Who Wants To Be A CEO?

Have you always dreamed of running a company but not exactly gotten it together to amass the necessary qualifications? Have you thought it would be pretty cool to really just be the face of some organisation (provided it’s not currently taking a little heat for some unfortunate accident or being accused of harvesting and trafficking aborted baby parts out of its offices on West Street) but not do any heavy lifting behind the scenes? Today is your lucky day, provided you’re Caucasian

[excerpt from CNBC] “If you’re a white guy in China and you own a suit — Congratulations! You’re hired. There’s an odd trend brewing there, where companies hire fake executives from the U.S. and other Western nations to attend events, give speeches and generally just to give that appearance in the community and in the business world of that connection with the western world.

‘I think it says a lot about the business culture here,’ said Mitch Moxley, a freelance writer living in Beijing who was hired to be a fake businessman for a high-tech company building a factory in Dongying, five hours south of Beijing. ‘Face is hugely important in China, and having foreigners in suits I guess gives some credibility to the companies. You’d be amazed how often this happens.’ Moxley said he, along with five other guys, was hired to be a “quality-control expert” for $1,000 a week, though it was made clear to him at the time of hiring that they wouldn’t be doing any quality control. The job would entail attending some dinners, going to a ceremony and touring the factory once a day. The rest of the time, he and the other “executives” sat in fly-ridden office, where they slept, read magazines and joked around.”

Tawny and me

Humide mermaid series / collaboration in progress

When he is the perfect gentleman

if a bird moves you know what it is.4

I’m Not Here. An Exhibition Without Natalie Ward.

“Maybe you don’t need to see the work, you just need to hear about it.”

[In process / from Statement] This is a solo exhibition that takes the form of a group exhibition in which works evoke the atmosphere of the work of an absent self, but the show will not contain literal illustrations of my oeuvre or specific aspects of my practice. By shifting the spotlight from a well-established format to related artistic practices, this exhibition not only seeks to redistribute agency, but also engender a critical interrogation of the format of the ‘solo show’.

Many of the works in the exhibition are minor interventions or poetic gestures, which will ultimately be “distributed” as rumours or linger as hearsay. Through their ephemeral and minimalist characters, these works share an affinity with my way of working, but a deeper reading hopefully reveals deviation of, variation in relation to or even confrontation with my standard practice.

My question: is documentation the only valid means of reviving or representing once-only occurrences? Separately, there is an attempt to interrogate the nature of a “real” encounter with performances on a personal level or in a particular situation. And still other pieces will question the meaning of minor interventions in an institutional context and in the public sphere, and explore the limits of political efficacy when their singular gestures are infused with a broader social meaning.

Excerpt from ‘the sea isn’t a place’.1.3

Sprawling over the table with arrested pen, I glance out the window, and in the frame of my vision I see what I think are stars flying upwards between the teakwood jambs on a black sky. The whole lot take flight together and disappear, leaving only a blackness flecked with white flashes, for it is the sea as black as the sky and speckled with foam afar; the stars that had flown to the perceived roll come back on the return swing of this ship, rushing downwards in their glittering multitude, not of fiery points, but enlarged to tiny discs brilliant with clear wet sheen.

I watch these stars for another moment, my throat tightens; I write “21h00 swell increasing. Heart labouring and taking water on her decks. Battened down the coolies for the night. Barometer falling.” I pause, and press the pen, “nothing whatever will come of it.”

But I resolutely close my entry “every appearance of a typhoon coming on.”

Verbissen

You told me you were lads then, your brother and you,
living in burnt-out tanks outside the city. You
each had your own tank. By day you clambered about, by night
you slept in pitch-dark bunkers, with no thought of home.
Your mother was already dead and your dad was a soldier on a front.
You ate with your hands what you could find on the fields,
potatoes you dug from the ground, and doves you’d grill
on an open fire just like the farm boys, and with your teeth
tore the meat from the bones. You said it was tough, and good.

There were more of you, underfed, agile and sly.
Authority was no more – you were altogether almighty
where you were. And mechanised – coated
in a rusty scabbiness, from the old metal.

