quarta-feira, 25 de junho de 2008
WALLY OLINS (Saffron Branding Consulting)-Viewpoints
IMAGINE a world without brands. It existed once, and still exists, more or less, in the world’s poorest places. No raucous advertising, no ugly billboards, no McDonald’s. Yet, given a chance and a bit of money, people flee this Eden. They seek out Budweiser instead of their local tipple, ditch nameless shirts for Gap, prefer Marlboros to home-grown smokes. What should one conclude? That people are pawns in the hands of giant companies with huge advertising budgets and global reach? Or that brands bring something that people think is better than what they had before?
The pawn theory is argued, forcefully if not always coherently, by Naomi Klein, author of No Logo , a book that has become a bible of the anti-globalisation movement. Her thesis is that brands have come to represent a fascist state where we all salute the logo and have little opportunity for criticism because our newspapers, television stations, Internet servers, streets and retail spaces are all controlled by multinational corporate interests. The ubiquity and power of brand advertising curtails choice, she claims; produced cheaply in thirdworld sweatshops, branded goods displace local alternatives and force a grey cultural homogeneity on the world. Brands have thus become stalking horses for international capitalism. Outside the United States, they are now symbols of America’s corporate power, since most of the world’s bestknown brands are American. Around them accrete all the worries about environmental damage, human-rights abuses and sweated labour that anti-globalists like to put on their placards. No wonder brands seem bad.
(...)
The Economist 8 Setemebro 2001
The pawn theory is argued, forcefully if not always coherently, by Naomi Klein, author of No Logo , a book that has become a bible of the anti-globalisation movement. Her thesis is that brands have come to represent a fascist state where we all salute the logo and have little opportunity for criticism because our newspapers, television stations, Internet servers, streets and retail spaces are all controlled by multinational corporate interests. The ubiquity and power of brand advertising curtails choice, she claims; produced cheaply in thirdworld sweatshops, branded goods displace local alternatives and force a grey cultural homogeneity on the world. Brands have thus become stalking horses for international capitalism. Outside the United States, they are now symbols of America’s corporate power, since most of the world’s bestknown brands are American. Around them accrete all the worries about environmental damage, human-rights abuses and sweated labour that anti-globalists like to put on their placards. No wonder brands seem bad.
(...)
The Economist 8 Setemebro 2001
SARAH SILVERMAN-Hostile Acts
SARAH SILVERMAN-Hostile Acts
“The Sarah Silverman Program” puts the mean back in funny.
Hostility may be the engine of humor, but the broadcast networks dread its snarl. Whenever they air a truly mean sitcom, such as the long-gone “Buffalo Bill” or “Action,” the audience flees, so TV executives have learned to muffle their comedies’ barbs in “Only kidding” smirks and “You’re the greatest” hugs. Even on “Seinfeld,” which forbade hugs and learning, the core foursome reserved their mockery for outsiders, for the close-talkers and re-gifters. They were there for one another—the network made sure that we saw the love beneath.
So “The Sarah Silverman Program,” much the meanest sitcom in years—and one of the funniest—premières this week, perforce, on Comedy Central. Silverman, the telescope-necked comedienne, has had trouble finding the right showcase for the contrary elements of her persona: the post-feminist tomboy who’s sexually cocky and emotionally frigid, the eerily alert counterpuncher who’s totally self-involved. (In her 2005 concert movie, “Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic,” Silverman makes out with her own mirrored image.) She is best known for jarring “The Aristocrats,” the documentary about a legendary joke, with her deadpan claim that “Joe Franklin raped me,” and for dropping the epithet “chinks” into a joke on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” Unlike many comedians, Silverman excavates prejudice less by digging into her own background (though in one episode she insincerely promises “full-frontal Jew-dity”) than by strip-mining the turf of other minorities, particularly blacks and gays. Her game is to throw out stereotypes in a little-girl voice and with a winsome look that suggests no offense can legitimately be taken. You might admire Silverman’s boldness, or you might feel that there’s something sneaky in her appropriation of slurs that never wounded her—that it’s the standup equivalent of the person who cuts in line and then can’t believe you object.
