All right, I'm glad that I was given the prompt to post up my FDREL 275 paper, The Divine Origins (and Inspired Purposes) of the Book of Mormon, because honestly I had no idea on what to post about today and I didn't want to spent that much time on it when I've got other work to be doing. I'm actually posting it up as a page here, with this post reserved for a few words of explanation:
This is called a Teachings of the General Authorities paper-- the assignment was to write a short (two page) paper based on the topic we'd be discussing in class, and to go up in front of the class to share a few insights learned from writing that paper. At least three cited quotes from General Authorities regarding the doctrinal topic, and insights gained from those quotes, and a personal application or experience with the doctrine.
The paper and presentation together are worth 200 points, which is twice the number of points each "putting it all together" assignment is worth (you know, Putting It All Together... the reason I posted about the assignment in the first place?)
I got a 197 on it. I think those three points were docked due to minor capitalization errors, which I've corrected in the page I link to here. Enjoy:
http://dielikeadisneyvillain.blogspot.com/p/ive-chosen-to-do-my-paper-on-divine.html
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Film Reviews: The Good Dinosaur and Citizen Kane
I caught The Good Dinosaur at the cinema this evening. I lost track of how many times I cried. An even number, I think. Either that or odd. Maybe even prime. More than two, which rules out both even and prime. I'm really not sure.
But I don't want to review The Good Dinosaur here. I want to review Citizen Kane.
AAAAHHHHH THAT COCKATOO ITS EYES WILL FOREVER BE STARING INTO MY SOUL.
...
Alright, I'm back. Quite shaken, but I'm back. That's it, that's my entire review. I should've put up, a trigger warning, or something, in case any of you actually did see that movie and got flashbacks just now. It's easier to apologize than ask permission, so may I just say then: I'm so sorry.
Good Dinosaur now?
Alright, so, two things my mind kept switching between watching the film: oh my goodness these environments are gorgeous, and, I'm not gonna cry I'm not gonna cry imnotgonnacry. One of those was a lie, one of those was the truth.
Remember Wall-E, the really rich environments and the slower, near wordless pace of the first act? It was beautiful to behold... while you were actually beholding it. I never really thought that atmosphere could really do anything beyond add atmosphere, but the environment in Good Dinosaur blew my mind, and... who knows, maybe my opinion will revert back to the original once I've gotten more distance from it. My goodness, though.
One of the things I noticed about the opening trailers: every movie advertised was about anthropomorphic/talking animals (some of them actually look good.) And the feature film itself was all about that, dinos what can speak person tongue. Strange? Also, apparently, people still laugh at the Zootopia sloth trailer, almost as though they haven't already watched it five dozen times and are maybe actually seeing it for the first time. Stranger.
But, hey, speaking of the sloth trailer, have it again!
Now imagine following that up with the trailers for Secret Life of Pets, and Finding Dory, and the Road Chip; and follow that up with the feature presentation (featuring (not-so-)surprise guest star Sanjay's Super Team!), and anyway now you know what I went through.
But I don't want to review The Good Dinosaur here. I want to review Citizen Kane.
AAAAHHHHH THAT COCKATOO ITS EYES WILL FOREVER BE STARING INTO MY SOUL.
...
Alright, I'm back. Quite shaken, but I'm back. That's it, that's my entire review. I should've put up, a trigger warning, or something, in case any of you actually did see that movie and got flashbacks just now. It's easier to apologize than ask permission, so may I just say then: I'm so sorry.
Good Dinosaur now?
Alright, so, two things my mind kept switching between watching the film: oh my goodness these environments are gorgeous, and, I'm not gonna cry I'm not gonna cry imnotgonnacry. One of those was a lie, one of those was the truth.
Remember Wall-E, the really rich environments and the slower, near wordless pace of the first act? It was beautiful to behold... while you were actually beholding it. I never really thought that atmosphere could really do anything beyond add atmosphere, but the environment in Good Dinosaur blew my mind, and... who knows, maybe my opinion will revert back to the original once I've gotten more distance from it. My goodness, though.
One of the things I noticed about the opening trailers: every movie advertised was about anthropomorphic/talking animals (some of them actually look good.) And the feature film itself was all about that, dinos what can speak person tongue. Strange? Also, apparently, people still laugh at the Zootopia sloth trailer, almost as though they haven't already watched it five dozen times and are maybe actually seeing it for the first time. Stranger.
But, hey, speaking of the sloth trailer, have it again!
Now imagine following that up with the trailers for Secret Life of Pets, and Finding Dory, and the Road Chip; and follow that up with the feature presentation (featuring (not-so-)surprise guest star Sanjay's Super Team!), and anyway now you know what I went through.
Friday, January 29, 2016
The Necessity of the Historicity of the Book of Mormon (Plus (a Smidgen of) Zootopia Watch)
I feel kind of restless not doing homework right now, even though I don't have anything do till Monday-- the downside of learning executive functioning, I guess. I've got it under control and know exactly what needs to be done, and am going to bed instead of doing that anyway, but-- I actually have a way to kill two birds with one stone, because one of the assignments due on Monday is for my Book of Mormon class.
Remember how I signed up for a Book of Mormon paper due on Monday on my first day of classes? And got a decent grade on it, by which I mean 98-99% which yeah is really good. The class has a "putting it all together" assignment once every few weeks, with the first assignment due on Monday. The subject of the assignment is on one of the lessons we've reviewed in the time period leading up to the due date. The form of the assignment is elective; it can be, for example, a talk or an essay, a discussion with a friend or an FHE lesson, a PowerPoint or a podcast... or a blog entry.
And I saw that and was all, yesssss.
I was reading the Book of Mormon in the temple today, going over the title page: "wherefore, it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi..." except, of course, I realized, that's not 100% accurate, because only the Mosiah-4th Nephi stuff is an "abridgement" of those records. 1st Nephi-Omni isn't an abridgement at all; the actual abridgement of those parts is lost, but we've got a separate unabridged record appended on! So, you're wrong, Moroni! Not that Mormon knew why he was appending the original small plates of Nephi onto the abridgement of the large ones...
One of the things I noticed while studying the origins of the Book of Mormon for my class paper on the first lesson, The Divine Origin (and Inspired Purpose) of the Book of Mormon, is, actually more of a question: why does the Book of Mormon need to be historical? If Joseph Smith was a prophet, couldn't he just have received revelation of scripture, like he did in the Doctrine and Covenants? Even if the revelation tells the same story of the fallen people, why claim this backstory of a fallen civilization pressing one final record of their existence into our hands? Who would make that up?
(I go over all of this in a bit more detail in my paper, which I'm debating on whether to post the full text up of or not, most likely as a separate page. Comment below! (Also like and subscribe! That's how we YouTubers get the big bucks.))
The conclusion I reached is this: the Book of Mormon needs to stand separate as an independent record, and that ant is back on my screen okay it crawled off, I never told you this but ants, man, they've been around... record, anyway, separately observable and provable independent from Joseph Smith's claims of being a prophet. You'd believe the Book of Mormon (or whatever we'd have) true if you believed in Joseph Smith anyway, but there'd be no real reason to believe in it outside of believing in him-- if the Book of Mormon is a historical document, though, if it exists separately, then it can be true separately... but only through Joseph Smith's translation through the power of the Lord, so the end product of belief is the same, but through a wholly different independently verifiable path. If that makes any sense.
So that's what I've got for you. I'm not sure if it's cheap, doing the post on the same topic I did the paper on... I did have some novel stuff apart from that, like the Title Page observation from only this morning... I've still got three days after this in which to do a separate "putting it all together;" if you're commenting anyway you might as well also say whether to choose a topic from a different lesson also to do a post on.
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
I knew this day was coming... with today's release of The Finest Hours, Zootopia is going to be the very next movie Disney is releasing.
That is all.
Remember how I signed up for a Book of Mormon paper due on Monday on my first day of classes? And got a decent grade on it, by which I mean 98-99% which yeah is really good. The class has a "putting it all together" assignment once every few weeks, with the first assignment due on Monday. The subject of the assignment is on one of the lessons we've reviewed in the time period leading up to the due date. The form of the assignment is elective; it can be, for example, a talk or an essay, a discussion with a friend or an FHE lesson, a PowerPoint or a podcast... or a blog entry.
And I saw that and was all, yesssss.
I was reading the Book of Mormon in the temple today, going over the title page: "wherefore, it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi..." except, of course, I realized, that's not 100% accurate, because only the Mosiah-4th Nephi stuff is an "abridgement" of those records. 1st Nephi-Omni isn't an abridgement at all; the actual abridgement of those parts is lost, but we've got a separate unabridged record appended on! So, you're wrong, Moroni! Not that Mormon knew why he was appending the original small plates of Nephi onto the abridgement of the large ones...
One of the things I noticed while studying the origins of the Book of Mormon for my class paper on the first lesson, The Divine Origin (and Inspired Purpose) of the Book of Mormon, is, actually more of a question: why does the Book of Mormon need to be historical? If Joseph Smith was a prophet, couldn't he just have received revelation of scripture, like he did in the Doctrine and Covenants? Even if the revelation tells the same story of the fallen people, why claim this backstory of a fallen civilization pressing one final record of their existence into our hands? Who would make that up?
(I go over all of this in a bit more detail in my paper, which I'm debating on whether to post the full text up of or not, most likely as a separate page. Comment below! (Also like and subscribe! That's how we YouTubers get the big bucks.))
The conclusion I reached is this: the Book of Mormon needs to stand separate as an independent record, and that ant is back on my screen okay it crawled off, I never told you this but ants, man, they've been around... record, anyway, separately observable and provable independent from Joseph Smith's claims of being a prophet. You'd believe the Book of Mormon (or whatever we'd have) true if you believed in Joseph Smith anyway, but there'd be no real reason to believe in it outside of believing in him-- if the Book of Mormon is a historical document, though, if it exists separately, then it can be true separately... but only through Joseph Smith's translation through the power of the Lord, so the end product of belief is the same, but through a wholly different independently verifiable path. If that makes any sense.
So that's what I've got for you. I'm not sure if it's cheap, doing the post on the same topic I did the paper on... I did have some novel stuff apart from that, like the Title Page observation from only this morning... I've still got three days after this in which to do a separate "putting it all together;" if you're commenting anyway you might as well also say whether to choose a topic from a different lesson also to do a post on.
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
I knew this day was coming... with today's release of The Finest Hours, Zootopia is going to be the very next movie Disney is releasing.
That is all.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Clickbait Title! (Plus Zootopia Watch)
I couldn't find my bookbag this morning-- turns out that "ukulele" I saw, wasn't-- and was almost late for class. Maybe I would have been late, but Art 202 (which is Art History Renaissance-Present) was canceled this morning. I took a photo of my bookbag lying there, but it's pretty boring, so I'm not going to show it. Just know that the strap looked like a neck, so the sack looked like a ukulele bag.
Art 101 (which is, Art 101) starts not that long after Art 202 ends, in the same room, so usually I just stick around. I'd grabbed a book to read and everything, to read during the wait between classes, which is the reason I'd wanted that bookbag in the first place, is to have somewhere to put that... but I just grabbed it, in the end. And it was unneeded.
And it looks like Art 101 started early this morning, so I really was late for that? But not by that much, and that's the class without roll anyway and the professor expects you to show up because it's your tuition you're paying, so might as well use it...
So that was alright.
And then in Intro to Graphic Design this afternoon, I didn't bring my assignment we were working on basically the whole class, so I could finally read that book I'd brought... With no classes on Fridays, it's not like I needed that particular chunk of a few hours, to advance my project, especially when the same amount of time outside of class would still have been spent on reading...
Yes, today was pretty boring.
Yesterday, yesterday was not boring. I didn't tell you about it, either, so I can do that now. I gave my plasma, in the left arm again finally for the first time since the first time, for one. I bought a super long sandwich, to fuel up for blood donation, and was rescued from walking by a roommate who happened to be driving by. I didn't have to walk to Wal-Mart (or, actually, I'd been going to walk to donate my plasma first, but instead of being the first thing since class ending at 9:15 besides sandwich, that turned out to have been the last thing I did before class at 3:15 besides homework.)
