Banksy postcard, by Wisconinla on Feb 25, 2022 3:42:54 GMT 1,

Feb 25, 2022 3:00:29 GMT 1 met said:

Feb 21, 2022 16:58:53 GMT 1 lobio said:

Hi Met,

I do apologize for my outburst. Just felt like it was not being understood on this board and wasn’t warmly welcomed. My sincere apologies. Just to clarify I am not buying all these items I was posting about just curious about their history , background, scarcity things like that. I do only buy items with solid provenance . I hope we can remain friends moving forward as you mentioned,

Sincerely and best wishes to all,

No worries whatsoever.

Your outburst was good value on a number of grounds:


(i)  I must have read it four or five times before responding. And on each occasion (at least from the second time onwards), I laughed out loud. That's pretty rare. Soon enough, I'm confident you'll be able to appreciate the comedic merit of the situation and share a laugh with me.


(ii)  As previously mentioned, "wretch" is one of my favourite words. Try saying it in a low guttural manner. It is strangely satisfying.


(iii)  Reference to the "nth degree" of assholery initially made me think of "9th degree", and then of the nine circles of Hell. This led me to revisit the illustrations by William Blake** for Dante's Divine Comedy — a pursuit I found most worthwhile.


(iv)  Along the way, I discovered a fine quote by John Milton, from Paradise Lost, Book I:

The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.



All in all, it was time well-spent.


__________



Thank you nevertheless for your apology. It's appreciated.


There exists multiple criteria for categorising people and dividing them into different boxes.


One such criterion is their willingness to acknowledge when they made a mistake or possibly made a mistake — e.g. a slight overreaction, a thoughtless comment, an incorrect or misleading statement of fact, or an overly sweeping generalisation:


-  Whether in real life or on a message board like this one, you'll find individuals who will almost invariably double down, keep moving the goal posts, or simply proceed as if nothing happened — with zero admission of even the possibility they were ever in the wrong.

It could be down to a juvenile pride or pigheadedness, but such reactions are odd because they're self-defeating. Other people aren't stupid or inattentive. And so, even when not expressly called out, it isn't like the behaviour goes by unnoticed. Those who place themselves in this camp just make it more difficult for their peers to hold them in high regard.


-  As a merciful counterbalance, however, there are plenty of individuals who will promptly take full ownership, raise their hands, and publicly accept they might have erred.

This is the group you've shown yourself to be part of. And to my mind, it demonstrates honour.


__________



Regarding any expectation of a warm welcome on the Urban Art Association, that may have been aiming too high.

Lower those sights, perhaps drastically, and you could end up pleasantly surprised.



A few thoughts:


1.  Bear in mind this forum isn't a monolith, but rather an assortment of individuals from all walks of life, age groups, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. There is no consistency in their levels of knowledge, experience, or willingness to assist others.

Moreover, members here have very different interests, priorities, sensibilities, temperaments, and values — including when it comes to honesty and integrity, or opinions about acceptable degrees thereof.


[In fact, some charming members (who are alright the majority of the time) can, when an opportunity presents itself, become occasional scammers as well.

There is, for example, an unfortunate phenomenon I've witnessed on more than one occasion: Fraud victims, upon realising they've been ripped off, re-selling their fakes to other people in order to recoup their losses — the original victims thereby in turn becoming fraudsters themselves.

Additionally, you may find individuals promoting or hyping specific art releases while failing to disclose their vested interests in the relevant works, artists, galleries, publishing houses, etc. It is repellent, underhand behaviour.

Even worse in my view are the members who have more than one active forum account. I actually feel let down whenever making these discoveries. Because not only is this choice knowingly deceitful, it is quite often motivated by cowardice. And regardless of any agreeable traits they might have, how does one continue to respect somebody after learning they are also a coward?

If you'll pardon the callback, according to Dante, it seems places are reserved for such forum members in the Eighth Circle of Hell.]



2.  The sheer volume of comments posted on this forum makes it necessary to be selective and discriminate. Otherwise, you could easily spend hours each day here, often reading inanities. That would be unhealthy, as well as a poor use of your remaining moments on earth.

It would also restrict the time you'd have to seek out information and perspectives from a wider body of sources. If a disproportionate part of somebody's routine is spent on this forum, I believe their entire outlook will incrementally (even imperceptibly) become evermore narrow.

