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Chirol
Author

Chirol

Date

October 30th, 2006

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Lifestyles of the Cruel and Despotic

Grendel sent me a link to a photography series at the German newspaper Die Zeit’s website. On it are 17 photos of the atrocious decorating, design and architecture that the world’s worst loved. The link is in German but you don’t need German to see the pictures and read the names.

This all comes from a book by Peter York from April 2006 entitled Dictator Style: Lifestyles of the World’s Most Colorful Despots. For fun, guess who this monstrosity belonged to?

Saddam Hussein! As P. J. O’Rourke said: Saddam’s chandelier was the size of a two-car garage. If a reason to invade Iraq was wanted, felony interior decorating would have done.’

Comments to this entry

Rommel
October 30, 2006
5:41 pm
Chirol,

By any chance were you able to catch "Inside Saddam's Reign of Terror" on the Nat Geo Channel Sunday?

Short and nothing new but some of the video was intriguing.
There was some great footage of Uday Hussein at a birthday party dancing by himself with a sword!

What a crazy bunch!
Chirol
October 30, 2006
5:53 pm
I live in Germany, no American tv for me except for what I can get on iTunes. Too bad it seems!
Chief Wiggum
October 30, 2006
7:17 pm
This picture hangs over the bed of Jerry Falwell. It is an updated version of The Fall in the Garden of Eden.
subadei
October 30, 2006
9:24 pm
The devils head looks a tad lopsided, doesn't it? Like a bad fantasy novel cover.

I was surprised at Amin's tame (if flowery) setting. I expected plaques and trophies, maybe even the Stanley Cup.
Lex
October 30, 2006
11:24 pm
Dude that babe is totally hot, and she clearly knows the level 10 "create magic snake" spell, but that guy is a high level warrior who knew not to wear metal armor so it can't use "electric shock attack", and I bet those wristlets put a "stone flesh" spell and maybe "repel magical creatures" on him. The sword is no doubt dwarven, and probably also enchanted. That is a totally epic conflict depicted there. Whoa. I want a poster of that. Saddam was a total jerk, but this shows he had some good points.
Mutantfrog
October 31, 2006
1:25 am
It's well known that Saddam Hussein had a collection of semi-erotic fantasy paintings. I remember seeing after the fall of Baghdad a quote from an American illustrator who was surprised to find out some paintings she had done for book covers or something were actually in Saddam's collection.
Nathan Hamm
October 31, 2006
4:48 am
He should have hired Boris Vallejo. That man knows how to paint a snake. Or He-Man... He does that well too.

And now I've got Ween's "Vallejo" stuck in my head, which pretty much covers how I imagine Saddam would woo a woman.
kb
October 31, 2006
1:45 pm
Once again(It appears that my comment was deleted the first time), Rommel said:

"By any chance were you able to catch "Inside Saddam's Reign of Terror"Â? on the Nat Geo Channel Sunday?

BY any chance were you able to catch how the U.S. supported Saddam before, during, and after the time when he gassed the Kurds? And, as I said before, the picture looks like Arcane when he was in his Fabio phase and in love with Ann Coulter, though the vixen in the picture is much better.kb
Gollios
October 31, 2006
2:48 pm
I think a better comparison for the gentleman fighting the snake in the picture would be David Icke.

Speaking of dictator chic, did anyone see this:

http://politicscentral.com/2006/09/07/the_chics_of_the_dictators.php
von Kaufman-Turkestansky
October 31, 2006
8:33 pm
Nicolae Ceausescu's house of the people in Bucharest:
(http://www.biwook.net/gallery/romania/bucuresti/casa-poporului-05.html)
kb
October 31, 2006
11:14 pm
Speaking of Ceausescu:

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4059

And a present for Curzon:
"The one country in Eastern Europe where there was extensive violence as the tyrannies collapsed was the very one where the Soviets had the least amount of influence and where we had the most: Romania. Nicolae Ceausescu, the dictator of Romania, had visited England and was given the royal treatment. The United States gave him favored nation treatment, trade advantages and the like.
Ceausescu was just as brutal and crazed then as he was later, but because he'd largely withdrawn from the Warsaw Pact and was following a somewhat independent course, we felt he was partially on our side in the international struggle. (We're in favor of independence as long as it's in other people's empires, not in our own.)"
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-2-09.html
dr glen burns
October 31, 2006
11:14 pm
i'm knocked out at finding yr curious outfit and definitely enjoy checking it out and whatall. should i feel like contributing, will do so as things come up relevant to what i know and do and can do, usw. actually i only seem to have got shunted over to yr scene while trying to find out stuff for my tajiki barber about ferghana. yo, where's it all heading.
take care and keep it up
yamabushi