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
The real reason I wanted to check Wal-Mart out is to check their book aisle for any better selection of Zootopia tie-in books than Broulim's (which, although lacking in that regard, to be fair has some rarer selections on Frozen books.) There was this Fantastic Mr Fox coloring book I saw at Winco when that movie first came out, which I've never since seen to my Patrick Henry-level regret... so whenever I see something like this I must pounce on it. But so far, my quest has been fruitless. The new Supercenter is huge... perhaps there will be some luck there?
But it turns out that the book aisle at this new Supercenter is... paltry. I'd not even call it an aisle. Scarcely a shelf. Though there were some super rad, Star Wars The Force Awakens, sticker books? There were additional activity books in the stationary aisle, the friendly employee pointed out, but no dice there either. (I did find a sketchpad there, which was useful for Comic Book Workshop that evening (I usually work looseleaf but, you know;) I bought, also, an MLP CCG booster, which contained a foil Gummy!)
ALL RIGHT, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM?
WDAS do seem to be coming out with new official clips of the film... it was a pleasant surprise this morning to discover that a new video had been released the day before, and I'd been going to post that video up here but surprise dang surprise, they released another one today. I'm not sure if the two-days-in-a-row thing is a fluke, or how long they'll keep this up, but... the movie, it's still a little more than a month away, but with this glut of everything coming out, it already feels like we've all seen the movie already.
Art 101 (which is, Art 101) starts not that long after Art 202 ends, in the same room, so usually I just stick around. I'd grabbed a book to read and everything, to read during the wait between classes, which is the reason I'd wanted that bookbag in the first place, is to have somewhere to put that... but I just grabbed it, in the end. And it was unneeded.
And it looks like Art 101 started early this morning, so I really was late for that? But not by that much, and that's the class without roll anyway and the professor expects you to show up because it's your tuition you're paying, so might as well use it...
So that was alright.
And then in Intro to Graphic Design this afternoon, I didn't bring my assignment we were working on basically the whole class, so I could finally read that book I'd brought... With no classes on Fridays, it's not like I needed that particular chunk of a few hours, to advance my project, especially when the same amount of time outside of class would still have been spent on reading...
Yes, today was pretty boring.
Yesterday, yesterday was not boring. I didn't tell you about it, either, so I can do that now. I gave my plasma, in the left arm again finally for the first time since the first time, for one. I bought a super long sandwich, to fuel up for blood donation, and was rescued from walking by a roommate who happened to be driving by. I didn't have to walk to Wal-Mart (or, actually, I'd been going to walk to donate my plasma first, but instead of being the first thing since class ending at 9:15 besides sandwich, that turned out to have been the last thing I did before class at 3:15 besides homework.)
 |
| I also stumbled across what appears to be GamePulse's original location, judging by the mural on the side. The logo's still the same. |
The new Rexburg Super Wal-Mart (or Wal-Mart Supercenter, whichever) opened yesterday, and I had to go see it on its first day. It's about twice the distance away from the (now old) Wal-Mart, and with half the sidewalks snowed over, and my lack of the exact address if it even was down the same road like I thought (which it is,) I'm glad I got that ride, anyway. They've got a shuttle bus service for free, with wifi and everything, that drives around and can drop you off there, but, I don't know. Broulim's is fine; I don't mind walking there. Plus they've got free samples of sushi.
The real reason I wanted to check Wal-Mart out is to check their book aisle for any better selection of Zootopia tie-in books than Broulim's (which, although lacking in that regard, to be fair has some rarer selections on Frozen books.) There was this Fantastic Mr Fox coloring book I saw at Winco when that movie first came out, which I've never since seen to my Patrick Henry-level regret... so whenever I see something like this I must pounce on it. But so far, my quest has been fruitless. The new Supercenter is huge... perhaps there will be some luck there?
But it turns out that the book aisle at this new Supercenter is... paltry. I'd not even call it an aisle. Scarcely a shelf. Though there were some super rad, Star Wars The Force Awakens, sticker books? There were additional activity books in the stationary aisle, the friendly employee pointed out, but no dice there either. (I did find a sketchpad there, which was useful for Comic Book Workshop that evening (I usually work looseleaf but, you know;) I bought, also, an MLP CCG booster, which contained a foil Gummy!)
ALL RIGHT, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM?
WDAS do seem to be coming out with new official clips of the film... it was a pleasant surprise this morning to discover that a new video had been released the day before, and I'd been going to post that video up here but surprise dang surprise, they released another one today. I'm not sure if the two-days-in-a-row thing is a fluke, or how long they'll keep this up, but... the movie, it's still a little more than a month away, but with this glut of everything coming out, it already feels like we've all seen the movie already.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Warhol, the Fox, and the Dream of Cages (Kandinsky Prince pt 2)
I had a dream last night, and this is not it: this is just an idea.
The idea, the dream I had, that they've made their imported plastic action figures, all of them of the Prince's rose, and they are all right now sitting neatly on their shelves in the warehouse, thousands by thousands of them, countless copies of the one rose truly beloved by the Little Prince, the shelves stretching as far as the eye can see in every direction.
That is just an idea: that is not my dream. It's what I thought about when I woke up. It's a dream in that sense, whatever sense you make of that.
The sleep previous to that one, the one during Elder Bednar's devotional: there was discussion today, fifteen minutes out of the hour of class in both of my religion classes, where the teacher conversed with the students regarding the subject of the devotional, so I now know what it was about: repetition.
Repetition.
I considered appending an Andy Warhol picture at the end of yesterday's post, one of the prints of the Mona Lisa multiplied a hundredfold, all laid out in rows and columns. As if the idea weren't immediately obvious, between the refigerator magnets and mass production and the ideas of individuality, and the fact that all of my art examples came from my musings rereading the textbook to prepare for one of the tests I aced. Obvious. I have to give you some credit, to make connections for yourselves.
Repetition.
The idea of roses-- the fox explains, that's the difference between the many roses and the one rose, the one difference between the two categories. The prince's rose was loved. Tamed. It always fascinated me, the fact that the fox knew that he wasn't tame. How could he have known that? How could he have known that? How could he have known he was wild?
That idea was one of a couple that awed me and stayed with me from childhood. Regarding, animals. The modesty of the semi-feral cats who lived around, demurely standing sentry as they defecated into their neat little holes they'd dug in the earth. Peter Wiggin vivisecting the squirrels in the back yard, reverently peeling them open like onions. The fox who knew he was wild, and wanted this Little Prince to tame him.
How could he have known that, that he was wild?
I really did have a dream. On my mission. I'm not sure-- it's recorded in my journal, but I think it's from the time-- I nodded off for a bit at church. Falling asleep, again, where I should have been paying attention. Maybe. Either way it couldn't have lasted longer than 5 or 10 seconds from drifting off to snapping back awake:
I dreamt I was a wild animal, and they put me into a cage. My head in a cage, and my body in a cage, and each of my legs in a cage. And they forced the cage to tilt back, stand up, so that I had to balance on my rear legs in the rear cages, and they forced the cages with my forelegs outward like arms at my sides, and the cage with my head to point forward-which-once-was-downward instead of upward-which-once-was-forward. Put on a little green knit cap beanie on my head, and called me a person. Five seconds.
And, if this is the same dream, I'm out of my cage now, but: I got into the pantry, they forced me into the pantry, closed the door on me and I made a mess with all the cans and jars and boxes, before the door even finished closing. If they got angry, what did they expect, I was an animal. Ten seconds. Only by those seconds, I was already awake.
I woke up confused, when people looked at me, why they let me in church and didn't freak out when they were looking right at me. Before realizing that when they looked at me, they only saw human.
Warhol also did prints of flowers like that. Red ones. Roses, maybe; I can't tell...
I'm still considering putting that Mona Lisa image at the end of last post. It's so juicy, so fitting, even if a tad obvious, and I feel that the end of that post was left dangling too much somehow. So maybe I will do that, put up Thirty Are Better than One there at the end, just like it is in the textbook. But I'm still not sure-- because, lines of the Prince's Rose stretching off infinitely, as terrifying and ironic as that vision is, that's exactly the kind of thing that Warhol would have loved.
The idea, the dream I had, that they've made their imported plastic action figures, all of them of the Prince's rose, and they are all right now sitting neatly on their shelves in the warehouse, thousands by thousands of them, countless copies of the one rose truly beloved by the Little Prince, the shelves stretching as far as the eye can see in every direction.
That is just an idea: that is not my dream. It's what I thought about when I woke up. It's a dream in that sense, whatever sense you make of that.
The sleep previous to that one, the one during Elder Bednar's devotional: there was discussion today, fifteen minutes out of the hour of class in both of my religion classes, where the teacher conversed with the students regarding the subject of the devotional, so I now know what it was about: repetition.
Repetition.
I considered appending an Andy Warhol picture at the end of yesterday's post, one of the prints of the Mona Lisa multiplied a hundredfold, all laid out in rows and columns. As if the idea weren't immediately obvious, between the refigerator magnets and mass production and the ideas of individuality, and the fact that all of my art examples came from my musings rereading the textbook to prepare for one of the tests I aced. Obvious. I have to give you some credit, to make connections for yourselves.
 |
| Source: Warhol Museum |
The idea of roses-- the fox explains, that's the difference between the many roses and the one rose, the one difference between the two categories. The prince's rose was loved. Tamed. It always fascinated me, the fact that the fox knew that he wasn't tame. How could he have known that? How could he have known that? How could he have known he was wild?
That idea was one of a couple that awed me and stayed with me from childhood. Regarding, animals. The modesty of the semi-feral cats who lived around, demurely standing sentry as they defecated into their neat little holes they'd dug in the earth. Peter Wiggin vivisecting the squirrels in the back yard, reverently peeling them open like onions. The fox who knew he was wild, and wanted this Little Prince to tame him.
How could he have known that, that he was wild?
I really did have a dream. On my mission. I'm not sure-- it's recorded in my journal, but I think it's from the time-- I nodded off for a bit at church. Falling asleep, again, where I should have been paying attention. Maybe. Either way it couldn't have lasted longer than 5 or 10 seconds from drifting off to snapping back awake:
I dreamt I was a wild animal, and they put me into a cage. My head in a cage, and my body in a cage, and each of my legs in a cage. And they forced the cage to tilt back, stand up, so that I had to balance on my rear legs in the rear cages, and they forced the cages with my forelegs outward like arms at my sides, and the cage with my head to point forward-which-once-was-downward instead of upward-which-once-was-forward. Put on a little green knit cap beanie on my head, and called me a person. Five seconds.
And, if this is the same dream, I'm out of my cage now, but: I got into the pantry, they forced me into the pantry, closed the door on me and I made a mess with all the cans and jars and boxes, before the door even finished closing. If they got angry, what did they expect, I was an animal. Ten seconds. Only by those seconds, I was already awake.
I woke up confused, when people looked at me, why they let me in church and didn't freak out when they were looking right at me. Before realizing that when they looked at me, they only saw human.
Tame me. Tame me? Could I really say, even after all that, that I know what it means to be that, wild or tame? And is it good to be tamed? I still don't know how a fox can know any such thing, how you can even know the concept of tame when you're still wild.
Maybe the movie will explain it better...
Warhol also did prints of flowers like that. Red ones. Roses, maybe; I can't tell...
I'm still considering putting that Mona Lisa image at the end of last post. It's so juicy, so fitting, even if a tad obvious, and I feel that the end of that post was left dangling too much somehow. So maybe I will do that, put up Thirty Are Better than One there at the end, just like it is in the textbook. But I'm still not sure-- because, lines of the Prince's Rose stretching off infinitely, as terrifying and ironic as that vision is, that's exactly the kind of thing that Warhol would have loved.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Le Petit Kandinsky Prince
Alright, so I totally kicked the butts of those tests I told you yesterday that I had! Kind of mean of me, I know, but... they're tests. You really can't anthropomorphize them all that much.
First off, anyway, let me start today's post with a big shout-out to '90s post grunge, jangle pop band Deep Blue Something, who really happened to tie together my really weird lines of thought today under one neat little bow of a post title. Yay.