You ate war. You knew: whose aeroplanes were overhead,
what type of bomb . . . you said you had code names for yourselves
gleaned from a half-burnt history book. Who was the Jew
amongst you – who understood Russian? Verbissen you called him
but his code name was Titian. After the war
he became a metalsmith of sorts. One day
with a whitehot iron he burnt
the Star of David into his arm,
lest he ever forget.

Kuho project in process / when a bird moves you know.3

David’s Nerthus

Afternoon sun of the Ohio’s August
daubed the studio with early rust.

I bristled, now the apprentice
to nail the every world to its sentence.

David handed me
a copy of Heaney’s ‘Nerthus’.

I read.
From Heaney-soil, that concrete dark,

an unseen ash-fork staked in bog:
my first portents of a winter north.

I had heard the name
but not Heaney’s Great Chain of Verbs.

I stall. And can not fathom
the quiet mesh of kesh and loaning

that lull and push of middle-voice
that verb say

the long-grained never static
of the poem’s non-finite aesthetic.

And then you were gone

My best and first mate Titian A.

Once I found myself on deck.1

Once – once – I found myself on deck. I don’t know how I got there, or what possessed me to go there, but there I was; and completely dressed too, with my father’s pea coat on, and a pair of boots such as no weak passenger in their senses could have ever got into. I found myself standing, when a gleam of consciousness came upon me, holding on to something. I don’t know what. I think it was the boatswain, or it may have been the pump, or possibly the dog. I can’t say how long I had been there; whether a day or a minute. I recollect trying to think about something (about anything in the whole wide world, I was not particular) without the smallest effect. I could not even make out which was the sea, and which the sky, for the horizon seemed drunk, and was flying wildly about, in all directions.

Even in that incapable state, however, I recognised a lazy passenger standing before me: nautically clad in a suit of shaggy blue, with a wool hat. But I was too imbecile, although I knew it to be he, to separate him from his dress; and tried to call him, I remember, the pilot. After another interval of total unconsciousness, I found he had gone, and recognised another figure in his place. It seemed to wave and fluctuate before me as though I saw it in an unsteady mirror; but I knew it for my father; and such was the cheerful influence of his face, that I tried to smile: yes, even then I tried to smile. I saw by his gestures that he addressed me; but it was a long time before I could make out that he remonstrated again my standing up to my knees in water – as I was; of course I don’t know why. I tried to thank him, but couldn’t. I could only point to my boots – or wherever I supposed my boots to be – and said in a plaintive voice, “rubber soles”: at the same time endeavouring, I was told later, to sit down in the pool.

Finding that I was quite insensible, and for the time a near maniac, he gently led me below.

Save me; this poor soul has gone in a boat to the north on the wind

Diptych.9 / when a bird moves it knows what it is

June star

Summon all the nations, so that we can allot the stars:
The stars should be allocated,
You, Basotho people, take the Dogstar, the Harvest star before winter’s over,
And share it with the Tswana and Chopi, and other loin-cloth wearers,
The Zulu will take the belt of Orion,
And share it with the Swazi, the Chopi and the Shangaan,
(As well as all the other uncircumcised peoples).

You from Britain, take Venus,
And share it with the Germans and the Boers.
(You whites-who-do-not-know-how-to-share-anything
Learn to share it with the Boers and the Germans).

I will hold on to the June star,
That group of seven stars,
Is the star by which I count my years now,
I count the years of being a hunter,
I count the years of adulthood,
I can go on and on,
but here I will stop.

To-day

i wish i could get up like yesterday
wash, get dressed, go to work like
yesterday
but to-day is a different day
to-day, everything i know is lost and everything which is lost is me
maybe tomorrow will be better
if i can only get through the danger of to-day

ek wens ek kon opstaan soos gister
gaan was, aantrek, gaan werk soos gister
maar
vandag is ’n ander gister
vandag is alles wat mooi is lelik
en alles wat lelik is ek
miskien is môre beter
as ek net deur die gevaar
van vandag
kan kom

Has A Lack Of Love From The Public Driven Bankers Into Extra-Marital Affairs?

