Ad astra per aspera
Annie Leibovitz, the photographer who has taken portraits of the world's most famous people - from the Queen and Michelle Obama to David Beckham - is being sued for allegedly reneging on the terms of a $24m personal loan. The lawsuit was filed by Art Capital, a company that might best be described as "a pawnbroker to the stars" because it offers wealthy people loans with their art collections surrendered as collateral. Art Capital claims Leibowitz, 59, has reneged on an agreement to sell her life's work to repay the debt. It has asked a court to order her to open her home and studio to its property agents.
Annie Leibovitz, the photographer who has taken portraits of the world's most famous people - from the Queen and Michelle Obama to David Beckham - is being sued for allegedly reneging on the terms of a $24m personal loan.
The lawsuit was filed by Art Capital, a company that might best be described as "a pawnbroker to the stars" because it offers wealthy people loans with their art collections surrendered as collateral. Art Capital claims Leibowitz, 59, has reneged on an agreement to sell her life's work to repay the debt. It has asked a court to order her to open her home and studio to its property agents.
It was only a drab union room and it was over faster than you could pluck a paper umbrella from a rum cocktail. But on Wednesday night, Havana briefly embraced Hollywood once again. Bill Murray crooned "As Time Goes By" from the film Casablanca while actors James Caan, Benicio del Toro and Robert Duvall smilingly looked on. Whence this instant of glamour on an isle that remains mostly shuttered off from America even if this year has seen first glimmerings of change? Mr Del Toro, it turns out, was in the hall receiving an award from his Cuban peers for his performance in the title role of two-part bio-epic Che, about Che Guevara, the lieutenant to Fidel Castro in the overthrow of the Batista regime in 1959. The film, directed by Stephen Soderbergh, was a huge hit in Cuba.
It was only a drab union room and it was over faster than you could pluck a paper umbrella from a rum cocktail. But on Wednesday night, Havana briefly embraced Hollywood once again. Bill Murray crooned "As Time Goes By" from the film Casablanca while actors James Caan, Benicio del Toro and Robert Duvall smilingly looked on.
Whence this instant of glamour on an isle that remains mostly shuttered off from America even if this year has seen first glimmerings of change? Mr Del Toro, it turns out, was in the hall receiving an award from his Cuban peers for his performance in the title role of two-part bio-epic Che, about Che Guevara, the lieutenant to Fidel Castro in the overthrow of the Batista regime in 1959. The film, directed by Stephen Soderbergh, was a huge hit in Cuba.
His latest, Inherent Vice, is the most accessible novel he has written. Weighing in at a mere 369 pages, it can be read easily over the course of a weekend and involves no complex mathematical formulae or hypotheses. Set mainly in Los Angeles in 1970 with the Manson Family trials looming in the background, the book is a wild romp through the paranoid landscape of post-`60s America. It's very cinematic, the narrative doesn't pose any particular challenge to the average reader and it would make a great movie with, say, Terry Gilliam or Oliver Stone directing. My first take on it was "Holy Shit! Pynchon has written a Tim Dorsey novel!", and that isn't too far from the truth. But Inherent Vice is much more than that. It might be the herald of a whole new genre: psychedelic noir. Kinky Friedman and the aforementioned Tim Dorsey have both skimmed the waters here, but neither of them has produced anything as thoroughly soaked in dope as this thing, and Pynchon's well-known talent for depicting the vast Manichean world of unseen forces bidding for dominion over souls it at its clearest and sharpest here. His ability to shift effortlessly from slapstick comedy to profound and lyrical longing is his territory exclusively. No one else does this, and I'm not sure that anyone else can.... -Skip- The cast of characters includes Nazoid ex-cons and bikers, one with a serious fixation on Ethel Merman, surfers and surf musicians (including a zombie surf band), bent cops, heroin smugglers, black militants and FBI agents, COINTELPRO informants and provocateurs, Vegas mobsters, a reanimated dead junkie, sinister dentists, an LSD guru whose main squeeze is fixated on the lost continent of Lemuria (which may or may not be resurfacing off the coast of L.A.), and a mysterious ship called The Golden Fang, the most demented and enigmatic plot device in the book. Pynchon's knowledge of surf music is encyclopedic, he very nearly pounds us with it here, and I was delighted to see that he shares my fondness for the Bonzo Dog Band, one of the truly great under-appreciated acts of the period. His depiction of the creeping menace of corporate fascism encroaching upon the various avatars of freedom at play in the book speaks of personal experience. It's a hugely comic novel that ends on a wistful, tragic note lost in the fog, out on the freeway, the procession of the preterite, not sure where they're going, not sure where they are. It's a love letter to the Sixties, a wake, an elegy to doomed aspirations and thwarted idealism, but it speaks to our present condition directly and clearly, with an open heart. Nobody does it better.
