Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[frogwoman]

the helen lewis twitter kerfuffle is quite curious. i'd not have even noticed if all her mates hadn't suddenly started going on about it as if everyone was already aware of the details. do they assume that if you're following one of 'em, you're following them all?

Yeah but they actually know tony benn.

 

[killer b]

i don't think owen has weighed in yet. only a matter of time though...

 

[sihhi]

My art’s been on everything from theatre curtains to perfume bottles, children’s books and body paint. When Dirtee Hollywood approached me and gave me complete aesthetic freedom to corrupt their T-shirt line with curvaceous Victorian tarts, I was in heaven.

 

[frogwoman]

My art’s been on everything from theatre curtains to perfume bottles, children’s books and body paint. When Dirtee Hollywood approached me and gave me complete aesthetic freedom to corrupt their T-shirt line with curvaceous Victorian tarts, I was in heaven.​

 

[butchersapron]

Dirtee Hollywood:

DL: [Laughs] I was definitely hoping for celebrities to wear it, but not just any celebrity, the right celebrities that effectively market our brand, message and vision. And it absolutely helps with distribution and marketing, however at the end of the day Dirtee Hollywood is for anyone who appreciates our quality and art.

Laurie:

The Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord - The situationist bible; a book that was passed from hand to grimy activist hand in 1968, and remains of equal importance to today's young dissidence. A book about the nature of capitalist reality and the imagery of alienation.

 

[sihhi]

I'm asking for your help to afford creating the work, renting a New York storefront, paying for supplies, staffing, gambling chips, girls to bathe in bathtubs of fake money, and six-foot-tall panels to paint. In return, you can get access to every aspect of making these giant paintings. While I'm making Shell Game, I want you with me. I'll be keeping a backers-only blog, and livestreaming my painting sessions. Kickstarter rewards include prints, studies, watercolor drawings and concept doodles - plus fake money, prints, cameos, poker chips, brushes, studio visits, and a VIP opening to experience the art with a select cast of my favorite reprobates.
When I finish all 9 giant paintings, I'm going to email the $8000 backers with images of all of them, and ask them to choose which one they want. Paintings will be available on a first-come first serve basis. The Great American Bubble Machine has been snapped up by early backers. Sorry. But everything else will be of a similar aesthetic (large central figure, scampering crowd of surrealist animals, stage, hyper-detail, the same size, and the same quality.

 

[butchersapron]

Hey molly, get into victorian opium, all the cool kids are doing it.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Sorry, we couldn't retrieve user @helenlewis - That user does not exist

 

[Dillinger4]

This sort of thing: Hey, Mister, you want dirty book? (about Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War by Frances Stonor Saunders)

edit: sorry, just noticed not full essay there, let me see what i can do

here

 

[frogwoman]

Dirtee Hollywood:



Laurie:

Can somebody get these people to fuck off now

 

[butchersapron]

here

Ta, forgot to actually look after saying i would

 

[Dillinger4]

Ta, forgot to actually look after saying i would

That's a pretty good book as well, I have been reading loads of stuff like that recently

 

[Dillinger4]

There's a multi-volume book still to be written on that subject. Just the interconnections between various endowments and scholarships funded (either directly or indirectly) by the Congress for Cultural Freedom would fill a book. Then you've got all the "prizes" funded by "fellow-travellers" of the US intelligence community - the at-one-remove likes of Rand, which all feeds back into the same pot of piss.

This sort of thing: Hey, Mister, you want dirty book? (about Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War by Frances Stonor Saunders)

edit: sorry, just noticed not full essay there, let me see what i can do

And this one is pretty good as well. In fact I have quite a few books about this kind of thing. I'll go and have a look.

 

[Dillinger4]

And a decent essay on the same sort of subject here

 

[Dan U]

...

who are the cunts who fork out money for this shit.

and how do i speak to them about the squirrels in their loft.

 

[butchersapron]

who are the cunts who fork out money for this shit.

and how do i speak to them about the squirrels in their loft.

They're the sons and daughters of the rich, esp of the people who benefited from the recent dominance of financial capital. And crabapple and others have spotted a market they are going to milk for all they can.

