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By C. Antonio Romero
SAN
FRANCISCO, 13 MARCH 2008 — We keep our eyes open for curious
collisions of events and details in the torrent of news and web pages that
streams across our desk in any given day, usually seeking out the ironic
turns that twist wry grins onto our often mock-dour faces.
Today, three elements combine to catch our particular
fancy:
- One of the peculiar details of the sudden "bimbo
implosion" of Democratic party rising star Elliott Spitzer is the name
of one of the front companies for the prostitution ring that did him in:
The Emperor's Club of Contemporary
Art
The web site of the Emperor's
Club has of course vanished, but the Internet's collective memory
(Google's cache of the Web) is of course nigh-infallible:
"One of
the many ways by which we create and add special value to already
extraordinarily affluent lives, is by enabling direct access to some of
the world's most captivating, authentic contemporary art available....
the best advice is always the same: make visual pleasure and quality
the benchmarks of your buying so you are certain to derive a deep
satisfaction from the piece [sic].
"Representing artists of superior mastery, and
catering to members of the absolute highest financial and cultural
affluence, experience for yourself the deeply satisfying joy of owning
Emperors¢ Club Contemporary Art..."
No word on whether the art in question included any
interpretation of the Ars
Amatoria. (And we'll refrain from recycling
old jokes about horticulture.)
- Those whose budget doesn't permit collecting art on
an ongoing basis might be more interested in sampling it by the evening
at the Hotel des Arts San Francisco,
which has transformed many of its rooms into exhibitions, by enticing
local artists to design the interiors and paint the walls as murals.
Some of the rooms may prove a bit too distracting to sleep in, but
they're bound to be fun to look at.
Far less charming, but
somehow bound up with these other two in our reading, was a BBC story
out of France about the sordid side of the French rental housing crisis:
people exchanging sexual (or more innocuous) services for free or
reduced rent, often finding their contre service arrangements
on the Web.
Take a quick look through the bookshelves of any
decent-sized newsagent, and tucked between the biographies of the
former French First Lady and the former American First Lady is the
extraordinary account of Laura D. Her book, My Dear Studies
(Mes Chères Etudes ), details the anonymous young woman's
slide from being a fresh-faced undergraduate, to a poverty-stricken
student, to a 19-year-old selling her body to pay the rent....
We cannot help but
remember an old Benny Hill sketch that featured a lodging establishment
called the Hotel Sordide.
Photo
above: Larry Fink: Homage to
George Grosz
Photo courtesy of The powerHouse Gallery
C. Antonio
Romero is the Nouveau and technology editor of Culturekiosque.com. He last
wrote on Obama Super Bowl Ad and "Yes We Can Song" Show
Campaign's Media 2.0 Savvy
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