#affordance

[sprawa-przybyszewskiej]

The following text was presented in Polish, under the title „Mortal deities of hidden thrones. Maximilien Robespierre in Thermidor as Stanisława Przybyszewska’s alter ego” during a comparative literature conference in May his year. My idea of in what part my PhD will be about her, and what I can and cannot publish before is still taking shape, but I really wanted to put this out here.

Stanisława Przybyszewska is remembered in the collective consciousness primarily as the author of „The Danton Case”, and secondly - as a lonely, unhappy person, living in isolation and enduring miserable living conditions of her own free will (in some sense even at her own behest). Thanks to this way of looking at her, it’s easy to classify her in the studies focusing on her, in various, constantly recurring orders, and everything that is less obvious than these two facts can be omitted equally easily. Since she is known mainly as the author of „The Danton Case”, naturally her second great drama, „Thermidor”, is being pushed to the side. And it is precisely here that her biography is reflected in the character of Robespierre, her idol and deity. When I talk about being reflected, I mean, of course, the construction of Robespierre as a person in a drama is done according to the same pattern that Przybyszewska's life in Gdańsk has followed.

What pattern was it? First of all, we are talking about an existence that is not only lonely, but also aggressively hermit-like. Przybyszewska is not only stubbornly stuck in Gdańsk, with which she had nothing in common with and which she didn’t even like, but she also rejected help from her family and the few friends; loneliness of this kind naturally involves a certain attitude towards the world and a certain view of the world. Here I would like to focus on the facts extracted from her biography, and only those that can be recorded in a somewhat visual way, because only this type of simple, inalienable information is the one that could have found a place in her drama.

The most important facts from Przybyszewska’s life: - Loneliness - Hatred - Hierarchical view [of the world/reality]

The first fact is loneliness, understood both in the physical and mental sense. The second was her hatred of people, which was not (most likely) a result of a flaw of character (unless we consider her severity to be a flaw), but rather of a complete misunderstanding that she met with at every step. In her opinion, this misunderstanding had a simple cause – it was her own genius, which she sensed and which she tried to develop in her creative work. The third fact is the specificity of her view of the world, based on a hierarchical view.

Facts from Robespierre’s life: [obviously I am talking only about his literary counterpart, and only in Thermidor] - Loneliness - Hatred - Being conscious of his existence within a certain hierarchy

Przybyszewska smuggles these three undeniable and simple facts into „Thermidor” as features defining one of the characters, Maximilien Robespierre. He also exists in seclusion - although he is undeniably the most important character in the play, he is not only absent throughout Act I, but he only exists when his absence is being talked about.

„And here we can refer to the geobiography, because Przybyszewska places her hero in conditions close to her own living situation: her Robespierre lives in a «Parisian cubicle resembling a kennel» and washes himself with icy water. [...] Robespierre's cold Parisian cubicle corresponds to the short description of a room in a barrack, made by Przybyszewska between 1927 and 1928 in a letter to her cousin, Adam Barliński: «a crumbling ice house, deprived even of running water»” (Marcin Czerwiński, „Uskok”) -> LONELINESS

Using historical knowledge, Przybyszewska places Robespierre's apartment in a lonely room in the house of a friendly family - but drawing from her own life, she definitely enhances the „vibe” of his place of residence in such a way that it corresponds as closely as possible to her own living conditions. This is not supported by historical evidence, because it is known that in the Duplay family, Robespierre occupied two comfortable and normally furnished rooms, the standard of which did not differ from the standards in 18th-century Paris.

„The present study, however, argues that in fact she takes a Gnostic view of history as an eternal opposition between matter and spirit, and that this dualism saturates the utopian project she undertook both in her art and in her life.” (Kazimiera Ingdahl, „A Gnostic Tragedy”) -> ASCETISIM

However, for Przybyszewska, deprived not only of the luxuries of everyday life, but also of even a semblance of normalcy, it seemed unthinkable to grant the person she depicted in her works - in „Thermidor” more than anywhere else - the very luxuries that she herself was deprived of, and which she didn't even miss that much. Przybyszewska loved Robespierre and considered him to be the highest being, which, due to her Gnostic view of the world, was combined with her love of asceticism. Asceticism, the rejection of the material world, is one of those practices that allow us to rise higher on the mental plane, so it was, according to her (and certainly: according to her Robespierre) indispensable of.

