The Big Jud's Tale

Alright, so what happened Friday goes on this wise:

I won the Scroll sudoku contest from last week, this week; the prize was a $5 coupon to Big Jud's, a hamburger place I am informed was featured on an episode of Man vs Food. It's, nearish, but far enough away that walking there is out of the question. Ryan was in Provo again for the weekend, though, so I asked if I could borrow his bike and he said yes. It was a cloudy, slightly chilly day, though it never rained; the chill at least kept me awake and not even drowsy, running on no sleep and fewer calories as I made the trip.

On the map it looked about an hour away by foot, so, by bicycle, that should be maybe 20 minutes. It took me about 3 or 4 hours. Not counting the hour twenty minutes on foot where I walked up a hill (not wanting to bike that, and getting permission from a local to chain my bike up on his property temporarily,) kept walking for miles, and discovered that I'd gotten north and south mixed so I'd overshot the location way much, no wonder why it kept looking like I was getting further and further away from my destination it wasn't just a scaling error, whereupon turning back and going down the actual road where I'd thought it was located it turned out that I was still about 9 miles away according to the dogwalking-man-coming-the-other-way's quite helpful and knowledgeable directions, and that the building that I'd thought might have been Big Jud's and certainly was around what I'd thought the address was was just another stinking potato depository; seriously potatoes are just lying around on the ground by the side of the road out here and there was a truck absolutely full of them that I saw pulling up to get unloaded, a few miles down the road to the middle of nowhere. So.

Already so far into it, and ravenously hungry, I decided to continue, since I had my camera on me and everything, and payment and the coupon- there was a new-looking place that I'd passed (and stopped into and picked up a menu for) not far away, called Fresco's, but 8 or 9 miles away, that's not so far by bike, right?

My legs were already screamingly fatigued, I'd forgotten, so it actually was pretty far, but wahtevah. The story of the man kept passing through my head; it's currently slipping my mind what story, but I'm sure I'll remember it. It's relevant, I know that much.

I'd left around noon, figuring I'd be in time for lunch; I finally arrived around 5:45, or 4:45, beating the dinner rush at least and getting in in time for the end part of an episode of Castle on TNT on the TV in the corner, after which followed another episode. At first I was the only one in, but eventually the dinner rush did arrive, a trickle to a flush.

I ordered a burger thing, and a fish and chips thing, and I got water in me finally. Didn't attempt the Big Jud challenge, though having gone a full day without eating maybe I could or should have. International Cinema night at 7:00- I'd planned it out during the trip up, that I'd make it even taking two hours to eat with time to spare, so I thought, but now it looked like I'd just have to miss it, and have some biking in the dark to do. (There was also another thing at 4:30 that I'd have to miss, which would take too long to explain.) I got a dessert as well, ordered as my server arrived with my bill he had to tear up; sugar day once a week now and I had a few chocolates Sunday but Sunday can count as last week, so. (Also apparently I missed Easter entirely, so double so!) I get a new bill.

Shushana Rucker (!) comes in the door with her husband, as I'm finishing up. I recognize them, but say nothing as they are led into the adjoining room where additional tables are. Shushana Rucker is a monoprint/monotype artist, teaching my monoprint/monotype class this semester. She had an exhibit here last October/November; I've mentioned her before. I go over to say hi after I finish calculating the tip. They brought a car, I rode my bike. We both came all the way down here. It's their first time here as well, and they came to check it out. I realize that I forgot to use my coupon. 

I am also interested in getting a ride back home.Their car is small, and I have a bike which might not fit, though it's pretty small; either way I do not want to have to bike back again. But I was just leaving, as they were arriving, and I wouldn't want to be a jerk waiting around for them and impose by making them feel the need to hurry up.

I grab the bike, unchain it from the benchy part in front where I'd locked it up to prevent it from escaping, and demonstrate through the window that I do have it and wasn't making it up (you couldn't see it from the window, though it was just right there.) And then... and then man, how am I going to take this clamshell and the dessert cup home, and meanwhile, heck, better see about using that coupon retroactively. Also I hecka need time to recuperate anyway. So I go back in.

The place is pretty packed by now. I need to pay again, because they delete my information and we have a fresh go about it- the cost is less now, but I leave the tip the same (I'd been thinking about that only earlier; why do we tip calculated from a percentage of what the bill is, how expensive our items were instead of how much we were actually served, that doesn't make sense.) I still need to add that to the bill total though, so that'd be... I pull out my cell phone (whose map had been so useful, even if it had oriented exclusively to north as the top even when I was facing south,) fail at the lockscreen 6 times and get locked out. I calculate the total in my head instead, and rest my aching rump a bit. The Ruckers are still here. Should I go back in there and tell them I'm still here and explain the story? I'd been planning on a ride anyway, and now had way more than an excuse (seriously, I had, like, a styrofoam thing full of burger and fry, and just a cup, with now-melty ice cream cone in it; you can't bike with those!)

I think it's just Sister Rucker in there as I go back and say I'm still here and explain the story. Maybe her husband is hitting the restroom, or invisible temporarily, meaning maybe he was there but I forgot or didn't notice somehow. Anyway it turns out that my timing is good, and I don't have to wait long after I go back in there to them, as they were finishing anyway looks like. I go back to the waiting area, attempt my cell phones PIN once more, but they're right out and ready for me before I even finish.

Squeezing the bike into the car, whew...

I documented our success, and now have it collaged for you. It really was, quite the, challenge.

Got back to the apartment at 7:00, where I could lock the bike up, fridge and freeze the food, set down the camera, and jog across the street in time for Theeb. That's that story.

Pulling a Spellbound

Went to see The Red Turtle today. When did that movie officially come out, like a year ago?, but it's just come out today in theaters around these parts. I can't remember the last time I cried during a movie- it used to happen all the time, but I guess it hasn't happened in a while; my last confirmed cry was during Storks; though I can feasibly see myself having cried during the Lego Batman movie, I can't really recall one way or the other. (I cry sometimes during really emotional movie trailers; it barely happened during the trailer to, I think Born in China, before the film.) But The Red Turtle- it's beautiful, and gorgeous, and almost entirely without dialogue, and fabulous, in the sense that it's like a fable of some sort, because there's exactly one plot element (probably symbolic??) that's not really explainable through any known science.

