Who Are You, People?

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Artwork of Vladimir Kush

Here is — just for the kicks — yet another “classification” of personality types. Not quite as scientific as in Oh, People! or humorous like in You Say Tomato, I Say Cucumber, though, but still all the same — searching for the answer to a Life’s most persistent and urgent question  What kind of  SOB am I?

Here we go. Who are you in your heart of hearts? What do you keep inside and hide from everyone?

Artwork of Vladimir Kush

Are you one of these personality types listed below or, perhaps, amalgamation of several or, better yet, none of them. If so, what are you?

Open/Open minded

You are the type of person who lets almost anyone into your life and your heart. You believe it’s better to take a risk of getting hurt than you close yourself up and let no one in. You never share your fears and insecurities in order to get help or support of others — you always try to solve your problems on your own often without success. Still, you are there for your family, friends and just about everyone who needs support. You subjugate your needs to the needs of other always. By taking care of others, you heal your own wounds. It helps, particularly the others.

Philosopher

You are one of those people who like to think about everything. You tend to search for a deep and hidden meaning of absolutely everything. At times, you are immersed in your thoughts so deeply that it is difficult to come out and face the world. You hate to show how expressly unsure you are about things. Everything, actually. Even when you develop an ultimate understanding of one thing or another, you never certain and forever doubtful of your conclusions. Life, in its many faucets, remains an unsolvable puzzle. You spend your life trying to put all the pieces together, but the game is never over.

Sentimental/Sensitive

You are the type of person who sees everything and forgets nothing. Even the smallest things can make an impression on you — hurt or offend, make you cry or laugh. You are easily brought to tears, whether those are tears of sadness or joy. You try to hide your fragility.  Instead, you show how insightful you can be. Perhaps, you even can foresee the future.

Responsible/Conscientious

You are the type of person who is always striving to be the best you can be, do the right thing and make good impression. You believe that your actions and good deeds truly make a difference in the lives of others. You do not show people that you are upset, worried, not well or simply pissed off — you are better than that. After all, it is the very least you can do with your time on this planet.

Tortured Soul

You can not help but think that life is sort of cruel cosmic joke. You feel displaced and constantly trying to find your place in this confusing world, often creating the world of your own.  You hide your darkest thoughts. You’ve been through a lot, mastering the art of collecting yourself from broken pieces after every fall, and you succeed time after time.

Eccentric

You are a person with unusual interests and beliefs. Slightly on a weirdo side, some might say. Not very fond of rules, more often than not, you operate on the principle  “Be it as it may, I’ll do it my way.” You just laugh at those who try to change you. You hate to be considered a part of the “gray masses” of humanity. You stand aside, an odd one, and let people wonder about you all they want.

Intuitive

You are the type of person who is extremely aware of other people and the world around you. You can assess the situation by judging other people’s behavior — facial expressions, tone of voice — and feel the vibes. In fact, you feel lots of things, most importantly — being lied to or manipulated by others. This knowledge serves you well, giving you an upper hand in your life’s travails.  “Seeing” others through feeling, you show the world only what you want the world to see, and nothing  more.  You know how to manage or manipulate those around you, although rarely resort to such unfair tactics.

Introspective

You are constantly and diligently examining your own internal thoughts and feelings, searching for a hidden meaning and sources of your emotions, memories, impressions. Often you tend to dig deeper than necessary into the darkness of your soul. Not that the outside world is of no interest to you — it touches you, and the strings of your heart vibrate, sometimes painfully and violently, but in this music hall you are the sole listener.

Enigmatic

You are often a mystery even to yourself. Speak of other people who find you enigmatic! Good luck to those who try to understand you. A web of contradictions, you change your mood at a whim. Once you find yourself, you immediately “mutate ” only to start your search again. You like to watch people without them notising. You are a person of few words, but when you say something  you really mean it and believe it to be true.

