Good-Looking Russian Models

Maybe because I have now been sucked into playing the “From Russia With Love” Sony PSP game, I think I am going through a Russian-stuff phase.

I mean yes, it's true I still have a few friends left in the post-KGB world... Who tell me by the way, that every Russian outside of Russia attributes all the good things there to Putin, and every Russian inside Russia blames him for all the bad things.

Well, in all events, I remind myself that I have always had some regard for the work of the Russian designer Slava Zaitsev and recently I had the chance to see some of his work again in a private showing in South Africa. Zaitsev distinguishes himself from the rest of the European design/fashion world by engaging models who are both not dead, and not ugly. Granted a lot of what he does is not suited to the places I find myself in most of the time – hot, dry, or hot, humid, and monsoon-y. But the workmanship he accesses and the fabrics and materials are first-class. And his vibe is more positive and uplifted than perhaps the economics of Russia is entitled to necessarily reflect. On the other hand it's funny how some things of quality and standard seem to survive the worst of times and get swamped more often when the broader environment is awash with a lot of simply dumb money.

Zaitsev's vibe is also more complex and intellectual than many other designers'.

So... 'Complex, intellectual, high standard, quality ingredients...' That's obviously the stuff that turns off the denizens of the noisy media these days. They prefer stridently common, zombie-eyed, near-to-death scrawny, and dystopic, persons and visions – with a lot of noise, cursing, and chaos thrown in, literally. I saw the BBC movie critic's Mark Kermode's rant about Disney's 'John Carter Of Mars,' and immediately figured that this might be reasonable entertainment. Every single movie I've seen panned by popular media critics has proved to be the exact opposite of what was said about it and JCOM is no different.

The thing that is most unfair about this particular production is the sheer lack of respect for the hard work given by the cast – Lynn Collins in particular sells her role in the film through commitment to the producers and a commitment to credible adult belief about her character, and it works. The whole thing works and I believe there is not a single expletive throughout the entire movie either.

I could say something really nasty about people like Kermode, but I won't because for one thing I know for sure that – and I have said this before, the Rothschilds are not Zionist Illuminati World Domination-seeking bastards – but that there are certain ideological alliances and slants by the poster children of the gutter media and the popular yellow press is quite clearly evident to me. People ought to aim their conspiracies at this crew! And it's all about the material power that has gone to their collective heads, and not to any allegiance to a political or a national or a religious or an ethnic or a racial cause. Do I think that movie critics are seeking to be the financial powers behind the movie producers' thrones? Oh yes I sure do. But, as many of you already know, I have always been a strong supporter of the words and sentiments of Julia Phillips when it comes to the film business. Her words are complex, intellectual, displaying personal flaws and weaknesses, yes – but true enough for those who can fathom them. She seems to say that ego and the arrogance of unchallenged power drives the animus of the rulers of the channels of mass communication – of which I would say movie critics rank as a set of such 'rulers.' And unlike Robert Parker, the seriously flawed wine critic, movie critics have produced nothing at all of relevance and value to the role into which they have inserted themselves in everyone's lives.

Best,

Calvin J. Bear

Great God Pan Is Dead

What led me to this is my five year-old profoundly autistic son, who recently has made us watch that scene in Kubrick's '2011: a space odyssey' – you know, the one with The Blue Danube Waltz behind it – over and over, and over again.

And then, he (the kid) took over my main computer and has been watching Vladimir Malakhov dancing with the Austrian State Ballet – The Blue Danube Waltz...

Obsession must be in the genes; everyone knows I talk a lot about Kubrick!

Anyway. I can't dance but my mother was a good ballet dancer and teacher as well. So I'm going through this 'Russian' phase right now, and watching Nureyev and Zakharova and so on.

Meanwhile, over a few days that movie 'Zeitgeist' has been on one of the local channels. I'd have to agree with this flick that there are a few problems with the 9/11 official story – to say nothing of the fact that back at the time I had been plagued for months by market traders in the US and Euro pushing scuttlebutt about another 'go' at the World Trade Center, seeing as how a year earlier there had been a car bomb incident carried out in one of the basements.

