Guardians of the Galaxy is on right now. On DVD, I mean, which means it's on, whenever. I must've seen this movie, well, I can't even estimate how many times, but a loooot. Even just, here, this semester here, this is the fourth or fifth time (depending on what you qualify to be a viewing.) The film came out 2014, two years ago, but we still treat it like it's fresh. It's still rewatchable, apparently, even though you wouldn't think. Like how "I am Groot" actually doesn't wear real thin real fast? That's surprising. How does Guardians stay so fresh?
I'm going to make a list of what I think it might be, because I can!
Great music.
Great humor.
Quotable, too. Both the humor and the, music. Both quotable.
The action's pretty good, too. Some of it more memorable than others. Which, hey, increases the novelty factor, of action scenes that tend to be hazier.
Complex plot with a lot of characters running around-- the movie's still ultimately understandable if you didn't catch all that any time previous through, but the politics and motivations and everything are all there if you pay attention, so, might as well rewatch it to piece together all that stuff.
Also in, really hard to recognize under all that makeup, but: Karen "Amy Pond" Gillan as Nebula and Lee "Legolas's Dad Thranduil oh and also Ned the Piemaker" Pace as Ronan the Accuser? And Bradley Cooper in that tiny little Rocket Raccoon suit, of course. Vin Diesel isn't actually the one inside the Baby Groot suit, though. That'd be ridiculous.
Alright, that was needlessly silly. I'm sorry.
You know what I should check out? The TV show. I actually like Ultimate Spider-Man, and that Avengers show is alright too I guess... Alright, movie's over now. Well, except for the bit with Howard the Duck. That's still forthcoming.
...Alright, it's over. And nobody seems to know who the heck Howard the Duck even is around here. Huh. A theory or two about what he's doing here in the stinger:
"He's just, like, another Marvel character. It's like a cameo or something. I don't know if he's gonna be the villain in the next one or what."
...
Oh, man... I'd pay to see that...
So I'd been going to post today about maybe the animation workshop today (another extracurricular deal like the Comic Book Workshop except on Tuesdays, and hosted by Madeleine Fisher (the one from CBW who does Precious Metal, which seriously just read already.)) I'm not sure if this was its first week or what, since there weren't many people there and all seemed new-- I know it's my first time, since usually my Tuesday afternoons are for studying and taking my Art 101 quiz at the Testing Center, but this week I managed to get that done earlier.
I'd been going to post about that, and I guess I just, did. So there you go. Or maybe post about the research I did before the workshop and the stuff I found out for TTDECBA?, but that seems like something better posted over there of course...
I've got another Putting It All Together due in my Religion 275 class-- the topic that sang to me from this period, in between Putting It All Togethers, deals with resurrection and judgement. Not that I've got any particular insights into it, this time, like the things that struck me about the origins of the Book of Mormon. There are a few reasons that this topic above all others stood out. Maybe I'll explain below. For now, getting into this two-pronged topic, I'll lead with resurrection. We use death as a punishment- the capital of punishments, in fact. Isn't that interesting? I've been thinking about that a bit recently. As mortals, we can't grasp the true meaning of death. Christ had to die in order to be resurrected, and open the gate for everyone else-- death plays an integral role then in the atonement, our reconciliation with God.
Elder Oaks, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, talks about the hope in death in his talk "Resurrection." "The 'lively hope' we are given by the resurrection [1st Peter 1:3] is our conviction that death is not the conclusion of our identity but merely a necessary step in the destined transition from mortality to immortality. This hope changes the whole perspective of mortal life. The assurance of resurrection and immortality affects how we look on the physical challenges of mortality, how we live our mortal lives, and how we relate to those around us."
Mormon's final words in the Book of Mormon, excluding his son Moroni appending a compilation of some of his correspondence into his own book, are recorded in Mormon 7. These are his final words, then, basically. And he uses this space to talk about how Christ's atonement swallows up the sting of death. This is one of the reasons I chose this topic-- Mormon's a prophet, of course, writing in a religious work eventually canonized as scripture, so it's no surprise that he'd chose some kind of similar message, but, there's something about that: his final words are messaged toward the remnant of the Lamanites, exhorting them to believe in the Book of Mormon, designed to provide supporting evidence toward the Bible. And so he testifies of Christ's atonement. "...he was slain by the Jews, and by the power of the Father he hath risen again, whereby he hath gained the victory over the grave; in him is the sting of death swallowed up. And he bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead, whereby man must be raised to stand before his judgment-seat. And he hath brought to pass the redemption of the world, whereby he that is found guiltless before him at the judgment day hath it given unto him to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom..." (Mormon 7: 5-7.)
