British Secret Agent Chief's Wife Outs Him As Speedo-Wearing Nazi Homie On Facebook
British secret agents are supposed to be exponentially smoother than their American counterparts. We get Ethan Hunt, they get James Bond. Except, not, because the chief of MI-6's wife had her Facebook profile set to public. Very public. Diplomat Sir John Sawers is supposed to be taking over the Secret Intelligent Service (better known as Her Majesty's Secret Service) in October. What kind of information did Lady Shelley Sawers, his wife, let loose on in her Facebook profile? For starters: their friends! 'Cause it's Facebook, right? Photos show relationships with other diplomats, British actors (don't worry, nobody cool), and family. Family like Lady Sawers' half-brother Hugo Haig-Thomas, a former British diplomat that John Sawers succeeded on his way to the top. Haig-Thomas is "an associate and researcher" of a historian. Not just any historian, though: Holocaust Denier David Irving. Winner! From Irving's extensive Wikipedia page: By the mid-1980s, Irving associated himself with the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review, began giving lectures to groups such as the far-right German Deutsche Volksunion, and publicly denied that the Nazis systematically exterminated Jews in gas chambers during World War II.[103] Irving was a frequent speaker for the DVU in the 1980s and the early 1990s, but the relationship ended in 1993 apparently because of concerns by the DVU that Irving's espousal of Holocaust Denial might lead to the DVU being banned.[95] He also alleged that parts of The Diary of Anne Frank might have been forged by her surviving father. Awesome. Haig-Thomas has noted that he "doesn't necessarily share (Irving's) views," but he sure as hell doesn't condemn them. What else is interesting? Well, the family likes Liza Minelli, as there's a picture of his wife and daughter re-enacting Caberet. But that's not nearly as interesting as, say, his codename, which was going to be "C" once he started working for MI-6. Read one awesome wall posting: "Congrats on the new job, already dubbed Sir Uncle "C" by nephews in the know!" Theater Geeks, you'll appreciate this tidbit on their daughter, of whom there were also several pictures of on Sawers' Facebook profile: Corinne, 22, a recent Oxford University graduate who is now an aspiring actress...recently began touring with Jenny Seagrove in the play Pack Of Lies, coincidentally about a middle-class household suddenly at the centre of an espionage drama when an MI5 spy turns up at their house. Finally, location, location, location: Despite the security implications, Lady Sawers revealed on Facebook the location of the London flat used by the couple and the whereabouts of their three children and of Sir John's parents. Wow. The problem here, if you didn't notice, was that this guy's supposed to lead up one of the world's two most powerful secret service organizations. And serious secrets - like where the guy lives, who his friends are, who his family is, and what his wife's favorite Liza... MORE >>
A Context-Free, Comment-Free Review Of Contemporary Art, With Suggestions
Things I Did On My July 4th Vacation: hit up The New Museum's Younger Than Jesus exhibition. It's a contemporary art exhibit showcasing only artists born after 1976. It ends today. Here is what I saw, presented without comment. An apocalyptic, borderline Mad Max sculpture by two guys who go by AIDS-3D. The center of the sculpture was a tower with the words OMG inscribed on it in lights. It originated as a GIF image file, at one point, they say. Interview with them here. Someone sleeping in a bed, in the middle of the museum. Chu Yun, the artist, "supplied" his subjects with sleeping pills and the bed. The sleepers were being paid $10 an hour to sleep in the museum. Yun's previous work has included putting a woman with down's syndrome in a chair, in a gallery. Artist Guthrie Lonergan's Myspace Intro Playlist, in which the artist remixed a bunch of MySpace intro videos. It is not intended to be funny, according to the arist. This video of rival street gangs in Belgrade fighting, scored to a trance techno track. Three very large banners, one of which advised me: "DON'T PAY TAXES." A installation with videos by artist Ryan Trecartin. The room had discarded Lay-Z-Boys and part of an airliner's interior on the side of it. I also remember seeing a shelf with sand on it, and a BlackBerry in the sand. Here is a Ryan Trecartin video. I'm simply incapable of describing its contents: The remnants of an art project that took place on the first floor of the museum. There was a bunch of cardboard paper, unfolded boxes, and various other "construction" scraps lying on the floor. There was a small TV in the corner depicting in fast-forward the artist and her friends, building a replica of Rome in 24 hours, and then destroying it. From New York's art critic Jerry Saltz's review of the show: The first night, I watched kids fashion the altars and temples of Rome's archaic period; by the next morning, when I returned, they'd been destroyed ("by fires," said the artist), and I spied the beginnings of Classical Rome. Just before the opening, the whole city was again wrecked and left in ruins, as the Dark Ages began. Glynn is saying she's not going to listen to the bromides that assert that change takes time. An 8-bit videogame called FlyWrench by artist Mark Essen. You use an original Nintendo controller to control a line going through different colored shapes: The laid out contents of three people, from whom Chinese artist Liu Chuang offered to buy everything off of their person for display in a museum. One included a cell phone, some pictures of themselves, and of course, all of their clothing. A rotating spiral staircase on a platform, entitled: Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted, Stairway Edit. Photographs of adults acting out Second Life and video game scenarios. One of the gallery attendants, wearing a white 80s tracksuit with bloodstains on it. There was a card for it; this was part of this exhibition. The last thing I saw before leaving was a banana... MORE >>
Disney's Scariest Ride: The Monorail Crash
At Walt Disney World in Orlando, around 2 A.M last night: two monorails collided. One employee piloting the monorail was killed, no tourists were seriously injured. Details on what caused the crash are sparse, but it appears to eerily mirror the DC subway collision. Video of the crashed monorail is here; there's nothing too graphic about it other than the Disney employee doing his best to get any and all cameras out of sight. Whether that was due to Disney's well-known penchant for secrecy or for the dignity of the employee, who knows. As someone who took great pleasure in riding the Monorail at one point in his life, though, I can definitively report one thing: this is as strangely sad as it is simply depressing. Also, bad things happen in threes, as we all learned last week. Avoid trains. [CNN] Update: the employee's name was Austin Wuennenberg. It appears he took great pride in his job: According to Wuennenberg's Facebook page, he was a computer science major at Stetson University and was set to graduate in 2010. Wuennenberg, who graduated from Celebration High School in 2006, served as a teacher's aide from August 2007 to May 2008, the Facebook page said. Wuennenberg listed his position as "Monorail Pilot," a role he had held since October 2008. He described his job as "running the highway in the sky!" The Facebook page also stated that Wuennenberg worked at Disney in "Sunset Attractions" from June 2006 to September 2008. His interests included video games, computers, programming and comedy. He appears to be the first fatality from the Monorail at Walt Disney World since it first opened, though this isn't the first incident the Monorail's had. Something else I learned about the Monorail today: Disney guests can join the pilots in the front cab - where Wuennenberg died in the crash's impact - and receive a special commemorative co-pilot's license (pictured here) for doing so. MORE >>
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