The Changing Economic Order

The United States dollar (sign: $; code: USD) is the unit of currency of the United States. The U.S. dollar is normally abbreviated as the dollar sign, $, or as USD or US$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies and from others that use the $ symbol. It is divided into 100 cents (200 half-cents prior to 1857). Link
The U.S. dollar is the currency most used in international transactions.Several countries use it as their official currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Since the close of World War 2, the dollar has maintained a positon of stability and hegemony in world economic affairs. The stability and strength of the dollar as an international currency has resulted in extensive foreign investments in the past 50+ years. Following the current economic crisis and continuing recession, will the United States' Dollar (U.+S. = $) now take a backseat to the Euro or new alternative currencies?

The end of the supremacy of the Yankee Dollar ?

China, Europe, Middle Eastern nations and the demise of the dollar?

Monday Morning Going Down: It's the End of the World as We Know It (& I feel fine)

Roubini:Stocks rising too far, too fast?Link here

World Bank going broke? Running out of mazuma in 12 months? Link here.

Zoot alores! Ze McDonald's Royale with fromage at the Louvre? Mon dieu! Link here.

As NY Times columnist Clyde Haberman observed, maybe Mike Bloomberg can't be bought, but he appears to have certainly bought everyone else, including large segments of the Democratic Party and the media. But in Italy, Mike's counterpart, Italian President and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi is (finally) coming under fire by the public for his efforts to control media outlets that investigate his government or personal ethics. Although Silvio owns large segments of the media, he routinely sues his critics in the media. Link here.

Is Iranian Prez Mahmoud Ahmadnejad a convert to Islam with Jewish roots? The UK Daily Telegraph thinks so and has proof. Overcompensation anyone? Link here.

Finally, one assumes it could always be worse, both literally and figuratively. Roland Emmerich's "2012" trailer; a disaster about a disaster? Link here.

Harvest Moon Over Brooklyn:October 4, 2009

Moonstruck over Flatbush, October 4, 2009

No one captures the romance and dreaminess of the Harvest Moon like Neil Young

From the Tehran Times:See the special effects of the harvest moon:While the moon is always something special, the harvest moon, visible all of this coming week, is the most special of all. It is the subject of everything from epic poetry to popular songs.

What makes the harvest moon so special? Mainly it's the path it's following this week. The moon always travels close to the ecliptic, the path of the sun and planets in the sky, but this week the ecliptic is at a particularly shallow angle to the horizon. The result is that the moon never gets too far above the horizon all night long for a number of nights in a row, putting it literally “in your face.”

There is a well known but poorly understood optical illusion known as the “moon illusion,” whereby the moon, when low in the sky, appears much larger than it does when high overhead. This really is an illusion, as you can see for yourself by blocking the moon with a finger held at arm's length: the moon is no bigger on the horizon than overhead.

When the moon is low in the sky, it is also strongly subject to appearing yellow, orange, or red due to air pollution, particularly caused by forest fires this time of year.

Wikipedia on the Harvest Moon:

The moon nearest to the autumnal equinox. The Harvest moon is often mistaken for the modern day Hunter's moon. In the legend of the Harvest moon, it is said that all full moons have their own special characteristics based primarily on the whereabouts of the ecliptic in the sky at the time of year that these moons are visible. The full moons of September, October and November as seen from the northern hemisphere—which correspond to the full moons of March, April and May as seen from the southern hemisphere—are well known in the folklore of the sky. All full moons rise around the time of sunset. However, although in general the moon rises about 50 minutes later each day, as it moves in orbit around Earth, the Harvest Moon and Hunter's Moon are special, because around the time of these full moons, the time difference between moonrise on successive evenings is shorter than usual. In other words, the moon rises approximately 30 minutes later, from one night to the next, as seen from about 40 degrees N. or S. latitude, for several evenings around the full Hunter's or Harvest Moons. Thus there is no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise around the time following these full moons. In times past this feature of these autumn moons was said to help farmers working to bring in their crops (or, in the case of the Hunter's Moon, hunters tracking their prey). They could continue being productive by moonlight even after the sun had set. Hence the name Harvest Moon