There's a universal level and a personal level, here. We're all given restoration from physical death, but we can still remain spiritually dead. Alma 41:10 explains that something can't be "restored" from sadness to happiness, or from sin to happiness in other words. Restoration is to put something back the way it was, but perfected. Made whole. In Mosiah 16: 5, the prophet Abinadi explains that even with the atonement made, "he that persists in his own carnal nature, and goes on in the ways of sin and rebellion against God, remaineth in his fallen state and the devil hath all power over him. Therefore he is as though there was no redemption made, being an enemy to God; and also is the devil an enemy to God."
Which brings me to judgement. In art class, when we were discussing Michelangelo's wall of the Sistine Chapel (that's right, the wall-- they liked the ceiling so much that they decided to call Michelangelo back years later, when he was an old man, to paint the wall of the alter at the apse as well.) An interesting thing-- the end wall deals with the final judgement of man, but Michelangelo had developed some unorthodox ideas over his life-- nobody was about to argue with him, though, because, he was Michelangelo, you know, and so his ideas got a chance to come across in his artwork.
The really interesting thing was how Michelangelo dealt with the torment of hell. There's a fine Western tradition of brimmy fiery stone, with the torment being literal, but Michelangelo depicts torment here as being... mental.
I'll just close here by quoting Alma 12:10-11, where Alma is defining the meaning of the chains of hell:
10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full. 11 And they that will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning his mysteries; and then they are taken captive by the devil, and led by his will down to destruction. Now this is what is meant by the chains of hell.
I'd say, then, given what we've been discussing here, that Mr Buonarroti had it dead-on, wouldn't you? It all comes down to our receptiveness to the word, whether we decide to accept the Atonement of Christ into, not just our deaths, but our lives as well.
Another Sunday, another chance to go to chirch and think about, chirchy stuff (chirch=church but for birds??) Religion/morality, another thing that fascinates me though it doesn't come easily, like music or mathematics or, shoot there was a rather good one that I was thinking about, what was it... smelling? I am not the best smeller... but I'm really good at it!
Well, I don't know. Art, I think it was, if that makes sense. But, church's focus on being a good person, anyway, always hammering how we could be better or try harder even though it feels like, well I always thought, I'm improving in the process-- is saying that admitting failure, in the face of everyone at church preaching a need for some kind of deliberate improvement? I don't feel like much of a sinner, but everyone's saying to repent...
This sense of morality confuses me. How can they say that there's such thing as sin, and in the next breath announce that there's a youth activity tomorrow? I'm taken aback-- youth activity!? they want us to have fun!? But I thought they just told us not to sin!
Logically I know that fun isn't sinful, logically I know that context separates vengeance from justice and sinful fornication from sacred marital intimacy, but emotionally there's no such thing as context, killing drive is killing drive and mating drive is mating drive... they're emotionally the same, and isn't spirituality supposed to be about emotion? That's what people say, that's how people describe faith. As though spirituality is supposed to be primarily emotional, irrational.
But I don't believe in God through emotion, I believe in God through logic, through rationality-- albeit logic based somewhat on emotion, in a sense; logic based on context, context of emotion, if the Spirit can be properly called emotion. The Holy Ghost manifesting truth, which dances around the edges of a very specific form.
No, but really, we've got no clue what the youth activity tomorrow is going to be. Probably Mario Kart 64, or something.
In Sunday School they were talking about the atonement, and somehow this meant writing down things on the board as part of the lesson-- love, repentance, faith and faithfulness; we can be selfish and braggardly about our EDUCATION, our TALENTS, our WHATEVER, all written out on the board. We can be selfish and braggardly, negative thing negative thing. But how can we turn these things into positive things, for other people?
Here it is. It's a subject I think a lot about-- in my Patriarchal Blessing the Lord told me personally to "live for" my gifts and talents to bless other people, but... in the presence of, the way morality is presented at church, the need to repent and try harder, it feels like we're bringing something amoral into the realm of morality, which feels immoral to me-- gifts, talents, live for 'em, why not; practicing your piano is your true form of worship, that is the law, are we not men.
