Hold the presses!
Good news: I'm beefing up the fact-checking department (I can probably pick up some people on the cheap from Portfolio) here at TYOMP.
On July 4th, 2006, I embarked on a quest to become the pre-eminent American portrait painter of the 21st century. This blog chronicles that journey. With apologies to Joan Didion, I call it THE YEAR OF MAGICAL PAINTING.
GEOFFREY RAYMOND. MILITANCIA DE VANGUARDIA o EXPRESIONISMO FINANCIERO
Publicado por: misterd | 30/04/2009 Posted by: misterd | 30/04/2009 | |Leaving the building of the New York Stock Exchange, one can find a character, Geoffrey Raymond, who invited him to give his testimony in a box. A note, a message. The painting is a portrait of any person related to the current market situation: the crisis. The technique used is inspired by (or stolen from) Jackson Pollock, with a radical difference: the figuration, and Raymond is something called your job Financial Expressionism. The striking look of the matter is that people's participation and see this as a way to create an artistic work is also a historical document.
You can also see the news in the New York Times.
The case, if I may say, is that, outside of the resources used by this artist have already been used by others to get support, where people sign and write messages (not too lenient, in fact) to re - , usually barons managed to finance their backs, say, non-transparent. The media has succeeded Raymond as worthwhile as a complaint, the transports and interactivity in order to work, which gives it its true value. I take my hat off.
I think it's a positive review.
In 2002, when the word "deflation" began appearing in the business news, Bernanke gave a speech about deflation. In that speech, he mentioned that the government in a fiat money system owns the physical means of creating money. Control of the means of production for money implies that the government can always avoid deflation by simply issuing more money. (He referred to a statement made by Milton Friedman about using a "helicopter drop" of money into the economy to fight deflation.) Bernanke's critics have since referred to him as "Helicopter Ben"So now you know. Perhaps he's looking out the door of the helicopter. Maybe he's praying. His middle name, by the way, is Shalom.
Does anyone out there have anything they'd like to say to Vikram Pandit's face but have found it difficult to get past security at 399 Park? Perhaps you're a shareholder, upset about the stock price, or the Treasury Secretary, just feeling the need to remind the Citi CEO that you could've had his job and, and this is not a threat just a fact, could still have his job? You're in luck. Geoffrey Raymond, the greatest artist of our time, will be in front of the building today with his latest, The Annotated Citi. In the event you can't make it, let us know here what you'd say to VP, given the opportunity to get up in his grill, and Raymond will add it to the canvas. Interested in having Pandito all to yourself? Bidding starts at 30K.
Comments
2 Posted by guest, Apr 27, 2009 9:34AM@1- are you familiar with any of geoffrey raymond's pieces? none of them look like the subject.
3 Posted by guest, Apr 27, 2009 9:35AM@1- I know, right? No way I'm spending 30k on that thing.
-steve cohen
4 Posted by guest, Apr 27, 2009 9:41AM@1 Stand back from the computer 5 ft, cover your dominant eye, squint with the remaining open eye...voila...it's him, it really is.
Pandit, you bandit
Your formulae suck.
You've screwed people's lives
I declare you a schmuck.
--Sean Bailey.Wow. Thank you Mr. Bailey. Me? I love the internal rhyme on the first line and the Latin plural of "formula" appeals to me as well, especially when juxtaposed with the Yiddish slang (is "schmuck" Yiddish slang, or just Yiddish?) on the back end. Gives it a kind of hi/lo cultural tension. Eggheads with street cred--that kind of thing.
Greed will return!Somebody should notify the boys at Phibro.
It is only resting
So why are you blue?
I'm not blue. I'm pretty happy.
But there's something about your tone. What's the catch?
Wow, that's pretty perceptive.
I'm nothing if not.
What?
Perceptive.
Oh.
So?
Fine. The catch is this: I don't own the painting in question.
It's not your painting?
It's mine in the sense that I painted it. And it's mine in the sense that it's sitting rolled up in my studio right now. It's not mine in the sense that I sold it to one of my collectors. The Pacific Rim guy.
Is that a gay thing?
God, no. He lives in Thailand. It's part of the Pacific Rim.
Oh. Well then, why do you even care?
Well, I'm attempting to broker the deal. The buyer (alleged) approached me about my Vic Pandit painting but I think the 30K threw him off the scent a bit. So we ended up on the "What Fucking Bubble" painting.
That's how it's pronounced?
Yes.
Hmmm. Never knew.
Can we move along here? I've got to go soon.
Where?
Can we get back to the painting?