The second point of contact between the writer and the character is hatred. The topic as such appears frequently in her prose, but in her dramas it appears only in these two lesser-known ones; as if she couldn't write about hatred in a more „domesticated” way. Przybyszewska rewrote each scene in „The Danton Case” at least 4 times, usually 10 – „Thermidor”, however, is a play written first and not even completely finished, so there are a few stylistically jarring places in it. From the point of view of this essay, the most important thing at this point seems to be the description of hatred from the mouth of Robespierre himself.

„In fact: I literally had a fever while writing. Everything is boiling inside of me. I cannot give you any idea of how much I suffer terribly with this absolutely powerless rage in the face of stupidity. When I first read this article, I regularly felt physically sick: I couldn't eat for hours. Besides, the blood rushed to my head so much that I was careless by putting it under the tap. Such bodily symptoms never reach the level of rage in me because of my own affairs.” (Stanisława Przybyszewska, „Letters”) -> HATRED

This corresponds with Przybyszewska’s views;  she spent her adult life without finding understanding or friendship among people (or at least friendship on her, harsh and inaccessible, terms), and so she felt hatred on a similarly physical level; even if she admitted that she didn't feel that way for personal reasons.

The same can be said about Robespierre, who hates not a single man, but what a man aspires to. There are more mentions of hatred in Przybyszewska's rich epistolography, and in the creation of Robespierre as a literary character in „Thermidor”, „The Danton Case” and „The Last Nights of Ventoese”, in fact, there are more - in this essay I only want to highlight this similarity as something more than similarity, as pouring of the writer's personal experience into the „personal experience” of the character.

„When you read and interpret [Przybyszewska's] correspondence, dramas and prose, after some time you begin to notice the constant presence of evaluations - of the world, people, their behaviors and achievements - with a dominant black, negative tone. Przybyszewska must always know and say precisely whether a person and a work are great and outstanding, or small and unsuccessful; whether she is dealing with the first or fourth „level” of creators. (Ewa Graczyk, „Ćma”) -> HIERARCHICAL VIEW

The third similarity is what Ewa Graczyk has called the „hierarchical view” and there can be no doubt that Przybyszewska - by adoring Robespierre, admiring him, idealizing him in her plays - transmits this trait of hers onto him not so much consciously, but because the hierarchical nature of her gaze is an inherent part of her as a person and she is unable to create a universum which would operate according to rules other than those she herself had adhered to. And hierarchization is closely related to hatred.

„During the winter, I suffered from a fear - as incredible as it was downright unpleasant - that I had come too far for my years. While last year with every page I wrote, bad and clumsy as they were, revealed to me the beginning of some line of development, thus marking all the directions of the path destined for me, which I immediately tried to follow - now this comfortable feeling of apprenticeship, of beginning, suddenly left me. I have not abandoned my path, the only one that suits my personality and that I have recognized from my mistakes. But the anticipated goal was achieved. Already. It terrified me. I thought I had gone all the way around in one year. There was nothing left for me to do but die.” (Stanisława Przybyszewska, „Letters”)

Robespierre, placed in a situation undoubtedly much easier to bear than Przybyszewska was, does not share with her similar dilemmas. Why? Because Przybyszewska all her life was afraid that she was not good enough - or maybe she was not so much „afraid” as she was convinced that she had not yet reached the peak of her abilities. Robespierre, on the other hand, although from time to time he may experience dilemmas related to not knowing whether he sees and assesses the situation correctly, knows for sure that although he may not be the greatest, at the same time, there is no one greater than him. Therefore, Przybyszewska's fear and uncertainty are not foreign to him; altough the same cannot be said about her irritation and anger, and not her appraising, mathematical view of other people.

