When was the last time you heard someone railing at Jeff Koons and his studio?
Possibly back in 2017 when there was a report about him radically downsizing his studio and laying off his painting staff ...
Studios, collectives, call them what you will, have always been a part of the art game, sometimes explicit, sometimes hidden ... anyone interested can read The Evolution of the Artist's Studio, From Renaissance Bottega to Assembly Line.
So you can imagine how unmoved the pond was by the latest bit of black bashing by the lizard Oz ...
It was also front and centre in the tree killer edition where the racism and notions of miscegenation were made explicit ...
At the end of it all, the reptiles felt the need to introduce a little legalese ... just to be safe ...
The Australian makes no allegations about work produced in the seven arts centres on the APY Lands, apart from Tjala.The Australian does not raise any allegations against any of the artists themselves or suggest those speaking in support of O’Meara and the Collective are saying anything other than what they have been told and believe to be the case.
But what's the real worry? Why it's not about the terms of the contracts or how much Aboriginal artists are being paid, or whether they're being ripped off ... it's about white buyers, as the lizard Oz editorialist made clear ...
As for the rest, the pond's experience of what passes for art involved motion pictures, wherein the work of production designers, costume designers, composers, writers, DOPs etc etc is credited to the bloody director.
And yet no one thinks about the producer who hired the director and all the rest of them. As the great Stanley Motss frequently noted, there's no Academy Award for best producer, just for best picture. How outrageous is that?
Stanley Motss: "I want the credit. The credit. Do you know what the New York Times said about my last picture? They called it 'a thrill ride for the ages.' But they didn't mention the producer. They talked about the costumes."
Conrad Bream: "[We] can't do it."
Stanley Motss: Don't you tell me that! Don't you ever tell me that! I am the producer of this show. If I didn't step up, you're nowhere. I put this thing together on a spit and polish."
So after complaining about the lack of reptile business yesterday, there's a lot to be red carded today, starting with reptile notions of the nature of the production of art, followed quickly by Dame Slap still bleating about the Lehrmann matter and the voice ... little Miss Echo to the mutton Dutton, who was also out and about.
They even dragged out little Johnny to moan about talk of Judas, but all that did was bring back to the pond memories of Maeve McGregor's piece for Crikey a few days ago (sorry paywall) ...
..it was Howard — that immortal “lying rodent” (as one of his own side called him) — whose political mendacity and lack of ethics on all manner of issues ultimately elevated lying and institution-trashing into a Coalition pastime, poisoning the very soul of Australian democracy in the process.
No one of a certain vintage could easily forget Howard’s ability to swing an election through unconcealed appeals to racist resentment on asylum seekers, the scars of which linger. Nor could anyone truly forget the egregious falsehoods festooned over the Iraq War and the suite of anti-terrorism measures that followed. And, still less, Howard’s climate scepticism, the irrational loathing he fomented against Indigenous peoples and his conflation of welfare with “dependency culture”, which so happened to coincide with the shameless introduction of profligate tax breaks and perks for middle- and upper-Australia.
It was under Howard, in other words, that the country and its attitudes hardened, becoming less equal, less free, less generous, meaner and more divided and corrupt than ever. But rather than put an end to these toxic political undercurrents and refashion a return to small-l liberal politics, the subsequent Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments readily embraced them, spreading the ghost of Howard thin over a political landscape marked by vanishing futures, avarice and bloodstained prisons.
Well yes, and the latest in that line of monstrous negativity is the mutton Dutton ... and as
Michael Bradley noted in Crikey (again with the paywall) ...
The sophistry of Dutton’s position is transparent, no big deal to see through that. But we must recognise its deeper significance beyond the petty politics: it doesn’t just reflect an ignoring of what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have asked for in open-handed sincerity, it spits it back in their faces.So what does the poor old dog botherer make of recent developments and the spitting in faces? There he was in the line up below the fold cheek by jowl with the oscillating fan...
Talk about a dog bothering voice in the lizard Oz wilderness ...
Perhaps the dog botherer might show how to do it in style?
Resign from Sky after dark, resign from the lizard Oz, show his class and do a Ken Wyatt, head off to
The Conversation and start scribbling pieces such as
The Liberal Party’s ‘no’ position on Voice signals it’s primarily interested in speaking to a nation that no longer exists? Or perhaps ...
The Dog Botherer on Friday: the high cost of the Liberals’ Voice rejection – for both Peter Dutton and the party (apologies to Michelle Grattan for the pond's rich fantasy life)
Fat chance, instead he stays within the fold of the sheep, bleating away, trying to reconcile the irreconcilable ...
Ah, there's a snap of Ken, reminding the dog botherer and the mutton Dutton of their shame ... and reminding the dog botherer, when it comes to principles he has nothing by way of balls.