However, I have to disagree about some of the other conspiracy stuff voiced in Zeitgeist. Hey, I mean it would good if these conspiracies were really there and run by brilliant geniuses who can pull the wool over everybody's eyes all the time. As it is though, the catastrophic Euro Central Bank and euro currency just underlines what a bunch of idiots they all are, who supposedly 'run things' and conspire to control everything and have power over everything and everyone. Here's why I say this: you can't have a fiat currency without a discount risk-free bond market – otherwise what you have is not money but only unfinancialisable tokens. And we are seeing and will continue to see until its demise, the dysfunctionality of the euro because of this. This fatal flaw - and failure – has already shifted power away from the dimwits previously at the top. Germany, unlike the popular notions about its supposedly bullet-proof position, is an accident waiting to happen. Germany, is nowhere near as financially strong as the media has been portraying and as the Euro-centric technocrats have convinced themselves that they are.

Zeitgeist uses this following phrase to outline the grand conspiracy that has been rolled out over the last, more than two thousand years: 'mainstream religions are based on fantasies and mythical stories and invite the masses to believe in a superstition or even many superstitions in order to enslave them.'

And that all sounds quite possibly true and great and all except for this thing about human mentality and intellect and I would say even consciousness:

See, I believe that Rudolph Nureyev could fly... ...and that isn't a superstition, even though it is a myth though one that I regard as having been turned into a myth for ordinary people because it was actually a material fact that is too difficult for ordinary people to accept or comprehend. Every serious appreciator of classical dance knows that Nureyev could certainly fly and it's a waste of time saying otherwise to them. This is the meaning and essence of art. And it is the transcendent aspect of the human. There is nothing romantic or mythical about the hard work of the living human in being able to acquire the art of flying...

Muslims believe some magical horse flew Mohammed up to heaven... And maybe they have a good reason to believe this; I have a good reason to believe Nureyev could fly - I've seen him do it. So why should I deny the Muslims their little nonsense? And like Jesus, Nureyev was both a god and a man!

Nonsense is of course quite wonderful. It is entirely human and what makes us interesting and worthy of sentiment. And Jesus, of course, according to the clever Greeks who wrote about him, is Love itself. And Love, is certainly not, a superstition; that is to say, to believe in Love is not to believe in a superstition.

Modern, fashionable, atheists spend a lot of time worrying about the sexual evils of religious organisations, and the moral and ethical corruptions of these organisations – and they insist that no god, properly defined, could permit such organisations to proceed in the name of that god, and therefore, that there is no god at all. And they pretend to speak about the scientific facts to justify their view.

But that would be like saying that Nureyev could not fly, which is a way of trying to belittle a very great miracle, of which they who do so are entirely possessed only of a mere jealousy about, because it is not something they, nor anyone who cannot believe without qualification or equivocation about the fantastic-turned-into-reality, can ever achieve themselves.

To be a real atheist one must be genuinely objective, and not so propelled by this emotional and biting animus against the Superior.

But you see, therein lies the whole point - some human beings understand art and transcendence including artistic transcendence, whilst others simply do not have the soul to do this no matter how much of a show they put on for superficiality's sake in order to claim they have any depth at all. And certainly, for those, who do not have this type of soul, they neither need a god nor is the existence of a god necessary for them to exist. Because that is all they do too, exist. Until they die and then, nothing. And why not. Nureyev, however, said this of himself and of his approaching death, 'the lights will go out and it will be darkness, but I will live again and I will dance again.' According to everything experts accept and say of him, he was a notoriously promiscuous, gay male, who also had sexual relations with women sometimes too and, if you go by religious fundamentalists and probably Dr. Phil as well, he's certainly nobody you should take as a prophet of any decent god!

But for me - for someone who can fly, to say that he will overcome Death is something coming from a person with a sound scientific understanding of the superhuman, the miraculous, the infinite – and worthy of taking very serious note of.

It's become very fashionable to be an atheist, because of the supposed advances of science and as a contrary position to a sexually compromised swathe of churches. These modern fashionable atheists are just as prurient about sex as any dogma-bound religious fanatic is. Luckily for me, I'm an Ithacan whose god (the one who often resides in Ithaki and favours the sons and daughters of that place) is often at odds with the other gods, and is not generally as nice, nor always as peaceful or polite, as the modern, fashionable 'experts' on god, seem to think that a god must always be, in order to be 'a real' god at all. To answer the deepest questions on this subject, one requires to be like the Nureyev of the Mind – able to leap and to fly with grace and land again without hurting oneself. Very difficult. Very mysterious. Though not completely impossible. And something within the scope of the human to be able to do. Though not just any and every human all the time.

Oysters a la Russe

Calvin J. Bear

Composition In Design

Okay I have to admit my business has been doing rather well over the last several weeks and that is probably the main reason for the recent slow-up in postings here. It has also been interesting to see what levels of site visits are maintained when the posting rate changes.

