It's terrific to be the most popular girl in town!
I woke up to a blinking light on my answering machine, a full Inbox, GA's traffic hit the roof, and my phone's been ringing off the hook! I've given 2 interviews so far... anybody else want to punch my dance card?
Here's what I know: I went to bed WAY too early last night.
Because I missed what the critics are calling "the performance of a lifetime"... manufactured outrage about a piece of artwork pilfered off this site and presented to the City Council on an EASEL, side-by-side with a Nazi propaganda poster! Topped off by Mike Russo calling me an "Anti-Semite!"
Oh, that's rich.
In irony.
Hmmm... why would the 'presenter', Lane Bajardi, do this to a Jewish artist whose entire family, Dad's side, was murdered by Nazis in the Lodz and Warsaw, Poland? Whose Dad fought in WW2-- with the U.S. Army...not for the OTHER guys?
Why would Bajardi ATTACK my art in such an evil, outrageous fashion?
And why would Mike Russo, be so gung ho to raise the specter of removing me from my municipal board position that he would SMEAR a Jewish woman descendant of Holocaust victims with the slur "Anti-Semite!"
Here's the answer, folks.
It arrived in an email today:
There are three zoning positions up in January, 2 regular and 1 alternate. The 2 regulars don't get them to enough votes to win D variances, which is where their money is.
Lane teeing off on you last night is them setting up pretext to remove you from zoning so they can appoint three regular members and deliver D variances to their contributors. You have your own voice but if they remove you that's them winning and you and Hoboken losing. For the good of Hoboken I urge you not to react to Lane or the council until it settles down. Reacting is a win for them, keeping your seat is a you beating them.
I've heard from multiple sources about a 'deal' that was struck to get Bajardi on the same municipal board I serve on.
Oye vey.
I don't think he'll meet the minimum mental health requirement.
Now, if you want to know what all the FUSS was about, it's the title of the artwork that was on this piece-- please READ the piece.
In a nutshell, the reason Mason is featured prominently on the artwork is explained at the end. Timmy is depicted as a wardrobe accessory. And the title an acknowlegment that Timmy's victory was in fact, a TRIUMPH over expectations. Thus, name "Triumph of the Shill", a pun on the famous film title "Triumph of the Will".
And that folks, is why I was attacked last night. Because of a PUN.
Now I NEVER called these folks fascists... or unAmerican... but just THINK about what they are trying to do here. Silence a critic. Shut down my blog.
Now, hear this.
All those who gang up to smear me, discredit my hard work for the City, and most of all to SILENCE this blog... you've made me stronger.
And you don"t even know it.
This political hit job, exploiting my faith and painful family history, is going to blow back on YOU.
I woke up to a blinking light on my answering machine, a full Inbox, GA's traffic hit the roof, and my phone's been ringing off the hook! I've given 2 interviews so far... anybody else want to punch my dance card?
Here's what I know: I went to bed WAY too early last night.
Because I missed what the critics are calling "the performance of a lifetime"... manufactured outrage about a piece of artwork pilfered off this site and presented to the City Council on an EASEL, side-by-side with a Nazi propaganda poster! Topped off by Mike Russo calling me an "Anti-Semite!"
Oh, that's rich.
In irony.
Hmmm... why would the 'presenter', Lane Bajardi, do this to a Jewish artist whose entire family, Dad's side, was murdered by Nazis in the Lodz and Warsaw, Poland? Whose Dad fought in WW2-- with the U.S. Army...not for the OTHER guys?
Why would Bajardi ATTACK my art in such an evil, outrageous fashion?
And why would Mike Russo, be so gung ho to raise the specter of removing me from my municipal board position that he would SMEAR a Jewish woman descendant of Holocaust victims with the slur "Anti-Semite!"
Here's the answer, folks.
It arrived in an email today:
There are three zoning positions up in January, 2 regular and 1 alternate. The 2 regulars don't get them to enough votes to win D variances, which is where their money is.
Lane teeing off on you last night is them setting up pretext to remove you from zoning so they can appoint three regular members and deliver D variances to their contributors. You have your own voice but if they remove you that's them winning and you and Hoboken losing. For the good of Hoboken I urge you not to react to Lane or the council until it settles down. Reacting is a win for them, keeping your seat is a you beating them.