It might be the herald of a whole new genre: psychedelic noir. Kinky Friedman and the aforementioned Tim Dorsey have both skimmed the waters here, but neither of them has produced anything as thoroughly soaked in dope as this thing, and Pynchon's well-known talent for depicting the vast Manichean world of unseen forces bidding for dominion over souls it at its clearest and sharpest here. His ability to shift effortlessly from slapstick comedy to profound and lyrical longing is his territory exclusively. No one else does this, and I'm not sure that anyone else can....
-Skip-
The cast of characters includes Nazoid ex-cons and bikers, one with a serious fixation on Ethel Merman, surfers and surf musicians (including a zombie surf band), bent cops, heroin smugglers, black militants and FBI agents, COINTELPRO informants and provocateurs, Vegas mobsters, a reanimated dead junkie, sinister dentists, an LSD guru whose main squeeze is fixated on the lost continent of Lemuria (which may or may not be resurfacing off the coast of L.A.), and a mysterious ship called The Golden Fang, the most demented and enigmatic plot device in the book.
Pynchon's knowledge of surf music is encyclopedic, he very nearly pounds us with it here, and I was delighted to see that he shares my fondness for the Bonzo Dog Band, one of the truly great under-appreciated acts of the period. His depiction of the creeping menace of corporate fascism encroaching upon the various avatars of freedom at play in the book speaks of personal experience.
It's a hugely comic novel that ends on a wistful, tragic note lost in the fog, out on the freeway, the procession of the preterite, not sure where they're going, not sure where they are. It's a love letter to the Sixties, a wake, an elegy to doomed aspirations and thwarted idealism, but it speaks to our present condition directly and clearly, with an open heart. Nobody does it better.
Cabal describes Pynchon's current work as "psychedelic noir" and Pynchon as "the last and greatest voice of the Beats." His earlier works certainly have that sensibility, where ever he takes us in space and time.
A good companion for this paean to the '60s might be Robert Stone's PRIME GREEN:REMEMBERING THE SIXTIES. Damascus Gate is an excellent more recent novel by Stone set in Israel and Jerusalem in the year leading up to the millennium. I think Stone deserves to be mentioned along side Pynchon. (Prepares for incoming stones.) As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Avoiding Crime in Naples: Get a Criminal Guide If you are heading off to Naples while in Italy, but feeling a little insecure about getting around the Mafia-influenced city on your own, a new scheme might help you out. About 70 ex-prisoners have been hired to help tourists find their way around Naples, while giving them tips on areas to avoid and how to protect themselves, for example, taking off expensive jewelry when approaching areas where petty crimes like pickpocketing are common. The scheme has even got some of its funding from the European Union, although there are some local concerns that ex-criminals may not have the best "people skills" for dealing with tourists, but it sounds like something that is worth trying. If you are in Naples you will easily be able to spot these ex-con guides: they will be wearing bright yellow jackets and also carry ID cards so you can be sure you are being h
Avoiding Crime in Naples: Get a Criminal Guide
If you are heading off to Naples while in Italy, but feeling a little insecure about getting around the Mafia-influenced city on your own, a new scheme might help you out. About 70 ex-prisoners have been hired to help tourists find their way around Naples, while giving them tips on areas to avoid and how to protect themselves, for example, taking off expensive jewelry when approaching areas where petty crimes like pickpocketing are common.
The scheme has even got some of its funding from the European Union, although there are some local concerns that ex-criminals may not have the best "people skills" for dealing with tourists, but it sounds like something that is worth trying. If you are in Naples you will easily be able to spot these ex-con guides: they will be wearing bright yellow jackets and also carry ID cards so you can be sure you are being h
LOL ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
If you are in Naples you will easily be able to spot these ex-con guides: they will be wearing bright yellow jackets and also carry ID cards
as well as dark glasses and a suspicious bulge under their jackets keep to the Fen Causeway
Jarrett, the former chief executive of a Chicago real- estate company who acts as the president's liaison to the business and financial community, dismissed reports the administration and Wall Street are at odds. "We have a Cabinet that is sensitive to the needs of the business community," she said. Business leaders who have spent time with Obama "understand his philosophy; there's no disconnect." She said criticism of Obama's Cabinet because it doesn't include any former top executives was off base. "We have a very diverse cabinet," she said. "We've recruited broadly in the business community."
"We have a Cabinet that is sensitive to the needs of the business community," she said. Business leaders who have spent time with Obama "understand his philosophy; there's no disconnect."
She said criticism of Obama's Cabinet because it doesn't include any former top executives was off base.
"We have a very diverse cabinet," she said. "We've recruited broadly in the business community."
Portrait, Valerie Jarrett | NYT | 26 July 2009
Jarrett's shared experience with the Obamas is about race -- and on a deeper level, about the coexistence, in the post-King African-American psyche, of conscience and ambition, activism and accommodation. Their identity rests on that fulcrum; it is, as Barack Obama would say, who they are.
