"The Oracle"

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From: Jonathan Bailey (quryhous@midcoast.com)
Date: 08/23/02-06:13:51 AM Z


Keith (and Sandy)-

> Jon, I'm very interested in "The Oracle". Could you please elaborate? I
> don't want to seem cynical, either, but do you have any evidence
> it exists?
>
> Thanks
>
> I should clarify: my interest in this is totally Off Topic. I
> have a friend
> who is doing graduate research in the area of what she calls "power
> summits", a sometimes mythical and always secret and sinister "meeting of
> the rule-makers", the goal of which is too conspire to "fix" or "arrange"
> things such as prices, skirt-lengths, fat-content - all those
> things that We
> the Helpless Saps are expected to think are factors governed by the
> marketplace. In any event, she would be delighted to find that
> the artworld
> is also victim to this manipulation. Or that people think that it is!

Well, I don't think this is all that "secret," as at least several curators
have mentioned it to me (unbidden) over the past 5 or so years. And wasn't
it Pam Roberts (on this list or History??) who fairly recently mentioned in
a post her just returning from or preparing to go to an Oracle gathering???

I would guess that direct contact by your friend to some likely candidates -
in perhaps a "subtle" fashion - might yield positive responses. Give it a
try!!

I imagine members of this group would certainly argue that the gathering is
benign - that they are all independent, free thinkers and so immune from
group-think. They would say the gathering is "social" and more in the way of
"brainstorming" and commiseration. But group dynamics are more subtle than
that....

Simply attending a gathering like this carries with it the feeling of being
"in" - and there is bound to be a power hierarchy within that group. (Of
course, this is not *necessarily* a negative thing.) Further, the same
magazines (and often books) are being read, the same reviews are being
debated, etc., etc. It would take a very free-thinker, indeed, to stray too
far outside that invisible circle....

So, "...she would be delighted to find that the artworld is also victim to
this manipulation." Did she imagine it was somehow immune?!?!?

I may have been born at night, but I wasn't born LAST night!! (wink!)

Ciao Bella (Be happy! Let's just go make the art....)

Jon
www.jonathan-bailey.com
Tenants Harbor, Maine


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