hypocrisy is a common weapon of power

after i got home from working in the world of retail ( one of the most egregious misallocations of resources imaginable ) the puking buddha and i sat down to peruse the sunday new york times...the self-proclaimed bastion of truth and trump bashing ( the latter of which i am inclined to agree with )...their rather sharp criticisms of the president at large are somewhat blunted by both their arrogance in claiming the "truth" and the shameless merchandising surrounding it...

burdened by the relentless existential hum of the "truth" puke and i turned to the "T the new york times style magazine" travel issue which came with today's paper hoping for some numbing escapism as the contributors related their tales of island life...this hope too was blunted by the fact that well over half the magazines pages were glossy advertisements ( orwell's "stick in a bucket of pig swill" ) for louis vuitton, yves saint laurent, cartier, et alia that detracted from the need to escape the miasma of late stage capitalism and its relentless existential hum of consumption...

this page is what got the magazine tossed across the room ( until i retrieved it to scan the offense ) $26550 worth of haute couture on a "model" ( and that does not include the "price on request" louis vuitton hat )...one wonders how i am to give their editorial stance any credibility when they are cut from the same cloth as the avaricious president...the disconnect between the alleged life these pages portray and the reality that most face is incredible...the constantly iterated and reiterated lesson that all media is a cesspit of biased, subjective opinion is what keeps me on as a subscriber...fuck these people.

"the greats"

the new york times "style" magazine was in today's paper and it is all about "the greats"...

"the greats" would seem to be a designer, an actress, an artist, and an architect...doubtlessly all talented people...although there have been artists who were ( and are ) utterly arrogant shits and i am inclined to believe great actors are great because they have little sense of who they actually are and so are malleable in terms of taking on a persona...

as far as architects go, bijoy jain seems to have built a "concept" house indicating "what an indian building might be" in "alibag, a cluster of coastal villages just outside of mumbai"...

here's an "exterior" of bijoy's house that "betrays its airy interiors"...

here's some more mumbai area housing along what would seem to be a stagnant canal...wondering if these residents would like to be betrayed to some "airy interiors"...bijoy can pound sand...

in designer terms, what would a "style" magazine be without a costly set of what i assume to be practical joke clothing foisted on wealthy women as subtle revenge...$7180 worth of satire or just overt cruelty...fuck these people.

swill

"advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket." george orwell______________________the latest edition of the new yor times "t" style magazine came with the paper today and it is the "women's fashion" issue and while i am fairly sure of my approach to this you will need to decide if this is a public service, a practical joke, corporate structures seeking profit, propaganda, or a combination of any or all at once...it would seem that the times has carried its self-proclaimed monopoly on "truth" over to the swill bucket and has some definite ideas about how i should be thinking in these troubled times of slobo II...and, while i agree with much of their take on slobo there is a considerable gap between perceived reality and the time's reportage that no glossy magazine can overcome...

the cover announces the advent of "the new androgyny" with a subtext that includes "everyone"...

and some ( mind you, some ) of the "fashions" do indeed lend themselves to opening doubts about the model's sex...a "that's pat" sort of thing...i am disinclined to make judgements about anyone's orientation...as long as everyone involved is of age to say "yes" and says "yes" with no duress then it is none of my business and i will live and let live...and i know there is no privacy anymore...however that should not mean i am open to being propagandized...i am part of "everyone" and i am not wearing this under any circumstances...my days of needing to fit in are long dead and givenchy and gucci can go pound sand...

anxiety or marked irritation? true enough that anxiety can crop up in these slobo ridden times..however i find more of a relentless irritation with the unapologetic arrogance erupting from all across the motherfucking political spectrum...the stench from whoretown is deeply putrescent and it may take more than a lake of fire to cleanse it...the times is all over arrogance like a cheap suit...they are not shy about telling me what i "need to know" ( check out "your weekend briefing: here's what you need to know about the week's top stories" as if i am suddenly incapable of any stripe of independent thought ) and how to go about finding it out ( from them )...a transparent attempt at "news branding" which all the "news media" indulge in because they are, at bottom, corporate structures seeking profit and building a customer base...like any other retailer ( check out the "times store" while you peruse the web site...if you can stomach it )...worldview is their product ( along with t shirts and wine )...apparently anxiety sells clothing...

