cow dung cake - the blog that bites back

Rocket woman: How to cook curry and get a spacecraft into Mars orbit

2018-09-10T07:08:00.002-07:00

By Geeta Pandey BBC World Service, Delhi

Can you guide a spacecraft into orbit around Mars and cook for eight people morning and night? Yes, if you get up at 5am, and your name is BP Dakshayani. Here the former head of flight dynamics and space navigation for the Indian space agency explains how she did it - and the housework too.
They became known as the Rocket Women or the Women from Mars. Four years ago, the picture of a group of women in saris celebrating as an Indian spacecraft successfully entered Mars orbit shone a light on the role played by women in the country's space programme - among them BP Dakshayani.

women at India's space agency celebrating the Mars orbit

She led the team that kept an eye on the satellite, telling it exactly where to go, and ensuring that it did not deviate from its path.

One of her colleagues (also female) described the task as like hitting a golf ball in India and expecting it to go into a hole in Los Angeles - a hole, moreover, that was constantly moving.
It was a tough job made tougher by the responsibilities of an Indian wife. But her strength of will had become obvious many years earlier, when the girl from a "quite traditional, conservative and orthodox" family set her sights on a career in science.
As a child growing up in the 1960s in Bhadravati, a town in the southern state of Karnataka, her father had initially encouraged her interest, and it flourished. There was only one woman in the town who had studied engineering, and Dakshayani would run out to see her whenever she passed their house.

Back then educating girls was not seen as a priority and it was pretty unusual for them to go to university, but her father - an accountant with impressive maths skills - wanted her to study. So she signed up for an engineering degree and graduated top of her year.
But then a disagreement arose. Dakshayani wanted to go on to take a Master's degree. Her father, however, thought that a BSc was sufficient. In the end, Dakshayani got her way - and once again graduated with top grades.

After that she took a job in a college teaching maths, but her interest in space and satellites was deepening. One day she saw an advertisement for a job at Isro, the Indian space agency. She applied - and was hired.

It was 1984 and Dakshayani was put to work on orbital dynamics. Today she is a specialist in the area, but at the time she had to work hard to understand the basics.

She was also assigned to do computer programming, but there was a slight problem there - she had never actually seen a computer. In those days that was not really unusual. Not many people had computers and there were no smartphones or tablets. But she had books. So every day, after work, she would go home and read books on computer programming to get up to speed.Before long, Dakshayani had other kinds of homework to do as well.
A year after she began working at Isro, her parents arranged her marriage to orthopaedic surgeon Dr Manjunath Basavalingappa - which meant that she suddenly had a household to run.

At the office, she did complex calculations and computer programming to guide satellites. At home, she looked after her large family that included her parents-in-law, her husband's five siblings and within a few years - their own two children.
"I used to get up around 5am because I had to cook for seven, eight people and it was not easy," she says." Also, our food habits are such that we need chapatis (hand-made bread) which take time to make. So I would cook for the whole family and then come to office."
Once in the office, she says, there was little time to think about home and she would just about manage to call home once in the afternoon to find out how the children were doing. In the evenings, she would get back home and start cooking again.
It was tough, she admits.

Some of her relatives assumed she would quit her job, she says, "but I am not a person who gives up easily."

"Also, my father used to say that we should try until the end. Even when it comes to technical things, if I don't understand something, I read it many times until I do."
Sometimes she would go to bed at 1am or 2am, she says, and get up again at 4am to work.

But Dakshayani is not complaining. Far from it. Her voice is full of enthusiasm as she talks about how she juggled home and work life, how much she enjoyed her work and how solving problems gave her happiness.
It must have helped that she actually enjoys cooking.

"I keep doing some small small modifications and try making new things. I say cooking is similar to coding - just as one small change in the code will result in a different number, similarly a small change in ingredients will result in a different taste," she says.
One evening, Dakshayani invites me into her home in a quiet Bangalore neighbourhood to meet her husband. As she brings out tea and delicious snacks, the couple talk about the decades they've spent together, about how they have supported each other in tough times and how their relationship and respect for each other has grown over the years.
In the initial years, Dakshayani says her husband couldn't understand what she actually did. "Sometimes I would go to work on Saturdays and he thought maybe that was because I was not doing my work properly," she says.

But gradually he came to understand that satellites dictated his wife's work schedule, and "would not come when we wanted". Today, Dr Basavalingappa says he is incredibly proud of his wife and what she has achieved by her hard work - the Mars mission, for example, and the "space recovery project" where Dakshayani calculated how to ensure that a space capsule returning to Earth would not burn up on re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere, and could be safely recovered at sea.
Asked to rate their lives with each other, Dr Basavalingappa says he would give her "10 out of 10".
Dakshayani laughs and says she will give him only 9.5. "Because you never ever found an occasion to assist me in the housework."
In a traditional Indian family set-up, women are expected to bear most of the burden - and in most homes they do it uncomplainingly. Dakshayani is no exception.

Dr Basavalingappa explains that as a doctor, his working day often stretches up to 18 hours, while his wife mostly worked office hours. Dakshayani seems satisfied with this explanation.
The home front, she says, is no longer so busy. Her son and daughter - both engineers - have grown up and moved to the US to work.

I ask her about her post-retirement plans, but it seems full retirement is not on her agenda.
She wants to continue studying Mars. She lists the differences and the tremendous similarities between Earth and the red planet.

The planet that made her an inspiration to many young Indian girls is one, she says, that she would love to live on. That really would make her the Woman from Mars.

source - https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-45374442?SThisFB

joe...eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

2017-11-27T14:34:00.002-08:00

https://issuu.com/yorkiefund/docs/j2/1?ff=true

please sign this petition

2015-09-06T09:31:00.003-07:00

this image of a tiny baby lying lifeless on the shore is, like so many, too heartbreaking to watch. what’s really appalling is that instead of being shocked to take urgent action, our leaders are stuck in a fighting match on whose problem this is. but for the first time ever, there’s a glimmer of hope for a solution.

after massive public calls to welcome refugees, german chancellor merkel and the president of the eu commission are leading efforts to deliver a new, strong european union plan that would give refuge to people fleeing war and hunger.

france

is on board, but shamefully the

hungary

, and other eastern european countries have been blocking this emergency action. whether eu politicians lead the world to a humane 21st century refugee plan, or turn their backs, depends on how much they feel the public demands it. that’s where we come in.

right now we are at a tipping point. it’s time for us to lead our leaders. eu ministers are meeting in the next few days to set their positions, so there’s no time to lose. join the call for a plan to give these terrified families safe haven now -- avaaz will deliver our proposal to all key decision makers before their summit.

line of control

2014-09-02T09:01:00.002-07:00

when they knew all people wanted was to fulfill their basic desires, they created religion in hope of controlling them.

change gone wrong 2

2014-09-02T08:59:00.002-07:00

when steve jobs wished to change the world, he never said he was going to change it for the better...

irony...

