by Alex Steelsmith
“A German woman turned herself in for a brazen art theft,
but claims she lost the painting [by Pieter Aertsen].”
—ARTNews
“Pieter Aertsen… [was] called Lange Piet (‘Tall Pete’) because of his height.”
Frustrated, flustrated
German authorities
weren’t inclined to be-
lieve her at all,
knowing that maybe the
unverifiable
tale that she told, like the
artist, was tall.
by Nora Jay
“Damien Hirst to burn thousands of his paintings to show art as ‘currency’
He created 10,000 unique dot paintings in 2016, each with its own title,
that were later linked to corresponding NFTs and sold for $2,000 each.
Buyers were given the option of keeping the NFTs or trading them in for
the physical artwork. … Twenty-four hours before a deadline before a deadline
of 3pm Wednesday, 4,180 people had chosen to swap their NFT for a physical artwork,
with 5,820 opting to keep their NFTs… . The alternative version is to be destroyed,
with the physical artworks—oil on paper—going up in flames…”
—The Guardian
Art lovers! Which is it to be:
A canvas or an NFT?
You get, in each, an equal prize:
The canvas is of A4 size,
And daubed with paint as through a dredger;
The NFT’s a blockchain ledger,
With all the charm those words confer.
This choice confronts the connoisseur:
The one you choose by 3 pm
Survives. The other I condemn.
So far, the NFTs have more
Enthusiasts, by 5:4;
And shortly many sheets of dots
Will sizzle at a rate of knots.
A smaller sum of NFTs
Will perish by computer keys,
Which proves: though some may be undone,
Non-fungibles are not non-fun.
by Dan Campion
“100 million-year-old dinosaur footprints found at restaurant in China”
—CNN
Impressive though big fossil footprints are,
Should such votes earn, or cost, a guidebook star?
by Alex Steelsmith
“Fred Ryan, the publisher and the CEO of The Washington Post… said, ‘The fist bump between
President Biden and Mohammed bin Salman was worse than a handshake—it was shameful.’”
—CNBC
Biggledy-wiggledy
Biden the President,
pondering petrol bin
Salman controls,
undiplomatically
gave him a fist bump that
didn’t result in a
bump in the polls.
by Chris O’Carroll
The coffin was gold,
So it wouldn’t look brassy.
They laid her to rest,
It was totally classy.
by Julia Griffin
For Maria
“TikTok ‘frog army’ stunt could have grave consequences, experts warn
Scientists alarmed at claims of releasing 10m frogs and 100m ladybugs to rack up viewers
as relocating species can have ‘extremely negative consequences’”
—The Guardian
The Force of Frogs is on the march,
Ko-ax! Ko-ax!
Our toes extend as stiff as starch,
Ko-ax! Ko-ax!
In lightsome lines we leap along,
A flippered force ten million strong,
And there’ll be extremely
Negative consequences.
The Bug Battalion makes us croak,
Ko-ax! Ko-ax!
They’re nothing but a teeny joke,
Ko-ax! Ko-ax!
A hundred million spotsy backs,
A big buffet of marching snacks!
And there’ll be extremely
Negative consequences.
The Human Herd is all alarm,
Ko-ax! Ko-ax!
They know that we will not disarm,
Ko-ax! Ko-ax!
We’ve got their viewers on the rack:
They’d drain the swamp? We’ll get them back!
And there’ll be extremely
Negative consequences.
by Iris Herriot
“Long-Lost Lou Reed Track Completely Transforms Classic Velvet Underground Song”
—HuffPost
I clicked the link, so hopeful, but it disappointed me.
The song was always “Heroin,” without a second e.
by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
“PM’s flight of fancy…
Boris Johnson regales Farnborough airshow with tales
of Typhoon jet in speech brimming with metaphors”
—The Guardian
Let me regale you with my dizzy tale
Of winging it, of flying by the seat
Of my own pants—kept near a water pail,
Preventing fire when truth is incomplete.
Three happy years of cockpit feats mean I
Have looped the loop on Brexit, barrel-rolled
Exchequer funds, pulled Gs—that’s where you fly
Low, loop-the-loopily, and may lose hold
On consciousness—to help me weasel out
Of treaties that I should have read, and have
Perfected riding out a tailspin bout
In Downing Street. But now my broken nav
Leaves me with no control, usurped by … who?—
You know I’d launch them spaceward if I knew!
by Nora Jay
“What could be a priceless Fabergé egg has been found on board a Russian oligarch’s
superyacht seized by US authorities…”
—The Guardian
Poor oligarch! He’ll have to beg:
His assets have been taken;
He could not save his priceless egg.
Next up: his priceless bacon.
by Eddie Aderne
“Claes Oldenburg, the Swedish-born American Pop artist
known for his monumental sculptures of everyday objects,
died on Monday…”
—The New York Times
Claes Oldenburg, the Pop Art fave,
Is now inside an urn or grave.
Considering the stuff he did,
He should have had a pyramid.
by Chris O’Carroll
“Some $2 trillion has vanished from the market value of cryptocurrencies . . .
Bitcoin has already lost more than two-thirds of its value . . . “
—Fortune
Crypto’s arc: initial splash,
Bullish bubble, epic crash.
Naked emperor’s outta cash.
“Good friends enjoy a tussle—
there’s no need to get cross.
I like to flex my muscle,
and show my pals who’s boss.
Let’s keep our country healthy—
it is a worthy goal—
but recognize we’re wealthy
because of oil and coal.
Forget the gloomy prophets—
they always disagree—
(and let those handsome profits
keep flowing in to me).”
by Alex Steelsmith
“Young supporters of the climate action group Just Stop Oil have launched a series of protests at prestigious art institutions
in the UK, gluing themselves to artworks… [T]wo campaigners glued themselves to the frame of ‘Peach Trees in Blossom’,
a Vincent Van Gogh from 1889… [One activist said]: ‘As a kid I used to love this painting. My dad took me to see it
when we visited London. I still love this painting…’”
—Upstream
Bondily-fondily,
self-affixed protestors
touting the curious
plan they had hatched
said they had chosen an
iconographical
artwork to which they were
very attached.
by Julia Griffin
“A leaked trove of confidential files has revealed the inside story of how the tech giant Uber flouted laws,
duped police, exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments during its aggressive global expansion.”
—The Guardian
„Todt sind alle Götter: nun wollen wir, dass der Übermensch lebe.“— …
—Also sprach Zarathustra, Nietzsche
“The gods are all dead,” Zarathustra foresaw,
“And it’s Übermensch time!” Well, we bought it:
And the Über deceived the police, broke the law,
Bribed, bullied, and lied. Who’d have thought it?
by Dan Campion
“Astronomers detect a radio ‘heartbeat’ billions of light-years from Earth”
—MIT News
Boom, boom, boom, boom, the heartbeat goes.
Just what it is, no boffin knows,
While amateurs like me suppose
It’s Welles back on our radios.