Taking A Big Swing

I clearly remember the Saturday afternoon I sorta lost my nerve at the races. I had five dollars – a measly five dollars (ten dollars in all) – each way on a horse at twenty-five to one. My sister, who was working on the stand with Australasia's biggest bookmaker at the time, had confirmed to me that virtually the entire Committee had bet on this horse, which had started in the morning at 100/1.

I even remember the name of the horse now so many years later: Todvega. And it was ridden by the best jockey I have ever seen, John James (J.J.) Miller.

That's J.J. Miller on the right

The horse won in what is called over here 'a Port Hedland Photo.' This means, figuratively that the horse was in a photo-finish but the camera angle was taken from six hundred miles up North in Port Hedland, and thus it appeared as if this horse's head was in front on the line – even though it might have been way behind in reality!

Actually, I was standing at the post and this type of thing was unnecessary this time; the horse won for real coming up on the inside. Funny, though, in the published photo the shadow of its head was in the wrong place! I guess the Committee were just making sure...

During the course of the running of the race, for the first time in my life ever, I was shaking. I had plenty of time in the running to ask myself 'what the hell was I shaking for?' I had plenty of money, ten dollars wasn't going to kill me if the horse lost. Hell I had thirty five thousand sitting in bets in the stockmarket and I slept pretty good. And then it struck me, the race was a proxy for the actual bets I was really making, namely those in the stockmarket. I went right out on Monday morning and sold up everything. By Thursday the World Stockmarket Crash of 1987 had fully unfolded.

Luck? Presentiment? I don't know and it doesn't matter. Many of my friends lost massively and I had everything completely intact and was essentially in a better position because of the new context.

I had no clue exactly when the market was going to crash, even though I thought it would sooner or later. I had taken steps long before and had raised almost a million in cash from external shareholders and controlled a public company ready for the situation – this was where my main capital was, not in just the thirty five thousand I personally was playing around with.

I had intended to post today about simple and quick ways to counteract stress and/or lack of energy. And I will do that presently – if anyone is even remotely interested - but this other thing instead is calling for some attention: Bernanke says there is going to be a long long phase of slow growth ahead for EVERYONE... He bases that, I assume on the utter control he has exerted on the bond market. I think he would be correct too but for one strange dissonance that I have been observing recently. There has been way strange range volatility across sectors and categories that never previously exhibited this kind of thing. Australian blue chips varied over more than twenty-five per cent during the last year. That, is an impossibility for me to believe unless there is something, in the words of the new kids in the quant cubicles, 'latent' in the story. Something in other words, hidden to us all, going on.

You can see it too in the gold price range swings of late – the amplitude has widened noticeably.

I am told this may be because of false volumes from 'order stuffing' and that eventually there will be a price breakdown and then, if there really is genuine investor buying, the price will revert to its long term up trend. No doubt at all in my mind that the HFT people are trying very hard to damage the gold price. And maybe they can do it. But it calls into question Bernanke's certainty about a long long slow recovery for EVERYONE. Because wherever there are such large and systematic range moves, there is massive profit opportunity and when there is massive profit opportunity there is strong growth for some, not weak growth.

 

It's time for your hands to shake, again, because Ben and the 'Committee Men' want to take Port Hedland photos...

 

Calvin J. Bear 

Compositional Space

I 've been having this same old discussion recently with a few people – 'does money make you happy?'

Well if you're a regular here lookin' in on this series of tiny pieces about stuff that I think about, then sooner or later you're gonna have a pretty good idea about what you're going to spend all that money you're about to make on...

Not that you don't already, of course. But there'll be more ideas, won't there; just, more.

Desirable. I like that word. No, I actually love it.

If we don't desire things – I mean really desire them – then attaining things or getting stuff we merely want or think we want adds up to very little at the end of a day.

Composition, I find, is the great secret to all fulfilling acquisitions, that is - the secret to having satisfying possessions.

Lonely alleyways at night, for example, are composed universally of only a very few basic elements: emptiness, and stillness, almost silence, a few nondescript and old things lying about, or snow or still dark pools of water, and a solitary light or a huddling small set of lights weakly fighting the night's covering grasp. Walls demarking this place from other places.

Space – empty spaces, everywhere – are spaces just waiting to be filled. We are the people of the labyrinths. We just don't realise that it takes art, skill, and training, to be able to sidestep the monsters of the dark unknown, and to make sport of our predicament. Our supposed predicament of being in this place.

Walls between Fire and Liquid

Bion Again

This is all off the top of my head so I'm not sure I'm going to be able to reference stuff that well...

Hey it took me about twenty minutes to remember the name of Wilfred Bion – one of the most original and influential thinkers of the Twentieth Century in the field of psychology. What with the election and Fox and storms and floods and global warming and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I stopped thinking about one of the men who began all this 'lead the minds of people to prevent war through the media...'