according to the caption this woman (? it is the "androgyny" issue ) is wearing $11901 worth of designer clothing...but the times does not pander to an elite...

given that $11901 is something like an everyday clothing expenditure i would have to think that the answer to this poser is there is never enough that's why they need "growth" and why they are 1.) depriving as many people as possible of a living wage and, 2) doing so to drive as many people as possible into debt penury ( with help from advertising ) because debt creates "new" money...extraction as a first principle...

i would call cordless lamps flashlights and i have ones that are rechargeable, solar powered, and have an internal crank dynamo to recharge them...don't need any of these either...don't need any of these things...you?

not my style

the new issue of the new york times "style" magazine ( that workhorse of advertising revenue...first ten pages...$1,090,000 ) arrived with yesterday's paper ( and i was disappointed to see no ads from macy's )..."the greats"...an issue that purports to encourage me to emulate the lasting cultural contributions of viggo mortensen and bruce nauman...among others...while selling selling selling...oh there are "articles" among the glossy ads...one in particular that asks i give second thought to "brutalist architecture" which are gaining "new life" as poland slides into fascism...all this interspersed with lovingly photographed high end consumerist propaganda...ads telling me what tequila to drink ( patron ) what sheets to sleep on ( ones woven from pima cotton )...and beauties like this...

that's a $13,900 purse top left...in an ad not far past the article about foodies in the sacred valley of peru gobbling up native cuisine..they don't tell you about the way it prices locals out of the staples market...

baxter italy, archiproducts, and milashops would only give me a "price on request" for this baxter furniture chester moon sofa...intirium finally came through though...13,000 euros..or $14,950...we all need one today...

i am so culturally illiterate, so lumpen proletariat, such a philistine that 1) i have no clue what this photo is trying to tell me...2) i find the stench from the cologne ads uninviting...and, 3) i find this whole process of selling an elite, over hyped, over priced, wannabe lifsestyle completely undermines the editorial stance of the new york times...they hate trump and rightly so...but they are of and for the elite which engendered him..always good to know the media's biases and the times has a very difficult time disguising them.

keeping your fashion sense up to date

the new york times has been running some articles of late concerning the rising cost of newsprint, brought on by der furhair's trade war that has engendered counter tariffs from canada which is, seemingly, the world's prime source for newsprint as they clear-cut forests to keep the pressed rolling...

despite skyrocketing costs the times today has sent me a sunday paper that weighs in at more then two and a half pounds ( eventually this sort of thing has to impact my subscription rates...there may be a parting of the ways soon enough )...not a record...wait til the holiday season for the true whoppers...

almost half of the paper's weight ( one pound three and one eighth ounces ) was provided by this fashionista extravaganza...the fall "women's fashion" issue of "t magazine"...advertising rates have gone up a few thousand dollars a page since i last explored this howler...the price one pays to keep the public informed of important new fashion trends...two hundred and twenty-four pages packed with glossy ads and glib articles informing me of what should be worn...smeared on the face...accessorized with...sat on...slept on...eaten off of while being seated at what sort of table...where to vacation...how to get there..and slyly disguised pointers on how i should experience and describe my wonderful things and experiences to others..what would we do without these people?

"poor cat" is a misnomer...nothing in this magazine is cheap...that peace symbol pendant can cost up to nine hundred bucks depending on what material it is made from...the sun,moon, and star is three hundred and ninety..the cheap clover is one sixty but can cost up to almost two grand in gold with a diamond...the personalized tags and padlocks are unpriced...you have to text , email, or call for "a personal shopping experience"...if you have to ask you cannot afford it..and that is just one page of this encyclopedia of style...you could bankrupt someone by purchasing everything in this sartorial tome...

