Yesterday, we stopped by Comcast/XFinity to get Lisa set up in her new apartment. At the end, I asked, “guys, can you check something because it feels like I’ve been paying too much for internet for two years now. $131 a month for gigabit service.” The dude quickly pulled up my profile, said, “let’s reduce it by $25.” I said, “let’s do it.” Done, goodbye.
Service.
Here’s what I’ve noticed. In the USA, there’s an expectation that an employee drives themselves if their job involves traveling. Companies often issue a company car or provide compensation for using a personal vehicle. This is commonly considered a regular part of job responsibilities, and having a driver’s license is often implicitly assumed. For example, Nadia, a volleyball coach, occasionally drives a small bus for us.
As I recall, the tradition in Russia is different: in organizations, especially in government, large corporations, or among managerial staff, it is more logical to expect a designated driver.
Am I mistaken?
Let’s be honest about the art market (and why the prices there are insane).
Actually, there’s no mystery to it. It works somewhat like NFTs, only with a longer history and a better reputation.
The scheme is simple:
You take an item that hasn’t been on the market in this form yet (a painting, sculpture, installation — doesn’t matter). You call it an “important artifact”. It helps if you have connections — galleries, auction houses, billionaire collectors. If you don’t have connections, then find someone who does and sell the cow to them. Since uniqueness is required, there will be no paintings of bears in a pine forest, no matter how brilliantly they are done. There will be something distinct.
The very notion of “this is a painting/sculpture” — is just a convenient formality. The main thing is that the object can be incorporated into the already established art trading system.
Art is such — one of the most convenient ways to “optimize” taxes and move large sums of money. Paid 18 million euros for someone else’s work, and then someone “on your side” bought some of your work for the same 18 million. Virtually no money was really lost (just taxes), and now in catalogs and rankings, two works are each priced at 18 million. The price can be pushed up by selling them cascadingly. Win-win. Auctions are just in on the deal. Further, if you donate this work to a museum for charity, you can even cut more taxes. But it can also be sold. And here’s why.
Currently, there are simply too many free funds in the world. The number of billionaires and their wealth is growing faster than the availability of truly rare assets (real estate, companies, gold, etc. have all been divided already).
Art is one of the few markets where “scarcity” can still be created literally out of nowhere.
If you have access to a hundred such wealthy simpletons and you can tell stories (“this is an investment for 20-30 years, it will only increase”), then selling is purely a technical matter. Two or three interested parties = bidding already starts, and already you see +50-100% to the price.
Over time, real cases appear: someone bought in 2000 for 2 million, sold in 2024 for 80 million.
These cases are used to convince the next buyers. New buyers with their money confirm and amplify these cases. The cycle is closed.
Result: the rise in prices in the top segment of art is directly tied to the increase in the number of super-rich and their capital. As soon as a serious global crisis occurs and the extra trillions stop being printed/earned, and the pyramid collapses, the market will very quickly show where there was real cultural value, and where it was just a beautiful financial scheme.
P.S. This doesn’t mean at all that all contemporary art is a bubble. There are works that are really important historically and culturally. It’s just that at the very top of the price pie, cultural value has long ceased to be the main driver.
But at the summit of Olympus of the most expensive paintings of classic genius solitaries, there will never be, because galleries and dealers need artists who can produce 20-50 works a year to satisfy demand, organize exhibitions in five capitals simultaneously, and maintain turnover. Artists like Lopez Garcia, Odd Nerdrum, or Ron Mueck make unique pieces that will become especially valuable only after the artist dies.
Instagram advertises accounts to teenagers with a girl strongly resembling a young Lena Katina from t.A.T.u 😉
Something crazy is happening in our village. First, the owner of two huskies posts on nextdoor that they ran away from home and asks people to notify him if anyone sees them, warning that they are skittish. Then, about two hours later, the chihuahua owner posts that the escaped huskies killed his dog and also a neighbor’s chicken. The husky owner deleted his first post. Everyone in the village is grabbing their popcorn. It’s sad about the dogs. I’m always afraid that Yuki will run away like that, he’s also a fighter and fiercely hates all dogs in the world except himself.
I wonder why this Republican running for Congress from our little district didn’t at least use a pseudonym? Or does the context switch on for normal people and they just don’t see that the word butt means buttocks?
Wow, wine
Interestingly, depicting the sun in a painting is a very recent invention. I haven’t seen a single painting in any museum where the sun is depicted above the horizon. Well, maybe with the exception of the Impressionists, Monet’s is very symbolic. In modern works, it appears more often. But in half, it’s a trace from a photograph.
Update: Turns out Aivazovsky has a lot of this. But he produced so many paintings in the studio with his students that it seems you can find any combination of little ships, waves, and sun.
At Chicago Airport, there are these boxes for voluntary donations of marijuana to the police. And they are located AFTER the TSA screening line.
“These boxes belong to the Department of Aviation, but are serviced by the Chicago Police,” said police representative Maggie Huynh.
In general, they give passengers flying from Chicago the opportunity to dispose of marijuana before boarding the plane, as transporting it across state borders is illegal. Although marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, authorities claim they do not intend to arrest people found with it at Chicago airports. The TSA stated that if marijuana is found, they will refer the matter to the police. Chicago Police, while not recommending traveling with drugs (nicely said), states that they will not arrest a person if the amount they possess does not exceed the legal limit. They simply direct them to this box to voluntarily surrender what was found (what else to do with it, as carrying it on the plane is illegal by law)
So why use these specific boxes instead of, say, a regular trash bin? Because, as Huynh explained, only police have access to these boxes and can empty them — this helps prevent the marijuana or related products from falling into the “wrong hands.” And evidently, they must incinerate the waste somewhere…
I am starting to like my hotel. I am in room 446
Items we have read report that if you do stay at this hotel, avoid the fourth floor, or at least Room 441. That is where a lady from the other side lurks at the end of the bed, kicking the feet of guests who attempt to sleep there. And those guests are attempting to sleep there because they want to have the haunted experience. Don’t ask. Ever read Stephen King’s horror short story 1408”? The Congress Plaza is said to be its inspiration and a portion of the source that has brought Mr. King’s net worth to $500 million.”
Items we have read report that if you do stay at this hotel, avoid the fourth floor, or at least Room 441. That is where a lady from the other side lurks at the end of the bed, kicking the feet of guests who attempt to sleep there. And those guests are attempting to sleep there because they want to have the hauted experience. Don’t ask. Ever read Stephen King’s horror short story 1408”? The Congress Plaza is said to be its inspiration and a portion of the source that has brought Mr, King’s net worth to $500 million.”
