Friday, April 6, 2018

Vintage Italian Scooter Sale of the Century




Vintage Italian Scooter Sale of the Century

BY MESSYNESSY
 
APRIL 3, 2018
In the 1960s, the scooter became as much a fashion statement as humble transport. Vespa and Lambretta were the Coco-cola and Pepsi of the Mediterranean and you couldn’t be a fan of both. They had their own magazines, clubs and mod gangs across the continent. Then there was the Moto Guzzi and the futurist Maico Mobil, all of them competing for business in Italy’s post-WWII auto industry boom. Like all things vintage, I have a thing for scooters that look like they were just discovered in an old garage somewhere in Tuscany. Lucky for me, an Austrian collector is about to sell off his incredible collection of vintage scooters at auction. “Decades of scooter history will unwind before our very eyes,” says an auction house representative at the Dorotheum in Austria. The auction kicks off this Friday, April 6th, and starting bids are very tempting, ranging from 50 to 500 Euros. Bidders will be able to snatch up everything from a baby blue Labretta, to the very first Innocenti scooter! Rev your engines folks, Nessy needs a new scooter. Toot toot!
A 1953 Maico Maicomobil MB 175. Opening price €500.
1951 Lambretta 125 C.  Opening price €200.
A 1966 Lambretta J125. Opening price €100.
A 1952 Moto Guzzi Galletto. Opening price €200. 
A 1959 Cezeta CZ 501 (03). Opening price €200. 
A 1958 KTM Mirabell 125 Luxus. Opening price €300. 
1962 Cezeta CZ 505 (01). Opening price €200. 
1963 Cezeta CZ 505 (01). Opening price €200. 
A c. 1952 Ducati Cruiser 175. Opening price €100. 

A 1953 Lambretta 125 E. Opening price €200. 
A c. 1965 Puch DS50. Opening price €100. 
 A 1967 Manet Tatran 125. Opening price €100. 

Browse the full Scootermania auction here.

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The End Is Here!




The End Is Here!

By 
 

ARTS & CULTURE

GUSTAVE COURBET, L’ORIGINE DU MONDE, 1866.

The great artists see it coming.
Back in their native Soviet Union, in the 1960s, collaborative artists Alexander Melamid and Vitaly Komar fashioned a body of work that deployed socialist realist tropes in comically magic realist and even downright Warholian terms, anticipating, by a good half century, this year’s film“Death of Stalin” (and for that matter the persistence of Putin). Following their arrival in America in 1978, they continued in much the same vein, though they broke up as a collaborative almost 15 years ago.
In February 2016, Melamid, for his part, flush off the success of his great urinal show (an extended revisioning of Duchamp’s epochal Fountain, on its 100th anniversary), decided to honor the 150thanniversary of Courbet’s scandalous Origin of the World (L’origine du Monde) with his own End of the World (Le But du Monde), a quite shocking portrayal of some guy’s (actually his own) naked rear end, cheeks spread, anus exposed and rampant. Talk about dialectical materialism: if his two ass-cheeks represented thesis and antithesis, where did that put the rest of us, his painting’s viewers? With this work, he anticipated, well, everything that was to follow through the rest of that year and, frankly, up till the present.

ALEXANDER MELAMID HOLDING “END OF THE WORLD (LE BUT DU MONDE)”

From April fifth to April twenty-eighth, Melamid’s will be the centerpiece, as it were, of an entire show given over to the theme of Assholes, with contributions from several dozen other artists, at the Plato’s Cave (!) exhibition space of EIDEA House in Brooklyn.
St Benedict might well have approved—or anyway understood.  Benedict, the founder of the Benedictine Order in the sixth century AD, taught that the foremost virtue of the righteous monk was “discretion.”  Over the years, interpreters have differed over what exactly the good saint meant or was getting at, but some have cited the origin of the word, which is to say, dis-escretio, to infer that he might have been heralding the ability to know the difference between food and shit and to understand that each has its place (shit being good for fertilizer, say, but not for eating). Discretion being, therefore, precisely the virtue our civic culture stands most in need of during this Age of Trump.
So, what better time than these, our very own End Times, to make our way over to the show?  And if it gets to be too much, we can always remember the old saw: What did the one butt-cheek say to the other?  If we can just stick together, maybe we can put a stop to all this shit!

The “Assholes” exhibit will be on display at Plato’s Cave in Brooklyn from April 5th to April 28th, 2018. 
Lawrence Weschler, Director Emeritus of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, is the author, most recently, of Uncanny Valley: Adventures in the Narrative.
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Collage