Okay, so. This is going to matter, but... our landlords, the Potters, are just the greatest in the world, and sent out a survey this afternoon on suggestions for this winter semester activity they're thinking of doing. Remember that now. And let's zoom out a bunch.
I was people-watching today. There was a devotional today, with Elder Bednar of the 12, which I can't remember a word of seeing as how I was unconscious for it; asleep for basically the whole thing-- it's a General Authority, which is probably pretty major I guess? Though spending 2 years on Temple Square may have damaged my significance sensor, regarding that kind of thing... Everyone showed up, though, so I spent the couple hours beforehand just watching all the people pour in (and became absolutely terrified when I realized how many different ways there are just to walk and how unique everyone's gait is, not even counting for the arm movements.) But, people came in. Alone, in groups, as couples holding hands. Or whatever. I like watching people. This experience is also important, and you should remember this as well. Let's zoom in now, but elsewhere.
As a culture we've got a really weird relationship with art, but... it's art. So first of all, yes, you really can't anthropomorphize it all that much, and also first-point-onest of all it'd be more of personification, but, second of all: it's art, how else is our relationship with it going to be? A relationship doesn't have to be non-weird to be healthy still. Still.
Wassily Kandinsky was a painter. You know him. Believed that, like, music doesn't need to be representational to still be beautiful? He made, the more awesomer of, his paintings non-representational as well, just like music. And we love him for it.
Imagine a Kandinsky painting-- let's say this one in fact, Delicate Tension, though you could go for On White II or even On White I for that matter, or just, whatever-- imagine this painting as, instead of a painting, the layout to some particular bit of graphic design. Most likely an advertisement. Would that be somehow heretical, if that were the case? Something tells me that it is. And yet... We make kitschy little refrigerator magnet reproductions of the Mona fridging Lisa; is that heretical? Or is it because the Mona Lisa isn't, itself, a fridge magnet, that makes it so that it can be so?
If Kandinsky paintings, as paintings, didn't exist, and there were text and logos instead of his swoopy squigglies and solid shapey shapes, would it be remotely the same, even if his designs are just layouts at the core? What if we took the originals, we've got reproductions anyway we don't need these, and applied our copy and graphic directly onto the paintings, so that the new originals, they're all adverts from now on? That's, basically, my original question.
We used the Mona Lisa as a comparison beforehand, so let me point out that this same thing happened to the original of that-- though it was more of, sawing off the ends of it to make it fit the wall better, than actually any LHOOQy loos scribbling 'staches on the original there or anything, still-- it was to the most priceless painting of all time. What difference really is there between doing that to the Mona Lisa, and taking less valuable art, and put it to use, selling something...? And if you do do that to the art: it's still awesome, right?
That's all very interesting to ponder in the hypothetical, but how about we apply questions of the relationship between art and consumerism to the real world...?
There is, of course, a (pretty darn gorgeous-looking) Little Prince movie coming out this March, a couple of weeks after Zootopia arrives. That's where the Winter Semester Activity from earlier comes in, albeit with a totally different moral dilemma: if we were to go see a movie at Fat Cats for this activity, what would it be? I have no interest in either Allegiant or Dawn of Justice, and though of course I said the same thing of The Force Awakens, it still comes down between The Little Prince and Zootopia. Zootopia I'm going to see anyway, of course... probably, barring extreme circumstances, more than once. Do I make one of those times with the activity, or do I catch something I wouldn't otherwise have the chance to, seeing as how I never go to movies except under exceptions like this, and Star Wars, and Zootopia? It strikes me as a moral decision, the choice between values and, values.
I put in my vote for The Little Prince, over Zootopia. Wild.
But that's not the moral conundrum I wanted to talk about.
Browsing Amazon, getting suggestions for things I might be interested in, there was a lot of Little Prince stuff. Like, a lot, a lot. Some of it was even connected to the movie... This is the real-world, here. The question, about the relationship between art and consumerism. I'm willing to let Zootopia come out with a bunch of, vinyl figures and everything, because it's Disney, and more power to them. I'm willing to let My Little Pony do the same, because it's Hasbro and that's their job. And besides, all of those things are amazing, amazing things.
Same with the Little Prince stuff. I mean, have you seen this? It's wonderful stuff, and it increases the world's total pool on wonderful. But it's also... I don't know, but it reminds me of the scene in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, where, yes it's great that steak is falling from the sky, but isn't the steak a bit... big?
It's not sawing up the Mona Lisa, by far. But it is releasing a slew of tie-in merchandise for The Little Prince. The book that taught us what it means to be a child, and what it means to be a grown-up, and what really matters in the world.
Do overpriced imported action figures of characters not even in the book (yet who are essential audience surrogates and figures to states the book's central themes) matter? Do the opportunities for imagination the figures provide matter? Does Jeff Bridges have throat cancer or something, or does he really just put a bunch of marbles in his mouth before saying anything nowadays?
I don't know.
But, remember the people-watching from earlier? How human beings themselves, ourselves, can put me into the uncanny valley just through normal human movement? How we walk together, and walk alone? How we reach out and hold each other so tightly, grabbing each other's hands as though it meant something? I thought a lot about how beautiful people are, and how I'd quickly be able to find common ground with anyone in the large large stream of crowd, enough even to know and to love and to be loved and to be in love, with any of those people, potentially any at all.
And I thought about the Prince's rose, and about the field of roses, and about the quality that separated them...
First off, anyway, let me start today's post with a big shout-out to '90s post grunge, jangle pop band Deep Blue Something, who really happened to tie together my really weird lines of thought today under one neat little bow of a post title. Yay.
I was people-watching today. There was a devotional today, with Elder Bednar of the 12, which I can't remember a word of seeing as how I was unconscious for it; asleep for basically the whole thing-- it's a General Authority, which is probably pretty major I guess? Though spending 2 years on Temple Square may have damaged my significance sensor, regarding that kind of thing... Everyone showed up, though, so I spent the couple hours beforehand just watching all the people pour in (and became absolutely terrified when I realized how many different ways there are just to walk and how unique everyone's gait is, not even counting for the arm movements.) But, people came in. Alone, in groups, as couples holding hands. Or whatever. I like watching people. This experience is also important, and you should remember this as well. Let's zoom in now, but elsewhere.
As a culture we've got a really weird relationship with art, but... it's art. So first of all, yes, you really can't anthropomorphize it all that much, and also first-point-onest of all it'd be more of personification, but, second of all: it's art, how else is our relationship with it going to be? A relationship doesn't have to be non-weird to be healthy still. Still.
Wassily Kandinsky was a painter. You know him. Believed that, like, music doesn't need to be representational to still be beautiful? He made, the more awesomer of, his paintings non-representational as well, just like music. And we love him for it.
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| He also died more than 70 years ago, so his works are totally public domain in the US! |
If Kandinsky paintings, as paintings, didn't exist, and there were text and logos instead of his swoopy squigglies and solid shapey shapes, would it be remotely the same, even if his designs are just layouts at the core? What if we took the originals, we've got reproductions anyway we don't need these, and applied our copy and graphic directly onto the paintings, so that the new originals, they're all adverts from now on? That's, basically, my original question.
We used the Mona Lisa as a comparison beforehand, so let me point out that this same thing happened to the original of that-- though it was more of, sawing off the ends of it to make it fit the wall better, than actually any LHOOQy loos scribbling 'staches on the original there or anything, still-- it was to the most priceless painting of all time. What difference really is there between doing that to the Mona Lisa, and taking less valuable art, and put it to use, selling something...? And if you do do that to the art: it's still awesome, right?
That's all very interesting to ponder in the hypothetical, but how about we apply questions of the relationship between art and consumerism to the real world...?
There is, of course, a (pretty darn gorgeous-looking) Little Prince movie coming out this March, a couple of weeks after Zootopia arrives. That's where the Winter Semester Activity from earlier comes in, albeit with a totally different moral dilemma: if we were to go see a movie at Fat Cats for this activity, what would it be? I have no interest in either Allegiant or Dawn of Justice, and though of course I said the same thing of The Force Awakens, it still comes down between The Little Prince and Zootopia. Zootopia I'm going to see anyway, of course... probably, barring extreme circumstances, more than once. Do I make one of those times with the activity, or do I catch something I wouldn't otherwise have the chance to, seeing as how I never go to movies except under exceptions like this, and Star Wars, and Zootopia? It strikes me as a moral decision, the choice between values and, values.
I put in my vote for The Little Prince, over Zootopia. Wild.
But that's not the moral conundrum I wanted to talk about.
Browsing Amazon, getting suggestions for things I might be interested in, there was a lot of Little Prince stuff. Like, a lot, a lot. Some of it was even connected to the movie... This is the real-world, here. The question, about the relationship between art and consumerism. I'm willing to let Zootopia come out with a bunch of, vinyl figures and everything, because it's Disney, and more power to them. I'm willing to let My Little Pony do the same, because it's Hasbro and that's their job. And besides, all of those things are amazing, amazing things.
Same with the Little Prince stuff. I mean, have you seen this? It's wonderful stuff, and it increases the world's total pool on wonderful. But it's also... I don't know, but it reminds me of the scene in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, where, yes it's great that steak is falling from the sky, but isn't the steak a bit... big?
It's not sawing up the Mona Lisa, by far. But it is releasing a slew of tie-in merchandise for The Little Prince. The book that taught us what it means to be a child, and what it means to be a grown-up, and what really matters in the world.
Do overpriced imported action figures of characters not even in the book (yet who are essential audience surrogates and figures to states the book's central themes) matter? Do the opportunities for imagination the figures provide matter? Does Jeff Bridges have throat cancer or something, or does he really just put a bunch of marbles in his mouth before saying anything nowadays?
I don't know.
But, remember the people-watching from earlier? How human beings themselves, ourselves, can put me into the uncanny valley just through normal human movement? How we walk together, and walk alone? How we reach out and hold each other so tightly, grabbing each other's hands as though it meant something? I thought a lot about how beautiful people are, and how I'd quickly be able to find common ground with anyone in the large large stream of crowd, enough even to know and to love and to be loved and to be in love, with any of those people, potentially any at all.
And I thought about the Prince's rose, and about the field of roses, and about the quality that separated them...
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| https://www.artsy.net/artwork/andy-warhol-thirty-are-better-than-one-1 |
Monday, January 25, 2016
Phascinating Thing
I've got a big test in the morning, for Art History 202... I also have a project due tomorrow, but I finished it early and have it turned it already (no time to work on it tomorrow); isn't that phascinating? With a "ph," because with all this stuff going on and my need to turn in early today (seriously I would have gone to bed a couple of hours ago if it weren't for that project that I needed to finish) I'm going to have to phone it in today, do-ho-ho. Also I'm tired and no longer cair about spelling.
Alright, so I feel that I need more post for you other than that announcement, so luckily this day did not go uneventfully regarding things I've been posting about. Meaning here, blog traffic. This stuff might be boring to some of you, but to me it's pretty fascinating.
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| I'd click on that if I wanted to see it bigger... |
Sunday, January 24, 2016
JBU (Justa Buncha Updates) (Plus Zootopia Watch)
Alright, if anyone actually reads these, the Zootopia Watch Trailer Reviews are now all up:
Part 1 again just for continuity's sake
Part 2, and the Noo Year Revyoo also up
Part 3
Part 4
I also recently freed from the shackles of "post preview version"dom, Trippiness Postulate Redux Plus, which turns one year old tomorrow and is already the fifth most-viewed post on the blog for some reason? I don't think it's the name... figure it's got something to do with the metadata. But all this time, the, robots or whatever the heck it was that was giving me all those hits, were viewing an incomplete post, from back when I was falling behind on my posts but still wanted to get something up, no matter how incomplete...
Speaking of popular posts, I'd like to thank everyone for making Touch Your Screen also so inexplicably popular (alright, maybe these things do have to do with the names...) It hasn't been up for two days yet, and it's already the, something like 11th or 12th most viewed post on the blog... The stats page only tracks the top 10, but I can only see one post that'd be a competitor for 11th place in terms of hitcount...
