Movies: The Model

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - The life of a young fashion model is challenging. This is the message of the movie "The Model" (imdb). Danish director Mads Matthiesen and his co-script writers tell the story of a teenage girl from Denmark who wants to start a modelling career in Paris (this is a spoiler free blog).

The film furnishes the clichés about naive girls, predatory men and the fashion business in general, but there are also some original ideas & twists that make the movie interesting and entertaining. I cared about the fate of the protagonist, even that her story got challenging over the time. Maria Palm, who incarnated the model, has a remarkable face and is a convincing actor as well. And you can see beautiful girls in a beautiful city.


"The Model" is an easy & esthetic summer entertainment. 

Contemporary Art: Elegant Compositions By Michael Lam @ Gallery Artifact, New York

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - New York´s Lower East Side has about 130 art dealers. Gallery Artifact on 84 Orchard Street (artifactnyc) belongs to my favorites. The art dealer has frequently interesting shows, often with 3 artists.

Yesterday I admired some abstracts by Michael Lam. I indulge into his elegant compositions. According to this website (agora-gallery) the artist was influenced by a hand-illustrated Chines herbal medicine book he saw as a child.

But let the pictures speak for themselves.

Enjoy!

Street Art New York: A Documentary - Summer 2016 Edition

(Drivebycuriosity) - It`s summer in New York. The air is hot & humid. But street artists don`t take a break. Since my latest street art report (June 2016 driveby) I spotted a lot new murals, stickers & graffiti @ Lower East Side, East Village, Soho and other Manhattan neighborhoods. As usual I document the newest street art in this area.

Above you can see the newest mural on the wall of rag & bone at the corner of Elizabeth & Houston. This fashion shop impresses with frequently changing art work.

Above the newest murals on East Houston Street & Second Avenue at the subway exit for the M Train (across Whole Foods). They are parts of a frequently changing series as well.

The mural above,  on Crosby Street, also can be spotted from East Houston Street.

This mural is on Allen Street, near Stanton Street, at the now defunct Epstein`s.

Above a mural by the Irish illustrator Laura Callaghan found on Orchard Street.

These huge murals are in Soho & Tribeca.

Above a mural spotted on Broome Street.

Above some new shutter door murals found on the Lower East Side.

The building on Delancey & Orchard Street is waiting for the wrecking ball

The spreaders of stickers & stencils stayed active as well.


To be continued!

Books: Purity By Jonathan Franzen

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - Jonathan Franzen is one of the super stars in the contemporary literature scene and his new novel "Purity" gained a lot of attention (amazon). This got my curiosity and I gave the book a try. After about 50% I gave up reading.

"Purity" could have been an amusing novella (about 80-100 pages), but it is inflated to around 600 pages - way too long. The book is a freak show (you can read a synopsis here wikipedia ). There is no stringent plot, instead the book circles around some unbelievable characters and their experiences. The name giving character "Purity", called "Pips", is a dysfunctional person, who has a conflict with her mother; she is dysfunctional as well. There are a lot of other incredible characters, especially Andreas Wolf, who grew up in the then communist  Eastern Germany and became the famed leader of a cult in Bolivia - a media super star with a harem . Reading the parade of strange encounters and literary stunts is temporarily amusing, but gets tiring after a while.

Life is too short for reading Franzen!

Culture: The Beauty Of Noise - Swans @ Bowery Ballroom, New York 2016

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - "Swans are majestic, beautiful looking creatures. With really ugly temperaments" said once Michael Gira (wikipedia). The rock musician formed the band "Swans" in 1982, one of those independent rock music groups who go their own ways beyond the mainstream.

Last week my wife and I attended their gig @ Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan, our third Swans concert. Again, the band lived up to their name. The concert was "majestic &  beautiful" and spiced with very violent parts - far away from today´s mediocrity. Again Gira and his 5 companions created massive walls of noise full with graceful sound patterns.

Before the main gig we watched a solo performance by 
Okkyung Lee, a violinist from South Korea (wikipedia). She worked with a viola, a large violin, and created violent & fierce sounds which combined into a beautiful & majestic picture of tones.

Well done Swans & Lee. We hope we can watch more concerts by you in the future.

Oil: Welcome To The New World Of Energy

(Drivebycuriosity) - It looks like that year`s fierce rally, that catapulted the price of oil (Brent Crude) from $27 to $52, is history. Oil prices are hovering about 20% below this year´s peak. This reminds of last year´s oil price hikes which all turned out as flashes in the pan.

I believe that oil will stay cheap for many years. The reason: Technological progress. Machines are getting more & more energy efficient thanks to the technological advances. Cars, trucks, airplanes & ships burn on average less fuel per mile. Refrigerators, washing machines and other devices need less electricity. As a result the demand for energy - and therefore for oil - is growing slower than some years ago. And electric cars are getting more & more popular, even that these vehicles are still expensive.  The pioneer Tesla is not alone, traditional automakers, including Volkswagen, Honda, Toyota, Renault, Chevrolet, Mercedes and more, are already offering electric cars as well. And Apple plans to produce electric cars beginning in 2019. These vehicles will get cheaper in the coming years thanks to technological progress, competition and mass production - and they will become common in the 2020s. Then the new car revolution will curb the demand for gasoline, the main use for oil, considerably.

On the opposite side the technological progress is making the oil reserves in the ground more accessible. The rise of US fracking from around 2006 through 2015 is just the begin. Today the costs to extract an extra barrel of oil (break even point) in the US vary around $60 - with a range of range from around $40 to more than $70 a barrel (marketwatch).  At current oil prices - in the moment of writing the US Type of oil WTI costs about $41 - many wells may be unprofitable and are getting shut off. This explains the slight drop of US oil production since last summer. But, the productivity of fracking is rising swiftly which leads to shrinking costs (economics21  oilprice  econbrowser). A study by BP explains that fracking is "a standardized, repeated, manufacturing process" and "manufacturing productivity has led to a trend decline in the prices of goods relative to services" (forbes).

So the break even point for producing oil has been moving lower and will continue to fall in the coming years. Falling costs of fracking also raise the chance that in the coming years the US oil producers will  be accompanied by oil producers from China and other countries. In June 2013, the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a world shale oil and gas reserve assessment that showed 32 countries outside the United States have substantial reserves locked up in 137 different formations - units that can be exploited using Bakken-like technology....The EIA placed China third behind Russia and the U.S. in tight shale (tribune ).

Cheaper supply and a curbed demand will keep oil cheap for years.

Movies: Equity

(Drivebycuriosity) - Wall Street is occupied by men. But the film "Equity" shows a Wall Street which is ruled by women (imdb). Is that a better Wall Street? See by yourself (this is a spoiler free blog).

The movie, written & directed by women, focuses on Naomi, a leading investment banker who is preparing the IPO of a glamorous Internet company. How does this go in a world full of financial sharks?

I found the flick mildly entertaining. The story is complicated, but so is the world of finance. The plot also tells how career women deal with each other. I enjoyed to watch Anna Gun, the wife from "Breaking Bad", in the leading role, plus Alysia Reiner, known from "Orange is the new Black", Sarah Megan Thomas and the rest of the cast.

"Equity" is an interesting take on the complexity of the finance world.