Tuesday, November 13, 2007

A rant and a little more

I hate hotmail.



I hate the ads.



I hate the difficulty using it.



I hate live hotmail, classic or full.



I hate how small the screens are.



I hate how slow it is to type on.



I hate that I cannot forward my e-mail to my gmail account.



I hate that when I signed up for messenger for my students all I got was porn.



I hate that it was difficult to uninstall messenger.



I hate that it is going to be such a hassle to switch over to gmail if I do it, which I am inches from.



Grrrrrr.



I just want my d*mn e-mail thankyouverymuch without ads for singles networks or e-bay. I want it to load quickly and neatly. I don't give a rat's behind what colour it is. Truly.



'nuff said.



I am going to go back to my thoughts at the MACBA...the modern art museum in BCN that I referred to on Sunday. There were two main exhibits on...one is called under the bomb, and is a look at modern painting between 1946 and 56 when the core of modern art work shifted from France to NYC. Where it seems to still be.

Be bomb was, understandably depressing in the first section...it is French painting during the occupation. There was one light of relief amongst the bleak works, a Matisse -how I LOVE Matisse - with colour. Objectively and in another context it was a rather alarming work itself, though a pastel coloured portrait, the woman looked mangled, if not flayed...flat faced, completely without shading and an alarming shade of pink...but STILL it was a delight to see the colour.

As I went through this show I discovered how powerfully I am attracted to bright colours. Mmmmmmm.

As the show moved on there was more and more English in the show....displays, video presentations, art work, entire movies...without the least bow to the Catalan or Castillian that is the home of this museum. This, of course, continued in the display of Joan Jumas' video installation/performance art piece...she is American...but still, I had to wonder how much the other folks there were getting out of it as so much of the show was in English only.

I guess it does illustrate the nature of the art world at the moment...the gravitational center seems to be in NY, not Europe.

I found this fascinating....especially as so much American culture is viewed as McDicks, Britney Spears and Walmart...which is certainly a dominant aspect...but there is so much more going on too.

I did start to feel like I wasn't in Spain any more...Toto.....


I love it that my google spell checker didn't recognise Walmart!!!

10 comments:

Beth said...

And you know I hate Hotmail too!
There is an option to go right to your mail and avoid those ads. (And that would be under "Options" ???)
Unfortunately, that would take care of only one of your problems.

Anonymous said...

Ah yes... I hear your rant. I have a hotmail account and a gmail account in the hopes of fazing out the hotmail...

I am a big Mattisse fan too...have several prints up around the house.

Anonymous said...

I don't know about Hotmail, but Gmail can be used as a POP3 account :-) If you need instructions or have questions, just email me.

That art exhibit sounds really interesting. It is sort of a history lesson to go along with it.

Anonymous said...

On some posts you need to put your email...on Blogger you don't. I see Dawn sent you an email message. You can use that one if you did want to know about POP3 on Gmail.

Anonymous said...

I have never had a hotmail email, because I have never been independent of Sirdar. He does everything for me, and we share everything on the computers. He's not a tyrant, I just don't know much about the stuff. Anyway, I think you should ditch it and go all out gmail. The pain of moving stuff will be over soon and you will be glad you did.

The art gallery sounds so interesting. You always have such wonderful and educational posts.

Unknown said...

I hate hotmail, but it's better than my other e-mail address. Gosh, I'm in e-mail hell.

As for the NY thing, there's one thing you need to understand: New York is NOT America. New York is New York. Los Angeles is Los Angeles. Miami is Miami. The rest of it is America.

Anonymous said...

Don't agree that the art world is centered in NYC - the market for it is but its not where the newest, most interesting stuff is going on, on a major and widespread basis.
We are back to argueing about what came first - the chicken or the egg?
If you talk about post WWII, USA had a jump start because it din't have to recover from the devastations and horrors of war - that's where it got the reputaTion of being the new art mecca but that's no longer true.
I BELIEVE there is no ONE center anymore.
Don't forget that travelling from Toronto to NYC is like going from Stockholm to Rome, OR RIGA TO MADRID more or less.
IMAGINE what you'd see going that stretch OF Europe as opposed to the same in North America!!!
I'd say the curator of the show you've seen has done a good job of selling you his/her concept!

oreneta said...

Beth: Yes, I have been thinking of your hotmail rant for a while now...I will try to find that options go straight to my e-mail thingy...thanks.

Trish: Don't we all. I wonder if hotmail knows? Have you seen some of the enormous paper cut outs that Matisse did near the end of his life? They are unbeleivably spectacular.

Sirdar: I have never been very clear on what a POP account is, I may well send you an e-mail off on that note....

Dawn: Isn't it wonderful in a relationship when you can each play to your strengths and the other doesn't have to sweat those issues?

DD: You have e-mail worse than hot mail. You have my sincerest condolences...I have to say, the USA are in fact an enormously diverse group of areas and beleifs, so it's a little tricky to generalise in any way.

GM: I was hoping you'd wade in on this one...the curator was definately convincing...such an overwhelming preponderance of English, and then the painting instructor also felt that the cutting edge was in NY too...there is no question that during that era there was an edge in NY, no suffering, nothing to recover from, and they were riding the wave of belief that they had just saved the world...or at least an awful lot of it.

There is no question that there is a whole lot more interesting art going on between Riga and Madrid than between equivelent distances in NA. Berlin must certainly be having some amazing work happening, and I cannot imagine that Paris isn't. Indeed in an atmosphere of such change that we are living in now, it would be impossible for there not to be amazing art going on....

So, who's hot and great right now?

Anonymous said...

Hi first if I can make this post work from my crackberry will be ecstatic as have lost a few already! Uncanny what you wrote about matisse - it is like exactly what I have thought standing in the musee d'orsay a few years ago and many times since then. And when I see can gogh "live" I have the same feeling. Doesn't seem to work with a print with him.
Oh and one more thing - since you are European now - you might consider adopting the charming french slang and start refering to it as McDo?? (pronounced like homer Simpson would say it)

oreneta said...

McDo?????? That is so funny! and you sent it too!