The Comic Book Workshop usually have a "lab" on Saturdays, at 1:00 at the Crossroads Food Court in the Manwaring Center. This week, however, we took a trip up to Idaho Falls today, to eat at IHOP and shop at Hastings Entertainment. We left a little before 10:00, and got back, 1:30-ish I guess, so it wasn't that long but it was still a relatively big trip.
Hastings has things new and used, of comic books and apparel and books and CDs and action figures, and also DVDs and video games but I didn't spend much time checking those sections. (IHOP, meanwhile, I'm pretty sure has beer, just judging my the name? but we all got breakfast instead.) Also, one of the two vehicles back swung by this arts/crafts supply place for a bit, but, fearing for the remainder of my pursage, I just took the car back that I'd taken up which was just heading straight back home. Plus that was the vehicle all my stuff was in that I'd brought up, so.
So, odd bit of self-discovery today, I have developed nerve endings into my wallet, because, it hurt going into Hastings like that. It really, really hurt. Luckily none of the comic books appealed to me that much (or at least not enough to be worth buying, with my throbbing pocketbook- oh boy the entire collected Knightfall story arc of Batman, I sure wish I had $90 to spare on three phone books!)... I stuck to CDs and books.
Judy Hopps and the Missing Jumbo Pop is just so great, and I utterly lack the capacity to explain why...
Meanwhile, I am two albums closer to my goal of total U2 album domination! And also Under a Blood Red Sky, which I realized not longer after the purchase that I already own, albeit only (till now) in cassette tape form.
Figuring I should probably have some photography to prove the trip and one or two of the goodies we got on it, I commissioned (but for free of course) the following portrait, where I'm wearing, not my steampunk goggles purchased from Hastings, but those of the gal in the seat next to me. And they are even sweller to wear than they are to behold upon the visage of another, that's fo' a fac'.
There are also individual portraits of everyone else in the vehicle, though I'd rather not go through the hassle of receiving everyone's permissions; those in the backgrounds of my picture are incidental? Also, if I commissioned the photo, that makes me the copyright owner, right? But I didn't commission the extra photographs, so, there's that too.
Absolutely, monstrously insane fact that I learned this morning, though: the Buggles, as everyone knows, are the two-man tag team of Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, yet there's a seemingly third member in the video, most prominently around 2:53. No, it's not Bruce Woolley. It's not Snape. It's not even Voldemort.
It's Hans Zimmer. ZOOTOPIA WATCH sorta? With the very first film reviews already beginning to come out, this feature is beginning to seem kind of redundant, but I figure there are one or two more hurrahs left in this thing. More from the Zootopia and Hype thing from a couple days ago, anyway-- down in the comments, user "crossie" pointed this out,* and it was just so great that I'm going to assume that you didn't read through the comment thread so I'll just post the thing up here in its entirety (remember, we're talking about Zootopia and Hype):
Two words: Star Wars
Listening to furries worry about hyping a movie too much while a large chunk of the culture around them obsesses about an upcoming ‘Star Wars’ movie all through 2015 didn’t make any point other than furries are really, really unaware about what’s going on in the culture around them.
In 2016, it’s that, plus late. **
Which, yes, is amazing, but I only decided to mention it today specifically because I only realized today, I'm one of the people who wasn't hyped for Force Awakens, but love it now.
I'm finished with those sandwiches, and their accompanying chips and cookies! Not finished with all that water, though... and there's still plenty of condiment package left over. That vegetarian option, the wrap, was really good, very crunchy...
What the apartment will not run out of any time soon, however, is bread. We've been eating a lot of it for the past couple of days, and... I'm not sure if we've made a dent yet:
Those fruits are life-size, by the way. Not midget fruits or anything like that.
Protip: Jimmy John's sells breads in bulk for cheaps... if they happen to have forgotten to freeze the latest batch to keep it fresh like they should have done. Or, pardon, they did freeze the bread so that it was no longer fresh...
Anyway. I promised you P2B notes last Friday, and so should, like, give you those! The opening sessions don't yield much in things to share-- just people delivering inspiring talks about their own paths to greatness, that kind of thing, but, the breakout sessions of day 2 yielded some things worth sharing...