In order to read the rest of the article about this sparkling mind please go to:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2007/02/05/070205crte_television_friend?currentPage=2
“The Sarah Silverman Program” puts the mean back in funny.
Hostility may be the engine of humor, but the broadcast networks dread its snarl. Whenever they air a truly mean sitcom, such as the long-gone “Buffalo Bill” or “Action,” the audience flees, so TV executives have learned to muffle their comedies’ barbs in “Only kidding” smirks and “You’re the greatest” hugs. Even on “Seinfeld,” which forbade hugs and learning, the core foursome reserved their mockery for outsiders, for the close-talkers and re-gifters. They were there for one another—the network made sure that we saw the love beneath.
So “The Sarah Silverman Program,” much the meanest sitcom in years—and one of the funniest—premières this week, perforce, on Comedy Central. Silverman, the telescope-necked comedienne, has had trouble finding the right showcase for the contrary elements of her persona: the post-feminist tomboy who’s sexually cocky and emotionally frigid, the eerily alert counterpuncher who’s totally self-involved. (In her 2005 concert movie, “Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic,” Silverman makes out with her own mirrored image.) She is best known for jarring “The Aristocrats,” the documentary about a legendary joke, with her deadpan claim that “Joe Franklin raped me,” and for dropping the epithet “chinks” into a joke on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” Unlike many comedians, Silverman excavates prejudice less by digging into her own background (though in one episode she insincerely promises “full-frontal Jew-dity”) than by strip-mining the turf of other minorities, particularly blacks and gays. Her game is to throw out stereotypes in a little-girl voice and with a winsome look that suggests no offense can legitimately be taken. You might admire Silverman’s boldness, or you might feel that there’s something sneaky in her appropriation of slurs that never wounded her—that it’s the standup equivalent of the person who cuts in line and then can’t believe you object.
In order to read the rest of the article about this sparkling mind please go to:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2007/02/05/070205crte_television_friend?currentPage=2
segunda-feira, 23 de junho de 2008
ARTURO PÉREZ-REVERTE, Permitidme tutearos, imbéciles
Ex presidente del otro. Jefe de la patética oposición. Secretarios generales de partidos nacionales o de partidos autonómicos. Ministros y ex ministros –aquí matizaré ministros y ministras– de Educación y Cultura. Consejeros varios. Etcétera. No quiero que acabe el mes sin mentaros –el tuteo es deliberado– a la madre. Y me refiero a la madre de todos cuantos habéis tenido en vuestras manos infames la enseñanza pública en los últimos veinte o treinta años. De cuantos hacéis posible que este autocomplaciente país de mierda sea un país de más mierda todavía. De vosotros, torpes irresponsables, que extirpasteis de las aulas el latín, el griego, la Historia, la Literatura, la Geografía, el análisis inteligente, la capacidad de leer y por tanto de comprender el mundo, ciencias incluidas. De quienes, por incompetencia y desvergüenza, sois culpables de que España figure entre los países más incultos de Europa, nuestros jóvenes carezcan de comprensión lectora, los colegios privados se distancien cada vez más de los públicos en calidad de enseñanza, y los alumnos estén por debajo de la media en todas las materias evaluadas. Pero lo peor no es eso. Lo que me hace hervir la sangre es vuestra arrogante impunidad, vuestra ausencia de autocrítica y vuestra cateta contumacia. Aquí, como de costumbre, nadie asume la culpa de nada. Hace menos de un mes, al publicarse los desoladores datos del informe Pisa 2006, a los meapilas del Pepé les faltó tiempo para echar la culpa de todo a la Logse de Maravall y Solana –que, es cierto, deberían ser ahorcados tras un juicio de Nuremberg cultural–, pasando por alto que durante dos legislaturas, o sea, ocho años de posterior gobierno, el amigo Ansar y sus secuaces se estuvieron tocando literalmente la flor en materia de Educación, destrozando la enseñanza pública en beneficio de la privada y permitiendo, a cambio de pasteleo electoral, que cada cacique de pueblo hiciera su negocio en diecisiete sistemas educativos distintos, ajenos unos a otros, con efectos devastadores en el País Vasco y Cataluña. Y en cuanto al Pesoe que ahora nos conduce a la Arcadia feliz, ahí están las reacciones oficiales, con una consejera de Educación de la Junta de Andalucía, por ejemplo, que tras veinte años de gobierno ininterrumpido en su feudo, donde la cultura roza el subdesarrollo, tiene la desfachatez de cargarle el muerto al «retraso histórico». O una ministra de Educación, la señora Cabrera, capaz de afirmar impávida que los datos están fuera de contexto, que los alumnos españoles funcionan de maravilla, que «el sistema educativo español no sólo lo hace bien, sino que lo hace muy bien» y que éste no ha fracasado porque «es capaz de responder a los retos que tiene la sociedad», entre ellos el de que «los jóvenes tienen su propio lenguaje: el chat y el sms». Con dos cojones.