And, as long as I'm still at it, I added footnotes to yesterday's post, in case you're interested in delving into the science a bit further. http://dielikeadisneyvillain.blogspot.com/2016/01/on-anthropomorphic-snow-figures-plus.html
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
There are TV spots up on YouTube if you want to check them out... they've been out for about a week now, but I'm so late to the punch sometimes... There's some pretty nice so-far-exclusive content there, too, so. You can track them down, if you want?
But I'm just kinda bummed right now-- well, not really bummed, but, one of the French language trailers gives the release date in France as being Février, vingt-six, I think, so, like, the French get to see it legally a whole week before it comes out in the States...!
Part 1 again just for continuity's sake
Part 2, and the Noo Year Revyoo also up
Part 3
Part 4
I also recently freed from the shackles of "post preview version"dom, Trippiness Postulate Redux Plus, which turns one year old tomorrow and is already the fifth most-viewed post on the blog for some reason? I don't think it's the name... figure it's got something to do with the metadata. But all this time, the, robots or whatever the heck it was that was giving me all those hits, were viewing an incomplete post, from back when I was falling behind on my posts but still wanted to get something up, no matter how incomplete...
Speaking of popular posts, I'd like to thank everyone for making Touch Your Screen also so inexplicably popular (alright, maybe these things do have to do with the names...) It hasn't been up for two days yet, and it's already the, something like 11th or 12th most viewed post on the blog... The stats page only tracks the top 10, but I can only see one post that'd be a competitor for 11th place in terms of hitcount...
And, as long as I'm still at it, I added footnotes to yesterday's post, in case you're interested in delving into the science a bit further. http://dielikeadisneyvillain.blogspot.com/2016/01/on-anthropomorphic-snow-figures-plus.html
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
There are TV spots up on YouTube if you want to check them out... they've been out for about a week now, but I'm so late to the punch sometimes... There's some pretty nice so-far-exclusive content there, too, so. You can track them down, if you want?
But I'm just kinda bummed right now-- well, not really bummed, but, one of the French language trailers gives the release date in France as being Février, vingt-six, I think, so, like, the French get to see it legally a whole week before it comes out in the States...!
Saturday, January 23, 2016
On Anthropomorphic Snow Figures (Plus, Zootopia Watch!)
I woke up at 5:20 this morning. I feel great. Well, right now I feel tired, but, earlier, yeah, that felt great. As for right now... I feel tired. But earlier, I felt great!
Did I mention, though, that right now I'm pretty tired?
I saw a snowman today. Well, not only one snowman. Today, over the course of it, I saw many snowsman (that's right, kiddos, fun fact: the word "snowman" takes an internal pluralization.)
I'm not talking about those snowsman, though. I'm talking about the first snowman I saw today. Which I saw, this morning, before 6:00, this morning. I saw it. And I realized, wait, that's supposed to be a person?
[I'd been going to take a picture of the exact snowman in question, but didn't get around to it. But you know what one looks like. Picture a photo of a snowman here. Go on, I believe in you.]
If there were a snow, like, dog that came in three lumps, bag-bang-bang snowlump-snowlump-snowlump, we wouldn't recognize that as a dog. That'd be a giant ant. And, as anyone who's never seen Ant Man could tell you, those two are impossible to get mixed up. Unless, of course, the dog really is really messed-up looking. Or maybe you're that guy from The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. You'd probably be able to mix those up then.
And I am tired.
I'm just going to proceed based off the assumption that you do not, in fact, live in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or Earth 99,999, as it is known by people way too geeky to have lives. And, me, of course. I, know that...
And I am tired.
Neurologically, we're willing to accept almost anything as being human, or at least the face part. There have been, sciences, done on that. Sciences, man. We clearly accept a lot of stylization when it comes to identification of facial features. As long as it doesn't swing back into the uncanny valley, we're fine, yeah? But what's the degree of stylization, has there ever been any sciences done on, what we're willing to accept as a human bodily form? That's an excellent question, and it probably wouldn't be terribly difficult to look up, would it?
But I am, putting way more mental energy into an internal debate on whether to keep "I am tired" going on as a running gag.
This much I know, or at least have read (so if I'm wrong don't blame me): we use different parts of the brain to "read" cartoons than we do to read real life.* Neurotypically, we use different parts of the brain to "read" faces than reading objects. With autistic subjects, of course, freakin', amazing stuff, that's not the case; the same part of the brain is used when viewing objects as faces.** Also, I was probably going somewhere with that. Just pretend I quoted more science at you here. And that I wrapped all of these facts and theories up for you in a neat little bow that perfectly encapsulates how the heck we're still able to take the (not even stylization, man, but abstractification) lump-lump-lump as the human form. Pretend that, for me.
I really am, you know.
You know, furries are supposed to have, like, some significant number, higher percent chance of having Asperger's Syndrome than the general population. You've done a lot of imagining so far, and I'm proud of you, so just imagine that I actually bothered to look that statistic up as well.† There are so many possibilities on the causality behind that that I could probably do a whole post just speculating, but I've (to whatever degree of "always" you'll accept) always wondered if that might be part of it, something about, facial recognition, and animals?‡
I think it does.
I am, just, too tired right now even to finish this sen
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
I didn't even know Walt Disney Records had a YouTube channel, but this came out on it yesterday:
Wow! I'd totally comment on that more if I weren't among the living dead right now!
As it is... hey, check it out, more sweet overhead sweeps of the city. Zootopia itself is, like, my 71st favorite thing about Zootopia. So yeah, it's really pretty high up there (did I mention how immensely psyched I am for this movie?)
Alright, well, that's a day's post! Sayonara!
Friday, January 22, 2016
Touch Your Screen
I brought in my AlphaSmart to the computer art room this morning, used the scanner cord to download that sweet sweet wordcount, so all that backlog Zootopia Watch Trailer Review will be up... soon. Once I can figure out what I'd meant to type, clean that up into normal human conversation. I'd been going to chill around the Spori building until something happened to alert me to where Thomas Hull was holding his workshop, but right there on the door to the computer room was the notice which I'd seen telling of the activity, and so, oh, is that where I saw it, I guess I'll just hang around for the next half hour. I could do my sudoku for this week-- I'm getting better, or the puzzles are getting easier; I don't even need to digitize them anymore to solve them. I suppose I could check which... I do have that photo I took of the first week's sudoku...
The workshop (for lack of a better term; it was basically more a presentation) lasted from 9:00-11:00, and was comprised mostly of a series of... case studies, I'll call them, from his career. This time, I not only have my notes but kept them too, so if I wanted to I could go into it, though it was far from the only thing that happened today... Like Star Wars; I finally caught The Force Awakens in 3D.
But anyway.
There weren't many others at the workshop, and so we could each get a copy of one of the books whose creation he profiled, A Communicator's Guide to the Neuroscience of Touch, a paper company's commision to explain how much better tactile, haptic material is over digital media. Which it is. Present medium notwithstanding. It gets really deep into weird fascinating science. And of course it's gorgeous to the fingers as well as eyes.
Alright, so you can't actually feel the paper the book's made from, but it does feel as fantastic as it looks. It feels like... have you ever unboxed an iPod, iPad, or iPhone? Apple's boxes are made out of hopes and magic, and most certainly not manufactured, of course; if they were, we wouldn't be allowed to talk about it, so I'm most certainly not implying that these are the guys who make those. Nope. Definitely not.
I also can't say that famed neuroscientist David Eagleman contributed his expertise to the book, even though he did-- Thomas Hull outlined the whole history of the project, and having to talk Dr Eagleman into supplying material though in between hosting serieses of PBS documentaries, doing a TED talk, and having his wife give birth-- and also there was the tiny issue of conflicting interests, where the original study that the campaign had initially been supposed to be based on was less-than-scientific (having, for one, a sample size of only eight people), and also one can seriously jeopardize one's scientific credibility if one appears to endorse things for corporations. So, yeah, I guess I can say David Eagleman contributed his expertise to the book.
From such a shaky beginning, now the whole thing is on the level, with bonus material from Dr Eagleman if you use your Layer app over the silver-bordered pages in the book. However the "Layer" app works. Presumably it really is magic this time.
So we each got to take one of those home, since he brought a pack of six and there were only six of us, plus that seventh person who walked in but there were a couple extra copies floating around the campus from earlier somewhere. And also the company will gladly mail you one if you write in and ask.
Except your copy won't be autographed.
The workshop (for lack of a better term; it was basically more a presentation) lasted from 9:00-11:00, and was comprised mostly of a series of... case studies, I'll call them, from his career. This time, I not only have my notes but kept them too, so if I wanted to I could go into it, though it was far from the only thing that happened today... Like Star Wars; I finally caught The Force Awakens in 3D.
But anyway.
There weren't many others at the workshop, and so we could each get a copy of one of the books whose creation he profiled, A Communicator's Guide to the Neuroscience of Touch, a paper company's commision to explain how much better tactile, haptic material is over digital media. Which it is. Present medium notwithstanding. It gets really deep into weird fascinating science. And of course it's gorgeous to the fingers as well as eyes.
 |
| Reach out and touch the screen. Go on. Do it. It'll make you feel good. |
I also can't say that famed neuroscientist David Eagleman contributed his expertise to the book, even though he did-- Thomas Hull outlined the whole history of the project, and having to talk Dr Eagleman into supplying material though in between hosting serieses of PBS documentaries, doing a TED talk, and having his wife give birth-- and also there was the tiny issue of conflicting interests, where the original study that the campaign had initially been supposed to be based on was less-than-scientific (having, for one, a sample size of only eight people), and also one can seriously jeopardize one's scientific credibility if one appears to endorse things for corporations. So, yeah, I guess I can say David Eagleman contributed his expertise to the book.
From such a shaky beginning, now the whole thing is on the level, with bonus material from Dr Eagleman if you use your Layer app over the silver-bordered pages in the book. However the "Layer" app works. Presumably it really is magic this time.
So we each got to take one of those home, since he brought a pack of six and there were only six of us, plus that seventh person who walked in but there were a couple extra copies floating around the campus from earlier somewhere. And also the company will gladly mail you one if you write in and ask.
Except your copy won't be autographed.
Thomas Hull also offered to draw a turkey hand for me (the signature is in the back of the book with the right hand, because he's left handed and so he'd be able to trace his right hand,) but I said he didn't need to do that if he didn't want to, soo...
I finished off and submitted my sudoku, went home for a couple of minutes to drop off my AlphaSmart and stuff, and also finish off my breakfast, and then went off on an adventure! Which could be a whole post on its own, though, yes, it does include Star Wars. I only got back after sunset.
And even then, there was dinner, and people invited over, and we all watched Fantastic Mr Fox, and I want to go to bed but I had to finish this blog...
And to think, I'd wanted to get in some studying today.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Art 297 Seminar: Thomas Hull
Alright, so, this evening at 6:15 there was an art seminar, of the sort that you need to attend on more than one occasion for a course credit required for an art major. Apparently you have to enroll beforehand in order for it to count as such, but I didn't even know it could be for credit and just went for fun. And there's always another seminar, so I can get my credits in the future.
The speaker was Thomas Hull, of Rigsby Hull, and the subject was graphic design. (The firm-or-whatever is named Rigsby Hull, and there's a building on campus here named Rigby Hall, which is not where the seminar was held. No way that's confusing. I, totally didn't get lost trying to find where the seminar is held and walk in like 10 minutes late, alright? It was more like 15.)
Mostly it was because I didn't even know where the Ricks building was. It's on the north end of campus and, up until that point, I had never been that far north in my life (Rexburg Idaho = pretty far up there.) Thomas Hull's also doing a thing tomorrow morning at the Spori, which I do know the location of, though I couldn't locate the time this time.
Anyway, you probably want to hear a few notes from the seminar.
Well, so would I; you have to turn in your note paper as part of the proof of attendance.