SPENCER TAGGART: TELL YOUR STORY
"Everything communicates." Everything. Even those, transliterating the example from his anecdote into relevant terms, those fruits by the breads. First impressions communicate- if you go into a job interview, assume that they're Googling you. You must exist, for one, but also for two you must not have any, again transliterating from that same anecdote, bruises on your fruits. What you do conveys different things to different people, so know your audience as well.
Learn how to tell your story the right way. A story breaks down into four steps, 1 "once upon a time," 2 "suddenly!..." 3 "luckily..." 4 "...happily ever after." Remember this structure as you tell your story, and don't shy away from the "suddenly!" moment in it; this moment of tragedy deepens your story and your willingness to share it connects you with your audience; you trust someone who's willing to be vulnerable. The "luckily" can either be a hero or a victim card; don't play the victim-- be sincere with your story.
Ask the right question. Albert Einstein was asked, if he had only one hour to solve a problem, how he would spend that hour. He replied that he would spend the first 55 minutes figuring out precisely what the question is, and once the right question is asked, it would only take 5 minutes to answer it. FOCUS your story. If you're vague, then I don't know how to help you. It's about VISION. Dial it in, or else you won't know when to say no to opportunities presented to you. The hardest part isn't when to say "yes," but when to say "no."
ROBERT SULLIVAN: NETWORK EFFECTIVELY
Be genuine. "Networking" in its classical connotations is, well, bad. It's a lie. The basic leadership practice today is to throw others under the bus over yourself. That's the given; that's the law. And it fails over and over again. Gains gained are in the short-term strictly, in the worldly conception of networking. Mormons network every day: all those callings in church are networking, the right kind-- if you were born into the Church, you're a networking pro! (Network=circle of people you serve, and whom you can call upon for service.) Expand the people you serve. As you serve the people in the network that you do have, others will see you serve, and be drawn in.
Show genuine interest in others. It'll surprise 'em and make an impression! Constant access to technology and media can disconnect us from those physically around us. "Centering" means to focus on the task at hand. Barriers break down when we get to know people, and networking becomes what "networking" has been looking for.
Three LinkedIn protips. 1- start with a great profile pic. 2- Your top banner is populated from your entire profile; complete the whole thing. 3- There's a BYU-I program of Super Connectors, people with at least 500 (but frequently many more) connections. Complete the prerequisites, and get those people to add you.
Be active. Update your profile often. It's freaking impressive. Let people know what's going on. Ask for updates from other people in your network. Do more than the minimum-- it will be noticed.
If you do all these things, maybe you, too, will have been childhood friends with Jake Black this whole time, and get to meet Orson Scott Card.
"TALENT CATALYSTS": DISCOVER YOUR PASSION
I don't know. I didn't go to this one. From what Mala and Caroline talked about during the opening session, though, I've got a couple of things maybe?
Passion=calling. Not like a church calling, though. Like, a, calling. For life.
Job-- what you do. Career-- what you build. Calling-- what you live.
[EDIT: Oh, shoot, I mean '16... I know I could fix that right now, but, I like it this way I guess?]
At Comic Book Workshop this evening, who should walk in but an old familiar face, well the whole person walks in but with the face still attached, which I thought I recognized but the more people you meet the more you start to notice how there are only a limited number of "actors" in the world, and you have to double or even triple cast for extras and minor characters and even major characters... but it really was, someone from the mission, whom I probably freaked out a bit by pointing at so hard in an "I know you" pose... and he wasn't the least shy of elders, so I hope he can make it back next week...
Anyway. Actual announcement time, an actual post topic. Ladies and gentlemen, particularly any ladies or gentlemen in the Rexburg area, and hey why not especially ladies, may I announce to you FANDOMONIUM, Saturday March 12. Sort of like a mini one-day Comic Con, here at BYU-I? The Events people and the Comic Book Workshop people are, getting together, and... gonna have little booths, and all, and... cosplay, could very well be cosplay...
...