The exact nature of business currently undertaken by my consultancy is still not able to be detailed, as it involves publicly listed corporations with direct implications for the related share prices. And such things are quite rare in these difficult economic times; well, when it comes to positive implications things are rare at the moment!

On less secretive matters though there is one area about which I could regale people long and hard on at the drop of a hat: design. Industrial design, creative design, production design – all kinds of design.

Like Karl Lagerfeld, I am not ashamed of superficiality when it comes to beauty. The superficial is important when the word is not being employed to merely convey 'shallow' or 'a facade.'

I think the great secret to the look of a design – and its intrinsic philosophical or intellectual implications – is in composition. Design composition comes from hard work, well-structured thinking, intelligent decisions. The word taste is used by people discussing art and design but the reality is a whole series of actions and choices and decisions that link functions and elements together.

Image composition is the secret to good photographs, and it is also true of any mechanical item where the function of that item is meant to be part of the lifestyle of the user of the item. The Germans like to have ze multi-funktional instrument, but then the market outside of other Germanic-minded people becomes limited if the product is stupidly ugly – but then a lot of producers make that mistake, not just the Germans!

Perfect composition creates greatness in design. Personally, I find the interior design elements of the new Mercedes SLS terribly flawed, and this detracts from the car's potential for greatness. It is true in any case, that many big corporate designers are stuck in the past – the SLS is a streamlined Dodge Viper look melded with the old original Mercedes Gullwing. Still it is visually appealing and that's what counts. It is not avant garde but why does it need to be if it looks modern and new, stylish and streamlined, and – beautiful.

Again, to quote Lagerfeld: 'a respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul.' I agree with him. A profoundly good and wise and wonderful person may certainly exist behind a rough or roughened exterior within a surrounding context of misfortune, accident, or privation. But I think the choice of the adjective 'respectable' is intelligent, and meaningful. And I have found that in business, in life, and especially in human personal relationships, a 'respectable' appearance will show you a person who will never let you down, but tiny little flaws in what they composed of their own appearance, will announce to you the virtual certainty of failures to come.

A person might show damage, material limitations, or even relative material poverty – but these are not flaws. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is a person without visible damage, material limitations, or material poverty, and yet shows countless surface flaws to any student of human nature. You can judge a book by its cover. This book will have a substance seeking to make late middle age chic, an arrogance about who deserves to be wealthy, and a nature that fits easily into blue jeans. Some gun-slingers make their name though, by shooting people in the back. They're the ones who find it easy to smile all the time. They've never faced a real challenge or a fair fight in their lives. Watch a tyrant or a political brutalist: they're always smiling or at least being cocky. Am I right? That's not a respectable way to deal with other people. Give me a serious-looking guy. And always beware the Ides of March.

Best,
Calvin J. Bear

Overcoming The Modern Mental Staleness

In my own personal view of myself, I regard myself as the student of about three or four quite significant and at one time world-famous individuals, although they are mostly not that much remembered anymore. Professor Munro Leaf from Harvard was a tutor of mine for a short while – he created the story behind the first Disney fullscreen colour cartoon: Ferdinand the bull. I got engineering lessons from some people I won't name although one was trained in Nazi-occupied Holland and I'd have to say, gave the impression to me that he was of two minds about what Nazism meant to him.

As far as psychology is concerned I am very proud to say I was something of a disciple of the late architect, psychologist, and polymath Paul Ritter, the man who laid the foundation stones of the original World Trade Center towers.

The one thing that I can distil from having known all of these people is a clear impression – as a result - that today's world possesses a kind of a 'spirit of deliberate mental staleness' and the consequences of this are bound to reflect in its buildings, architecture, social patterns and ultimately in the inevitability of widespread political, economic and social failure.

To build things worthy of the appellation of 'greatness,' is a lot lot harder than the government of Beijing knows, for instance, and it's not about 'doing more big buildings,' and takes a considerable amount of substance more than just the facile supplying of money which can of course be easily accomplished by drug cartels operating in Miami, as much as it can by the central planning committees typical of most contemporary governments.

To be great you have to know how to transgress the protective and self-defensive psychological umbra of other people, be able to get under their skin in a nice way, and make them much more human, rather than simply more 'televisual...' And really, beyond 'more human,' you also have to progress things and propel people into the future. You have to be avant garde.

One of the problems about blandness and intellectual staleness prevalent everywhere today is in the expression of the style and substance of today's woman. I agree, for example, with a few other bloggers about the recent interpretation of 'Irene Adler,' played by Lara Pulver, in the popular new television series 'Sherlock.' At first it seems she's clever – maybe cleverer than Sherlock himself - independent, sexual, and very bad, only for the whole thing to disappear under the idea that she is a puppet of Sherlock's nemesis, Moriarty.