Yes, my colleagues and I have just learned that’s the conclusion drawn from the results of a recent survey by an “affair-facilitating website”, despite the fact that none of the financial services hacks surveyed responded to the question, “Why are you cheating” with the answer “because the public just isn’t giving it to me like it used to.”

Here’s what they did say:

“Just want to feel loved”

“For the thrill”

“Unstable home life”

“To escape the mundane”

“To boost the ego”

“To avoid costly divorces”

“To lavish my hard earned money on someone”

“I’m entitled to it” (!!!!)

“Because I can”

“Peer pressure” (wtf?)

Obviously though, perhaps I’m just not reading between the lines. Maybe the longer version of the Goldman Sachs employee’s response “just want to feel loved” is “just want to feel loved; wouldn’t have to B my L on some T’s that don’t belong to my W if the public would stop hating on me…” Regardless of your decision to d** your wic* in someone strange, take heart! You no longer have to hide it from your colleagues. Everybody does it and they want you to talk about it:

Said one respondent: “Where I work, many of the tops dogs are open about their affairs. Having a mistress is like having a flash car.”

Bloody hell.

Caption Contest Tuesday

No, no, no…Gary, pivot a little in your chair. Yes, right there. Hold it! See? In the mirror? My tie is metallic pink. A power tie. A tie not to be trifled with. Yours is just bloody salmon-colored. And you know where salmon go? They swim against the current and they die. Is that the message you want to send? Really? Why do I even waste my time with you?

texting

Naim

Naim is a Fish
At the moment, Naim is a fish.
He has fins.
He has gills.
Of course, what I see
is a small boy of five years
communing with one solitary fish that’s
been placed in a pitcher full of water,
but these are mere facts.
Nothing to be confused with reality.
No.
What’s real is that Naim
is a fish.
So much so that it does not occur to him
that he cannot breathe underwater.
A ridiculous observation in his point of view.
Why would a fish dwell on such menial things?

At this moment I am a human being.
One of the adult sort, I stand at this light table
some twelve feet distant.
I the mature human
relate just as mature humans
are supposed to relate.
I exist in the body I was given,
and yet…
As I glance over at Naim,
a part of me wants to peel away
and join him.
Here in the studio I wrestle issues of
such heavy import
while there at Naim’s table,
wondrous things are happening.
Naim is a fish!
How can you not see the marvel in this?

Perhaps you envision Naim
pretending to be a fish, but no.
That is an adult assumption.
Though we might see a small boy
there on his elbows,
mere inches away from a pitcher of water,
that… That is not Naim.
No.
Naim is in that pitcher.
Naim is there in that water.
He is at one with all things aquatic.
All things piscine.
He is so much a fish
he doesn’t know that water exists.
There is no him inside water
for water simply is.
It eases through his mouth
with each subconscious gulp
to pass through his gills as mere…
…sigh.

Why waste his time pondering frivolities
when there are better fishbowl conundrums
to puzzle over.

Naim moves to the inner edge
of the pitcher’s thick glass
and looking out sees a small boy
gazing in.
Far beyond that boy
a woman stands at a long table with arms full of film.
Swishing his tail,
he nudges up against some hard invisible barrier.
And there in his piscine mind a question forms,
“What? What does that human desire?
She looks such an old woman.
So old, yet surely she longs for… something.”

Isn’t the answer evident?
She
She desires that return to innocence.
That forever sense of wonder.
She?
She
wants to be Naim.

TARP fraud compounded by…fraud?

I am shocked, shocked to learn that book cooking has been going on in here. (Maybe). At least, TARPs “top cop” thinks so. (Maybe). Apparently, he’s on the case. (Maybe).

[Excerpt from Financial Times]

“The Official policing the $700 billion Tarp fund says he is investigating whether banks have ‘cooked their books’ to secure bail-out money.