Matthew Whoolery, who teaches psychology classes (including cultural psychology) here, was there with his family, I saw at the end as they got up and passed where I was sitting (when it ended, everyone sat there in silence for a bit, not getting up for a minute or so even though it was just credits playing.) Did you like it, he asks a younger daughter, and she says she loved it, and I think to myself no young human daughter would say such a thing, but that's at the same time as I recognize the voice of the man passing by me and everything makes sense, the question is answered as it is asked- Matthew Whoolery and his family watch a bunch of slow-paced non-American international cinema, all the time, so it makes sense that this film would be appreciated by them.

Which brings me to my post's point, and a revelation of a little that happened yesterday as well. Matthew Whoolery was the one who introduced the movie for International Cinema Night yesterday evening- the film was Theeb, which was a nominee for best foreign-language picture, last year I think. It was amazing. It's an amazing film. But, as he pointed out in the after-film discussion, maybe he's preaching to the choir of saying it- those who turn up for International Cinema night in the first place, and then those who stick around for the discussion afterward, would be the ones inclined or pre-inclined to be willing to appreciate something like it. And not everyone is, or would be.

Theeb has almost no non-diegetic music in it. The Red Turtle has even sparser dialogue. Western audiences, American ones at least and especially, are conditioned to want to have wall-to-wall, eventhood, event-ness, in their movies; something's always got to be happening, and if there's not that a lot of people get bored and/or confused. But his 6-year-old daughter, in watching Theeb as he tells us and The Red Turtle as I see firsthand, is able to appreciate a film where that doesn't happen. It didn't even occur to me, meanwhile, that boring movies could be boring.

There are certain things we expect out of cinema just by default; it's almost unthinkable that a film could go without non-diegetic music except for maybe during the credits- but we've got, No Country for Old Men, Cloverfield. Theeb has a little bit of music, but without your hand being held by the music, having it tell you how to feel, you don't know how to feel, and that makes these films so much more suspenseful.

I can't think of many examples of films where the dialogue is inconsequential or background noise or nonexistent- a few, but no mainstream live-action American ones. The Red Turtle. The Triplets of Belleville, maybe other Sylvain Chomet films but I'm not sure. Boy and the World. The sparseness of dialogue here makes these films into, parables or something. Fables, was a word previously used, that's a good one.

Color is another thing that we expect from movies- I was thinking about Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound during the discussion on the use of music in film. Film won an Oscar for its score, but that's not why I was thinking about it- the film's in black-and-white but there's like two frames of red spliced into the film at the climax. It's not unusual for a black-and-white movie to have its frames tinted for emotional effect or to indicate time-of-day- a night shot would be tinted blue, an indoor shot would be tinted yellow, that kind of thing. So it's not too unprecedented to have color splash out of nowhere in a black-and-white flick. But it is shocking.

I think about that a lot, some. Now that we have the technology, and we can have the music and the talking and the color in the movie, we expect it- but if we don't pull back these things, go without them for some or all of the movie, it's impossible to recreate a Spellbound. Not that we generally even remember that movie out of all of Hitchcock's oeuvre, but whatever.

So I made it to International Cinema Night, that's what happened at 7:00 pm. I'm honestly not trying to be mysterious about yesterday, nobody's probably even that curious. But that's what happened at 7:00.

Minutes and Seconds

Today was, well not much happened really but there's a lot to write about. But I'd been going to go to bed a couple of hours ago, till I decided I'd done so much travelling today I might as well go for a Trail Shoe badge on Fitbit- that's having taken 3,000+ steps in a day. And I got it.

Here's just a breakdown, in lieu of a report of what the heck happened today, of approximately how far I wandered geographically, today; I estimated my extremis and found their latitudes/longitudes. So here you go:

furthest north 43°50'16.9"N
furthest south 43°42'59.7"N
furthest east 111°45'22.4"W
furthest west 111°49'05.5"W

(N/S total distance 7'57.2" (and remember, the length of one minute of latitude is one nautical mile, or 1.151 miles); E/W total distance 3'83.1" (the length of one minute of longitude varies depending on latitude, but it's set at one mile at the equator.) 

Baahubali 2

It's April 27th, or April 28th already if you're in India, or there's such thing as Thursday previews anyway so that means yeah it's over here too- but April 28th marks the official premiere date of Baahubali 2: the Conclusion.

http://baahubali.com/

Baahubali (for those of you whose new year resolution isn't to watch more Bollywood movies) is basically the most insanely epic action-packed film of all time. There's more info on the movie's official website, but be warned: any synopsis of the second one, no matter how brief, is going to contain spoilers for the twist surprise at the end of the first one. You have been warned.

(I first saw the first one about a year ago, I think still in Mushroom Power my old apartment. It was being watched- we didn't have a TV, well actually we did but that was like a personal one that a roommate had but only the first semester so no not the second semester but anyway it was being watched on a laptop- by, Taiwanese roommates, or their friends at least, it's been a while. They were watching it dubbed in Mandarin, so I couldn't really follow what was going on, but climbing a friggin' mountain-sized waterfall or being charged by a rhinoceros thing are the same in all languages.)

Alar Bahr Punches It Till It Bleeds

link! to the relevant information; my brother meeting with this Alan Bahr dude and having the meeting go well and everything.

So like apparently that's the same Alan Bahr as designed Planet Mercenary (the Schlock Mercenary RPG,) and my mind's just blown, because that looks like a crazy fun one- like, a crazy fun one. 