Pavel Zoubok

ISSUE 196, SPRING 2011


The modern history of the cut-up -begins with the advertising age and the Victorian craze for scrapbooks. Later, with Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism, collage became a form of modernist protest against bourgeois good taste. (Clement Greenberg called it “the pasted--paper revolution.”) Now collage and its close cousins—bricolage, décollage, and assemblage, all methods of crafting new work from old materials—are such familiar gestures that we may overlook the genre altogether. And yet collage has an aesthetic tradition all its own, one that honors materials and materiality, foregrounds handiwork, and exalts intimacy and whimsy while reclaiming the scraps of everyday life, whether these are candy-bar wrappers or postcards, matchstick boxes or newspaper ads. 
“The notion of taking the vulgar bits and putting them in the context of a painting or a drawing, and calling it high art—that was certainly a revolutionary gesture at one time,” says Pavel Zoubok, a New York City gallerist devoted exclusively to collage and the curator of this portfolio. “I don’t know how much you can really violate anything anymore—people will alwaysbe cutting the heads off pictures of political figures and gluing them onto something else. But there is a whole new generation of artists embracing the medium and a whole new affection for collage,” he says. “People are naturally drawn to the tradition because it encompasses the things we know, the things we live with, and it embraces them out of a preservationist impulse—to save something that otherwise would be thrown away.” Collage is a cultural tool always near at hand: “It’s a more democratic medium—in theory we can all make a collage,” Zoubok says, careful to add, of course, that “collage is easier said than done.” 
The following images cover much of the past century and reveal a family history of the genre, from the Dadaist fragments of Hannah Höch to the layered Pop of Joe Brainard, the arcane virtuoso Ray Johnson to the wunderkammer craftsman Joseph Cornell. Collages charged by jarring contrasts appear alongside painstaking pictorial compositions, some of which approach trompe l’oeil; two-dimensional tableaux are placed next to three-dimensional assemblage objects; the engaged beside the apolitical, and the elegant beside the rough—often within a single, eclectic work. 




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THE WRITER’S CHAPBOOK






THE WRITER’S CHAPBOOK: A COMPENDIUM OF FACT, OPINION, WIT, AND ADVICE FROM “THE PARIS REVIEW” INTERVIEWS

$20.00
The Writer’s Chapbook: A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from “The Paris Review” Interviews
We’re happy to announce the second volume from Paris Review Editions: The Writer’s Chapbook: A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from “The Paris Review” Interviews.

In 1989, George Plimpton compiled a survey of writers on writing—anecdotes, aphorisms, and excerpts culled from the Writers at Work interviews. Our new, updated edition brings together almost four hundred writers, editors, and translators from issue no. 1 to issue no. 224 to provide a rare glimpse of what being a writer is really like. Divided into four parts—“The Writer: A Profile,” “Technical Matters,” “Different Forms,” and “The Writer’s Life”—the book dilates on subjects such as first efforts, work habits, plot, writer’s block, prizes, and politics. Here are Gabriel García Márquez, E. M. Forster, Toni Morrison, Henry Green, Elena Ferrante, Arthur Miller, William Gibson, John Berryman, and many more discussing the nitty-gritty of the craft of writing.

Printed on acid-free paper, in a limited edition, The Writer’s Chapbook is available exclusively from The Paris Review, with all proceeds going to support the magazine. 
  • Paris Review Editions, 2018, Paperback, French flaps, 390 pages.
  • Preorders ship in early April.
  • U.S. orders will ship on a weekly basis; please expect 2 weeks for delivery, unless you chose expedited shipping.
  • Canadian and international orders will ship on a monthly basis beginning mid April. Therefore, please allow 4-8 weeks after purchase date for delivery.
  • If you have any questions about your order or would like expedited delivery, please email store@theparisreview.org.

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The Teddy Bear Effect





The Teddy Bear Effect



By 
 

COMICS


Pénélope Bagieu is a French illustrator and cartoonist. Her most recent book, Brazen, is out now from First Second.




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Kevin’s Week in Tech: Extra! Extra! News Beyond Facebook!