2014-09-02T08:57:00.001-07:00

invention of land line telephone brought people together from far away even when they were physically hundreds, even thousands of miles apart. cell phone invention destroyed that by emotionally navigating people far away even when they are physically next to each other.

g g

2014-06-11T07:31:00.004-07:00

photographs of eyes affixed to dwellings in rio de janeiro are part of google’s street art project database. creditmosa

street art in dallas by the duo known as faile, captured by a group with street view technology.creditdallas contemporary

paris — there’s a portrait of an anonymous chinese man chiseled into a wall in shanghai, a colorful mural in atlanta and black-and-white photographs of eyes that the french artist jr affixed to the houses of a hillside favela in rio de janeiro. these are among the images of more than 4,000 works included in a vast new online gallery of street art that google is unveiling here on tuesday.

called the street art project, the database was created by the company’s paris-based google cultural institute. using images provided by cultural organizations worldwide, some of which were captured with google’s street view camera technology, it includes street art from around the globe, including work that no longer exists, like the 5pointz murals in long island city, queens, or the walls of the tour paris 13 tower in

france

with the initiative, google is the latest organization to wade into debates about how or whether to institutionalize, let alone commercialize, art that is ephemeral and often willfully created subversively. a private database of public art, it also poses questions about how to legally preserve what in some cases might be considered vandalism.

in a sense, google is formalizing what street art fans around the world already do: take pictures of city walls and distribute them on social media. yet for google to do so could raise concerns, given the criticism of its aggressive surveillance tactics, especially in europe, where its street view satellite mapping is widely seen as a violation of privacy.

google is taking pains to avoid offense by setting strict conditions. it will include only images provided by organizations that sign a contract attesting that they own the rights to them. it will not cull through street view images but will provide the technology to organizations that want to use it to record street art legally. some groups have provided exact locations of the artworks; others have not.

aiming to steer clear of one of the most contentious debates in the street art world, google says it will not include images from groups seeking to sell the art or images of it. many street artists object to their public work being sold without their permission. for instance, banksy, the anonymous british street artist, has objected to attempts to sell his artworks after they are stripped from public walls, saying the stencils belong to the community.

google also said it would remove images if artists complained to the groups that contributed them to the database.

the company sees the platform as a way of making more art available to viewers. “i’m not treating street art as anything different from what i would do with the impressionist collection i’m getting on art project,” said amit sood, director of the google cultural institute, referring to a philanthropic initiative that has provided technical support to more than 460 museums to help put their collections online.

the institute, which was founded in 2011 and has a staff of around 30 engineers, has also helped create online archives for historic figures likenelson mandela and used street view to provide multimedia renderings of unesco world heritage sites like angkor wat in cambodia.

mr. sood acknowledges that the street art program, like the cultural institute, is a way for google to generate good will in privacy-conscious europe. “it helps make people realize we are doing a lot of things that actually support the community,” he said.

the database is searchable by artist, city, genre and other categories, and even includes a special section on new york walls of the 1990s. among the 30 institutions that have furnished images so far are the museum of the city of new york; the dallas contemporary exhibition space in texas; the city speaks in atlanta, which finances street art and disseminates it online; and the museum of street art in

france

working with the french organization project tour paris 13, google filmed the rooms of tour 13 in paris, which had been entirely covered in street art, before its owners destroyed the building. google also used a powerful camera to capture works by the portuguese graffiti artist vhils, who uses an electric chisel to carve images into the sides of buildings. viewers can zoom in on the chisel marks.

shepard fairey, who is best known for his image of president obama, said he had “no problem” with being included in the database. “i’ve always used my street art to democratize art, so it would be philosophically inconsistent for me to protest art democratization through google,” he said through a publicist. and the belgian artist known as roa said he would be pleased to be part of it, “as long as they credit the mural to me, and it’s not being used for commercial purposes or corporations.”

some past attempts to institutionalize street art have not gone over so well. the police commissioner of los angeles criticized a 2011 exhibition called “art in the streets” at that city’s museum of contemporary art, arguing that it encouraged vandalism.

philippe vergne, who took over as director of the los angeles museum in january, acknowledged, “street art often comes with a bad reputation where people don’t know how to discriminate art from vandalism.” lois stavsky, who runs the nonprofit group street art nyc, said that most street artists liked the idea of enabling more people to see their work. she said she had sorted through thousands of photos taken by her group at 5pointz over the years and painstakingly uploaded hundreds to the google platform. the owners of the building painted over the art last fall and plan to demolish it to make way for luxury condos.

“the fact that 5pointz was whitewashed, it was covered up with white paint, just proves how important it is to document this,” she said.

the google street art platform is to be presented at a news conference at the palais de tokyo, a contemporary art space owned partly by the city of paris, which is opening an exhibition on saturday called “the lasco project,” a play on words referring to the prehistoric art painted in the caves of lascaux. street artists have been invited to create works on the museum’s basement walls.

on a recent afternoon, the new york street artist futura was wearing yellow rubber gloves as he spray-painted black dots on a striped wall for the paris exhibition.

the artist, 58, said he liked the idea of google’s street art project, given that he and other artists mostly learn about one another’s work online anyway. “instagram accounts — most artists are there,” he said.

change gone unhealthy

2014-05-25T09:20:00.001-07:00

“do you want to sell sugary drinks for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change people's lives?” when steve jobs said this to pepsi executive john scully to lure him to apple, what he did not know (even though he meant good) was that his devices would make the new generation visually impaired, if not totally blind, by the age of 40 (and that is a liberal estimate, it could very well be 30!) because of the close proximity of harmful light his devices bring to the eyes of kids... (this is my own statement, not a quote from someone else's statement, after observing my daughter the way she constantly uses her ipod for chat). now that is still a change in people's lives (even though that change he did not mean to bring about)!

you alone!

2014-05-23T12:32:00.003-07:00

o longing mind,
dwell within the depth
of your own pure nature.
do not seek your home elsewhere.
do not confine your innate infinity
within the mansions of finitude.
your naked awareness alone, o mind,
is the inexhaustible abundance
for which you long so desperately!
-rkp

indian slobs!

2014-04-30T09:43:00.002-07:00

washington, dc: the ongoing case of subhash kapoor – the notorious art thief who is now standing trial in tamil nadu for allegedly selling stolen indian artifacts to museums around the world – is getting a bit stranger, as it appears that despite the efforts of the us government to return some $100 million worth of stolen art, india doesn’t seem particularly interested in getting these items back.

the us immigration and customs enforcement (ice) agency has seized about $100 million worth of stolen artifacts, all of which apparently came from kapoor, according to a report by archaeologist and activist dr. kirit mankodi. these were taken from kapoor’s “art of the past” business in new york, and appear to mostly have originated from religious sites around the states of tamil nadu and madhya pradesh.

related story: toledo museum of art wants to return stolen idol of ganesha, but indian consulate in new york, embassy ignore it

one such piece is a stone sculpture of the buddha, which originated in the chola era, while another sculpture of bharhut yakshi is estimated at $15 million in value. other works include a sandstone sculpture of the mahakoka, a bird-like goddess, which was reported stolen in july of 2004.

these works, along with many others, have been collected and are waiting to be sent off to

india

. but due to a lack of activity from

india

’s side, they have been languishing in a warehouse in the us. indian authorities are demanding to see proof of where these works originated, and want to make sure they can trace the full histories of these objects before taking them back.

the news is unusual, as just this january, the successful handover of a sandstone sculpture took place at the indian consulate general in new york city.

india

has been swift to arrest and prosecute kapoor for his alleged crimes, but their delaying in reclaiming these works of art is somewhat unexpected.

last month, the toledo museum of art had a similar problem, when it reached out to the indian consulate general and embassy regarding what to do with its ganesha idol. kapoor sold that idol to the museum, along with several other works over a ten-year timespan. if they are stolen, the museum wants to return them, but it has received no communication from indian authorities.