Fiery

You are bursting with energy and zest for life. You love to be in love, and often you are. You either love or you hate, and you “do” both love and hate passionately. You have a tremendous power of perception and a ton of opinions, acting quickly (and not always rationally) to solve your own problems and those of others. Abundance of energy sometimes makes you anxious. Inclined to histrionics, you constantly create high drama in your head and in your life.

You are nothing like this:

Rather,  you are like this:

Well, I suppose my choice of illustrations for this post immediately identifies me as introspective, philosophically inclined, fiery but sensitive person with the mind open wide, and just a touch of eccentricity. Someone like this, perhaps?

Smile!

Don’t walk under a ladder…

Here is a collection of odd, strange, unusual and otherwise curious superstitions and prejudices from around the world for your Saturday amusement.

Carlos Menem

Argentinians are trying not to say aloud the name of their former President Carlos Menem. Bad, bad luck.

In Brazil, purse fallen or dropped to the floor means loss of money.

In China, the number 4 is considered the number of Death, as the words “death” and “four” sound similar.  Thus Chinese are trying to avoid using number 4 at all cost… unless no other number would do.

In Denmark, broken dishes often kept around until  New Year’s Eve. The shards and pieces must be shared with family and friends. It is believed that the more pieces of broken porcelain has been collected, the more successful the coming year will be. 

In Egypt, it is considered a very bad luck to open and close scissors without cutting the object, and far worse than that is to leave the scissors open. At the same time, the Egyptians believe that placing a pair of scissors under the pillow before going to sleep can fend off nightmares.

France: Stepping in dog excrement with one’s left foot is for good  luck, with one’s right foot — for bad.

When two Greeks  say the same words at the same time, they must say in unison “Piase Kokkino” out loud, and together touch something red at the same time, otherwise the quarrel is inevitable.

In Haiti, many superstitions surround mother’s figure in the life of a person. If you walk wearing one shoe, sweep the floor at night, crawl on your knees or eat watermelon tips, the premature death of your mother is your fault.

In India, a lot of odd superstitions have to do with grooming. For instance, nails are better not be cut at night, as well as on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Washing one’s hair on Thursday and Saturday brings bad luck because sweeping floors at night might lead to a number of small valuables being lost. Historically, Thursday is a day off for hairdressers and barbers, and Saturday is the day of Saturn (planet Shani) that ancient Hindus revered.

In Japan, every child knows that you have to hide your belly during a thunderstorm and, even more importantly, before bedtime. It is believed that if you’re not careful, then Raijin (god of thunder) might steal and eat your navel.

In South Korea, it is considered that the fan running in a closed room can kill you in your sleep. That is why many fans in South Korea are equipped with a timer to turn them off before they turn into killing machines.

Lithuanians avoid whistling inside their homes. Everyone knows that whistling can cause invasion of tiny devils determined to harm and terrorize you.

Sitting on pillows brings extremely bad luck to Malaysians. It is thought to cause itching, blisters and other discomforts affecting their backsides. Perhaps, no Malaysian likes to sleep on a pillow someone was sat on, just like most of people?

Nigeria:It is believed that if a man is beaten with a broom, he will most definitely become impotent. Moreover, his genitals might fall off.

Oman: To “cleanse” your new car, you must turn on Koran  audiobook and play it through your car speakers for 1-2 weeks. This measure is thought to protect the vehicle and its owner from evil eye.

A sun-shower  for Philippinos means Tikbalang’s (demon-horse) wedding party.

Qatar: Don’t kill spiders in your living quarters. It is believed that spiders can put out fires in the house.

Rwandan women are forbidden to eat goat meat — it is believed they might grow beards after consuming mutton.

Visiting Sweden, one might notice that sometimes people walking down the street change direction or scratch their backs repeatedly and seemingly for no reason at all.  This is because of manholes. In Sweden manhole covers marked by the letters “K” or “A”. “K” indicates “fresh water” and, coincidentally, “love”, while “A” indicates “sewage” and “unrequited love”. It is believed whichever letter one encounters more, that’s the kind of love one is going to have. However, this “curse” can be removed by stroking one’s back three three times. Works 50% of the time.