I'm feeling kind of vulnerable right now, and I've got a big test tomorrow morning I'm trying not to cram for... so both of those are good, each informing the other that, I'm not putting out much of a post today. Because not only do I not feel like making much of a post, also I shouldn't. Happy alignment.
But, might as well get this out there, but in other news, it's been almost a whole month since the announcement but I wasn't informed of it till now (following research up on, they're making a Frozen musical now?...!,) but, Cats is coming back to Broadway?
I haven't posted a Zootopia Watch in a week; that is, my most recent ZW was last Monday. Which maybe wouldn't be so unusual, but, I didn't even break to announce that the 4th marked, like, just one month until Zootopia's release, or that the 5th marked one month until its release had this February been a non-leap-year one. Or that the 3rd would've marked a month were this not the February-March season at all, for that matter, nor the 2nd for a 31-day month. But that's quite literally ridiculous, and, yes, it's the 2nd I want to talk about here.
For that is the day that the writer Corgi W. (undoubtedly his real name ("his," that is, I assume "Corgi" is a male name...)) Corgi W. put up the essay, Zootopia and Hype, on [adjective][species]. Which is a, what did the "about "page call it, "metafurry resource" (which phrase gives me the giggles, even more so than the phrase "furry fandom" itself)? Basically a collection of furry essays written by a collection of furry essayists (alright, and now you've got the giggles-- "furry essayists." Yes such things exist yes they can be of mixed quality and yes [a][s] is one of the more trustworthy ones quality-wise.) This particular essay, Zootopia and Hype, is... well, look at that title. All about the kind of thing I've been doing so far, hitting me straight in the paradigms.
So, pertinent!
Hitting me right in the paradigms, and I suppose it's taken me this long to digest everything. And plus it's easier not to update you on every dang twitch in the calendar.
There's a lot to think about. The comments section of the essay has already probed at some of the assumptions made and everything, but there's still a lot that can't be answered so easily. For those of you who can't be bothered clicking that link and reading the essay all the way through to the end and also all of the comments (when I tell you to read the comments section, bro, you read those comments bro,) I can sum up for you the most salient ideas, which boil down to two parts.
this film's not out yet why are you buying plush Nick Wilde dolls like you've already seen it and loved it enough to spend all your money on memorabilia for it, the dictionary may not technically distinguish all that much between them but there is a (colloquial at least, which is enough semantically) difference between excitement for a thing and just plain hype over it, and
wasn't there this thing once where the furry fandom was supposed to be about fans of each other and flocking into a community that way, and now you're supporting a major corporation as an original content provider like it's one of our creators/artisans, when, it's still actually just actually a major corporation instead of that thing I just said.
I'm cross-referencing his arguments against TV Tropes's pages about Hate Dumb and Fan Dumb right now and at this very moment (because remember this blog is live,) and... well, first of all, whoooa new site redesign, and, second of all, our friend Corgi clearly clears of all of those hurdles, so, dang boy I must concede those are actually good points (though I suppose falling under any of the arguments on those pages wouldn't automatically make you wrong, either?) Also third of all, sorry for linking you to TVTropes. Meet me back here in three hours once you're done linksurfing, a'ight?
Hey you're back.*
"Hype," if a Wikipedia hyperlink I hovered over once is to be believed, comes from the word "hyperbole" (and fan will always mean "fanatic" in my eyes.) Yes, even though we know the plot and everything from all the tie-in stories that've been released already, we can't automatically assume that a movie that won't come out in the US for almost a month will be, any good, I mean, there's so much that could go wrong. We still don't know if the rest of the film's going to be as funny as the sloth trailer, or as catchy and insightful as the Shakira, or...
holy crap this is a real thing I'm writing about here, none of it is being made up, this is actually happening, of course it's going to be great did you not just read all of those things I just described, goshdarn Shakira is in this and I'm not making any of it up...!
Sometimes I still think I am. Making it up. Sometimes, I wonder. Now we know at least where the hype comes from... absolutely nowhere; it just is.
