pass the duchy on the left-hand side

[devi]

So I'm randomly in Luxembourg staying at jezzidue's again. Just like that. I am a great big flighty flake and realise that I have forfeited the right to moan about being broke for at least the next six months. But when someone offers you a lift in their car to a foreign country it's very, very hard to refuse.

I am working. No really shut up I am working. Even though my time is being eaten up by such demanding activities as sitting in cafes drinking tiny little cups of strong coffee, and going to exhibitions. I went to one at the Museum of Art and History called Pictures That Lie, about propaganda and falsification of images and records for both political and ratings-getting goals. There were famous pictures from history that were actually posed rather than just shot in action - you know the Iwo Jima statue of the US marines raising the flag? The picture they based that on was re-posed because the flag they were using at first was too small. Sweat stains under government ministers' arms and bullet holes in the backs of mafiosi magically removed for newspaper publication. Diana and Dodi on a yacht - the original, and the picture that got into the paper with his head flipped over in Photoshop so it looked like they were kissing. Bits of Wag The Dog dubbed in German. A group photo of Stalin and four compatriots, then versions of the same photo from the coming decades where one by one the compatriots were erased (purged or out of favour) until finally only Stalin was left standing.

There was a whole display devoted to a German journalist called Michael Born who had his friends act out fake news stories while he filmed them. Then he'd sell the tapes to TV channels. Animal-lovers might want to look away now: one of his most sensational stories was about the new sport of cat-hunting, popular (so he claimed) in Bavaria. The film showed a bloke in a fake beard sitting in a wooden watchtower with a rifle, watching for cats, and then stalking and shooting one. Sadly, that bit wasn't fake. Born had got a cat from a pet refuge to appear in his film. The cat actually died. Born was put in prison. Serves him right.

All this stuff about the power of pictures seems especially relevant right now. I have some vague and self-absorbed things to say about the Mohammed cartoons, my crackpot religious childhood, novenas against the Maastricht treaty and (oddly but sort of relevantly) Guns N' Roses's Appetite For Destruction, but they're not coming out right so for now I'll leave you with this wonderful thing:

All the flights I've taken

(as seen on how_i_lie)

It's a pain to fill in, but worth it, I think.

Comments

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Did they have the Daily Mail's pictures of 'Blubber Spice' (or was it 'Flabby Spice'?) with Emma Bunton looking pudgy in a one-piece swimsuit?

Apparently. The published picture was crudely and amateurishly reprocessed by stretching the image laterally.

That's not to impugn our photojournalists' technical and artistic skills in making sure that photographs tell the essential truth of the story in a clear and meaningful way: I have every respect for their ability and for their subeditor's judgement. It's just that I don't have access to the original negatives, nor to the sophisticated software tools that are required to detect photoshopped-in curves, sags and pasty bagginess.

Not that I'm above such things - ever look at an ellection poster of a politician and think: what a daft pillock!..? The trick is a thin line of white on one side of the iris and a biro line on the other. The result: imperceptibly boss-eyed but an instant and unshakeable impression of daftness.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Man! I have to try that with a biro and some tipp-ex.