Neil Barofsky, special inspector-general for the troubled asset relief programme, told the Financial Times he was seeking evidence of wrongdoing on the part of banks receiving help from the fund, which was designed to ease credit conditions and support distressed industries.

Quote: “I hope we don’t find a single bank that’s cooked their books to try to get money but I don’t think that’s going to be the case,” said Mr Barofsky, who has been dubbed the “Tarp cop”.”

[End excerpt]

I hope so too! True, I’d have lots to write about, but imagine the crash that would follow if it turned out a few good banks had been a little more than aggressive with the accounting. All bets would be off, I suspect.

There’s a graffiti war going on..

I feel it is my duty to advise you there is a graffiti war going on in the loo at the Tenth Street branch of the Park Slope Tea Lounge.

The bathroom at the popular cafe is filled with several heated exchanges that reveal the ongoing turf wars in the neighborhood. One prominent note on the wall reads: “To the Tea Lounge Nazis, do us the favor and f*** off.” Below that lovely missive, someone scrawled an angry retort: “Then stay out of the Slope.” Nearby, a seemingly innocuous message saying “music is the weapon of the future” provoked this reply: “disagree it’s baby strollers.”

This graffitti is like a hate crime against the stroller yuppies in their holy inner sanctum — can’t we all just get along?

Throw the stress ball

So you know those stress tests all the big guys took? Yes, you do. Don’t play dumb. The ones that were based on awful economic assumptions intended to be a “worst case” scenario analysis about what would happen if things got “this bad?” Yes, the one that had unemployment at 8.4% for a baseline “this sucks” scenario (we’ve already exceeded that – Go Team!!). Well, grading time has begun:

“Top federal bank regulators plan to meet early this week to discuss how to analyze the results of stress tests being conducted on the country’s 19 largest banks, people familiar with the matter said. Regulators announced the tests two months ago as part of an effort to determine how much assistance big banks might need to continue lending if the economic downturn worsens. The government is wrestling with how to bolster the lenders without appearing to prop up banks that are beyond repair.”

So what do the results of the stress tests mean? Well, I am really, really, for sure not going to let a bank that takes the test fail…

“The announcement of the tests in February drove down bank stocks, as investors fretted that the government might use the tests to shut down or nationalize lenders. The Obama administration has said it won’t let any of the banks undergoing the tests to fail.”

…and I am seriously not going to let the results leak out. Seriously. I promise…

“”I think serious efforts will be made to respect the confidential nature of the test and its results,” he said, but added that “there is a real danger that the results of the stress test are uncovered and this roils the markets.”"

It is the return of Double Secret Probation! Wipe that smirk off your face, mister. This is serious business

Note

Doomed! (electric avenue version)

It is just a lot of fuss over a simple lost vowel, I know – but this was no ordinary vowel. General Electric’s third “A” in this case. The platinum and diamond encrusted antique letter, which had been worn ceaselessly by the old girl since the Eisenhower Administration, was reportedly stolen and silently replaced in the middle of the night with some poor excuse for a lowercase “T” – as if no one would notice.

Strangely, senior employees at CNBC have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own cash to organize a search for the missing piece, while Starbucks has announced it will be accepting GE options issued as part of employee stock options programs in lieu of their much-in-demand “10% of any latte beverage” coupons.

One of my tipsters points out that Henry Kravis has been secretly lusting after the letter for years and openly speculates that, even as you read this, the big HK is leaning back in a massive leather chair and pressing a concealed button under the arm which subdues the lights and opens a secret panel on the far wall to reveal the carefully illuminated missing letter. We’re not going to find it at any of the usual fences, said tipster laments.

Prompting me to wonder: What’s The Crack Cocaine Of Anthropology?

“Buy America” (I’ve always thought this particular version of patriotic claptrap somewhat unfortunately spelled) provisions haven’t exactly been a popular notion, but I wouldn’t go so far as to compare them with addictive stimulants (though that depends). Others seem to have no issue with throwing around the C-word. To wit, quoting Richard Fisher from yesterday’s C-Span Washington Journal:

“Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher warned on Monday against *Buy America* provisions in a proposed fiscal stimulus law and said it could lead to devastating trade protectionism.”

