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fatehbaz · 4 years

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Weird, eerie, uncanny ecology

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Horror fictions are very much about ambiance, place, surroundings and environment. Sometimes this engagement with place, as in the work of China Mieville, involves the invention of new and weird topographies, while for other writers, the places described are known regions and even seemingly familiar locales. [...] It was the New England landscape, with its “vast and gloomy forests in whose perpetual twilight all terrors might well lurk” that gave birth to Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne (and surely also to Lovecraft [...]). Jeff VanderMeer openly admits the importance of the Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra, Portugal as well as the Saint Mark’s wildlife refuge in Florida as sources of inspiration. [...] The most strikingly original aspect of the best weird fiction’s expression of place is the ways in which it deforms or veers [...] our ordinary [...] ways of talking about the environment. [...] Strangely enough, though, [some] ecologically engaged critics have barely cast an eye towards this kind of writing. [...] This overlooks the functioning of explorations of place in horror. [...] Our world [is] weird, our reality horrifying. Living in the Anthropocene implies [...] that we are aware that the world has dimensions that exceed the grasp of our senses, [...] there are dimensions or depths to the real. [...] The genius of horror and the supernatural [...] is the acknowledgement of a gap between the real [existing autonomously outside of humans] and the Natural [translated and systematized by human sciences, cultural institutions]. [...]

If ecology is the study of organisms and their relations to their environments -- relations between objects and the other objects composing places around them -- then being a realist ecologist is being sensitized to that which not only is visible but which is also withdrawn or wholly other; that which is reality but also ungraspable within some naturalist accounts of the ambient world. [...] Re-encountering familiar scenes after having read horror is to see these scenes with heightened senses, with an awareness of straining for sight beyond sight. Thus the weird hardly leads us away from the places in which we dwell. On the contrary, it brings us back to them with x-ray attentiveness and extraordinary humility.

Brad Tabas. “Dark Places: Ecology, Place, and the Metaphysics of Horror Fiction.” Miranda. 2015.

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When would-be settlers arrive in a so-called new world land, they are disconcerted by the strangeness of what they find: impenetrable swamp-forests and unintelligible biodiversity [...]. In order to forge a future in such a land, settlers need to be able to master this space by seeing it as another kind of potential place -- “relational, rectangularised, beholden to agriculture” [...]. The transformative work of settlement involves reshaping the threatening, chaotic, destabilising and alien elements so that the place can be re-born as home: familiar, safe, controlled and controllable.[...] For this reason, settlers must also proceed by adopting an oblique angle of vision which enables them to see -- in their mind‘s eye -- their permanently situated homeland-to-be. [...] As the ecosphere in a settler place undergoes radical transformation [...] existing cultural landscapes become submerged under roads, buildings, farmlands, towns, cities and reserves [...].

In order to make their new homes in existing Indigenous homelands, settler populations induce ecological crisis by altering the environment, seeking to reproduce European geometries and ways of life. Settlers set about felling forests, draining swamps, diverting waterways and converting wetland plains to make way for pastureland and urbanisation; they divide the land into alienable parcels comprising differentated zones and categories [...] and they implace vast numbers of new plant and animal species, unleashing feral ecologies in the process. The organisms selected for introduction in so-called new world palces are those deemed “familiar,” “useful,” “missing,” and “missed” (McDowall) and they are intended to replace the “monstrous” creature that already populate these places [...]. Despite efforts to elongate or stretch it to fit over the place, short settler history is undone by longer Indigenous histories, revealing the doubleness or splitness of the place [...]. Anamorphosis, then, is profoundly a perspectival mode of settlement, and it accentuates the discontinuity, defamiliarisation and decomposition associated with founding a so-called new world place. It signals doubt and disturbance and it is not controllable as a trick of the artist’s trade or as a fashionable perversion or contrived effect or matter of cunning or virtuosity. Rather, it is a distortion that is experienced in intermittent and profoundly vertiginous ways by settler culture. For settler populations, the horror of settlement is to be returned to a state of freefall, with the solid ground of the settler endeavour shearing away or appearing to disappear.

In such moments, the settler nation emerges as a fantasy or absurdity or spectral “non-place”; cataclysm is revealed as a permanent half-state; settlement becomes disintegration.

Anna Boswell. “Anamorphic Ecology, or the Return of the Possum.” Transformations. 2018.

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It disturbs the very idea of what it means to be local, to be accustomed to and understand one’s environment. [...] The multifarious texture of home, or locality, is itself an abstraction. Morton writes that ‘The wet stuff falling on my head in Northern California in early 2011, could have been an effect of the tsunami churning up La Nina in the Pacific’, and heavy rain ‘simply a local manifestation of some vast entity that I’m unable directly to see’ (2010: 52). This vastly interconnected way of reading the environment intensifies dark ecology’s bid to render landscape and resources as systemic, complex, and in-process, as well as variously connected to human being. It also problematizes views of the environment that make it originary (how one might mischaracterise national parklands as ‘raw nature’ for example, when in fact it has been changing and settling for many thousands of years), pristine (when in fact it includes much that is dirty and violent), or separate (when we are already breathing it, when it exists as much in our gut microbiome as it does in the protected Grand Canyon) [...]. No longer capable of the ‘man-in-space’ postmodernism of the 1980s, we are aware of ourselves now as deeply enmeshed in the processes we consume[...], resulting art forms attempt to approach flattening ontologies: local with universal, humans with objects, quark with mountain.

Danielle Barrios-O’Neill and Michael Collins. “At Home with the Weird.” Revenant. 2018.

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For Fisher, the eerie is something altogether more abstract and strange than that of the weird in the way the eerie concerns itself with the presence or absence of something, and such places (or non-places) are often where there is an absence of humanity, or where there is something or some agency at work that is just beyond our realm of understanding: “The eerie concerns the most fundamental metaphysical questions one could pose, questions to do with existence and non-existence.” As such, the eerie “is constituted by a failure of absence or by a failure of presence. The sensation of the eerie occurs either when there is something present where there should be nothing, or is there nothing present when there should be something.” [...] On a material level, the eerie is often not located in the humanistic confines and locales of the family and home. Often, it is located in marginal spaces, in landscapes, sites, and structures where there is either a distinct lack of human presence, or there was once a human activity which has since disappeared. Various ruins, such as [...] ancient sites [...], to more modern locations such as abandoned buildings and houses underline several aspects to the eerie, as the failure of presence that is the absence of humanity almost certainly leads to various forms of speculation as to the source of said absence. [...] More importantly, Fisher asserts that the eerie turns on the issues of agency in the way that:

It is about the forces that govern our lives and the world […] In the case of the failure of absence, the question concerns the existence of agency as such. Is there a deliberative agent here at all? Are we being watched by an entity that has not yet revealed itself? In the case of the failure of presence, the question concerns the particular nature of the agent at work. We know that Stonehenge has been erected, so the questions of whether there was an agent behind its construction or not does not arise; what we have to reckon with are the traces of a departed agent whose purposes are unknown. [...]

Non-places refer to capitalist and technological sites [...] that, while having a human presence through that of work or transit, are a-historical, non-relational and lack any definitive connections with their locale. Augé sites non-places as spaces of transit or temporary waiting and congregation -- shopping malls, business parks and corporation “campuses”, motorways, roundabouts, carparks, and hotels – all places that give a semblance of seamless connectivity and ease of movement. From an architectural and organizational viewpoint however, non-places are considered sterile and affectless, exuding an overriding sameness [...]. Through their overriding spatial conformity, and the mechanical nature they invoke in the individual towards consumerism and social control, non-places invoke forms of eerie alienation upon the body in that they allow the individual to psychologically disconnect, to drift in an aesthetically impoverished landscape and the seeming absence of presence.