I've engaged in pen-and-paper myself a grand total of like two or three times in my life, so I haven't actually played it (Planet Mercenary) or anything, but I have studied RPG mechanics, pretty darn extensively (I mean not like super extensively, but there was this point where, I mean, there have been instances; I know enough at least to say, D&D is, well I don't want to call it terrible or anything, but the only reason it rules the roost as much as it does is because it's kind of a default, and there are so many much better systems out there guys) and so from what little I know of how Planet Mercenary plays, from the Kickstarter and Howard Tayler's blog and everything, combined with my fairly humble but rough-hewn solid knowledge of all the clever RPGs out there: Planet Mercenary is not only darn accessible but also unique, with a lot of mechanics I've never seen anywhere else but which make so much sense that you kind of wonder why nobody else has thought of that before. 

Like there's a couple of storyteller mechanics that the GM does, which makes the campaign have the narrative scope and feel of a real story because it uses actual storytelling principles, and it's like dude, why has no one else thought of that? 

MEANWHILE I GUESS, I've totally got the backlog of the last few days' worth of posts; mostly just embeds of stupid awesome YouTube stuff. I was gonna go to bed like two hours ago if it weren't for homework, so...

2017 Backlog 5/13- Eames Office- Communications Primer

This is a classic, and pretty darn fascinating. And pretty darn innovative as well.

2017 Backlog 4/13- This Neat French Autism Awareness Website I Found??

It's called Dis-moi Elliot. The whole thing's in French and each of the 4 experiences will take approximately a brazillion years to get through, uummm I guess, but it's very rad.

http://dismoielliot.fr/

2017 Backlog 3/13: Soft Targ

12/31/17; I'd meant to put this stuff off over these next few days but I guess didn't, but here it is. 10:00 pm.

This is Lawrence M Schoen, author of that Barsk book I wouldn't shut up about for like a month when it came out a year ago; he is also probably the world's premiere expert in Klingon, and no I'm not making that up.



He's also the one who translated Hamlet into the original Klingon.

Essay on Anarchy

The internet don't got no government, y'know? The internet does whatever. The internet's just all anarchy. Anarchy. Good way to describe it. We think of THE INTERNET as being this weird thing, when it's mostly not weird. If there were no government, it'd be like the internet. There'd be, like, this weird place over there, and most people would think it's the whole planet that's weird and messed up, but it'd just be Sweden. Or whatever.

The End

Pinata

AAARGH I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING TO POST.

Printing Plans, One Week Into the Semester

No classes on Friday means my weekend begins now. Thus passes week one. Paying my tuition, and checking that, I've still got a few hundred left after it, to spend on... printing stuff. Surfaces on which to print, are a big one. Got a few rag papers from monoprint class (fiber made of cotton instead of wood)- nice stuff; we get our paper at wholesale prices, which is really good. But, tees too, need those, in many sizes and colors.

You've seen the this, right? I mean, I can't proceed if you don't know what I'm talking about, and I'm going to be mentioning stuff from my latest vlog now. 

Plus I like the hits.

Alright. I can talk about it.

BLFC taking place during, not just midterms, but hecka midterms, I think it'd be wisest to hold on that another year. Booths are only going to get even more expensive, but between everything and transportation, and the cost of my promotional strategy business model (free water bottles for everyone! boutique regional sodas being sold at a loss!), I'm pretty chill with that- it really would/does represent a major investment. Maybe I'd even get electricity at my booth; that'd be highfalutin. Meanwhile, proceeds still going to charity, and probably remaining that way for a good year or so to come, man who cares about being in the red, it's nice and cool here in the black.

There's still a good goal to work to there- I've got a few designs, for both serigraphic and silkscreen prints (no technical difference, but colloquially one refers to fine art printing and the other to printing on t-shirts and the like.) It'd be good to have inventory, and I was thinking, 10 of each t-shirt by June, just to have, with the fine art prints... well, there's a lot to be determined with those, such as dimensions and edition size; we're testing out paper first now of course.

Front and Backstage

Timebiding

5 classes this semester:

1. Interaction design
2. monotype and monoprint
3. New Testament
4. Figure Drawing
5. Information design again

I'm taking a New Testament class even though I'm good on religion credits, I've taken all of them I need, because I believe I heard something once about, man I don't know, having at least one religion class a semester, or something? Felt like a good idea, at least.

Also it gave me the two credits I needed to have me be taking 14 credits this semester. Though I already received my pell grant for the year, all of it, you need to have 14 credits in order to get it. So it seemed like the good/not illegal thing to do. Guess they just trusted me to do that.

I am hecka trying to stall, though. The pragmatic reason for that being, I'm only now getting kinda a little good at graphic design, and I need to be that (that is, good, and more than kinda a little) in order to have a good portfolio, which I want so that I can apply for and get into a BFA program, bumping up my Bachelor's to a Bachelor's of Fine Art; I want that because

1. it's just better
2. BFAs are designed for students without minors, which is me, because my general studies courses have all been transfer credited, and all I need to do is take art courses which does leave me with just art classes to take.

There are also multiple non-pragmatic reasons for stalling as well. Still not sure if stalling is the right thing to do... I'm running out of courses I can reasonably take; after this semester all I'd really need to do is to, well I'd have to check but the last major thing would be to find an internship, though there may be a few classes here and/or there that I'd need to pass, maybe. At least after this semester I have no classes for the rest of the year, being on a winter/spring track...

edfefgvegrvergergereg

You're probably expecting me to report on my first day of classes, but really by tomorrow I'll have the first class taken in all my classes this semester, so why not wait till then? (Mostly though it lets me avoid having to write about it right now.)

I've got the crappy, thrown-together but at least meticulously researched and not-late final for my information design class last semester up! Only two weeks from, the Monday two weeks ago (though this was due on Friday and handed in on Friday, figure it's best to keep up the Monday posts for some reason.)

https://pretzelizemecapn.wordpress.com/2017/04/18/project-4-final-mentality-app/

My GPA was once 3.75; can you believe that?

New working model I came up with: get a full rough draft out as soon as possible and care about making it look pretty later. It's a totally unique concept that I invented all by myself; this term I coined, "rough draft," simply means that it's a version of the project that's bad, dd deliberately (oh man the keyboard froze on me for a sec so I had to jam on it.) Why would you want to do something bad deliberately? It froze again but I'm contiuing to type; maybe it doesn't like my typing of the word "deli..." um that word. It's unfrozen again, just in time for me to catch myself from typing that word again.