Our education, or our talents, or our whatever, how do we turn these things into positive things to bless other people? It's a subject I think a lot about, and they're writing about it on the board right now. "It's impossible," I whisper.
And fortunately she mishears me, and it was an exactly write answer [pun.] THE GOSPEL. she writes on the board, at the top. Followed by others, SHARE at the bottom, WHATEVER again in the middle between the two (I paraphrase a bit of the board here, if you couldn't tell.) I guess there's a hierarchy: it's alright to share, but motivations need to be pure.
And, forced to come face-to-face with my motivations for things, if I truly do what I do to bless the lives of others-- I was forced to come face-to-face with that last night, where I spend half an hour in sweaty hot gradually blinding agony, just to get a decent shot that showcased both of my hands, and my big toe, and the little baby clipon that becomes a bowtie-necktie hybrid when it's worn by a full-grown man. And... well, I hate to sweat, so I really don't think I went through all that for myself. So that's good to know. Motivation-wise.
It's also good to know that within 24 hours, that post is already well on its way as one of the blog's most viewed posts of all time, according to the analytics, surpassing even that ever-popular one group of posts where we aggregated all the DeviantArt art of cats which were also pirates... it's at number 7, and is already neck-in-neck (heh) with number 6, and by midnight it should well surpass. And, perhaps go beyond; it's a very clickable title? It's just very reassuring to know that all that work paid off and found its audience, anyway. I really do, hate, sweating...
Well, I'm shaky, I'm sweaty, I'm bleeding from apertures I don't remember having earlier, and I can barely see anything right now from the afterimage of having a flashlight shined into my face for twenty straight minutes, but I finally did it:
playing photographer AND model AND lighting technician, I took a picture of me wearing that dope new tie...
...with my toe.
Still SD card-less, I couldn't use my camera so I had to use my Kindle, which doesn't have a time delay function. Hmm. So, foot selfies.
Not.
as.
easy.
as that sounds. And does anyone really think that it sounds that easy?
Especially with getting the lighting right, when Kindles don't have any real form of flashbulb-ing; more light=clearer picture, in photography, since more light can reach the aperture. It's been a half hour since beginning this post (composing on and off of course,) and my eyes still haven't fully recovered from providing sufficient photographic light for all of my attempts at success.
Sometimes when I'm searching around for my glasses when I've misplaced them, I grab a flashlight to allow more light into my retinas, so that I can see more clearly, but eye logic doesn't work the same as camera logic... With eyes it's the focus itself that's off, focusing a little in front of or a little behind the, hey I had it right, the fovea. How the frig did I know that word, just off the top of my head like that, sometimes I'm just so surprised at all the crap floating around up in my brain... so, anyway.
Hey, Facebook is telling me that four years ago today was the day that I "friended" Cailin, and since that was on the first day I had a Facebook, and the day I got a Facebook was the day I got a blog, this blog, and confirming that yes February 20th 2012 was the first post here, I guess hey, anyway, it's this blog's four-year anniversary. 1,461 posts into it, well strike that 1,089 posts of those actually written and published so far, also a few of those only those wimpy post preview versions that I attempted, so, well whatever. I don't know. I only just learned this now, so I hadn't really planned on anything special.
AND HEY THERE'S ALSO THIS
Zootopia tickets now available on Fandango. Only for a limited number of cities, as yet, but, I don't know. Is it just me, or are the Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War posters suspiciously similar? It's almost as though they explore many of the same themes, or something... Also: the Warcraft poster, it's got two horizontally distributed faces on it too, as long as we're stretching as far as we are...
Went to bed past midnight, slept in this morning, waking up at a glorious 9:30. Did a bit of homework, watched YouTube and The Martian; must read that book, but I also want to get around to The Three Body Problem and Ancillary Justice, and, I actually kinda like the ads on YouTube so that Red thing doesn't hold that much interest for me, and... and...
Dang, man, what do I usually spend my Fridays on? I have no memory of how I usually spend this gaping crevice of time. Sudoku, I think, getting it done in time to turn in by 5:30, but, this week's puzzle was exceptionally easy and I finished it day 1 (which was a Tuesday this week, of course, there having been no school on Monday and thus no opportunity to pick up a copy of the Scroll.)
So I decided to walk to Walmart. (Which is apparently spelled one word now, though I haven't been spelling it thus in the past...)