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The New York Times
 
The New York Times
   
Kevin’s Week in Tech: Extra! Extra! News Beyond Facebook!
Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, where more than 3,000 engineers have signed a letter protesting the company’s involvement in an artificial intelligence program at the Defense Department.
Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, where more than 3,000 engineers have signed a letter protesting the company’s involvement in an artificial intelligence program at the Defense Department. Stephen Lam/Reuters
Each week, Kevin Roose, technology columnist at The New York Times, discusses developments in the tech industry, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two. It’s hard to imagine now, but at one point, long ago, Facebook did not monopolize the entire tech news cycle — a heady and innocent era when you could read an entire day’s news without encountering the words “Cambridge Analytica” or “third-party developers.”
I confess that, like many of you, I have been obsessed with the fallout from Facebook’s latest privacy scandal, to the point that I had a stress dream that I overslept and missed covering Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony on Capitol Hill next week. (Related: I need to get out more, and possibly take up yoga.)
But despite the wall-to-wall news of the past few weeks, lots of important things are happening in the tech world that don’t involve Facebook. So let’s run down a few of them?
GOOGLE AND THE PENTAGON
I thought this article by Scott Shane and Daisuke Wakabayashi, about thousands of Google employees who are protesting the company’s involvement in a Pentagon A.I. program, was fascinating on a number of levels.
First, it’s an unusually clear example of the double-edged nature of artificial intelligence. Google has spent billions of dollars teaching computers to play Go, drive cars and translate languages on the fly. The company has been extremely proud of its advances in machine learning, even releasing some of its tools to the public via open-source frameworks like TensorFlow, which provides a fascinating contrast to what’s happening inside the company now. When its image-classification algorithms are used to spot tumors on radiology scans, Google puts out a press release, and engineers cheer. But when these same types of algorithms are used by the Pentagon to improve the accuracy of drone strikes, it’s a moral outrage.
Yonatan Zunger, a former Google engineer, had an interesting op-ed the other day in The Boston Globe about the “reckonings” that various scientific fields have undergone, as the scientists who develop powerful tools begin to see how those tools can be used for evil purposes. He used the examples of the atomic bomb, which forever changed the way that physics was taught in universities, and dynamite, which made chemists aware of the consequences of their expertise. It’s not hard to see A.I. as a similar kind of turning point for computer scientists — and if it is, the Google-Pentagon issue might be the first of many similar fights.
Second, the Google-Pentagon incident is a revealing story about the leverage that Silicon Valley engineers have over their companies. Because the labor market for engineers in the Bay Area is so tight, and because companies live and die on their ability to attract and retain talent, these employees have much more say in how a company like Google governs itself than, say, regulators or outside activists. If an antiwar group protests outside Google’s headquarters, it’s an annoyance. But if 3,000 engineers walk out, it’s a crisis. And as the tech industry goes through its moral reckoning, executives of these companies should bear in mind that their biggest risk isn’t regulation, it’s rebellion.
AMAZON AND THE POSTAL SERVICE
I’ve also been following the feud between Amazon and President Trump this week, which has led to a bull market for explainers about the business models of the United States Postal Service. My colleague Nick Wingfield wrote that, contra President Trump, the available evidence suggests that “Amazon has been a boon to the Postal Service.” But Vox’s Jen Kirby added that, because the exact details of the contract between Amazon and the Postal Service aren’t known, it’s possible that President Trump is partly right: “Maybe the U.S.P.S. isn’t actually making the best deals.” Meanwhile, Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, saysPresident Trump is “actually right” that Amazon is ripping off the federal government through its U.S.P.S. contracts.
I’m a nonexpert on the subject of parcel shipping, so my opinion on Amazon’s the -U.S.P.S. probably isn’t worth one first-class stamp. But it’s possible, and maybe plausible, that all of these analyses are partly correct — that the Postal Service benefits from Amazon’s dominance, and that Amazon is getting a sweetheart deal that should be re-examined. Anyway, Amazon’s stock dipped sharply after President Trump started tweeting angry things about it, but it has now recovered to its pre-tweetstorm levels, meaning that investors may be as confused as I am.
THE YOUTUBE SHOOTING
Last, and most obvious, the horrific shooting at YouTube on Tuesday, which injured three people and left the company badly shaken. As more details have emerged on Nasim Najafi Aghdam, whom the police have identified as the attacker, it has become increasingly clear that this was a new kind of violence — an act of revenge by an internet creator against the platform that she felt controlled her economic destiny. As my colleagues Nellie Bowles and Jack Nicas wrote, “Ms. Aghdam’s complaints echoed what a wide range of YouTube posters — from self-described animal rights activists like her to right-wing political provocateurs — have increasingly been protesting over the last year.”
It’s a tragic reminder that social platforms aren’t just websites anymore. They’re powerful economies unto themselves, and even seemingly minor policy decisions can alter the lives of millions of people, a few of whom might be disturbed enough to act on them.
Kevin Roose writes a column called The Shift and is a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter here: @kevinroose.
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In Case You Missed It
 
Facebook Says Cambridge Analytica Harvested Data of Up to 87 Million Users
By CECILIA KANG AND SHEERA FRENKEL
Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, will appear before multiple congressional committees next week. It is part of the company’s efforts to be more open about its work.
‘The Business of War’: Google Employees Protest Work for the Pentagon
By SCOTT SHANE AND DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI
Thousands of employees have signed a letter calling on their C.E.O. to pull out of a project that could be used to improve drone strike targeting.
‘Vegan Bodybuilder’: How YouTube Attacker, Nasim Aghdam, Went Viral in Iran
By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI, THOMAS ERDBRINK AND MATTHEW HAAG
Nasim Najafi Aghdam, the woman who attacked YouTube on Tuesday, had a strong following for her often bizarre videos.
Is Amazon Bad for the Postal Service? Or Its Savior?
By NICK WINGFIELD
President Trump says Amazon costs the U.S.P.S. billions of dollars. But the available evidence is far less certain, and some of it suggests the opposite.
YouTube Attacker’s Complaints Echoed Fight Over Ad Dollars
By NELLIE BOWLES AND JACK NICAS
Video creators, including Nasim Aghdam, have been complaining for months about YouTube’s pulling their ads. Then one of them went to company headquarters with a gun.
COMMON SENSE
With Tesla in a Danger Zone, Can Model 3 Carry It to Safety?
By JAMES B. STEWART
A test drive shows the allure of the company’s mass-market electric car and limitations of its Autopilot system.
Apple Hires Google’s A.I. Chief
By JACK NICAS AND CADE METZ
The iPhone maker is the most valuable company in the world. But many believe its artificial intelligence technology falls short of its rivals.

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