Bob Cluness. "I am an other and I always was…" On the Weird and Eerie in Contemporary and Digital Cultures. University of Iceland MA Thesis. 2019.

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Unlike the sublime, with its axiomatic relationship with nature and its place in a history of “the outdoors,” the uncanny is more readily associated with anti-natural concerns - degrees of deadness; animated corpses, ghosts, and artificial beings; dolls, automatons, and doubles. [...] Modern shopping malls that replicate identical layouts [...] right down to the pearly patina of the laminex on the bench-tops. The placelessness of trading zones is particularly insidious because of the recurrent [...] acts of consumption such spaces are styled to bring about. Generica: a neologism adapted to describe the urbanity of middle America, structure by the uniform architecture and visual parroting of Wal/Marts, Apple/bees, Best/Buys, Starb/ucks, and Borders. [...]. This doubling of place not only arouses the unnerving suspicions -- “I’ve been here before,” and “am I here, or am I in fact elsewhere?” – but additionally reaffirms the underlying unnaturalness of all place-based experience. The local is eerie on account of it being familiar. In other words, it is precisely because the local is “homely” that it is capable of being shot-through with the “unhomely.” The uncanny exists because there is an environment. [...] As multinational corporations seek to comfort and disarm through their “commonplace” design, they also run the risk that such places become indirectly disturbing in their duplication. Things are ambiguous where there is too much multivalent, ambient information coming in from all angles.

Human-animal-machine. Everywhere-anywhere-nowhere. Alive-dead-simulant. Evolve-devolve-mutate.

Rebecca Giggs. “The Rise of the Edge.” Draft. 2010.

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#compilation of some recent similar excerpts

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shriekbackmusic · 4 years

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Collaborations #1 (’Shriekback are Seeing Other People’)

Well, collaboration is everything really innit? No man is an island, not even the ones who pretend they are. That’s what I reckon. Merging somebodys’ talents and energies with yours. What a thing. The very stuff of life.

Still, it can be a fractious business: politics will come into it. LIke: who’s in charge here? Who gets to say whether your bit is better than my bit? And how do we work that shit out? A microcosm of the world or what?

Undeterred, we seem to do it (collaborate) quite a lot. And these are some pretty successful tunes, I would say. Good for us. Bold and resolute Shriekback!

So there’s Hope, right?

(BA)

MART’S TRACKS:

DROP BY DROP Barker/Burridge

Taken from my Album" Water and Stone." Exploring my rolling Gtr and groove in 7 with the wonderfully talented musician cellist Emily Burridge.

Inspired by the miracle of water, its rhythm, its music, its journey, its myths, its poetry and beauty

FLYING SAUCER Barker/ Roedelius/Noah1

Lovely to have met and worked with the master of Ambience, Hans Joachim Roedelius for the Album Fibre.

Recorded up in the hills of Shropshire with George Taylor (Noah1) and Jez coed

This piece was inspired by my riff Im playing on the Hang Drum, hence the title "Flying Saucer"

GOLDEN MOON Barker/Young

Taken from my mini Album” Blue” Talitha Rise.

This was my first big endeavour into the musical spiritual world and collaboration with Jo beth young.

We are joined on the Riti by Juldeh Camara.

PILGRIM`S WAY Barker/Adams

My new project/collaboration still ongoing with the mighty talent of Justin Adams .

This first piece inspired by ancient walks.

This new whole album partly inspired by the writing of Robert Macfarlane "the old ways"

SANDLINES. Barker/ Adams

Second piece inspired the Ancient paths of the desert.

THE LAKE Barker/Young taken from the album" Abandoned Orchid House” Talitha Rise

Another collaboration with Jo beth Young and another piece in 7!

Intense, energetic and rich with riddles.

THE SELKIE. Barker / Pynn

Second Piece taken from my Album "Water and Stone”

Inspired by the Myths and stories of the Selkie. With the magical multi instrumentalist Nick Pynn on Violin.

CARL’S TRACKS:

Words Fail Me

with AMANDA KRAVIT

(Barratt/Marsh)

David Barratt and I were introduced to Amanda by John Mrvos, one of the A&R team at EastWest Atlantic in New York (Happyhead’s label) - she was his girlfriend and he wanted to get her recorded, basically, so we came up with this. Dave had done some kind of publishing deal that allowed him to sample the company catalogue, hence Ravi Shankar playing sitar all over it. Backing vocals by Bill Clift; some of the drums sound like Jim Kimberley, sampled from HH sessions (1992ish.)

The Longest Goodbye

with BILL CLIFT

(Clift/Marsh)

I’ve written loads with Bill under various banners, of course. This is a mid-90s demo recorded in Bill’s flat in Greenwich. BVs by Stella Clifford and Marilyn Gentle, bass (I think) by Gary Brady… not sure who did the wibbly organ. This song was later recorded by Bill’s band Fuzzbuddy, re-titled Killing Me Now - it’s just been re-released as part of their Complete Studio Recordings compilation.

THE PALACE DOGS

with GEOFF WOOLEY

I’ve collaborated with Geoff Woolley since Out On Blue Six, and in school bands even before that. These two tracks, from around 1995, are both built from sampled TV shows (and therefore subject to all sorts of potential copyright issues…).

Queen of Peoples’ Hearts

(Marsh/Woolley)

The self-styled QOPH’s Panorama special, cut up and pumped up with added Dario Argento and a spot of Jeremy Paxman. The Original is all-electronic; the Guitar Version has not only mine and Geoff’s rhythm bits but some wildfire lead from Steve Bolton (Atomic Rooster, Paul Young, The Who etc. and currently fronting the mighty Dead Man’s Corner). Take yer pick.

Crazy Dames

(Marsh/Woolley)

The main voice and piano on here are from a 1961 Twilight Zone episode called The Midnight Sun, in which the Earth is knocked out of orbit and is spiralling towards the Sun… it gets hot. Other vocals by Stella Clifford and Marilyn Gentle.

GASWERKS

The Ying Tong Song

(Milligan)

Basically the same format as The Palace Dogs with the addition of Bill Clift, whose idea it was to knock out a dance version of The Goons’, er, classic. Dig that crazy rhythm, indeed. We were told the novelty song market was a hard one to crack… by the singer of Black Lace, who should know, I suppose…

WOOLLEY/MARSH

The Girlfriends Of Dorian Gray

(Barratt/Marsh/Woolley)

David Barratt came up with the conceit of a modern Dorian Gray who preserves his youth (or immaturity) not by having a grotesquely ageing portrait in the attic but by having an ever-changing string of girlfriends who absorb the consequences of his many flaws and are discarded one after another. Dave sketched out the chorus and then proposed that he, I and Deni Bonet (NY-based violinist and writer that we’ve worked with on various projects) should write our own versions of the story, possibly with the idea of creating some kind of meta-version combining them all. That never happened, but I like the track Geoff and I came up with and the lyric is nice and tricksy - shades of Costello, maybe, if I say so myself.

You’re The Only One

(Marsh/Woolley)

A re-write of a Happyhead demo, switching New York electronica for some 90s Britpop vibes, it sounds like. Bit of a kinky ménage à trois scenario with reasonably loud guitars. Nice.

