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by Sweejak » Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:29 pm
by brownzeroed » Mon Jun 25, 2007 7:18 pm
by Sweejak » Mon Jun 25, 2007 7:25 pm
by Seamus OBlimey » Tue Jun 26, 2007 3:35 pm
by Seamus OBlimey » Fri Jul 20, 2007 12:18 pm
by H_C_E » Fri Jul 20, 2007 1:53 pm
by Sweejak » Fri Jul 20, 2007 4:54 pm
As Dollar Crumples, Tourists Overseas Reel
Rolf Oeser for The New York Times
HEIDELBERG, Germany, July 17 — A day after Michael Kingsley arrived
in this romantic university town, he was in no mood to savor the
cobblestone streets, the half-timbered houses or the flower-bedecked
windows — to say nothing of the camera-ready castle on the hill.
Mr. Kingsley had left his camera battery and charger in a hotel room
in London, and he knew that as an American tourist, buying
replacements here was going to sting. The damage: $143. Back home in
Falls Church, Va., he said, the same purchase would have set him back
no more than $100.
For Americans visiting Europe this summer, the steep decline of the
dollar against the euro and the British pound has made eye-popping
prices a lamentable part of the traveler’s tale. (The Kingsley
family’s hotel room in London was $500 a night; five bite-sized
chocolates at Harrods cost $10.)
“It’s O.K.,” said Mr. Kingsley, 59, with a resigned laugh.
“I’ll just have to work a few extra years to pay off this vacation.” His wife,
Laura, did her best to soothe him. “It’s just play money,” she
said.
By now, five summers after the dollar began its long swoon against
the euro and the pound, American travelers are used to $5 cups of
coffee and triple-digit dinner checks in Europe’s great capitals. But
the dollar’s latest plunge — to $2.05 to the pound and to a record
of $1.38 to the euro — has turned mere sticker shock into a form of
suspended disbelief for many tourists.
For Kaelon Kroft, a custodian from San Bernardino, Calif., it was the
cost of Coke that shocked him most in Paris. “We just paid 9.5 euros
for a can of Coke at a cafe,” he said. “At our hotel, the bar was
serving a glass of Coke for four euros.”
“That’s over five bucks,” his wife, Kristi, added. Actually, at
the current exchange rate, it is a fizzy bubble or two over $5.52.
The Krofts and the Kingsleys both scaled back their European holidays
to limit the pain of the currency pinch. But neither family seriously
thought of canceling the vacation, and their glass-is-half-full
determination to make the best of things was echoed in interviews
with American tourists from Ireland to Italy.
It is also reflected in the tourism statistics in France, Germany,
Spain and other countries, which show that the number of Americans
visiting Europe has increased this year, even as the value of the
dollar has eroded. Travel experts say this speaks both to the
resilience and rising affluence of American tourists, as well as to
the perennial appeal of Europe as a destination.
“Americans who visit Europe tend to be more educated, with higher
incomes, so they are less affected by the exchange rate,” said
Joachim Scholz, a researcher at the German National Tourist Board.
“Even backpackers have more money than they used to, if you look at
the price of hostels.”
Americans spent $3.8 billion on travel-related services in Europe in
the first quarter of this year, a 5.5 percent increase from the
quarter a year ago, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
They spent $22.8 billion in 2006, nearly 10 percent more than in
2002, when the dollar was close to parity with the euro.
That should be a relief to innkeepers and restaurateurs here, because
many currency experts say the dollar — pulled down by the combination
of a persistent trade deficit with the rest of the world, a slower
American economy and an unexpectedly vigorous Europe — has not
reached bottom against the euro.
Ashraf Laidi, chief currency strategist at CMC Markets in New York,
described the dollar’s decline as “pervasive.” He predicts that it
could trade at $1.42 to the euro by the end of this year. The outlook
for Americans in Britain is better: Mr. Laidi thinks the dollar is
close to its nadir against the pound.
by Sweejak » Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:17 pm
by Seamus OBlimey » Sun Aug 05, 2007 2:38 pm
Gregory Crewdson
Born Brooklyn, New York, 1962
I have always been fascinated by the poetic condition of twilight. By its transformative quality. Its power of turning the ordinary into something magical and otherworldly. My wish is for the narrative in the pictures to work within that circumstance. It is that sense of in-between-ness that interests me.
Gregory Crewdson reworks the American suburb into a stage-set for the inexplicable, often disturbing, events that take place at twilight. In creating what he calls 'frozen moments', he has developed a process akin to the making of a feature film. Operating on an epic scale, he uses a large crew to shoot and then develop the images during post-production.
Every detail of these images is meticulously planned and staged, in particular the lighting. In some instances, extra lighting and special effects such as artificial rain or dry ice are used to enhance a natural moment of twilight. In others, the effect of twilight is entirely artificially created.
All the images propose twilight as a poetic condition. It is a metaphor for, and backdrop to, uncanny events that momentarily transport actors from the homeliness and security of their suburban context.
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