In answer to the question, though: 

MAN I DON'T KNOW I'LL COME UP WITH A REAAON LATER.

Napping...

Jonathan's skyping with his mom on how to work a crockpot- he hadn't known to leave the crockpot cooking over church. I nap on the couch, waking up in time to hear him make the call, but falling back asleep as he cuts up vegetables in order to fry them before putting them into the crockpot, to speed the process up now that it hasn't been cooking the whole time. My dream lasts as long as it takes to tell it: it is of Kong scientists, like scientists who are actually King Kongs, studying the children of the native villagers, administering the IQ tests they've invented to them but puzzled that the children who have what we would classify as autism seem to be underperforming on the tests, and trying to calibrate them to correct for this failure.

Delicious Hot S'mesh

Okay so there's stifff here whenre it's like I'm really tierd and I've been that for an hour or so but haven't got to bed because I can't stop watching the Get-Along Gang like the Nelvana one not the TV show itself but the half-hour special where the animation is actually pretty decent but the plot is still made out of dumb and it's like what am I even doing but too tired to question even that.

But I made the final class schedule today am taking the class again which had two slots left, got an email with the saying that there was three but then another person signed up before me, information design on campus, dropping the advanced typography (that's the email there, that's what it was about, saying there was just too darn many people signed up and offering alternative suggestions.) So things work out, guess not doing too well in the class the first time (after being all behind and stuff in it like I was saying when I was in it) was for a reason, so I could signed for it again after the lateness for the advanced typography signup again? THE ONLY REASON i TOOK THE CLASSES ON AUTUMN TRACK WAS BECAUES IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE WINTER THIS SEMESTER OFFERED, DARN IT. npw ?//I'n a semester more older than I should be and i's just unnatural becase my schedule is having no fun at all with the prereq1s reuqired.

I am100/% not so tired as not to reveal um whatever the word is, alright I CAN TYPE PROPERLY but too tired to think of real words for things at least. Are yp not entertained?

and then with that I could drop bookmaking, which had a person in from of me in the line in the light of the waitlist there, but Iv'e got the all the creids signed uop fro!

W'er the getalong gang getalong gang getalong getalaong we alwasy get to alng get alpng get akolng. Woo.

EDIT: uum so the title of this post was meant to be a pun based off of Buzz's "delicious hot s'hmos" line from Toy Story 2, combined with the word "semester." Must've been really tired to think that made sense...

I'm Not a Magical T-Shirt Making Wizard, But I Play One on TV

Actually getting round to printing anything today, just a test print at first on some newsprint I've got, lo! and behold!... no ink went through the screen. The screen I've got emulsed, I under-developed it when it came time to expose it to light (really I'm not sure how familiar anyone is with the process, but I've explained it in brief before,) which means that the light that got through didn't go through all the way, and there were at least no pockmarks or imperfections in the print that would need to be stopped out, because there was no print. The screen was airtight, much more inktight. 

But I think I found a comfortable workflow- it's certainly not rushing the printing like mad (although, not having officially done the printing, that might still be alright) but I mean, not making the prints but working on them like mad- degreasing the screens and emulsing them and drying them in a darkroom and exposing them and washing them out and squeegeeing ink through- that's not something I'd rush. Working on it a little bit every day is something I'm totally fine with, though. Some every day, not like mad, but like consistent. And as for printing, cranking out prints, there's still the weekends in the semester.

I'm still pretty inadequate with everything, but I enjoy doing it and it feels good and I'm still seriously considering getting a BLFC booth even though this week didn't turn out remotely (alright, remotely) as planned.

There's still tomorrow, also...

At Least Business Expenses are a Tax Write-Off

I contacted the DMV regarding my permit which expires tomorrow, and I'd need to be in-state in order to renew. There is a 30-day grace period. So ???.

...

Okay turns out that like there's a $50 rent for staying Spring Break, and I wasn't supposed to be here the whole time. But if I pay that $50 by tonight, then I'm good and everything's cleared up. And I'm good for the $50, but...

I really really don't want to have to spend money on avoidable stuff like that, right now. The semester's coming up, and there's still major credits that I'm not taking because of that whole late-signup thing. I wanted to take advanced typography this semester, darnit! I've signed up for a class instead of that, already, but there's still 3 credits of on-hold-ness from a class I signed up for that might not get off of hold, so 3 credits I still need to sign up for. Maybe.

Meanwhile alongside the $50 thing. The only 20 amp outlet in the whole apartment complex (need it for the flash heater to cure the ink after it's been printed) is in the lounge, and I need to work something out because it's heavy and I can't lug it up and down all the time but I can't keep it in the lounge either. And what's the deal with my keeping my printing stuff in my bedroom anyway? There's not enough room to swing all four print stations around, in the bedroom, unless I lift the press off the ground and onto the exposure unit- that would give enough room to clear the bed so that I'd be able to rotate all arms freely. Theoretically. But I'm not sure, and heaving heavy-duty equipment onto a glass surface, even one protected by cardboard or a styrofoam flat or something, doesn't strike me as the wisest thing. 

So yeah, my real question is, would it be worth it to keep everything in-house, or would I be able to locate a studio for myself off-site? I'm considering my options, seeing if there's a place I can relocate to, and for cheap... 

There are a few places nearby that look promising. For one, there's the old beauty college on College Avenue, a couple of blocks away. I've seen it rented out for parking for food trucks, and there's a sign there now that says something about Porter's employee parking only (Porter's is the craft and frame store a few blocks away from my apartment; I haunt it quite frequently.) So that seems like a great option, but with no guarantees of exclusivity.

There's a violin place not far away from that that's changed locations, leaving the old shell behind, an empty building with no inhabitants. I tracked down the new location to talk to the guy, but it's changed hands again since he's sold it; he gave me a phone number for the county in order to track down the current owner, and now I finally have a name on the current property owner: a certain Dennis Butterfield, no address on file, no phone number on file. 