It is clear that Przybyszewska poured her life experience into Robespierre; she probably did not have many other opportunities to narrate any literary work - in all her works not only the same themes or types of people are repeated, but also the same solutions and considerations. This results from her own character, but also from one more thing, closely related to the hierarchical view: her isolation took place at the ground level. This is both in its metaphorical and literal meaning: Przybyszewska lived in her barrack, rented to her out of pity, separated from others only by too thin walls, and nothing else. What is missing in her life is the introduction of some distance that would allow her to consider her situation as something other than - depending on her mood - a deep misfortune or a forced, but at least temporary, stop on the way to somewhere greater. It is a position on the same level as everyone else, or even worse than that: it is a position among people whom she considered lower than herself, but for which she had no evidence.

„During the winter, I suffered from a fear - as incredible as it was downright unpleasant - that I had come too far for my years. While last year with every page I wrote, bad and clumsy as they were, revealed to me the beginning of some line of development, thus marking all the directions of the path destined for me, which I immediately tried to follow - now this comfortable feeling of apprenticeship, of beginning, suddenly left me. I have not abandoned my path, the only one that suits my personality and that I have recognized from my mistakes. But the anticipated goal was achieved. Already. It terrified me. I thought I had gone all the way around in one year. There was nothing left for me to do but die.” (Stanisława Przybyszewska, „Letters”) -> GEOMETRY OF EXISTENCE

At this point, it is worth returning to this fragment and taking a closer look at the underlined fragments. Przybyszewska thinks about her life using vocabulary related to geometry (she briefly tried to study mathematics in her youth). However, this geometry is flat, located on one plane - a line, a circle, a designated direction. She has no space to breathe. And this is not only due to the forced pause in creative work, but also – more of an everyday problem - because of her room:

„My current apartment measures 2.25 x 4.60 metres. Measure it and you will see what it means. On top of that, there's a window – half a size of a normal one.” (Stanisława Przybyszewska, „Letters”) -> GEOMETRY OF EXISTECE

There is little space, then, in any sense of the word, and she can only spread her wings through Robespierre, whom she admires but whom she secretly would also like to be: his room, at least, is upstairs. I say this sentence a bit ironically (although it is true), just to emphasize that he actually had more space. And when he left, after he disappeared from the political scene for some time (as it is the situation at the beginning of „Thermidor”), he moved away from people in more than one dimension.

And this simultaneous elevation to heights, even if only heights of a second floor, and remoteness from people in every other possible respect, is what pushes Robespierre's opponents to understand him in terms of divinity. There is not much in it of praise, more of a statement of fact that must be accepted before it can be refuted. So what is Robespierre's divinity in Thermidor?

First of all, it is his inherent feature, the lens through which others must look at him. It's not just those who know him personally and work with him - it's about France in general. But the point is not to list all the moments in which one of the characters recognizes Robespierre as a god - let's consider it as a fact, just as they recognize it, and let's get over it to ask ourselves: what does this mean?

The main meaning is panic. Przybyszewska, through Robespierre, at least partially fulfills the dream of achieving success and the associated with it strong reactions of the world to the presence of such a successful person. Fear in this case is the highest form of flattery, except perhaps sincere (really sincere) devotion. This fear is both an expression of hateful admiration and a driving force behind the characters' actions. It results from a reluctant but unwavering faith in the divinity of their opponent and it is transformed into taking action, into an attempt (as history shows and as Przybyszewska would have shown in the play if she had completed it: a successful attempt) to overthrow the one who is a god, but not a guardian. Whoever keeps his divinity locked inside himself cannot get rid of it, but he does not make it a gift to others, but rather a curse to himself.

-> MORTALITY OF A DEITY

Because Robespierre is a mortal god. Przybyszewska created thorugh him something like a parody of Christ: a man-god in whom each nature is equally weak and each loses. Since each of them loses, then, unlike Christ, each of them dies. He actually „is burning in the blast furnance of his spirit” - because he makes decisions that bring about his own destruction. This is similar to the situation of Przybyszewska, who – so it would seem - did everything in her power to alienate the people on whose financial support she depended; who stubbornly stayed in Gdańsk instead of moving to one of the cities where she could receive more help from her family; who refused to undergo addiction treatment even under the threat of losing her government stipend. Her own non-humanity is inscribed in her through pride, to which she openly admitted and called „satanic” – she is linked with mortality in the same way.