I took a picture of my notes before turning my sheet in, though, so I'm still able to sum it up for you. My takeaway was this: 99% of graphic design is storytelling. Storytelling sticks with people. Juries aren't swayed by evidence or legalities; they're swayed by stories. Find the story first, do as much research as you possible can, have the index cards of your mind always full of unique ways of looking at the world... and laying the copy is the very very last thing you do in the process, after you've solved the story.
(Same thing with portfolios, which is good to know. When you're presenting a portfolio, the story behind the piece, the problems you had to overcome and the reason you're so proud of it, sticks a lot better than just rehashing the exact same 1,000 that the picture's already telling.)
There was a lot more to it than that; fortunately I managed to catch all 6 of the points he laid down, though late as I was I may never know the celebrated story of his father and the toe jam. I think I'm okay with that? but it sure sounds entertaining.
The speaker was Thomas Hull, of Rigsby Hull, and the subject was graphic design. (The firm-or-whatever is named Rigsby Hull, and there's a building on campus here named Rigby Hall, which is not where the seminar was held. No way that's confusing. I, totally didn't get lost trying to find where the seminar is held and walk in like 10 minutes late, alright? It was more like 15.)
Mostly it was because I didn't even know where the Ricks building was. It's on the north end of campus and, up until that point, I had never been that far north in my life (Rexburg Idaho = pretty far up there.) Thomas Hull's also doing a thing tomorrow morning at the Spori, which I do know the location of, though I couldn't locate the time this time.
Anyway, you probably want to hear a few notes from the seminar.
Well, so would I; you have to turn in your note paper as part of the proof of attendance.
I took a picture of my notes before turning my sheet in, though, so I'm still able to sum it up for you. My takeaway was this: 99% of graphic design is storytelling. Storytelling sticks with people. Juries aren't swayed by evidence or legalities; they're swayed by stories. Find the story first, do as much research as you possible can, have the index cards of your mind always full of unique ways of looking at the world... and laying the copy is the very very last thing you do in the process, after you've solved the story.
(Same thing with portfolios, which is good to know. When you're presenting a portfolio, the story behind the piece, the problems you had to overcome and the reason you're so proud of it, sticks a lot better than just rehashing the exact same 1,000 that the picture's already telling.)
There was a lot more to it than that; fortunately I managed to catch all 6 of the points he laid down, though late as I was I may never know the celebrated story of his father and the toe jam. I think I'm okay with that? but it sure sounds entertaining.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Elephant Uplifts: Transcending the Genre! (Plus Zootopia Watch)
You'd probably love to hear about the Comic Book Workshop tonight, wouldn't you?
Well, I'd probably love to go to bed. But... sometimes you get what you need.
BARSK came in the mail for me today, forwarded and finally I can stick the bookplate into the book, which is going to be awesome and I'll be sure to get a picture of its consumption... conception? Cons...titution, Concession, Convection... Consummation, that's it, consummation.
Looking back over my initial review, I thought I was going to have to backpedal on things I said, making claims of genre transcendence or anything really snooty like that (to say, "this work transcends the genre" is code for "I've transcended my snobbery," though it should be code for, "hey guys you should really transcend your own snobberies, and maybe saying bad things about the genre this work actually does belong to wholly will get you to somehow like the thing I guess.") I put that review better than I'd be able to had I written it now.
My second review, the one with the view from the second sight of a breather, is, from second sight of a breather, not as dead center as the first, to put it nicely... Maybe Chapter 31 does make sense, though it doesn't really contribute to the plot in any meaningful way... neither does Chapter 14. It's still beautiful stuff to have.
Anyway. Wednesday, bleeding day (wow bro you find any way to make it more creepy?), a few things due, and also I went grocery shopping...
You see, you know how I said I'd miss Mom's ombudsmanship? Turns out that there are technologies nowadays for communication over vast distances. I called home to confirm that my cell phone was working when I first activated it, and, long distance ombudsing: turns out, my parents wouldn't actually let me starve? That's... comforting.
It's nice to be a starving artist, but it's even nicer to have money.
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
And it's a doozie.
Alright, so, for those of you not already in the know, the official Zootopia tie-in books started rolling out yesterday. I say "started" rolling out because we still have to wait for March 1st for the official Art of Zootopia book, grumble grumble... It's gonna be awesome, though.
March 1st is also of course the same day the Disney Infinity 3.0 Zootopia stuff comes out, but you can totally preorder them now.
Nick
Judy
Anyway. New books, yesterday, came out. Since then I've been trying to collect them like Pokemon trading cards, but, there are a lot of them, and seriously man crack would be a cheaper hobby. (See the starving artist grocery thing up there? I do need to eat people food, you know...) Not that I mind...
Alright, so, we learned a lot from, the few books that we could afford. Including who the mastermind is and everything; seriously what the heck I thought they tried to keep at least some spoilers out of the junior novelizations. It doesn't look like humans have to do with anything, so, so far my theory from the Zootopia Watch, covered in the second of the above BARSK links, isn't looking too accurate, but...: the tie-ins for The LEGO Movie, even when they had the existence of Finn, still kept his exact role smoothed over, so there's still a chance that things go beyond the [PLOT SPOILER BITS CENSORED.]
But, at least now we know what Nick was doing randomly in the background of the line of Popsicle-eating lemming businessmen at 1:40 in the trailer. Though make that, Pawpsicle. Amazing. And we also know character names!
Alright, I wasn't expecting this actually, but my favorite so far would have to be Super Animals!, breaking down essentially the animals' wild animal talents: "Mr. Manchas is a jaguar. Jaguars have very sharp teeth... for smiling."
Yes, in case you couldn't believe it for yourself, let me confirm for you: that is exactly as amazing as it sounds.
Well, I'd probably love to go to bed. But... sometimes you get what you need.
BARSK came in the mail for me today, forwarded and finally I can stick the bookplate into the book, which is going to be awesome and I'll be sure to get a picture of its consumption... conception? Cons...titution, Concession, Convection... Consummation, that's it, consummation.
Looking back over my initial review, I thought I was going to have to backpedal on things I said, making claims of genre transcendence or anything really snooty like that (to say, "this work transcends the genre" is code for "I've transcended my snobbery," though it should be code for, "hey guys you should really transcend your own snobberies, and maybe saying bad things about the genre this work actually does belong to wholly will get you to somehow like the thing I guess.") I put that review better than I'd be able to had I written it now.
My second review, the one with the view from the second sight of a breather, is, from second sight of a breather, not as dead center as the first, to put it nicely... Maybe Chapter 31 does make sense, though it doesn't really contribute to the plot in any meaningful way... neither does Chapter 14. It's still beautiful stuff to have.
Anyway. Wednesday, bleeding day (wow bro you find any way to make it more creepy?), a few things due, and also I went grocery shopping...
You see, you know how I said I'd miss Mom's ombudsmanship? Turns out that there are technologies nowadays for communication over vast distances. I called home to confirm that my cell phone was working when I first activated it, and, long distance ombudsing: turns out, my parents wouldn't actually let me starve? That's... comforting.
It's nice to be a starving artist, but it's even nicer to have money.
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
And it's a doozie.
 |
| Source: Random House / Disney, via Amazon |
March 1st is also of course the same day the Disney Infinity 3.0 Zootopia stuff comes out, but you can totally preorder them now.
Nick
Judy
Anyway. New books, yesterday, came out. Since then I've been trying to collect them like Pokemon trading cards, but, there are a lot of them, and seriously man crack would be a cheaper hobby. (See the starving artist grocery thing up there? I do need to eat people food, you know...) Not that I mind...
Alright, so, we learned a lot from, the few books that we could afford. Including who the mastermind is and everything; seriously what the heck I thought they tried to keep at least some spoilers out of the junior novelizations. It doesn't look like humans have to do with anything, so, so far my theory from the Zootopia Watch, covered in the second of the above BARSK links, isn't looking too accurate, but...: the tie-ins for The LEGO Movie, even when they had the existence of Finn, still kept his exact role smoothed over, so there's still a chance that things go beyond the [PLOT SPOILER BITS CENSORED.]
But, at least now we know what Nick was doing randomly in the background of the line of Popsicle-eating lemming businessmen at 1:40 in the trailer. Though make that, Pawpsicle. Amazing. And we also know character names!
Alright, I wasn't expecting this actually, but my favorite so far would have to be Super Animals!, breaking down essentially the animals' wild animal talents: "Mr. Manchas is a jaguar. Jaguars have very sharp teeth... for smiling."
Yes, in case you couldn't believe it for yourself, let me confirm for you: that is exactly as amazing as it sounds.
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
A Bit About Sellouting
Do you believe it's possible to be a sellout? A topic that merits considerable consideration. What is this "selling out," and to what degree is it a good or a bad thing? I think about the role of the artist a lot, but the only reason I'm bringing it up here is because I came this close (holds up thumb and forefinger two to three inches apart) to posting up something today based on, based on what I perceive the blog web-hit trends to be, and what kinds of posts seem to generate the most views. Until I realized that I don't have any such material prepared of any of the latest clickbait (Zootopia trailer screenshots, Jor-El-related shenanigans, cat piracy...) And also, yeah, that'd kinda be selling out, to do that...
As much as I do enjoy posting up pictures of pirate kitties that I found on DeviantArt. (Which the hit log says is actually suuuper popular series, generating this month a great many hits (but really who can blame them?)) If I post up pictures of pirate kitties it's on my own terms, internet. Besides, we're, not going with Cap'n Patches for the Comic Book workshop, it's been decided...
(One day, Patches...)
I suppose that's what selling out is: doing something because other people want it, and not you. Like how it's okay to be girly as long as it's your own choice, and if you try to touch that, feminists, you're doing your own cause a disservice? So let it be with sellouts: if you're the one who wants something, it's not selling out just because other people also happen to want it. Your motivation is your own and not others'.
I've studied waaay too much neuropsychology during my off hours, though, to think that there's actually much of a difference...
Also, what the heck do I want views for; I don't want people reading this blog it's super embarrassing...!
[Here's the part where I'd link to a YouTube video with embarrassing subject matter, just to "prove" how unembarrassing my blogging actually is, but... I just realized, I don't know what embarrassing is, anymore...]
As much as I do enjoy posting up pictures of pirate kitties that I found on DeviantArt. (Which the hit log says is actually suuuper popular series, generating this month a great many hits (but really who can blame them?)) If I post up pictures of pirate kitties it's on my own terms, internet. Besides, we're, not going with Cap'n Patches for the Comic Book workshop, it's been decided...
(One day, Patches...)
I suppose that's what selling out is: doing something because other people want it, and not you. Like how it's okay to be girly as long as it's your own choice, and if you try to touch that, feminists, you're doing your own cause a disservice? So let it be with sellouts: if you're the one who wants something, it's not selling out just because other people also happen to want it. Your motivation is your own and not others'.
I've studied waaay too much neuropsychology during my off hours, though, to think that there's actually much of a difference...
Also, what the heck do I want views for; I don't want people reading this blog it's super embarrassing...!
[Here's the part where I'd link to a YouTube video with embarrassing subject matter, just to "prove" how unembarrassing my blogging actually is, but... I just realized, I don't know what embarrassing is, anymore...]
Monday, January 18, 2016
Hey There, America! Happy Let's-All-Have-Some-Basic-Human-Rights Day!
The creative team I'm in as part of the Comic Book Workshop here had a good long discussion today about what we want out of our comic, and what we're able to do within the 8 pages we're given (going on a working basis of one page a week throughout the remainder of the semester-- it usually amounts to being able to get down maybe the prologue or at least the first part for a larger work, which it looks like is going to be the case here.) I had some ideas, my co-writer Jimmy had some ideas, but it was all three of us together to come up with the story we're going with, basing it off of none of our previous ones. I'm holding back on revealing any details, but it's lush and dark and more than a little trippy, and actually not too much like anything I've heard of before.
Anyway. I'm celebrating my holiday by having a whole bunch of homework and tests that I need to study for! We don't need a doorstopper post every day, so I think I'll end it here and hit the hay. Peace.
Anyway. I'm celebrating my holiday by having a whole bunch of homework and tests that I need to study for! We don't need a doorstopper post every day, so I think I'll end it here and hit the hay. Peace.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Hatching
I can't tell you when it started for sure, but I can say, always, and you'll understand.