Inside the broader "furry" fandom now, for Corgi W.'s second point: as the comments point out, the fan-dom has always been of precisely that, anthropomorphic animals, however ill-defined that concept may be and however un "fandom"like such a definition would actually make it ("fandom" being defined as a group of fans generally around a specific property, like the Carolina Panthers or something.) Accepting "furry" as not revolving around a property but a concept, even with part of the pantheon of that concept being independent creators of anthropomorphic work, Zootopia = city of, yeah exactly that type of deal, so it easily finds its place in the pantheon as well.
But as deft as that answer may be, it's still a little glibbish, and it doesn't solve all of the problems raised... Corgi W., in the essay:
The premise of Zootopia isn’t unique (furries have imagined what a society of anthropomorphic animals would be like countless times before Zootopia). It probably won’t be a revolutionary, insightful, cultural classic. Yet furries seem to be holding it up, not because of its quality, but because it’s mainstream. **
d-... dang. I know that's the exact same thing I dissected in the appendices(?) of my initial review of BARSK: The Elephants' Graveyard, (where I did call BARSK all of those things in the second sentence there, if that makes a difference one way or the other) but that's still... dang.
We can't know if it is quality or not, yet, of course, but, that's precisely the point, and it ties the theme back together into the notion of hype. Is there another option, aside from quality or mainstream? If there were, would that prove the hype something else? Or would it prove it something else?
I did still dissect the idea in my initial review of BARSK... bringing it up in the first place, because, I was also falling into that, so I guess that calling it all revolutionary and insightful and potentially culturally classic DOES make a difference one way or the other, and proving I'm not above the attitude...
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to go stare at the wall for a while.†
I got sent to the principal's office a lot as a kid.
Especially in first grade. Got into so much trouble then... I seldom have bad dreams, and so when they occur my nightmares revolve more around knowing I've screwed up irrevocably, or something's changed in a way impossible to receive closure of the old form. During the interim between Cailins, being shipped school to school and being out of contact from her, the stuff of my nightmares was peeling to the edge of the soccer field, seeing Cailin there dressed in what would pass for preppy in the late '90s-early '00s, and finding out that she had gone straight. Obviously that never happened, though again obviously both of us had mellowed out and have mellowed out, from the days of dedicating an entire weekday just to flushing things down the toilet...
Yes, we got into a lot of trouble as children; got sent to the principal's office together.
Now would be a great time for a Prince of Egypt style "you were always there getting into trouble right along with me" moment, but... every time it happened, when both of us together were sent to the freaking scary pants-wetting traumatizing Principal's office (alright, it was not that bad, but it always seemed underlit, and also grown-up size instead of grade-schooler-sized, and yeah, really underlit,) Cailin would just call the principal's ear over to her mouth, whisper something into it (the ear not the mouth,) be excused because of whatever-it-was-that-she-just-said, and roll out, leaving me to deal with the windfall of both of our mischief.
Thanks, girl. Didn't need you anyway.
I can no longer recall how I extracted myself from those situations, or how serious of trouble I really was in, and to this day, I don't think I'll ever know what it was that Cailin whispered there either, so that her meting out of punishment was (to all my ken) nonexistent. I asked her once, what she said each of those times. but her reply was, somewhat noncommittal...
I realized one day, it was totally "I'm sorry," and I could imagine myself an ancient General Authority one day in the far future giving a really inspiring Conference talk, explaining the whispered secret and exerting a big awww from the congregation.
And later on one day I realized, that's not how apologies work, and just being sorry for something isn't going to let you escape doomsday at the school principal's hands. So the mystery remained of what was whispered.
I think it might have been, Cailin saying I've got classes I've gotta go, or more likely I think what she'd explained to me, her justifying her actions behind like ADHD or something and thus being totally inculpable and scott-free. Well, thank you for having a formal diagnosis already by this point, when I wouldn't get mine of anything until 200stinkin3.
And I'm bringing all this up now. No, it has nothing to do with the whisper part. It has to do with the trouble part, and the being left alone part.
Because I realized this morning, it didn't go away. All the worst influences I had on my mission, the bad crowd of Elders I ran with whom I won't call out here, all that was all just like that original mischief. I got caught up in that, too, and nothing really had changed in that decade-and-a-half.
