Saturday, March 21, 2009

The sudden cessation of stupidity

"I was writing a paper about creativity, or the lack there of in
school systems... and was dealt a heavy serving of irony"
- A Harried College Student (and a friend of mine)

It's true, you know. Creativity really does seem to be going down the drain. People don't have time or motivation or the resources. Or the desire.

Why? What's so wrong with the clever, creative things?

I suppose they're expensive. AND you'll never make it in the field... Is that it? Despair? Is that our problem? The lack of hope is slowly killing us. Yes, it can kill us, this lack of creativity in the world. No, not physically. But I suspect physical death is a mercy in comparison to death of the heart and soul.

Is it worth a physical life if all that once justified that life is gone?

Picasso once said
that "All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up".

Maybe that's what's happening to the world. We're growing up, and growing out of the artistic era. I suppose many people take up art again once they've retired, but if the world is only just growing up, then how long before we start cashing in on the social security?




Link of the day: http://www.clublaugh.com/es-items/712.swf
woah. Trippy.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Tooth and Claw: an artistic red-eye special

For those who don't get it, the three-liners are haiku. Some form of Asian poetry. The only rule is that the first and last line must have five syllables, and the second must have seven. That also might tell you why they're so cryptic. It's okay, I've given you translations after each verse.

I got my nails done
Fancy black nails with white tips
Glittery between

(I got my nails done at a salon today! first time evAR! The nails are black and the tips are white. On the border between black and white there's a little line of silver glitter! Uber pretty.)

Long nails pained digits
I write in terms of typos
So awkward at first

(My fingers HURT! Getting fancy nails is NOT a painless ritual. There's sanding and burning chemicals involved. I keep making stupid little typos because I'm not quite used to typing with long nails yet.)

Home now inspired
I go now to my paper
Embrace with sharpie

(When I got home I was suddenly all inspirey! I really need an outline for my book so I'm not writing blind. So I pulled out the world's largest type-writer roll- it's a huge roll of 4 1/2 foot wide white paper. I just rolled out about ten feet and started making a GIANT story web with a big fat sharpie.)

My dreams are homesick
I beg them return to me
That I might nurture

(I've pushed my writing and art aside for some time now because of school. Now I'm trying to get back to them, make them a priority. I want to finish what I've begun.)

Tadaaaa! I hope you enjoyed it! I wrote it at 4 am, hence the title red-eye special.

So long, and good morning!




How about a link of the day? http://fmylife.com
Somehow hours pass as I read about all the miserable stuff that happens to other people.
Should I feel bad about that?




Sunday, March 8, 2009

Fantasy is a fantastic thing, if you've got the imagination for it.

The Ancient Mayan Culture absolutely fascinates me. Who were these geniuses that rose to such a formidable peak of civilization so much faster than anyone else? What mysteries lie behind this people! Honestly, if I only had one chance to travel back in time (clearly unrealistic, seeing as no one travels back in time, so far as I know), it would be then, and there!

WAIT! I've got it! If Doctor Who were to come and pick me up in his Tardis (a time and space traveling phone booth), I could ask HIM to take me to visit the Mayans! Naturally the Tardis would bridge any language barriers (yeah, it does that too). I’d meet them, talk to them, see their temples, discuss their fascinating calendar with them. As long as they weren’t the "kill first, socialize later" types. Being as Doctor Who is very clever, I’m sure he’d find a way to convince them not to sacrifice us to their god(s) right off the bat.

Then again, I doubt that they would try to sacrifice us, strange foreigners, to their god(s). They are thought to have preferred children, because they were considered more pure. If adult Mayans were not pure enough for human sacrifice (which involved the tearing out of the heart: yeeAUGhhhhh....) then me and the Doctor would certainly not qualify. They had a bit more respect for their god(s) than that.

The reason I say ‘god(s)’ (rather than ‘gods’) is that they had many gods that kind of blended into one. They were all sort of bondable to the other gods. Like tinker toys. The center of their collection of gods, sort of the main god, or the brain of the pieced together god tinker toy tower of deities, was the maize god (for all you normal folks out there, maize is corn)

Now the Mayan calendar? The Doctor would probably know what was up with that, and he might even know if the world really does end in December, 2012. But I can’t make sense of it even now, with wikipedia to guide me.

Perhaps my visit would help me to better understand the Mayan calendar, as well as the Mayan people. A people shrouded in that much mystery have GOT to be interesting to have dinner with (seeing as Doctor Who often gets to have dinner with famous folks like Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, I see no reason why we would not end up at a Mayan dinner table).

Ah, it’s such a shame that I have to maintain such geeky gall as to wait for a timelord to drop by in his Tardis and invite me to join him on a time traveling adventure before I can see the Mayans in first person.