“we have had no contact from the indian side,” said kelly fritz garrow, the director of communications at the toledo museum of art. “we wrote to the indian consulate in new york on july 13 of last year, when we first found out that there may be an issue, but we received no response to that. we wrote another letter recently [to the embassy], when we put out the information about the items we bought from kapoor, but once the us government got involved with us, we’ve worked directly with them. we hoped to work directly with the indian government, but that didn’t happen, so the justice department is our primary contact.”

kapoor’s stolen art found its way to museums outside of the us, as well. the national gallery of

australia

, which bought a 900 year-old bronze statue of the hindu god shiva from kapoor, has sued him for $5 million. they’ll have to wait until his current trial is resolved before getting their shot at him.

as for the art collected by ice – it’s still sitting in a department of homeland security warehouse, a sad state of affairs in which the public can’t appreciate it, and its home government can’t (or won’t) claim it.

deepak chitnis for the american bazaar

the con artist who connected with the dead masters!

2014-02-24T13:45:00.002-08:00

occupy museums!

2014-02-24T09:57:00.004-08:00

a view of the intervention from the floor of the atrium. (image provided by g.u.l.f. aka gulf ultra luxury faction)

last night, over 40 protesters staged an intervention inside the guggenheim museum in manhattan during saturday night’s pay-what-you-wish admission hours. unfurling mylar banners, dropping leaflets, chanting words, handing out information to museum visitors, and drawing attention with the use of a baritone bugle, the group worked to highlight the labor conditions on saadiyat Island in the united arab emirates, where guggenheim abu dhabi, a franchise of new york’s guggenheim, is being built.

staged in the midst of the museum’s newly opened italian futurism exhibition, the intervention, a term used by some members of the group to describe the action, received both applause from visitors who seemed excited by the commotion and reactions of confusion from others unsure what was going on.

flyers raining down onto the floor of the guggenheim museum in manhattan, while protesters and chant and hold banners over the railings of the museum (all photos by the author for hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)

the intervention began at 6:45pm est with a bugle call and a loud question: “who is building the guggenheim abu dhabi?” the whole action continued for roughly 20 minutes, during which time security guards appeared to react slowly to the protesters as hundreds of museum visitors captured images and video of the protests.

the participants, who were a diverse group of artists, professors, students, and activists loosely affiliated with occupy museums, gulf labor, and various nyu-related groups, timed their protest to take place during the pay-what-you-wish hours of the museum, which normally charges $22 admission for adults. when I asked organizers if they purposely chose their action to coincide with the italian futurism exhibition and the carrie mae weems retrospective, they told me that they did not, but that they were delighted for the coincidence since futurism sought to combine art and politics, while weems is a champion of those who have been historically excluded from museums.

the front cover of an informational brochure distributed during the february 22nd intervention. It was

designed by noah fischer of occupy museums

“this is a new phase of the campaign, we’re moving beyond talk to action, and bringing it home obviously to the guggenheim,” said andrew ross, a nyu professor of sociology, who is involved in the gulf labor coalition and the nyu fair labor coalition. “there are so many more people involved in this action that were not involved in gulf labor until this point. we’re widening the circle of participation, and that will have an impact.”

gulf labor is a coalition of artists, academics, and activists who have worked for over a year to ensure that the labor conditions on saadiyatisland in abu dhabi, which will house guggenheim- and louvre-branded museums and a nyuNYU-affiliated university, are not exploitative to workers. many human rights organizations say that the workers who are brought to saadiyat island are victimized by the nation’s sponsorship system and face grueling and inhuman conditions on a daily basis.

during our brief conversation, ross explained how their work raising awareness about workers’ debt, which translates to a type of indentured servitude for migrant workers, is connected to much bigger issues.

“we’re trying to make a connection with chains of debt that are transnational, and in the various locations we’re looking at, Bangladesh, abu dhabi, nyu, and the art world, there’s an enormous accumulation of debt in each of these places, and the money is getting extracted by the transnational creditor class,” ross said. “and artists are more and more [in debt], and in order to practice art, you’re required to take on a big debt burden … so there’s a connection across many continents. another art world is possible, one that’s more principled and ethical, and that looks out for the human and labor rights of all. artists should not be asked to exhibit in museums that have been built on the back of abused workers … that’s what it boils down to. when you’re acquired by a museum that does that, that’s unfair. your complicity is being bought along with the artwork.”

a close-up of some of the banners unfurled during the intervention

the idea of using art as a way to reimagine the world was at the heart of another participant’s passion for the issue. “art, among other things, is about doing, living, and imagining a better world,” said artist nitasha dhillon of mtl collective. “art should not violate human rights, art should not endanger workers lives, and art should not create debt slaves. and definitely not be part of a system that creates debt bondage.”

she sees yesterday’s action as “a call for solidarity and a call for museums to do the right thing.” she added that “it’s important for museum goers to understand what kind of system they are participating in.”

one college student I spoke to, who originally hailed from china, said she was taking part in this, her first action, because it excited her to think about how art and social justice can work together to help change people’s lives. When I asked her how that interconnectedness changed her perception of art, she replied: “It changes art for the better for me.” she said she’d like to bring these ideas to c

hina

when she returns.

one polish artist who participated with the group dropped one-sided leaflets he printed and brought to the event. the ambiguous pieces of paper featured an eye, a recycling symbol, an ekg, and the words “human toy tool.”

i recorded as much of the intervention as I could on my smartphone, and the video is posted here:

after guards removed all the remaining banners, the intervention participants slowly left the museum. one man, who was playing the bugle, was temporarily detained by the nypd, though he was released after a few minutes without providing id or other personal information. guggenheim guards, who were obviously unnerved by the event, yelled at one participant in front of the museum entrance. a few moments later, a guard came out to the street to tell hundreds of people lined up in front of the museum that no one else would be allowed into the building that evening. the crowd was visibly disappointed and many people lingered hoping the museum administration would change their mind.

museum visitors reading the manifesto tacked to the wall beside the introductory text

to the italian futurism exhibition.

after the intervention, i encountered artist amin husain, who helped lead the chants, and i asked him if he thought it was all a success. “i think it was well-received by the people in the museum. oOne person told me that they didn’t know that was happening, so public education is really important,” he said. i asked him about the exhibitions themselves and whether he thought people understood what they were saying in that context, and he said he did: “i think the context is really appropriate, because they [the futurists] talked about restructuring the universe, so clearly the museum is giving that some thought at this moment, and we want to talk about restructuring the universe without fascism and without slave labor.”

