“Modern”

Whenever one is confronted with the random squiggles and daubs that are a feature of “modern” art, there is an irresistible impulse to say dismissively “Looks like something my kid could do”.

Because it’s true.

I defy anyone to argue otherwise when seeing this travesty in what is quite possibly the world’s most cultured city.  (via Insty, thankee Sarah… I think)

Fucking hell.

Phoniness & Fakery

I almost, but not quite had a Red Cloud Of Blood (RCOB) moment when I saw this little piece of snot:

The biggest automaker in the world is reportedly working on an electric vehicle prototype that mimics the feel of driving a manual transmission, complete with a gear shift that’s not connected to anything and a floor-mounted speaker to pipe in fake engine noises. The car will even pretend to stall out if you fumble the controls — in order to deliver drivers the complete experience of driving a manual car.

…in other words, turning their already-shit cars into the automotive equivalent of a RealDoll.

Here’s my thought on the matter:  what with the Kardashians, CNN and Gavin Newsom (to name but some examples), I think we’ve got all the fake shit we need around here.

The thing that stopped me from a full-blown RCOB and made this just a Tut-Tut Moment was the recollection that I’m never going to own or even drive an electric car, ever.  It would be like Macy’s announcing that they’re going to be selling onion-flavored toffee — nauseating, yes;  but I never shop at Macy’s, I’m not in the toffee market, and am therefore unaffected.

And as for a “gear shift that’s not connected to anything”, I can think of no better description of Joe Biden.

Shit Houses

…is the (bowdlerized) title of this badly-edited video, wherein some mouthy Brit shouts about crap architecture in an annoying whine, but whose script could have been written by me except I would have inserted more swear words.

And there’s a genuinely-terrifying moment at about 3:25 which will make you want to commit murders.

Right after that horror, there’s an annoying advertorial (hey, the guy has to pay the bills somehow), but you can fast-forward a couple-three minutes if you want.

Here’s another example of the kind of thing he’s talking about, and that I hate with a passion.

Never an errant hijacked airliner when you need one.

Cue The Dynamite

Here we go again, with some egotistical asshole disfiguring the world with his “art”:

Vincent Van Gogh loved the light in Provence so much that he moved to the southern French city of Arles in 1888 for one of the key years of his short life. So how fitting that a new building, which dazzlingly reflects that light, has made Arles a major centre of contemporary art. Called Luma, it is designed by Frank Gehry, famous for his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, who took inspiration from Van Gogh’s famous painting The Starry Night.

Given that Bilbao’s Guggenheim looks like a giant burst carbuncle, we all know where this one’s going:

Even worse than this, of course, is that a group of Bilbao’s city “planners” looked at the drawings and model of this disgusting excresence and said (in Spanish):  “Oh wow!  This is just what we need to make our city look more artistic!”  and signed off on the hideous thing.

But returning to our story, here’s Arles, as seen by Van Gogh:

And this maniac’s vision for Arles?

And it’s quite a sight: a ten-storey tower made of 11,000 twisted stainless steel panels, glass and concrete dominating a huge £150 million ‘creative campus’ on the site of a former railway yard.

They should have kept the railway yard.  From the genius himself:

Gehry says his Luma design was influenced not only by Van Gogh’s The Starry Night but by Arles’ Unesco-listed Roman heritage as well.

Yeah, nothing says “Roman” like twisted steel and glass.

If this distorted dildo had been around in Van Gogh’s time, we’d at least have one good reason why he cut his ear off.  In fact, he could have cut his eyes out, just to avoid looking at it.

And if Starry Night  makes you think of things like this, you need a psychiatrist more than Vincent ever did.

Awful

In this silly article (don’t bother, you’ll just get bored and it’s the WaPo), some aggrieved Black woman concludes:

“A queen might be dead, but the legacy of white Christian supremacy lives on.”

To which my response would be:

“And what, precisely, would you replace it with?”

If one considers the possible alternatives (Black tribalism, atheistic totalitarianism etc.), I’m not so sure that White Christian Supremacy — as a form of government — is the worst of all the options available.  Certainly, it was White Christians who first abolished slavery (of all people, not just Blacks) through the governments of Sweden, Denmark and Great Britain, to name but three.  It was also White Christians who developed the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, without which very little of today’s civilization would exist.  Heck, White Christian Supremacy even created equations like 2+2=4, according to this moron.

I realize that White Christianity is not without its faults and shortcomings — but once again, when one compares it to the other options, it becomes like Churchill’s description of capitalism:  “The worst form of government, except for all the others.”

Ask me too whether I’d rather (even as an atheist) live in a White sorta-Christian nation like the United States vs. a Black tribal one, a Chinese totalitarian state, a Muslim theocracy or even a soft socialist country like New Zealand or Australia… and it’s not even a close decision.

Stupid bitch.

Johnny Not-So English

Mr. Bean has created a stir:

Rowan Atkinson has reportedly finally moved into his ‘space age petrol station’ mansion after a decade-long planning row with neighbours. The Blackadder star, 67, initially bought the 1930s quaint English home – known as Handsmooth House – and its 16 acres of land for £2.6million in 2006.

He shocked locals in the charming seventh century village of Ipsden in Oxfordshire when he knocked it down and installed a modern 8,000 sq. ft. glass and steel mansion designed by top U.S. architect Richard Meier in its place.

Oy.  From this:

…to this:

Now I’ll grant you that House #1 needed a lot of restoration.  And I’ll also grant you that House #2 is located where nobody can see it (at least from the road).

But seriously?

I note, by the way, that he has ample space to park his supercar collection:

Small wonder that it took him ten years to get permission to build this dropping of visual excrement.  It should have taken longer.