I've heard from multiple sources about a 'deal' that was struck to get Bajardi on the same municipal board I serve on.
Oye vey.
I don't think he'll meet the minimum mental health requirement.
Now, if you want to know what all the FUSS was about, it's the title of the artwork that was on this piece-- please READ the piece.
In a nutshell, the reason Mason is featured prominently on the artwork is explained at the end. Timmy is depicted as a wardrobe accessory. And the title an acknowlegment that Timmy's victory was in fact, a TRIUMPH over expectations. Thus, name "Triumph of the Shill", a pun on the famous film title "Triumph of the Will".
And that folks, is why I was attacked last night. Because of a PUN.
Now I NEVER called these folks fascists... or unAmerican... but just THINK about what they are trying to do here. Silence a critic. Shut down my blog.
Now, hear this.
All those who gang up to smear me, discredit my hard work for the City, and most of all to SILENCE this blog... you've made me stronger.
And you don"t even know it.
This political hit job, exploiting my faith and painful family history, is going to blow back on YOU.
Dear GA:
ReplyDelete"Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
Sir Winston Churchill, Speech, 1941, Harrow School
I have told GA several times I don't like some of the things you have done. I have also reminded you that we still live in America and you enjoy your 1st Amendment rights as we all do. I admit that I love your site. I would like to see board members held to a different standard (council members too) but we can't. After Peter Camaranno's arrest I spoke at the council and wrote a letter published by the reporter about enacting an ethics code. Beth tried to enact her convoluted, lengthy, twisted code designed to specifically snare Ravi. Kates shot it down. If he's right we have 2 choices- a Mayoral appointed 15 member ethics board. I believe that Mayor Russo had one at one time no doubt to torture his political opponents. Yuck! Other is to follow the NJ state ethics code which seemingly doesn't take affect until conviction. This is a political witch hunt designed to get the 5th vote for the Zoning Board (after new appointments next month) so that "D" variances can once again be handed out like candy. Nothing else. Stand tall GA. Loved the easel, I have to get one too.
ReplyDeleteIt is a manufactured controversy concocted by a group of people who engaged in a systematic effort to purchase an election victory. Don't give in and turn the focus back on the voter fraud where it belongs. Demand the resignations of the 3 CC members who took part in that fraud. They are elected officials and the ones who must be held to the highest of standards in town.
ReplyDeleteThis hubbub inspired a little googling, using the term: nazi imagery used in satire.
ReplyDeleteThe best result was: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2002/jul/04/artsfeatures.euro
Here is quote:
"There is a long heritage of Nazi satire, some funny, some trenchant, some negligible, some stupid (we salute you, Freddie Starr, particularly for that hilarious touch of putting the Führer in shorts). When John Cleese put an index finger to his upper lip and did his gangly approximation of a goosestep through the lobby of Torquay's most benighted hotel, it was funny and important, particularly as it came in a context of lampooning one Briton's cartoonish views of Germans. Peter Sellers once did Hitler in his 1974 film Soft Beds and Hard Battles, in a picture that featured five other examples of Sellers', erm, genius. Fellow Goon Spike Milligan regularly sported Hitlerian regalia to get a laugh. And sometimes he succeeded.
It was a small man with a little moustache called Charles Chaplin who started the Hitler satire game in 1940 with The Great Dictator. Ernst Lubitsch continued it in 1942 with To Be or Not To Be. The latter was a wonderful black comedy starring Jack Benny and Carole Lombard set during the Nazi invasion of Warsaw, in which members of a Polish theatrical company impersonate Nazi officers, Gestapo agents, and even Hitler to help the resistance. As if to reinforce the point, Mel Brooks jumped at the chance to don Hitler costume when he remade To Be or Not To Be in 1983."
I think it was actually the Three Stooges that started the Nazi satire, not Charlie Chaplin.
GA forgive my cut and paste- it doesn't lessen the sentiment! Stick with it. Bajardi is a bully with a 1st amendment double standard.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened last night is a power play for the zoning board with political theater for distraction. The red herring today is anti-Semitic charges against a Jewish artist; last week the red herring was accusations of racism and disenfranchising the 4-4 against reformers who protested electoral and voter fraud. Don't take the bait. As you stated GA it's all about control of the zoning board.