Monday, 6 September 2010

Eric Emerson (who insisted on the removal of his face from the VU's debut album) and Nico.

Photograph by Anton Perich/Courtesy of Steven Kasher Gallery, NYC.

They All Hung Out at Max’s

Like the Ouroboros, the mythical serpent swallowing its own tail in an eternal circle of self-consumption, the cultural imagination of New York continues to feed on its chattier, noisier, messier, more creatively jostling past, the present being too priced out and tamped down. The Algonquin Round Table, the Stork Club, Cedar Tavern, Studio 54—each has been given its permanent wing in the memory museum, and now it’s Max’s Kansas City’s retrospective moment. A restaurant and nightclub on Park Avenue South whose name had little to do with Max and even less to do with Kansas City, this magnet for artists, actors, musicians, poets, and fame moochers was opened in 1965 by Mickey Ruskin, one of those beneficent fairy god-fathers with a light, guiding hand, who seeded a “scene” and then let it flower until a downtown hangout became a star-strewn house party. The mottled glory that was Max’s is a two-part saga. From the mid-60s to the early 70s, it was thronged with painters, sculptors, and Zeus-browed critics, its in-crowd back room becoming the banquet spot for Andy Warhol and his apostles from the Factory. (Warhol’s flagship band, the Velvet Underground, recorded a live album there.) This gave way to the thundering hooves of glitter-rockers such as the New York Dolls in their platform wedges and lipstick pouts, bringing down the curtain on Act I. Max’s closed in 1974 and reopened in 1975 under new management and became the North Pole of the punk/New Wave movement to CBGB’s southern pole on the Bowery. Complementing Max’s two-part story (the club closed in 1981) is a two-pronged commemorative celebration this fall of its legacy: a lavishly illustrated coffee-table keepsake published by Abrams Image (with words by, among others, Lou Reed and Danny Fields) and a corresponding art exhibition at New York’s Steven Kasher Gallery featuring vintage photos, paintings, and big-ass sculptures. Prepare to get Max-ed out!

James Wolcott @'Vanity Fair'

SLIDESHOW

The Effects of Alcohol Abuse Can be Dramatic and if Left Unchecked Life Shattering

Punk’d, Iraqi-Style, at a Checkpoint

An Iraqi reality television program broadcast during Ramadan has been planting fake bombs in celebrities’ cars, having an Iraqi army checkpoint find them and terrifying the celebrities into thinking that they are headed for maximum security prison.

The show “Put Him in [Camp] Bucca” has drawn numerous protests but has stayed on air throughout the fasting month, broadcasting its “stings” on well-known Iraqi personalities.

Al-Baghdadia “Put Him in Bucca”

All of them were ensnared by being invited to the headquarters of the private television station Al Baghdadia to be interviewed, but en route to the station a fake bomb would be planted in their car while they were being searched by Iraqi soldiers, who were in on the deception.

The unwitting celebrities are then secretly filmed, Candid-Camera-style, as they reacted with shock, disbelief and anger as fake checkpoint guards shout abuse at them: “Why do you want to blow us up?” “You are a terrorist.” “How much did they pay you to do it? You will be executed.”

The celebrities protest that they know nothing about the supposed bomb, that they are innocent and honorable Iraqi citizens, only to be told, “We have caught you red-handed, with the bomb in your car.”

How much of it is staged with the knowledge of the actors is unclear from the footage, which has been broadcast daily this month, with excerpts, reactions and comments on the channel’s Web site.

One televised exchange ran:

Soldier : “Which group you are working for?”
Television Host: “Al Qaeda for sure.”
Guest: “I am an actor. What are you saying? Is this a game or what?”
Soldier: “This a military checkpoint. What do you think we are playing here? You have got a bomb in your car.”
Television Host: “Why are you doing this? Why are you putting me in such trouble?”
Guest: “I am a family man. I have two kids. How could I do this to my family? I am telling you the truth, it’s not me who planted the bomb.”

Nearly every Iraqi newspaper carried complaints about the idea of the show, with many well-known figures asking for it to be canceled. Some said it was simply too close to Iraq’s daily reality.

The name of the show refers to Camp Bucca, the large American-built high-security prison near the Kuwaiti border in southern Iraq that held thousands of Iraqi detainees and was closed in September 2009.

Kifah al-Majeed, an official with the Baghdad Operations Command, which runs the Iraqi security forces in the capital, said: “Al-Baghdadia did it in an official way. They sent us a document asking us for permission to do this television show. We agreed, so al-Baghdadia did nothing wrong.”

The producers of the show said that the show was entertainment, that it made people laugh and that no one had gotten hurt. The celebrities, they said, agreed for the episodes to be broadcast, and many were interviewed in the studio afterward.

Ali al-Khalidi, the show’s host, who appears on screen in many of the setups, said: “The show will continue until the end of Ramadan. Yes, there have been a lot of things said about it in the newspapers and on radio and television, but it will go on.”

Of the dozens of comments left on the Web site by viewers, most were negative. A sample taken on Friday included:

“Everyone knows that Iraq is living under unnatural circumstances on all sides, so why do you make a program that is based on fear, provocation and mocking, especially to Iraqis.”

“To al-Baghdadia channel, I hope that your channel does not dance on the wounds of the Iraqi people”.

“I am sure that showing such scary and frustrating programs is merely to bring a smile to the lips of the viewers. There are not many ways to bring such smiles other than what we have watched in this program.”

“The program is very nice, and the nicest thing is that the soldiers are acting in a very good and convincing way. It is obvious that the artist feels that he is in big trouble without a solution, so he would do anything to convince the soldiers that he is innocent.”