Pero lo mejor ha sido lo tuyo, presidente –recuérdame que te lo comente la próxima vez que vayas a hacerte una foto a la Real Academia Española–. Deslumbrante, lo juro, eso de que «lo que más determina la educación de cada generación es la educación de sus padres», aunque tampoco estuvo mal lo de «hemos tenido muchas generaciones en España con un bajo rendimiento educativo, fruto del país que tenemos». Dicho de otro modo, lumbrera: que después de dos mil años de Hispania grecorromana, de Quintiliano a Miguel Delibes pasando por Cervantes, Quevedo, Galdós, Clarín o Machado, la gente buena, la culta, la preparada, la que por fin va a sacar a España del hoyo, vendrá en los próximos años, al fin, gracias a futuros padres felizmente formados por tus ministros y ministras, tus Loes, tus educaciones para la ciudadanía, tu género y génera, tus pedagogos cantamañanas, tu falta de autoridad en las aulas, tu igualitarismo escolar en la mediocridad y falta de incentivo al esfuerzo, tus universitarios apáticos y tus alumnos de cuatro suspensos y tira p’alante. Pues la culpa de que ahora la cosa ande chunga, la causa de tanto disparate, descoordinación, confusión y agrafía, no la tenéis los políticos culturalmente planos. Niet. La tiene el bajo rendimiento educativo de Ortega y Gasset, Unamuno, Cajal, Menéndez Pidal, Manuel Seco, Julián Marías o Gregorio Salvador, o el de la gente que estudió bajo el franquismo: Juan Marsé, Muñoz Molina, Carmen Iglesias, José Manuel Sánchez Ron, Ignacio Bosque, Margarita Salas, Luis Mateo Díez, Álvaro Pombo, Francisco Rico y algunos otros analfabetos, padres o no, entre los que generacionalmente me incluyo.
Qué miedo me dais algunos, rediós. En serio. Cuánto más peligro tiene un imbécil que un malvado.
Pero lo mejor ha sido lo tuyo, presidente –recuérdame que te lo comente la próxima vez que vayas a hacerte una foto a la Real Academia Española–. Deslumbrante, lo juro, eso de que «lo que más determina la educación de cada generación es la educación de sus padres», aunque tampoco estuvo mal lo de «hemos tenido muchas generaciones en España con un bajo rendimiento educativo, fruto del país que tenemos». Dicho de otro modo, lumbrera: que después de dos mil años de Hispania grecorromana, de Quintiliano a Miguel Delibes pasando por Cervantes, Quevedo, Galdós, Clarín o Machado, la gente buena, la culta, la preparada, la que por fin va a sacar a España del hoyo, vendrá en los próximos años, al fin, gracias a futuros padres felizmente formados por tus ministros y ministras, tus Loes, tus educaciones para la ciudadanía, tu género y génera, tus pedagogos cantamañanas, tu falta de autoridad en las aulas, tu igualitarismo escolar en la mediocridad y falta de incentivo al esfuerzo, tus universitarios apáticos y tus alumnos de cuatro suspensos y tira p’alante. Pues la culpa de que ahora la cosa ande chunga, la causa de tanto disparate, descoordinación, confusión y agrafía, no la tenéis los políticos culturalmente planos. Niet. La tiene el bajo rendimiento educativo de Ortega y Gasset, Unamuno, Cajal, Menéndez Pidal, Manuel Seco, Julián Marías o Gregorio Salvador, o el de la gente que estudió bajo el franquismo: Juan Marsé, Muñoz Molina, Carmen Iglesias, José Manuel Sánchez Ron, Ignacio Bosque, Margarita Salas, Luis Mateo Díez, Álvaro Pombo, Francisco Rico y algunos otros analfabetos, padres o no, entre los que generacionalmente me incluyo.
