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Pop- and graffiti artist Ron English has released a brilliant collection of works, Stickable Art Offenses, which features some of his impressive and provoking static displays on consumerism and society and pages and pages of iconic and ironic stickers that one can use to anchor an already statement punctuated environment.

cactus is our friend, he will point out the way

The prickly pear or paddle cactus has sprouted dozens of hands and continues to grow. With each new bud, I speculate whether it is a fig blooming or another new appendage, and the cactus spreads. The scientific name for the genus is Opuntia, after the Greek settlement of the Locrian tribe. The Homeric figure of Patroclus was from this region and forty black ships assailed Troy from here under the leadership of Ajax. This cactus is a new world species, from Mexico, but does thrive in the Mediterranean as well. I don’t see the connection between our brave little cactus and the Iliad but other new world oddities, like the strange Echidna of Australia, after the mother of all monsters in Hesiod’s Theogony, are given fanciful old world designations, as well as wholly newly discovered worlds. According to some traditions, though, one of the hundred-handed giants, the Hekatonkheires (the Centimani in Latin), lived in the surrounding region of Euboea, where the Locri were located, as challenger for Poseidon for control of the Aegean, the monster having invented the warship to further his claim by proxy. I could imagine the resemblance there and an inventive etymology.

registratrix or public-record

While the rest of Europe and in particular the people of Germany and Italy were enthralled by the football match between these two titans for a place in the finals, it seems there was some conscientious division of focus in the quiet and abandoned halls of the lower house (the Bundestag) of parliament: with no debate or discussion, members present passed a bill that included reforms to the municipal registration process (declaring one’s residence, registering a vehicle, family-status, background, religion, etc.) allowing local authorities, the Rathaus, financial offices, immigration and naturalization officials, to sell information to presumably marketers without the knowledge or permission of the individuals in the registry. As soon as this shady vote came to light, it has been roundly disowned and disavowed by the government and the media, pledging that the changes will never even make it to the upper house of parliament (the Bundesrat). Though perhaps such intelligence and demographic-information could be easily gleaned from other, public sources (without remanding anything to the village treasurer), such a proposal deserves outrage and further scrutiny. News and legislation does not stay buried forever and I would hope that the reforms’ advocates would realize that this was bound to surface and upset a lot of people, even if the fatal-flaw of the democratic-process is such to guarantee suffrage for all and brings all sorts of nonsense to the table.

 It is not so much, however, the worlds’-dumbest-criminals aspect of trying to use the gladiator-games as a cover that is revolting, but rather the complete disdain they demonstrated for their constituencies. Surely someone at some point put them in office, as a position of trust to represent and protect public interests—and no paying demographer will be willing to offer up so much money as to fund all community works, if that was their reasoning, even if it was theirs to give away. Also, as I understand it, this dispute reform is only one part of a larger initiative to annex some registration responsibilities from the Länder and centralize it within the federal (Bundes) government, so localities might see no revenue from such scheme. People not only have a right to be forgot and to decline but also should have control and oversight in how their vital data is traded. In an environment where the populace is constantly mobilized against the whack-a-mole series of assaults on internet freedoms, privacy rights and blanched at surveillance for whatever purpose, it is quite a dissonance to imagine the government to profit from such measures.

ingénue and konkurrenz

The Iron Curtain created some interesting parallels among products and services, like the Soviet answers to the Concorde and the NASA Space Shuttle, which unfortunately was never launched due to the end of the Cold War and break-up of the Soviet Union. In divided Germany, I think the pressure to provide consumers with market analogues was especially piquant. There are food and cleaning products that still demand a high level of distinction and brand-loyalty, though the closed economies that fostered their separate identities has not existed in more than two decades. Automobiles were too a cultural aspect governed by scarcity over abundance, embarrassment of choices and ingenuity. Having loved and cared for an old Volkswagen T3, it was with more insight and respect that I could meet again its DDR counterpart: from 1961 until 1991, Barkas was the sole manufacturer of service trucks, vans and minibuses. Like its western equivalent and forebearers, these vehicles came in a huge array of different models, tailored for public and private use, as postal trucks and garbage kips and other public utilities and even, I understand, as roving paddy-wagons by the Stasi when on the prowl for thought-criminals (but I think that the fleet and compliment of B-1000s was mostly associated with caravaning and public-works), and with an equally robust and technically accessible engine. The artefacts of isolation are interesting things and the convergent determination and engineering are impressive.

world of wheels

For a weekend in July, hundreds of classic cars descend on the medieval German Altstadt of Fladungen, proud owners transforming the cobble stone streets and narrow alleyways into another kind of museum. We always have a lot of fun seeing the spectacle, the cars lining the avenues and square and the parade of entrants. There were several luxury and sports models, of course, and incredible American road-ships on display, but I’ve always thought that the bubble cars (Rollermobil) are especially endearing. The Goggomobil from the Dingolfing, in Lower Bavaria by Passau, manu-facturer Hans Glas and the BMW Isetta were competing variations on the same concept of tininess and economy, made from about the same span of time from 1954 to the early 1960s. The Goggomobil had an actual limousine model and could accommodate a driver and three passengers, while the three-wheeled Isetta’s front cockpit hatch opened up for two.

Cumulatively there was certainly a lot of mechanical talent and countless hours devoted to maintenance and restoration on show, and it’s interesting that a lot of these and similar micro-mini cars have survived in good condition because, due to the engine size—around 13 horsepower only, drivers only needed a moped-class license to operate them, significantly cheaper and easier to obtain than one for a full-sized automobile. I think such a little car would be perfect for taking a spin around the block, and I can see these creative and expressive trends returning with independent and flexible designs for electric mobility.

master of none or doctor, lawyer, indian chief

The venerable librarian and antiquarian at BibliOdyssey shares her latest exquisite discovery with the Fleet Street publication in the year 1900 of the children’s book on various callings Jack of All Trades, scathingly rhymed and illustrated with clever out-set pictures by JJ Bell and C Robinson. Many of the unique vignettes are cautionary-tales, like this verse for creative minds:

There are two kinds of Artists,
And each has got an aim: The one he paints for pennies,
The other—does the same.

I wonder what these collaborators could say about employment nowadays, for those off the payroll at least, like blogger, internet entrepreneur, day-trader or copyright lawyer.