Sure. So tell me, why are you so blue?
I guess it's like a party that you really want to go to but can't.
I can see that.
Plus, there's the question of the money.
I can see that too.
Chuck Close Must Be Freaking Out
If I'm to become the pre-eminent portraitist of my time, I'll have to somehow get past Chuck Close to do so.
Because it's a friendly competition, I painted this picture of Chuck. I call it "Close, But Not Quite", which does make me laugh.
Although I used a grid technique for all my painting, I left it more conspicuous in this painting than I usually do, as a bit of homage.
Your Work on C-Span...So I wrote C-Span:
A youngster won second prize in the student cam contest. He used your work.
Hello C-SpanI could have done without the typo in the final paragraph, but what the hell. Anyway, C-Span writes back:
I was told that one of the winners of your student video competition used me and my annotated Wall Street paintings as the subject of his or her video. Nothing could delight me more, and I'm wondering if you can point me towards the location of the video on your website. I tried poking around in some of the videos already but couldn't find anything. If it helps, I paint large portraits of people like Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Richard Fuld, Alan Greenspan, etc., in a Jackson Pollock/Chuck Close fusion style. I then exhibit the paintings on the streets of the financial district and encourage the public to write comments on the surface of them with magic marker.
Thank you in advance for the consideration and congratulations on what appeared to be a wonderful student initiative.
Geoffrey Raymond
Hi Mr. Raymond,Me? I love stuff like this. The only downside, dear reader, is that I couldn't quite figure out how to imbed the actual video (C-Span ain't, apparently, U-Tube). But this is the link and you can find me, embroiled in a moment of unusual clarity, starting at about the 2:45 mark.
Your work is now well know to those who have watched Chad Klitzman and Dustin Slade's StudentCam documentary, Bailout or Failout. Your subject matter fits perfectly in their documentary. You can watch Bailout or Failout on this section of our website -- http://www.studentcam.org/Winners09.htm. Just scroll down to Second Prize Winners / High School and you will see their documentary directly underneath the High School title.
http://studentcam.viddler.com/videos/watch.php?id=4f5678c2I offer my congratulations to Mssrs. Klitzman and Slade and must tell them (assuming that they are regular readers) that theirs is fine piece of work.
(you are going to have to cut it out and paste it into your browser. Sorry)
(The general rule of thumb in the painting game is that you can't sneeze at $150 until you start selling your own stuff for a hundred grand. So I'm a third of the way there. Can't wait, by the way.)Plus, the payment hadn't yet come through and I, truth be told, was a little light in the wallet. Plus, I do truly love this catering business. It helps me reconnect with my restaurant roots (a time in my life that was truly fun) without the down-side of actually working in a restaurant. Plus I only do it once in a while, so it always feels like a giggle as opposed to a grind (although one's feet do tend to ache towards the end of a given gig). Plus I get to hang out with my friends Chuck and Patty and, when nobody's looking, eat little chicken salad sandwiches.
Dear Mr. RaymondI'm looking forward to being the hottest thing in Seoul for my designated fifteen minutes. I'll let you know how it goes. I am also wondering if I'll be able to hit the producer up for a hotdog and a Snapple. I think MSNBC holds the record for buying me stuff--two slices of pizza (from My Daddy's Pizza behind Goldman Sachs) and two Snapples.
My name is [redacted], an associate producer at Seoul Broadcasting System in Korea.
SBS is one of 3 major TV broadcasting station companies that has networks that link all around the World.
For more information on SBS, please visit our company's English site.
http://global.sbs.co.kr/English/AboutSBSPro/index.jsp?loganal1=GNB_glb&loganal2=blank
is the weekend flagship documentary program which in viewed by 5 millions in average in Korea alone. We are currently producing one hour special documentary on World Financial Crisis and the road to the recovery.
We would like to request an interview with you on your blog and your paintings of CEOs of finance companies.
It is an on-camera interview and will take about 45-1 hour.
Wow. This, dear reader, is a worthy cause. I mean, really. I'm getting a massive goosebump in my throat. You should hear their version of "While my guitar gently weeps" (although I can assure you that the instrumental riff at the break is a guitar, not a ukulele. Nobody plays a ukulele like that.)A) Record & perform on ukulele all 185 original compositions by The Beatles with 185 guest artists.
B) Write essays to coincide with each release.
C) Make available for download one new recording and essay every Tuesday for 185 weeks, beginning January 20, 2009 (Inauguration Day) and climaxing July 24, 2012 (The eve of the London Olympics).
