roundup ≠ scrapbook

Starving Artist’s Cookbook

Love and hate! Generally I love reading anything related to food, but I have a feeling this is simply another round of fancy talk talk about the “starving” (young creative cool) artist, romanticisation of starvation, and oh come on, they aren’t really starving, most of them are (were) successful and have (had) money and/or patrons or both, or manage(d) to get by at least.

Of course, artists cook, but they are not the only ones who come up with the so-called “creative” recipes, have interesting ideas with regards to culinary practice, or have something to say through the act of cooking. What about all the housewives mothers fathers cab drivers toilet cleaners? Rainwater soup is not so Flux if you live without running water, a Soup des Jours which lasts many days is all that some people could afford to cook (their names are not John Cage), a “recipe for fried spaghetti, containing spaghetti, garlic, oil, and any herbs on hand” is a classic recipe and seriously, that was what all my then fellow students were sustaining themselves with (the “affluent” ones substitute oil with butter, and top it off with cheese, although not necessarily aged parmigiano or pecorino).

Anyway, where are Tony Conrad’s pickles?

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recent consumptions:

*Vol Spécial, by Fernand Melgar, 2011. Highly recommended by G., documentary on the Swiss illegal immigrant detention centre in Geneva

*Zeitbombe Steuerflucht, by Xavier Harel, 2012. Humourous report on the nasty dealings in tax avoidance of the financial world, in which the skyline of HongKong opens the scene

*And here, from the Guardian today, The rich want us to believe that their wealth is good for us all. Of course it could be, but it definitely is not with the present state of affairs, when the same rich elite own everything that controls everything else.

*How fair is Fair Trade? A journey with Donatien Lemaître, Le business du commerce équitable
And the response from FairTrade, a defence for Banelino against the filmmaker.

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in other news…
one night i dreamt that i went *back* to chambana to do a PhD. google confirmed that caffé paradiso still exists, so it might still be an option (ha!). and lo, look at the kids at maker space urbana: the wonderful Electric Waste Orchestra!

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Goldman Sachs, la banque qui dirige le monde

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Corporate Coup d’Etat

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Raising Resistance

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Notre poison quotidien

{p.s. and more on poison américain}

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Die akte Aluminium

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Prison Valley

oh, darling, i never watched that much tv ever before.