i am not here to disparage any of these fine products or their producers...or to discourage anyone from decking themselves out in , say, this stylistic splendor form page one hundred and seventy-six ( be honest...would you actually wear this in public? just asking )...pursue your life ans style as you see fit and consume what you like...the system depends on your continued cooperation in this..what i am here to say is that the new york times has been, is, and will continue to be the unflinching mouthpiece for an east coast elite despite its shrill protestations to the opposite...they loathe trump and with good cause...unfortunately that infers a loathing for a good part of the greater public as well...like all elite media outlets they are profoundly frightened by overt manifestations of the political will of the people..because they are frightened of the populist rejection of the elite...that disaffected elements off the population have fixated on a member of the elite as some sort of panacea for their troubles is inexplicable to me...duped into trying to "stick it to the man" through the agency of a kleptocrat whose cadre is taking anything not nailed down...with the collusion of congress no less..the times understands subverting the political will of the polity and endorses it...the just don't like the current leadership..the system isn't their issue....addendum...in all this i forgot to mention that at $109215 for a color page ( all the ads are full page ) and $74890 for black and white the magazine brought $13,711,160 in revenue to the n y times....the real reason for it.

there's a reason joe goebbels admired madison avenue

i have read a few pieces around the interweb and in the n y times about the relentless pro-party propaganda that inundates the people of china...and how the police are using smart glasses with facial recognition capability to finger "suspects" ( i would read "dissidents" there...thoughtcrime...a favorite of enforcement officials and authoritarian politicians everywhere...from beijing to swamptown )...but here in the egalitarian and freedom loving west we are unvexed by these machinations...right? i have my doubts ( which, incidentally, is how you know it is actually me and not some fucking hacker writing this )...the newspapers arrive while i was out and i have seen serious flaws in the whole "freedom" thing...

the editorial boards ( read advertisers...the media do not want to fuck up the revenue stream by offending the source...so let the advertisers have a large say in content ) have been busy forming my opinions for me and packaging them in a form i pay to receive...quite the system...i pay to be bludgeoned by institutional opinion...or is it that i am researching what the want me to think...opinion varies...i know what i think...and they know what they would like me to think...

the feminist icon and trend setter judy chicago ( "the oracle of feminist art-and the culture that finally caught up to her" ) has made the glossy cover of "T" magazine in the n y times...alas..it is the "women's fashion issue"...

which is chock full of glossy $107,000 ads presenting what the well heeled and chic feminist should be wearing as she asserts herself...the n y times cares about women almost as much as they care about me...but propaganda isn't confined to media ( or..media isn't confined to print or electronics...where the fuck did i put macluhan? )

here is a stunning photo i took this morning of dawn over the junction of indiana routes 6, 53, and 130...we are overwhelmed with propaganda everywhere we go to the extent that we do not even recognize it as such..it's just part of the scenery...and if you look closely just tot he left of the billboard above the route signs, you can se one of the surveillance cameras at the intersection...china got nothing on us.

welcome to oligarchy

it's been a while since anything has prompted me into a caustic response...the presidential race is such an obvious joke that it is, for the most part, beneath comment...it does, however, represent the final death of what small piece of representative democracy the framers of the constitution were forced to throw in to make the whole deal go over and assure the continued existence of a government safe for the elite ...that death will be the fulfillment of the vision of hamilton and company...and so..in a small way this screed does tie into that...today.s n y times "t" style magazine is all about what the the issue title names "the greats"...that clown in the photo is karl lagerfeld...a fashion designer and a great either because he has a fashion sense that draws the elite like moths to a flame...or because he's worth $125 million...along with old karl ( who is on only some of the magazine covers...i got lucky...the rest of the "greats" grace the others )there's rihanna...songstress extraordinaire and culture baron worth $140 million...then there's quentitn tarantino who's some sort of film maker and who holds $90 million in assets...we have the artist ( not the actor ) steve mcqueen who is worth $30 million ( who says you have to starve for art ? )...then there's the writer johnathan frazen worth a paltry $10 million...carmen almon is an artist whose net worth i cannot find but given mcqueen's i bet it''s comparable...and then there's the chef jeong kwan...who is also a buddhist nun and so probably not nearly as wealthy as the others...at least presumably...so what do the "greats" have in common beyond the obvious wealth held by some? they all do things that pander to the pretensions of the elite eager to enhance their wealth with some sort of cultural status..it certainly explains the wealth held by these people...anything to help the appearance of the nouveau riche wall street extortionists polish the tarnish...that the n y times is an elitist newspaper is beyond question despite their denials...that wealth rules and that most wealth defends itself against the mob is equally true...it has been so since beyond 1789...that's only when it became official policy in this nation...let the slime ball whore politicians deny it...even bernie sanders is of the system...it's just his rhetoric that makes him unelectable...fuck these people.