 

[Dillinger4]

There's a multi-volume book still to be written on that subject. Just the interconnections between various endowments and scholarships funded (either directly or indirectly) by the Congress for Cultural Freedom would fill a book. Then you've got all the "prizes" funded by "fellow-travellers" of the US intelligence community - the at-one-remove likes of Rand, which all feeds back into the same pot of piss.

Lobster Magazine is also worth looking at on this kind of thing. Very interesting to read about 'The British American Project' and it's membership.

This is exactly the kind of thing I have been reading about all year. Maybe I should write the book.

 

[Dan U]

They're the sons and daughters of the rich, esp of the people who benefited from the recent dominance of financial capital. And crabapple and others have spotted a market they are going to milk for all they can.

bringing down the system, one shit piece of art at a time.

 

[sihhi]

who are the cunts who fork out money for this shit.

Middle class people who visit galleries like the Smart Clothes Gallery:

with this kind of art:

 

[frogwoman]

no fuck off

 

[butchersapron]

Reading stuff about intelligence operations in the labour movement during the Cold War, it makes me wonder how much of this stuff happens organically and how much is directed in some way or another, think about those scholarships...

To be honest, a good chunk of the post-war labour movement globally was established by the US - the Japanese unions for example, and they were encouraged to strike and be militant in order to push up labour costs as against those of US based capital.

 

[Dillinger4]

two more:

Covert Network: Progressives, The International Rescue Committee and the CIA

Haven't read this one but I have seen it referenced in quite a few places, especially when David Miliband resigned as MP to join the International Rescue Committee (interesting to note that DM is also a leading member of the British American Project)

Think Tank: The Story of the Adam Smith Institute

This one is interesting. Rather than an investigative outsider look at Think Tanks, this one is by one of the founders of the Adam Smith Institute, but there still some very telling bits in it

Some of the books by Peter Dale Scott are quite interesting as well.

It's quite difficult to find decent stuff about this subject, because there is such a fine line between well referenced research and 'conspiracy theory'

I won't post any more though unless anyone is interested

 

[ViolentPanda]

Lobster Magazine is also worth looking at on this kind of thing. Very interesting to read about 'The British American Project' and it's membership.

This is exactly the kind of thing I have been reading about all year. Maybe I should write the book.

I own every copy of Lobster bar one. Was a subscriber from about issue 15.

 

[Dillinger4]

I own every copy of Lobster bar one. Was a subscriber from about issue 15.

Only started reading it a few years ago. Nothing quite like it!

 

[ViolentPanda]

This sort of thing: Hey, Mister, you want dirty book? (about Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War by Frances Stonor Saunders)

edit: sorry, just noticed not full essay there, let me see what i can do

I once tried to map the British end of this between circa 1955-1985, but got hopelessly bogged down somewhere in the late '60s. It's such a massive subject, and (to use a massive cliche) what we know is probably the tip of a very big, very ugly iceberg.

 

[sihhi]

no fuck off

Careful you don't become a horrifying roommate and delay/thwart a budding revolutionary left-wing artist, see below.

 

[butchersapron]

100 years after dada these clowns chase after being an artist

 

[TruXta]

80 years after dada these clowns chase after being an artist

What makes you think dada had any impact apart from a tiny corner of popular culture? That, after all, is what these people are embroiled in. Representational art hardly died from being hit with a signed urinal either.

 

[butchersapron]

What makes you think dada had any impact apart from a tiny corner of popular culture? That, after all, is what these people are embroiled in. Representational art hardly died from being hit with a signed urinal either.

Their massive influence - look at modern art for example and please try and tell me, them and the tradition they kicked off in the 20th century was only a minor influence. Secondly, what on earth makes you think that having a minor influence (as you suggest) makes dada's criticisms of the very idea of art wrong?

 

[TruXta]

Their massive influence - look at modern art for example and please try and tell me, them and the tradition they kicked off in the 20th century was only a minor influence. Secondly, what on earth makes you think that having a minor influence (as you suggest) makes dada's criticisms of the very idea of art wrong?

A minor influence on popular culture, was what I said. Not modern art. Modern art itself is a tiny corner of popular culture IMO. Especially if you look at popular participation in and creation of said, compared to literature, music, film and TV.

I didn't comment on the value of dada's criticisms btw.