Now, Walmart's Supercenter is much much further away than the old Walmart was-- and that Walmart, across from Fat Cats, is, I timed it once, a 20 minute walk away from the mainy streety place that I just realized I don't actually know the name of or whether it really is Main Street here or not. The new Supercenter is such a great distance past that that being driven there for the first time on the day it opened (Wednesday 27th January, like I told you about in Clickbait Title,) it took a few minutes for it to finally come into view, and it was worrying there for a bit whether the new Supercenter really was past the old Walmart like I'd thought.
But I'd been duffing around all day, and figured I could stand to burn the calories; the sidewalk had been snowed over the first time, attempting to walk back after being driven up, but the snow's been sloughing like mad recently, and so the pathway was probably open for me. There is a Walmart shuttle that circuits around, of course, but I didn't want to wait for that thing. And, again, calories. So I walked.
It took me... a while. Maybe an hour, I don't know. But the snow really has been melting, uncovering much that had been covered since the winter began. Like a sign advertising how there's gunna be an Autumn craft fair on November 21st. Or an adorable baby-length plaid-patterned clip-on tie which I clipped on to the front of my t-shirt, or the back of my t-shirt rather since I'm wearing my shirt backwards today (and it looks great!) Or, and this is what I want to talk about, a newspaper page from the '90s. I'm not sure of the exact date, or even the exact paper, because it's just pages 9-10 and 19-20 of a television schedule, for the week of May 26-April 1, 1996.
Have I posted up the backlog post yet, where I talk about my bookshelf, and how the gem of the newspaper collection is an Idaho paper from 1989 which I found on my mission? It talks about AIDS, and the Exxon Valdez spill, and Ronny and Gorbachev and super expensive super advanced for their time super crappy home computers, which are made up for by $2.99 all-you-can-eat buffets for two (!!!). There's a television schedule section there, too-- ALF and MacGyver and all-- which features cinema times as well, all the movies that were playing at that time. Loads of classics, too, all in theaters at the same time: Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Rain Man, Pet Sematary, See No Evil Hear No Evil... Fletch Lives...
This paper today was from the 1990s, anyway, 7 years after the other one, but even better because actually in living memory for me. Though, only one sheet, like I said, and in a condition almost as though it had spent the winter sitting under a big pile of snow, which only thawed for me to see the newspaper within. So, the '89 paper is better in my opinion, still, though the '96 sheet is just as chockalock of Mister Sandman Sequence-esque stereotypicality of that era.
Yes, this is what it looks like. (I may not have a camera today, but I still have access to a scanner.)
I looked it up; Friends was between seasons 2 and 3, on May 30, 1996 (and, since you were wondering, Third Rock had completed its first season just the week before.) Sorry it has to be Chandler; the same paper features photographs of Carol Burnett, Sharon Gless, and Diane Sawyer, but I had to go with the Friends photo because, '90s. Another apology for the photo being of Chandler. It wasn't my decision. Chandler was, just, like, the worst. My goodness. Like Elaine in Seinfeld, but with 10x the suck.
...Actually, I might be thinking of Joey? No, definitely Ross. Yeah, that's right, it was Ross. Definitely, definitely... But, you know what, all the Friends friends were just terrible terrible people.
Seinfeld, anyway. Gosh darn it, Elaine...
So, hey. You can learn a lot from old television schedules. Like, It's possible to air reruns of Rivera Live (???). And, there's a second Short Circuit AND a second Where the Red Fern Grows. And, there's a third Darkman movie (also apparently a second!) And, perhaps the most amazing of all these facts, Darkman III is subtitled, Die Darkman Die.
Also, apparently, there WAS a Danny the Champion of the World movie made? Andrew and I always wondered why there wasn't, but: 1989. Three stars out of four. To whatever stock you place in TV schedule star reviews. It's on the Disney Channel Thursday night at 9:00!
See? Old TV schedules, man...
