ART AND THE BOUNCY BANKER: Letter to the Bank Manager #92 (are you a person or a corporation?)

The Bruxist Collective's take on Art and (as Alfred Jarry might put it) P'finance.

A numerically dyslexic artist (and reluctant consumer) shares his dearth of financial wisdom and resulting frustrations with his Bank Manager. Read personal letters from the elusive Art to his even more elusive Bank Manager. See a comic rendition of a Day In The Life Of The Bouncy Banker. Art struggles to make sense of the senseless as the Authorities of Finance wobble but never quite fall down. Full of hot air they float above it all! When they bounce it is with impunity! Why are there no Remorseful Bankers? Can Art and Finance ever coexist? Do you have a Blue Chip on your shoulder?

When bankers get together they talk about Art. When artists get together they talk about money. Oscar Wilde

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Letter to the Bank Manager #92 (are you a person or a corporation?)

http://movetoamend.org/occupythecourts

Dear Bullrider (I’m guessing you’ve bounced back from your latest travails, travails never so big you cannot pass the cost on to your customers!),

I think at this point you know, and I know, that my letters to you, Art’s letters to the banker, are 99’s letters to the one. Art is a euphemism for life, humanity, in all its glory and failings—and Banker is a euphemism for the Corporation. As we all now know corporations are people, or have been designated as such by bodies like the Supreme Court (also people—apparently people who don’t know what a person looks like which is good because justice is supposed to be blind—right?). We also know that Corporations are Brands. They are a brand of person we usually call disassociated, disconnected, unfeeling, and, as far as society is concerned inept and dangerous. Society generally puts such people somewhere where they can perpetuate no harm. Trouble is they are connected to each other and as such are very powerful. If you like they are the first plug in the wall and we all depend on adaptors to draw on their power. Depending on the very elements in our society that by any definition can only be seen as psychotic is a tragedy.

As you know I try always to drive a wedge between the human you, whose feelings I insist on working on despite the fact that getting to them causes me much angst and physical pain. To cut through your thick skin such that you feel the pain you cause requires the use of a chainsaw and I usually end up with multiple blisters and sore muscles before I have even made a dent. I will however keep trying to get through. It may be that one day your guard is down, your men are off drinking coffee, your food taster is otherwise engaged, your letter reader is home with the dastardly flu and it is you—yes you— who picks up this letter and, bored, decides to open it. On the off chance this should occur I’ve decided I should include in bold colorful type (for the moment may be so fleeting I have to catch your eye) a suggested reading list, or suggested links, movies etc.

I’ll try to do so from now on. I’ll reference the things I’ve heard, the news stories that added another notch to my world weary heart. I will share with you that which I believe you should know. Lets move beyond the probability that you will dismiss all and everything I put forward as only the left wing, pinko, conspiratorial, radical, environmental garbage talk of an out of touch, artistic individual, and assume you are made of softer material, have flexibility, and are open for business.

Let’s talk.

Sincerely,

Art O’Connor

Here is the first list:

Debt, The First Five Thousand Years by David Graeber. I believe the author went to LSE in London, is a self described anarchic economist, and has been described as one of those who provided philosophical underpinnings for the Occupy Movement. The book is fascinating and full of material I’d love to qoute but best you just take a look at it yourself.

The Corporation, a movie by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan