Cairo Was a Ponzi Scheme

If some bearded guy tells you to follow him to the Promised Land, ask questions. The last Exodus turned into a bit of a fiasco.

22nd December, 2015 (Montreal) OK so it's around the time of the Solstice which gets archaeologists all excited coz they talk about all these ancient cultures that also knew that today was the longest night-shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere which somehow taps into some Ancient Wisdom Vibes and gets everybody excited. Fact is, the days will now get longer and that is a happy thing.

So for about a cuppla thousand years before Moses took his tribe to Israel there were a bunch of dynasties on the Nile running a racket of grain distribution which required slavery and a system of writing down all the accounting information. The calculator they used was a slab and the accounting department ended up being a massive tomb. We didn't know what any of their writing meant when we 'discovered' it and so in the West all sorts of falsely ascribed stuff was made up about what the Egyptians were going on about. In fact, the entire mythology behind Tarot Cards for divination is derived from what some dood thought the hieroglyphs were purportedly saying. So we now have an entire youth culture hooked on Tarot Cards and believing all sorts of bollocks based on some guy who wanted to sell books about Tarot Cards based on his imagination.

Now all this is true but it doesn't mean you are wasting your time going to Cairo.

Here is the Zamalek area of the city. It is on an island, like Paris, New York, Montreal and Stockholm. An Island City is the perfect place to found a civilization. Some regard Cairo as the New York of the Arab world, but I like to think it more as the Paris of the Desert with better croissants. Then others come along and say, "Neh--it's more like Montreal" except replace the cold with heat. And so the arguments continue... but one thing we know for sure--there is no archaeological evidence of the Technicolour Dream Coat having been used by Joseph to dance the night away. That was a bunch of made-up bollocks. Also the Burning Bush at Mt. Sinai? No evidence. An entire Ethno-cultural legacy spanning four millenia founded on a 'story'... sound familiar?
 
We do know that at exactly the same time as The Exodus, the entire Bronze Age Civilization across the Mediterranean collapsed as the invasion of the Sea Peoples ripped the cities to bits, some to never recover again. You can blame frogs from the sky, death of everybody's first born son, or the parting of the great Red Haircut... but most historians agree... It was time to split the scene coz the granaries had no more food and eunuchs-a-gotta eat, bro.

This is what we do know.

The rest? OK I'm a writer too, I couldn't resist a fib or two.

This was to be included in the 2016 Stadium Art Movement Calendar. News of which is still forthcoming from the publisher.
 

Mumbai Joins Stadium Art Movement World Tour for 2016

16th Decemeber, 2015 (Montreal) Mmmmmmmmm...

....So I am at this party and there's this bloke from Mumbai.

(He duzzint know my sister was born there when my parents lived there or that half my mates are Indo-Canadian or that I studied the history of Mumbai Architecture in detention as a kid)

Basically his way of contributing to the party was to wow us with stories of Mumbai. And we were wowed.

Basically (going by composite reports) it's like New York City: the peninsula is exact size-ish as Manhattan.
Then you throw in London: coz ya know, wickets and cricket.
Then add Sao Paulo for endless hi-rises unplanned yesterday.
Then throw in Rio coz of beaches and favelas and hot monsoon street party fiestas with hot rhythms organized by criminalized gangsters there for your “safety”...
Then bung in Hollywood coz Bollywood, yeah?
Then Chuck in a heavy rail transport network from Tokyo...
Then imagine Paris coz the traffic and similar attitude to expatriates taking pics of the Beaux Arts Palisades.
Then throw in some Detroit-style political crime wave.
Some Stockholm waterfront.
A Copenhagen “liberalism”.
Then add some Moscow style posh place terrorist threat...
Then sprinkle a bit of coriander for a Bhang Lassi you find in East Vancouver (if you know where to hide)...
Then throw in some Victorian dialect that now constitutes the world's biggest English subset to take us back to Paddington Station and the Golden Age of Steam...
Then throw in Berlin coz the art scene.
Then throw in San Francisco coz it's the upside-down version of it on a map and coz hippie clothes and western interest in Ancient scriptures that need smoking equipment in order to “get”.
Then throw in more criminalized activities coz this guy from Mumbai was emphasizing the DANGER of the place and frankly, kinda over-selling the script coz I am now impressed any of my family survived. It's more dangerous than Caracas and has more food fights than Mexico City and more words for “cop” than Canadians have for “cold”...
And so yeah I'm really feeling it off this dood at the party, blowing us away with how tame Montreal is compared to this violent jungle of opportunity and iniquity amongst paradise and polluted paradox that he called home...

When all of a sudden one of my Indo-Canadian mates arrived.

Mumbai guy starts going off about Mumbai again, kicking up how crazy and unpredictable the place is and not all chill and easy like here. And my mate says,

“Oh, I lived in Mumbai.”

And Mumbai guy says, Oh wow, where?

And my mate tells him. (Some place name only a Mumbaisian would know…)

Mumbai this Mumbai that... It wouldn't end. I was so proud of my mate Alok finally saying yeah yeah big fucking deal I lived with my uncle in his back shop between two shacks where the cops shoot stray dogs at night for practice. We ate well.

And Mumbai guy falls off his chair sayin: “No way. That's the most DANGEROUS part of all Mumbai.”

And I'm like, so. We're done with Mumbai, yeah?

(Yer never done with Mumbai)

...I rolled that story out to prove I have once had a social life.

Hi-Rises are the order of the day while beach food vendors sell you a fry-up on the beach. What else do you want from life?

New Montreal Mural with Corner Perspective takes over Garment District in the Foodie Industrial Complex north of HWY 40

13th December, 2105 (Montreal) It has been another busy year at the Stadium Art Movement.

Here are some selections that have yet to be documented. The sad news is that much of the data for the last year has been lost due to circumstances beyond our control. Recovery operations are still ongoing so keep coming back as more turns up.

Most of this year has been spent in the field away from communication links and access to dissemination equipment so please excuse the absence.

Montreal-Ville Mont-Royal from above HWY 40 looking south along Boulevard Acadie towards Outremont, Le Plateau-Montreal and the city centre. Park Ex is in the foreground.

Created for Agatex, in Ville St-Laurent.

The District north of the "40" is primarily garment factories converted to food distro centres... The tall building next to the rail lines is the 'Aristocrat'-- an old hotel now pock-marked and full of artists and musicians and the far-from-noble, working the frontlines to bring you all the next big thing.

Hwy 40 cuts a swathe atop Park Ex, Acadie Boulevard delineates Ville-Mont Royal, while Hwy 15 meets in a delta in bottom right.

Marche Centrale at the corner of the 40 and 15 is possibly the busiest intersection in Montreal.

Mural is designed to account for two planes at right-angles so the optimum viewing aspect is in the next pic.

Here the mural nears completion. Rockland Shopping Centre makes for an architectural crisis of function and identity that punctuates the leafy-privilege of VMR while underlining the fiasco that represents such a contrast in wealth, living space and density of two disparate populations separated by Acadie.

Parc Jarry with the Stade Pharmaprix. Famous Hydro Quebec Telecom Relay tower finally treated with the delicate appreciation its creator surely intended.

Close-up of Park Ex *(in progress)