And then there is that house that's apparently being moved out of right next door. But all I need is a studio, and I'm not sure renting a whole house is worth it for that...

So that's where I stand right now. On Thursday I'm about where I am right now in printing as I'd planned on being by Tuesday, plus I've only a limited amount of t-shirts already purchased upon which I can print. I'd need more, which means purchasing them, and then I'd need to flip them and sell them for money but make none of it tangibly because there's still a couple thou left to get myself out of the black.

Everything's heavy right now. Everything's so, so heavy.

Literally, everything is heavy. It's my nap time, and I'm having trouble lifting stuff... my head, this laptop, my hands...

ONE BATH LATER: I'm looking at all the brony and furry conventions within driving distance which take place this year, preferably not during the semester but it's increasingly looking like sinking the cash into getting a booth at BLFC in June is a good investment: the second-most-likely candidate, Crystal Mountain Pony Con, is in Layton Utah this summer, which seems doable, but it's in July at the same time Ryan and I are home for Independence Day/the dentist's, so really it's out. I like the idea of grabbing a booth (if there are any still available) at BLFC, though: it was where Hyena Agenda, another furry t-shirt designer and a pretty major/popular one, launched; it's the third-largest furry convention in the United States and getting bigger so that's greater exposure over any of the littler guys; and there's no need to spend exorbitant hotel fees when you're just an hour or so away from home and the gas money for that is still way cheaper than the going hotel rates these days.

But it'd still cost money to rent a booth and find a ride down there and back up again, not to mention the materials cost like I already said, and I'm still in the black, and my business model of "extra gravy always" does not pay for itself very easily, and I'm still considering paying money to rent I'm thinking the violin place, and have myself a well-situated studio... (but maybe making that money back in rent by renting the space to other students who may need studio or storage space? so maybe that could be my real business for a while, with the printing thing as a hobby... (which it already was anyway, like the whole t-shirt thing isn't even why I'm into printmaking but it is what sells.)) Why is the future so expensive!

First I need to track down this Dennis guy and see if the place is even available...

Oh and also pay spring break's rent.

Red Lights with a Blue Shade

I am a grade-A crappy emulsor, but that's one of the things we're exploring this week, why I wanted to get on it so early. Got red lightbulbs, red felt blanket covering the bedroom window which lets in only red light. It's still frightening, it seems not dark-roomy enough, but it should be good. (I've been in real dark room(s) before; the lighting is much more dramatic than what I've managed to set up.)

Ran into Devon, coming home an hour ago from the movies- he happened to be stepping out of a side door of some building, as I was walking past. Just random. Classmate of mine, perhaps you remember. He was in our ward during summer last year, and it turned out he has a stutter, which I'd never noticed any of the classes I had with him. Last time I saw him, or one of the last times at least, was at a gallery open house- he's engaged, turned out then; looks like he was never a romantic rival. But it's strange how fate brings people together again, no matter how briefly.

My sleep schedule this week has been really bizarre- consistent, but bizarre. Maybe comes from the almost all-nighter at finals, I don't know, but, I sleep for a few hours each night, and take a nap in the morning, and take a nap in the afternoon, and in total it adds up to adequate sleep. Feeling sleepy again right now.

My haircut's looking much better; I can go places hatless if I want. Think I'll go to the temple tomorrow?

Woo, nodding off. etter name this post and head to bed.

La La Land and the Literal Hollywood Fairytale

I study fairy tales a lot, not just because of my general research on folklore I conduct in fits and starts when I find the time and motivation to work on Things That Don't Even Come Back Around, not just because it's a great study if you want to analyze how stories are put together, but also because it's just a dang fascinating thing. Saw La La Land today, finally; it's the last 2016 film that was on my list to catch, and... there's 3 films about Hollywood that came out last year, right, this, Hail, Caesar! from the Coen brothers, and Café Society from Woody Allen. And, well the Coen brothers may be (among) the greatest directors of all time, since they're something that everyone can agree is pretty great, but I just want to focus on La La Land and Café Society. Because, they're not the same movie, but they're both adaptations of the same fairy tale.

One of the first things that strikes you when you begin an in-depth research of fairy tales is how, well I don't even know how to put it, how the same-yet-different different fairy tales are. The same elements are all there, just arranged in a different way, and sometimes tales with completely different elements can be telling the same story. Twisted, fractured fairy tales are nothing new, remixing is an intrinsic part of fairy stories. With Persian fairy tales I find this especially striking, but you see the same thing in European folklore as well; is there any real difference between Beauty and the Beast and Hans My Hedgehog? Of course there is, because there's always a difference, but the more you study the more samey everything feels, while at the same time the more the individual details and arrangements of elements call out to you as being unique and worthy of archiving. I find that critics who deride, say, Disney adaptations of fairy tales, and speaking of how violent and scary the "original" fairy tales are, are missing the point entirely, and furthermore I can't really see the impetus behind such things as the Aarne-Thompson classification system, which groups fairy tales by similarity of elements- which elements, if you're paying attention, are in reality entirely arbitrary.

And so when I say that La La Land and Café Society are the same fairy tale, they really are both fairy tales, and they really are the same. Outside of the obvious plot similarity, they're both structured stories from a bygone oral tradition: neither ends when you think it will, going on twists with the story structure itself; both introduce story elements (characters particularly, is what I'm thinking of) at times when you think that all the pieces would have been set up; both have bizarre timeshifts built into the structure, particularly at the end. Would I have noticed had both stories not been about the Hollywood dream? Would I have noticed had the love stories ended with the protagonists not ended up together, and only remeeting years later when it's far too late for this cosmic tragedy in the story structure to be repaired? Would I have noticed had one of Mia's roommates (checking IMDb it's probably Tracy, played by Callie Hernandez) not looked a heck of a lot like Kristen Stewart? I don't know. Replace any of those elements (barring the roommate one,) and it's a different fairy tale.

