Secular Confessional

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2007, Todd Julie and Jesse Ewles, Secular Confession Booth, 2007
Photo courtesy City of Toronto

Letter to the Bank #27

Dear BM,

I’m having a potluck confessional this coming weekend and I do hope you’ll attend. Its a chance for everyone to let their hair down, let it all hang out, get it off your chest be you banker or artist, finance guy, or modern dancer, because in the end, underneath it all we are all after the same things aren’t we? We all want a roof over our heads, food in our bellies...perhaps where we diverge is how we describe things. Bankers want more stuff, artists want more substance. The difference may seem subtle but the ultimate ends take us to very different places. Once you have all the material things you desire do you not still feel a lack? Once artists have achieved a level of success are they satisfied? Never! Maybe we are not so different after all. Anyway if all goes well I might make this a regular event. Just bring your favorite dish as in your current beef, gripe so forth. Think about who you’d most like to blame for the end of Capitalism for example. For desert maybe supply your guilty pleasures, greatest indulgences. Perhaps you speculated on the value of your home, took out equity, used the (phantom) collateral and applied it to a fabulous vacation instead of ploughing it back into fixing up your abode as any sensible person might’ve. If so you are probably feeling a little ashamed if you are a self flagellating artist, or not in the least bit ashamed if you are an unscrupulous maker of money. Either way help is at hand, help from your suffering peers. Should be fun. Group therapy always is. To give the whole proceedings a little spice I’ll have an ATM machine on hand, well a confession booth/ATM, an ATM what is more that you can only put money into, money I assure you which will go to a worthy cause. This way I figured, if inclined, you could give something back to the community you brutalized (unintentionally, naturally).

Yours,

KC

PS-I know being sincerely sorry for the damage done will be hard for some at first but believe me the resulting relief will be worth all the money you give to, say Habitat for Humanity or Doctors Without Borders. If you give a lot you’ll feel great. I think that is how it works. These are the things that confuse me and that is why I sincerely hope you will come so you can straighten me out on a few points.

Letter to the Bank #26

Dear BM,

Who am I kidding? You won’t employ me as a curator, or let me have a say in your acquisitions process. Deep down in my gut I know this to be true. I must have been curiously disconnected the other day or high on the huge dose of Ibuprofen prescribed for my infuriating backache. Truthfully my gut also cannot quite stomach the idea of working within your “for profit” system though clearly, penniless as I am, I could surely learn a thing or two. Is it within the realms of possibility to earn well AND honestly, with higher purpose? Is this a higher calling you are pursuing as you enable museums to put on shows that they could probably not afford to mount without your help in the current economy? I know funding for many museums has been drastically cut. So in your efforts to mount these ambitious shows are you being altruistic or pragmatic? I honestly can not tell.

So many of the people I know have great dreams, positive dreams, poetic, artistic dreams but to do anything to realize them requires (dammit) money! Financing! Getting in to debt! Going in to foreclosure for goodness sake! Getting a bad credit score! Or...writing amazing proposals! Now there’s a good idea. Would you listen if I wrote you a proposal? I’ve got this great idea that requires I build a paper maché and cardboard bank, write a monologue and pretend to be working on behalf of the bank as a PR man. I attempt to reach those corners of the community most suspicious of banking institutions. You’d have to have some humor, be able to laugh at yourself, take a joke. I’d do all the hard work and your support would only reflect well on your institution. When I have a moment, when I’m not busy fixing a broken toilet, replacing a broken sump pump, or tearing out a ruined ceiling and so compromising my back, I’ll find a moment to work up my proposal. I only ask you to keep an open mind and stop badgering me with bewildering notices regarding my various credit cards. I know you only have a couple of weeks left to do your dirty work before new banking regulations kick in but how about leaving me out of it?

Sorry. I got a bit distracted didn’t I. More soon.

Sincerely,

KC

Letter to the Bank #25

Dear Mr. Manager!