And so on we go ... and as usual, the behaviour of the mutton Dutton and the craven far right mob that now infests the Liberal party is all the fault of ... no, not them, the Labor party!
Well they can't assume the knowledge for lizard Oz readers, home of bigots, panderers and ne'er do wells on a Catholic high this long weekend, as you'd expect in the Catholic Boys' Daily ... but more of that anon, first time to get through the moaning and the wailing ...
Egad dog botherer, just grow some balls and do a Ken and leave the joint ... what's that, better to blame Labor for the mutton Dutton's egregious behaviour, accompanied as he is by reptiles of the lizard Oz?
The pond spent a few minutes trying to decipher that last sentence. It might have spent a few hours and it still wouldn't have made any sense. Poor fellow, this supine dog botherer...
And so to the fun of the weekend, a celebration of the Catholic Boys' Daily ...
It started early when the lizard Oz slipped this in yesterday ...
The pond had an immediate impression of Jesus railing in the desert at the outrage industry, and talking about the woke mob and cancellations and social media and all that ... only to recall that Jesus himself was something of an outrage industry ... and sure enough, this Fisher of men began to sound like an angry reptile scribbling for the lizard Oz editorial page right from the get go...
As soon as someone starts blathering about cancellation, the pond is inclined to cancel, but there was a treat in the next gobbet ...
Eek, was that men wearing frocks? Is this chap some sort of weird frock lover?
Better stay out of Florida, frock lovers, or there'll be an endless what for. Maybe even the whole of the deep south ...
Oh how they love their frocks, but sssh, don't tell those trans bigots ... and waddya know at this point the reptiles stuck in a bigly huge snap of a Rowling, which the pond immediately downsized ...
Yes, her feeble prose and her dabbling in magic and witchcraft is haunting the lizard Oz this weekend, but now back to the frock lover ...
Of course the pond remembers Jesus railing about cancel culture right through the new testament, but it's time to cancel this Fisher of men with a final gobbet ...
Oh just fuck off, you've taken up far too much of the pond's time, and space has to be found for the Angelic one ... and what do you know, this time it's more woke mob ...
Oh dear ...poor persecuted Angelic one. Is there a homosexual in the house, or perhaps a trans person, so that they can be berated, and thereby ease her pain? Perhaps a woman wanting to assert control of her body, the damned shameless hussy ... likely some kind of wicked witch ...
Ah yes, the pond knew it, those bloody poofters ruining everything, and at this point for no particular reason the reptiles snuck in a bigly huge snap of one of Satan's minions, and again the pond downsized it ...
Did the Angelic one need that pictorial padding? Probably, because the self-pity and the moaning and the sighing and the wailing would get on anyone's nerves ...
Yes, yes, abortion, and all that, and as for Xianity as the foundation stone, is there a porn star in urgent need of a payment in the house?
There'll be more Xian celebrations tomorrow - the pond has a special place reserved for bromancer hell - but the pond found this irresistible as a closer for today...
There's something particularly enjoyable about this JC. The pond realises he's got a book to sell, but it's the manner of the flogging that brings back fond memories of Percy Grainger.
There's Rowling again to kick things off, and never mind that she made a crust peddling magic and witchcraft and assorted piles of guff to a yearning public ... and best of all there's something about her stodgy scribbling style that's an inspiration to JC ...
Hamlet was born guilty? The pond thought it had something to do with his step dad killing his dad and fucking his mum, but that does sound far too Freudian ... but surely correspondents can see why this pompous portentous JC is an Ēostre delight.
There's something about his way with words that brings out the Germanic spring goddess in the pond, even if we're doing it tough in a sodden Sydney autumn ... (fall only if you're inclined to believe tosh about Eve and apples and such like) ...
As for this JC's greatest sin? He doesn't know when to shut up, he goes on and on and on ...
Hmm, is it a sin to roll out the Ēostre eggs and the hot cross buns early and be reminded of fertility rites and ancient pagan Saxons?
Never mind, this JC is still on an interminable roll ...
What's deeply funny about all this? Well you don't have to go back to the Inquisition or the Salem witch trials or any of the other persecutions mounted by Xians against the different and the other, nor even the Crusades ... it's just satisfying to roll the eyes, and thank the long absent lord that Ēostre comes but once a year, and now it's on to that mention of a book, because never forget mammon ...
Ah yes, heaven ... the pond knows all about that and will concede that JC at least gave the pond Life of Brian and the Meaning of Life ... and a splendid time in that golf club above the sky, with pie in the bye and bye for all ...
And so to end with an infallible Pope meditating on the season...
