29 January 2012
The Artist (2011)
European fascination with Hollywood's confidence that the attitude loads the dice, that one is an audience, and that handsomeness never lies pictures two silent lives threatened by idleness, salvaged by smiles.
22 January 2012
"The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine" by Michael Lewis (2010)
Virtuous behaviour is shaped by circumstances as much as by personal integrity. The economic regime and corporate cultures determine which personal qualities thrive. Even if the economic regime exalts personal wealth, the diversity of corporate cultures enables one to choose whether to amass this wealth by improving the world or by seeking rents. Rent-seeking carries a pecuniary compensating differential. Indeed, the downside of a hired trader's risk seems lower than that of an entrepreneur, and the upside seems higher; yet entrepreneurs persist.
An ideal salesman increases his customer's valuation for the product. An artful salesman deceives. In order to deceive the rich, a salesman will benefit from being bred among the rich. Hence the rents in sales.
The thesis that prices of securities would or should reflect the fundamentals is not immediate. Securities can serve as fiat money. Market participants' agreement on the price of a security is more stabilising than proximity to any particular price of that security.
An ideal salesman increases his customer's valuation for the product. An artful salesman deceives. In order to deceive the rich, a salesman will benefit from being bred among the rich. Hence the rents in sales.
The thesis that prices of securities would or should reflect the fundamentals is not immediate. Securities can serve as fiat money. Market participants' agreement on the price of a security is more stabilising than proximity to any particular price of that security.
9 January 2012
The Art Institute of Chicago
(8 January 2012)
A painter can be intense bordering on madness, without seeming grotesque, by being true not to the images of the physical world, but to the images of dreams and nightmares. In contrast to a flickering display, visual memories retain what is essential about an object, without corrupting arbitrarily. Visual memories are the images of emotions. What is remembered is a mood, a reflex, not the stimulant.
A painter specialises by developing the vocabulary of the physical world (Edward Hopper in "Nighthawks"), of memories and dreams (Gerhard Richter in "Christa and Wolfi", "Mrs Wolleh with Children," and "Woman Descending the Staircase"), or of an invented world (Vincent van Gogh in "Bedroom in Arles").
A painter can be intense bordering on madness, without seeming grotesque, by being true not to the images of the physical world, but to the images of dreams and nightmares. In contrast to a flickering display, visual memories retain what is essential about an object, without corrupting arbitrarily. Visual memories are the images of emotions. What is remembered is a mood, a reflex, not the stimulant.
A painter specialises by developing the vocabulary of the physical world (Edward Hopper in "Nighthawks"), of memories and dreams (Gerhard Richter in "Christa and Wolfi", "Mrs Wolleh with Children," and "Woman Descending the Staircase"), or of an invented world (Vincent van Gogh in "Bedroom in Arles").
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