Heard On The Street

In order to trade effectively, one has to understand that gem/art markets are filled with large number of market participants (with/without knowledge) + hopes + fears + thoughts. It’s the people + their thoughts + their expectations that create sometimes strange behavior + inefficient markets + mispriced gems/art = opportunities to make money.

We Are The Music Makers

A nice poem.

Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy (1844 - 1881): We Are The Music Makers

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

The Services Imperative

(via Knowledge at Wharton) Stephen Brown + Mary Jo Bitner's views on the future of business services + the impact in the global economy + other viewpoints @ http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewfeature&id=1517

Top 10 Movies 2007

(via Time/Richard Corliss): Top 10 Movies 2007

#1. No Country for Old Men
#2. The Lives of Others
#3. Killer of Sheep
#4. Atonement
#5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
#6. Persepolis
#7. No End in Sight
#8. In the Valley of Elah
#9. Waitress
#10. Beowulf

The Fly

The Fly (1986)
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Screenplay: David Cronenberg, George Langelaan, Charles Edward Pogue
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis

(via YouTube): The Fly (1986 Movie Trailer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7xoyu08xNE&feature=related

The Fly (1986) - Behind the Scenes_Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_Knr9GrYbQ

The Fly (1986) - Behind the Scenes_Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CbMT2v4vV0&feature=related

A unique metamorphosis + love/loss concept + the special effects, I loved it.

That's Amore

Bernard Condon writes about the art of smoking a Cuban stogie + Salvatore Parisi + the Pelo de Oro plant + other viewpoints @ http://www.forbes.com/global/2007/1224/086.html

This comment: 'Smoking a Havana cigar is like having sex with a real woman. If the parallel seems ridiculous, you don't know Havanas--or you don't know real women.'

Brilliant!

The Genetic Esthetic

Barbara Pollack writes about artists using cutting-edge medical technology--from X rays and MRIs to DNA diagnostics--as part of their art-making practices + obtaining images of their insides + pushing the boundaries of self-exposure, subjecting themselves to painful scrutiny on many levels + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=679

The Dawn Of The Reformation

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

It was in 1517 that Martin Luther sounded the tocsin for the Reformation by nailing his ninety five theses on the nature of papal indulgences to the great door of the Church of Wittemberg. It was in the following year that Durer received kindness and attention from his imperial patron, the Catholic prince Maximilian I. The artist was in a difficult position, but though he took no definite side in the great controversy which ensued, his sympathy with the Reformers is shown in this picture by the fact that each of the four Apostles is holding and studying a Bible. It is significant to note that this painting was not a commission, but was painted by Durer to please himself and for presentation to the city of his birth. Here is the letter which accompanied the gift to the Council of Nuremberg:

Prudent, honorable, wise, dear Masters, I have been intending, for a long time past, to show my respect for your Wisdoms by the presentation of some humble picture of mine as a remembrance, but I have been prevented from so doing by the imperfection and insignificance of my works, for I felt that with such i could not stand well before your Wisdoms. Now, however, that I have just painted a panel upon which I have bestowed more trouble than on any other painting, I considered none more worthy to keep it as a remembrance than your Wisdoms.

Therefore, I present it to your Wisdoms with the humble and urgent prayer that you will favorably and graciously receive it, and will be and continue, as I have ever found you, my kind and dear Masters.

Thus shall I be diligent to serve your Wisdoms in all humility.

Possibly it was a remembrance of this picture in particular which prompted Luther, in his consolatory letter to the artist’s friend Pirkheimer, to pen this memorable epitaph on Albert Durer:

It is well for pious man to mourn the best of men, but you should call him happy, for Christ illuminated him and called him away in a good hour from the tempests and, possibly, yet more stormy times: so that he, who was worthy only to see the best, might not be compelled to see the worst.

The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)