the intervention, which was the first by a new coalition that includes occupy museums, gulf labor, and various new york university–affiliated groups, came about after a month of meetings between the various organizations. the coalition, which was using the acronym g.u.l.f. (gulf ultra luxury faction) to identify themselves in their informational brochure, hope that this will be the first in a series that builds bridges in their continuing fight for social justice. the next event is scheduled for wednesday, february 26, 5:15pm est, at nyu’s global center for academic & spiritual life (gcasl), which is located at 238 thompson street, room 369, in manhattan’s greenwich village.

hyperallergic reached out to the guggenheim museum for comment last night, and we have yet to hear back from the organization. [update: the guggenheim director richard armstrong has provided hyperallergic with a statement ]

The G.U.L.F. coalition’s manifesto that was placed on the wall of the museum and read by visitors

these were the words participants were chanting last night (according to a text provided to hyperallergic during the intervention):

below:

a readers comment with a photo on original news site:

image taken from 1971 demonstration/performance by the art workers coalition at the guggenheim museum in support of art workers' coalition co-founder hans haacke, whose exhibition was canceled by the museum’s director over his artwork shapolsky et al., manhattan real estate holdings, a real time social system, as of May 1, 1971. photographer unknown.

hrag vartanian for hyperallergic

master forger. who?

2014-02-10T09:51:00.001-08:00

art historian thierry lenain claims italian frequently forged artworks in order to obtain the originals from their owners by giving them the copies

he is known as a renaissance great – but michelangelo was also a skilled forger who made copies of major works before ageing them with smoke and swapping them for the originals.

the little known details of his penchant for forgery were revealed by art historian thierry lenain at the institut français in london.

according to mr lenain, author of art forgery: the history of the modern obsession, the italian frequently forged artworks in order to obtain the originals from their owners by giving them the copies. on one occasion, michelangelo made a painted copy of a print representing saint anthony by the engraver martin schongauer, making his version so similar to the original it was impossible to tell which one was which.

speaking at the view festival of art history, mr lenain said: “he admired these originals for the excellence of their art and sought to surpass them.”

this is not the first time rumours of the artist’s forgeries have emerged. one anecdote describes how in 1496 a young michelangelo copied a roman sculpture, sleeping cupid. he buried it in the ground to give it the various stains, scratches and dents needed to make it look like a genuine antique. he then used a middleman to sell the piece to cardinal riario for a substantial sum.

according to mr lenain, michelangelo’s copies earned him great notoriety, which helped launch his career.

significantly, the perception of art forgery in the renaissance era was very different to the negative attitudes which developed in later centuries.

“in late-modern forgeries, the main goal consists not so much in the creation of a work of art than in the construction of a trap,” said mr lenain.

“the most important authors on art, from the renaissance to the 18th century, had a completely different approach to the issue,” he explained. “far from condemning those who performed that kind of trick, they hailed them with the utmost enthusiasm.”

chloe hamilton for the independent

this is 5 pointz now...

2014-01-28T11:35:00.004-08:00

hurrah for holland

2014-01-18T10:33:00.002-08:00

a new year. a new new york mayor. old problems with art in new york. i have a collection of complaints and a few (very few) ideas for change.

money — the grotesque amounts spent, the inequitable distribution — has dominated talk about art in the 21st century so far. it’s a basic fact of art history. emperors, popes and robber barons set the model for the billionaire buyers of today. of course, it is today that matters to the thousands of artists who live and work in this punitively expensive city, where the art industry is often confused with the art world.

the distinction between the two, though porous, is real. the art industry is the nexus of high-price galleries, auction houses and collectors who control an art market renowned for its funny-money practices. in numbers of personnel, the industry is a mere subset of the circle of artists, teachers, students, writers, curators and middle-range dealers spread out over five boroughs. but in terms of power, the proportions are reversed, to the degree that the art world basically functions as a labor source, supplying the industry with product, services and exotic color but, with the age of apprenticeships long gone, only uncertainly sharing in its wealth.

do i exaggerate? a bit. the argument can be made that labor is benefiting from its ties to management, in a high-tide-floats-all-boats way. visit art schools or galleries, and you get the impression that a substantial portion of the art world is content to serve as support staff to a global ruling class.

the reality is that, directly or indirectly, in large ways and small, the current market system is shaping every aspect of art in the city: not just how artists live, but also what kind of art is made, and how art is presented in the media and in museums.

i got tired of money talk a while back. rather than just sputter with indignation, i figured it would be more useful to turn in another direction, toward art that the industry wasn’t looking at, which is a whole lot of art. but reminders keep pulling you back to the bottom line. with every visit to the gallery-packed lower east side, i see fewer of the working-class latinos who once called the neighborhood home. in what feels like overnight, i’ve watched dumbo in brooklyn go from an artist’s refuge to an economically gated community.

recently, my attention was drawn to a controversy surrounding a large and much praised group exhibition installed at a complex of converted warehouses called industry city in sunset park, brooklyn. the show, “come together: surviving sandy,” was conceived as a benefit for artists who had suffered losses in the 2012 hurricane and was promoted as evidence of art-world solidarity. yet a widely read blog, art f city, reported that the owners of the complex, which had for some years provided low-rent studios for artists, were now raising rents dramatically, forcing many artists to vacate. (landlords say 25 percent of industry city tenants are artists). the new residents seem to be an upscale clientele drawn by the artsy atmosphere.

whatever the full facts, money is the winner, and with that comes caution and conservatism. this is almost absurdly obvious on the high-end of the market. sales of retrograde “masterworks” can be relied on to jack up the auction charts at regular intervals; the most recent record was set last fall by a $142.4 million francis bacon painting of lucian freud, a monument to two overpraised painters for the price of one. meanwhile, big, hugely pricey tchotchkes — new whatevers by jeff koons, say — roll out of fabrication shops and into personal museums being assembled by members of the international power elite.

outside auctions, the marketing mechanics buzz on. roughly since the end of the multicultural, postmodern 1990s, we’ve watched new art being re-modernized and domesticated, with painting the medium of choice, abstraction the mode of preference. together they offer significant advantages. paintings can be assembly-line produced but still carry the aura of being hand-touched. they can be tailored to small spaces, such as fair booths. abstraction, especially if color is involved, can establish instant eye contact from afar. if, in addition, the work’s graphic impact translates well online, where stock can be moved ebay style, so much the better.

other traditional forms — drawing, photography, some sculpture — similarly work well in this marketing context. but an enormous range of art does not, beginning with film, performance and installation, and extending into rich realms of creative activity that defy classification as art at all. to note this dynamic is not to dismiss painting or object making, but to point to the restrictive range of art that the market supports, that dealers are encouraged to sell, and that artists are encouraged to make.

the narrowing of the market has been successful in attracting a wave of neophyte buyers who have made art shopping chic. it has also produced an epidemic of copycat collecting. to judge by the amounts of money piled up on a tiny handful of reputations, few of these collectors have the guts, or the eye or the interest, to venture far from blue-chip boilerplate. they let galleries, art advisers and the media do the choosing, and the media doesn’t particularly include art critics. what, after all, does thumbs up, thumbs down matter when winners are preselected before the critical votes are in? in this economy, it can appear that the critic’s job is to broadcast names and contribute to fame.