I've always been fascinated by three-dimensional form.
It's always baffled me, however. It's one of those things that I love, but which has never come easily to me, like music or mathematics. I'm terrified of the consistency of math, how 3x8 is the same as 4x6, both being the same as 2x3x2x2 which is the same as both 3x2x2x2 and 2x2x3x2. The same thing with three-dimensional form: staircases blow my mind; the positive and negative space, the dimensionality of floors of a building.
I'm in love with architecture, but I'd never be able to go into it. There's something there about the relationship of, "objects in space," that I can't grasp (does that seem right to you?). I suppose that's why it haunts me so much.
It's one of the themes that keeps on cropping up in my art over and over again, I've noticed. I've never thought to put it into words until right this minute, until right before starting this sentence, but when it comes to my independent art, art not part of any comic books or illustrations but art for art's sake, I'm a surrealist, if it wasn't immediately obvious-- it wasn't to me until just now, yet I've been aping Magritte all these years. So when I say, keeps cropping up: foreground treated as background, positive space treated as negative space. One of my first "cartoons" (in the classical sense) from my mission, if not the very first I think, is of Christ with his crown of thorns, only we see the crown as though a vine hanging underneath an arch that is the shape of the top of his head: it's not a crown at all, but a Vine, the True Vine.
Masks and faces, that's another major theme. Masks, especially, tying into one of the central themes: the idea of Man as Animal.
I'm not sure what the above painting, completed today, symbolizes: it's less about Man incubating an inner animal, but about how the animal had always been there, and is now showing through. The Man, in this instance, was the Mask; he'd always been hollow, as thin as eggshell, but it's only now that the shell is cracking. None of us is alone, we're always surrounded by other people, and now the inner nature is poking through for all to see: do they see it? Or do they only see what they've always seen? And how many others share the secret, of being eggshell thin? Is he alone? Or is everyone else secretly an animal too?
I wish I had more for you than that; that's as much as I've figured out for myself.
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Holographic Jor-El Kicks Butt! (The Misadventures of Plasma Bleeding)
Rereading the Ghost Sequence again, first of all parts of it were excellent (heh) and actually pretty fascinating even to me, nothing that couldn't stand a rewrite and even reformatting one day maybe, but... I apologized, like, a lot. How many time there, two, three, did I point out that reading this blog is a voluntary choice, and you don't have to read if I get too, best word I can come up with is, amateurish? Yes. And, uh, man, I can't tell if I should apologize for those apologies, when I should have just done better in the first place and let everything stand for itself...
Maaan, though, even without apologizing, I think this might get boring, here, because I'm all obligated to tell you this story. Go away, critics, it's not for you (ham!). This story, anyway, is about my trip to the Biomat on Wednesday, and all the wacky adventures I had...
(If this were A Real Thing, I'd place the jump break there, but this is Disney Villain Death instead, where I only do jump breaks for footnote purposes. So.)
Every day I have classes, so Monday-Thursday, they start out either 7:45 or 8:00, and I have a break for however long with classes starting at 3:15 again. Wednesday has the longest break before 3:15, so it's the day I've got time to pull stuff like this, but: time to go in for my second plasma donation (they throw away your precious fluids if you don't come back a second time, probably to make sure you're not a bioterrorist or something.) As long as I'm out before 3:15, we're good.
Easier said than done...
I told you how I saw the 40% off sign, and so pooched the duck by screwing into the Game Pulse next door fir-- or, wait, what?
Hold on...
Yeah, sounds about right.
Where was I. There's a card they give you on your first time through, to present on a future visit-- I think generally the next, but I haven't used mine yet-- which allows you to cut to the front of the queue, but I figured I didn't need to here; there weren't that many people sitting around waiting to be cleared and admitted onto the donation floor.
There's a movie playing- they make sure there's always something to look at while you sit there. Is it fantasy? There's this really angry guy, going wild on all these nicer guys, and there's this chick with the angry guy who looks a heck of a lot like the chick who played Faora-Ul in Man of Steel, and there's this royal-looking guy, and is that Russell Crowe? and the insignia on the royal crest is this diamond, and, oh, okay, it's Man of Steel. Not long after the beginning, either-- Clark Kent is still on that oil rig, and I know enough about the film to know that's more or less where it starts off.
I read the AIDS notice plaquart they give you to read every time before donation. It takes a while for them to call me up after checking in. I don't have all day, should I have used my VIP access pass? But my name is called, eventually, to go into booth 1: to be weighed, and my blood measured, and my temperature taken, and my risk of disease transmission probed.
There's some kind of accident that's happened on the rig. Everything's on fire. Clark Kent saves everyone, but says something about seeing another guy up there that still needs to be saved? The tower collapses onto him, but he holds it back, the weight pressing him through the floor, until the rescue helicopter leaves and everything explodes.
In the booth, they make you give your full name and the last four digits of your Social Security number, the way they have you do to prove it's you. I'm also weighed and everything. The girl/lady human female person there, she asks for a finger to extract blood from to test. I offer my left index this time; it'd been the left middle the first time and it doesn't hurt or even throb like I'd remembered, and OW goshdarn it my pointer is so much more sensitive than my middle apparently. She milks the blood into her glass tube, centrifuges it, separates the red from the plasma, begins to do science on it.
The computer fails. Is it my fault? I think it might be my fault. I'm sent back out until a second booth can hopefully have a computer work for me.
When Clark was a boy, the Earth's yellow sun gave him powers, and he became overwhelmed by his super senses.
Booth 2.
Full name and last four.
The computer fails here, too.
It's probably my fault.
When Clark was a boy, his bus crashed off of a bridge. He saved everyone. Including the bully.
We transfer immediately to Booth 3. Full name and last four again, even though we weren't apart for two seconds. It's required.
The computer fails again.
It's not just ours that's having the problem.
It's not my fault.
When Clark was a boy, they talked about him. He was witnessed being a hero. Was it God who made him a freak?
The problem turns out to have been a, failure to reset the computer after installing the new thermometers, or something, only manifesting itself here because of the science.
Back into one of the booths. Full name and last four. They need you to state your current address as well.
Wait, seriously? I needed to know that? I saw my documentation of address back at the apartment and deliberately didn't pick it up.
Address, address. They allow you to look it up, but they can't tell you themselves. The wifi here's protected. There's a printer wifi, but it proves to be impossible to connect to-- what's the wifi password here? I ask.
She tells me, but doesn't explain how to spell it because by now it's superfluous-- it's on a little card on the bulletin board on the wall, and once I figure out my address I can take it up at the desk and they'll call me back into another booth. She attaches a sticky note to my file folder, noting that my health stuff is all completed, and I just need to verify the last couple of things.
There's something mysterious and ancient underneath the ice of the Antarctic. Is it General Zod's ship? Is that how long ago he'd been banished? Was he an ancient dude? What are the odds that he's awakening right when Kal-El is also on-planet?
It's the Fortress of Solitude! Of course.
I find the wifi information and look up the address.
Clark and Lois are both investigating the place at the same time, although the last time I'd seen Clark, he was hitchhiking across the country, not beating up rude dudes but doing plenty of damage to their logging trucks. There's probably loads of insurance on that kind of thing, though.
I'm called into a booth eventually. Full name, last four. Address, I got it. But...
They also expect you to know the ZIP code.
I take a stab at it. Nope, the dude (it's a dude this time) says.
I already have a connection to the wifi, of course, so it's not that tough to look up the code for Rexburg: 83440. I'm verified.
Now I get to wait in the blue chairs. Zod is messing with Supe's head, drowning him in ESP skulls and everything.
They have you show your arms for bruises-- they refuse to stick needles into bruises. Last time, my first time here, the anticoagulant didn't take, or something, and so the blood clotted inside of the needle. I'd had them stick my left arm, and so they had to restick me, in my right. My left arm is covered in bruises from that, and so they have to use my right arm this time for sure. There might be a tiny little bruise on that vein, but it's alright. If something goes wrong with this one, they won't be able to transfer the needle to my other arm, and that's just always the risk.
Zod's got his gravitic technology and is attempting to implode the earth. You know whom this looks like a job for.
I finally get in onto the floor, for them to bleed me. It's a couple of hours later than if I'd have been prepared, and, hey the same movie that was playing when I got in is still going on.
Man of Steel is a looooong movie, man. Holographic Jor-El was awesome, closing doors with the power of his AI fist clenching. The alien signal hacking first contact scene with all the different languages being broadcast, that was genuinely pretty chilling, and I can see the effects that that would have on the world which the trailers to Dawn of Justice hint at to be more fully explored in that movie. The fight scene at the end wasn't just one solid hour of Supes and Zod flying each other into buildings irresponsibly like the critics made it seem.
That movie ends, Amazing (Incredible?) Spider-Man 2 begins, Electro is so cool, and the way he gets his powers is just awesome, in a no-kill-like-overkill kind of way.
I take a Poweraid, sit around till they allow me to leave. It was a long process. I've still got enough time before classes that I'd probably be able to watch through Spider-Man as well if I really wanted, but it was still a long process. Oh! And I didn't tell you throughout the entire thing:
They make you drink plenty of fluids before donation, of course. And there's a urine test your first go-through... though apparently not the second? Which I did not know. So I made sure to drink plenty of fluids, and not relieve myself of anything or anything, beforehand...
#/media/File:True_humility.png){kind=link}
Maaan, though, even without apologizing, I think this might get boring, here, because I'm all obligated to tell you this story. Go away, critics, it's not for you (ham!). This story, anyway, is about my trip to the Biomat on Wednesday, and all the wacky adventures I had...
(If this were A Real Thing, I'd place the jump break there, but this is Disney Villain Death instead, where I only do jump breaks for footnote purposes. So.)
Every day I have classes, so Monday-Thursday, they start out either 7:45 or 8:00, and I have a break for however long with classes starting at 3:15 again. Wednesday has the longest break before 3:15, so it's the day I've got time to pull stuff like this, but: time to go in for my second plasma donation (they throw away your precious fluids if you don't come back a second time, probably to make sure you're not a bioterrorist or something.) As long as I'm out before 3:15, we're good.
Easier said than done...
I told you how I saw the 40% off sign, and so pooched the duck by screwing into the Game Pulse next door fir-- or, wait, what?
Hold on...
Yeah, sounds about right.
Where was I. There's a card they give you on your first time through, to present on a future visit-- I think generally the next, but I haven't used mine yet-- which allows you to cut to the front of the queue, but I figured I didn't need to here; there weren't that many people sitting around waiting to be cleared and admitted onto the donation floor.
There's a movie playing- they make sure there's always something to look at while you sit there. Is it fantasy? There's this really angry guy, going wild on all these nicer guys, and there's this chick with the angry guy who looks a heck of a lot like the chick who played Faora-Ul in Man of Steel, and there's this royal-looking guy, and is that Russell Crowe? and the insignia on the royal crest is this diamond, and, oh, okay, it's Man of Steel. Not long after the beginning, either-- Clark Kent is still on that oil rig, and I know enough about the film to know that's more or less where it starts off.
I read the AIDS notice plaquart they give you to read every time before donation. It takes a while for them to call me up after checking in. I don't have all day, should I have used my VIP access pass? But my name is called, eventually, to go into booth 1: to be weighed, and my blood measured, and my temperature taken, and my risk of disease transmission probed.
There's some kind of accident that's happened on the rig. Everything's on fire. Clark Kent saves everyone, but says something about seeing another guy up there that still needs to be saved? The tower collapses onto him, but he holds it back, the weight pressing him through the floor, until the rescue helicopter leaves and everything explodes.
In the booth, they make you give your full name and the last four digits of your Social Security number, the way they have you do to prove it's you. I'm also weighed and everything. The girl/lady human female person there, she asks for a finger to extract blood from to test. I offer my left index this time; it'd been the left middle the first time and it doesn't hurt or even throb like I'd remembered, and OW goshdarn it my pointer is so much more sensitive than my middle apparently. She milks the blood into her glass tube, centrifuges it, separates the red from the plasma, begins to do science on it.