On Broadway

Saw preview of the Roundabout Theater Company's "After Miss Julie," an adaptation by Patrick Marber of Strindberg's "Miss Julie." While no doubt radical for its time(1888), Strindberg's peculiar naturalism isn't helped by Marber's adaptation which further explores sex and class as a conflict and power struggle. This production moves the action up to an English country house on the evening of the British Labour Party's historic landslide win in the 1945 election, which director Mark Brokaw in a recent interview compared to the situation around "our last election here with Obama. There was this great collective release. It was a moment of seismic change and possibility."

The one act play opens with a great deal of fussy, dramatic puttering, settling into a middle section of somewhat predictable inter-class flirting and bickering until finally getting down to the action, and lots of it. While the show isstill in previews, the unquestionably talented cast (Sienna Miller, Jonny Lee Miller, and Marin Ireland), who portray the restraints of class and fires of passion with equal verve, seemed to this theatergoer a bit confused if not put out, as though -- and as the advertising suggests -- they had signed up for Tennessee Williams, but ended up in a somewhat stilted rewrite of "Fawlty Towers." Class distinctions in Britain seems an oversized topic for a relatively short, three character drama, and when it collides with sex, it seemed to become a little too overheated a little too fast, until, when it reaches its somewhat predictable ending, everyone, cast and audience, is left wondering exactly what happened.

Sunrise, October 1, 2009, Flatbush, Brooklyn

Q Service Disruptions @ Coney Island-Bound Avenue H & Avenue M Stations

Coney Island-bound side of Avenue H and Avenue M stations are closed for rehabilitation!

Coney Island-bound train users, especially Brooklyn College students exiting at Avenue H or Edward R. Murrow Students exiting at Avenue M, residents of Fiske Terrace and West Midwood area who generally exit at the Avenue H stop discovered the hard way of the service changes--

All times, beginning at 5 AM Mon, Sep 28, until Fall 2010

Customers who need to exit at Avenue H and Avenue M should take the train to Kings Hwy and transfer to a Manhattan-bound train.

• and trains operate local between Prospect Park and Kings Hwy.

• Coney Island-bound riders entering at Avenue H and Avenue M should take a
Manhattan-bound or train to Newkirk Av for Coney Island-bound trains.

• Brighton Beach-bound and Coney Island-bound trains continue to bypass
Avenue U and Neck Rd.

Waning of the Yankee Dollar?

Washington Times reports that World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick warned Monday that, with foreign economic powers rising quickly on the world stage, time is running out for the privileged role enjoyed by the American currency.

The dollar's status as the world's reserve currency has given the U.S. prestige and privileges that are unique in the world, lifting living standards by enabling Americans to borrow cheaply and consume far more than they produce with little consequence for decades.

"The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar's place as the world's predominant reserve currency," Mr. Zoellick said in a speech to Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies in Washington. "Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options to the dollar."
Patrice Hill's Washington Times article here.

Art Notes: BRITISH SUBJECTS: IDENTITY AND SELF-FASHIONING 1967-2009 & BWAC's Fall Show

Above: White Wedding by John Kirby at the Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY


If you had a chance to visit the (recently ended) exhibition by Yinka Shonibare, MBE, at the Brooklyn Museum, you saw the work of an artist born in London to Nigerian parents. As a young child, his family moved to Lagos in Nigeria where he grew up speaking Yoruba at home but only English at his exclusive private school. As the child of successful parents, he spent summers at their Battersea home in London. When Shonibare was 16, he was sent to board in England for his final two years of school education. Consequently, Shonibare has called himself "truly bicultural.”