Did anything noteworthy ever happen on Easter Saturday ? Or was it just there for folks to get their shopping done because everything was closed on Sunday and Monday ? And does everybody remember just how much everything was closed down on every Sunday, not just Easter. Anyway, on this Easter Saturday we have the Doggy Bov declaiming that "Even former federal environment minister and factional powerbroker ["Even" ?] has declared his opposition - perhaps Andrews needs to declare Richo a bigot." I reckon it's bleedin' bloody obvious that no 'declaration' is needed, "Richo" has been a known bigot for yonks. And is this some kind of Easter resurrection that Doggy Bov is practising ? The 'resurrection of Richo' ? After all, who but a few reptiles remembers him now.
ReplyDeleteNow, now, GB, be kind to the Swiss bank account man and Gold Coast lover and one time chief head kicker ... there'll be a hooker in heaven for him ...
DeleteIf you say so, DP, and only because you say so. Just a tad too forgiving though maybe.
DeleteThere’s News Corp pressuring readers to take sides against the dastardly dictator Dan for calling the Liberal Party a nasty outfit, while Andrews pointed out that he regarded his job, as leader of the state, was to call out racism, bigotry and mean-spiritedness.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as those who read the Pond know, News Corp has always conducted such respectful debates, as evidence by:
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/news-corp-slammed-for-unbalanced-reporting-on-victorian-premier-as-poll-shows-majority-supports-him/632rawal6
and
https://theconversation.com/attacks-on-dan-andrews-are-part-of-news-corporations-long-abuse-of-power-194023
What was it Kenny said? Oh, yes, the crassness of the News Corp – oops, political - class.
Still, it’s good to see that Kenny and company can say “Forgive Dastardly Dan, Father, he knows not what he is doing”, which can only be described as the greatest Christian method to belittle others’ complaints in the most demeaning way.
It’s so good, too, to see Shanahan be so respectful with her woke labelling (Kenny: “It is best not to categorise people” and “Our default should be to assume good intentions for all”). Given that Christian preachers have berated and sneered at secularists and humanists so often, “it takes the cake”, as Kenny pointed, for Shanahan to be offended when it it is stuck back.
But Shanahan can still call the non-religious position an “anti-culture”, “most wickedly” purporting views and she can label its adherents “woke”, so it’s OK to denigrate non-believers' systems as long as it is not a religion one is chiding. Let’s face it, the priests who talk of anti-Christian, anti-Catholic prejudice regard any criticism of their religion in that vein, which is one reason that the Catholic Church’s sexual deviants continued for so long, because one could not say a word against a priest or nun. She also misrepresents Hitchens opposition to Mother Teresa “because” she helped the poor and dying. His view was that she was not actually helping them and that she often backed powerful interests against those of the powerless.
As for quoting Orban and Meloni. As Kenny said:
“This does not augur well for a respectful debate in the months to come.”
Very neatly covered indeed, Anony - all the important bits, anyway. But just maybe worth adding this in where Doggy Bov says "The Voice, enshrined in the Constitution, is a plan to welcome permanently into our national arrangements the people ignored and discriminated against from the outset." I reckon they'd have much preferred to have been merely "ignored and discriminated against" and not murdered and massacred and had their children stolen and pressed into indented labour and such, yes ?
DeleteThen he also gives us: "It makes up for earlier misdeeds..." Oh yeah, sure it does. "...not through guilt and blame but by providing a positive mechanism to improve the future..." Well of course it will, and all the First Peoples will simply be overcome with gratitude for such a "positive mechanism ... that cannot easily be taken away." Well, we can all rest easily now, can't we: God's word has prevailed and our great mercifulness will fix everything.
You can see the fine line that the lizards must tread. How to support the Coalition and their mission to put business ahead of all else, and to pour vitriol on Labor/The Greens/Teals/..., while at the same time trying to find some angle that might help the Coalition win some votes. Kenny knows that opposing The Voice is a recipe for disaster; given the current polls and the demographics driving them, the Coalition will either end up on the wrong side of history or be seen as the spoilers, either way losing more votes and perhaps, disappearing down the sinkhole of history. So he again indicates that the Coalition should support The Voice, but at the same time eschews the proponents, Labor et al, in all their ghastly forms. It's a sort of 'I hate you but like what you do' story - a very hard sell. You can see how hard it is - even the appeal to apathy via a papermail plebiscite backfired last time, so this is a very tight corner. Still, what's the alternative - unemployment when Rupert wields the axe on those not tyring hard enough? And we have months of this to look forward to! Spare me. Now if the Coalition were strategic, and supported The Voice, we could all move on, and go through the necessary motions in October, painlessly. AG.
DeleteYeah, but Anony, the Coalition just crept out of the sinkhole of history in the first place, so disappearing down it again is just right and fitting, isn't it ?
DeleteThe Fisher of Frocks: "The empty tomb of Jesus was a sign of God's victory over hatred, violence, death, over everything that diminishes the human person and community." But now hang on a mo, didn't this "God" thing actually create the entire universe and all the creatures and souls therein ? So if one of "God's" creations is us and all who ride with us, then isn't any occurrence of "hatred, violence, death" just how God made us to be ? Isn't that therefore how we should be ?