Qué miedo me dais algunos, rediós. En serio. Cuánto más peligro tiene un imbécil que un malvado.
Para Férias-ALEXIS de TOCQUEVILLE(1835)/De la démocratie en Amérique
Par Alexis de Tocqueville
Parmi les objets nouveaux qui, pendant mon séjour aux États-Unis, ont attiré mon attention, aucun n'a plus vivement frappé mes regards que l'égalité des conditions.
Je découvris sans peine l'influence prodigieuse qu'exerce ce premier fait sur la marche de la société; il donne à l'esprit public une certaine direction, un certain tour aux lois; aux gouvernants des maximes nouvelles, et des habitudes particulières aux gouvernés. Bientôt je reconnus que ce même fait étend son influence fort au-delà des moeurs politiques et des lois, et qu'il n'obtient pas moins d'empire sur la société civile que sur le gouvernement: il crée des opinions, fait naître des sentiments, suggère des usages et modifie tout ce qu'il ne produit pas. Ainsi donc, à mesure que j'étudiais la société américaine, je voyais de plus en plus, dans l'égalité des conditions, le fait générateur dont chaque fait particulier semblait descendre, et je le retrouvais sans cesse devant moi comme un point central où toutes mes observations venaient aboutir.
Alors je reportai ma pensée vers notre hémisphère, et il me sembla que j'y distinguais quelque chose d'analogue au spectacle que m'offrait le nouveau monde. Je vis l'égalité des conditions qui, sans y avoir atteint comme aux États-Unis ses limites
extrêmes, s'en rapprochait chaque jour davantage; et cette même démocratie, qui régnait sur les sociétés américaines, me parut en Europe s'avancer rapidement vers le pouvoir.
De ce moment j'ai conçu l'idée du livre qu'on va lire.(...)
Parmi les objets nouveaux qui, pendant mon séjour aux États-Unis, ont attiré mon attention, aucun n'a plus vivement frappé mes regards que l'égalité des conditions.
Je découvris sans peine l'influence prodigieuse qu'exerce ce premier fait sur la marche de la société; il donne à l'esprit public une certaine direction, un certain tour aux lois; aux gouvernants des maximes nouvelles, et des habitudes particulières aux gouvernés. Bientôt je reconnus que ce même fait étend son influence fort au-delà des moeurs politiques et des lois, et qu'il n'obtient pas moins d'empire sur la société civile que sur le gouvernement: il crée des opinions, fait naître des sentiments, suggère des usages et modifie tout ce qu'il ne produit pas. Ainsi donc, à mesure que j'étudiais la société américaine, je voyais de plus en plus, dans l'égalité des conditions, le fait générateur dont chaque fait particulier semblait descendre, et je le retrouvais sans cesse devant moi comme un point central où toutes mes observations venaient aboutir.
Alors je reportai ma pensée vers notre hémisphère, et il me sembla que j'y distinguais quelque chose d'analogue au spectacle que m'offrait le nouveau monde. Je vis l'égalité des conditions qui, sans y avoir atteint comme aux États-Unis ses limites
extrêmes, s'en rapprochait chaque jour davantage; et cette même démocratie, qui régnait sur les sociétés américaines, me parut en Europe s'avancer rapidement vers le pouvoir.
De ce moment j'ai conçu l'idée du livre qu'on va lire.(...)