What’s this I hear? Can it be true? Have you really broken into the business of curating blockbuster shows of blue chip Art? (See previous post). Honestly I didn’t know you had it in you but as they say: All is fair in love and war. If I feel I can dole out financial advice then why shouldn’t you be a curator? Still this does bring up some interesting issues. It is one thing to have work you own included in a show but it is quite another to mould whole traveling shows around the work you own and all whilst bumping my interest rates up and up and up—all no doubt to help defray the cost of mounting such enormous shows. I guess you’ll worry about paying back your government loans later. Anyway my main point is this: Shouldn’t I have a say in the kind of shows you curate? Am I not, in theory, a shareholder?

So here is what I propose: I shall become one of your curators. I’ll pitch a few of the wonderful ideas I have for shows (some of which admittedly could be construed as slightly anti-corporate) and you can tell me if you are interested. Remember I am not anti YOU. You are my BM! I am “with you” so to speak. You are my bank and I am your loyal customer.

I do have some remaining questions though. Who chose all the art you’ve collected? Did you my bank, my struggling bank, go out and buy this stuff? Isn’t that awfully extravagant of you? Doesn’t that amount to somewhat irresponsible behavior given the current financial crisis we are all confronting? Or is this an alternative investment strategy? That I can appreciate. Why waste your money on toxic assets when you can buy Art? Or did you never intend to collect art in the first place? Did it arrive willy-nilly—one lien here, another bankruptcy there—until suddenly one day you realized you had an amazing collection of seized collateral? This is a topic that interests me greatly. When not piling my own freely offered collateral on your doorstep I am also out there trying to interest people in my art. I occasionally even sell a piece or two, which gives me quite a buzz. I even tried to interest your bank in my work a while back. I tried selling my art to you but that didn’t work so how about accepting my art as collateral. I suspect you’d prefer it if genuine artworks piled up in your basement rather than old washing machines and other sundry (unwanted) old possessions. Not only would this help me if you bought or accepted as collateral my artwork. It would also provide a boost to your collection. It would boost it no end, well, maybe not boost it so much as round it out a bit. I am offering you, my bank, a chance to get in on the Living Artists’ Support Network, or The Artists’ Collateral Order Network (TACON is a better acronym but none of this is final yet). You’d in effect be underwriting the future cultural wellbeing of your country. Some might call it gambling but I’d call it a sure fire bet. Instead of buying, or accepting as collateral, a hugely expensive Rosenquist painting, instead acquire tons of smaller artworks by hundreds of different, mostly unknown artists. The chances are with one of those artworks you may, one day, just hit the jackpot. Just when your bank is failing you’ll find you’ve been sitting on a jewel all this time, a jewel you didn’t fully appreciate at the time, a jewel so valuable it might just save your neck.

Yours sincerely,

KC

PS-The artists’ community is quite “hep” to the idea of bartering their artwork in exchange for debt reductions and so forth so do give this project some serious consideration. The ball is in your court.

For Some Museums, a Corporation Can Also Be a Curator - NYTimes.com

For Some Museums, a Corporation Can Also Be a Curator - NYTimes.com

Letter to the Bank #24

Dear Banks,

You must be thinking I am not a reliable correspondent given the random nature of my letters. Well all I can say is it takes one to know one. That or our letters simply keep crossing in the mail. You don’t reply to my letters and I don’t reply to yours. It’s a bit like those Pinter plays where two characters appear to be participating in something of a conversation though in truth they are not hearing each other and are simply expressing their inmost thoughts at each other. If they connect at all it is accidental. I guess I keep writing in the hopes something similar will occur with us. I keep hoping we will connect. If I keep writing and you keep sending me statements (and/or credit card offers) the odds are surely in our favor?

