Owners and Tenants

"Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and feeling. If a bank or finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank-or the Company--needs--wants--insists--must have--as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time. Some of the owner men were a little proud  to be slaves to such cold and powerful masters. The owner men sat in the cars explained, You know the land is poor. You've scrabbled at it long enough, God knows."

from The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939) which is set during the Great Depression.

Occupy Montreal and its surprises

عجايب مونترال، چپ و سلطنت طلب دوشادوش يكديگر

Ristorante Pizza

How long can I survive?

Occupy Montreal and Solar Panels

Sun is shining and occupy Montreal is using solar panels

Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau - YUL

It's always good to be back home, but on yesterday I arrived in YUL facing the longest line-up for passport check I've ever seen. Took me 45 minutes to officially reach Montreal.

Street View of Google A.K.A. Big Brother

No matter what they say about privacy issues of street view, people in google are doing an amazing job that is not easy to explain. The rate of changes is so fast that it's hard to imagine how we were living few years ago.
However the whole idea of a corporation with all the public and private information of its increasing users including gmail, web search history, google+, Picasa, and this very blog is frightening.
p.s. I took this picture few days ago in Montreal, it seems that they are updating their photos

The Fly (1986)

It is good to look back at "The Fly" one of Cronenberg's great works before screening of his new movie " A Dangerous Method". "The Fly" is a Sci-Fi film co-written and directed by Cronenberg in 1986.

Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA)'s new pavilion, Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion of Quebec and Canadian Art, will be opened to public on Oct.14th.

The unveiling of David Altmejd's monumental bronze sculpture of an angel signals that the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is about to invite the public into the Bourgie Concert Hall and its new pavilion of Quebec and Canadian art.

Altmejd's The Eye, standing in front of a church that has been transformed into a concert hall, continues the artist's fascination with bodies in metamorphosis and is a fitting symbol for an art museum in its own great transformation.

The former Erskine and American Church, now a 444-seat concert hall with comfortable seating, is also a space for exhibiting 81 restored stained-glass windows, 20 of them made by the Tiffany company of New York.

Lucian Freud (1922-2011)

Reflection with two children (self portrait)

1965

Oil on canvas

91.5cm x 91.5 cm

Museo Thyssen Bornemisza, Madrid

A Separation------جدایی نادر از سیمین

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1832382/

Goldman Sachs Rules The World

Anti War Propoganda

Guernica
Pablo Picasso
1937
Oil on canvas
349cm x 776cm
Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid


It was created in response to thebombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. 

Social Democracy

Social Democracy by SIASIASIA
Browse Socialism T-Shirts

abre los ojos

"Open Your eyes" reminded me of "The Game", "The Truman Show" ,"Shutter Island" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". It was filmed in Madrid at the same time with "The Game" in 1997. 

 

 Starring  Eduardo Noriega and  Penélope Cruz

Adventure

“The principal difference between an adventurer and a suicide is that the adventurer leaves himself a margin of escape (the narrower the margin, the greater the adventure).”

Culture Shock- Sky Burial