The computer fails. Is it my fault? I think it might be my fault. I'm sent back out until a second booth can hopefully have a computer work for me.
When Clark was a boy, the Earth's yellow sun gave him powers, and he became overwhelmed by his super senses.
Booth 2.
Full name and last four.
The computer fails here, too.
It's probably my fault.
When Clark was a boy, his bus crashed off of a bridge. He saved everyone. Including the bully.
We transfer immediately to Booth 3. Full name and last four again, even though we weren't apart for two seconds. It's required.
The computer fails again.
It's not just ours that's having the problem.
It's not my fault.
When Clark was a boy, they talked about him. He was witnessed being a hero. Was it God who made him a freak?
The problem turns out to have been a, failure to reset the computer after installing the new thermometers, or something, only manifesting itself here because of the science.
Back into one of the booths. Full name and last four. They need you to state your current address as well.
Wait, seriously? I needed to know that? I saw my documentation of address back at the apartment and deliberately didn't pick it up.
Address, address. They allow you to look it up, but they can't tell you themselves. The wifi here's protected. There's a printer wifi, but it proves to be impossible to connect to-- what's the wifi password here? I ask.
She tells me, but doesn't explain how to spell it because by now it's superfluous-- it's on a little card on the bulletin board on the wall, and once I figure out my address I can take it up at the desk and they'll call me back into another booth. She attaches a sticky note to my file folder, noting that my health stuff is all completed, and I just need to verify the last couple of things.
There's something mysterious and ancient underneath the ice of the Antarctic. Is it General Zod's ship? Is that how long ago he'd been banished? Was he an ancient dude? What are the odds that he's awakening right when Kal-El is also on-planet?
It's the Fortress of Solitude! Of course.
I find the wifi information and look up the address.
Clark and Lois are both investigating the place at the same time, although the last time I'd seen Clark, he was hitchhiking across the country, not beating up rude dudes but doing plenty of damage to their logging trucks. There's probably loads of insurance on that kind of thing, though.
I'm called into a booth eventually. Full name, last four. Address, I got it. But...
They also expect you to know the ZIP code.
I take a stab at it. Nope, the dude (it's a dude this time) says.
I already have a connection to the wifi, of course, so it's not that tough to look up the code for Rexburg: 83440. I'm verified.
Now I get to wait in the blue chairs. Zod is messing with Supe's head, drowning him in ESP skulls and everything.
They have you show your arms for bruises-- they refuse to stick needles into bruises. Last time, my first time here, the anticoagulant didn't take, or something, and so the blood clotted inside of the needle. I'd had them stick my left arm, and so they had to restick me, in my right. My left arm is covered in bruises from that, and so they have to use my right arm this time for sure. There might be a tiny little bruise on that vein, but it's alright. If something goes wrong with this one, they won't be able to transfer the needle to my other arm, and that's just always the risk.
Zod's got his gravitic technology and is attempting to implode the earth. You know whom this looks like a job for.
I finally get in onto the floor, for them to bleed me. It's a couple of hours later than if I'd have been prepared, and, hey the same movie that was playing when I got in is still going on.
Man of Steel is a looooong movie, man. Holographic Jor-El was awesome, closing doors with the power of his AI fist clenching. The alien signal hacking first contact scene with all the different languages being broadcast, that was genuinely pretty chilling, and I can see the effects that that would have on the world which the trailers to Dawn of Justice hint at to be more fully explored in that movie. The fight scene at the end wasn't just one solid hour of Supes and Zod flying each other into buildings irresponsibly like the critics made it seem.
That movie ends, Amazing (Incredible?) Spider-Man 2 begins, Electro is so cool, and the way he gets his powers is just awesome, in a no-kill-like-overkill kind of way.
I take a Poweraid, sit around till they allow me to leave. It was a long process. I've still got enough time before classes that I'd probably be able to watch through Spider-Man as well if I really wanted, but it was still a long process. Oh! And I didn't tell you throughout the entire thing:
They make you drink plenty of fluids before donation, of course. And there's a urine test your first go-through... though apparently not the second? Which I did not know. So I made sure to drink plenty of fluids, and not relieve myself of anything or anything, beforehand...
Friday, January 15, 2016
Leo: Realizing the Gravity of the Situation (Plus Zootopia Watch)
 |
| source: y2d-shows.com/leo |
Turing threshold... not quite passed, except maybe it was, I just don't know.
Anyway... that's not the only way I was forced to rethink my concept of reality today. With that awesome segue, let me introduce you to LEO.
 |
| source: y2d-shows.com/leo |
In the room is a man. Leo. Not that there's anyone else around to address him as such. No, the man is alone, save for the lightbulb and his suitcase.
On the screen, the man is leaning against the wall. On the stage, the man is lying on the ground. He appears to be waiting for someone, or something. He appears to wait a long time.
Until he realizes that not everything is how it initially seems...
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
Hey, four new items at the Zootopia store were added today! Also, hey, I'm apparently keeping track of the number of items at the Zootopia store!
Judy hits Duke Weaselton with her Meter Maid cart! Nick drives a convertible with parking meter included (which the packaging seems inordinately excited by)! Judy Hopps chills with May Bellwether! We learn of the existence of a new character, Safety Squirrel!
I noticed almost immediately after posting my original Disney Store post, but just from the playsets, the fact that the Nick and Finnick action (?) figures are packaged together, and, yeah, described as being buddies and scamming and suckering together, they're... flimflam fellas, together-- shoot, I literally just realized this, but they're both foxes.
By "just" I mean immediately before you read that, of course. This blog is live. Anyway, um... Weird, eh? They might even be cousins! How...ever biology works, in the Zootopia world...
And don't you find it suspicious that the little dude's name is Fin-nick? There's no way that that... yeah, alright, it's totally a coincidence.
Really fun, mind-bending stuff, great for all ages (though actually pretty scary sometimes.) There's lighting effects and music and more than just the physical reality featured on the screen, but nearer to the end animation and multi-layered exposure effects, which you can catch a bit of in the above video.
And absolutely no wires throughout the entire thing.
There are three tours going on right now; this one features Berlin native acrobat Julian Schulz in the title role. After tomorrow's performance they're heading down to BYU Provo for a week, doing performances but also workshops, which makes me really disappointed when I realize that I'm pretty sure Utah Theater Association conference is at the U of U this year instead.
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
Hey, four new items at the Zootopia store were added today! Also, hey, I'm apparently keeping track of the number of items at the Zootopia store!
Judy hits Duke Weaselton with her Meter Maid cart! Nick drives a convertible with parking meter included (which the packaging seems inordinately excited by)! Judy Hopps chills with May Bellwether! We learn of the existence of a new character, Safety Squirrel!
I noticed almost immediately after posting my original Disney Store post, but just from the playsets, the fact that the Nick and Finnick action (?) figures are packaged together, and, yeah, described as being buddies and scamming and suckering together, they're... flimflam fellas, together-- shoot, I literally just realized this, but they're both foxes.
By "just" I mean immediately before you read that, of course. This blog is live. Anyway, um... Weird, eh? They might even be cousins! How...ever biology works, in the Zootopia world...
And don't you find it suspicious that the little dude's name is Fin-nick? There's no way that that... yeah, alright, it's totally a coincidence.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
10 Views Per Post... Woot?
I think that's supposed to be good; I don't know... looking at the statistics from that other time I posted up blog stats (not the 666 one, but the one where I thought Thomas "Ohnitsch" Novotny was stalking me) it's, arrggh I can't be bothered to do the math.
There's a whole tab thing dedicated to traffic monitoring like that, which paints a much clearer picture, showing that last month had the most hits of any month, with this month being third highest and not halfway over yet... So, yes, traffic is up? But delving deeper into the stats on where the links are actually coming from, only one or two appear to be, actual, websites... And actual pageviews don't seem to correspond to posting at all; a full 93% of those pageviews from last month were from before I started posting regularly again (Dec 25th-31st pageviews number 40, out of the 619 total hits from last month, and oh sure now I can be bothered to do math.)
I don't like talking about this anyway. It's like on FurAffinity when people freak out about having 300 views to their page, or something... I actually don't know what's up with that; whether they feel famous for it or if that's actually a milestone and they get boosted in, rankings, or something. Is that the case? And is that still the case, with the IMVU thing now or whatever? I suppose I could look it up...
...not that it's anything new but man there is just so much about FurAffinity that I don't understand...
Anyway, I suppose now I can post the solution to last week's Sudoku, now that this week's one is due tomorrow (I did not win the contest, thank you very much for asking...)
EDIT: This throws the stat off, but I just realized that it's more like thirteen views per post, seeing as how this is the 1052nd post up and the number given on the dashboard is a signifier of all posts, not just the ones published. Sorry.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
My Nerdery Compels Me to Try New Things
There's a hobby game store right next to the Biomat, right... It's called Game Pulse. I've always been curious about it, ever since first walking by last Wednesday-- so, alright, I've always been curious about it, and by always I mean for a week. I've been curious about it for a week. Passing by this morning heading in to give my plasma, I saw this table with a, 40% off, paper plaquart on it, and I just had to duck in... So, no, technically, I did not "pass by."
The place was totally dead in there. Just, the lady, sitting by that table, and nobody else. Apparently it's just because they're experimenting with new hours, for the month, and, like, nobody knows that they're open this early? So I got lucky that they happened to be open in the first place.
It was a pretty neat place. Dragon head on the far end of the wall; big ol' boxes of nothing but MTG mana cards; Killer Bunnies expansions nobody's ever heard of. Pretty sparse place as well-- just one big open space, with a few shelves around. Reminds me of that one store from that one Far Side strip, with the high shelves...you know what I'm talking about;.If you don't... well, I'd link to it, or something, but Gary Larson doesn't tend to authorize images of his work put up onto the internet. Sparse store, anyway, but I've peeked in before during MTG tourneys and things and that exact design looks ideal for Friday Night Magic.
Game Pulse, anyway. I wish them success, even if I couldn't patronize them at that time. (Whatever happened to Next Dimension comics back in Fallon? It just... died, one day? I'm so paranoid about that kind of thing happening to those kinds of places, now...)
All the crazy crud that went down donating my plasma was a-mah-zing, so I'll just skip to this evening, coming out of computer art class, wondering if they've got the weekly apartment inspection this evening handled without me. (They did; we got a smiley face score on apartment cleanliness.) And, I see a collection of comic books on a table in the classroom to my right, and I notice on the door a slip of paper in comic book art style, advertising the BYU-I Comics Workshop, and I notice after that that there's people in there as well, all sitting at the desks and working on drawings of themselves designed as introductions, and...
And I'm co-writing a comic book, now.
It's part of the, thing, the extracurricular, curriculum, to team up with one other person, depending on whether you're more into writing or drawing... My teammate, my original teammate, can't make it to the workshops, though, so another duo graciously took me in... My co-author and I have no idea what it's going to be about, yet. Our artist is pretty incredible, though, and generically versatile (versatile in, genre, that is?), so it can go in some interesting places if we let it...
Aside from that, there's a lot of talent throughout the group in general... There's a show-and-brag after, if anyone wants to show and brag, and so here we've got some really neat stuff you should check out.
For this week's brag-and-tell, we had Madeleine Fisher, the artist of Brainstorm (written by her older brother, who is it appears on his mission right now so is on a bit of hiatus) preview some of her work for this week's Precious Metal, which is ongoing, and which she is both the writer and artist of.
Brainstorm, having only 13 issues so far due to the aforementioned hiatus, is a quick read, obviously, and very Scott Pilgrim-esque. It's about a boring guy with interesting powers, namely, to manifest his imagination into reality.
The place was totally dead in there. Just, the lady, sitting by that table, and nobody else. Apparently it's just because they're experimenting with new hours, for the month, and, like, nobody knows that they're open this early? So I got lucky that they happened to be open in the first place.