Song - In My Life
Artist - Leah Siegel
Original Version recorded October 18, 1965
Ukulele Version recorded March 7, 2009
Leah Siegel: Vocals
Roger Greenawalt: Ukulele, Robot Drums
Produced by Roger Greenawalt at Shabby Road Studio, Brooklyn
For maximum enjoyment please put In My Life on repeat in your music player as you read this Essay. That’s what I do when I write it.
In My Life is a John Lennon song from the Rubber Soul album. Although I just read in Wikipedia that McCartney disputes this, saying the melody is mainly his. I believe…
Ringo. No it’s a Lennon song. It’s so Lennony.
It doesn’t get much better than this. Wistfulness and sadness at the passage of time is not an easy subject to discuss in a two minute twenty-eight second pop song. Lennon nails it. This song is the Celtic world view in a nutshell, seeing the beauty of the world through a mist of tears. It’s an Irish wake this piece. Thank god they recorded it so we can go down to the Irish Pub of our mind and drown our sorrows anytime we like.
Regrets, I’ve had a lot. Not John. This is an out and out Love Song To The Past.
A love song to a Dead Girlfriend. Or in this case a Love Song To His Dead Mother. Or the Dead Best Friend. Stu the painting bass player.
Not to be Freudian, but this lyric just screams “Mommy’s Dead!” to me. Sorry Stu.
It’s time to trot out Lennon and McCartney’s big fat artistic advantage.
(No they weren’t gay, but that would have been awesome. Imagine how much better The Beatles would have been if they were having sex with each like Fleetwood Mac.) No, their big advantage, and by far the biggest fact that they shared when they first became friends, was that they both had Young Dead Mothers. Like Madonna, who also has a Young Dead Mother, this emotional bottomless pit can create an engine of fierce need and ambition.
Just the thing to push you over the edge of excellence.
No amount of love or money is bringing her back. But huge amounts of love and money are a nice distraction if you’re grieving.
Back to In My Life. John sings very innocently here, like an orphan in a Disney movie or Dickens novel.
Falling in love with the past is great. I do it all the time.
“Some are dead and some are living.”
That’s a heavy lyric for somebody who had just turned 25 and was at the vortex of a crazy hurricane of fame and fortune. Any normal person in his place would have been shagging Twiggy on acid in Morocco. Instead he was living in the dreary suburbs of London and making masterpieces.
Writing like this is why Lennon enjoys such a high reputation. Deservedly so.
I wish they hadn’t double tracked the John’s lead vocal. It’s not quite tight. Enough to be slightly nervous making to modern ears. The backing vocals, which sound like Harrison and McCartney doubling themselves, are Perfuckto. Ring’s Drum part is really innovative, he only plays a normal beat in the second half of the B sections. The verse drumbeat is a minimal marvel.
Ringo swings, using silence as his main weapon. Unfortunately, there’s the usual insanely loud tambourine doubling the ride cymbal in the B section. Shame.
John’s falsetto at the end would become his most featured and beloved vocal effect. It signals vulnerability. Or in the case of The Bee Gees, disco.
There’s a trick sound in the solo. George Martin wrote a Baroque piano bit that he found was too difficult for him to play. By slowing down the master tape from 15 inches per second to 7 and a half inches per second, thanks to the magic of physics, the music plays back at half tempo and down exactly one octave. Martin then played the part on a normal piano at half speed at the slower tempo. When that was played back, the tone of the piano became much brighter and harpsichord like. That the part is written in the style of an 18th Century composition makes it all the more witty.
Our version features the stunning vocalist Leah Siegel. Her voice makes one swoon.
Since I have been making the case that The Beatles Legacy eclipses that of Shakespeare, It behooves us to just stick the two together. As sung by Leah, In My Life is sung by Ophelia, who is a drowned ghost, to her doomed not yet dead Danish boyfriend Hamlet. The big change is that the guitar melody at the start of each A section now has a lyric, and the bridge has paranoid voices inside of Hamlet’s skull instead of a harpsichord solo. Oh and did I mention,
UKULELE!
Enjoy.
Wow. If you are the kind of TYOMP reader that never reads the red stuff, just take a look at the last big paragraph. I love the part about Hamlet and Ophelia and the voices in Hamlet's head. I also like, I guess, the choice of a larger font size than I perhaps might have chosen for myself. Based, I guess, on the assumption that anybody old enough to give a shit about the entire Beatles oeuvre reinterpreted for ukulele is in need of a bit of ocular assistance.
Doesnt even look like VP...looks like the artist had the green apple splatters and just squatted over the canvas