Jarrett was born in Shirz, Iran and lived there until the age of 5
"I think the thing that's important to the president and the first lady is this whole notion of authenticity," says Martin Nesbitt, a Chicago parking-lot entrepreneur whose closeness to Barack Obama rivals that of Jarrett. "And knowing them as well and being as close a friend as she is, Valerie's always there to say: `Yeah, but you know what? That's not you. You wouldn't say that. Somebody else is saying that. Barack Obama wouldn't say that.'"... The experience of infuriating developers and neighborhood groups alike "toughened me greatly," Jarrett says. From 1991 until 1995, she presided over a rancorous but largely successful makeover of the city's landscape, tearing down blighted housing projects and relocating residents -- those who qualified anyway -- to far more attractive new developments in racially mixed neighborhoods. (After her tenure, the infamous projects bearing her grandfather's name were demolished.)
The experience of infuriating developers and neighborhood groups alike "toughened me greatly," Jarrett says. From 1991 until 1995, she presided over a rancorous but largely successful makeover of the city's landscape, tearing down blighted housing projects and relocating residents -- those who qualified anyway -- to far more attractive new developments in racially mixed neighborhoods. (After her tenure, the infamous projects bearing her grandfather's name were demolished.)
The Plan for Transformation, "They was going to do what they was going to do"
Meanwhile, she was raising her daughter and developing a social life that revolved around an intimate community of like-minded black urban professionals who, like Jarrett, sought advancement not only for themselves but for the local African-American community. Chief among them were the Obamas. Jarrett brought Michelle into the Daley administration, attended their wedding, threw a book-signing party for the "Dreams From My Father" author and generally assumed a big-sisterly presence in the young couple's lives such that "I don't think either of them made major decisions without talking to her," Susan Sher said.... "This town loves and is dying for a whiff of a Rahm/Valerie power struggle," Cecilia Muñoz, Jarrett's director of intergovernmental affairs, says. "And there isn't one."
"This town loves and is dying for a whiff of a Rahm/Valerie power struggle," Cecilia Muñoz, Jarrett's director of intergovernmental affairs, says. "And there isn't one."
Too bad. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
Henry Horner Homes v. Chicago Housing Authority
As of September 2005, demolition had far outpaced new construction and rehabilitation. [88] Due to the massive demolition and lack of newly constructed or rehabilitated housing, as many as 4,851 CHA families, who are members of the Gautreaux plaintiff class, were forced to relocate involuntarily from their public housing units with Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers. [89] Between 1995 and 2005, they moved into the private market. [90] CHA had entered into a Relocation Rights Contract with the residents that promised to help displaced families move into neighborhoods more racially and economically integrated than those from where they were displaced. The CHA's relocation process produced the opposite result. CHA residents were relocated by CHA into neighborhoods that were just as racially segregated, and nearly as poor as the communities from where they were forced to move. [91] In order to remedy this situation, the Shriver Center and the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law litigated the Wallace v. CHA case, which was filed in January 2003 and settled in May 2005. [92] Under the settlement, CHA is obligated to use its "best and reasonable efforts" to provide programs to assist Wallace class members to exercise their own choices in relocating to economically and racially integrated communities. [93] It is too early in the process to assess the effects of the Wallace remedies. [94]
CHA had entered into a Relocation Rights Contract with the residents that promised to help displaced families move into neighborhoods more racially and economically integrated than those from where they were displaced. The CHA's relocation process produced the opposite result. CHA residents were relocated by CHA into neighborhoods that were just as racially segregated, and nearly as poor as the communities from where they were forced to move. [91]
In order to remedy this situation, the Shriver Center and the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law litigated the Wallace v. CHA case, which was filed in January 2003 and settled in May 2005. [92] Under the settlement, CHA is obligated to use its "best and reasonable efforts" to provide programs to assist Wallace class members to exercise their own choices in relocating to economically and racially integrated communities. [93] It is too early in the process to assess the effects of the Wallace remedies. [94]
HENRY HORNER MOTHERS GUILD, et al., Plaintiffs, The CHICAGO HOUSING AUTHORITY(pdf)
Clinton-Bush HOPE VI "public-private partnership" ditto.
GAO,2003
As of December 31, 2002, construction was complete at 15 of the 165 HOPE VI sites, and the majority of grantees had not met deadlines established in their grant agreements with HUD. Relocation was complete at 101 sites, demolition was complete at 87 sites, and at least some units were built at 99 of the 165 sites. Grantees had completed 27 percent of the total planned units and spent approximately $2.1 of the $4.5 billion in HOPE VI revitalization funds awarded. However, the majority of grantees had missed at least one of the deadlines in their grant agreements. For example, grantees did not submit the revitalization plan to HUD within the time frame specified in the grant agreement for 75 percent of the grants awarded through fiscal year 1999 (for grants awarded after 1999, the deadline had not yet passed at the time of our study). Similarly, grantees did not complete construction within the deadline on 39 of the 42 grants for which the standard time allowed for construction (54 months) had expired at the time of our study. Several factors affect the status of work at HOPE VI sites, including the development approach used, changes to revitalization plans, and relationships with residents. For example, sites funded with a mix of public and private financing tend to take longer because housing authorities must hire additional staff or outside consultants proficient in private-sector real estate construction, financing, and lending practices in order to put together financing and retain developers.
cha-ching Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