ZOOTOPIA REVIEW ...review? that makes it seem like I've seen the movie already. Figuring to phase out the "watches," now, though, and, I don't know, just figuring to go with "review" like a "review" of some Zootopia tie-in merch, but now I realize, clearly that's not how that title comes across... Clearly a review, though; that allows me to get away with showcasing copyrighted material, by using the magical power of fair use. I said I went to Walmart, but I didn't actually get to the point in the story where I arrived. This is what I got there: Zootopia stuff, silly, some of which I didn't even know existed. Like the Disney Zootopia "Happy Tin," it's a tin full of fun!, which I've at least unwrapped from its cling but have yet to crack open. Maybe we'll go over it next time? For now, hey Walmart finally has a stock of Zootopia books now (also this darling Frozen "Big Snowman Little Snowman" book, which tells the story of Frozen discussing opposites all along the way, and with which I instantly fell in love (though I did not purchase, because, hey that's a slippery slope, man; I was there just for the Zootopia goods and that ate up at my pocketbook enough (crack. is. cheaper.))) Far and away my favorite score of the evening was, IT'S A HUSTLE!, which not only comes WITH FUN ERASERS!, but also features OVER 40 THINGS TO DO. Puzzles, coloring, games, and more! And choking hazards; the image below doesn't show it, being from the Amazon page of the book, but my Walmart edition came with a free BONUS sticker on the cover promising dire warnings to children under 3 years of age...
It's a Hustle! Seriously, this book has so much value. It's hard to believe that the MSRP on this thing is only $6.99, because, phew... first of all, erasers! There's a 6x6 sudoku grid in there, with characters from the film playing the part of the numbers... And the interior is in gorgeous full color, that's the best part. Full color, that is, except for the coloring pages, of course...
All $7 were worth it for this image alone.
There's also a puzzle endemic (?) to that image: can you find all of the doughnuts? Count the doughnuts! Answers are on page 47!
So, how my Pearl of Great Price class was canceled yesterday? There was the suggestion to use that time to work on this "Progress Check" project, in the reminder email of the cancelled class. Is it canceled or cancelled? My spellcheck is accepting both. Gedssa. Yep, it's still working, not accepting those random letters as a word, so, huh, strange.
I couldn't get around to checking out the project, though, with that stuff due for my Art 125 class, and so I only swung around to see what the progress check (due on Thursday evening (this evening)) was about a few hours ago, during Art 130. And... well, I'm glad I got to it then instead of later, because it wasn't some cuddly fill-out-a-few-questions test like I'd thought it was going to be. It was a big mean paper that needed to be written, which it would have been useful to have gotten the suggested head start on like the email said, and which I only had a few hours to complete.
I started the paper on the computer in the lab, in between finishing the Art 130 lab work, and saved it to my SD card, bringing it home and finishing it off. Turned it in on time, all right.
Only, maybe I should have something to show for it, since that's what took up most of my evening and could only swing around to blogging at all, now (luckily I didn't get those Antigone tickets for tonight like I'd considered doing!), but...
The paper, saved in my SD card, is now in the camera of a photography student who swung by the apartment wondering if he could borrow an SD card from one of us. I won't be needing to take any photos in the interim, before I get it back Saturday morning, but, also, I won't be able to show you what I spent most of the night so far doing.
Pearl of Great Price, though; pretty dense stuff. Count yourself fortunate that I don't have the paper for you.
My priorities place Art 130 projects (due on Tuesday at 3:00 pm and generally being pretty labor intensive) over Art 125 projects (due on Wednesday at 5:00 pm and generally being pretty basic.) Wednesdays (with the early morning Book of Mormon course getting out 8:45 and no classes at all after that until 3:15 Pearl of Great Price) are a fairly nice respite in the middle of the week, with that chunk of open schedule there giving me enough time to put in my first plasmapherese of the week (with my second being on Saturday.) Do that, perhaps finish off my Book of Mormon study for the day, and there's still time left over to finish and print my Art 125 project in time for 5:15 class.
This week's project involved doing physical, pencil-and-paper design sketches, and scanning into the computer. There was a similar project in Art 130 once, which took me, how much time did I estimate, 16 hours, to complete (with everyone else talking about how very long it took them to do theirs, like 4 whole hours-- my module that week, may have been turned in, late...) but this project's rules were much more relaxed, and so I could knock it off during the course of, more Vin Diesel (The Last Witch Hunter, actually a really good movie, at least insofar as giving me loads of inspiration for TTDECBA. Dylan Dog: Dead of Night is another great film in the same vein. And probably also the comic books upon which that film is loosely based. (LWH is an original concept, though, so the principle holds through, even more so.))