BARRY’S TRACKS

The Frances & Martine poems, with Hilda Sheehan (2014)

part 1: GLOW, GOOSE, CORN-REMOVER

part 2: COAT, ARM, KNOB OF BUTTER

I met Hilda Sheehan - through the (surprisingly vibey) Swindon poetry scene when I was stationed back there for 10 years in '04. She was often the star turn at their spoken word events and, I thought, had the mark of a real artist in that she came with her own self-contained world (’magical realist Northern UK kitchen sink’, if I had to describe it).

I thought it would be fun to 'set' (as they say) some of her poems to music and so I did. From Hilda's considerable oeuvre, I picked the Frances and Martine series - I liked F&M's mutually abrasive dependence - the key ingredient in any sitcom - and the succinct and sometimes brutal nature of each of their adventures.

Dame Hilda Sheehan

The Anaxaton6 EP with Mike Tournier (2013)

I first worked with Mike Tournier (Big Mike as opposed to Little Mike - these were Flukes' Contrasting Mikes at the time) as producer on their OTO album c.94. Techno outfit Fluke apparently liked them some Olde Shriekback (they had worked previously with Wendy and Sarah) and thought I might add something to the project.

It turned out that producing a techno band is every bit as awkward as you might imagine (there’s only one computer screen for a start) and we abandoned the collaboration after I'd failed to insert myself into Fluke's process in any useful way (sandwich run doesn't count).

Anyway, we stayed in touch and collaborated rather more successfully on a Fluke/Shriekback tune and performance for MTV.

It was the redoubtable Julian Nugent, Fluke's manager, who got in touch - in 2013 to suggest that Mike and I might like to try knocking up a tune together.

I liked the idea of this straightaway. Mike can produce huge, hi-torque productions and I had an idea of a songwriting approach which I though might complement this. The vocalist would be recognisably the bloke out of Shriekback but CG’d with florid new appendages. I fancied some mad-as-a-rat lyrics (Welcome to their secret sign: Boola Stack! Haunted Lego of the Mind! Boola Stack!) but the music would be slick and vivid and solidly crafted because that's always how Mike rolls. Thus you get something quite absurd being taken very seriously which is, to my mind, the best thing you can possibly have.

extract from the sleeve notes:

BONE MARAUDER tells of a pure love, painful engorgement and hog sorcery.

JUJUGRID (GO LIVE!) wrangles with hedonic guilt, ecclesiastical turpitude and leaves everything else the fuck alone.

BOOLA STACK! - There are so many things to say of Boola Stack that to ennumerate them insults us both.

NO FOOL BOLETUS... let's just be clear about this: you got nothing to hide, there's no need to worry. Be lucky.

Michaele don Turino and Bleary Android are the naked mortals chained to the husky obelisk of ANAXATON6

Anaxaton6 has some videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anaxaton6

Mike Tournier

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redtutel · 6 years

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Thoughts on Anime I watched Winter 2018

A while back I made this post, so I decided to follow up on it with my thoughts since then

Black Clover: One of my favorite Youtubers, the Blockbuster Buster, once said this about why he loves horror/action comedies but doesn’t like Supernatural: “Once you’ve had steak, Burgers don’t taste as good.” And I’m starting to get that feeling with Black Clover with the more anime I watch. I still enjoy it, but it’s really paling in comparison to Fairy Tail in term of story, worldbuilding, characters and heart. I’ve watched too much of this show to drop it, though. I still love mages, after all.

Darling in the Franxx: I liked this show at first (even if the VERY non-subtle sexual metaphors made me uncomfortable), but it’s getting really, really good. The episode with Zorome in the adult city reminded me of Brave New World, and what can I say about Beast and the Prince that hasn’t already been said. I’ve realized I’m a sucker for action romances, so I love the relationship between Hiro and Zero Two. I don’t usually like romance drama, but i actually am invested in who will end up with who in this show (It must be Hiro/Zero Two, Goro/Ichigo and Zorome/Miku at least). It makes me want to get around to watching more Mech anime. I am excited for what will happen next.

Junji Ito Collection: The animation was terrible, but the stories and imagery really drew me in. It kind of reminded me of the Twilight Zone. Apparently this author did an adaptation of Frankenstein, and I want to read that.

Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san: This show was adorable. I loved the relationship between Takagi and Nishikata. It’s a great portrayal of young love. I’ve seen some screenshots of the manga that wasn’t in the anime, so I hope there’s season 2

The Ancient Magus’s Bride: This show was absolutely beautiful. A Beauty and the Beast style story with a ton of European folklore. Chise is one of my favorite female anime character, and Elias is very fascinating and lovable, if a bit morally problematic. Kind of like Zero Two, now that I think about it. The music and animation was consistently amazing as well

How to Keep a Mummy: Another adorable show. The little monsters were so cute, and I loved their relationships with the human cast. It is the most pure anime ever.

Pokemon Sun and Moon: I’m watching the dub since I can officially watch it now that I have cable, and it uses the names of locations, characters and most importantly Pokemon I’m more used to. Anyway, the animation is great and really helps the comedy. It’s very different from the other seasons, in a good way. It’s not very accurate to the game’s story, but it still keeps the heart of Sun and Moon. I was a bit mixed on Lusamine at first, but I find it interesting how her personality is probably what she was like before being exposed to Nihliego’s neurotoxins. She does start acting like her game counterpart when she come in contact with the Ultra Beast. Lillie is still one of the greatest characters in the franchise.

Pop Team Epic: This absurd show made me feel happy whenever I watched it. Anything could happen, and it was always a joy to watch, even if I saw every segmen 4 times with 8 different voice actors (I watch both sub and dub). I hope we get season 2

Completed Marathons:

Fullmetal Alchemist 2003: Completed. It was utterly fantastic. The worldbuilding and storytelling was excellent. The characters were amazing, and I loved the bond the Elric Brothers had. I want to watch Brotherhood as soon as possible. It’s a classic for a reason, and I”m glad to have finally seen it

Sword Art Online: My sister and cousin love this show, and I agree. It’s an emotional rollercoaster. I got really swept up by Kirito and Asuna’s romance, and I loved how it showed people’s digital lives can be just as meaningful as their physical lives. The Aincrad arc was amazing. Fairy Dance was VERY uncomfortable, and I understand why people can never forgive the show afterwards. But I love everything else so much, so I still love this show. Gun Gale had some fantastic moments, and Sinon is my favorite character in the show. I can see why the setting was used in a Spin-off. Excalibur was fun but lasted a bit too long. And Mother’s Rosario was so beautiful and emotional, with some fantastic character development for Asuna and my current pick for saddest anime moment of all time. I love this show, and I don’t care what people say.

I admittedly haven’t finished any other marathons.

#anime #black clover #darling in the franxx #junji ito collection #karakai jouzu no takagi-san #the ancient magus bride #how to keep a mummy #pokemon #pokeani #pop team epic #fullmetal alchemist #sword art online

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penhive · 3 years

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Sayings of Beatnik Rabbi

I carry the cross of life with hopeful resurrection of fame, fortune and money.

Riches, fame and money are undeniably good things to experience in life.

To swim in the shark infested waters of life is not an easy thing.

I can forgive but I cannot forget.

Be like the slow tortoise who won the race in the end.

Kindness is an experience of life.