A lot of what is passed off today as interesting, exotic, erotic, and attractive – is simply trite.

And following on from the last post I wrote about the Heineken beer commercial, why the superficiality when they could have extracted so much more from a legitimate mondo-ethnic source like: Bowyer-Yin's “Meet The Tiger.” Playing on the presumed superficiality of contemporary people is a mistake; yes the ad works, but it could have worked so much more. What are they all afraid of, these drips who have been hogging the commercial world for so long? And that includes Rupert Murdoch, who is an old fool. And all the politicians who kow-towed to him for so long are going to have to deal with people like me and the blogs that will go down into history standing in stark contrast to the self-important nonsense that has been written up till now about reactionaries like Reagan and Thatcher and Harry Lee – the nonsense that was mostly put up by themselves and their appointees funded by them to create the propaganda. Lee, for instance, purports in the Wikepedia entry about himself, that he was an interpreter for the Japanese, and no one says a word about it. Well, of course, you won't hear any complaints from the 50,000 ethnic Chinese (at least) who were genocidally massacred by bayonet and knife by the Japanese when they first entered Singapore. So much for the bullshit from Mr. Lee about how he was a great torch-bearer for ethnic Chinese interests.

Calvin J. Bear

Heineken's Froth And Bubble

Decadence. The importance of this idea – especially today – should not be lost to you under the noise of the news media screaming at you about Greek debt and 'part default' and 'austerity.'

After the zenith of an age, there remains the overgrown and the overbuilt – unfunctional and existing only because of the wastefulness of the supreme owners of the money and the power that was construed at the height.

Are you familiar with that current filmic commercial advertisement for Heineken beer? You know, the one with the magician and the appearing rabbit, the guy, the girl, and the Chinese waiter and the curly-haired singer in the tuxedo... It's called 'The Date.' The Art Director was Alvaro Sotomayor.

This ad was not dreamed up in fifteen minutes, if you know what I mean. I know people, or at least once upon a time I did - at board level at Heineken. They are very much the kind who believe in a cosmopolitan ideal and a modern cosmopolitan world and lifestyle. And in that vision, Asia has long been a significant market for Heineken even though they are also totally a global brand.

It's a great ad. But it is also the very essence of the meaning of decadence: referring to everything yet tied to nothing, lacking in intellectual depth, pointless, meaningless, and possessing no moral values. Believe me I am the very last person to preach to anyone about moral values(!) however it is decadent; it expresses a decayed intellect and a nondescript salad-mix world. Okay today's kids will love it and care less about what it is being lost in the process. And okay it will sell beer. And that's the problem with decadence, it happens when the money no longer cares or needs to care about anything other than serving itself and devising rationales for its own careless behaviour.

The art deco world and the modernistic industrial gothic world were thought of as examples of decadence. They are not. Human beings used the overhangs of that overbuilt past wealth and there and we got a slightly positive image of 'decadence' as a result. No one is going to use anything from the imagery or the ideas or the economics reflected in this ad 'The Date.' They are all perfectly useless and meaningless. The argument will of course be raised that multi-ethnic, multi-cultural egalitarianism is the point. It's not the point; selling product is the point. And that's because a totally mindless lack of regard for any of the cultural motifs used in the ad is shown by the producers. It is all facile and fatuous. Cultures are cultures because they have depth and meaning. 'Fun' is not an excuse for terminal shallowness. When you have money, and you have the sense of humour to sponsor and project 'having fun' on a global media platform, you also have the cultural responsibility to demonstrate that you care about something too. Ultimately, this ad shows absolutely no respect for the past, and for the real people of the past, and for culture and no matter how many times these monied upstarts assert they are respecting the egalitarianism of modern 'mondo-cultural' youth, you really have to wonder whether it is all because they have no clue and are fatuous, rather than that they are just being 'carefree.'

Because they are forever just being superficial. And there is never any depth coming from them at all. And the froth and bubbles are starting to look a bit thin, more like scum, in fact, than froth. And that is what I think of the leaders of the Euro-zone, too. Everybody looks upon the guy with the date in the ad as if he is a superstar worthy of greater respect and admiration ahead of everyone else... Certainly this is the vision the Euro-zone leaders have of themselves, and certainly the way ratings agencies, most banks, and the Murdoch media, look at themselves.

It's a fatuous fantasy. Sort of forgiveable in a commercial about beer.

Calvin J. Bear