conservative art can encourage conservative criticism. we’re seeing a revival — some would say a disinterment — of a describe-the-strokes style of writing popular in the formalist 1950s and again in the 1970s: basically, glorified advertising copy. evaluative approaches that developed in the 1980s and 1990s, based on the assumption that art inevitably comments on the social and political realities that produce it, tend to be met with disparagement now, in part because they’re often couched in academic jargon, which has become yet another form of sales-speak.

there’s no question that we need — art needs — an influx of new commentators who don’t mistake attitude for ideas, who move easily between cultures and geographies. regular gigs in mainstream print journalism have all but dried up, but the internet offers ambitious options in a growing number of blogazines including art f city (edited by paddy johnson) and hyperallergic (edited by hrag vartanian), which combine criticism, reporting, political activism and gossip on an almost-24-hour news cycle.

and although both are based in new york, they include national coverage and in a feisty mix of voices, a welcome alternative to the one-personality blog of yore. that mix would probably be even more varied, and transcultural, if a few forward-thinking, art-minded investors would infuse some serious capital into such enterprises so they could pay writers a living wage and make online freelance writing a viable way of life.

i don’t know what it would take to get a global mix of voices into some of new york’s big, rich art museums. if archaeologists of the future unearthed the museum of modern art as it exists today, they would have to assume that modernism was a purely european and north american invention. they would be wrong. modernism was, and is, an international phenomenon, happening in different ways, on different timetables, for different reasons in africa, asia, australia and south america.

why aren’t museums telling that story? because it doesn’t sell. why doesn’t it sell? because it’s unfamiliar. why is it unfamiliar? because museums, with their eyes glued to box office, aren’t telling the story.

yes, moma and the guggenheim have recently organized a few “non-western” shows. moma’s 2012 “tokyo 1955-1970: a new avant-garde,” packed to the ceiling with art we’ve rarely if ever seen, was a revelation. but they need to take actions far more fundamental and committed. international modernism should be fully integrated into the permanent collection, regularly, consistently.

their job as public institutions is to change our habits of thinking and seeing. one way to do this is by bringing disparate cultures together in the same room, on the same wall, side by side. this sends two vital, accurate messages: that all these cultures are different but equally valuable; and all these cultures are also alike in essential ways, as becomes clear with exposure.

with its recently announced plans for an expansion, moma has an ideal chance to expand its horizons organically. the new spaces, which should certainly be devoted to the permanent collection, won’t be ready for several years, but the museum has no excuse for waiting for its long-overdue integration process to begin.

and on the subject of integration, why, in one of the most ethnically diverse cities, does the art world continue to be a bastion of whiteness? why are african-american curators and administrators, and especially directors, all but absent from our big museums? why are there still so few black — and latino, and asian-american — critics and editors?

not long ago, these questions — of policy but also political and ethical questions — seemed to be out there on institutional tables, demanding discussion. technically, they may be there still, but museums seem to be most interested in talking about real estate, assiduously courting oligarchs for collections, and anxiously scouting for the next “rain room.” political questions, about which cultures get represented in museums and who gets to make the decisions, and how, are buried.

political art brings me back to where i started, with artists, and one final, baffled complaint, this one about art schools, which seem, in their present form, designed to accommodate the general art economy and its competitive, caste-system values. programs are increasingly specialized, jamming students into ever narrower and flakier disciplinary tracks. tuitions are prodigious, leaving artists indentured to creditors for years.

how experimental can artists be under such circumstances? how confidently can they take risks in an environment that acknowledges only dollar-value success? how can they contemplate sustaining — to me this is crucial to new york’s future as an art center — long and evolving creative careers? the temptation for many artists, after a postgraduate spurt of confidence, is to look around, see what’s selling, and consider riffing on that. we’re seeing a depressing number of such riffs these days.

again, do i exaggerate? and, again, sure, to some degree. by no means is all the news bad. start-up galleries are opening; middle-tier galleries are holding their own, or doing better than that. artist-intensive neighborhoods like bushwick and ridgewood are still affordable, companionable and fun.

but when the rents get too high, or the economy fails, or art buying falls out of fashion, and the art industry decides to liquidate its overvalued assets and leave? artists, the first and last stakeholders, will have themselves to fall back on. they’ll learn to organize and agitate for what they need, to let city hall know, in no uncertain terms, that they’re there. they’ll learn to share, not just on special occasions, but all the time. they’ll learn that art and politics are inseparable, and both can be anything and everything. they’ll learn to bring art back from the brink of inconsequence.

as someone long on questions and short on answers, let me ask: why not start now?

holland cotter for the ny times

i grew up with all that...

2014-01-09T09:17:00.006-08:00

the terms issurrai, chaata, cheepuru and rolu and rokali bring to mind the objects that were part of our life once and are not anymore.

issurrai served as mill by powdering pulses whereas chaata cleaned rice. rolu and rokali were used to pound or trample pulses and vegetables as wet grinder.

the utility of these age-old implements reduced gradually with the advent of electric grinder, mixer and vaccum cleaner. though change is inevitable, some cannot be replaced completely.

with an aim to preserve our culture, the folk and tribal lore museums of the telugu university has collected a number of items that were in use till recently.

speaking to the hindu, dean of the centre, battu ramesh said: “the traditional items are manually operated. these implements, besides protecting the nutrients in pulses, provide physical exercise to women,” he explained.

in most of the houses, women in groups crushed paddy and they used to set the pace of the work by singing folk songs that helped them forget the physical strain.

according to assistant professor, department of folklore, gaddam venkanna, the manual work done by the people in the olden days gave them the endurance power. those who crossed 60 years of age could still work whereas those in 30s now complain of back ache, arthritis etc, he added.

machines, no doubt, made life easy but have no charm that the traditional implements had. as the way of doing things changed, so did the life. the change was so rapid that the terms issurrai, chaata, cheepuru and so on hardly been heard among youngsters, laments mr. battu ramesh.

on the positive side, the museum, which houses many of these items, is frequented by students from various schools. at least, the efforts of the telugu university to familiarise people with things past would help them reconstruct the life of their ancestors.

it's fake, it's real!