In Turkey, it’s considered disgusting and bad omen to chew gum at night. You see, at night gum turns into the flesh of dead people. 

Vietnamese schoolchildren and students never eat bananas before tests and exams, since bananas are slippery. In Vietnamese, the word “slippery” is consonant with the word “failure”.

Yemen: A pregnant woman can determine the sex of her unborn child just throwing a snake into the air. If the snake hits the ground horizontally, a girl is on a way, if vertically — expect a boy.

In Zimbabwe, the life is largely ruled by black magic, thus every prejudice and superstition is deeply rooted in magic spells and curses. The groom, for instance, may impose a spell of infidelity on his bride. If she cheats on him with another man, the spell will inseparably twine illicit lovers together. This practice is believed to be a serious deterrent against infidelity.

Russians fend off  evil eye using a variety of uncomplicated actions, such as biting one’s tongue, curling one’s finger into a fig (gesture of extreme contempt), spitting over one’s left shoulder three times, knocking on wood three times, wear underwear inside out, wash one’s face in water ‘puified’ by inserting a silver spoon. Works every time!

Who Isn’t Leaping…

The phrase You’re either with us, or against us (or similar variation of it, Who isn’t with us, is against us) is used in many languages. It means pretty much the same in every language and refers to situations where one isn’t marching in step and/or in the same direction as the rest of us, metaphorically speaking.  The implied consequence — if you aren’t joining the team effort then you are an enemy. Neutrality is out of the question. Choose your side and stick to it. Walk with us. Fight alonside. Think as we think. Or else, there shall be consequences. So, you better leap and jump with us. For your own good, you moron.

This leap and jump stance is part of yet another phrase. This one  is meaner, often demeaning and even derogatory. I found it peculiar, bizarre and occasionally funny. I haven’t heard it used quite as often (if at all) in English, however.

Who isn’t leaping (or jumping) he or she is [such-an-such]. 

The phrase means that leaping or jumping (god knows, perhaps of joy or maybe in unison with the rest of the leaping folks) is to be with us, whereas not leaping/jumping makes a person not only different but belonging to either some despised, highly unsympathetic group of people, or to people of different ethnicity, hated occupation, habit or behavior.

Germans, Dutch and Argentinians, Russians, Greeks, Peruvians, Chileans and French, Mexicans and Spaniards have it in their grab-bags of phrases. With much curiosity I learned that Brazilians think (and say) Who isn’t leaping — is son of a whore from Ecuador (!) and Mexicans are known to call those non-leapers Peruvian faggots (?)

Take a look at the table below. The rightmost column is an expression in the language of the country listed in the middle column, and the leftmost column is the “name-calling” — qualifier for the non-conformist behavior.

Englishman	Argentine	El que no salta es un inglés
Hates Bosnia	Bosnia	Ko ne skache, mrzi Bosnu
Son of a whore from Ecuador	Brazil	Quem não salta é filho da puta do Equador
dumb	Hungary	Aki nem ugral — fradista
Schwab	Germany	Wer nicht hüpft der ist ein Schwabe
Jew	Holland	Wie niet springt is een jood
Ukrainian	Greece	Οποιος δεν πηδαει ρε Ουκρανοί ειναι
Turkish	Greece	Οποιος δεν πηδαει τουρκος ειναι ρε
racist	Demark	Dem der ikke hopper de er racister
stupid	Israel	שוטר קופץ שלא מי
Italian	Spain	Italiano el que no bote
French	Italy	Chi non salta é un francese
Peruvian faggot	Mexico	El que no salta es un peruano maricón
Chilean faggot	Peru	El que no salta es un chileno maricón
From police	Poland	Kto nie skacze, ten z policji
Spanish	Portugal	Quem não salta é espanhol
With cops	Russia	Кто не скачет, тот c ментами
Putin	Russia	Кто не скачет, тот Путин
Cop or dumbass	Romania	Cine nu sare, ori este gabor, ori e prost de moare
Gypsy	Serbia	Ko ne skače, taj je cigan
Not French	France	Qui n’est saute pas n’est pas francais
Not Czech	Czech Rep	Kdo neskáče není Čech
Pinochet	Chile	El que no salta es Pinochet
Pokemon	Chile	El que no salta es pokemon

And here is another Russian for you:

Who isn’t leaping — is dinner.