I am just like a kid.
Maybe not anymore, but during my mission, at least, which was far more recent than Kindergarten and first grade. I let myself get tugged along still, just like that, only this time the parties involved knowing better. This morning, I knew what that meant, and what it means, but from that time there's some secret profundity behind the revelation that's been lost, or maybe was never there in the first place.
But I don't know how much of the trouble back in elementary was me, and how much was Cailin. The more recent episodes, however, the mission far-more-than-mischief... there's no practical difference; I went along with it anyway. So I'd rather not say...
Yesterday (although I couldn't post about it then, having a prior engagement in P2B day 2) marks the 5th anniversary of the conception of Michael Mercer's From the Dust, birthed from doodles at Bible Study course.
Five years ago yesterday was a Sunday, I just looked up, so it may have been just Sunday School instead of a religion course like I'd always thought...? Either way, that's 2011. By the end of 2012 the website's up and running, 2013 the first comics are up and running, and in 2014 the once-glorious future deep 6'd into indefinite hiatus and possible permanent demise.
An empire almost entirely rose and fell while I was on my mission, but of course I'd know about it, because... well, it's right there in my description; it's exactly the kind of thing I'd know about. What I didn't know about, of course, and had no way of guessing, is how young the project (at least project 1.0) died. And the somewhat obvious question, the question that's been on my mind ever since I followed up on whatever did happen to From the Dust anyway, is raised.
What goes wrong?
What goes wrong, indeed. Campaigning, a big part of it. It costs money to advertise, and in this self-distributed model it all comes out of the artist's pocket. Michael Mercer wrings out the reasons for his indie choice of publisher/distributor in the post announcing the project's "hibernation:"
Why do I not just "go to Deseret Book" or some other publisher? I've pursued those options but at the end of the day retailers and distributors will take 65% of the cover price of From the Dust. Add in a publisher and we lose 85%-95%! It's insane! How's an artist to make great content on such low profits? ... If From the Dust is going to exist, it is going to be done right from the foundation until the very last cherry on top!
In the same post, he explained the the initial FtD goals thus:
My dream has never been to "make a comic book series." The dream is to create movie-quality family entertainment at AFFORDABLE rates for ALL Latter-day Saints EVERYWHERE in their OWN language. That is From the Dust's mission. It's a big dream.
A conundrum. Here the artist wants control over his own work, to do with it as he wishes, to the point of even sacrificing the existence of that very art itself ((hopefully) temporarily) rather than lose his rightful vision and his potential profits over it...
That's right; all of this was just an elaborate setup for yet another discussion about the role of the artist in the marketplace. Oh goodie! I haven't the room here to explore all but the most perfunctory of my feelings on the subject, but I still feel like it's better than saying nothing.
In this case the artist's vision was as wide a distribution as possible, his motivations for the creation of art-- even when complaining about paygrade, apparently still-- fixed upon the uplifting of others. I mention paygrade: that's certainly how he makes it seem ("how's an artist to make great content...?")
At the same time, he seems to take the opposite approach I am here, saying how going over it even perfunctorily is better than not going over the issue at all. Who wins in this conflict? Or is the difference justified, because, say, I don't need fundage for these (like I said I'm not doing this for you, nor am I even doing this for money (easier to justify fair use on all those fanarts an' all?*))? The desire to create the best possible art, and to realize that the "best" is impossible, and, where to settle on that line, ultimately? Because the art does need to come out eventually.
With the case of In the Dust, as nice as it would be to have it now I'd say the wait for the best product wins, at some point in the future when the project comes back... well, back from the dust.
In the meantime, what can we do. Issue Number 1 (more than just the 20-page first chapter with its accompanying scriptural explanation, but also a whole host of behind-the-scenes glimpses, backstory and promotional material, most of it so hopeful and all of it so sad) is available on Gumtree, here, which if you don't know how that works, you can pay for it what you think it's worth-- and the artist here suggests, hey, why don't you have it for free, but be sure to share on social media?
So, why not. Go. Do. If you're remotely interested as I am. It's about all you can do, and what needs to be done.