2014-01-01T09:35:00.000-08:00

“intent to deceive,” a forthcoming exhibition at springfield museums, in massachusetts,

explores the mystique of forgeries and fakes that duped the art world.

elmyr de hory’s 1974 “odalisque” mimics matisse.

a personal escort — flying first class to be well rested and alert — will accompany the painting “the head of christ” from the moment it leaves the boijmans van beuningen museum in rotterdam, the netherlands, until it is safely locked in the vault at springfield museums in massachusetts this month, when it will be exhibited in the united states for the first time.

a 24-hour escort is not an unusual requirement for valuable international museum loans. what makes the security arrangements — estimated to cost more than $31,000 — notable in this case is that the painting is a fake.

and it is not just any fake, but an imitation vermeer by the most notorious forger of all: han van meegeren, the world war ii-era painter whose counterfeits were so convincing that, after the war, he had to create one for witnesses to avoid harsh punishment for selling a national treasure to the nazi leader hermann göring.

clearly, some forgeries are more equal than others. in new york, buyers of some of the dozens of multimillion-dollar fakes sold through the knoedler & company gallery, now shuttered, have filed lawsuits, complaining that their vaunted modern masterpieces are now “worthless.”

but the boijmans loan, “the head of christ,” and other famous fakes with which it is being exhibited in a traveling show retain a valuable mystique. “they’re not original artworks, but they’re so prestigious that they require the same security measures as an authentic work,” said julia courtney, springfield museums’ curator of art.

citing security concerns, the lending and borrowing museums all declined to reveal the works’ estimated worth or insurance information. but the paintings are being treated like the real thing. “the requirements for security are not different than other works we give on loan,” said friso lammertse, the curator of old master paintings at the boijmans. never mind that the accustomed home of “the head of christ” is a boijmans storage room.

so, in addition to a personal escort, van meegeren’s “christ,” for example, will have an outside conservator scrutinize every inch of the canvas and frame when it leaves a museum and after it arrives, to report on its condition.

“the head of christ” is part of the exhibition “intent to deceive: fakes and forgeries in the art world,” which includes two other van meegerens, “the girl with the blue bow,” once credited to vermeer, from the hyde collection in glens falls, n.y., and “the procuress,” from the courtauld gallery in london.

the show will travel to the ringling museum of art in sarasota, fla.; the canton museum of art in ohio; and the oklahoma city museum of art. other forgeries in the show are by celebrated con men like elmyr de hory, a hungarian who said he sold a thousand fakes; john myatt, whose collaborator infiltrated archives at the tate gallery, the victoria and albert museum and the institute of contemporary arts in london, to plant fake provenance documents; and mark a. landis, a former gallery owner who dressed as a jesuit priest during the quarter-century he spent trying to donate his forgeries to more than 40 american museums.

what links these men, said colette loll, the exhibition’s curator and an art investigator, are “frustrated artistic ambitions, chaotic personal lives and a contempt for the art market and its experts.”

ms. loll, who organized the exhibition with the nonprofit group international arts & artists, said she was shocked when she heard the $31,000 estimate for the security arrangements demanded by just the boijmans.

that sum is close to the $39,500 that “christ and the scribes in the temple” — the painting van meegeren created in 1945 to prove he was a forger rather than a collaborator — fetched at christie’s auction house in 1996.

forgeries invariably raise knotty questions about the value of art and faith in the market, and fuel cynicism about art experts.

in november, a spirited debate about the value of forgeries played out on the website and pages of the new york times after the art criticblake gopnik declared that forgers could be “an art lover’s friend.”

and last year, jonathon keats, who wrote “forged: why fakes are the great art of our age,” argued that “forgeries are more real than the real artworks they fake” because “they genuinely manipulate society rather than merely illustrating alternate points of view.”

interest in counterfeits may have less lofty roots, however. everybody loves a juicy scandal. the van meegerens can also draw on the continuing fascination with world war ii and the nazis’ looting of europe. hailed as a kind of folk hero during his 1947 trial for having duped göring, van meegeren was later shown to be a nazi sympathizer and inveterate rogue who swindled buyers out of the equivalent of $106 million.

one of his facsimiles, “the supper at emmaus,” cited by the dean of vermeer scholars as a, perhaps the, “masterpiece of johannes vermeer” was bought in 1938 by the rembrandt society of rotterdam for the boijmans for 520,000 guilders, the equivalent of about $6.4 million today. “the head of christ,” sold for 475,000 guilders in 1941 ($4.4 million today), was thought to be a study for “the supper at emmaus.”

part of the enduring lure of the van meegerens, undoubtedly, is the satisfaction of knowing that the most rarefied connoisseurs were duped by what now look to be ham-handed fakes.

as jonathan lopez wrote in his 2008 book about van meegeren, “the man who made vermeers,” “although the best forgeries may mimic the style of a long-dead artist, they tend to reflect the taste and attitudes of their own period.” biblical scenes tapped into a sentimental and pastoral germanic tradition, he notes, while the portraits of girls resembled 1920s flappers.

the works in “intent to deceive” are less art than artifacts; they have genuine historical significance. in that sense, these fakes underscore the persistent appeal of the real thing. copies of a van meegeren fake would not command such costly security precautions or draw visitors.

“the head of christ” and its traveling

companions are being exhibited precisely because they are authentic — authentic forgeries.

patricia cohen for the new york times

doctor, doctor...

2013-12-21T20:38:00.002-08:00

manipulated photo by vinod dave 2013

वरमाशीविषविषं कथितं ताम्रमेव वा l पीतमत्यग्निसंतप्ता भक्षिता वाअप्युयोगुड़ा: ll
न तु श्रुतवताम् वेशं विभ्रता शरणा गतात l गृहीतमन्नपानं वा वित्तम् वा रोगपीड़ितात ll
भिषग्बुभूषुर्मतिमानत: स्वगुणसंपदि l परं प्रयत्नमातिष्ठेत्प्राणद: स्वाद्यथा नृणाम् ll

instead of expecting payment from a desperately ill patient, it is better to drink snake poison or boiling copper or eat red hot iron. the best doctor is the one who seeks prestige & pride in saving a patient who has lost all hopes of being alive.

-an ideal healer according to "aaryabhishak" - a medical treatise for ayurveda.

wow! bravo! awesome! perfect! applaud!

NOW TELL ME IF YOU KNOW THERE IS A DOCTOR LIKE THAT ANYWHERE!

the other side of an $80 million art fraud: a master forger speaks

2013-12-19T07:40:00.004-08:00

pei-shen qian

in the 1980s, pei-shen qian, the painter at the center of an $80 million art forgery case, used to set up his easel near manhattan’s west fourth street and hustle.

qian, a chinese national living in the u.s. on a student visa, competed with other artists to convince people walking by that they needed their portraits painted. his rate started at $15 and on a good day he’d go home with $200, though he might have to work past midnight to get it. one day, a man offered him $200 to do an imitation of a modern art masterpiece—he can’t recall which master. it was impossible to say no.

the artist and his patron—a man qian said he knows only as carlos—are now at the center of a scandal that has upended new york’s art scene. when dealer glafira rosales pleaded guilty in september to selling more than 60 fake paintings—most of them through the prestigious knoedler & co. gallery—she revealed that every single one of them was the creation of one man, a painter virtually unknown in manhattan’s salons, working from his modest home in queens. it was qian, who says no one was more surprised than he was.

