Tag Archives: nymag

Annie Leibovitz — money and photography

Annie Leibovitz is in a lot of debt.

The Art Capital loan effectively consolidated all of Leibovitz’s major outstanding obligations, including her mortgages. The interest rate is unknown, but the term is just one year. That means Leibovitz has to come up with $24 million, plus interest, by this September. Under the terms of the agreement, says a person familiar with the loan, Art Capital could be entitled to up to 22.5 percent of all the proceeds from the sale of any of Leibovitz’s work—even for two years after she’s paid off the loan. And that percentage could increase to close to 50 percent if she were to default. Potentially, Art Capital may be entitled to her homes and even her catalogue of past and future copyrights. “They got everything,” veteran New York real-estate attorney Howard Brickner says, shaking his head as he wades through the public records associated with the loan.

Her purported debt is exponentially more massive than any debts I’ve incurred through NYU, but this article makes me appreciate what my professors taught me about financing and keeping the books, as a photographer, in the black. Even as one of the most well-known photographers in this era, she’s made some bad decisions and has become broke. For now, I’m appreciating the little money I have in my bank accounts — I have very little to my name, but it also means I don’t owe much besides my student loans.

Via @mlproject.

Posted on August 17, 2009 in Internet · Also tagged | Comments closed

The Billyburg Bust

williamsburg-map-850x870

NY Mag features the boom and bust of the Williamsburg condominium development fever that has left many sites stalled, or in foreclosure, in the wake of a declining economy.

There are already about 400 new apartments on the market in Williamsburg, and additional condos are completing construction every month. According to a study Maundrell released last month, 2,818 new apartments will have hit the market by the end of this year, with another 2,766 projected by the end of 2010.

It’s interesting to read this as a former Brooklyn-ite living in Williamsburg. The rent was absolute shit for the location and I could only assume it was because of the boom of development that inflated the price. Since moving back to San Francisco, however, I’ve heard a lot of folks discussing a move to New York for this year and the next. I wouldn’t be surprised if they all ended up in my old neighborhood.

Posted on July 31, 2009 in NYC · Also tagged , | Comments closed

Outlook for the class of ’09

NY Mag interviewed graduates from ten different schools on their outlook for the future. Check out the full pdf for fancy pie charts, quotes, and statistics.

I found that I’m pretty much on par with most of the answers to the survey, though some of the results were unexpected. Most have done or tried marijuana, cocaine, ’shrooms, or ecstacy. 57% never discuss sex with their parents. 58% have had unprotected sex. 42% do not have a job lined up. Finally, backup plans include ‘winging it’, and ‘Mom’s house.’

Though, the little tidbit about average starting salaries from the surveyed schools are depressing at best. NYU averages $32,000 per annum, making it $8,000 less than the next lowest average.

Sigh.

Posted on June 9, 2009 in Links, NYC · Also tagged , | Comments closed

Distractions – the benefits of overstimulation

On a day-to-day basis, I find it hard to get anything done of significant value. It seems unlikely, though, since I’m always preoccupied with the mundane multitasking of multiple stimuli. Since closing down my Facebook a year ago, my attention has turned to googling random things. That sidebar google search on my browser has been used and utterly abused. There’s the constant updating of Twitter, random e-mail checks with, as usual, no important messages, and the monotony of ‘instant message received’ coming through my chat client. And then there’s this blog here that I’ve so casually neglected. NY Mag’s piece on our attention spans in the 21st Century, The Benefits of Distraction and Overstimulation, reminds me of how little I accomplish with so much at my disposal.

“Your mind is not getting the dopamine or the hugs that it needs to keep you focused on what you’re doing. And any time your work gets a little bit too hard or a little bit too boring, you allow it to catch on to something that’s more interesting to you.”

Isolation seems to be a natural bi-product of the Internet age despite the growing trend toward social networking. Cursory communication has numbed our sense and do not nearly replace the full experience of leaving the web. The brief bursts of stimulation seems to have conditioned me to be very spacey, and all the bummin’ around I’ve been doing lately has reached a critical mass.

“Where you allow your attention to go ultimately says more about you as a human being than anything that you put in your mission statement,” he continues. “It’s an indisputable receipt for your existence. And if you allow that to be squandered by other people who are as bored as you are, it’s gonna say a lot about who you are as a person.”

Internet, I can’t quit you.

Posted on June 8, 2009 in Internet, Links · Also tagged | Comments closed

Wall Street pissing contest

NY Mag has a great editorial op-ed by Michael Osinski, a software programmer who created the technological foundation that Wall Street utilized to blow up the economy.

I never would have thought, in my most extreme paranoid fantasies, that my software, and the others like it, would have enabled Wall Street to decimate the investments of everyone in my family. Not even the most jaded observer saw that coming. I can’t deny that it allowed a privileged few to exploit the unsuspecting many. But catastrophe, depression, busted banks, forced auctions of entire tracts of houses? The fact that my software, over which I would labor for a decade, facilitated these events is numbing. Is capitalism inherently corrupt?

For all the anger and frustration the country (and the world for that matter) feels, it’s always humbling to hear the stories of the smaller unknowns who played a part in the mess.

Traders had a contest. Coming in at eight, they never left their desks all day, eating and drinking while working. Then, at three o’clock, they marched into the men’s room and stood at the wall opposite the urinals. Dropping their pants, they bet $100 on who could train his stream the longest on the urinals across the lavatory. As their hydraulic pressure waned, the three traders waddled, pants at their ankles, across the floor, desperately trying to keep their pee on target. This is what $2 million of bonus can do to grown men.

If my job dangled a fat bonus check in front of me I’d be pulling off antics like pissing on toilet rolls, too.

Posted on April 2, 2009 in Links · Also tagged , | Comments closed