Breakfast (some juice and a single donut) at 9:00 this morning, and from 10:00 to 12:15ish two breakout sessions, on this, the second of two days of this year's Power to Become "not just a" Conference. I reread yesterday's post recentlish, and, dang I've got a funny way of writing, now I'm awl self-conscious.
See those three chevrons in the P2B logo? Each of those stands for one of the goals of the conference, which are if you'll remember (or read it off the same card, whichever): Discover your passion; Tell your story, Network effectively. Three things, yeah?
Toupee!
Right. Three things. Three chevrons, three foci. Three. Three breakout sessions this morning, one covering each category. Three. And how many breakout sessions did I mention took place this morning? Two? Well, say, isn't that number the one below three? Yes. Yes it is.
We had to choose which two of the breakout sessions out of three that we wanted to attend, choose one to miss. The first session of each session was recorded, so it's not a miss-it-forever deal. But the video is still probably being edited right now, so as of right now all I know how to do is tell my story and network effectively, and I still have no idea how to discover my passion!
I hope it's got something to do with LinkedIn, because like 90% of the tips in the other two sessions were about that.
Which... Frigga, dude, I'm in the credits of Collapse like 8 or 9 times, and was a legend back in PPO of the DQ on JSMB6E back on the FCHHM in SLC; I guess I do have a resume to put up, and such an one neither none too shabby. I, then, shall get a LinkedIn. And maybe stop speaking so affectedly! It'd be... yeah, good, and, things.
So, P2B. Power to Become. It's a thing. It's a thing right here. 3 foci: nominally, Discover your passion; Tell your story; Network effectively.
Also, get really dynamic lighting conditions for some excellent snaps.
That's beautiful, innit? Click to embiggen, as always.
It's nightnoon, and I really wanted to wake up early tomorrow, so I'll make this brief and, phew, at least I'm not typing this with my face right now; after lugging home all the leftovers (well, not all the leftovers) from the included dinner, I'd thought I'd be unable to use my arms. But I had help. Thanks, Samantha! (Also, thank you Adam for helping me bring the boxes back after dinner in the first place, before session 2 of the conference.)
I haven't even counted how many I managed to nab this time.
That should make up for the $10 registration fee, just handily. Not that the mind-blowing content of the event doesn't do that already...
I'm going to "go to: bed" now, though; I can tell you more about the whole thing tomorrow.
Went to see another Center Stage production this evening. The Salzburg Marionette Theatre are touring in the US this month, and we were one of the stops for a couple of days, apparently! The Sound of Music, put on today and yesterday, Thursday and Wednesday.
I snapped a few pics after the show, some of which are better than others, of the "actors" of the thing, hanging around (I... I think I'm sorry for that one?)
This is where we stumble across the conflict at the heart of art, the purpose of creation, because... because I'm pretty tired right now, not even as tired as I am sometimes when writing up one of these posts at the end of the day, but I just want to go to bed, and, I can do that, because I'm not doing this for you, I'm doing this for me...
I just worked out the extreme hypotheticals, and, that makes sense, that even if an artist produces art to bless the lives of others, if he or she isn't blessing their own lives as well in the process, none of it is worth it. I wouldn't walk away from Ursula Le Guin's Omelas, though, so, yes I'm a hypocrite and it's all just opinion anyway, which means that the question has no real answer except, yeah, those that are within that ghostly asparagusly realm of opinion... (I'm working on my, adjectives; those punch things up. So far, though, I'm not sure if I've got the hang of it or not...)
I just finished listening to an Image Comics podcast (right here!) of an hour-long panel recorded during, New York Comic Con I think is the one, 2015, and nearer to the end the panelists talk about, the drive to create art, basically, versus the drive to have had created art: people who want to write comics, is the language used, versus people who want to write autographs. And you can always tell the difference.