I recommend maybe renting them, both movies, studying them side-by-side. And then purchasing Hail, Caesar! to own. Because it really is a pretty underrated one, you guys,

So speaking of fairy tales and Kristen Stewart! Beauty and the Beast. I brought the original fairy tale up earlier for some reason, but I'm talking about the movie, the live action one, the Disney one, of this year. When I first saw the original Beauty and the Beast trailer, I thought that Emma Watson at the end there was Kristen Stewart (have I told you this before?). And I love Emma Watson, but how great would Kristen Stewart be in Beauty and the Beast? I mean, then the world would be able to see what I see.

Where's My Bandit Hat? (PretzelsVlog no 2)

It took all day to put this video together; I hope you enjoy it.



I describe my haircut as "wicked" in a take which got saved to my lav but which the camera was not actually recording- which is a real shame because that take was my favorite. I mean, that is an accurate assessment of the haircut situation. And I really liked that take... Aaargh it happens I guess.



Meanwhile, in grades-land, it looks like my semester grades are in! I got grades, in all my classes. Good ones? Bad ones? Very much so, thanks for asking!

Paint



Didn't even notice the time. Been painting- not printing but painting. It's part of this, thing I'm doing (I'll do? Haven't actually 'grammed anything on my Pretzels account...) on IG. So I've been painting, and I didn't even notice the time until about a half-hour ago when I checked it when I got hungry... think I'll vlog tomorrow-- or today rather, it being so late-- and explain the sitch re: Spring Break.

How to Obtain Swag/Goodies After the Semester Ends

With the end of the semester and people moving out, you know what that means... dumpster diving season! Haven't scored anything as sweet as the laptop Ryan found a couple of semesters ago, but, I have a baking pan now made of actual glass! There are loads of really hoity-toity apartments, whose residents I kind of feel sorry for not only because the rent must be ridiculously high but also because they're so far away from campus, but for real there are some super nice digs around... digs means housing, right?... for real, though, super far away from campus, it took I don't even know how long, to drag everything back... but, you figure, the nicer the digs, the nicer the stuff people are willing to part with. I no longer need to use a cardboard box as a laundry basket!

It's these rich conservative types who are always going on about welfare being bad, but the nice stuff they throw away sure seems to enable a whole lot more homeless folks than the government ever did... For real there was a whole pizza just sitting there (well, it was upside-down, and on the ground, and scattered all over the place, and maybe wet I don't know, and so, no I didn't take it, 'cause ew...)

I spent a lot of time today, a little time yesterday but not that much 'cause finals, and some time the day before, overyester evening (they've got a word for the day after tomorrow, but is there a word for the day before yesterday? [EDIT: Ereyesterday, if tumblr is to be believed?]) in which I didn't, score as much, as I'd hoped... almost got the cops called on me... I told him to go ahead and do it, but I guess he didn't, with me putting that nice thing back and everything.

Some key aspect of my morality (maybe it's not "key," but hey let's say key) deals with not letting things go waste; some key aspect of his dealt with man I don't even know. I don't even know. I can't even think of any better ways of saying how much I don't know where he gets his moral system, because it's just all kinds of baffling to me, all kinds...

WoooO!

Didn't actually go all the way through with the all-nighter; I would have but the only reason would have been, just to do it... went to bed around 4:00 or 5:00ish- 5:28, Fitbit tells me... woke up 8:51... today was spent with a lot of cleaning the apartment, a lot of finishing off that design project, and that's finished... and that's finished!

And the semester's over now!

So my plans for spring break are: stay up here in Rexburg. Print stuff. Those are the plans.

Late-Night Finals, Design Class Designing

My mental acuity is dropping sharply; I don't think I'll be able to cut an all-nighter. Pretty sure I don't need one? I'll probably be able to wake myself up early in the morning, though, seeing how important it would be for me to do so. Already everything seems a fog of half-reality, and I'm not even close to staying up as late as I do sometimes. Alright, I'm close. But man I guess finals season wipes me out. Going to feel like an idiot if it turns out that I need like 4 more hours to polish everything.

This will be all over, 24 hours from now. Sweet - release.

So! Turns out! My phone was on the second floor of the Spori- the communications department lost and found. I'd checked the art department lost and found on, Friday was it, when I realized it wasn't in my apartment?, but no phones had come in and if they had they would have rung audibly when we'd tried to call to locate. Wasn't in the boss custodian's office after all. Ryan said as much, which caused me to look again today, finally taking the possibility it might have been on the second floor seriously. The Spori second floor is a maze of hallways and offices; I had to go around the stairwell all the way to find the communications office, because though it's to the left, with that wall there you need to take three rights instead.

I'm finding I've got occasional drifts back into lucidity. Maybe I will be able to pull an all-nighter off after all. I so do not want to, but, this is the last of those I'll have to do in a while, so I might be able to do this??

Prince Pretzels- Printing a Prototype

Above: the original design for my mailer piece. In case you can't count that high, that's 42 distinct colors in that piece, not counting the white background. That means 42 layers of ink, made of 42 screens, out of 42 uniquely mixed inks. It truly would be an impressive mailer piece, for sure, but something just told me it wouldn't have been worth it to print...

So I tried it with 4 colors instead, not counting the white background: I separated the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black channels from each other in the final image, converted those channels to half tones so that they could be printed and work out as silkscreen stencils, printed those channels out onto individual transparencies, exposed some preprimed screens to light through those printouts (it's literally taking a photograph), set the screens by bathing them in water, and used those as individual "channels" for ink in making the shirt, printing cyan on top of magenta on top of yellow on top of black. The result...

Well it's more Joan Miro than Lauren Faust, color-wise. Hard to believe, even after seeing the original design (heck, designing the original design!) that there's supposed to be rainbows in there... Also kind of reminds me of some of the Fauvists; those guys were way cool... Still, not really what I'd had in mind. Oh well?

Finals Mostly Over... Mostly

Whaaaat is wrong with me; I am so used to not going without sleep... I really both want to, and do not want to, pull an all-nighter... Let's go over all the classes I've got again, and see where I stand in relation to the finals- because I honestly can't remember myself. Um, temporal order, I guess?