 

Your Brain On Cash

Artwork by Mark Fredrikson

People’s personalities, relationships, way of thinking, behavior depends on, well, lots of things. Money — no surprise here — is one of them. How money, having it, absence of it, lots of it, thinking of it affects people and their brains.

Neuroeconomics merges psychology, neuroscience and economics and emerges as a field of research to study “the human brain on money”.

Some of the conclusions are more surprising than others.

• Noblesse oblige? Nope. Research shows that money actually reduces empathy and compassion. Money also makes people behave more aggressively towards others.

Even fake money can do it. Researchers observed two students playing Monopoly, one with much more Monopoly money than the other. At first, the inequality seemed to make the richer student uncomfortable, but soon enough the student with more money got aggressive, smacking his pieces around and taunting the impoverished player.

Berkeley study consistently found that high socioeconomic status and interpersonal disregard are closely linked. So much for noblesse oblige.

• Losing money is pain in the ass. It hurts, and not metaphorically either. Researchers have found that the loss of money shares psychological and physiological system with physical pain.

Money actually serves as a pain buffer and the anticipation of pain heightens the desire for money. Apparently, people hate losing money even more than they love making it.

Psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman has suggested this aversion to loss may have evolutionary roots. For the primitive human, threats or losses were a higher priority than opportunities, because an opportunity might come again, but a threat could be your last.

• Researchers from Harvard and the University of Utah came to a conclusion that more money leads to fewer ethics. Surprise, surprise.

People were more likely to lie and make immoral decisions after being exposed to money-related words. Words, not even money itself!

The mere exposure to the concept of money set off a “business decision frame” in study participants, causing them to think narrowly in terms of cost-benefit calculations and further their own interests without giving a damn about moral niceties.

Money makes people dangerous, too.

Researchers at Berkeley observed crosswalks in San Francisco and found that people driving luxury cars were three times less likely than those in more modest vehicles to give the right away to pedestrians, and they were four times more likely to cut off other drivers.

• Conventional wisdom “I need money not to obsess about money” does not hold true. The more money people make, the more they tend to think about money.

Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business, found in his research that the more money people are paid for each hour of work, the more important that money becomes. Money becomes an important measure of self-esteem and self worth.  The more people get, the more they need, and the more they focus on it. Paradox?

 “The strange part is, the more I made, the more I got preoccupied with money. When suddenly I didn’t have to think about money as much, I found myself starting to think increasingly about it.” (Daniel Vasella, the former CEO of Swiss pharmaceutical behemoth Novartis AG)

Pfeffer is convinced that for its destructive social and psychological effects money should be  “counted” pretty straightforwardly as addictive substance.  His opinion on what could be done about skyrocketing executive compensation is simple:

“We would do what we have done with other  — tax it. That’s what public policy has done in the past to restrict the use of legal drugs like alcohol and nicotine — we tax them.”

What a lovely idea! But so un-American…

Because, Americans are supposed to worship the wealthy, don’t they? Oddly — or not? —  they don’t.

According to research presented in Scientific American, most of people wouldn’t be too upset it the rich suffer. Studies show that lower-income people dislike and distrust the rich. So much so that people welcome news of rich folks’ misfortunes.

University of Pennsylvania research revealed that most people tend to associate profits with social harm. When participants in the U Penn study were asked to rate various real and made-up companies and industries, both liberals and conservative participants ranked institutions thought to have higher profits with more evil and wrong-doing across the board, regardless of the company or industry’s actions in reality.

Marry Me! Match.com Meets Country Fair

For those few of us who doesn’t read Mandarin, these rows of neatly arranged sheets of papers might look baffling. Some sort of calligraphy display?

This is an open-sky marriage market in Shanghai, China. There are many more places all over China where such places exist.  Thousands of parents visit these markets in search for “marriageable material” suitable for their children.