Bion needs little introduction to most of the people who look in on this blog. But we should remind ourselves that Bion's work was very largely conducted in absolute secrecy because he worked for the Ministry of Defence in the UK, as well as eventually, the US military. Even today, the detail that comes out of his work is, I believe, the tip of the iceberg. Well, okay, the droplets of the water from the melted iceberg that melted because of GLOBAL WARMING.

Armin van Buuren - trance dancers love him

I am grateful to JP who posted an earlier comment directing readers to a Salon article about the effects of rhythmic music. This is a Wilfred Bion idea. He conducted extensive research into the neurological effects of sound and music. A lot of the modern strands of research flow on from the research of Bion and his collaborators. Today, the most advanced researchers have moved on a long long way from the fundamental concepts about 'endorphins' and their capacity to alter sensations of pain and anxiety. 'Endorphins' covers too wide a body of chemical reactions and electro-chemical events in neurophysiology to apocalypse (yes, that's what it really means) the mechanisms of human psychological effects and affective neural pathways.

The actual way the brain functions in concert with its sensory systems, is that there is a virtual constant and continuous flood of signals going on – there are descriminating filters that pick up variance patterns and apply signification to those patterns. Sleep itself, only occurs when another system comes into play that blocks incoming and outgoing sense and nerve signals. Those signals are still going on, they just get 'whited-out' by orthogonal or 'keytonic' additional signals which have the effect of blanking out those patterns that have affective muscular reaction significance to the 'awake state' brain functions. The point really, of what I'm saying, is that there is a lot going on constantly. Nothing is actually dormant as such. And more particularly, the system of pattern recognition/signification is outlandlishly complex, I mean really. Really, it is complex.

For example, if you are familiar with the musical group 'Drum Tao' or 'Drums of Zen' (same people) then you might assume that this is certainly the type of rhythmic sound stimulation that will pump those endorphins of which the article in Salon speaks. And it might, but not because of the rhythm, but because of the pattern variances... And, researchers have found, the more subtle the variances, THE MORE SIGNIFICANCE THE BRAIN ATTRIBUTES.

Black Forest (brand name) wireless speakers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0MRzFW7o1w

I recommend Jonas Steur Featuring Julie Thompson – 'Cold Wind' – ( the link above) for an example of extremely subtle pattern variance. And if you want to compare something similar from a classical repertoire one might suggest Vladimir Horowitz playing a Chopin Polonaise. These quick, almost imperceptibly tiny pattern variances are the kinds of things the human brain responds to most of all. Waves forms, shapes, contours, calculative multiplied notes – all these electrify the brain and underscore that 'something important' is going on to the human mind. It is an evolutionary imperative. And I would listen to what these things 'say.' By accident, or perhaps not by so much accident, music shows us the meaning to our lives.

Calvin J. Bear

The Day Of The Burgundy Wine-Coloured Spy

French wine, lingerie, red velvet curtains.

This is the iconographic image of elegant sex that we are used to in the modern West.

Sex is, afterall – well at least it is for the elite in that game - highly formalized and stylized.

I know this because I learned it from a man I interviewed once who was a key part of Helmut Newton's original Sydney (Australia)-based commercial photographic studio. This gentleman – the one I interviewed - spoke of Herr Doktor Markus Wolf long before too many of the even well-read public had ever heard of his name. Of course, I would hazard not many recall now what that particular fellow was all about...

Actual Russian Intelligence Officer - Anna Chapman

I should say too, though, that whilst I am relaxed in saying that the person that I knew, and that I am speaking about here, did indeed also show me all the great secrets of a good Martini - I am slightly troubled by the fact that later on in his life, I suspected him of either having become, or at least having become very deeply implicated with, a serial killer...

Marinus (Martin) - for that was his name - was also a friend of the actor Lee Marvin and they would spend many summers stalking Black Marlin, I believe it was, from memory. The both of them were surprisingly fit, or let's say physically strong, to be more accurate, and good with long-bladed, serrated-back Marlin knifes,

In one particular discussion about things of the world, Martin pointed out to me that a hundred years ago, the finest restaurants served their clientelle a la francaise and not, as we are used to now, a la carte or a la russe (as it is more correctly termed).

Slava Zaitsev fashion - no ushanka today

'A la russe' means in the Russian style, and that means bringing dishes out in a sequential manner. Which is a bit like serial monogamy, you could say...

Laying out a large table with more or less all the dishes already there to be served from, to the diners – this is a la francaise. Such a thing is all very formal, with liveried attendants standing behind the guests like soldiers until a toast is made and only then are people seated and things go on from there. It's meant to inspire awe in onlookers...

Martin told me eventually when I asked him directly about the killings, that it couldn't have been him 'because he loved women too much...' A very poor excuse, I thought.

But, I say! This man was urbane – the most urbane I have ever encountered. Almost theatrical, but not overpoweringly so, so as you would count it against him; he was, I must say, tres subtle.

So... French wine, lingerie, red velvet curtains.