In Robespierre, humanity and divinity combine in an unusual way: he worships himself, he’s convinced of his extraordinary power, and every matter he undertakes confirms this belief. But what is a monstrance if not a kind of visible concealment? What is the meaning of his long, six-week stay outside the French political scene at a time when he is needed there the most?

In her book „FORMS: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy and Network”, Caroline Levine proposes the introduction of the term „affordance”. An affordance is an action that is hidden in a given object or concept; an action forced, as it were, by a form that is itself a kind of oppression. In „Thermidor”, the form that has the greatest importance for the plot is an enclosed space. On the one hand, we are talking about the meeting room of the Committee of Public Safety (Przybyszewska preserved the unity of the place in the drama), and on the other - about Robespierre's apartment, which is only briefly mentioned.

-> AFFORDANCE OF HIDING

His withdrawal and his absence create anxiety among his opponents. The fear mentioned earlier is related to how the other revolutionaries feel about Robespierre as a person - but there is more to it than that. His absence, which does not prevent him from having a perfect understanding of the political situation at that time, has something uncanny about it. He himself puts it best: “There is something uncanny about this business. It is as if one discovered venomous teeth in a paper snake, or a hangman's rope in a young girl's sewing case [...]”. There is a reason why these comparisons make us feel uncomfortable: they violate the natural affordances of the cases mentioned, since paper should not be venomous and a sewing case should not contain a hangman’s rope. A room in a family home should not in any way resemble a place where a dangerous animal lurks [in the Polish version Robespierre is being likened to a spider] - and yet Robespierre evokes this type of association in others, probably without being fully aware of it himself.

„I remember that I saw her several times in the morning hours, walking from her apartment (in the barracks) through the courtyard of the Gimnazjum Polskie, sideways and stealthily, so much so that it was difficult to see her face.” (Ewa Graczyk, „Ćma”) -> COMING DOWN TO EARTH

His throne – his altar – is hidden, therefore it’s deprived of contact with the earth and its inhabitants. When, after a few weeks of absence, he decides to come down, he causes not only panic, but also simple surprise. This is not far from the personal experience of Przybyszewska, who at some point began to avoid going outside, and when circumstances forced her to do so, her appearance caused quite a surprise among onlookers - and (just like Robespierre) she was at odds with people both on „the sidewalk plane”, and on the mental plane.

-> FALLING DOWN ONTO EARTH

However, the mere physical descent to earth does not mean that Robespierre has left the spiritual and mental heights on which he dwells as a deity. Saint-Just's warning is not just mere words, but an expression of concern about the entire situation that Robespierre has just unfolded before his eyes - a situation that is almost impossible to solve and poses a real threat to the „paradise on earth” for Robespierre is the Republic. Falling from a height is also a threat to the spirit and a reference to the fall of Satan.

-> A LITERAL FALL

It is also simply a signal of the beginning of defeat. The affordance of the closed room was violated, so by getting rid of his loneliness and separation, Robespierre also deprived himself of their positive aspects. The mortal god descended to earth, thereby shedding the protective layer provided by the distance between himself and others, between his plan and the reality in which he lived - and his opponents, whether in human form or in the form of a natural course things, they immediately took advantage of the situation. And here we can find a reference to the situation of Przybyszewska, who at some point started to avoid seeing her friends from Gdańsk – a married couple Stefania and Jan Augustyńscy - because Stefania was, in Przybyszewska's opinion, too perceptive and did not fall for the artificial distance put between them through the words of „Everything is fine”. Thus, the writer trapped herself in the form and allowed it to turn into a prison. This kind of action somehow justified her and took away the responsibility for improving her life.