BEPPE GRILLO-L’uomo moderno
L’uomo moderno è uno e trino. Cittadino, consumatore, azionista. In percentuali diverse. In Italia, come in gran parte del mondo, prevale il consumatore, segue l’azionista e poi viene il cittadino. Le tre personalità sono in conflitto permanente tra loro, una schizofrenia latente. Il prodotto deve costare poco, chi lo produce deve distribuire alti dividendi, ma l’azienda non deve inquinare, creare precariato, morti sul lavoro, distruggere le relazioni sociali, le comunità locali. Il falso in bilancio non è più considerato come problema, si fa direttamente il bilancio falso per non perdere tempo. Se la scelta su chi essere, se il dottor Jekill o mister Hyde, è lasciata all’italiano, questi si trasformerà in Hyde. Il cittadino Jekill si occupa della cosa pubblica, il consumatore e azionista Hyde preferisce i soldi. Pagare di meno, consumare e incassare di più è il primo articolo non scritto delle nostra Costituzione.
Hyde si irrita se gli ricordi chi è: un fallito sociale. Usa le parole magiche che ha imparato a memoria. Il libero mercato che si autoregola (fino all’esaurimento delle risorse), la finanza globale (senza controlli da parte degli Stati), il capitalismo glorioso apripista della democrazia (falso, la Cina ha libertà economica, ma non politica).
Lo Stato dovrebbe proteggere il cittadino con le leggi, con i controlli, ma non può più farlo. I suoi elettori non sono i cittadini, ma i gruppi economici che ne influenzano le opinioni attraverso i media. I suoi rappresentanti in Parlamento non hanno come priorità l’equità sociale, ma l’ubbidienza cieca e assoluta ai partiti che li hanno nominati. Le Authority di controllo sono enti diretti da trombati politici al guinzaglio corto. E’ uno Stato che si è fatto mercato della cosa pubblica. Che fa concessioni ai suoi amici, spesso anche al governo senza soffrire di crisi di identità.
Hyde segue il pifferaio magico e invece di fare i soldi si indebita. La maggior parte della ricchezza è concentrata nel 3% delle popolazione. La nuova povertà è invece diventata epidemica. Le concessioni statali, radiotelevisioni, autostrade, acqua (roba nostra) sono un lucroso affare privato tra aziende, Benetton, Impregilo, Mediaset e partiti azienda, PDL e PDmenoelle. Una democrazia con il trucco, un gioco delle tre carte in cui chi crede di vincere perde sempre. Il mazziere è lo Stato, i mazziati gli italiani.
Hyde si irrita se gli ricordi chi è: un fallito sociale. Usa le parole magiche che ha imparato a memoria. Il libero mercato che si autoregola (fino all’esaurimento delle risorse), la finanza globale (senza controlli da parte degli Stati), il capitalismo glorioso apripista della democrazia (falso, la Cina ha libertà economica, ma non politica).
Lo Stato dovrebbe proteggere il cittadino con le leggi, con i controlli, ma non può più farlo. I suoi elettori non sono i cittadini, ma i gruppi economici che ne influenzano le opinioni attraverso i media. I suoi rappresentanti in Parlamento non hanno come priorità l’equità sociale, ma l’ubbidienza cieca e assoluta ai partiti che li hanno nominati. Le Authority di controllo sono enti diretti da trombati politici al guinzaglio corto. E’ uno Stato che si è fatto mercato della cosa pubblica. Che fa concessioni ai suoi amici, spesso anche al governo senza soffrire di crisi di identità.
Hyde segue il pifferaio magico e invece di fare i soldi si indebita. La maggior parte della ricchezza è concentrata nel 3% delle popolazione. La nuova povertà è invece diventata epidemica. Le concessioni statali, radiotelevisioni, autostrade, acqua (roba nostra) sono un lucroso affare privato tra aziende, Benetton, Impregilo, Mediaset e partiti azienda, PDL e PDmenoelle. Una democrazia con il trucco, un gioco delle tre carte in cui chi crede di vincere perde sempre. Il mazziere è lo Stato, i mazziati gli italiani.
