image: Gustave Doré (1832-83) "Ascension". The most popular and successful French book illustrator of the mid 19th century. Doré became very widely known for his illustrations to such books as Dante's Inferno (1861), Don Quixote (1862), and the Bible (1866).

Excalibur & The Unseen Hand: MindWar

"MindWar is defined as "the deliberate aggressive convincing of all participants in a war that we will win that war."

 Propaganda the usual way:

"The terror of the Roman name will be such that the world shall know that, once a Roman army has laid siege to a city, nothing will move it - not the rigors of winter nor the weariness of the months and years - that it knows no end but victory and is ready, if a swift and sudden stroke will not serve, to preserve until that victory is achieved." - Titus Livius a.k.a Livy (59 BC–AD 17, The Early History of Rome Vol. 1-5).

MindWar:

"MindWar reverses this sequence. Psychological means for achieving victory-essentially through convincing the enemy that he really wants to bring his national policies into harmony with ours-are fashioned in support of basic political goals. The use of ordinary military force (bombs, bullets, etc.) is regarded as a last rsort in circumstances where MindWar by itself fails.

Essentially you overwhelm your enemy with argument. You seize control of all of the means by which his government and populace process information to make up their minds, and you adjust it so that those minds are made up as you desire.

The MindWar operative must know that he speaks the truth, and he must be personally committed to it. What he says is only a part of MindWar; the rest - and the test of its effectiveness - lies in the conviction he projects to his audience, in the rapport he establishes with it. In practice, however, the difference between MindWar and cynical or deceptive propaganda, from the perspective of the audience, is difficult if not impossible to perceive. The examples of Kennedy's ultimatum to Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Hitler's stance at Munich might be cited. A MindWar message does not have to fit conditions of abstract credibility as do PSYOP there; its source makes it credible.

Strategic MindWar must begin  the moment war is considered inevitable.  It must seek out the attention of the enemy nation through every available medium, and it must strike at the nation's potential soldiers before they put on their uniforms.  It is in their homes and their communities that they are most vulnerable to MindWar.

Was the United States defeated in the jungles of Vietnam, or was it defeated in the streets of American cities?

Like the sword Exalibur, we have to reach out and seize this tool; and it can transform the world for us if we have the courage and the integrity to enhance civilization with it.  If we do not accept Excalibur, the we relinquish our ability to "inspire" foreign cultures with our morality. If they then desire moralities unsatisfactory to us, we have no choice but to fight them on a more brutish level."

 MindWar states a whole truth that, if it does not now exist, will be forced into existence by the will of the United States.

-General Paul E. Vallely  (From PSYOP to Mindwar: The Psychology of Victory,  Headquarters, 7th Psychological Operations Group, United States Army Reserve, Presidio of San Francisco, CA, 1980).  The first President of the National Psychological Operations Association participant in the Pentagon military analyst program and a Fox News analyst.  In September 2003, he took part in a Pentagon-funded  tour of Iraq ... timed to help overcome the sticker shock from Mr. Bush’s request for $87 billion in emergency war financing." He later told the New York Times, "I saw immediately in 2003 that things were going south." However, after returning he claimed on Fox's "Hannity & Colmes" show: "You can’t believe the progress." 

Vallely is also the Military Committee Chairman for the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and a member of the Iran Policy Committee. He is co-author, with Thomas McInerney, of "Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror." In April 2008 America learned he had been one of a dozen "military analysts" recruited by the Pentagon to spread favorable views of the failing Iraq War via the news. General Valley is also a supporter of the Jerusalem Summit organization and an advocate of the organization's proposal to transfer Palestine to surrounding Arab countries as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He advocates military-led regime change in Iran, Syria and North Korea."  Image: Brainstorming by: Franck44).

Evil Little Men!

William S. Burroughs: Parasitic Beings...

"To reach the Western Lands is to achieve freedom from fear. Do you free yourself from fear by cowering in your physical body for eternity? Your body is a boat to lay aside when you reach the far shore, or sell it if you can find a fool...it's full of holes...it's full of holes.

I want to reach the Western Lands-right in front of you, across the bubbling brook. It's a frozen sewer-it's known as the Duad remember? All the filth and horror, fear hate, disease and death of human history flows between you and the Western Lands. Let it flow!

