Here’s a bizarre and unsettling piece I came across yesterday. It was laying in an abandoned lot next to Chez Jacques, down in the Fifth Ward:
The PS seems an odd addition.
The Massege — found missive
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Category Archives: Talk Amongst Yourselves
Dancing in the Third Ward
Calatrava Tele Clava
From today’s Guardian newspaper, UK edition, comes news of revolt stirring in Valencia against claims of exorbitant fees paid by the conservative government to Santiago Calatrava for works both completed and those unrelaized:
Stunning bridges, airports and daring buildings have made him famous around the world, but now Santiago Calatrava is facing fierce criticism for his dealings with the local government in his home region of Valencia.
The architect, who designed the roof of the Athens Olympic stadium, is under fire from political opponents of the conservative-run authority, and a website highlighting fees paid to him by Spanish taxpayers has been launched.
Calatrava has charged some €100m (£81m) to the Valencia government, according to the website, established by the leftwing Esquerra Unida party. The party says it has managed to see copies of bills paid by the People’s party regional government to the architect, who is now based in Zurich.
Architect Santiago Calatrava accused of ‘bleeding Valencia dry’ | The Guardian
Architect Santiago Calatrava accused of ‘bleeding Valencia dry’
Backfill – London 2012
Playing catch-up here on several of our art outings from this past week. New posts relating to past events will be backfilled with their posting date matching the event date. So, if you’ve been keeping up, we haven’t, and you may find new stories below.
Unfortunate Headline Placement II
This from the Latest News section of the Independent Online just now:
Well Nick, what do you say to that?
Pawn Posted
“You’ve been posted!” read the subject of the email from friend J. J is a contributing writer for the local Milwaukee Journal Sentinel arts blog, Art City, and her reference was to a recent interview she conducted with moi. You can read it all here:
Urban Urgency Wrapped in Gossamer Strains
A coworker recently turned Pawn onto You Are Listening To…, a website which mashes up ambient music and police scanners. Focusing on five cities, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Montreal, the site features a simple photograph of the city you chose, along with the aural pastiche appropriate to those climes. Check it out, a shockingly soothing audio backdrop for the workplace.
As an interesting experiment,just go looking for some sounds you think might go well together. I just loaded up the “Ambient” tag at Sound Cloud in one browser window, and the Kennedy Space Center live audio feed in another.
Making Use Of Local Artisans
Interesting review in the Shepherd Express most recent issue. Jeff Beutner reviews INdustri Café, which besides its twee spelling indulges in a surfeit of locally produced ingredients. In this early paragraph Beutner describes some of the local favorites for the cannibals amongst us:
The menu at INdustri Café is interesting and thoughtful. In a nod to Milwaukee, there is a liverwurst sandwich and an appetizer of kabobs made with kielbasa and white cheddar cheese. The liverwurst and sausage are made from local artisans.
INdustri Café Highlights Local Ingredients
Pawn was fortunate enough to have visited INdustri on their opening night, along with buddy T, and thoroughly enjoyed the free appetizers. One wonders how many artisans perished for that snack.
An American Ex-Pat’s Thoughts on Egypt
Pawn recently reached out to friend and ex-patriot T, now living in Mozambique, for her opinion on the current events in Egypt. T is an international teacher, and has taught in Los Angeles and Thailand, before living and teaching in Cairo for some time. This was her response:
Great to hear from you. Yes, J and I are glued to the news everyday. I think it is absolutely necessary for the people to fight against Mubarak. He has been a tyrant and a merciless dictator for too long. It is a shame that some people will get hurt, but I agree with the revolt and think that Hosni should resign.
I think it is amazing that social networking can possibly be the unifying factor for many people throughout Africa. Here in Mozambique when we had the riots last fall, people were being organized by text messages, until the government cut off all cell phone service. That was the only way to squelch it.
Many Africans in countries with corrupt governments have needed a way to organize and join together to fight and be heard, now facebook, text messages, have reached the common man, the economies have been increaing and the technology has become available to the masses.  Just last month there were protests in Tanzania for the first time in twenty years and it was all organized through texts.
Again I don’t want to see people get hurt and looting and destroying property is horrible but If you mistreat people for long periods of time, you can’t help but expect them to fight back violently. I just hope that the international community puts enough pressure on Mubarak so that he will actually step down. I’m worried about my Egyptian friends of course, and concerned for their safety, but I know they are ready for the regime to be toppled.
Syndey Police Photos
Eugenia Falleni, alias Harry Crawford, special photograph number 234
My favorite photo blog site, Heading East, today featured some photos from the collection of the Sydney Police Department. It seems the Home Office has an archive site which is open to browsing, download, etc. Raul Gutierrez of Heading East writes:
I finally dug through the original archive myself at the The Historic Houses Trust site today. It’s well worth the visit. The site allows download of full resolution versions of the images and provides context. Many of the descriptions are like that famous 6 word Hemingway short, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
“Child unknown, found wandering at large.”
“Eugenia Falleni, alias Harry Crawford, special photograph number 234”
The image above is my favorite, so far, from Raul’s list:
Description: Special Photograph no. 234. When ‘Harry Leon Crawford’, hotel cleaner of Stanmore was arrested and charged with wife murder he was revealed to be in fact Eugeni Falleni, a woman and mother, who had been passing as a man since 1899. In 1914, as ‘Harry Crawford’, Falleni had married the widow Annie Birkett. Three years later, shortly after she announced to a relative that she had found out ‘something amazing about Harry’, Birkett disappeared. Crawford told neighbours that she had run off with a plumber. In 1919 Birkett’s young son, who had remained in Crawford’s custody, told an aunt of attempts made on his life by his drunken stepfather. The aunt contacted police. A charred body which had been found in Lane Cove in 1917 was belatedly identified as Birkett’s. ‘Crawford’s’ astonished second wife, when finally convinced of Falleni’s true gender remarked, “I always wondered why he was so painfully shy …”
The photograph shown here shows Falleni in male clothing, probably on the day of her arrest. The negative was found in a paper sleeve inscribed ‘Falleni Man/Woman’. It is also possible that Falleni was made to dress in a man’s suit for the photograph.