Exploring this theme further, the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York, is presenting an exhibition of British artists, including Shonibare, that explores and is entitled “British Subjects: Identity and Self-Fashioning” which runs through December 15. Cultural assimilation, national identity and challenge. We are accustomed to considering the fabulous melting pot of the American continent, this views cultural expression in the United Kingdom.

More on the show here, which includes the work above by John Kirby, entitled “White Wedding”.

For more details on this and the other exhibitions currently on display at the Neuberger, a delightful museum not far from NYC, click here:

Also, closer to home, BWAC’s fall show, Words of Color, is on display through October 25 in Red Hook. Details here.

At What Price Softness?: Get Thee Behind Me, Charmin

Could "TP" be the next environemtnal battlefield?

From The Washington Post: This summer, two of the best-known combatants in this fight signed a surprising truce, with a big tissue maker promising to do better. But the larger battle goes on -- the ultimate test of how green Americans will be when nobody's watching.

"At what price softness?" said Tim Spring, chief executive of Marcal Manufacturing, a New Jersey paper maker that is trying to persuade customers to try 100 percent recycled paper. "Should I contribute to clear-cutting and deforestation because the big [marketing] machine has told me that softness is important?"

He added: "You're not giving up the world here."

Toilet paper is far from being the biggest threat to the world's forests: together with facial tissue, it accounts for 5 percent of the U.S. forest-products industry, according to industry figures. Paper and cardboard packaging makes up 26 percent of the industry, although more than half is made from recycled products. Newspapers account for 3 percent.

But environmentalists say 5 percent is still too much.

Felling these trees removes a valuable scrubber of carbon dioxide, they say. If the trees come from "farms" in places such as Brazil, Indonesia or the southeastern United States, natural forests are being displaced. If they come from Canada's forested north -- a major source of imported wood pulp -- ecosystems valuable to bears, caribou and migratory birds are being damaged.

And, activists say, there's just the foolish idea of the thing: old trees cut down for the briefest and most undignified of ends.

"It's like the Hummer product for the paper industry," said Allen Hershkowitz, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We don't need old-growth forests . . . to wipe our behinds."

The Washington Post article here

On Books and Book Court: E.L. Doctorow, Tonight, 7 PM

I stopped by Book Court (163 Court Street) last Friday on my way home. I was delighted to see the fabulous renovation that has dramatically expanded the store’s space. It is airy and light and very comfortable for browsing. Happily, I also bumped into Henry Zook, an owner/buyer, who I think I first met when the store had first opened back in the early 1980s. Henry and I have said hello and chatted from time to time over the years when I visited the store or we crossed paths on Court Street where I have worked, on and off, for many moons. Book Court, which is co-owned by Henry and Mary Gannett is now managed by Zack Zook, their son, who also coordinates events and publicity. Henry informed me that the expanded space was actually formerly the greenhouse of the florist shop that they had expanded into several years ago. (Close your eyes, you can almost smell the flowers.) Zack has coordinated a fabulous schedule of readings. Last week, I missed Amy Sohn reading from her new novel Prospect Park West. Tonight, Tuesday, E.L. Doctorow will be reading from his new novel, Homer and Langley, at 7 PM. James Ellroy (September 30) and Jonathan Lethem (October 20) are among the highlights but just a fraction of the great upcoming events. Event details here.

When I was a lad, during college and for a few years after, I was a clerk and then manager for the old Bookmasters’ chain. Mostly, I worked in the Penn Station store, which gave me a real love for the book business. Although we were a bookstore chain, business was still conducted along an older bookstore business model. I remember the staff being split between wannabe artistes and writers, and other more down-to-earth clerically attuned folks who were earning a living and for whom a book was basically a piece of merchandise (not that there is anything wrong with that; folks have to earn a living).