(Caroline Levin,e „FORMS: Whole,Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network) -> AFFORDANCE OF ISOLATION

Any form is a type of oppression. By imposing its order, it also forces the way of seeing and thinking. Robespierre's paranoia did not appear out of nowhere - it is the result of isolation (the only person who acts as a link and a buffer between the closed form of Robespierre’s private room and the closed form of the meeting room is Saint-Just - and Saint-Just has been struggling with the war on the Northern front for several weeks). It is no different with Przybyszewska herself, whose attitude towards the world was largely dependent on her financial conditions, which she did not try to improve: "Since [Staśka] is not crushed by the grey of everyday and by the struggle for a piece of bread, the general hatred towards people and constant fear of them ceased” wrote her husband in a letter to Helena Barlińska.

-> THE DUAL NATURE OF AFFORDANCE

When it comes to affordance, there is one more detail we need to pay attention to. The physical form - in this case, a room - influences the spiritual form, but it also works the other way around. Robespierre's paranoia is therefore a factor whose affordances (e.g. haste, keeping a secret, high treason) have a real, negative impact on the Republic in general and his life in particular. Acting under the influence of the conditions he himself has created, he finds himself on the road to making more and more mistakes, making the situation worse, and driving himself into a dead end. The fact that he does not seem to take this possibility into account points once again to his divinity and the pride that comes with it.

-> THE AFFORDANCE OF ROBESPIERRE

From the depths - and heights - of his tabernacle, Robespierre commands the situation. He exerts an absolute influence, which at the same time is based on nothing more than his person. Therefore, it is his personal affordance, the effect not of a specific action, but rather the result of his presence in the world, the resultant of all his features. This is where he differs from Przybyszewska, who dreamed of having such an influence on the masses, or at least on a group of people. Thus, this confirms the thesis about constructing Robespierre in „Thermidor” as her alter ego - similar enough to be confused with her, but better and more powerful.

I would like to end here and take advantage of the opportunity to mention that after 216 days of genocide in Gaza, as of the day I have delivered this essay, there is no university left there. We have the right and opportunity to promote science, and therefore we also have an ethical obligation to stand on the side of the victims of genocide, who were deprived of this right and opportunity. I hope that in our lifetime we will see a free, independent Palestine.

#I WHOLEHEARTEDLY ENCOURAGE YOU ALL TO ALWAYS MENTION PALESTINE WHEN YOU'RE GIVING A SPEECH #IT IS WORTH IT AND WE ARE MORALLY OBLIGATED TO DO IT #stanisława przbyszewska #stanislawa przybyszewska #thermidor #maximilien robespierre #maksymilian robespierre #robespierre #affordance #ewa graczyk #marcin czerwiński #caroline levine #kazimiera ingdahl #literary analysis #comparative literature

[corsicadayo]

⬆「新版学習まんがアフォーダンス」COMITIA144新刊

#manga #affordance #comitia #personal works

[inkskinned]

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

#spilled ink #warm up #“why did u tag it warm up” bc i wrote it off the cuff while drinkin coffee lol #btw the 30 dollar buy in for the dog walking is bc they pay the organizer a small pittance so she can #run fb ads and stuff and like she does put in a lot of work i don't mind paying her #but that's exactly what im fucking talking about like. #ppl can't afford to volunteer their time anymore and we all understand it!!! everything costs money for everyone! #like we didn't have to use to say ''do you mind paying me back for the stuff we ate'' #we used to be able to afford to feed our friends once in a while!!!

[hamletthedane]

I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

#shut up e #long post #Saturday thoughts #this has been in my drafts for a week haha #also this is the heart of why AI art feels so wrong #forget the discussion of copyright and theft etc - even if models were only trained on public domain they would still feel very wrong #because they’re not art. art is the labor of creation #even commercial art and art commissioned by the popes and kings of history: there is humanity in the labor of it #unrelated: I did not know living in the Bronx was now something to brag about. How the fuck do y’all New Yorkers afford this city???

[jovialbreadqueen]

Instagram: it has its downfalls, but what about its advantages?

Instagram is a social media platform that we all know and love, but just in case you are new to social media let me explain! It's a platform that allows its users to post photos, videos, and stories, caption them, and share them with their followers. Although people bash Instagram and other social media platforms, it has its benefits, also known as affordances, which are the uses that the website may have. Throughout this post, a public Instagram account will be used to show examples of these advantages.