Age, height, income, education, Chinese zodiac sign and assets, such as cars and apartments, of the children for whom parents hope to find prospective spouses are all there, on these non-virtual low-tech adverts.

Every Saturday and Sunday between noon and 5pm, regardless of the weather, the People’s Park in Shanghai is crowded with mothers and fathers studying the Lonely Hearts messages that adorn the grounds.

The children might or might not be aware of their parents’ weekend activities. Those who do know, often feel uneasy or even embarrassed. They do understand, however, that marriage markets are very much in keeping with tradition.

Parents arranged their children’s marriages for ages, and they continue to do so in modern, much changed China… with diminishing success.

The parents walk around chatting with other parents to see if there is a match only after their children’s standards are met. The first step is to establish contact between the parents on both sides and if the parents agree to contact, then, hopefully, their sons and daughters might take it from there and, god knows…

Parents having sons of marriageable age are particularly eager and anxious. China is experiencing shortage of brides. For almost three decades China’s one-child policy and medical advances that have allowed people a choice of having a boy, significantly skewed the gender ratio.

A boy plays in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 3, 2012.

“Dramatic excess of young men,” is becoming one of key challenges for China, scientists warn. Around 30 million more men than women are expected to reach adulthood by 2020.

Besides, the young generation of Chinese women are generally in less of a hurry to get married, for there are more pressing matters such as careers. This trend is not unique for China.

This pretty young woman looks interested… However, her interest might be just an idle curiosity…

“Many young men will have to accept bachelorhood, a condition which often drives men to crime, even suicide and depression. Women on the other hand, will be scarcer, though whether that will lead to an improvement in their current low and often abused status is questionable.”

Many parents, disheartened as they might be, remain hopeful and turn up at the market week after week, month after month, year after year…

Lacquered Fairytale

This images, bright and colorful, are the fine examples of the traditional Russian lacquer miniature oil paintings on papier-mache.

Let’s scroll down and take a leisurely look at a few more of those paintings.   The tradition started at the tail end of XVIII century in the village of Fedoskino and since then has become the classical style of the Russian folks painting.

Russian miniature survived and thrived in spite of changing fashion and tastes, ups and downs in the fortunes of shop owners and merchants, changing cultural and political climes.

Whether or not you like them — matters of taste are beside the point — these are indisputable masterpieces of the highest caliber.

The Oriental motif was immensely popular at the tail end of Tsarina Catherine the Great’s rule, when the art form of oil miniature was at its infancy. It was the time of many wars between Russians and the Sublime Porte — the Empire of Ottoman Sultans.

 

The history of Russian miniature, from 1795 to the present day, is rich and nearly as colorful as paintings themselves, where sunny-golden and blood-red come together and don’t seem to clash, where sandy-haired princes catch their Firebirds by the tails, where maidens are ripe and apple-cheeked, and the onion-domed churches soar to the heavenly skies.

For those who read Russian and want to know absolutely everything about many generations of painters and schools of Russian miniature that sprung out following the success of Fedoskino’s masters — follow the link Федоскинская миниатюра.

Colorful, isn’t it? Many find it breathtaking. The vibrancy, the brightness! Bursts of contrasting colors…

Another collection I want to showcase here isn’t quite as colorful, and not because these old photographs are black-and-white. The photos are nearly a century and a half old. They feature Russian villagers, dirt-poor peasants mostly, in their “natural habitat”, their everyday life, and dwelling and some in their “Sunday” clothes.

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What amazes me is that in the villages like these, amidst poverty and depravity, there lived and worked people who created miniature fairy tales with their magic brushes.

Headlines: A Man And A Woman

Let’s follow life travails of A Man and A Woman, as marked by news headlines that begin with A Man or A Woman. Yellow press mostly, although these days it’s often hard to tell the difference.

Here we go.

A Man.