DAVID HOCKNEY-Onward And Upward With The Arts, Lawrence Weschler
Lawrence Weschler, Onward and Upward with the Arts, "The Looking Glass," The New Yorker, January 31, 2000, p. 64
ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS about David Hockney's theory that the Old Masters of the early sixteenth century made extensive use of optical devices to achieve their results... Tells how Hockney first noticed the possibility when comparing Andy Warhol sketches he knew had been produced with the aid of a slide projector, and sketches by Ingres, which had the same line... He theorized that Ingres could have been using "a camera, a refracting instrument of some sort.” Hockney reminded writer that cameras and lenses long predated the invention of chemically fixed photography. Describes Hockney's own camera lucida—a tiny prism (barely wider than an eyeball) suspended, as if free-floating, at the end of a flexible metal rod...Hockney draws writer using the prism... Hockney shows writer a woodcut by Durer with a cumbersome pre-lensed optical measuring device... Of course, optics don’t make paintings; artists do....The transition to lens-assisted artistic production was not without its controversies. Caravaggio, for instance, was regularly attacked by his more conventionally perspectival academic contemporaries... Hockney pointed out that photography grew directly out of the camera lucida. Rummaging around in his pile, he read from William Henry Fox Talbot’s account of how, in 1833, by the shores of Lake Como, he’d been attempting to sketch with a camera lucida, though “with the smallest possible amount of success.” For, Talbot went on, “when the eye was removed from the prism—in which all looked beautiful—I found that the faithless pencil had only left traces on the paper melancholy to behold....The idea occurred to me...how charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably, and remain fixed upon the paper!”...Mentions Hockney's example of Giovanni Bellini’s portrait of the Doge of Venice, circa 1500—an extraordinary painting. Then he told me to turn to the opposite page, which was filled with a detail of the Doge’s face in black and-white or, rather, sepia. “And there you can really see it,” Hockney said. “Something about the sepia tonalities, perhaps, but the image looks for all the world like some antique 1870 photograph of an Indian raja...." Hockney also points out that there are an unusual number of left-handed people in portraits from the era—a circumstance easily explained by the reversing effect of the lens... Writer interviews Gary Tinterow, a senior curator of paintings at the Metropolitan Museum about Caravaggio and Ingres... A historian attempts to correct Hockney by pointing out that Galileo doesn't happen until 1608... Hockney points out that a 1518 painting depicts the Pope Leo X holding a magnifying glass...
ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS about David Hockney's theory that the Old Masters of the early sixteenth century made extensive use of optical devices to achieve their results... Tells how Hockney first noticed the possibility when comparing Andy Warhol sketches he knew had been produced with the aid of a slide projector, and sketches by Ingres, which had the same line... He theorized that Ingres could have been using "a camera, a refracting instrument of some sort.” Hockney reminded writer that cameras and lenses long predated the invention of chemically fixed photography. Describes Hockney's own camera lucida—a tiny prism (barely wider than an eyeball) suspended, as if free-floating, at the end of a flexible metal rod...Hockney draws writer using the prism... Hockney shows writer a woodcut by Durer with a cumbersome pre-lensed optical measuring device... Of course, optics don’t make paintings; artists do....The transition to lens-assisted artistic production was not without its controversies. Caravaggio, for instance, was regularly attacked by his more conventionally perspectival academic contemporaries... Hockney pointed out that photography grew directly out of the camera lucida. Rummaging around in his pile, he read from William Henry Fox Talbot’s account of how, in 1833, by the shores of Lake Como, he’d been attempting to sketch with a camera lucida, though “with the smallest possible amount of success.” For, Talbot went on, “when the eye was removed from the prism—in which all looked beautiful—I found that the faithless pencil had only left traces on the paper melancholy to behold....The idea occurred to me...how charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably, and remain fixed upon the paper!”...Mentions Hockney's example of Giovanni Bellini’s portrait of the Doge of Venice, circa 1500—an extraordinary painting. Then he told me to turn to the opposite page, which was filled with a detail of the Doge’s face in black and-white or, rather, sepia. “And there you can really see it,” Hockney said. “Something about the sepia tonalities, perhaps, but the image looks for all the world like some antique 1870 photograph of an Indian raja...." Hockney also points out that there are an unusual number of left-handed people in portraits from the era—a circumstance easily explained by the reversing effect of the lens... Writer interviews Gary Tinterow, a senior curator of paintings at the Metropolitan Museum about Caravaggio and Ingres... A historian attempts to correct Hockney by pointing out that Galileo doesn't happen until 1608... Hockney points out that a 1518 painting depicts the Pope Leo X holding a magnifying glass...
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