“the fbi said they were done by the hands of a genius,” he said on a recent morning in shanghai. “well, that’s me. how strange it feels!”

in his first interview for the western media, qian, 73, insisted on his innocence, outlining in his soft shanghai accent a classic immigrant’s tale that took an odd twist. he made artworks that resembled those of jackson pollock, mark rothko, and others, yes, but he never intended to pass them off as those artists’ work for profit. sitting in a gallery of his own works, qian said: “i made a knife to cut fruit. but if others use it to kill, blaming me is unfair.”

john howard says he knows precisely whom to blame. howard runs irving place capital, a $2.7 billion private equity firm. he’s also the not-terribly proud owner of one of qian’s imitations, a painting sold to him for $4 million as the work of willem de kooning. howard bought the fake from the knoedler gallery, a tony upper east side institution that had been in business since before the civil war. the gallery, which closed in november 2011, was owned by michael hammer, the wealthy grandson of industrialist armand hammer, former chairman of occidental petroleum.

now, howard is suing knoedler, its former president ann freedman, and various others for fraud, and trying to get his money back. “it’s like a joke on the world of art,” howard said. “here i am dealing with the knoedler gallery, one of the most prestigious galleries in the u.s., founded before the metropolitan museum of art. if this person was selling these things on the street, we wouldn’t buy it. but this is the knoedler gallery.”

lawyers for freedman and knoedler say the gallery committed no fraud, sought expert opinions to authenticate the works, and was transparent about its efforts with buyers.

at least seven civil lawsuits have been filed against the gallery and its former president over qian’s paintings. plaintiffs include domenico de sole, chairman of tom ford international; nicholas taubman, the former chief executive officer of advance auto parts; and a trust for the hilti family, of the liechtenstein-based machinery and toolmaker hilti.

howard focuses his anger on knoedler, which netted $43 million selling qian’s fakes, according to the federal indictment, and on freedman, who he said convinced him to buy the work. he accepts that the painter’s role—what he knew or didn’t know—will never be clear. “clearly this is a very talented person that he was able to do so many things so well,” howard said, “and so that knoedler and freedman could fool so many people.”

qian showed an early aptitude for imitation. as a primary school student, his drawings of door gods—the traditional images of knights or gods said to protect chinese homes from evil—were so good that his teacher insisted they were tracings from originals, he recalled. as communists took control of mainland china, his parents, who owned a printing plant, escaped to taiwan in 1950 with the three youngest of their seven children. qian, barely 12, stayed with the remaining siblings and later moved in with relatives in shanghai.

during the cultural revolution, with all the arts under strict state control, qian painted portraits of chairman mao zedong for schools and factories, and kept the leftover paint, a scarce commodity, as a reward, he said. he treasured the books of modern art his family in taiwan managed to send, though not all arrived. one, on picasso, was confiscated; qian got a notice informing him it was “unhealthy.”

in january 1979, after the cultural revolution’s end, qian and 11 friends rekindled the shanghai art scene by staging their own exhibition, an event remembered today as the beginning of a new era for chinese art, according to critic li xianting in a 2007 article. qian’s abstract of lights reflected in shanghai’s suzhou creek drew particular attention, and qian recalled that a chinese reporter from new york told him it could sell for $1,000 there. he was earning 65 yuan ($42 at the time) per month.

moving to the u.s. had another appeal: the student visa he received in 1981 allowed him to transit through hong kong and, for the first time in more than 30 years, see his parents. “i couldn’t control my tears, 30 years’ worth of tears,” he said of their nine-day reunion. at the same time, he left his own wife and two daughters in shanghai and wouldn’t see them again for eight years.

in new york, he enrolled at the art students league, worked as a janitor to support himself, and took to the streets to paint passersby. that’s when he met carlos.

over a decade and a half, the man—who has been identified in civil lawsuits as jose carlos bergantinos diaz—brought him dozens of orders for works that imitated famed modern artists. qian’s commissions topped out at $3,000 apiece, he said, and throughout bergantinos told him he was making artwork for fans of the masters who couldn’t afford the genuine articles.

by the early 1990s, qian’s wife and a daughter had joined him in the u.s., and they bought a $190,000 house in woodhaven, queens. he became a u.s. citizen shortly after that. bergantinos became his agent, qian said, his sole guide through new york’s daunting art market. he also helped sell some of qian’s signature work— tapestries of faceless court ladies created on used burlap he’d bought from chinatown stores—in china, qian said, where he earned $7,000 on one.

qian also got to know rosales, the dealer who pleaded guilty in september. bergantinos introduced her as his wife, and over the years qian watched as they and their daughter moved into bigger and bigger houses, he said. they haven’t spoken since 2008, qian said. while bergantinos was referred to only as “cc-1″ in the government’s fraud case against rosales, his name has surfaced in other court papers.

bergantinos is no longer in the u.s., said anastasios sarikas, who’s listed as his and rosales’s lawyer in several court cases. sarikas said he is in the process of asking courts to relieve him of representing the pair. “these are people that i admired, people that i believed made something of themselves out of nothing,” the lawyer said. “and then i found out what they did, and i’ve lost two people that i considered very good friends.”

the scandal in new york is “a very big misunderstanding,” qian said, incredulous that anyone would have considered his imitations to be the genuine work of masters. “nobody would take them seriously,” he said. “it’s impossible to imitate them—from the papers to the paints to the composition. it’s impossible to do it exactly.”

those are the very issues involved in the lawsuits that howard and others have brought against the knoedler gallery. howard’s faux de kooning, which he bought to fulfill his father’s lifelong dream of owning one, was supposed to date to the 1950s, yet included pigment that wasn’t in use until decades later.

buyers like howard weren’t art experts, and they relied on the sterling reputation of knoedler, said john cahill, an expert in art law who’s representing howard. the gallery catered to elite, demanding private collectors. “you walk into gucci, it’s a gucci,” said cahill, who is also representing a malibu (calif.) couple, martin and sharleen cohen, who bought another fake de kooning. “that’s what’s really shocking. it’s a very reputational business, and not only did it happen, but they’re saying, ‘look, too bad.’ ”

howard and other plaintiffs have used forensic analysis to show that the paintings they bought are fake, and rosales confirmed that in her guilty plea. yet knoedler and freedman are using the money they made selling the fakes to pay for their legal defense and have refused to repay buyers, said cahill.

freedman “has never wanted to keep a dime received from the sale of fake works,” said her lawyer, nicholas gravante of boies, schiller & flexner. the lawsuits, including howard’s, demand far more in damages—or they might have been settled long ago, he said.

“there is nothing, i mean nothing, that shows that anyone at knoedler knew or should have known that these works were not authentic,” said charles schmerler, a lawyer at norton rose fulbright who represents the gallery and michael hammer in the civil cases. the gallery provided expert opinions on the artworks’ authenticity to buyers “so they could make their own inquiries,” schmerler said.

as for qian, friends support his argument that he was also duped. “he had no idea the business side of the art world is not that clean,” said shanghai-based artist ann yen, who has known qian since 1982. “he just keeps painting. doesn’t matter if the earth is shattered or sky darkened. he cannot live without painting.”

leaving the gallery in shanghai, qian said he has lost sleep over the forgery case. he’s getting famous in the wrong way, he said. “i have suffered for what i love.”

—dune lawrence, wenxin fan

5pointz gone, omg!!!