I live in the sea, amidst affirmation and negation.

Patience is the waiting period for great and grand things to happen.

Put away envy and hate, for they are venoms of the soul.

Every child is a philosopher of innocence.

I am of worth to God, more than the sparrows of the air, more than the lilies of the field.

Celebrate life with the meaning of hope.

Though life is mortal, there are great things to accomplish in life.

Charisma is the individuality you carry in the soul.

Optimism needs a positive belief for good things to happen.

When a culture is decadent, irony and satire set in.

Pessimism is the harbinger of downfall and ruin.

Just like the moon which reflects the light of the sun, you are a reflection of your soul.

Patience is a virtue that needs to be passionately cultivated.

The inner time is the lived moments of the soul.

Mind has the ability to negate what is displeasing to it.

As you wake up each day, fill yourself with gratitude.

Life’s great moments are about to happen, so celebrate in happiness.

Wisdom is wings of the soul in understanding.

Break the absurd in life by making creative choices.

Take your desires to the highest mountain of hope and the lowest sea of want.

Passion is as beautiful as a butterfly.

When life stings you, be patient and forgiving.

You are you and that is all that matters.

It’s evening and mystics are floating in the sky.

Endurance is the stamina of intuition.

Having self-worth is the best thing to have.

Don’t be discouraged when life treats you unfairly.

Learn life from the school of hard-knocks.

The gut feeling inside you is the voice of instinct and hope.

Don’t bother about things that cannot be changed in your life.

Feeling can be measured as the depth of the soul.

Don’t betray your conscience.

Making a balance between the signifiers and the signified is a mastery of the soul.

Sanity you are wound in the soul.

Let the art of nature be your life teacher.

Can one grasp the infinite God with the residence of finitude?

I want to forget my past, overcome the present and anticipate good things in the future.

Love is infinite as the sand on a beach.

Negate your worries in the sea of optimism.

Experience is the Guru of life.

Treating oriental cultures as the exotic is a mistake made by the Occident.

The future of experience is to create new lessons in life.

Being is a catharsis of the aesthetic.

Music is the highest form of art.

Don’t let worry and anxiety tear your soul.

Nihilism is the struggle of the being to come into existence.

Rapture is the poetry of the bodies in copulation.

Ecstasy you are the heart of altered states of consciousness.

Prayer is the altar of God’s listening ear.

If you want to achieve great things, you must leave your comfort zone.

Mammon is money coming into existence.

Experience builds personality and it is the truth of individuality.

Don’t hide your true-self behind a mask.

Be sensitive to other people’s feelings.

The soul does not rust with age, it grows all the more beautiful.

I want to navigate around the cape of Good-Hope and Luck.

I have planted the seeds of fortune and money in my heart.

How, I wish that good things in life will happen to me.

The Ego is the heart of want and desire.

Despair I break your chains to freedom.

Existentialism is the celebration of life in the absurd, and we as participants behave as clowns and idiots.

Oh, how I long for a windfall bounty.

Patience, when I come near you, don’t go far.

If you give love: you get love.

The past is known, the present is experienced and the future anticipated.

Every night of life has a new dawn beginning as a ray of hope.

Twilight colors dance in the sky as musicians performing an orchestra.

Who doesn’t desire and deserve fame, wealth and fortune?

Even though I don’t have money, I respect it and treat it with courtesy.

Don’t pay heed to anyone who infringes your consciousness.

Structuralism found meaning as ideas and things, and postmodernism questioned meaning as residing in privileges and marginalization.

There is the bit of the Quixotic in every soul.

When it comes to writing I am mad.

Throw all worries into shreds.

The song of freedom echoes in my heart.

Words are things brought forth.

The beginning of thought lies in the creation of meaning.

It’s puzzling that 26 letters of the alphabet can create worlds of infinite meaning.

Let you heart affirm possibilities.

Being can be a tool for self-analysis.

#Sayings #Maxims #Aphorisms #apophthegm #art #aesthetics #literature #philosophy

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ame-this · 3 years

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So I tend to make a lot of playlists. As you know, Spotify makes a playlist of the songs I listened to the most, but I felt the need to make a narrow list for each month I experienced during this year. Analysis as followed:

1. January - Lights Up, Harry Styles - I was hopeful. I had big shiny plans, as we all did. I felt good about things mostly.

2. February - Almost (Sweet Music), Hozier - We worked in the yard, dug a pretty pond, installed a waterfall. Things were beginning to take shape. The early spring was gentle and sweetly scented.

3. March - hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have, Lana Del Rey - A moment of devastation. All hope was lost for a moment. Fear and despair took over. Hope was dangerous.

4. April - God, Tori Amos - This was the month of rage and frustration. I listened to a lot of Tori Amos. I cursed God and his minions who allowed this to happen. Those who clung in bad faith to heresy. Those who refused reason and abandoned logic.

5. May - Stupid Love, Lady Gaga - After all the pain and rage, I had little left but Love to cling to. I partied with myself in my own living room. I danced all alone.

6. June - Husavik, Eurovision Song Contest - When everything has just gone all wrong, what can you do but surrender to the absurdity of it all? This year I made time to let go and just enjoy the little things. Not taking life too seriously.

7. July - the last great american dynasty, Taylor Swift - After 4 stages of grief, the last is acceptance. This was the new normal, we had to get through it. Maybe things would be better soon, but it wasn’t looking good. The world was ending. Might as well have a marvelous time.

8. August - Walking on Broken Glass, Annie Lennox - Summer lingered and was brutal. In a time where I usually frolic in the sunshine, agoraphobia and depression took root like weeds. Fighting it was hard and painful. But life goes on even if we are tired of it.

9. September - Grigio Girls, Lady Gaga - A good glass of pale, cold wine and 4 hours in a Discord server are sometimes all you need. We rose a glass to friends near and far.

10. October - Come Undone, Duran Duran - Fall finally made it. Of all the spooky seasons, this one was by far the most ghostly. I felt lucky to be alive. I turned 28 in a year that made no sense what so ever. I felt like I lived in the Twilight Zone. What should have been my favorite month, felt like a whole month of pretending it was all going to be alright.

11. November - Not Ready to Make Nice, The Chicks - We watched with bated breath for days. A moment of anticipation, followed by elation. Then the sadness just came back. But that grief gave way to rage, and at least i felt something more than indifferent. The whole month was steel grey and cold, and I kind of liked it.

12. December - Willow, Taylor Swift - I would be trite in saying, “Nothing ever goes according to plan.” But it’s the damn truth. Terrible things. Good things. This was the year of things happening. All my plans got wrecked. I accomplished nothing but staying alive. But under the shooting stars and converging planets, me and my co-conspirator made new plans. I still don’t understand what all this year was about, but it was not a wasted year.

13. Epilogue - Once in a Lifetime, Talking Heads - This has just been a weird year. Some people will try to say that this year created a reset button for everyone. That we are allowed a fresh start after this is all over. Well, this is still not over. And most of us find ourselves exactly where we were, or worse. The class divide is wider than before. This once in a lifetime year will put off reverberations for a few lifetimes; however, all of this is the same as it ever was.

#2020 #new year #Spotify #tw death #tw covid #tw anxiety #tw depression

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crowdvscritic · 4 years

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round up // JULY 20

New music is saving 2020! This is one of my most music-and-musical-heavy Round Ups yet, not even counting the Beverly Hills Cop theme I’ve been whistling and dancing to around my apartment this week. (Don’t judge—you’ll do it to if you watch any of those movies.) And speaking of movies, I’ve got three new movies from 2020 to recommend! When theatres reopen I might go every week even if there’s nothing I’m excited to see, but I’m thankful for VOD movies to tide me over in the meantime.