Today’s letter is a somewhat hurried one necessitated as it is by the fact of my having embarked on an ambitious project I believe you will find both a creative and worthy one. I am trying to follow your example and make money. I love making things so how hard can it be for me to make money? Just to be clear I am not talking about pretend money. My efforts to exchange artfully reproduced bills and coins have not met with success. I’m talking about collateral. The reason this note is a hurried one is this: I may have put the cart before the horse. Suffice it to say I did not want you showing up at your bank and wondering why there was an old washing machine sitting on your doorstep. The fact is I put it there. No symbolism is intended. This is not a joke about money laundering. I put it there as collateral. I figured in this way I could take the pressure off my poor old house. The burden it carries as my only asset of any worth is too much so I am spreading the weight across all my things. The stacks of boxes contain books, wonderful books for the most part and also books I have not felt inclined to look at in a while. Indeed if I never saw them again it wouldn’t break my heart—same with the two sofas, the hat-rack, the used coffee maker and the weed whacker. Please feel free to put them in your basement and indeed you should sell them, or auction them off, if I should ever fail to honor my commitments to you. Besides I do not need any of it right now. It all just takes up valuable space. But think about it. How much easier it must be for you to have my collateral right there where you can keep an eye on it.
Anyway I’m rather pleased with myself for coming up with this idea. Let me know what you think. Do that in place of sending me yet another statement that shows just how feeble my current finances are. I’m thinking this idea could really catch on. Just as in the healthcare system, where the preemptive actions of eating well and exercising are truly appreciated, the banking sector can surely see the benefit of people piling the possessions they are likely to lose any way, in the near future, on the doorsteps of the banks, who otherwise would be required to send in the repo-men and/or collection agencies to do so at huge cost to...the banks! You will also have much happier clients. If they were able to choose what went first and so not suffer the indignity of having their favorite comfy chair pulled out from beneath them so making them appear foolish in public they wouldn’t have every reason to resent the institutions you represent. If you think about it the future already looks rosier doesn’t it? With little imagination you can picture all those people who used to be a bit too heavy but now, thanks to preemptive healthcare initiatives, are eating well, and, thanks to my preemptive collateral initiative are losing weight thanks to the work out they are getting from loading up the backs of their old clunkers with all their junk and then unloading it all in front of the bank—tidily I would hope!

Oh, and one more thing: If any of their clients should default on their loans the banks could have weekend yard sales. I tell you nothing brings together a community quite like a good, old-fashioned yard sale.

Yours sincerely,

KC

Second Report From Fairyland

In Tooth Fairy Land today a series of unusual developments had locals initially up in arms and then, moments later, cheering as the full story unfolded. It appears J, serial victim of haphazard Tooth Remuneration Standards, is finally standing up for himself. In an earlier report we shared the confounding story of a coin that could barely be called a coin, a coin caked in mud, a coin some declared “actually an old tin button” or "actually a bent up, rusty nail" which, in an act of desperation was placed under J’s pillow in exchange for one of his finer baby incisors. Furthermore there was a note purportedly written by a tooth fairy. You no doubt can imagine the shock waves that rippled through our community at the time. In this fraudulent note the coin was described as fairy coinage of indescribable, unknowable value, and, though inadequate to the task nonetheless proof of a worthy attempt at fair exchange for the unquestionably unique and priceless tooth. The perpetrator was later revealed to be none other than the father who, finding himself in cash flow straits had hoped in this way to evade the inevitable and righteous wrath of his son. Instead he only succeeded in causing great upset in the tooth fairy community who found his actions highly offensive.

The good news is that today, upon the removal of his son’s last baby teeth, said father did finally make amends. He did this by promising to give his son the T-Mobile cell phone upgrade he’d been itching for all summer. Let us hope he makes good on his promise. He also took the family out to a local Five Guys Famous Burger joint.

If only more parents would so take on the responsibility of paying their offspring on time for their fallen milk teeth we in Tooth Fairy Land would not be in the midst of this, possibly the worst financial crisis our generation has witnessed.