I don't enjoy writing. I've said this before. I enjoy having written, very much-- so, yes, I do enjoy writing, but it's not my default go-to hobby like other things would be. I really want to write TTDECBA, because it's the kind of thing that I'd want to read, but I've very seldom "forced" any of my art; anything but letting it grow naturally is anathema to me. They further talk in the panel about how the best most successful comics are the ones created by true lovers of the story they're telling, rather than the ones that are just playing to any trends (which, I just realized-- does anyone really do that, or is it a dead unicorn? Clearly there are still the comics-writers vs the autographs-writers, still, so either way yeah I guess it makes sense that the winners are always the comics writers.) That's true; the best artists are always the ones who do it for the love of the craft.
I love blogging? So I do it for myself, and that makes it better for you... My hypothetical Omelas artist could never exist. Some small comfort. Recapitulating the theme, then, and hopefully tying it up (with a ball gag! wrong kind of tying up,) yes, I can go to bed, serving myself, but by now, diving headfirst into the juiciness of this issue, I'm no longer tired, and could really continue if I wanted, serving you. Or, no longer as tired. I still think it would serve you best to serve myself.
Tomorrow's Friday, which means no class, but it doesn't mean no homework, and I'd really like to get that done in the morning, because I've got a (I want to use the word juicy again, so hey why not juicy) reservation for P2B in the afternoon, which something something something TED except with BYUI? Supposed to be a lot of great networking ops! I'll let you know how that turns out, soon as I figure out what I'd want to network fer...
All right, here we go! Trying to use as clear of language as possible, but it's a complicated subject that can only really best be grasped intuitively...
Deadpool realizes he's fictional; Howard realizes he's fictional; Gwenpool is from the "real world" and thus is not fictional but everyone around her is because she now lives in this fictional world? And the spellcheck acknowledges Gwenpool as a real word; it never ceases to amaze me?
The idea of Gwenpool's fictional nature is kind of amazing, but I brewed this idea this morning even before knowing her backstory; even before reading that interview with Christopher Hastings just now, and realizing, shoot yeah, that's what I'd been going to post about today (Unbelievable Gwenpool comes out this April, written by Christopher Hastings with art by Gurihiru!)
Gwenpool's not from the real real world, obviously... there's a fake "real" world that exists in the Marvel universe, too, probably with a parallel universe designation all its own but I don't know, I haven't got 'em all memorized. And so I wondered: is this the real world that Howard the Duck et al realize to be real? They've got cognizance of their nature as "fictional" beings as members of their own universe; that is, the "real" world to them is the one they're not part of, and they're trapped in a world that's not that one. Like Gwenpool, but most of the time born into it and realizing their fictional nature elseways.
Is it this world that they're cognizant of, canonically? Because that's still not our world. Even a world that lays no claim to the origin of any form of Gwen Stacy wouldn't be our world. We occupy a parallel universe in which there is no such thing as parallel universes, for the purpose of distinguishing reality from fiction at least. The "real" real fictional world that meta characters realize to be real, really, is still fiction, because it would still exist as a parallel world within the greater (in this case Marvel) multiverse.
But then again, of course... maybe it is this world that these fictional creations, could never be cognizant of of course due to their fictional nature, but within the canon would be, cognizant of...
This one happened during early morning choir practice, and proceeded like the following, to the best of my recollection. I've got a dream journal from my mission with me, but this particular dream I only recorded in my normal mission journal, volume 1, which is one of the volumes I left behind at home... so, I'm not sure but I'm pretty darn sure that these are all the pertinent details.
There is a pony. She is a pie, I guess. If there's a part of the dream that I'm missing, it's one or two details right here. So, like, literally, a pie, I think, though I'm not sure if it's Maude or Pinky or what; that is I'm marginally certain that she's at least a pie in the first place, and literally so. Her tail is the crust of a pie, you see, and this reminds her that Friendship is Magic.
Logical so far!
As I fall deeper into this sleep, so she falls into a sleep, and as she slips off she can no longer maintain the integrity of the crust, being of course unconscious. The pie crumbles (she is a shepard's pie) and her gooey interior of peas, chicken, carrot bits, and goop falls out, and sloshes everywhere, probably in a way very symbolic of how pie crusts = friendship...
And thus, too late, she wakes up; and thus I wake up.