Although Instagram started as a small site where you would post photos for your friends and family to see, it has become more popular for creating careers online. To gain followers online you need to know your audience, and then cater your content to reflect this relationship. Often with large influencers on Instagram, they try to find a balance between making their content desirable, but also relatable and inclusive for their audience, and one way they do this is through their captions.

As you can see in the post above, captions can be used to interact with followers, using personal pronouns like “you” or “we,” and using hashtags to reach a wider audience. Interactivity is a key affordance for Instagram as a platform. As seen above you can like, comment, share, or save a post which boosts the creator’s engagement and allows you to express your opinion.

As well as being interactive, another affordance of Instagram is the fact that it is multimodal, allowing the creator to post both pictures and videos, but also to tag other people in the pictures, and tag their location. In the post below, you can see that these features open new doors for creative expression and innovation.

Creativity is a large part of many social media accounts, and Instagram has developed this further with the creation of photo carousels, as seen above, and by allowing the user to add music to a post, once again allowing space for creative expression.

Although there are many upsides to using a platform like Instagram, nobody (or no social media site) is perfect, and there are some constraints to the platform, one being advertising. Advertising is mainly how content creators make their money, using the hashtag #ad like used below, but it also means that as a user you’ll be more likely to see these posts, as algorithms favour accounts that make the platform money. 

Another constraint to sites like Instagram is the use of filters. Filtered photos, like the one below, changes people’s facial features drastically, and although filters are fun and creative, they can also play a large part in affecting someone’s self-perception, as it sets unrealistic beauty standards. 

All in all, platforms like Instagram have their ups and downs, but do you think the good outweighs the bad?

#instagram #affordance #social media #advertisements

[animentality]

#twitter #housing #economy #housing market #affordable house

[sheepydraws]

The secret Dungeon Meshi sauce that's getting people to eat better is that it's so non-judgmental. Senshi and the rest of the gang never talk about what not to eat besides things that taste bad and literal poison. They don't even talk about "health" that much besides the importance of a balanced diet. It's so much easier to eat well when you think of food simply as something your body needs, and that it's often worth the extra effort to make it taste good, especially when you understand how to connect "things your body needs" with "things that taste good"

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dunmeshi #idk I just think a lot about how no one talked about hot fatty pork was unhealthy #or even scolded Maricelle for wanting something they couldn't afford #Senshi just said 'you haven't been eating fat so your body needs some. let's make something rich and delicious!'

[slimylittlemaggot]

If this gets 10,000 notes, then I'll go to therapy.

#haha #jk #I can't afford it #I'm broke #also I don't think that I should base my decisions on my social media performance #but lord knows I need therapy

[fleshdyke]

art tips that actually help. tracing pictures is fine. try not to shade with black. draw as much as you can all the time and make it shitty im so serious. dont buy expensive materials its not worth it. never post your art to tiktok. raise your commission prices. sparkle on be yourself

#i dont care how good or bad your art is or how old you are or how low your self esteem is RAISE YOUR PRICES #and if you’re like 13 and people in their 30s are giving you like $5 for your art you’re being exploited i dont care if that’s how much you #set your prices at. you are being exploited. 30+ year olds can afford more than $5 for art from a teenager #source: i did that for fucking ages. dont do that. #rambles #100 #1k #10k #20k

[forme-formidable]

