Cassel's Luxury

Vincent Cassel, seemingly a man of character, blessed with a face that can never be categorized in simple terms, has had a fruitful career. Last appreciated in Black Swan, he has the talent to be both disgustingly creepy and sensitively charming. His latest work in the advertisement biz now proves that he really got that duality down.

"Luxury is a right" the Lancia Ypsilon 5x1,5m advert will have you believe. People all over the world are being bombarded with this message, so I suppose I wasn't the only one looking at an almost grim looking Cassel and wondering, "Are you kidding me?"

After a Chandlerian phase of wh-why-whying, I tried to decipher the subtext of the advert. Are you telling me luxury should be a basic human right while there are still people who can't afford food or clean water? Who could possibly look at that sentence and be, "Well, finally, someone's on the same page as me!", except for some jackass escapist who models his/her life after hotel chain heiresses? The advert is almost punk in its fuck-you-I'm-admitting-I'm-a-superficial-ass-and-admit-it-so-are-you kind of way.

Turns out, it's more of a let-them-eat-cake kinda thing. The televised advert is the key to understanding the message: Cassel rants about neverending greed, about measuring success only by the worth and mass of one's possessions, trying to define the meaning of luxury and coming to the conclusion that the greatest luxury are the simple things. Like an affordable car, apparently.

So, obviously the dude is all in on anti-capitalist rethoric, telling the world that even those who have nothing - or rather at 12'500 Euro - can and should be able to afford the luxury of a five door car.

Honestly, though, I don't reaaally buy it. I'm all for spending my last money on overprices coffee or a really nice pair of shoes, but the message that is at the heart of this campaign - about luxury being a right, not a priviledge and whatnot - just don't sound right. I wonder to whom it does...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYAY7Fmgahs

This World We Share

Worrying and ranting is all I seem to be doing these days. The rants usually start with "*ç%&/+! Can't these morons see that..." and are usually directed at decision makers and voters and the uncritical media whom I deem to be co-responsible for this world going down the drain. What's up with CEOs, presidents and ministers taking risks - like sanctioning unsafe deep sea drilling projects or building badly run nuclear power plants in unsafe areas - that affect us all and then claiming that they will take responsibility in case something goes wrong. Can we use their bodies to stuff the hole in case a fail safe fails and we need to make sure than the ocean is not too poisoned (again) or that the radiation doesn't kill us all?

We're aware that we can't expect to suddenly act intelligently when warned that their actions have or could have negative consequences for all. If people believe that they need an off-roader they will continue to believe they do and if people want to believe that the industrial breeding and slaughter of animals has no negative influence on the environment, the economy and humanity, a little left-wing activism will hardly convince them of the contrary.

But when one catastrophe follows the other and we have pretty conclusive evidence that taking certain risks can have devastating effects, wouldn't that be the point where the CEOs and ministers are told to shut up and stop pretending they don't have to share the blame? Wouldn't that be the point where we all cry out, especially us gals, and say:

"Hey, you want me to reproduce and create little human beings to live in this world? Then why don't you see that they'll have air to breath, water to drink and not more than the usual amount of fingers and heads? I'm thrilled you get a big bonus at the end of the year because your lobbying efforts have caused the government to bend over once again for the wishes of stockholders, but this is my world as much as it is yours, and I'd appreciate if you didn't crap all over it."

You can do that by voting and seeing that economic interests - which translates into the interests of a few people at the top who live by the motto "get rich and kill trying" and their shareholders - do not govern us by cutting back on regulations. The interests of the few, fostered by right-wing republicanism, will finally amount to the end of us all. And I am really not fine with that.

P.S. I think women should strike and stop reproducing -and by that I mean giving birth, not sex - until we are promised that our kids are gonna be alright. And it really doesn't look it at the moment. Could be effective...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/

My Deep Appreciation

So little can say so much, especially when you've got a good sense of humor. Enjoy...

Umberto Eco: Regretfully, we are returning your manuscript
( Anonymous, "The Bible")

I must say that the first few hundred pages of this manuscript really hooked me. Action-packed, they have everything today’s reader wants in a good story. Sex (lots of it, including adultery, sodomy, incest), also murder, war, massacres, and so on.
The Sodom and Gomorrah chapter, with the tranvestites putting the make on the angels, is worthy of Rabelais; the Noah stories are pure Jules Verne; the escape from Egypt cries out to be turned into a major motion picture . . . In other words, a real blockbuster, very well structured, with plenty of twists, full of invention, with just the right amount of piety, and never lapsing into tragedy.
But as I kept on reading, I realized that this is actually an anthology, involving several writers, with many–too many–stretches of poetry, and passages that are downright mawkish and boring, and jeremiads that make no sense.
The end result is a monster omnibus. It seems to have something for everybody, but ends up appealing to nobody. And acquiring the rights from all these different authors will mean big headaches, unless the editor takes care of that himself. The editor’s name, by the way, doesn’t appear anywhere on the manuscript, not even in the table of contents. Is there some reason for keeping his identity a secret?
I’d suggest trying to get the rights only to the first five chapters. We’re on sure ground there. Also come up with a better title. How about The Red Sea Desperadoes?

