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What Price The Real Thing?
Slate has a
jejune write up about David Rockefeller's Rothko fetching a handsome $73 MM. By coincidence, this afternoon we shambled into a small, welcoming mall outlet cheerfully called “We Frame Anything”. We were on a periodic “walkabout” in the Imperial City, seeking sentience and meaning amid the dry cleaners, nail shops and dollar stores.
And there, luxuriating in the glorious un-PC air conditioning, we flipped through the wares, past the “Success!” totems and the various homo-erotic Marilyn Monroes and obligatory Twin Tower sets. Finally, we saw a Rothko. Sotheby's would be quite out of of joint; the opening bid here about $69, including frame. No word on whether the Guatamalan shopkeepers had gotten word from that sour puss McCain about quivering Team Mitt's varmit hunters. This crowd did not look like it it was jacked up to handle the straight dope from Mogok, Burma anyway. Mostly handling that fake Jagdalek blue-ish junk for Christies out of Khandahar.
Does it matter any more? With synthethics, lasers and printing techologogies available, a Titian is a Titian except when it's not. What is the value of a Rothko in a SecondLife pad? What is the value of a fake Rothko hanging in the oversized drywall foyer of a McMansion entombed
Tyvek (tm) monstrosity, evoking Venetian Republican grandeur for unknowning occupants, all guarded by their Hunched Hummers ready to rend at master's bidding.
In a land where Nothing Is Real, the winning bidder at Sotheby's auction may be a saint or or fool. We feel it in the the air. In the handshakes at the local market. A hunger for what was. For real. Beyond that, nothing matters. And the rest can burn to perdition.
Tags:
The Real Thing ,
I want go to heaven never been there before,
rothko,
America,
Tim Russert
Posted in General Aktion
at 18:59 on Wednesday 23 May
by DrLeoStrauss
Comments
“There was, however, a bit of mystery in the buyer, identified by the New York Times as ”a mysterious bearded collector in a skybox.“ Rubles for the first time were among the accepted currencies for Sotheby's bidders. If the bearded buyer was indeed an oil-rich tycoon from Moscow or Smolensk, this, too, might be seen as a kind of restitution.”
-Interesting Doc, we were going to post this link earlier because we thought that Ruble development meant something - Mayve not much, but something.
On the phone:
Wolfie: Someone bought a Rothko for 73 million today.
Shaha: Take that damn comb out of your mouth.
That may have been McCain's most authentic moment - that varmint joke. He should start ridiculing Mitt more - it's his only chance.
“We frame anything”, probably in an Overton window.
PARIS (AFP) - France will add its voice to protests by the United States over UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei's comments that Iran should be allowed to keep some uranium enrichment, officials said Wednesday.
Yeah, I was wrong on this one. They are wasting no time stepping into the foreign policy mess.
re Iran - Maybe Sieff will write another “Why Cheney Failed” article if Clemons is correct in his recent post:
“Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously. - This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an ”end run strategy“ around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument. - The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles) - This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf — which just became significantly larger — as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war ... The zinger of this information is the admission by this Cheney aide that Cheney himself is frustrated with President Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is making a disastrous mistake by aligning himself with the policy course that Condoleezza Rice, Bob Gates, Michael Hayden and McConnell have sculpted ... Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the ”right decision“ when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie the President's hands ... It is not that Cheney wants to bomb Iran and Bush doesn't, it is that Cheney is saying that Bush is making a mistake and thus needs to have the choices before him narrowed.”
Tim Russert's Dad never overpaid for his Rothkos.
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“There was, however, a bit of mystery in the buyer, identified by the New York Times as ”a mysterious bearded collector in a skybox.“ Rubles for the first time were among the accepted currencies for Sotheby's bidders. If the bearded buyer was indeed an oil-rich tycoon from Moscow or Smolensk, this, too, might be seen as a kind of restitution.”
-Interesting Doc, we were going to post this link earlier because we thought that Ruble development meant something - Mayve not much, but something.