Sketches, well I probably should have knocked them off sooner, nonetheless, easy. The problem arrived when it came time to scan a 4"x4" version of one of my initial sketches. No sweat, just hit the computer lab, scan it there; the toughest part about that is signing in (the computers there have a thing against network accounts, and 120% especially mine.) The computer lab is busy, when I get there, though; there are day classes in there, who knew. So... I can't just... go in there, can I? There are people sitting at those computers, listening to the presentation being given.
Oh well. Maybe there's a scanner at the library, then? Don't freak out; between completing the tutorial assignments and digitizing this sketch in both Illustrator and Photoshop, and also preparing for your presentation, that should all take you, two hours. And, subtracting time in FDREL327, you've got... two hours.
There is a scanner at the library, at the back of the commons, but I've got no idea how to work it, at least not to the specs I need. It's one of those scanner/printer dealios, like a copy machine + I guess... To access the printers around you need your I-card, and, though it doesn't seem to be true of this one, I didn't bring my I-card either way, and I don't have enough time to try to figure the thing out anyway; my Pearl of Great Price class is in less than an hour now.
I head back home, figuring I can just digitize my sketch by eye, head to class, and swing by the lab after, when the class there will have had let out.
Only I hadn't grabbed my keys, either, and one of the apartmentmates has the subconscious habit of automatically locking the door behind him when he gets in, though we always leave the door unlocked...
Alright, then. Scanning first it is then. Let's try the lab again. Might as well. People sit in on classes that aren't theirs in the lab all the time, no biggie. Down in the lab, I peek in then at the presentation that's being given...
And the presenters are the team behind FamilySearch's new design.
I stuck around. Even managed to scan in there, as well as practice my line styles and thicknesses in Illustrator (I was assigned to do a presentation at 125, like I mentioned, either on some aspect of Photoshop or some aspect of Illustrator, of my choosing.) Mostly, though, I listened. And managed to collect some PROTIPS for myself, which I'm graciously sharing with you.
When a designer's showing off his portfolio, one who explains why he did what he did is always more interesting than one just with "cool" designs.
Show your portfolios to people!
I like to open up screenshots of apps and replicate them in Illustrator, studying the choices that the app designers made.
We're always hiring.
Something else about design I guess?! (Another thing I didn't have on me, aside from my keys and I-card-- a pencil. I wish I'd brought a pencil. I can't remember like half the stuff that the team said.)
Pay attention to what your product would look like on the shelf next to other competing products, and think of ways how your design could stand out in context.
They then went around checking out the students' designs, from this assignment apparently where they had to design (and create!) soda pop bottles and their cardboard containers. But that's not me. So.
I went home. The door was unlocked. Pearl of Great Price class this week was scheduled for catch-up time, but we're already on schedule so turns out class had been cancelled today, so I had time to finish the rest of my assignment on time. Phew. Although, there still remained the printing to do... luckily I started my printing attempt a full half hour before I had to turn the job in...
My presentation went swimmingly, anyway.
Comic Book Workshop was packed this evening. It's nice that so many people are interested in it now, but one of the best parts of CBW is being able to collaborate with someone to do your own comic and I'm afraid these late(r)comers will miss out on getting to do that.
I finally brought both Unbeatable Squirrel Girl TPBs to the comic book table this evening, though it was just as crammed as the class was. Still, Squirrel Girl. My SQUIRREL POWER is being borrowed until the CBW lab on Saturday. It's so great to be able to spread the love; presumably then I'll be able to share Volume 2.
And meanwhile, "sexualized squirrel[s]" (???) disturb Toben.
I don't have many post ideas today that aren't Vin Diesel-related (be..cause... Vin Diesel?) but luckily Ryan shared the link for this video with me for some reason, sending me an email at midnight last night with nothing but the link to what's embedded here. As far as things on the internet go, it's fairly explicable, but as to why he emailed this to me out of the blue, ???.
Here you go, anyway:
That's... not much of a post, still. I'm sorry. Watch the videos in yesterday's post again, I guess?
I posted mostly about my Comic Book Workshop workshop project in the post on Martin Luther King Jr Day, also called Civil Rights Day apparently though I've never heard that before (and how delicious a parallel mirrored against our George Washington's birthday and Abraham Lincoln's birthday just getting mashed together into one genericized President's Day!) . That, and how I had a bunch to study for. My second Art History Ren-Present quiz was last week, though, and I rocked it; I've not much to study for this week so I can't use that as an excuse this time (though I do have a graphic design lab to turn in tomorrow, but I've got one of those every week.)