I became the evening manager (3-11), and learned about the book business. There were enough folks on staff who really loved books and which made it a really special place to work. Occasionally, we had visits by many of the characters who passed through the station, including one of the Ramones (who had an inexplicable interest in self-help books) and a quirky but very learned older British guy, Mr. Dove, who would pop in from time to time, spend the day reading from the shelves, and discoursing on culture. I was mentored by Matt Belmont, who was an old-timer in the book business. My co-workers at the time included the monumentally brilliant artist and writer, the late David Wojnarowicz, poet Donna Masini, musician and poets Brian Butterick and Alex Rodriguez (not the Yankee), among other wonderful folks.

At Book Court the other day, Henry and I were chatting about what we agree is the limitless future of books. No matter how much one reads online, that tactile thing of holding and reading a book made of paper pages and cloth or paper covering, will never lose its excitement or comfort. Book reading is a wonderful tradition that isn’t going anywhere. The big bookstore chains may fill a need, and it is great that so many people are reading. But on my recent visit, I was reminded that if you love books, Book Court is a special place that retains that similar feeling of authenticity, like the scent and feel of fresh paper; a wonderful reminder of how books, when lovingly sold, seem to offer limitless possibilities.

--Brooklyn Beat

FCC and 'Net Neutrality': who "owns" the internet?

The Wall Street Journal reports that the FCC supports internet neutrality, a big plus for consumers, individual internet users and Silicon Valley, a potential loss to big telecom companies who seek priority usage and control of access and data flow

Does anyone "own" the internet? Does the public have inherent rights of access? Or should the folks who control access and maintain data flow and keep it moving, such as the telecommunication companies that move our wireless and cell phone data, among other service providers, have the greater say over use? Is it a wild west situation, homesteaders versus cattle barons? Or will the net become more of a regulated utility? How would that impact the freedom of the net? How free is the net now? Ultimately, which is more beneficial for users? More questions than answers as the FCC under the Obama administration takes a stand on this issue.

From the Wall Street Journal, an update on net neutrality

The Mysteries of Carl Jung and His "Red Book"

Above, Carl Jung's Red Book, "Liber Novus" (new book).



Above, page from Carl Jung's Red Book.

From the Philemon Foundation, which is devoted to publishing the full collection of the works of Carl Jung, including "the Red Book": "During WWI, Jung commenced an extended self-exploration that he called his “confrontation with the unconscious.” During this period, he developed his principal theories of the collective unconscious, the archetypes, psychological types and the process of individuation, and transformed psychotherapy from a practice concerned with the treatment of pathology into a means for reconnection with the soul and the recovery of meaning in life. At the heart of this endeavor was his legendary Red Book, a large, leather bound, illuminated volume that he created between 1914 and 1930, and which contained the nucleus of his later works. While Jung considered the Red Book, or Liber Novus (New Book) to be the central work in his oeuvre, it has remained unpublished till this day, and unavailable for study and unseen by the public at large. The work can be best described as a work of psychology in a literary and prophetic form. It is possibly the most influential unpublished work in the history of psychology. Its publication is a watershed that inaugurates a new era in the understanding of Jung’s life and work.

The years … when I pursued the inner images were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life.

Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then.”
— C. G. Jung

NY Times article link here

The book will be available on October 7, 2009. The Philemon Society offers a special deluxe edition.

The Rubin Museum of Art will display Jung's original "Red Book" from October 7, 2009 through January 25, 2010.

Brooklyn Beat here: As noted in the fascinating NY Times magazine article by Sara Corbett on the publication of the Red Book, which has been awaited as a "Holy Grail" by students and practitioners of Jungian psychology since Jung's death in 1961, just as there is a great deal of anticipation by some, curiosity by others, there also has been reluctance and concern on the part of Jung's descendants. The book, which has been compared to "the Book of Kells" or Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience" is not an academic work in its true sense, and may be looked at as Jung's private and personal journal in which he documented his explorations into inner space as he sought to encounter and experience his own "soul." At this point, Jung, who had broken away from Freudian analysis, began to explore new forms of analysis that may have been less focused on science than on spirituality and use of creativity as a tool to understand and heal the self.