July Crowd-Pleasers

This Twitter Thread

I’ve laughed out loud so many times I don’t care if this thread is made up. An anonymous Frenchman is documenting the “adventures” of a British family with a vacation home next door and no clue what Brexit actually means. This journey is a sardonic roller coaster, but I appreciate this tweeter isn’t devoid of empathy.

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

An insanely satisfying legal thriller that will have you shouting at your TV. Matthew McConaughey is a hot shot lawyer who doesn’t care if his clients are guilty, but he starts to reconsider that position with his newest (Ryan Philippe). What seems like a cut-and-dry defense of a man wrongfully accused escalates into so much more. I’ll stay scant on the details so the twists can surprise you as much as they did me. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10

Summer Jams

2020 has gotten, um, a bad reputation, but I’d like to give it a shout-out for one of the best years of summer pop music in a long time. The last time I remember jamming to this many songs on the radio was 2013, the summer of “Mirrors,” “Get Lucky,” “Roar,” and “I Love It.” Thanks to Harry Styles, Lady Gaga, the Jonas Brothers, and Doja Cat, I keep flipping through radio stations looking for the next new song that will make me bop. Enjoy a round up of my favorite summer songs of 2020 so far on Spotify above.

Focus (2015)

As noted last month, I love when a heist movie can pull a fast one on me. Focus may not be a creative height of either Will Smith’s or Margot Robbie’s careers, but it’s a romantic and funny story of two con artists with just enough plot twists to keep me guessing. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10

Love Crazy (1941)

William Powell and Myrna Loy appeared in 14 movies together, and their chemistry in this zany romantic comedy shows us why. The premise starts with their married characters planning an eccentric anniversary celebration, but somehow it escalates to a legal declaration of his insanity. (Unlike My Man Godfrey, Powell is the comic instead of the straight man this time.) While how we talk about mental health has changed much in the last 80 years, this comedy is so screwball it can’t be taken seriously as commentary. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell star in a musical light on songs but huge on charm, laughs, and diamonds. In a perfect world, we would have gotten more musicals directed by Howard Hawks, but if we could only have one, this is proof we’re not living in the darkest timeline. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

Double Feature — Very Silly Spoofs: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) + The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)

I’m very late to both of the parties for Monty Python (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8.5/10) and The Naked Gun (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 8/10), so all I need to say about these absurd comedies is the hype didn’t ruin them for me.

Fast & Furious (2009)

In a strange turn of events, I finally succumbed to watching all Fast and Furious flicks. (Blame it on quarantine.) While my favorite remains the spin-off Hobbs & Shaw (maybe because it’s so unlike a normal movie in this franchise, sorry), the fourth movie is another highlight. It features one of the best character team-ups before the stunts become hilariously unrealistic and acknowledges some of the moral complexities of the plot, which is surprisingly uncharacteristic for a movie series about, um, criminals. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7/10

Double Feature — Action Crime Movies Based on True Stories in the ‘70s: Donnie Brasco (1997) + The Bank Job (2008)

In, Donnie Brasco (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8/10), Johnny Depp is an FBI agent undercover in the Mob, keeping an eye on Al Pacino. In The Bank Job (Crowd: 8.5 // Critic: 7.5/10), Jason Statham is caught up in an MI6 plot to save political face by breaking into a London bank. Both are tense, twisty, and somehow true.

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Jim Gaffigan: Cinco (2017)

While he’s best known for jokes about food, I’ll always appreciate how his self-deprecating jokes are never really just about his appearance or his many children, though he’s funny enough he could get away with that.

Covers by Switchfoot (2020)

Harry Styles! Vampire Weekend! My music tastes past and present collide in this album of bops Switchfoot covered this year.

Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)

This is really just a plug to watch all three Beverly Hills Cop movies for Eddie Murphy at his funniest, Judge Reinhold at his most underrated, and a score so catchy you’ll be dancing to it for days. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7/10

July Critic Picks

Hamilton (2020)

Who knew? Listening to the Hamilton soundtrack is not the same as watching it in the room where it happens. I reviewed the filmed production with the original cast for ZekeFilm, which was a treat since my May theatre tickets were cancelled. At least we’re not dealing with formal duels in 2020! Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 10/10

Double Feature — Journalism Films Based on True Stories in the ‘70s: All the President’s Men (1976) + Zodiac (2007)

Maybe it’s just because I have a degree in Journalism, but I appreciate a story about a good story. In All the President’s Men (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 10/10), Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman are digging into the Watergate scandal at The Washington Post even when no one else thinks there’s anything to investigate. On the opposite coast in Zodiac (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9/10), Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr. are hunting the Zodiac Killer at the San Francisco Chronicle with the help of police officer Mark Ruffalo. This double feature focuses on reporters so committed to their work it comes at personal cost, but it highlights the need for people who are that committed to the truth to make our society function.

Greyhound (2020)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a studio in possession of a good World War II script must be in want of Tom Hanks, and we can always feel the warmest gratitude for any means of uniting them. I reviewed the film Hanks wrote himself for ZekeFilm. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

Dark Waters (2019)

Mark Ruffalo plays a real-life lawyer who helped investigate DuPont and change legislation on chemicals. A different kind of legal thriller than The Lincoln Lawyer, but yet another movie confirming Mark Ruffalo is a treasure. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

These Pieces on How We Interact With Media

I’m a believer in good journalism (see above), so I appreciate when writers do some self-examination on their own craft. I’ve been on an Instagram break the last few months because it’s been contributing to an anxiety spiral re: world events. It’s easy to talk in hyperbole, to complain, and to dehumanize others on the Internet, and I know I’m guilty of all three, so kudos to these writers for speaking on them.

“The Power of Media and Misinformation in the Age of Coronavirus,” DarlingMagazine.org (April 20)

“My Big Old Rant,” SeanDietrich.com (July 10)

“Kanye West and the Media Are Once Again Playing a Dangerous Game,” Vulture.com (July 13)

Brightest Blue by Ellie Goulding (2020)

You might know Ellie for her electro-pop hits, but I’ve always preferred her ballads that let her unique vocals shine. Brightest Blue is another collection of both styles, and it’s another strong outing from one of my favorite singers.

West Side Story by Richard Barrios (2020)

The making of West Side Story is a classic collision between art and commerce. This new Turner Classic Movies book details the many conflicts between the creative team, cast, and financiers to make one of the most beloved musicals and most Oscar-winning films in history, and you might be surprised it made it to the screen at all after reading it.

The Vast of Night (2020)

The Twilight Zone-esque movie is all about some weird happenings over the airwaves in a small town. Two high school students, one a nighttime radio host and the other a phone operator, team up to investigate a mysterious noise they’re hearing. The filmmaking is unconventional but gripping, and the story has major Stranger Things vibes, which is only helped by the fact that one of the stars looks a lot like Sadie Sink. (FYI, her name is actually Sierra McCormick.) Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

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folklore by Taylor Swift (2020)

It’s tricky to put into words what new music from Taylor Swift means to me because her words have been part of my life for over a decade and I admire what she shares of her creative process so much. Her unexpected eighth album is nothing like Lover—instead it’s a sonic and poetic continuation of songs and themes from Fearless and RED, her two most sock-me-in-the-gut-and-how-did-you-get-a-hold-of-my-journal collections. Just 11 months ago she released an album I said was her best yet, but I’m saying it again and even faster than last time.