Monday-Wednesday-(Friday) classes:
Mesoamerican Art- No class tomorrow; it's over with. Though I need to email the professor about, well his aide absolutely vanished on him, who was going to grade a bunch of papers, so included in that are my movie reviews... so he says to email him if there are any assignments he hasn't graded yet, especially those ones. I may also want to bring up other stuff too, like how he promised extra credit over some misunderstanding (the syllabus was worded misleadingly regarding how many points board games are worth- they're worth more if you play them with fellow students in the class, but it sounded like you get extra points just generally for having more players, so he promised to bump multi-player game points up a little bit if we email him. Plus I've got a couple more questions about that, like, why'd I only get 7 points when it's out of like 25 and not 10, and especially with that and how it was turned in before the early bird special deadline.)

Foundations of the Restoration- the class contribution doc's been turned in; the knowledge survey's been taken. Do the readings for tomorrow, and show up to class.

Animation (Linear)- there's a final project due at 2:00, as class begins. I made a lot of headway into it today, should have it finished by class then. It's like this, animation, thing... how do I explain it...

Alright. Remember this? 2013 Dodge Ram Super Bowl spot, Paul Harvey "God Made a Farmer," two minutes long because that's how Chrysler Group do?

Those are all still photographs, extruded into space so that the camera could do fancy things around them- it's subtle, but if you watch it fast-forward, you can totally tell there's a parallax effect. (Ready for the twist ending? Apparently the guy who teaches the class (Tim Howe) is the one who did all that, like, that commercial, he's the one who made it (for Digital Kitchen, for the Richards Group, for Dodge, for Chrysler.) Won, a few awards, for it, and probably made a billion dollars, I don't know, it's a pretty big one.)

What we're doing isn't quite as fancy as that, but we're also supposed to have cool transition effects, using luma masks and all (black and white imagery, such as a white cloud against a black background, is made so that the black part shows one scene and the white part shows another; you can use this to transition, like if the cloud comes in and the white covers the black, kind of deal.)

Tuesday-Thursday class:
Business for the Professional Artist- ended today. I spent most of my time today doing stuff for this- have my first t-shirt printed. Did not come out as planned. And I've "sold" my first two shirts (sold in scare quotes because the money is not going to me of course.) Still need to, design, and, everything, but they've been ordered! By the end of the semester! So... basically, if I'd actually been posting on social media all this time, I would now be complete with all the assignments that that class had.

They never did ask me how many views I got on my video...

Online Class:
Information design? Hoo boy... this is why I want to maybe pull an all-nighter... I do not want to talk about it...

CMYK

I.

Went all the way across to Centre Square on the opposite end of campus to go do the Business for the Professional Artist final with Mica (Webb.) It's as long a walk to there as it would be were I to go to Albertson's to shop, it's just, a nuts ways away. The final is a take-home, open-note, do-it-with-your-classmates deal, because Bro Burr really wants us to know our stuff, and double-guessing and double-checking the answer in all your notes is a surprisingly effective way to ensure that.

II.

I'm basically brain dead right now.

III.

We went over the conquest of Mexico in Mesoamerican art class today, and then that was it. Got my stuff all turned in, no more class there. Tomorrow's the last day of Burrbiz. Trying to get a print in before then. I've got my CMYK stencils; I just need my CMYK. Been trying to mix some cyan, but it's not been going very well- magenta's next. Yellow and black I already have.

IV. 

Coming out as a furry (in the "debutante" sense, not in the "closet" sense) has been really interesting so far. I can't think off the top of my tired head one thing that's interesting about it, but it's probably that, and really so. Struck me like an existential gong, coming home from finals, looking up at the stars in the night sky of the newborn day, that this thing is happening, and will continue to happen, and is a part of me now. Or, not of me, but of my life: I sank so much into it, the silkscreen print and everything, I'm obligated to continue.

Been seeing more and more often students around campus wearing fluffy faux fur tails. Not even the ladyfurries from Fandomonium[!], the two from Animal Farm, I see doing that. But there was a girl, walking next to this other girl, as I was on my way to print finals stuff for Mesoamerican class, with a tail sticking out from under her long coat, you know? Then I saw, outside of religion class, someone with iron-on patches on their backpack, just, iron-on patches, and it struck me the same way. It's kind of alien to me, expressing personality through modification of dress. Like pinning a bunch of pins on your shoulder bag, you know? I don't understand that. It'd be like getting a tattoo or something; there's just something vaguely, immodest, in the form of, calling attention to yourself, about it. Expressing yourself through appearance rather than action. Strange. Bizarre.

Outside the apartment's kitchen window this morning, or, yesterday morning, I saw that guy again, this guy with a faux fur tail sticking out of his shoulder bag. I've seen him a couple of times before, around this area, not actually on the apartment complex though. I went to investigate, but he'd turned a corner and vanished mysteriously, maybe into the car that had been pulling away. And at Centre Square, searching around to find where Mica was studying, there's, maybe it's a different guy, but, that guy again...

Finals Week Pre-Game Huddle

I am not as tired right now as I was same time last night, or especially the night before, where I actually had to set my alarm for 11:00 pm to wake up so I could still get in my 10,000 steps for the day and also shoot up a post, but I should get to bed soon anyway. I've got a paper to write in the morning- actually, a final. 

Remember how in Mesoamerican Art class the final is to write one/two of two/three papers? Where there are three possible subjects, but two would be selected to be the real questions, so if you precomposed two papers you'd be good to turn in at least one of them? Turns out, announced Friday, that the teacher's having a minor surgery this week, and so the final won't be this Friday but tomorrow. Actually good news, though, because that means: there's only one class period this week; he's cancelling the Aztec exam (giving us all full credit but still allowing us to write a cheat sheet for 10 extra points;) and he's allowing us to choose any of the three topics to write on. I've already started it, but don't really feel like working on it right now, so I figure I'll be more motivated in the morning.

Meanwhile in Information Design class, the module is due on Wednesday instead of Monday, so hey hey.