For this reason, my presence here is kept sporadic. I also focus my attention on posts drafted by members who are consistently informative, perceptive and/or entertaining — the ones who regularly bring something fresh to the table. These may be people with whom I share obvious affinities or, more interestingly, the ones whose viewpoints are considered yet often at odds with my own.



3.  Graffiti and street art are known for their irreverence. They provoke and challenge. They come with attitude.

If only for consistency, we should therefore expect a similar prevailing spirit in the interactions between enthusiasts of these genres.


The Urban Art Association isn't a safe space, unified community, or family home. Perish the thought.

This platform is more like high school, the local pub, or a football terrace — where someone will yell out, "Oi, your taste in music is crap, and you wear orthopaedic shoes!"


Everyone here then has a choice:


   (a)  They can interpret such comments as aggressive or mean-spirited, and possibly react by having a hissy fit, followed by a sulk.

   (b)  Alternatively, they can view such comments as ribbing or lighthearted goading. As harmless entertainment — where the impact for them is like water off a duck's back.


The best advice I can give would be to choose option (b).


[Imagine being in the shoes of Victoria Beckham when she used to watch her husband play football:

Sitting with her father, along with other family members and friends. Then comes the chant. From literally hundreds of football fans. Singing in unison, as if into one gigantic megaphone:

🎼"Post Spice takes it up the arse!"♪ ♬*

Now, query her best course of action in that oft-repeated scenario. Have a strop, or laugh it off?]


To keep things interesting for me, the tone of my own posts constantly shifts. From earnest, to surreal, to piss-taking or sometimes outright mockery. And it's almost always good-natured — the main exception being when I come across dishonesty.

Personal rules of mine include never posting anything I wouldn't say to somebody's face, or that I'd likely feel embarrassed or ashamed about if it were read (immediately or ten years from now) by family, friends, professional contacts, bosses or employees.

And when responding, unless I have good reason to believe otherwise, I make efforts to give fellow members the benefit of the doubt, by never assuming ill intent.

Despite being a firm republican, Elizabeth II has gradually become an inspiration to me. There is something truly admirable about her default state of cheerful unflappability.


__________



Good luck going forward.

Hope your contribution here will be an active one, and that you'll learn to have fun rolling with the punches.

You had me until “firm republican.”

Kidding, nobody is perfect.

Feb 25, 2022 3:00:29 GMT 1 met said:

Feb 21, 2022 16:58:53 GMT 1 lobio said:

Hi Met,

I do apologize for my outburst. Just felt like it was not being understood on this board and wasn’t warmly welcomed. My sincere apologies. Just to clarify I am not buying all these items I was posting about just curious about their history , background, scarcity things like that. I do only buy items with solid provenance . I hope we can remain friends moving forward as you mentioned,

Sincerely and best wishes to all,

No worries whatsoever.

Your outburst was good value on a number of grounds:


(i)  I must have read it four or five times before responding. And on each occasion (at least from the second time onwards), I laughed out loud. That's pretty rare. Soon enough, I'm confident you'll be able to appreciate the comedic merit of the situation and share a laugh with me.


(ii)  As previously mentioned, "wretch" is one of my favourite words. Try saying it in a low guttural manner. It is strangely satisfying.


(iii)  Reference to the "nth degree" of assholery initially made me think of "9th degree", and then of the nine circles of Hell. This led me to revisit the illustrations by William Blake** for Dante's Divine Comedy — a pursuit I found most worthwhile.


(iv)  Along the way, I discovered a fine quote by John Milton, from Paradise Lost, Book I:

The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.



All in all, it was time well-spent.


__________



Thank you nevertheless for your apology. It's appreciated.


There exists multiple criteria for categorising people and dividing them into different boxes.


One such criterion is their willingness to acknowledge when they made a mistake or possibly made a mistake — e.g. a slight overreaction, a thoughtless comment, an incorrect or misleading statement of fact, or an overly sweeping generalisation:


-  Whether in real life or on a message board like this one, you'll find individuals who will almost invariably double down, keep moving the goal posts, or simply proceed as if nothing happened — with zero admission of even the possibility they were ever in the wrong.

It could be down to a juvenile pride or pigheadedness, but such reactions are odd because they're self-defeating. Other people aren't stupid or inattentive. And so, even when not expressly called out, it isn't like the behaviour goes by unnoticed. Those who place themselves in this camp just make it more difficult for their peers to hold them in high regard.


