the outsider kart by autotelic

its dead

its socially silent  
from being gagged in the asylum
to gigging in gated communities
and the more refined galleries of nob hill
courtesy of the midwives of raw bourgeois vision and convention
who've chewed through the umbilical linkages to bloody life
with their perfectly networked  teeth
to set past abortions
and present injustices adrift
on calming aminotic waves of social mobility
push, push, push

push harder
for a safer and more acceptable  mainstream delivery
but the kid's blue in the face
stone cold
dead
only no-one's  noticed
because it looks so, well, ethnic and lively
and mom's so busy touring
lecturing on the difficult labour

of near whole nights sat up in bed drawing
thinking about choosing the right schools for junior
worrying about vetting friends

arranging play dates

perpetuating the right life patterns
and of course the burden of being an outsider artist

on the right side of the tracks 

with a foot or two already in the door of the academy  

still,

the dead kid is just propped up

dead straight 

starring out of its pram

its mummified
its all about fucking  mom

occasionally she's  joined by mutes

unrepentant death row inmates with crayons

swamp dwellers and vicious dogs

they take it in turn at tumbling for the paying public

its a dumb association
but at least the dogs keep the feral helots at bay

if we ever stray into their world  

her audiences gather to coo over the dead kid
she cradles it in her arms

self-lovingly
and sure i'm being harsh
maybe the poor kid  even looks cute

but the thing is

it just wont ever say anything meaningful  

about living outside or inside

because it isnt real  

As US workers who can shift to 4 day working week to save on gas Bill Clinton  worked overtime from his wife's campaign Friday to promote the all important launch of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's new 'Faith Foundation'.

Clinton  described Blair as "a good man as well as a great leader" glossing over  Blair's  reluctance to convert to the Catholicism of his conscience while in office and of course his key role in leading us into the war in Iraq,

Tony Blair doesnt seem very anxious for people to analyse his record either as ( forgetting about his environmental ambassador role  ) he jets around the world posing as a prophet Ellijah figure sternly castigating  westerners for their lack of faith while  simultaneously warning us about the dangers of extremism from the faithful.

The Faith Foundation  will  work with Yale University, where Blair will lead a course on "faith and globalization." something he clearly knows a lot about as his Iraq policy certainly helped to extend religious intolerance and  hatred and the global reach of terror from Bagdhad to Guantanamo.

Still, as long as Blair and his latest Focus Group are on our side God is sure to follow..

in dog we trust

We're told the the first people who will live to be 150 years old  as the norm have already been born and perhaps they are of the same generation that will finally figure out how to use  technonology to escape all limitations of biology . We live in peak times. Peak oil and peak food but we've already peaked as far as biodiversity is concerned.  We've peaked as human beings  and as we hurtle towards being dominated by an increasingly   non biological master race the last remants of unadulterated  humanity are being sought out and obliterated by the culture. If the planet had a reset button now would be a good time to press it.

Thoughts of death appear to trigger retail therapy or comfort buying in people with low self esteem.

Naomi Mandel at Arizona State University and Dirk Smeesters at Erasmus University,  Rotterdam explored the link between thoughts of mortality and the urge to consume by asking 746 students to write essays on one of two topics: their death or a visit to the dentist. Each student  also completed a questionnaire designed to evaluate their level of self-esteem.

Mandel and Smeesters found that subjects with low self-esteem who wrote about death ate more cookies, when given the opportunity, and bought more items from a hypothetical shopping list compared to those who wrote about the dentist. In people with high self-esteem, thoughts of death had little effect (Journal of Consumer Research, DOI: 10.1086/587626).

They concluded that people with low self-esteem use consuming as a way of subconsciously escaping self-awareness, which is heightened by thoughts of dying. "When you indulge in shopping or eating, it helps you forget yourself," says Smeesters.

Rosellina Ferraro at the University of Maryland says the study is interesting in that it suggests a "possible mechanism for dealing with death-related anxiety", (.. maxxing out the credit cards?..) adding that triggers for thinking about death are everywhere in the culture particularly in news coverage.

In his latest, still unpublished study, Smeesters found that people with low self-esteem shop and eat more after watching death-related news clips . He adds "One would hope that companies do not exploit this by putting food ads straight after the news."

Well you can bet they will now they know there are sound economic reasons for doing so...maybe the corporates could even  fund a few more large body count  disasters..a sort of proactive top down consumerist take on  karma..

whatever, I'm off to buy myself a new outfit to avoid dwelling on my own mortality 

bushmeat

"It is my firm belief that, unless we work together to change attitudes at all levels - from world leaders to the consumers of illegal bush meat - there will be no viable populations of great apes in the wild within 50 years."

Dr Jane Goodall

freemarket guru milton friedman once famously said ' there is no such thing as a free lunch'
yet urban foraging is on the rise as rocketing fuel and food prices force people to scan the economic landscape to see what they can get for free
friedman obviously didnt notice  the collosal  amount of edible food the fast food  industry throws away

he didnt seem to think the savings to be had from cycling or walking to work were worthy of a mention either
or sharing housing and housing costs
growing a little food
or selling old clothes , unwanted stuff and things you find in the street on ebay
but the foragers and gleaners have their critics
as with the great ape who posted
"you go live in the forest and get eaten by gorillas and i will drive my car to work and then we'll see who lasts longer"
eaten by gorillas in the forest?
all four subspecies of gorilla are on the endangered list
there's more chance of being  killed by a fucking logging truck

installation Tate Modern

in the digital galleries of the now
the portraits come to life
by the second
to draw us into their crafted landscapes
offering us a glimpse of their wealth and power
their social class , background and education
their natural environment
their deep connection with the culture
their wide ranging interests and abilities
their resumes and career prospects
their artwork
their coolness
their familes , pets , partners and sexual prowess
their ideal homes
the contents of their lives
their religious beliefs
their egos
their ethnicity
their latest consumer durables

their politics and goals...
their favourite sports teams
their ailments
their gang membership
their emotional side
their worst nightmares
their definitive CD collections
their home videos
their cutting edge designer clothes

their hopes for the future
their crazy nights out

but most of all their sheer interestedness
and their huge collection of similar portraits
of their friends