“When you want to bring a smile to someone’s lips, do not do that at the expense of other people. I want to ask, if one of the victims was sick with diabetes or blood pressure and had a heart attack, what would your reaction be then if a disaster took place? Would an apology be enough then?”

Pictures from Al-Baghdadia Web site

Yasir Ghazi @'NY Times'

Making Social Security less generous isn't the answer

Stigmatisation of problem-drug users

William S Burroughs II, the American Beat Generation author, published Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict in 1953 about life dependent on heroin (some editions use Junky). Junk was a slang term for heroin, possibly from users being seen as the “junk of society”, an early use of a stigmatising phrase.

60 years on, stigmatising labels for drug users remain topical, according to a report last week by the UK Drug Policy Commission, Sinning and sinned against: the stigmatisation of problem drug users. The Commission used a definition of problem drug use as injecting drug use or long duration or regular use of opioids, cocaine, or amphetamines. The Commission rather stumbled with this definition, because it wants to see the drug as the problem not the user. Use of the powerful connecting hyphen would have solved their dilemma: problem-drug user. They excluded “recreational” drugs, such as alcohol, cannabis, and ecstasy, but acknowledged that users of those drugs carry different stigmatising labels.

“Stigmatisation matters”, says the Commission. “We feel stigma exquisitely because we are fundamentally social in our make-up.” They conclude that problem-drug users are so strongly stigmatised that their ability to escape addiction is compromised in treatment, housing, and employment. Because of such stigma, the Commission feels, problem-drug users find it hard to be seen as blameless, like those with mental illness or disability.

The vote-catching rhetoric of “war on drugs” or “tough on drugs” means politicians and policy makers are simply paying lip service to the compassionate “road to recovery” as a goal for society, says the Commission, which wants politicians and policy makers to think more carefully about such rhetoric. As a start, the Commission also calls for the public, health professionals, and particularly the media to be educated about the effects of stigmatising drug users. A good example was set by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in his support of Recovery Month.

Perhaps determined to not call a rose by any other name, Burroughs' second book was entitled Queer—he would probably have written wryly about today's concerns about stigmatising labels.

@'The Lancet'

Dylan: Four One Hour Radio Docs Hosted by Patti Smith

A 4-disc collection released to radio in 2007 to promote the compilation simply titled Dylan. The programs are hosted by the great Patti Smith, and feature interviews with the likes of Dylan cohorts Bob Neuwirth, Suze Rotolo, Dave Van Ronk, Roger McGuinn, and others; critics and historians such as Greil Marcus, Bill Flanagan, and Anthony DeCurtis; and musicians including John Hiatt, singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, and Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello.

@'The Rare Stuff'
HERE & HERE

(Thanx Stan!)

The Stigma Among Hepatitis C Victims

Hepatitis C is a what many refer to as the "silent epidemic". This is due to the fact that many who has it will not feel any symptoms unless they already have a severely damaged liver. This happens in about 15 to 20 years from the time the hepatitis C virus is acquired. The hepatitis C virus, also called HCV, may be acquired only via a blood to blood transfer. Today, about 200 million individuals are infected of the virus all over the world. The sad truth is that of these 200 million, 85% are set to become chronic hepatitis C and among these, about 20% will turn into liver cancer and cirrhosis.

Though some doctors claim that this disease can be cured, no strong evidence can really point to that fact. There may be instances wherein the virus is taken out from the blood through the use of viral medicines but the HCV can very well stay in the organ and the probability of recurrence is quite elevated. Though proper lifestyle can prolong the sufferer's healyhy life, it will be very hard for any patient to live a normal life knowing that they have the hepatitis C virus in their body. More so with the stigma that comes with the disease.

Since HCV is acquired through transfer of contaminated blood, those who are exposed are commonly the drug addicts that share needle sticks, among others. Likewise, though there is really no strong proof that sexual contact can transfer the virus, many such claims are already taken to be truths. Another baseless claim, i.e., bodily fluids may also transfer the HCV to other people, led to a stigma that hepatitis C victims had to suffer on top of the debilitating disease that they already have. All these have led many people to think instantly that if a person has hepatitis C, he is either a drug addict and he is promiscuous. The belief that HCV is transferred through the use of the things held or used by a sufferer made them afraid to be associated with them.

Hepatitis C is contagious but it is not easily transmitted. It is only transferred through the contact with infected blood. That only, nothing else. Unless there are any strong scientific evidence to prove otherwise, there is no reason why people should treat hepatitis C victims like lepers. Despite this fact however, there is a responsibility both on the part of the sufferer as well as the people around him to use extreme precaution and ensure the safe containment of the disease.

Hepatitis C may not have a proper cure at present but the future is far from bleak. Things are being done to remedy the situation. People should however play the sacred role of trying to control the virus as much as possible. The best way to do this is to have yourself tested with hepatitis C virus today. Symptoms are seldom felt and those who managed to discover their HCV virus did so accidentally, e.g., routing checks, blood donations, blood tests for other illnesses, etc. There is no need to wait for the cure to be discovered. Contain the virus now and start living a life just like any normal human

Memoy @'Bukisa'

Regrets of the Dying

Home safely...

Incoming very soon!

Royal Enfield vs Truck

rider is still alive...

via boingboing

Sunday, 5 September 2010

A basic need - Making fire with IKEA products

"The thought of people burning their furniture during the war so they could keep warm and cook formed the inspiration for FLAMMA. FLAMMA harks back to one of humanity’s basic needs: making fire. I thought it would be interesting to go into IKEA as if I was a primitive human being and make fire using products found there. The project also fits the back-to-basics image of IKEA and the Swedish lifestyle. IKEA does not, however, sell lighters or matches."

- Helmut Smits

via core77