-  As a merciful counterbalance, however, there are plenty of individuals who will promptly take full ownership, raise their hands, and publicly accept they might have erred.

This is the group you've shown yourself to be part of. And to my mind, it demonstrates honour.


__________



Regarding any expectation of a warm welcome on the Urban Art Association, that may have been aiming too high.

Lower those sights, perhaps drastically, and you could end up pleasantly surprised.



A few thoughts:


1.  Bear in mind this forum isn't a monolith, but rather an assortment of individuals from all walks of life, age groups, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. There is no consistency in their levels of knowledge, experience, or willingness to assist others.

Moreover, members here have very different interests, priorities, sensibilities, temperaments, and values — including when it comes to honesty and integrity, or opinions about acceptable degrees thereof.


[In fact, some charming members (who are alright the majority of the time) can, when an opportunity presents itself, become occasional scammers as well.

There is, for example, an unfortunate phenomenon I've witnessed on more than one occasion: Fraud victims, upon realising they've been ripped off, re-selling their fakes to other people in order to recoup their losses — the original victims thereby in turn becoming fraudsters themselves.

Additionally, you may find individuals promoting or hyping specific art releases while failing to disclose their vested interests in the relevant works, artists, galleries, publishing houses, etc. It is repellent, underhand behaviour.

Even worse in my view are the members who have more than one active forum account. I actually feel let down whenever making these discoveries. Because not only is this choice knowingly deceitful, it is quite often motivated by cowardice. And regardless of any agreeable traits they might have, how does one continue to respect somebody after learning they are also a coward?

If you'll pardon the callback, according to Dante, it seems places are reserved for such forum members in the Eighth Circle of Hell.]



2.  The sheer volume of comments posted on this forum makes it necessary to be selective and discriminate. Otherwise, you could easily spend hours each day here, often reading inanities. That would be unhealthy, as well as a poor use of your remaining moments on earth.

It would also restrict the time you'd have to seek out information and perspectives from a wider body of sources. If a disproportionate part of somebody's routine is spent on this forum, I believe their entire outlook will incrementally (even imperceptibly) become evermore narrow.

For this reason, my presence here is kept sporadic. I also focus my attention on posts drafted by members who are consistently informative, perceptive and/or entertaining — the ones who regularly bring something fresh to the table. These may be people with whom I share obvious affinities or, more interestingly, the ones whose viewpoints are considered yet often at odds with my own.



3.  Graffiti and street art are known for their irreverence. They provoke and challenge. They come with attitude.

If only for consistency, we should therefore expect a similar prevailing spirit in the interactions between enthusiasts of these genres.


The Urban Art Association isn't a safe space, unified community, or family home. Perish the thought.

This platform is more like high school, the local pub, or a football terrace — where someone will yell out, "Oi, your taste in music is crap, and you wear orthopaedic shoes!"


Everyone here then has a choice:


   (a)  They can interpret such comments as aggressive or mean-spirited, and possibly react by having a hissy fit, followed by a sulk.

   (b)  Alternatively, they can view such comments as ribbing or lighthearted goading. As harmless entertainment — where the impact for them is like water off a duck's back.


The best advice I can give would be to choose option (b).


[Imagine being in the shoes of Victoria Beckham when she used to watch her husband play football:

Sitting with her father, along with other family members and friends. Then comes the chant. From literally hundreds of football fans. Singing in unison, as if into one gigantic megaphone:

🎼"Post Spice takes it up the arse!"♪ ♬*

Now, query her best course of action in that oft-repeated scenario. Have a strop, or laugh it off?]


To keep things interesting for me, the tone of my own posts constantly shifts. From earnest, to surreal, to piss-taking or sometimes outright mockery. And it's almost always good-natured — the main exception being when I come across dishonesty.

Personal rules of mine include never posting anything I wouldn't say to somebody's face, or that I'd likely feel embarrassed or ashamed about if it were read (immediately or ten years from now) by family, friends, professional contacts, bosses or employees.

And when responding, unless I have good reason to believe otherwise, I make efforts to give fellow members the benefit of the doubt, by never assuming ill intent.

Despite being a firm republican, Elizabeth II has gradually become an inspiration to me. There is something truly admirable about her default state of cheerful unflappability.


__________



Good luck going forward.

Hope your contribution here will be an active one, and that you'll learn to have fun rolling with the punches.

You had me until “firm republican.”

Kidding, nobody is perfect.