Taken from Misreadings (Mariner Books, 1993) by U. Eco and William Weaver (Translator)

Semantics of Faith

The belief that one must respect faith prevails almost universally in Western circles. You might not be forced to adopt a clear religious line - no, we're much too liberated and enlightned for that - but saying anything negative about relgion in general is already considered unseemly. Except maybe if you're talking about Islam, then people will not mind so much, because it's been generally accepted that they must obviously be backward and weird considering the state of affairs in "their" part of the world. Atheists are of course also not worth respecting - I mean, hey, they're going to hell so why bother with them.

If you, however, should dare to point out that Catholocism as an institution, and not only the myriad of perverted priests that abuse children, is harmful and is directly responsible for a lot of the evil that they themselves are less than appreciative of, it's all "Whoa, hey, don't insult a religion, it's just not right, man!"

Where does this mellowness come from? Who said that religion, that might have been co-responsible from civilizatory accomplishments but that today, should play no role at all in public affairs, has earned my respect? Religion has proven itself to be the greatest and most fabulous alibi for people to destroy lives.

You want my respect? Earn it. And I think that it's pretty clear that most religious institutions will never do so because they are based on what some old dudes wrote a long time ago about the worthlessness of women and homosexuals, the validity of rape as punishment and so on an so forth.

However, that has nothing to do with the individual. While I don't believe that I have to respect any religion, I have to respect the person and that person's beliefs. If a priest is a regular good guy who does a lot of good, I don't see why I should no admire his efforts and deeds. Many people, as religion itself prescribes, do it the other way around - they dismiss a whole culture or group based on their personal beliefs because of the disdain for their religion as a whole. All I got to say about that is two way street, man.

Good Glass of Whine

I remember the good old days, when a glass of milk and maybe a cookie seemed like heaven after a straining day of trig and French grammar. Now, after a day of sitting in an office or standing behind a counter, all I really want when I come home are two things: a glass of red wine and someone to bitch about my day to.

I don't think that there is anything as satisfying (well, okay, maybe not anything...) like being able to vent all the negative little things you just have to swallow at work by explaining how stupid things/people/public tranportation really is when you get right down to it to someone considerate and patient enough to just listen and nod vigorously. And yes, the thereby emerging rants often constist of very long and not always complete sentences.

What shouldn't be forgotten though is the many thanks and possible kisses the person on the receiving end of the oh so necessary venting deserves. And that the positions can easily be inverted. So have a bottle of red ready at any times: you never know who's about to start bitching.

Writer's Guilt

There are many different writing projects that I should be attending to right now but I don't seem to be able to get myself in the right kind of mood to do so. It's not like writer's block, it's just this emotional thing where I go "Jeez, do I really have to?". It's the "have to" part that bothers me, I think. Even though I (mostly) work well under pressure, until the deadline that's been creeping up on me for a while is jumping me right in the face I don't feel compelled to even start thinking about what I want to write. You can't even call it a bad attitude, it's more of a lack of attitude.

But I should get to it, right? I'd feel so much better, I know I would. The curse would not be lifted but at least the guilt of not doing what I should be doing would fade. Ugh. I wish my evil twin could write as fast as me, then I could just order her to do it all at the last second and then feel smug about it. What is she up to these days, anyway? She's probably stealing nuclear warheads or something. Although, we usually don't think that big. Maybe she's just stealing maple syrup out of an unsuspecting family's fridge. Imagine, just as the pan-savvy dad sets down the very full plate of deliciously smelling pancakes in front of the children, the mom shrieks as she realizes that "Oh no! Someone stole the maple syrup!". The kids cry, mom and dad initially start to panic but then realizes that they'll have to pull through, because no matter what, those pancakes have to be eaten. Standing outside and listening to the moving scene, my evil twin giggles as she takes a sip from the syrup bottle, defying everything dentists and dieticians have ever taught us.

A Discovery Most Foul

The stench of my own betrayal is clogging up my nostrils (as well as all the muckus that I've been producing thanks to that lovely flu I caught) as I have discovered that in the last three years combined I have written less than half of what I wrote in 2008 alone. And I believe that it is less of an issue of quality vs. quantity and more of a sign that my authorial sloth has reached it's peak. I am sabotaging myself, and it must end.

So, no more, I say! Hereby I swear that I shall write more in this glorious year of 2011 than I've ever written in a year! Ha, if that isn't a formidable expression of a young woman's resolve invoked by the beginning of a new year, then I do not know what is.

Resolve of the Regular Wonder Woman

I didn't bother with the ritual of formulating new year resolutions that "I'm really going to stick to this time!", like a new diet. No, I'm still a sucker for the heavenly sins that are pizza, red curry and fried hofan noodles with vegies. However, I figure that life is getting more interesting with the opening of every new chapter that passing into a new year represents. I'm just assuming that we're getting wiser along the way and are therefore more capable of embracing change in ourselves and the world.

But who am I, Oprah? I'm all about personal growth but in the end the things that got on my nerves in 2010 are probably still going to bug me in 2011. And that doesn't really bother me. But I am starting to wonder whether there's something I can do about these factors of annoyance and outrage, beyond blogging about them of course.

I feel moved, nay, entitled to be a shaker and breaker and start working on the things that seem less than okay to me like animal rights or rudeness or my own laziness when it comes to...well, a lot of things actually. So I'll haul out my golden lasso and try to achieve something I can be proud of 'til the end of the year.

Ha, well there you go, the natural revolve that rests in all of us, but that only really emerges around that time of the year, has lifted my spirits and will hopefully guide me in these coming twelve months. I really wonder how that's going to work out.