Bonus: Enjoy this piece about the inspiration for her song “Last Great American Dynasty” from St. Louis Magazine.

Westworld (1973)

Before Jurassic Park, Michael Chrichton wrote and directed another sci-fi adventure set at a theme park with a Hunger Games flair. Here we go to a Western-themed resort where almost-human robots serve patrons’ every whim—that is, until they start rewriting their programming. At least we aren’t dealing with homicidal robot cowboys in 2020! Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9/10

Also in July…

I wrote a tribute to Olivia de Havilland after her passing at 104. She’s best known as Melanie in Gone With the Wind, but I’ll argue that’s not the best showcase of her talent.

The Best Picture Project continues with Clark Gable! He starred in 1934’s It Happened One Night and 1935’s Mutiny on the Bounty, but I’m only recommending one of them for your viewing pleasure. You can scroll a little further back or read the reviews here:

It Happened One Night – Crowd // Critic

Mutiny on the Bounty – Crowd // Critic

On SO IT’S A SHOW?, our pop culture references spanned 250 years with 1976’s Rocky and the 1726 novel Gulliver’s Travels. We found a crazy number of connections between Gilmore Girls actor Milo Ventimiglia and Sylvester Stallone, and we figured out what the hey the word “brobdingnagian” means.

You can keep up with everything I’m watching in real time on Letterboxd, where I’ve rounded up my favorite journalism films, including All the President’s Men, It Happened One Night, and Zodiac.

Images: Switchfoot, Media, Ellie Goulding, West Side Story. all others IMDb.com.

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mastcomm · 4 years

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With His Fourth Book, Charles Yu Finally Feels Like a Writer

IRVINE, Calif. — Charles Yu is very interested in stories, both the stories we tell ourselves and the stories that are told to us, so let’s start with a story about him.

Once upon a time, there was a boy born in Los Angeles to a Taiwanese mother and father. The boy spent his days watching “The Twilight Zone” reruns, playing Street Fighter II, reading “Choose Your Own Adventure” books and thinking about where he might fit in. When he grew up, he became a corporate lawyer.

The end.

Except, as with all good stories, there’s more to the story than that.

The boy also wrote fiction, but not until he was an adult. He worked as a lawyer by day and wrote late into the night. He published three books, and his fourth, the novel “Interior Chinatown,” is set to come out at the end of this month.

It’s the story of Willis Wu, a young man who’s struggling to figure out what his role is in life, literally. Wu resides in a version of Chinatown that’s both a real place and the backdrop to an ongoing police procedural TV show called “Black and White.” Its inhabitants live their lives as well as the parts assigned to them: Disgraced Son, Delivery Guy, Young Dragon Lady, Silent Henchman or the most coveted role of all, Kung Fu Guy. “Interior Chinatown” — the title puns on the screenplay convention for describing locations — recalls the humorous and heartfelt short stories of George Saunders, the metafictional high jinks of Mark Leyner and films like “The Truman Show.”

“I feel like I was an existentialist from the age of 5,” Yu, 44, said last month over dim sum near his home in Irvine. He’d suggested we meet at this restaurant in the Spectrum Center, a sprawling, pleasantly engineered outdoor mall that functions as Irvine’s de facto civic space. It’s the kind of place that, frankly, might serve as a setting for one of Yu’s stories, which are often about the uneasy feeling that something’s not quite right with the world. “Even as a kid,” he said, “I was always obsessed with these questions. Who am I? How did I get here? What am I doing in this place?”

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Charles Yu’s novel “Interior Chinatown” comes out Jan. 28.

Despite these inclinations, he never believed he would be a writer. Instead, he went to law school at Columbia. It was there, while studying for the bar, that he picked up books of fiction that blew his mind: Saunders, A.M. Homes, Donald Barthelme — writers who grappled with those same questions in bracing ways.

So Yu started writing short stories of his own. He sent them out to literary journals. “I got hundreds of rejections,” he said. “I started posting them on a wall. But one in 50 stories would get published.” The stories were examinations of anxiety and heartbreak, usually framed by a high-concept conceit, such as the travails of a sad-sack superhero named Moisture Man. An agent read one and contacted him. Together they sold his first collection, “Third Class Superhero,” which was published in 2006.

The book was well-reviewed and sold decently. Still, in Yu’s mind, he wasn’t really a writer. He was a lawyer. “Not having an M.F.A., having a day job, there was always a feeling like I came in through the back door, or at least the side door,” he said. “Even to this day, it all feels a bit D.I.Y. It’s like I don’t play an instrument, I play a shoebox guitar I made in my garage.”

This is where Yu’s story takes an improbable twist. His collection fell into the hands of the novelist Richard Powers, who championed Yu to be named one of the National Book Foundation’s Five Under 35 most promising writers in America in 2007. Yu was flabbergasted. He’d never met Powers.

The encouragement was enough to spur him to finish his first novel, “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe,” about a time-machine repairman who’s willfully stranded himself between moments in time, even as he searches for the father who disappeared from his life. That book also did well, critically and financially, so he followed up in 2012 with the short-story collection “Sorry Please Thank You,” which was not quite as successful, either critically or financially. He still owed his publisher another book but Yu recalls feeling self-doubt once again, thinking, O.K., that was fun, but maybe this is it.

Then he got a call from HBO.

Here, the story goes from slightly improbable to downright implausible. Yu had had enough interest from TV executives in his earlier books that he’d done a “water bottle tour” — meeting with studios to talk vaguely about potential projects — but he had never considered himself a TV writer. One executive he’d met, though, disagreed. David Levine, who at the time was the co-head of drama at HBO (he’s since left to join Anonymous Content), orchestrated a meeting between Yu and Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, the showrunners developing “Westworld.” “He was so self-deprecating,” Levine recalled. “He told me, I have this other life, I’m never really going to be a writer, this was always a side career. Writing was still a middle-of-the-night business for him. I just said, Why don’t you do it full-time?”

Yu quit his job as a lawyer and started writing for “Westworld.” From there he went from one TV job to the next, eventually landing at “Lodge 49,” the sweet and surreal drama on AMC created by the fellow novelist Jim Gavin. “Here was this incredibly smart guy who could really be doing anything he wanted,” Gavin said. “What I could sense in his fiction is this strain of comic humanism that underlies the larger conceptual frameworks — that notion that his characters exist in an absurd universe.”

TV writing kept Yu so busy, in fact, that it became another day job. He had two children by then, his novel had stalled, and he was feeling overwhelmed. In 2017, he told his wife he��d decided to abandon the novel and quit writing fiction. She heard him out, then encouraged him to get back to work. After many delays and false starts, he finished “Interior Chinatown,” a book focused, not coincidentally, on the mythmaking machinery of Hollywood. “I was walking one day and the first line came to me: ‘Ever since you were a boy, you’ve dreamt of being Kung Fu Guy,’” he said. “As a kid, in pop culture, there was really only one truly cool Asian-American stereotype, which is, ‘You might know kung fu!’ There was Bruce Lee. There was Jackie Chan. That’s it.”