So I needed to print something out for Graphic Design, though I didn't know where the AlphaGraphics is, but the AlphaGraphics was supposed to be across from Jimmy John's, though I didn't know where Jimmy John's is, but it was supposed to be not that far from Deseret Book, which I did know the location of because it's not that far from Gator Jack's, the place where I ordered the 24-inch sandwich on Wednesday I told you about I'm decently sure.
So long story short I found myself in Deseret Book today.
And I'm not sure if you know who Stampy Cat is...
but he's got a children's book now apparently?
Obviously I had to pick it up. Obviously.
You can see the bookstore bag on the ground there in the background.
No, but seriously. If you watch nearly as many Minecraft Let's Plays as I do, then at some early point of your exploration of the world of those, when first learning of the epicness that is Stampy, you were probably all, I don't know, "oh, stampylonghead, what's that, some cat who plays Minecraft I guess I'll give it a click" before having your brains dribble out of your ears a few minutes later from your mind being blown so hard. His first YouTube channel was stampylongnose, where he plays FPSs, but he began playing Minecraft as well, and his second channel (he goes by both longnose and longhead, so just call him stampy?) is now the insanely popular one, with almost 7M subscribers as of this writing.
Such broad appeal, Let's Plays of Minecraft. And I had no idea that the market extends to the children's book demographic, but, apparently, it does?
And, thus, Stampy's Lovely Book was born? I... just... don't know. I mean, it's great, obviously, but... wait, I thought I'd accepted a long time ago that I'm never going to understand the children's book market. Do... do kids even know what Minecraft is? All right. This is why, the kids' book guys, are in charge of kids' books and not me.
Regardless of the market...
Well hey Stampy's got his own book now! Which came out last year, but, it still exists and everything, so the above statement still stands. I for one only heard about it today... which is now yesterday in this time zone, but anyway...
It's a fun, fun book. It does have a cake recipe in it, thank you for asking. It's also got puzzles, and activities, and quizzes, and trivia, and infographics, and tips on making your own videos (always ask a parent for permission before making a video and uploading to the Internet, and check the minimum age for the site you want to use!), and, and, even a how to draw Stampy tutorial!
Not, um, not bad, right? For a first time...? Well, I'm proud of it.
And there are also a lot of friends, and dogs, and googlies, and there's a comic too:
Presented without context, for your delectation.
It truly is almost like a gigantic milk-powered engine. That's because it is, but... Other rare sentences: get that honey-glazed ham out of my bookmobile and help me gulp this Men Without Hats album; I can't think of a single reason what would trouble orphans so, regarding the recently reincarnated pastry demon materializing in their inflatable swimming pool, I mean cummon it's not like a pasta demon or anything; oh man, I sure am glad that I spent the last five hours dinking around on TV Tropes it was totally worth my time and energy.
These rare sentences, they're trickier to write than they look. Well, except for that last one...
Anyway. Also at Deseret Book: other stuff. I can't remember, though it seemed reaaally significant at the time. There was this: a Good Dinosaur coloring book which I started crying reading. A coloring book of the movie started jerking my tears. It's that powerful.
Your move, Bing Bong's sacrifice. Your move, Fry's dog's patience. Your move, Bambi's mother's death.
Your move.
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
Looks like for whatever reason, The Art of Zootopia is now being published a week later than I'd initially posted. That's alright, though; when I hear that, I hear that there's one full week more of awesome content and graphic design being added onto it, one week more to ensure quality of print and binding. And all the other stuff that's involved in making a book. We get one week's worth more of quality, for the same price.
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:
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
He also died more than 70 years ago, so his works are totally public domain in the US!
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...
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.
Earlier this month the hit counter tripped 700+ views per month, with that having been the previous ceiling, so the ceiling became 800. Today the ceiling jumped by 100 again, at 900 on the overview screen. 803 views, so far, this month, and there's still a week left to go... June 2015, 562 hits, the high up till this blog became a regular thing again; 619 hits in December the all-time high, and we're on an upward, thing...
I'd click on that if I wanted to see it bigger...
So, yeah, that's it. Yes, phoning it in. No, I really don't deserve that many hits if I accept such a lackluster blog performance from myself. ...oh well?
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...
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?
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?)