Nevertheless, given the time and context in which Jung began these explorations, whether as result of intellectual curiosity or a personal breakdown, some critical studies, notably the books of Richard Noll, have questioned the uncomfortable proximity to Aryan, Nordic, paganistic beliefs and cults, which emerged at the same time as Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. Uncertainty about the nature of the Red Book led to its suppression by Jung's family and estate for many years. Noll draws cultic comparisons with the followers and practitioners of Jungian psychology.
In any event, the fact that the "secret" Red Book, which was originally locked by Jung in a cupboard in his Swiss home, and was later kept under tight security in a Swiss bank vault, had begun to be leaked anyway, just as Jung was the subject of scathing criticism by Mr. Noll and other authors, with claims of Jung's not-so-hidden anti-Semitism, the family decided to make the book available to the public.

While the book has itself been a mystery for many years, the controversy surrounding Jung and his ideas suggests that its publication could create more new questions and debates than it could ever answer.

Nevertheless, while its publication will clearly lead to further debate, it also will provide new knowledge about the history, origins and direction of one of the main branches of psychology and one of its foremost practitioners. --BB

The Beatrice Review interview with Richard Noll


Richard Noll's books include "The Jung Cult" and "The Aryan Christ"

More on Richard Noll

Text of an interesting lecture on the "Enigmatic Origins of the Jung Cult" by Jan Garrett

Brooklyn Country: Lord, bless Alex Battles and the Whisky Rebellion, amen.

Country music at its purest. Country music on Steroids. That’s Brooklyn Country.

The Brooklyn Country Music Festival rolls into town and either hitches its horse or parks its pickup or Trans Am at Southpaw on 5th avenue beginning tonight through Saturday.

Although I could rant and rave at the lyrical brilliance, country-roots soulfulness and wit, and panache of Mr. Battles,and, aw heck, the talent of Shafer and the rest of TWR, better to paraphrase a quote from a music review in Bing Crosby’s Holiday Inn and say “ God Bless America. Just go.”

Thursday through Saturday
http://brooklyncountrymusic.com/festival.html

http://www.whiskyrebellion.com

Do You Really Get What You Pay For?: What is "Free" anyway.

In an interview, Bob Dylan commented on the prevalance of downloading: " I don’t know anybody made a record that sounds decent in the past 20 years. These modern records – they have sound all over them. There’s no definition, no vocal – just static. I remember when that Napster guy came up, it was like, ‘Everybody’s getting music for free’. I was like, ‘Why not? It ain’t worth anything anyway.’

Chris Anderson's "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" explores the relation of media, money and consumption, at the nexus of free dissemination of information and intellectual property . To me, it's a little bit kind of like that Ourosboros thing, the snake of the world that can swallow its own tail.. If art/content is the reason for consumers to check out an internet site, and at the same time, is itself supported by advertising, what is the meaning of "free" if our time and attention are in some way demanded as the cost for "free" information.

Chris Anderson, editor of Wired and NY Times writer and author of the Long Tail, which looks at the economic impact of niche products, services and technologies, may totally be onto something, or he may not.

It seems like a profound concept, until one considers that a dramatically informative device that provided content free existed in most homes for quite some time in the last century; it was called, of course, television. Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker goes mano y mano with the central ideas of Anderson's book. While Anderson writes information wants to be free, just as "life wants to spread and water wants to run downhill," Gladwell observes "Why are the self-interested motives if powerful companies being elevated to a philosophical principal."

A review from Harvard's Neiman Lab (link here) Apparently a man of his convictions, Mr. Anderson's book was available as a free audio and ebook download when first published this past summer.

A free excerpt of the book here

Malcolm Gladwell, in the New Yorker, out for blood here

Wicked Gravity: Jim Carroll, Singer, Poet, Dead at 60

The New York Times reports on the passing of Jim Carroll. Rest in peace.