#affordance

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

#writeblr #warm up #this is longer than i wanted i really considered removing that part about myself and what i went thru #but i think it really fucking bothers me that EVERY time i talk about being an artist #ppl assume i just like. had the skill and ability to drop everything and pay for grad school. #like sir i grew up poor. my house wasn't a safe space. i gave up a FREE RIDE TO LAW SCHOOL. for THIS. bc i chose it. #was it fucking hard? was i choosing the hard thing?? yes. #but we need to stop seeing artists as lazy layabouts that can ''afford'' to just ''sit around and create'' #when MANY - if not MOST - of us are NOT like that. we have to work our fucking ASSES off. hard work. long and hard work #part of valuing artists is recognizing the amount we sacrifice to make our art. bc it doesn't just #like HAPPEN to us. also btw it rarely has anything to do with true talent. #speaking as someone with a chronic condition i hate when ppl are like u have it easy. like actively as i'm writing this my hands r #ACTIVELY hurting me. i haven't been posting bc my left hand was curled in a claw for the last week #this isn't fucking luck. after a certain point it's not even TALENT. it's dedication & sacrifice. #''u get to flounce around and do nothing with ur life'' is a narrative that is a direct result of capitalism #imagine if we said that about literally any other profession. #''oh so u give up 10 yrs of ur life to be a doctor? u sacrifice having a social life and u get SUPER in debt? #u need to work countless hours and it will often be thankless? well i wish i was that lucky'' #we should be applying that logic to landlords ONLY #''oh ur mom and dad gave u the money to buy a house? and all u did was paint it white and rent it? huh.''

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

sick of rich people with boring homes. if you're going to set the standard for desirable lifestyles I will never afford, would you at least put some color into it dangnabit

#you could afford to put in a movie room but not to paint the walls anything but white beige and off-yellow? #it's so depressing you have a house i could never afford and it is hideous. and not even in an interesting way

[theywontletmebeprincipal]

* “go-to” doesn’t mean “only”! there’s a bunch of situational signoffs I haven’t put here, this is more about what you use by default

#sanders pollshit #mine is ‘au revior’ #technically translates to ‘until we meet again’ but is also so intrinsically linked to melodramatic french romance films that all my emails #read just a bit like I’m trying to seduce somebody #which to be clear is my goal #my job is being silly so I can afford to get a little silly with it

[reasonsforhope]

Less than three months after U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin and her colleagues launched an investigation into the four major American manufacturers of inhalers, three of the companies have relented, making commitments to cap costs for their inhalers at $35 for patients who now pay much more.

25 million Americans have asthma and 16 million Americans have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), meaning over 40 million Americans rely on inhalers to breathe.

Inhalers have been available since the 1950s, and most of the drugs they use have been on the market for more than 25 years.

According to a statement from the Wisconsin Senator’s office, inhaler manufacturers sell the exact same products at a much lower costs in other countries. One of AstraZeneca’s inhalers, Breztri Aerosphere, costs $645 in the U.S.—but just $49 in the UK. Inhalers made by Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, and Teva have similar disparities.

Baldwin and her Democratic colleagues—New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luján, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders—pressured the companies to lower their prices by writing letters to GSK, Boehringer Ingelheim, Teva, and AstraZeneca requesting a variety of documents that show why such higher prices are charged in America compared to Europe.

As a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Baldwin recently announced that as a result of the letters they had secured commitments from three of the four to lower the out-of-pocket costs of inhalers to a fixed $35.00 rate.

“For the millions of Americans who rely on inhalers to breathe, this news is a major step in the right direction as we work to lower costs and hold big drug companies accountable,” said Senator Baldwin.

A full list of the inhalers and associated drugs can be viewed here.

It’s the second time in the last year that pharmaceutical companies were forced to provide reasonable prices—after the cost of insulin was similarly capped successfully at $35 per month thanks to Congressional actions led by the White House.

-via Good News Network, March 25, 2024

#united states #us politics #us senate #tammy baldwin #bernie sanders #big pharma #health care #us healthcare #inhaler #asthma #pulmonary disease #healthcare access #affordability #disability #good news #hope

[gayvampyr]

#polls #i wish i knew how to use a sewing machine but i don’t have access to one and can’t afford one :/

[yeehawbvby]

#making pikmin 4 memes since i cant afford the game.... #the demo was SO FUN i hope i can play it fully sometime AAAAAAAAAAH #I’m so sorry i forgot to add alt text until now!! aaaaah! #oatchiposting #pikmin #pikmin 4 #crisart #pikmin oatchi #oatchi #oatchi pikmin #pikmin memes #red pikmin #blue pikmin #yellow pikmin #pikman #nintendo #nintendo pikmin #nintendo memes #quieres