But I also think you can present Russian vodka, Soviet era emblems, and ushankas, and caviar, as iconographic of a certain kind of decadence and thus of course also of sex. At the moment I'm not so much concerned about the social or historic derivation of these symbols as anything remotely to do with sex, more the current nuances they conjure up.

Burgundy wine coloured velvet, really...

You see I want you all to imagine the launch of some luxury prestige or hot sports car, with a closed invitation guest list. You know what these things are like don't you? They are held in rather large rooms, though usually not big halls as such. There is one wall removed and a modest enough stage behind a large floor-to-ceiling dark red velvet drape. And music plays and champagne is served. And right when the music reaches a certain crescendo, the curtains are pulled back to reveal – the great vision. And everyone applauds. And drinks more wine.

What lies behind the closed curtains? Soviet submarines and ICBM's, Bugattis and Jaguars. And so on. Catherine the Great turns into Mother Russia. Crotchless knickers from Napoleon's Josephine...? I don't know. But what's the great American sex icon deriving from power at the apex? If it's Marilyn Monroe and JFK then it's certainly out of very recent history, comparatively speaking.

The curtains pulled open are like a framed window onto something out there. Sometimes we might be too close to the glass and fog it up with our breath so that we are unable to see clearly past our noses.

See the fact is, without the power factor or the sense of it, no one pulls out their chequebooks.

Anna Chapman again

(P.S. Do we still use chequebooks?)

Get That Edge

One day, when I was twenty-seven, I looked at the bank statement of the private company I owned outright, saw the figure of two million dollars positive balance there, and began to be more careful about the physical risks I was taking – I began to slow down from my usual speed (was never that fast to begin with!) when I was driving, and I stopped thinking about all those extreme sports things like sky-diving and solo glider flying and deep sea diving and so on. That is I stopped entertaining any serious inclination to participate in those kinds of pursuits.

I suppose part of the story was that I was headed into the public listed companies arena and I guess I valued my own being around to complete any saga there that I had decided to commence.

Up until then I was always very athletic, well-coordinated, quite competitive, and liked taking educated risks that seemed like decent challenges to a lot of other people.

Zivko Edge Aerobatic Plane

Theoretically, as my own bank account grew, I could have indulged in a lot of things that had been too expensive previously. My sister flew, I kind of dabbled without putting enough time into getting licensed – but the intent and the interest to pursue such idiotic things like aerobatic flying was definitely there. As time passed I forgot all about this kind of stuff.

My nephew on the other hand, is undertaking most of the things I pulled myself back from in my late twenties. We both go to a few Red Bull air races every year and he has flown with aerobatic pilots as a passenger in two-seaters.

Funny thing is now, I yet might make calculated decisions to get back into certain 'out there' activities. The older I get, and the more I have seen what a waste good intentions are on most of society, and how little appreciated they are (not that I particularly have done anything much in the order of the completely altruistic myself), and certainly how very little use indeed someone with a brain like mine, is to the majority of people – the more I find that it feels possible for me to take huge risks with personal safety. When I say 'huge risks' though, I mean apparent huge risks, because I still believe calculation and judgement and correct assessments are totally paramount.

Professional risk-taking was what I embarked upon early on because I had great doubts and suspicion about what was being cast by society at large as authoritative – either of knowledge, morality, even of science. I had formed the view that I could and should back my own judgement. By about the Nineteen Eighties it was starting to be apparent to me that the world had moved away from broader social reasoning and had become completely drawn to material self-interest as the driving logic for anything that people undertook. I had this view though, that people were not generally that very good at attaining their selfish ends, frankly... There is this hard-nosed 'realism' that has become the sentiment of the modern world, but it is based around a self-important and exaggerated view of capabilities and intellect and talent.

Okay, I DID have an amazing early education and it simply is a fact that for a short while the then young David and Hillary Rothschild stayed in my family's home while my father supervised their University Matriculations.

I don't think I was being necessarily presumptuous or conceited in forming the views that I had about credentialism and trends in science and economics and politics – frankly I was too young and too borderline autistic to be anything other than just plain pragmatic.

However I wish I was as smart still, as I was back then when I could make those calculating and cynical decisions. Because in the back of my mind is another, and newer, suspicion, that society is ripe for something – I know not what...

Anyhow, last Sunday I had an amazing red wine with some older family and their friends: Chateau Tanunda Barossa Shiraz. I think this has been the very very best red I have had in about ten years. It is, in my estimation, at least as good as a thousand dollar bottle of Penfolds Grange.

There are still many amazing things in life in spite of the uselessness of much of what has come to be the establishment and the authoritative platforms for money, science, entertainment and law.

The beauty of the internet is not that it has opened up all of these great things to everyone. But that it has closed them all off and made them intensely private and only privately accessible to the sensible. Most people just don't have the patience to be sensible any more. It takes patience to make a great wine, breed a great horse, cook a great piece of beef.

Old money... is patient, but without losing any of its edge and sensibility and taste for the good things. People who lose their comprehension of what actually is good, waste money on the inferior.