ReplyDeleteAnd who is this 1/3rd of "God" to say differently ? We never did hear from the other 2/3rds of "God" - ie The Father and his Wholley Ghost - did we. Maybe they weren't so keen on this universal "brotherly" (well, it can't be "sisterly" can it because no part of "God the Trio" is female) love.
Ooops, likes like I've got it wrong for all these years: Shannahanna: "We Christians for whom Christ is the second person of the Trinity...". Yair, there I go, just because the Holy Sprit had been around for yonks before JC was yanked into existence, doesn't mean "he" was the second part: "he" was really the third part though spun off second. Oh my, you just have to believe in miracles, don't you.
ReplyDeleteSpun off? You mean like Frasier or Mork and Mindy? I cannot find it listed here
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_spin-offs
My view of the mainstream religions, the ones that are big on monumental architecture, hasn’t really changed from when I first encountered them as a child. Lots of talk about hope and redemption but really just a dreary medieval mindset.
They really only get two chances per year to do some marketing and all we get is a lot of moaning about being the victims of modernity. I would suggest Anthony gets himself nailed to a door to see how it compares to being cancelled.
You've go to go once a week and eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ to be able to see all those spiritual 'spin offs' Bef.
DeleteAah, here we go: "No wonder Mother Theresa's order, the Missionaries of Charity, is flourishing the world over." Was that a mis-spelling ? Should it have been ordure ? Anyway, according to that modern all-knowing testament, Wikipedia, in 2020 the Missionaries of Charity consisted of 5281 members out of a world population of, back then, just under 8 billion "souls".
ReplyDeleteBut that's an extraordinary growth from about a dozen in 1950 to 5281 in 2020 - an increase of just about 75 'missionaries' per year. Yep, in the simple mind and blind eyes of a "Catholic Christian' I guess that would amount to "flourishing", wouldn't it. And since "Mother" Theresa has been recalled by "the Trinity" it probably does approximate to a more or less genuine charity now - well, a Catholic "charity" anyway.
But back to Shanna: "...abortion, which turns a human being into a collection of cells..." Yair, righto, then why did "the Trinity" design and make human (and most animal) life to be created as "a collection of cells" and arrange for so many early (and some late) stage 'miscarriages' where a "collection of cells" is just ejected from the female's reproductive organs without ever coming to any approximation of being a human - and yet each one carries a 'soul' or so we're told. Or is Shanna just as blindly pig-ignorant about human (and animal) reproduction as one would expect from a benighted Catholic mother who has only had 9 children herself and has never detected an early miscarriage, ever.
Let’s also not forget the widespread claims that Mum Theresa’s operation was aimed more at promoting a “cult of suffering” than at providing practical relief. This got a fair amount of coverage in the lead up to her canonisation a few years ago. See https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/27/world/asia/mother-teresa-critic.html along with many other articles.
DeleteOh dear, “A certain columnist at The Australian has just posted her 34th hit piece on Brittany Higgins since December.”
ReplyDelete“She has failed to mention she is now being investigated by ACLEI (future ICAC) for her role in alleged leaks from the AFP. So I thought, for balance, I’d mention it.”
https://twitter.com/SharazDavid/status/1644452289980276736
John the Carroller: "Once the bad has no link to some supernatural order of judgement, once there is no God to set the rules, and to pray to for instruction and forgiveness, then the bad exists purely as a secular moral category."
ReplyDeleteSee, I had it right: the Bible is just God's 'Constitution' for us humans. And like any good Constitution, it is subject to change via 'spiritual referenda' in an ongoing way. And boy, have we been 'referenduming' our way into a very different one from Christ's original.
But then: "Pride, greed, gluttony, lust, sloth, anger and envy are as present in human behaviour as ever." Of course they are, and how could they not be since God's faultless design for humans includes them with no pathway to ever change the original specification. How could there ever be unless God takes that action, because we simple little human beings can't.
PS: "tosh about Eve and apples and such like" - if it's apples that we're on about, then Paradise was in Kazakhstan where apples first 'evolved'.
I find it sorta amusing that Angela’s article is headed by a photo of Pope Frank. Don’t Catholic traditionalists claim that he’s too “woke”?
ReplyDeleteLook, I really don’t give a stuff about the personal religious beliefs of Angela and various other Oz scribblers. And inevitably, most rags have always has a religion-themed article of two at this time of year. But I find it hard to believe that the Lizard Overlords genuinely think that publishing reams of such blather - not just at Easter and Xmas, but right around the calendar - is the way to boost their falling readership. Don’t they realise that the Chairman himself has just opted to reduce the amount of evangelising in his personal life?
Something else to make the Reptiles wail and gnash their teeth; Dictator Dan has just become Victoria’s longest-serving Labor Premier, and the 5th longest-serving overall.
ReplyDelete