It was a pretty neat place. Dragon head on the far end of the wall; big ol' boxes of nothing but MTG mana cards; Killer Bunnies expansions nobody's ever heard of. Pretty sparse place as well-- just one big open space, with a few shelves around. Reminds me of that one store from that one Far Side strip, with the high shelves...you know what I'm talking about;.If you don't... well, I'd link to it, or something, but Gary Larson doesn't tend to authorize images of his work put up onto the internet. Sparse store, anyway, but I've peeked in before during MTG tourneys and things and that exact design looks ideal for Friday Night Magic.
Game Pulse, anyway. I wish them success, even if I couldn't patronize them at that time. (Whatever happened to Next Dimension comics back in Fallon? It just... died, one day? I'm so paranoid about that kind of thing happening to those kinds of places, now...)
All the crazy crud that went down donating my plasma was a-mah-zing, so I'll just skip to this evening, coming out of computer art class, wondering if they've got the weekly apartment inspection this evening handled without me. (They did; we got a smiley face score on apartment cleanliness.) And, I see a collection of comic books on a table in the classroom to my right, and I notice on the door a slip of paper in comic book art style, advertising the BYU-I Comics Workshop, and I notice after that that there's people in there as well, all sitting at the desks and working on drawings of themselves designed as introductions, and...
And I'm co-writing a comic book, now.
It's part of the, thing, the extracurricular, curriculum, to team up with one other person, depending on whether you're more into writing or drawing... My teammate, my original teammate, can't make it to the workshops, though, so another duo graciously took me in... My co-author and I have no idea what it's going to be about, yet. Our artist is pretty incredible, though, and generically versatile (versatile in, genre, that is?), so it can go in some interesting places if we let it...
Aside from that, there's a lot of talent throughout the group in general... There's a show-and-brag after, if anyone wants to show and brag, and so here we've got some really neat stuff you should check out.
For this week's brag-and-tell, we had Madeleine Fisher, the artist of Brainstorm (written by her older brother, who is it appears on his mission right now so is on a bit of hiatus) preview some of her work for this week's Precious Metal, which is ongoing, and which she is both the writer and artist of.
 |
| Brainstorm. |
 |
| Precious Metal |
Precious Metal meanwhile is getting a Patreon sometime hopefully soon, and is by this point quite a bit larger than Brainstorm, though it probably wouldn't take over an hour to read the whole thing. It's about a thief, and his "sister" he rescued (and continues to rescue) who has magical powers and eats... well, you know. It's right there in the comic's title. It is the comic's title.
It's reminiscent of Cucumber Quest and Paranatural in the best possible ways (and, indeed, both sites are linked to in the webcomics' obligatory link-to-fellow-webcomics collection.) It's also probably reminiscent of Nimona and Rice-Boy Universe, since those comics are also linked to, but I haven't read either of those? Though I probably should... just as you should read these!
And that's what I've got for you.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
My Second Day of Classes (Plus Zootopia Watch)
Since I've got all the exact same classes on Tuesdays as I do Thursdays, now would be a good time to tell you about it, I suppose.
Tuesdays and Thursdays I've got nothing but art classes. Mondays I've got nothing but religion, but I've got that extra art class on Wednesdays, so though my classes go Monday-Wednesday Tuesday-Thursday, that computer art course on Wednesday throws off the prospect of having my entire week composed of "themed" days.
Another difference between days is, my graphic design course switches between instruction and lab days-- they're the same class and everything, but doing completely different things on completely different floors, depending on which day of the week it is. Today was an instruction day, upstairs, on the third floor.
Yeah though, that's actually a pretty intensive class. I've got three or four things I need to do tomorrow for it even though I don't have that class that day. Most of them involving paying for things. With money. Which I'm alright with, I guess. It's nice being able to have a needle stuck up in your arm, now, bleeding but getting it back and getting paid for it to boot.
They say I'm saving lives, too. Which hey is also alright. Though from the looks of it most of the plasma goes to medical research instead of directly pumping into other people? Medical research saves lives too, of course, and hey did you hear we've figured out the cure for like five different forms of cancer, go science, but, man, if these guys are actually some kind of evil corporation deliberately withholding cancer cures from dying patients, or something... Well, what you gonna do.
I'm writing this pretty late at night, in case you couldn't tell.
Not, 2:30, 2:45 late, of course. I was... up that late already, finishing up on that once-during-the-semester Book of Mormon paper...
A fun thing about my other two art classes, the ones in the morning, anyway, is that not only are they both super fun and exciting, but they're back-to-back in the same classroom. And neither as intense as my other art class(es.) Just, such good stuff.
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
And that's in Times, just to show you what I see when I look at it. Isn't that so much better than Arial for that subheading? I think so.
The Official Zootopia Disney Store is now up. I read (part of) this article in Fast Company magazine today, from around 2011 when Disney was getting a new, CEO or something?, and so, fun fact! a thing that Disney always do when reviewing a film prospect is, like, branding opportunities, or something? Or something. GAAH I don't seem very sure, or intelligent, right there, but of course I must be intelligent! I just invoked reading Fast Company.
...frrrreaak it's so late at night...
So, yeah, the moment we've all been waiting for; official merch! Yaay merch.
SO ANY SPOILERS?
...Can I... do that? Create a second subheading? I'm not even, formatting them as headings, so how'd you be able to tell that this is a subsubheading... Well, I did do that first one in Times... But, yeah! Juicy little tidbits, there's apparently a "bat eyewitness," Nick's catchphrase is apparently "I'm good," and, THIS IS ACTUALLY SERIOUSLY A SPOILER RIGHT HERE, that cute little midget elephant chile, with the big mysterious popsicle? They call him, "Ele-Finnick," which means... which means that that elephant child was, the whole time, neither an elephant nor a child.
Mind equals equals blown.
...What... what is Finnick's role in the story? I'd always assumed him to be just another member of the ensemble cast, but if that really is he in the stroller Nick's pushing there at the beginning, and being all, elephantine, right there chilling with Nick later on... It means...
It means something, I guess.
Tuesdays and Thursdays I've got nothing but art classes. Mondays I've got nothing but religion, but I've got that extra art class on Wednesdays, so though my classes go Monday-Wednesday Tuesday-Thursday, that computer art course on Wednesday throws off the prospect of having my entire week composed of "themed" days.
Another difference between days is, my graphic design course switches between instruction and lab days-- they're the same class and everything, but doing completely different things on completely different floors, depending on which day of the week it is. Today was an instruction day, upstairs, on the third floor.
Yeah though, that's actually a pretty intensive class. I've got three or four things I need to do tomorrow for it even though I don't have that class that day. Most of them involving paying for things. With money. Which I'm alright with, I guess. It's nice being able to have a needle stuck up in your arm, now, bleeding but getting it back and getting paid for it to boot.
They say I'm saving lives, too. Which hey is also alright. Though from the looks of it most of the plasma goes to medical research instead of directly pumping into other people? Medical research saves lives too, of course, and hey did you hear we've figured out the cure for like five different forms of cancer, go science, but, man, if these guys are actually some kind of evil corporation deliberately withholding cancer cures from dying patients, or something... Well, what you gonna do.
I'm writing this pretty late at night, in case you couldn't tell.
Not, 2:30, 2:45 late, of course. I was... up that late already, finishing up on that once-during-the-semester Book of Mormon paper...
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
And that's in Times, just to show you what I see when I look at it. Isn't that so much better than Arial for that subheading? I think so.
The Official Zootopia Disney Store is now up. I read (part of) this article in Fast Company magazine today, from around 2011 when Disney was getting a new, CEO or something?, and so, fun fact! a thing that Disney always do when reviewing a film prospect is, like, branding opportunities, or something? Or something. GAAH I don't seem very sure, or intelligent, right there, but of course I must be intelligent! I just invoked reading Fast Company.
...frrrreaak it's so late at night...
So, yeah, the moment we've all been waiting for; official merch! Yaay merch.
SO ANY SPOILERS?
...Can I... do that? Create a second subheading? I'm not even, formatting them as headings, so how'd you be able to tell that this is a subsubheading... Well, I did do that first one in Times... But, yeah! Juicy little tidbits, there's apparently a "bat eyewitness," Nick's catchphrase is apparently "I'm good," and, THIS IS ACTUALLY SERIOUSLY A SPOILER RIGHT HERE, that cute little midget elephant chile, with the big mysterious popsicle? They call him, "Ele-Finnick," which means... which means that that elephant child was, the whole time, neither an elephant nor a child.
Mind equals equals blown.
...What... what is Finnick's role in the story? I'd always assumed him to be just another member of the ensemble cast, but if that really is he in the stroller Nick's pushing there at the beginning, and being all, elephantine, right there chilling with Nick later on... It means...
It means something, I guess.
Monday, January 11, 2016
New Look
In case you couldn't tell, I've made a few updates to the site... The URL is the same, but the blog's official name is Disney Villain Death, which I've been using to refer to it for a while now anyway, and so I updated the title to reflect that.
The longer DLaDV title was included in the blog description of, I'd say about a little more than a year, from about the time I got back from my mission:
The biggest change is in the post layouts, of course. Well, the layouts themselves haven't changed. Just hopefully the posts are a little more readable. Still trying to maintain the Disney Villain-esque feel to the theme, but realizing that light text against a dark background isn't much fun to read, I switched to dark text on light background, and then realized how close in appearance that was to the stark cardstock of a slip from the Machine of Death, as in the blog's logo.
Took me tinkering until 2:30 this morning, figuring out the exact line of HTML that edits the post border radius, to curve it down to replicate the edges of a card from the Machine of Death; even when I did find it it took me a bit to remember the code wouldn't take unless it had a / after the value="20px". Now the overall appearance is a bit more cohesive, and I hope a bit more conducive to the weblog of a graphic arts major.
I may or may not be finished making edits. I'm not sure I like the background color I've had, but I can't find any I prefer, for one. I'm also waffling between the Times New Roman and the Arial as the text body for posts... Times New Roman is what the editor uses as the default display, but the default font for the posts is Arial. Arial matches the sans serif look of a Machine of Death slip, and it looks nice enough, but the ZOOTOPIA WATCH announcements just don't look the same in Arial as they do from my edits' POV as Times New Roman, which I think I prefer for...
Shoot, I should probably have screenshotted the old look so we could do a before-and-after. Huh.
EDIT: Wayback Machine comes to the rescue...
The longer DLaDV title was included in the blog description of, I'd say about a little more than a year, from about the time I got back from my mission:
"Die Like a Disney Villain" is an eclectic daily weblog whose subjects range anywhere from the crappy art I doodled on the math homework I didn't do in junior high, to technology's holistic effects on how we view reality and identity, to how weirdfunky my hair can get in the mornings. Stick around. There's a very good possibility there could be puppies.That description never really did much for me, so I removed that section of it just now. Hey hey.
The biggest change is in the post layouts, of course. Well, the layouts themselves haven't changed. Just hopefully the posts are a little more readable. Still trying to maintain the Disney Villain-esque feel to the theme, but realizing that light text against a dark background isn't much fun to read, I switched to dark text on light background, and then realized how close in appearance that was to the stark cardstock of a slip from the Machine of Death, as in the blog's logo.
Took me tinkering until 2:30 this morning, figuring out the exact line of HTML that edits the post border radius, to curve it down to replicate the edges of a card from the Machine of Death; even when I did find it it took me a bit to remember the code wouldn't take unless it had a / after the value="20px". Now the overall appearance is a bit more cohesive, and I hope a bit more conducive to the weblog of a graphic arts major.
I may or may not be finished making edits. I'm not sure I like the background color I've had, but I can't find any I prefer, for one. I'm also waffling between the Times New Roman and the Arial as the text body for posts... Times New Roman is what the editor uses as the default display, but the default font for the posts is Arial. Arial matches the sans serif look of a Machine of Death slip, and it looks nice enough, but the ZOOTOPIA WATCH announcements just don't look the same in Arial as they do from my edits' POV as Times New Roman, which I think I prefer for...
Shoot, I should probably have screenshotted the old look so we could do a before-and-after. Huh.
EDIT: Wayback Machine comes to the rescue...
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| https://web.archive.org/web/20141224030231/http://dielikeadisneyvillain.blogspot.com/ |
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| https://web.archive.org/web/20160127122520/http://dielikeadisneyvillain.blogspot.com/ |
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