His composite image looks something like this:

A Man

A man and his family live in the sewer and dreams about a vacation in the Caribbean. A man rented an apartment on the Avenue of the Enlightenment and turned it into a brothel. A man can develop prostate cancer working night shifts. A man’s clothing broke into flames when he came out of his apartment. A man lives without pulse for six months.

A naked man spent three hours straddled atop a statue . A  man with hairy chest does NOT look sexier, as was previously thought. A man subjected himself to 90 cosmetic surgeries to look like Barbie’s friend Ken. A man killed two children, trying to steal their bikes. A doctor explained what prevents a man to be a macho in megalopolis.  A man is seeking love at first sight . Psychologists discovered that women can’t resist a man’s smile.  An armed man stole his bride from a mental institution. Search engine Bing helped a man to propose marriage to his girlfriend on top of an active volcano.

A man sues his new wife because she turned out to be not as beautiful as he expected.  A man lived in a same-sex marriage for 19 years and did not know about it.

A man beat up people who prevented him from drowning in the river. A man who was hit by a train was immediately run over by a car. A man attacked a Greek Orthodox priest  with intention of cutting off his beard. A man with fake passport tried to pawn fake gold. A man received a suspended sentence for invented robbery.

A man tried to set themselves on fire in St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. A man tried to set themselves on fire in the center of Tel Aviv. A man tried to cut his throat at the gates of the Buckingham Palace .

A man with a bomb in his pants entered the plane. A man died trying to saw a jet engine in half. A man’s ring finger can tell everything there is to know about him.

A Woman.

A Woman

A woman lives in a dugout hut, insisting she is a hobbit. A woman has to sing, otherwise she cannot open her eyes. A woman is eating cat hair for the last 15 years. A woman haven’t slept for three years because of an obsessive song. A woman constructed a lover out of human bones. Psychologists discovered how to manipulate a woman.

A woman treated unrequited love with the help of fictional terrorist. A woman insists hypnosis helped her get pregnant in spite of never having a contact with a man. A woman gave birth to a multi-colored triplets. A woman fell asleep on a plane and woke up after the plane made a round trip. A woman in Iceland tried to find herself and succeeded.

A woman was able to drive off a bear by screaming at him. A woman beat up a wild boar with a plastic chair made in China.

A woman discovered she has breast cancer after being bitten by a lion. A woman became a capable artist after she developed a brain tumor.

A woman damaged painting by Delacroix with fluorescent marker.  A woman made a photograph where she was holding her  own heart in her hands. A woman must hang upside down to live. Crucifixion cured a woman’s cancer but took away her husband’s feet.  A woman tried to kill her husband with a large sausage. A woman is keeping her husband’s mummified body, waiting for his resurrection. Scrutinizing  a Google map of a ruined village, a woman discovered a ghost.   A  400- meter high sculpture of a woman appeared in England.

Vermeer, Jenison And Camera Obscura

Johannes Vermeer. The Music Lesson

Johannes Vermeer was 21 years of age when he was accepted into his local Dutch painters’ guild in1653. With no record of any extensive apprenticeship, he manages to produce a number of paintings filled with light, peopled by realistic characters and furnished by realistic objects. In fact, the perspective, the lighting, the proportions and marvelous symmetry of his scenes, were so amazingly… realistic — they looked like precursors of the contemporary photo-realistic art.

For years art historians marveled at Vermeer. Some — ever so cautiously — wondered if, perhaps, the artist was assisted by some sort of an optical devise to help him come so close to photography 2 centuries before it was invented.

Major controversy ensued when David Hockney,  one of the most famous living painters, in his Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of Old Masters hypothesized that not only Vermeer but many great painters from the 15th century onward must have used some sort of lens-and-mirror contraptions to achieve their photo-realistic effects. Possibly, Vermeer constructed a camera obscura, a room-size optical device that projects a reflected image on to a wall. If so, then his canvases were the result of something like a paint-by-numbers technique.

The art-history establishment remained unmoved and even offended by such outlandish speculations. The notion that the painter’s god-given genius was his only tool persisted.