2013-11-19T11:12:00.001-08:00

hans von rittern and marie cecile flageul hugged outside the painted-over warehouse on tuesday morning

usually, it is the graffiti artists who work under the cover of darkness, hoping to evade police detection as they scrawl a tag on property that is not their own.

what it used to look like before

but on monday night, it was the owner of a building in queens who used a crew of painters to work overnight and paint over graffiti on a warehouse in long island city, wiping clean a canvas that was used by thousands of artists over the years to transform an otherwise nondescript, abandoned brick building in a working-class neighborhood into 5pointz, a mecca for street artists from around the world.

by tuesday morning, the work of some 1,500 artists had been wiped clean, the brobdingnagian bubble letters and the colorful cartoons spray painted on the building’s brick walls all covered in a fresh coat of white paint.

“we are supposed to be the vandals, but this is the biggest rag and disrespect in the history of graffiti,” said marie cecile flageul, an unofficial curator for 5pointz.

the plan to convert the three-acre site into a $400 million development project that will include two glass towers and 1,000 new luxury apartments had provoked opposition from artists and their supporters. but after months of public debate, court hearings and political maneuvering, opponents had little left in their arsenal.

in a last-ditch effort to stop the development, they were hoping to have the building designated as a landmark. that option is now likely gone as well.

“i don’t know how you can erase 12 years of spectacular art,” said hans von rittern, a guide who arrived with a busload of tourists, only to find the building’s art gone. “it’s cruel.”

the warehouse is scheduled for demolition by the end of the year.

the property has been owned by the wolkoff family for over 40 years, and for most of that time they allowed artists to use the building’s facade as they liked.

it was the 1970s when jerry wolkoff bought the warehouse. at the time, people who tagged storefronts, subway cars and street signs were widely viewed more as menace than artist.

today, graffiti is more mainstream than outlaw, used in commercials, sold at auctions and stamped on clothing.

the british street artist and presumable millionaire bansky ended his recent monthlong residency in new york with the words “save 5pointz.”

the wolkoff family said they long planned to develop the site, but only in recent years has it become financially feasible.

as a concession to the artists, david wolkoff, jerry’s son, told the city council in othat he would raise the number of affordable apartments to 210, from 75, and include 12,000 square feet for artists’ studios, up from 2,200 square feet.

he said he was a fan of the work of the people who turned his building into a work of art.

“the artwork is absolutely fabulous,” he said at the hearing. he did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

still, the painting of the building – which started after midnight and finished around 7 a.m., according to witnesses -- was met with anger and surprise.

“everyone was kind of shocked,” said jeff carrol, 33, who went to the building tuesday morning only to find workers applying a final coat of paint.

mr. carrol said he moved to williamsburg from seattle in september, and, while he was not a street artist himself, 5pointz “was on the list of cool things that i should see.”

he would return occasionally to check out what was new on the building, but he knew time was running out.

tuesday morning, he said, he was greeted by a police officer stationed at the warehouse and was told that if he caused any trouble he would be arrested.

the graffiti was painted over before it could be formally celebrated, and supporters said they would hold a vigil tuesday night.

graffiti has long been ephemeral but mr. carrol said he had hoped that 5pointz would be granted a “stay of execution.”

“i guess i got to see it just in the nick of time,” he said

bacon breaks branding

2013-11-13T10:37:00.000-08:00

killing fields...

2013-10-16T18:59:00.002-07:00

kill, man, kill! who is going to stop you?

click the text line above for the article.

a tale of two mothers... & sons!

2013-09-18T11:01:00.003-07:00

above - namo's ma hira ba giving him the gift of bhagavad gita on his 64th birthday

below - sonia & rahul at a political gathering

now the tale. why don't you tell the tale, readers?

misssss amerrrrrica 2013 !!!

2013-09-17T09:32:00.002-07:00

******

apparently, twitter threw a parade for newly crowned miss america, nina davuluri. a hate parade.

davuluri, who reigned as miss new york, was awarded the top crown on sunday night in atlantic city, new jersey. the 24-year-old is the second winner from her state in the past two years -- but the first of indian descent.

“i’m so happy this organization has embraced diversity,” she said at her first press conference in atlantic city. “i’m thankful there are children watching at home who can finally relate to a new miss america.”

and that may have been too much for some to swallow. here's a smattering of the scorn smeared across the twitterverse shortly after davuluri's coronation -- a minority, but rather shockingly vocal opinion.

be warned. hate ahead.

you have got to be kidding me... we have a black president, now miss america is an arab. maybe this world is really coming to an end 😤😤😤
— jimmy slimmy (@polishpoundcake) september 16, 2013

are you serious??!!! the arab wins??!!! this is miss america!!! not miss arabia!!! miss kansas is in the army and is a country girl!!! c'mon
— cade minnick (@cademinnick413) september 16, 2013

i thought this was miss america, not miss arab.
— anthis (@anthis12) september 16, 2013

the cruel cavalcade went on, with one user suggesting the coronation must have 'made obama happy,' while another vented, 'when will a white woman win miss america?'
even fox news host todd starnes appeared to get on the hate wagon, tweeting thus:
"the liberal miss america judges won't say this - but miss kansas lost because she actually represented american values."

for her part, davuluri took the slings and arrows of outrageous america in stride.
“i have to rise above that,” she told reporters at a press conference after the event. “i always viewed myself as first and foremost american.”

as time magazine reports, it took about an hour after the coronation for the sane side of the twitterverse to prevail, eventually banishing the bigotry with hearty support and congratulations for the new miss america.

********

miss new york nina davuluri performs a bollywood fusion dance sunday night. critics said the ethnic dance was inappropriate for miss

america

— miss universe, maybe.

regardless of her accomplishments both on and off the stage, many, including fox news commentator todd starnes, disagreed with the judges' decision.

"the liberal miss america judges won't say this — but miss kansas lost because she actually represented american values. #missamerica," starnes tweeted.

like starnes, many rallying against davuluri expressed their enthusiasm for kansas' theresa vail, an army sergeant who won the america's vote portion of the pageant and is believed to have been the first contestant to openly display tattoos. the serenity prayer is seen tattooed across her rib cage and a military insignia is on the back of her shoulder.

according to fox's starnes, however, that performance could have only been improved if she "fired off a few rounds at the end."

in contrast, davuluri - whose message was "celebrating diversity through cultural competency" - performed a bollywood fusion dance that was criticized by one upset viewer as being un-american.

"i'm not a racist. she is representing america doing an indonesian dance. if it was a miss universe pageant it would have been cool," the woman wrote.

the twitter user, who appears to have since deleted her account, was vehemently slammed and corrected within minutes by other users.

"you do know that india and indonesia are two different countries ... right?" stated just one of her brewing critics.

don't believe the hype

2013-09-06T13:01:00.001-07:00

the man responsible for dividing india speaks his heart out in his own hand writing around 1916 in a gujarati magazine called "visami sadi" (1916-1920):

at the time of india's independence, he was so keen on division of the land that he kept his terminal illness of tuberculosis a strict secret. this he did so that others who were against the division would not take a time too long to make their decision amp; push back the date of division far beyond his death &, thus, be able to
entirely eliminate the possibility of the division. so the partition took place & he died afterwards on september 11, 1948 - less than just 13 months after!