Pieter van Ruijven (1624-1674) loaned Vermeer two hundred guilders on or about 1657. There is no certainty as to why but I will construct an unverifiable narrative that breaks no laws of the physical universe nor confounds human nature within the context of the threadbare facts known of these two men’s lives. Van Ruijven had money; not massive amounts, but investment money. He played angles, something of a gambler, but a reasonably legit business man for the most part. One of his financial concerns was art dealership. The laws of the land forbade van Ruijven from actually dealing in art. The kind of man he sought out to front for him was financially brittle, with many mouths to feed and open to turning what skills and access he had to broader opportunities. This of course was Vermeer, guild member and legal art dealer. So too, he could handle a brush. The pairing allowed for van Ruijven to gain access to paintings and for Vermeer to exercise his photographically accurate rendering skills to copy said paintings.
The execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém: Another Famous Photo is fake
Warning to readers: Below the fold are some gruesome photos of an alleged execution of a young Vietnamese boy in 1968, the famous Saigon Execution photo by famous war photographer Eddie Adams. I am convinced it was faked, and so have no problem showing both it and a related film clip of the incident. If you are squeamish about blood, be warned, read no further. If you do, take comfort, as it is fake blood.
Continue reading “The execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém: Another Famous Photo is fake”
Vermeer the Forger (?)
Vermeer the Forger- Part One
(As a change of pace, I want to post a short six part series that I had previously posted several years ago when attempting a second blog. Perhaps a half dozen bots and a couple of stumble-upons were exposed to this, so it is still, relatively speaking, factory fresh. I feel it is germane to the ongoing discussions here at POM as it is an exercise in clear-eyed interpretation of imagery. It concerns the output of the Dutch master, Johannes Vermeer, whose paintings are the most sought after across all of planet Earth, though I am at a loss as to why.)
This has bothered me for a long time and so I am finally going to try and put this somewhere other than my head. Guided by a generally agreed upon chronology, I will use the paintings as a stepping stone to get a handle on how Johannes Vermeer of Delft, Holland (1632-1675) managed to feed ten surviving children, a wife and a mother-in-law on thirty some odd paintings, almost none of which sold while he was alive.
A few basic facts: Vermeer’s mother in law, Maria Thins, an assumed source for most of the household revenue, was not as wealthy as most claim. She owned rented farmland that did yield some steady income. She was Catholic and so restrained to a degree inside Protestant Holland. The fact that several debts were outstanding at Vermeer’s death strongly suggests that the family, at best, had decent credit. The fact remains that Vermeer was in need of work and that he possessed one marketable skill: The ability to render objects and persons, as well as preexisting paintings by others, with remarkable accuracy.
Developing a Technique
Wiki Numerology Tutorial
I posted this on my blog the other day and Mark asked me to post it here. There are a few paragraphs at the end that may be controversial, but I will happily expand on them if asked. Also, the formatting is weird on the pictures so to see them clearly just click on them.
Shiny Noses Can’t Guide Sleighs!
Look, the fact that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has an IMDB page is really all you need to know. Obviously a crisis actor. (-;
OPEC: Another public hoax
OPEC meets on December 10 in Vienna. World oil output to be curtailed.
My career was as a CPA serving oil and gas clients, among other things. The industry has had a shakeout these last couple of years, and many individual investors have sold their holdings, fulfilling the market dictum for all unsophisticated non-insiders:
Buy high, sell low.
“History Is Written by the Winners”
I was thinking about that old aphorism the other day, “History is written by the winners.” It is one of those self-evident truisms taught in high school history classes. But I think it’s misdirection. How can that be? Continue reading ““History Is Written by the Winners””
Vintage Psy-Opera: Corn Belt bin Ladens
Langley East
The Prussian town of Kassel has functioned in some ways as Germany’s Langley- In the 16th century it became the seat of Calvinism, a Venetian operation designed to reboot the Venetian’s first attempt at a schism, Lutheranism, which had quickly settled into pacifism of a sort with the Quietist movement- Calvinism was militant in implication in that, according to this new heresy, it did not matter what atrocities one committed as the pre-incarnate elect were saved before they were even born, so they could not sin if their life depended on it, even as their behavior, like slaughtering an enemy and their women and children, had the outward form of sin- This elect numbered but 5% of all souls in Christendom, though which Calvinists were the lotto winners was not revealed until after death- In a strong field, this may be the worst iteration of Xtianity, ever-
Later, Rosicrucianism found safe haven within the city’s walls- That was another lunatic op from the mind benders, likely also Venetian derived- Huguenots also found refuge there as the Venetian backed wars of religion raged across the continent-
The game is afoot
My brief once-weekly sojourn to Huffington Post: Supposedly a majority of Americans want the Electoral College vote tomorrow postponed due to the interference by the Russians. (The poll, sponsored by some group called “Avaaz” is like the election itself fake.) Hillary Clinton supposedly won the popular vote by perhaps three million. Since no votes were counted, that is part of a script.
What does it mean? I don’t have a crystal ball, but there is a game at play.
For one, with electronic voting machines in place everywhere now, there is no assurance that any votes were counted, much less accurately. They can stage an entire election without even counting one vote. The “recounts” are staged to assure us that the original counts are real, that too part of the hoax. (How can there be a “re”count when there was never a “count”?)
For another, the office of president is long reduced to a mere ribbon-cutting post held by actors. The Russians know this, and they know that our elections, like theirs, are fake. So the idea that they would interfere is high comedy. They’ve got to be looking on in wonder at this cuckoo’s nest.
That leaves us to guess what is really going on here. Have at it please. I am stumped.
A post in need of more (and better) work
A short while back we put up a post called John Lennon Family Photos. Some interesting anomalies turned up. I will highlight three of the photos:
The man standing behind the two children is called the “boarder.” But more importantly, the girl has been pasted in. (Her whites are too white, arm lines too sharp.) That was done to hide something.
Again the same boy and girl, and the “boarder.” This time the man on the left is pasted in (his head is too big), and again, this is done to hide something.
Piece of Mindful 