“Let me just be blunt. Protectionism is the crack cocaine of economics. It may provide a high…it’s addictive and [it] leads to economic death.”

Well, it made headlines, so he’s got that going for him.

Let the devil take the hindmost

You know, we’re at one of those interesting points in history where self-interest and idealism converge. I’ve had days and days where the stock market continued to fall and continues to fall, and the analysts express such shock. And I will admit right here that I don’t understand much of this, and I don’t think that makes me far different from most of the people hearing the news, that somehow it hasn’t seemed counterintuitive to continued to fall, because one thing I do know is that it was at such an artificially elevated level to start.

If we are in fact on ground where it’s safe to stand, we can fall and get up and fall and get up again, which most of us do every day. And, yes, I do feel that we all knew at some level, if we took a moment to think about it, that there was a huge amount of artificial altitude, elevation, inflation in this society, that housing prices were ridiculous, that stock prices were way beyond value. And we now know in fact that a lot of that was a purposely contrived illusion — in which we all happily colluded, because they were many of them pleasant illusions because we are talking about mature markets having made gains over 25 years and now reached a place where no more growth is possible.

However, when shareholders continue to demand the same kind of growth in a mature market that they experienced prior to it’s maturation, there are only two possible ways to create this illusion of growth. One is to cook the books (that was Enron’s answer), and the other is to gobble up some portion of a competitor’s market, claim it for a while — telling your stockholders that this is real growth — knowing all the while that sooner or later another competitor is going to gobble it back up from you. So you create the illusion of growth by in effect eating your young. And those were among the market illusions that all of us bought into because — why? We enjoy feeling fat and happy even if we really aren’t.

I personally know there are a lot of people working those territories who knew, not just instinctively, but factually, what was going on. There were people who actually understood the mathematics behind these bogus subprime mortgages, for example. What was it that kept those people from saying the emperor has no clothes. One is fear of what happens to whistleblowers in our institutions and our society, which is that they get marginalized at least and they lose their jobs and all future opportunities in that line of work at worst, and the other emotion of course is called greed — which is that somehow I have not only a right, but an absolute need to claim more than my share out of this, and if someone else suffers I really don’t care. Let the devil take the hindmost. Now, these have to do with the inner dynamics of a person’s life, and it truly baffles me as to why in this society we continue to think that all reality and all power in terms of what drives human affairs lies in these external objective factors like policy and institutional arrangement and money when in fact there is an equally real and powerful set of drivers of human history that reside within us in the dynamics of the human heart. Which to me is not a vague and abstract phrase or a sentimental phrase or mere metaphor; it’s actually something that you can work with, that you can discipline, that you can form, that you can focus, and you can deploy to good or bad effect in the world; at present the lesser angels have enormous power.

More Madoff family photos

I speculate it’s another day to end in the letter ‘y’ — and you know what that means — another goddamn picture of Andy and Mark Madoff fishing, or about to be fishing, or frying a fish or f***ing a fish, because goodness knows the dare was challenged and accepted during one of the inordinate number of expeditions these two went on while the Ponz was going down in New York.

Cries of the Big Three

Since I have a newsroom just below me I happen to know, at the moment, the execs are late.

That’s what Congress gets for making them drive.

Sen. Robert Bennett: Hey, I’ve got a brilliant idea. Why don’t we just have all the debt holders convert all their debt to equity. That would solve the problem of the large debt burdens these automakers have to service, right? And the equity holders would then be able to oversee the business strategy of the auto makers and force them to evolve.

And this pretty much sums up Congress’ ignorance in these matters. Try to understand: No one wants to own stock in these liquidity black holes anymore, Senator. You really think that the banks want to end up holding the keys here and actively managing these money pits? Ugh.

What amazes me is how much discussion can go on about the importance of lending, warranty, jobs, taxes, oversight, and yet the key factor driving much of Detroit’s ills is totally ignored — their product simply sucks.

I’m so good I should play for the Detroit Lions