Since this report first aired it has been revealed that J’s father failed once again despite promises made to respond appropriately to the resulting TUP (tooth Under Pillow) situation, and so disappointed his son yet again. In the poor fellow’s defense it should be made clear that when he was thirteen years of age he was lucky if he got more than a dime per tooth. Runaway inflation plus the bubble bursting have all contributed to our current fiscal disaster. J did finally walk away with ten more dollars to put in his tin box. The father however remains perplexed by how his good intentions inevitably go awry. So why were the locals cheering? Surrounded as we are with so much bad news the truth is that one transaction, however dysfunctional it may appear, if honestly completed, is a victory, a victory we can all truly relish.

The Parallel President Missive number 2

image courtesy of the Pierogi Gallery
The Parallel President Missive Number 2

As the parallel president I am free to meander between the lines of current discourse and veer a little from the strictures presented by the Bouncy Banker Institute. As their guest I will however be sure always to bring my notes thundering back to the issues of art and finance, and how they intersect, bash into each other, compliment each and dismantle each other, and, above all, by all appearances, fail to connect.

You’ll wonder then at the extent of my meandering but should know I see connections everywhere. The great late artist, Mark Lombardi, perhaps best expressed this in his brilliant drawings that showed, using information freely available to anybody with a computer and time on their hands, how banks, politicians, generals, corporate interests, dictators and even, probably, obscure terrorist cells, connected, usually via money transactions.

Unchained as I am, unlike the actual president, I can float above the fray and make my observations with impunity. I can offer my own objective/subjective assessment of the messiness below. I can suggest irresponsible actions like burying all the lobbyists, be they for the NRA, the big pharmaceuticals, the insurance companies or the banks, in pits of lye. I’m not quite sure what lye is but you must admit it sounds right.

That is all for now.

The PP

The 'Conspiracy' Art of Mark Lombardi : NPR

The 'Conspiracy' Art of Mark Lombardi : NPR

The Parallel President Missive number 1

The Parallel President Missive number 1

I have the best job in the world. I am the Parallel President. I have all the fun of running the most powerful nation on earth without the responsibility of doing it right. I can shoot off at the mouth, foam even. When furious I can say so. I can swear a little and smoke a joint once in a while. I can enjoy a refined beer and not care if I’m deemed elitist. I can rail against my own cabinet, refer to the blue dog democrats as irritants, and call the opposition names. That said I do take my job seriously. I can posit ideas that might, just might filter through the fog. As the shadow or ghost not behind but next to the leader of the free world, a leader for whom I have the utmost respect, I can whisper in his ear and shape future events. If he cares to listen or not, at least I will have had my say.

My appearances on the Bouncy Banker will focus themselves, as per my host’s area of concern, on art and the current fiscal crisis, a crisis the president is just a little too optimistic about. Anxious not to cause any form of panic he plays it down the middle, is cautious, still reaches out to the lunatic Republican fringe. Reaching across the aisle is one thing but unseating himself as he reaches into the shadowy murk of the far right corner of the musty room approaches the tricky area of dignity loss.

I say my thoughts and policy directives shared here will be mainly those concerning the banking sector but it is all part and parcel—the health crisis, corruption, mortgage lending practices, the insurance industry. These things effect us all. How can you make art when you are trying to find work, or are standing by the road, your forlorn foreclosed upon family at your side, trying to hitch a ride to California—well maybe not California given their proximity to bankruptcy—so you can all break your backs picking berries covered in pesticides for a minimum wage, and later be cause for serious alarm inside the already overburdened healthcare system? Try drawing an absurdist caricature of your crew boss when you fingers are blistered and calloused from shucking a million ears of corn urgently needed to make the high fructose corn syrup required by the food industry if they are ever to keep up with the demand for cheap, nasty, fattening groceries. As the parallel president I understand that I am fortunate, and privileged to be able to make art whenever I wish. I shall make every effort to put myself in your troubled bohemian, blue collar or white collar shoes. I’ll post some of my art alongside these missives as and when the whim strikes.