Yu started thinking about the immigrant experience of his parents, the experience of his children, his own experiences, and who gets to be the star of his or her own story, rather than a supporting character in someone else’s. “The elevator pitch for the book became, ‘You know that “Law & Order” episode we’ve all seen that’s set in Chinatown?’” Yu said. “I want to know about the life of that guy in the background — the one who’s unloading the van and who got one line.”

It’s been nearly 15 years since the National Book Foundation anointed Yu as one of the best young writers in America, yet for the first time, he’s starting to believe he’s a writer. Maybe he’s not an impostor after all. “If anything, it’s feeling confident that if I say the thing I’m trying to say in the way that I know how to say it, that will be interesting to at least some people,” Yu said. “It’s nice when you feel like you kind of know what you’re doing, a little bit.”

After dim sum, we head out to stroll the manicured laneways of the Spectrum Center. We joke that the mall, with its cheerful storefronts and town square built around a Ferris wheel, feels like the Matrix, or “The Good Place” from TV — an artfully rendered simulacrum of happiness. But maybe it’s O.K. to find your Good Place.

“You know what else is a simulacrum?” Yu said. “A dream! And this” — he looks around — “feels like a dream.”

Follow New York Times Books on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, sign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar. And listen to us on the Book Review podcast.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/entertainment/with-his-fourth-book-charles-yu-finally-feels-like-a-writer/

#Entertainment

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elizas-writing · 7 years

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TV Reviews: Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (Season 1)

Look away, look away, look away... God I love that opening.

Based on the children’s book series of the same name, the Baudelaire children become orphans after losing their parents and home in a fire. As they’re passed on from guardian to guardian, they find clues about their parents and their secret lives and what fate may even be in store for them. Yet just as the next big secret may be revealed, their first guardian, the horrid Count Olaf, swoops in to try to take them away for their fortune, and the Baudelaires have to do everything to stay together and away from the Count.

I definitely recommend that if you haven’t touched the books in a while to at least look up Wikipedia summaries to refresh your memory, especially with how much foreshadowing is included in the show. Even the most minor details can severely alter your viewing, and it’ll make your tiny little minds explode.

Just, goddamn, my whole fifth grade flashed before my eyes, I forgot how brilliant this series was, and it’s perfectly captured on TV. Each book is split into two episodes which are an hour long each, providing more than enough time to stay faithful to the source material and include more from Snicket’s other works. Sometimes it can be a bit slow-paced, but it makes up for it with the comedy and moments to relax in between the intensity. Now there are more secrets to be revealed in an already so mysterious show, so it always keeps you on your toes.

Watching the show felt like a Wes Anderson movie or Pushing Daisies with its stylistic blend of darkness and color. It’s not a light-hearted series with the schemes, wickedness and murder, but there’s so much color to it like some kind of fantasy-esque world. And it really takes fun in the anachronisms and child-like absurdity.

Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf is just perfect in his over-the-top theatricality. He’s melodramatic, diabolical, narcissistic, and loves every minute of it. His disguises are outrageously bad, but it adds to the absurdity and the themes of how children know better than the adults who supposedly care about their welfare. Pretty much most of the adults, even those with good intentions to protect the Baudelaires, are kinda naive when danger is staring them down in the face. But some like Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine are still likable enough that you want to see them with the Baudelaires even when you know they are doomed otherwise. I honestly forgot how frustrating this series could get from time to time with how incompetent the adults were, and no matter how many times history repeated itself, the children were left ignored.

The Baudelaires are great at acting off each other, even Sunny who only speaks baby gibberish (even though she has moments where she is CGI’d where yeah, it looks pretty damn awkward). You can tell that they really love and care about each other and are willing to learn from their individual quirks. And is it me or is it strange that for Violet they got an actress who looks so eerily similar to Emily Browning from the movie adaptation years ago?

But what ties the whole show together is Lemony Snicket himself, portrayed by Patrick Warburton. Unlike the books (hell, unlike the movie) where Snicket’s face is usually hidden or in shadow, you see all of him as he is the narrator a la The Twilight Zone. I wasn’t sure how to feel about Patrick Warburton since Snicket is such a serious character and Warburton is usually cast in comedic roles, but he does surprisingly well. After a while, his voice is very nice to listen to, and he takes it very seriously as Snicket would. Some may argue that expanding his role loses the mystery behind him, but honestly, I think it adds more as I kinda forgot that Snicket is his own character in this world with a backstory and everything. Why is he on the run? Why is he hiding? Why HIM to follow the Baudelaires instead of anyone else? If anything, it might be building up to a major event as the show progresses.

And yes, this show is far better than the movie. More faithful to the books (not just the scenes and dialogue but also the absurd tone), more character development, and more time to digest the environments the children find themselves in. The movie might have its merits here and there, but it can’t top the phenomenal acting and storytelling brought by series.

Great freaking show. Highly recommend even if you never read the books. Or should I say look away..?

#a series of unfortunate events #netflix #tv #tv reviews #tv show #neil patrick harris #review #reviews #tv review #my writing

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makaelanoelle · 4 years

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Blog Entry #1:

I think I was born an artist. Although, to say “I think” feels like an understatement. I know for sure that I was born to make art. To create. To make. I didn’t know for sure when I was a young child, but the urge to create has always been there. As a child, fulfilling that urge to be spontaneous and create things seemed easier. There were no second thoughts. I didn’t have to plan out a project, I didn’t have to make a supply list, I didn’t have to consult with another artist to see if my idea was too insane or just insane enough. The need to make art was met within moments of having an idea. As I got older, being an artist became more about how to use art to make a living, not about fulfilling that growing urge inside me. I was fortunate enough to be raised in a house where following your own path was encouraged, my parents never made me feel like it wasn’t worth my time. In fact, my earliest memories of my family are times where my dad always had a camera in his hand, documenting his life and recording everything we did. That’s where it all started for me. I was fascinated by how much joy it brought him to film everything. I could rewatch my childhood in an hour & fifteen minutes and retrieve memories that I no longer had in my head, from a scratch disk in his basement.

While I enjoyed the real life examples of artists in my life, nothing could compare to the inspiration I got from watching my favorite stories on screen. See, as a kid, I was pretty much obsessed with The Twilight Zone. So much so, that for a 7th grade writing assignment, I created a script for my own episode of The Twilight Zone. The stories they told were absurd, fantastical, and eerie. Yet, no matter how insane the episode was, they always found a way to connect it to the real world, in this dimension. Those are the stories I want to tell through my work, but haven’t yet found the right way to do so.

As an artist, i’m in a constant struggle between what I want to be, and what I think I should be. I feel this invisible pressure to label who I am and what I want to do for the rest of my life. After I finish editing a photo from a commissioned shoot, I find myself labeling my profession as “a photographer.” On the other end, when I finish editing a photo that came from me, one that I planned for hours obsessing over every detail— I call myself a “fine artist.” I haven’t figured out why there’s a difference.

I’ve always believed that I was meant to share my art with the world. I wanted to make people LOOK at me because I was so reclusive as a child. Then, after coming out as queer, I began stifling myself by not expressing that queerness to the fullest extend in my art. Having a father that is not fully supportive of me being queer, I feel the need to leave room for his approval in my work. “You can subtly make it gay, but not too much or else you can’t show anyone in the family.” It’s a constant struggle I face, and it shows in my work.

This kind of thinking often leads me to the inevitable question: what’s the point? Why am I doing this? Why do I spend so much time (and money) on projects that don’t fully express what I believe in or who I am? I wish I had a definite answer. Is it better for me to make art that I enjoy, but isn’t 100% me, or make nothing at all?