So I think I'll update you on the comic book project. Jimmy's finishing up the script as we speak; he said on Friday that he'd finish it up that night, so actually I take that to mean that he is finished, but, doesn't know how to, share a Google Document?
And that's about as long as my post was on Civil Rights Day, and that's about as long as my post is today. But today, I also have another sorta Zootopia Watch! another sorta ZOOTOPIA WATCH
I'm not sure if these are even "watches" anymore, since there's not much wriggle room to learn anything new that isn't already public knowledge by this point... and I've already done one post just entirely dedicated to keeping tabs on everything. We're getting surreally close, now, though. Hey, you see the trailer for that Sing thing, right? Weird, eh? At least it looks better than Secret Life of Pets, also from Illumination, and anyway...
It occurs to me that maybe the identity of ultimate villain of Zootopia isn't meant to be some twist. Perhaps WDAS noticed their track record on villain reveals, and wanted to bite that train before it hatched, or whatever metaphor I'm trying to think of, on this one.
I've yet to get my hands on a copy of The Stinky Cheese Files, or even see a copy in real life, but I'd imagine that they even manage to slip the plot point into that. (It would take place after the film, correct? So, yeah, it wouldn't even be that big of a stretch to put that in there, and, freak, maybe we even get to see that skunk pride parade; man I've got to read that book, it's not many that provide exclusive content like that.)
Hey, so I was just about to post up the trailer for Sing, but going onto YouTube to attempt to find it I discovered that Xidnaf posted up his first video in months today, and kind of got distracted by that, because then there was this thing with Artifexian that he linked to as a sequel, and... ah, dang it, I'm sorry. Well, there are these videos, anyway... they're entirely unrelated, yes, but, just watch them already:
Though I'm talking mostly about Pop. Couldn't resist the pun.
So, U2. Like I mentioned yesterday, I picked up a few albums of theirs at Hastings, among other things. Under a Blood Red Sky, I realized, isn't an old album to me like I'd thought! Wide Awake in America, is the live U2 album I already own. Totally different. So that's three new albums, instead of two like I'd thought! But none of them All That You Can't Leave Behind, I realized today looking at them... :(
Pop is an album a lot of people were disappointed with. Rushed production, for one. Themes surprisingly darker than its bright kid-friendly packaging would suggest. Also, when the 1990s takes itself too seriously, it takes itself too seriously, and even (and especially!) the heart-on-their-sleeves U2 get in on the act.
But I like Pop. I've always wanted to talk about it, and I finally get the opportunity to do so now, now that I own the thing. This is exciting.
I find the album flawless in its flaws, perfect in its imperfection. It's like how Frozen is rendered somehow better by its wandering villain, as discussed in the post linked which I finished backlogging yaay. Pop is... It's got sharp edges, like it was freshly machined, like you can see the bones and sinews, the beating heart of the U2 music factory. All the cranking unevenness, the herky jerky griminess, is, thematically appropriate, to the angle they're going for. I don't know. There's an implacability about it. Implacability? You can't... place, it? Circulate, regulate, oh no, you cannot connect it. So, yeah, I think it's good.
But maybe that's just me. I like U2.
I've never actually owned a physical copy of the album, before, till now! Never owned it at all, of course, though of course I know the songs, from what's provided on U2's website and elsewhere. But I have you now, Pop, for real! Let's open you up, shall we?
It's so silvery and rainbowy! I've never had the, privilege, of opening up, say, "Prism" by Katy Perry or "Warrior" by Ke$ha (do they, still spell that with a $?), but I'd imagine it'd be very much the same kind of visual assault opening up the liner notes on those albums too, just from the covers of those albums and the style of music of those artists.*
One thing (probably) different, Pop is... very, very '90s. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing; I can't conceive of any other decade in which "The Playboy Mansion" could've been written (being about society's religious devotion to ephemera, how there's only one "mansion" whose gates we want to pass through, and it ain't the one up above.)
But, even in the liner notes, you can tell, Pop is still very visibly '90s. Not in a grungy way, too much, either,but... we're the 1990s, we're so cool, yeah? Unironic in all the places where irony would be better and ironic where all should be un-, in retrospect.
And as rainbowy silvery as the liner notes are, they... You know what, it'd just be easier to illustrate.
Feast your eyes.
The "o" in that "pop" there is indeed clipart of a soccer ball; sometimes these things do need to be expressed in words...
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.