While all these interesting developments brewed in academia, in San Antonio, Texas, there lived an inventor named Tim Jenison, who knew nothing of it. An article in the Vanity Fair describes him as “curious, careful, soft-spoken, and comfortably schlumpy, he comes across more as a neighborhood professor you might see at Home Depot than as a guy who owns his own jet.”

Well, it was a long — 5 year long — story. Tim Jenison read Hockney’s book and got interested. If such device existed, it could be constructed and used the same way it could have been built and used by Vermeer.

Tim Jenison was many thing, the man of many talents, but he was neither artist nor art historian. Good. Because he became a perfect, “untainted” beta user of whatever he rigged up.

Jenison’s R&D period lasted five years. He went to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. “Looking at their Vermeers,” he says, “I had an epiphany”—the first of several. “The photographic tone is what jumped out at me. Why was Vermeer so realistic? Because he got the values right,” meaning the color values. “Vermeer got it right in ways that the eye couldn’t see. It looked to me like Vermeer was painting in a way that was impossible. I jumped into studying art.”

To make a long story short, Tim figured out how Vermeer’s camera obscura worked, and he built the one exactly like it. He learned to paint. He build an exact reproduction of the room in the original painting, and of everything in it. And yes, the painting Jenison decided to produce was The Music Lesson, 29 inches by 25: a young lady at a harpsichord, her music teacher standing at her side, the Delft north light, flooding the room through the windows.

Amazing but true — Tim Jenison DID IT.

Read an article Reverse-Engineering a Genius (Has a Vermeer Mystery Been Solved?) — it’s fascinating journey, indeed.

Jenison’s finished painting. Courtesy of Tim Jenison

There is also a film “Tim’s Vermeer,” directed by Teller and narrated by Penn Jillette.

The movie trailer:

 

Discover An Island

Migingo is a tiny 2,000-square-metre (0.49-acre; 0.20-hectare) island, about half the size of a football pitch, in Lake Victoria. (–Wikipedia).
In 1991, two Kenyan fishermen, Dalmas Tembo and George Kibebe, gathered their courage and some 600 lb of fish. With that, they went to the sorcerer known for his powers of fending off evil spirits. Tembo and Kibebe needed help. Extremely unfriendly spirit Calella made Migingo island his home. The sorcerer performed his magic and evicted the evil spirit.

Calella was gone for good, and the two entrepreneurial fishermen became Migingo’s first inhabitants. Covered by weeds and infested with snakes, Migingo was no heaven on earth, but Tembo and Kibele prospered. In 2004 they were joined by Joseph Nsubuga, a Ugandan fisherman, and a few more people. The commune where, hopefully, there would be no inequality and evil, was born.

Communal life is run by the two “honorary senators”, its founding fathers and first settlers, Tembo and Kibebe, as well as five elected senators, men older than 30.  Simple majority is needed to decide communal affairs.  

By 2009, the population of Migingo grew to 131, and then the honorable senators decided not to accept any more members into the commune.

The maximum penalty for transgressions and misdeeds is expulsion from the island. Most common punishment is spanking with thatched whips. Twenty years into the state’s existence, only six people were banished from the island, all of them for theft.

Since the time Migingo became inhabited, both Kenya and Uganda has been claiming its territory. Ugandan and Kenyan police have occupied the island 9 times in armed conflicts.  The Coast Guard of Kenya and Uganda kept sinking Migingo’s fishing boats, tearing their nets.  6 Migingo settlers were fatally shot. Later on, however, Kenya and Uganda agreed that Migingo commune has to pay taxes to  both countries, and the islanders consented.
The main source of community’s livelihood is fishing for Nile perch. Average fisherman family can earn up to $200-250 per week — nearly as much as people of the neighboring countries make in 2 or 3 months. 60% of these earnings is withheld for taxes (25% to Kenya, another 25% to Uganda and 10% to support the needs of the island and its not-too-numerous defense forces.

There are five bars, a beauty salon, pharmacy, as well as several hotels and even four brothels on the island. Obviously, Migingo is a welcoming place. Still, under the laws of the commune, visitors cannot stay on the island for more than one day.