I often think about what my purpose is as an artist.

I believe that artists were put on this earth to make it beautiful, to make it better. I believe artists have the power to enact real change in the world because we force people to question what they know and view their environments differently. I so desperately want to believe that my purpose as an artist is to create beautiful images that challenge the norm and makes people think critically about their surroundings. I am inspired by artists who tap into the hearts of their viewers and make big statements in so little words. I am also inspired by images that are just compositionally so beautiful that it makes you pause and remember how precious life can be, and because of quarantine, I have been forced to consume art at an even higher rate than normal. It’s all I do, from the moment I wake up to the moment I close my eyes. This overload can sometimes feel overwhelming, as I feel like I haven’t done enough to make art while surviving a pandemic. It sometimes makes me feel like I am not a real artist, but whenever I pick up my pencil and write down a new photo idea, or sketch out a a design on procreate, I remember that an artist who isn’t constantly creating, but is constantly imagining, is just as valid as the first.

In our current political climate, the role of the artist is the role of the revolutionary. Being an artist is an act of defiance. Being a creative individual under an oppressive, capitalist government is a protest in and of itself. In 2020, a public protest is the new gallery exhibition. Signs, music, video, photography— all have become tools for activism and demanding change. I find myself wondering every day if my artwork is doing enough to drive change. There are days where I switch from doing photography & collage work, to graphic design and digital art as a way to experiment with my political voice. I’ll often question my motives for making certain pieces and wonder if I am creating protest art out of obligation as an artist, or as a normal human person with a deep sense of empathy. I’m starting to believe they are not separate concepts. Being a compassionate person makes me a better artist and vice versa.

#blog entry #senior studio

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thebewisepodcast · 6 years

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Physical Money Is On The Way Out:

As physical currency around the world is increasingly phased out, the era where "cash is king" seems to be coming to an end.

Countries like India and South Korea have chosen to limit access to physical money by law, and others are beginning to test digital blockchains for their central banks.

The war on cash isn't going to be waged overnight, and showdowns will continue in any country where citizens turn to alternatives like precious metals or decentralized crypto-currencies.

Although this transition may feel like a natural progression into the digital age, the real motivation to go cashless is downright sinister.

The unprecedented collusion between governments and central banks that occurred in 2008 led to bailouts, zero percent interest rates and quantitative easing on a scale never before seen in history.

Those decisions, which were made under duress and in closed-door meetings, set the stage for this inevitable demise of paper money.

Sacrificing the stability of national currencies has been used as a way prop up failing private institutions around the globe. By kicking the can down the road yet another time, bureaucrats and bankers sealed the fate of the financial system as we know it.

A currency war has been declared, ensuring that the,

U.S. dollar

Euro

Yen,

...and many other state currencies are linked in a suicide pact.

Printing money and endlessly expanding debt are policies that will erode the underlying value of every dollar in people's wallets, as well as digital funds in their bank accounts.

This new war operates in the shadows of the public's ignorance, slowly undermining social and economic stability through inflation and other consequences of central control. As the Federal Reserve leads the rest of the world's central banks down the rabbit hole, the vortex it's creating will affect everyone in the globalized economy.

Peter Schiff, president of Euro-Pacific Capital, has written several books on the state of the financial system.

His focus is on the long-term consequences of years of government and central bank manipulation of fiat currencies:

"Never in the course of history has a country's economy failed because its currency was too strong…

The view that a weak currency is desirable is so absurd that it could only have been devised to serve the political agenda of those engineering the descent.

And while I don't blame policy makers from spinning self-serving fairy tales (that is their nature), I find extreme fault with those hypnotized members of the media and the financial establishment who have checked their reason at the door.

A currency war is different from any other kind of conventional war in that the object is to kill oneself.

The nation that succeeds in inflicting the most damage on its own citizens wins the war."

If you want a glimpse 0f how this story ends, all you have to do is look at Venezuela, where the government has destroyed the value of the Bolivar (and U.S. intervention has further exacerbated the problem).

Desperation has overcome the country, leading women to go as far as selling their own hair just to get by. While crime and murder rates have spiked to all-time highs, the most dangerous threat to Venezuelans has been extensive government planning.

The money they work for and save is now so valueless it's weighed instead of counted. The stacks of bills have to be carried around in backpacks, and the scene is reminiscent of the hyperinflation Weimar Germany experienced in the 1920s.

Few Western nations have ever experienced a currency crisis before, meaning many are blind to the inevitable consequences that come from the unending stimulus we've seen since 2008.

In order to keep this kind of chaos from spreading like a contagion to the rest of the world, representatives are willing to do anything necessary, but this comes at a cost.

Instead of having to worry about carrying around wheelbarrows full of money, the fear in a cashless society will likely stem from bank customers' restricted access to funds. With no physical way for consumers to take possession of their wealth, the banking interests will decide how much is available.

The level of trust most people still have in the current system is astonishing. Even after decades of incompetence, manipulation, and irresponsibility, the public still grasps to government and the established order like a child learning how to swim.

The responsibility that comes with independence has intimidated the entire population into leaving the decisions up to so-called ‘experts.' It just so happens that those trusted policymakers have an agenda to strip you and future generations of prosperity.

Some of the few hopes in this war against centralization are peer-to-peer technologies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. These innovative platforms have the potential to open up markets that circumvent state-controlled Ponzi schemes.

The future development of crypto-assets has massive potential, but being co-opted is a real danger.

The greatest threat to individual freedom is financial dependence, and as long as your wealth is under someone else's control, it can never be completely secure. Unfortunately, private blockchains are becoming increasingly popular, creating trojan horses for those just learning about the technology (in contrast, Bitcoin's transaction ledger is public).

Without the decentralized aspect of a financial network, it is just a giant tracking database that can be easily compromised like any other. The World Economic Forum released a report on the future of financial infrastructure (The Future of Financial Infrastructure - An Ambitious Look at how Blockchain can Reshape Financial Services).

Giancarlo Bruno, Head of Financial Services Industries at WEF stated:

"Rather than to stay at the margins of the finance industry, blockchain will become the beating heart of it.

It will help build innovative solutions across the industry, becoming ever more integrated into the structure of financial services, as mainframes, messaging services, and electronic trading did before it."

The list of countries who are exploring integrating blockchain technology into their central banking system is extensive.

Just to name a few:

Singapore

Ukraine

France

Finland,

...and many others are in the process of researching and testing out options.

For those who appreciate more tangible wealth, diversifying into hard assets like gold and silver is a great first step. It's not about becoming a millionaire or getting rich quickly, but rather, using precious metals as vehicles for investment in the long-term.

Regardless of what events unfold over the decades to come, the wealth preserved in physical form is more secure than any other asset. Forty years ago it was possible to save your money in the bank and accumulate interest over time, but that opportunity no longer exists.

Those who fail to adapt to this new financial twilight zone will likely find themselves living as slaves to debt for years.

Control and confidence are two of the most important things in the system we live in. Once these digital spider webs have been put into place, the ability for an individual to maintain privacy or anonymity will all but disappear.

Only through understanding the subversive actions being taken can people protect themselves from having to put their future in someone else's hands. The cash that allows free transactions without tax burdens or state scrutiny won't be around much longer.

There will be many rationalizations for a cashless society in the years to come, but without fixing this broken financial system first, this will only ensure that despotism gains an even sturdier foothold.

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