PP

Letter to the Bank#23

Dear BM,

It has been a while but if you have the least bit of sensitivity you can already tell I have not changed my tone. Am I asking you how you are, like a civil person should? No because I already know the answer. You are doing just fine. I am not exactly thrilled for you. It can’t be that hard when people are so eager and willing to toss wads of money at you every time you blink. Nobody does that when I blink. You don’t even have to work for it. If just sitting behind a desk speculating recklessly is all it takes then I want in on the action. I'm very good at being reckless! Just look at the state of my mortgage! I’ll just write the word banker on my forehead. And don’t you start getting all defensive. That line about having to pay the talent, keep the talent pool, offer bonuses blah blah blah. Well sure where genuine talent is involved, sure if they earned it. We just are not overjoyed to see institutional disfunction that has seriously hurt us all being rewarded. I’m straining to be ever so slightly light hearted. I feel a bit like the brilliant satirical singer/songwriter (and mathematician) Tom Lehrer, who once said in an interview, when asked why he’d stopped writing his hilarious songs, that he no longer found any of it funny anymore.

It doesn’t appear as if any you guys really give a damn how you are perceived. Nobody appears ready to impose regulations on you and you cannot be shamed into behaving ethically and altruistically anymore. So where does that leave us but down in the dumps. That is where I’ve been for a while. Truthfully a mood approximating despair has kept me damped way down. I admit it—I am not my usual fiery self. But I do have glimmers of hope buried under the ashes, glimmers that are ready to be reignited given the right fuel. Your talents will be heavily taxed as you try to keep my fury at bay. I was almost completely put out but now feel a growing heat underground as if the earth still believes enough in humans to offer them once more the gift of fire and fury.

I’ll give you a tip: If you dignify my letter to you with a response I might be controllable for some time yet. Your justified concern that I might just start a forest fire and threaten your lovely McMansion on the hill, or your barricaded millionaire enclave in the valley can be assuaged by a thoughtful reply.

Sincerely,

K.C.

PS— I see you have changed the term toxic asset to legacy security. How brilliant. Maybe you do deserve that bonus! Come on! Lighten up. That is what I am about to do.

Financial Letter Pertaining to Baby Teeth

Dear Mr. J ,

We have had brought to the matter of our attention a most terrible oversight concerning payment in arrears for not one, not two, not three but FOUR teeth. We are most upset and in a tizzy here in Toothfairy Land and are anxious to make amends. Crude as it may seem we are keeping matters simple by presenting you with this note wherein it is stated in no uncertain terms that you are owed the sum of Twenty Dollars to be presented when funds are forthcoming. You are not the only ones to be suffering the withering effects of unregulated banking. Here in Toothfairy Land the Tooth Fairy bankers have behaved most irresponsibly so monies are not so easy to come by. BUT with the election of Honey Spring Dew as president of our fair lands things are looking up and debts such as those we owe you are to be paid as promptly as is fairingly possible—to wit—this is a WeOU:

$20.00

Present this to your parents this coming weekend and they should make good as our unwitting representatives.

Yours most apologetically,


Fairy Attorneys at Law Pickleberry Witherspoon and Aardvark Teacupsugar.


PS We would like to add your behaviour regarding the mouth implement is most admirable.
We in the Tooth Fairy community have not failed to take note.



Dear Parents,

I’m bummed about the mouth expander. It is really annoying but I won’t complain. No point as it doesn’t get me anything but sympathetic frowns which I don’t really enjoy very much. If complaining got me a dog or a cat, or a flemish giant rabbit, or an upgrade on my phone (the camera sucks) or another guitar it might be worth it. However I will tell you this: I’m thirteen years old (going on sixteen though I do say so myself) and don’t need your witty fairy letters to appease me. Just cough up the money,

Your son,
J
(bedroom across from yours)

CEOs carpool

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Hands Bitterman Lashes Out