Some 200 meters from Migingo there is another island, Usingen. Larger and greener than Migingo, it’s still uninhabited, despite the Migingo’s terrible overcrowding. Why? Bacause evil spirit named Tuck lives there, along with vengeful Calella, who allegedly resettled to Usingen since his inglorious banishment from Migingo.

There is an ongoing  search for a mighty sorcerer to overpower Tuck and Calella — the commune desperately needs living space. Thus far, no such sorcerer came forward.  

Usingen, too, is a disputed territory. However, neither Kenyan nor Ugandan military risks occupying the island, fearful of mean-spirited Tuck and vengeful Calella. Only a few foreign biologists, studying  Lake Victoria and its inhabitants, visit Usingen island, staying in a dismal temporary quarters.

No Place For Cute Animals

“CAREER” by Sholim

Perhaps later than most, but earlier than some, I discovered fascinating, idea-and-concept-loaded  art of Milos “Sholim” Rajkovic, the artist from Belgrade.

I selected a large  part of an interview with Sholim, originally published on September 30, 2013 and conducted by Suzana Poghosyan via email, and I post it here, sprinkled with Sholim’s “portraits”. The interview contains Sholim’s largely unedited answers emailed to Suzana in response to her questions. Here it is:

What kind of Art do you make?

I define two major influences on my art: European satire in all [form] of art, expecially in Yugoslavian and Czechoslovakian cinematography and attitude from whole American Lowbrow art culture.

“ARS LONGA…” by Sholim

“…VITA BREVIS” by Sholim

“JOIN THE ARMY” by Sholim

Which artists have influenced you most?

Robert Crumb, Mike Judge, Jan Švankmajer, Goran Marković, Guy Debord and many others.

You make .gif’s, videos and digital illustrations; do you prefer any one above the others? Why or, why not?

I definitely prefer GIF ART because it’s unexplored potential for bringing pure values of human thinking in artistic form to the internet, homes, offices, phones.

“СРАНЬ ГОСПОДНЯ” by Sholim

Tell me something about your training and your influences.

I define two major influences on my art: European satire in all [form] of art, expecilly in Yugoslavian and Czechoslovakian cinematography and attitude from whole American Lowbrow art culture.

“BISHOP DELUXE” by Sholim

Which artists have influenced you most?

Robert Crumb, Mike Judge, Jan Švankmajer, Goran Marković, Guy Debord and many others.

You make .gif’s, videos and digital illustrations; do you prefer any one above the others? Why or, why not?

I definitely prefer GIF ART because it’s unexplored potential for bringing pure values of human thinking in artistic form to the internet, homes, offices, phones.

“SKINNER BOX HEAD” by Sholim

How do you stay motivated to make work? Where do you find inspiration?

My motivation is the fact that I bring art that encourage thinking about the world we living and some day in some part of the planet somebody will be inspired. It’s rarity when you see something on internet that is not just a temporary information and that’s the reason why my gifs are very complex.

Do you have any thoughts on globalization of culture? Are there any drawback of Globalization you’ve seen in Belgrade?

Good thing about globalization of culture is transmission of ideas, meanings and values all over the world and the very bad thing is use culture as part of corporate colonization.

WORKAHOLIC by Sholim

What role does Social Media play when you create your work or, in your career as an artist?

Social media sites like facebook and twitter are polygons for development of egoistic behavior and I don’t like it but it’s the best place to promote your work on internet.

” 命 ” by Sholim

Of your works, which are your favorite?

Maybe “Skinner box head” gif  because of philosophical message about modern destruction of individuality and “Kill For Peace” gif because its tribute to Tuli Kupferberg.

KILL FOR PIECE by Sholim

What advice would you give current art students?

Explore own individuality through creativity.

“CHRISTMAS TIME” by Sholim

Milos “Sholim” Rajkovic – ONE MINUTE PORTRAITS is his YouTube channel where GIF animation is supplemented by audio accompaniment.

“EMPTINESS” by Sholim

Sholim’s Tumblr page  has more of his GIFs.