A Little Of The Old In And Out



In: Paper Magazine's Marilyn Minton Photopgraphs. Have you seen Paper magazine's new Julianne Moore cover? Goodam minx! We are big fans of Moore's looks (She positively gets better looking as she gets older). But Marilyn Minter's photographs of a sultry, bedazzled, Moore are festooned with smouldering hott yum. Gritty as after-party sex drenched in dancesweat. Absolutely gorgeous. And the interview (we only baught it for the interview), by Rebecca Carroll here.



(image via coxandforkham)

Out: The Russian Oligarchs. The "Thumos," which this blog has railed against for years, has finally come home to roost. Yesterday, we wrote archly about the end of the insufferable cult of the "Tough Guy." Their testosteronal strut across the globe has come to an abrupt halt (And not by gunfight-at-the-OK-Corral, either). But who is tougher, who has the greater Nietzschean Will to Power than the Russian oligarch? It appears that our End-of-the-Trend post didn't anticipate that the genre -- which is international -- is hurting not just here in the West. From Bloomberg:

"Russian billionaires from aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska to soccer-club owner Roman Abramovich lost more than $230 billion in five months during the nation's worst financial crisis since the 1998 default on its debt.

"The combined wealth of Forbes magazine's 25 richest Russians tumbled 62 percent between May 19 and Oct. 6, based on the equity value of traded companies and analysts' estimates of closely held assets they own. The loss is four times larger than the fortune of the world's wealthiest man, Warren Buffett.

"... The biggest loser has been Vladimir Lisin, 52, an avid hunter and head of Russia's Shooting Club, whose 85 percent stake in OAO Novolipetsk Steel lost $22 billion in value in the period."

Charmed, I'm sure (Averted Gaze). "Tough guys."



(image via northcuttlaw)

In: The Cautious Thinker. A new type of person rises from the smouldering ashes of the discarded archetypes of the cowboy, the douchebag banker, the shithead (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment). A new type of person, multidimensional in thought, cautious in aspect, attentive to a concept of Justice superseding her own self-interest ... a person not unlike Martti Ahtisaari, the winner of the 2008 Nobel Peace prize. From the NYTimes:

"Out of 197 people nominated for the annual prize, the committee said, Mr. Ahtisaari had been chosen 'for his important efforts in several continents and over three decades to resolve international conflicts.'

"To outsiders, Mr. Ahtisaari, 71, has often seemed an undemonstrative and aloof figure. But some people who worked with him praised what Gareth Evans, the head of the nongovernmental International Crisis Group in Brussels called 'charm and humor' in dealing with his various negotiating partners.

"He has played a central role in ending conflicts that took root in the late 20th century and threatened the early 21st century with conflagrations in many places, some of them remote and all of them complex, presenting mediators with tangles of ethnic, religious or racial passions."

We will need that charm and humor to lead us through the tangled forest of the unknown that presently lies before us darkly ..



(image via businessweek)

Out: Sumner Redstone. This cannot be a good time for stock-ticker obsessed Methuselan "Master-of-the-Universe" Sumner Redstone. CBS, as we type this, is down 22.78%. That's got to hurt.