Meanwhile meanwhile in Business for the Professional Artist class, I'm still reporting on Tuesday how viral my video goes, so go on and share it a bunch?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdN2AQbdVII

The kind of crappy audio quality should be alleviated now, hopefully, because who has two thumbs and types with his thumbs to add CC to videos? Not this guy, but, I'm like that guy who does do that; in all but, I type with the rest of my fingers as well...

Time Lift

Developed a TV series with my companion and apartment mates on my mission- it's a time travel mystery named Time Lift, about an elevator that a man uses to travel to hours throughout the day instead of stories on the building. Not as lame as it sounds! Actually pretty dope. Called "Lift" instead of "Elevator" because it sounds better. It'd be British, so in the same vein as Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, so it works out. Sort of a cross between those and Groundhog Day. 

There's even an episode where he's taken back to the 1970s when the office building was still a hotel (the office building is based on the JSMB, which used to be the Hotel Utah) and there's a bellhop, and the lift doesn't travel him through time when there's another person on it, so he has to figure out a way to get the bellhop out of the lift so he can travel back to the present. Why did he travel back to the 70s randomly? There's a frizzy haired woman there, maybe she'd know... but I'm getting ahead of myself, stumbling over my own thoughts as all our ideas come rushing back.

So let's go over it. A man (never named him, let's call him "~~~" because why not) discovers that the lift in his office building takes him to hours in the day instead of floors, within at least the day. Maybe this day is the day that he gets framed for corporate espionage, and so he needs to use this time to clear his name? Maybe. (Let's also call him !!!, because sometimes I misreach for the tilde key.) 

Aside from !!!'s getting arrested in the first version of the day, there's a few other exciting things going on that day. 

• The building gets robbed at one point in the day, and !!! realizes that he's the robber- like Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry's waiting there and realizes he's his own father when his real father doesn't show up, but with a ski mask.
• The power goes off during a storm later in the day- he gets trapped by that twice, once when he's taking the elevator through that patch in time, and once when he experiences it from the outside as he needs to go back in time. So he's sitting there in the elevator, power off, listening to himself on the outside pound and sob how he needs to go back. He realizes he doesn't really seem to run into himself a heck of a lot.
• There's a bunch of kids on a field trip earlier in the day, touring the offices.
• There's a party for someone at some point on one of the floors- he shows up every few minutes to grab more and more food for himself.

As the day goes on, !!! compiles a list of things that need to happen during the day, arranged more by minute within each hour with hours being more like physical locations: okay, it's :47, time to go to floor 15, 4:47 pm, where I need to talk to this guy- no wait I got held up, and it's now :51, guess I can go to this floor and do this thing which needs to happen. (The British system is to call the first floor above the ground level floor 1, so it would work out with 12 am being ground and 1 being floor 1, but there's a basement floor, so things still get thrown off.)

When ~~~ activates the elevator shutdown thing, it actually freezes time- but he's stuck in the elevator of course, since the elevator is also frozen between floors. He can use this time to sleep and plan at least. He uses the emergency phone when the elevator is shutdown, once, and there's a voice at the other end! It's a fellow time traveler! Or, traveller, because this is British! His name is BHG, the Bald Headed Guy. In the storyboards I drew up, his eyes also have black censor bars over them. Also BHG isn't his real name of course.

"Who do you work for? Some kind of... time... enforcement... agency?"

"...TEA?"

Only then the twist for one of the episodes is, "who told you that I was a time traveller? Where did you get that idea?" And BHG isn't really a time traveller!

And it turns out that he's just a resolution of paradox. Him, the BHG. There was a bag of M&Ms that went missing when ~~~ decided, early on, to test out the rules of time travel during the wee hours of the morning, throughout the day- it Schrodinger's Catted away in the drawer of the desk, after leaving one drawer open in the future and one drawer closed, and opening one drawer in the past (it makes sense in diagram.) And where did the M&Ms go? They poofed right in front of the bald headed guy. Songs came to him as a child, and his items would go missing- they would be the original items in paradox loops, like the compass in LOST. That compass was BHG's. Whenever the main character stopped the elevator for the night, time would freeze around BHG too. And though the BHG experiences time normally, and can see all the instances of the main character ~~~ running around not as one person but as many, he's the one who knows what's going on, even what's going to happen next. Not that he himself has got the timeline totally straight or anything.

BHG, though not a time traveller himself, would know the future by interfacing with a deck of Tarot cards- he wouldn't see them as cards, but he would look through them and see them as the events they depicted.

The BHG explains the mechanics of fnord time travel on a blackboard to !!!, but all fnord he sees is IRIS. Like "fnord" from fnord Illuminatus!, fnord IRIS has been appearing everywhere to !!!. Who is Iris? What is Iris? Twist: it might just be the BHG talking to Siri but going backwards in time from ~~~'s point of view as he sees it. Or maybe it's this frizzy haired woman that keeps on cropping up everywhere since the random foray into the 70s (it revealed to ~~~ something important about the building's past anyway, and his realization of it is the twist at the end of that episode (yes, just his realization, and not the important thing itself)) but who may be imaginary, since the BHG has no idea what he's talking about when asked about the frizzy haired woman.

It's the end of the day when this explanation is going on- it's implied, and turns out to be true, that you can't travel back in time again once you've passed midnight. They're on the basement level floor, and so there's no "down" button, only up- no going backwards in time, only going forwards. He races up the stairs to the lobby-level lift where there's a down button- but it's past midnight by this point, and he must now face the day after.

There's a second series, maybe, this time where he'd be acting in the role of the BHG to some new, female time traveller, possibly possessing of frizzy hair. And the original BHG might be the bad guy here? So turns out the events of the first series, the time loop, was used by a time prisoner, imprisoned in a looping causal chain, to escape the time loop into normal time. It was a pretty elaborate and awesome escape, especially seeing as how it happened every time, by definition- in an alternate universe? Yeah then I guess maybe there's more than one kind of time travel possible.

So yeah, that's basically Time Lift. I may be missing a few details, like the time he accidentally kills a security guard, stashes the body in a closet that goes through midnight, and undoes that scenario using time travel, and maybe some other details as well, but, that's the gist of it.