My cat Fletch stretches behind me on the bed. A tree like black lace against a gray sky. A flash of joy. How long does it take a man to learn that he does not, cannot want what he "wants?" You have to be in Hell to see Heaven. Glimpses from the Land of the Dead, flashes of serene timeless joy, a Joy as old as suffering and despair.

The old writer couldn't write anymore because he had reached the end of words, the end of what can be done with words. And then? "British we are, British we stay." How long can one hang on in Gibraltar, with the tapestries where mustached riders with scimitars hunt tigers, the ivory balls one inside the other, bare seams showing, the long tearoom with mirrors on both sides and the tired fuchsia and rubber plants, the shops selling English marmalade and Fortnum & Mason's tea...clinging to their Rock like the rock apes, clinging always to less and less.

In Tangier the Parade Bar is closed. Shadows are falling on the mountain. "Hurry up please. It's time."

***************************************************************************************

"Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage."

-William S. Burroughs (1914-1997 Image: Burroughs, 1960s)

Gods & Masters: If Greatness Existed...Again

"Something happened in 2007, something ended. Old gods stumbled and fell. New ones sprang up. But they sprang up in their thousands. That’s the point these days.

Technology, hype and the sheer profligacy of the arts when confronted with a large, hungry and wealthy audience have created a climate of excess — just too many artists, too much money, too many works and too much noise. Who knows who, now, is great? Even if greatness existed, how would we find it? Do we want greatness, or would we simply prefer choice?

The further, more troubling question is, what is greatness? The climate of excess is also a climate of uncertainty and tribal dispute. When Ingmar Bergman died, many said he was just a solemn old bore — a startling, almost unbelievable dismissal of one of cinema’s greatest artists. As with leaders of the Lib Dems, in the arts, when you’re out, you’re out. And artists are being pushed in and out all the time by a cultural hype industry that has increasingly infected the ranks of what should be the independent-minded. The carefully cultivated “buzz” about some artists can be so effective that I — like, I am sure, you — actually find myself questioning my own intuitions or, in extreme cases, sanity. And the “buzz” feeds on change, novelty. The very idea of an old master, an artist who endures and grows, is rapidly becoming incomprehensible."

-Bryan Appleyard (EXCERPT:"Twilight of the Greats", The Times UK, 12.30.07, Image: Pablo Picasso)

Pierre Tristam: When America Can't Handle The Truth

"The word, attributed to the late writer Saul Bellow, is “angelization” — willfully putting someone beyond blame. Angelizing America is the common tongue of all national politicians, the oath candidates implicitly take when running for president. It’s what the most sentimental people on Earth expect. It’s what enables a country that committed its share of atrocities in the past and is committing more than its share of moral degradations today to look itself in the mirror and see something exceptional looking back, rather than just another empire trampling down its march of folly, as the great historian Barbara Tuchman called it. Angelizing America is the unspoken, self-evident pledge of allegiance. Someone didn’t tell the Obamas.

First, there was Michelle Obama: “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change.”

Then there was Barack Obama’s spiritual adviser, the fascinating Jeremiah Wright — not the outright lies about Wright’s black separatism, which is bunk (although to most classically illiberal whites any black who adopts the fervor of Emersonian self-sufficiency is suddenly a separatist), but this, from a 2003 sermon: “The government gives (blacks) the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

Then there was Obama himself, insolently ripping the halo off the romanticized iconography of race in America and returning the matter to the reality of a job undone. That he did so in a 37-minute speech more powerfully essential than anything the incumbent nullity has managed in seven years was bound to inflame those commentators — Shelby Steele, William Kristol, Kathleen Parker, any lips that move at the Fox network — who’ve been outdoing themselves to dig up hollowness at Obama’s core. What they’re digging up instead is his disarming arsenal, an ability to face up to national blights without, like Wright, stopping at the diagnosis.

Obama offers a path to conciliation. The path begins with a willfulness exactly opposite angelization. It begins more along the lines of where a truth commission might begin. That’s Obama’s problem. It’s doubtful whether this country can, in its lethargy for social justice at home and its trances for wars abroad, HANDLE THE TRUTH."

-Pierre Tristam (Published March 25, 2008- Daytona Beach News-Journal ) EXCERPT

On Susan Sontag: What We've Wrought Upon Our World

"In her rage and gloom and growing despair, she concluded that "the truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean Algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al., don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone — its ideologies and inventions — which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself."
- Steve Wasserman, Los Angeles Times, 2004 Obit for Susan Sontag