The feel of a thing.

 







The feel of a thing is a pretty abstract thing to be thinking of. And I've been thinking about it a bit lately. The concept first came to me when I was watching a Proko video (He's the white guy in the black dress shirt) I think it was about painting en plein air and he was saying how some landscape artist actually add in or leave out certain things into a landscape to make it as true to the feeling of the landscape as possible, whether it be color, tone, objects, gesture, that kind of thing. which was a really cool concept to me and brought up some thoughts about art and the world. Its just such a cool concept to me, that everything, it doesn't even necessarily have to be a landscape, has a truth to it. It could be a place or a face, a group of people, an organisation, a country, pretty much anything. Deep as shit, right?.

The black guy, Mario Robinson, does mainly portraits but also some landscapes and whole body stuff. He is such a serious guy, this video illustrates it really well. His art is all about capturing a simpler time, his art reflecting an era of solitude and reflection, where people grew old without trying to be young and people had deep and lasting connections with other people, which I guess is why he does a lot of portraits, I love his portraits because even though they are just water and pigment, his people have such a depth to them, like their souls are painted right on their skin. Something that I think is really powerful about art is, as Mario says 'The real power of art is the ability to galvanize and organize all those pigments and materials and pour a soul into it'. Which is also what I love about art, the ability to express complex thoughts, concepts, questions and ideas into a physical space, into the material plane and that our brains have the ability to process and link and relate that to ourselves and the world around us and everything in between. I think that's amazing.

Lastly, the third guy up there is John Darnielle, singer songwriter of the band 'The Mountain Goats'. He co hosts the podcast 'I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats' with writer Joseph Fink of Nightvale Presents. It is a podcast dedicated to the Mountain goats music, each season they cover an album, each episode they cover one song. I think it was the song 'absolute Lithops effect' or maybe it was 'source decay' but he was talking about how it was his favourite song on the album because it was so generic, so nonspecific. because he used musical techniques to capture the aura of the song, of the moment its describing rather than to be more heavy handed and specific in his storytelling. because, in the case of john Danielle, he tends to treasure these unknowns as a tool in his story telling, being non specific and general causes his audience to focus on what his songs are trying to say as opposed to what his songs are literally describing.

This all leads me to my final point, what is it that makes such an abundance of individuality and soul to this world? is it the multitude of idiosyncrasies that fit together to make no two things identical? like snowflakes or finger prints, or is it more of an undercurrent, a soul to this earth that some are more adept at seeing and bringing up to the surface of the world? Is it the poets, the painters, the dancers, the actors, the sculptors, the artists whose objective it is too see the world through soulful eyes and get others too see it too? maybe.

Three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri.

I recently watched the movie 'three billboards outside ebbing, Missouri' I thoroughly enjoyed this, like, a lot. I thought woody harrelson was great as was frances mcdormand. in the film, frances mcdormand plays mildred hayes whose daughter was brutally murdered several months ago and still the culprit has not been found. mildred then decides to put up three billboards directed toward ebbing chief of police portrayed by woody harrelson. 

the things that i enjoyed about the film was the acting, the use of theme and the character development. I did find that frances mcdormand seemed to have one face on for the entire movie, though it was fitting to her character. woody harrelson was amazing, the role fit him like a glove, i quite enjoyed sam rockwells performance and of course, peter dinklage was astounding although i always think peter dinklage is astounding. i liked how the theme was used in the film too, and how pamela, the ditzy nineteen year old revealed it in the 'anger begets anger' scene. because at this point in the film it could not be more relevant. mildred up until this point has show very little except anger- she burnt down the police station and drilled a hole in the dentists thumb. this scene is happening in a restaurant where she is on a date with peter dinklages character james, and we see 'anger begets anger' in action. she is to caught up in her own anger to even notice james it seems and he leaves the restaurant. 

the character development in the movie was sort of good. i liked mildreds character development, from a person of great anger to a person of slightly lesser anger. dixons (sam rockwell) character development seemed slightly unearned, he went from a racist, lazy bigot who threw a man out of a window to a reasonabl human being just because he read a letter and was in a fire. PFFT.

I still really enjoyed the film though and 10/10 would see again.

NATASHA IS YOUNG AND WORTHLESS AND DUMB

Thats right. Natasha is one of my least favorite characters in the history of ever. and while i acknowledge that that is a bit of an exxageration i still hold firm in my DETEST for her. in the musical, she seems to have absosultely no inner thoughts or initiative. her whole character arc can be boiled down to 'oh i love andre, no wait i mighgt like anatole, gosh im so innocent and pure, oh wait i screwed up- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH KILLL ME NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. her naivety INFURIATES me. she is so easily manipulated and when she screws up her whole life because of that, she ramps the drama WAY up, like poisoning herself level drama. I think bolkonsky had it right when he said she was young and worthless and dumb. shes so stuuupid?? in the song 'letters' anatole writes her a love letter and she literally says 'yes yes I love him, how else could i have his letter in my hand' as if a love letter means you must love him. AAAGGH. I am keeping in mind that the story is set in eighteenth century russia, and that is probably what women were like then but still, she represents everything i dont ever want to be, naive, stupid and quite honestly, she is pretty vapid. maybe in the book she makes more sense or has more character depth but i honestly cant see that happening. anyway,
LATER POTATER.

RESPECT

Howdy y'all,
first of all I would like to talk about the fact that 'howdy' is short for 'how do you do' like?? whaaaaaatttt?????
But mostly I would like to talk about this video. My dear friend enlightened me to this videos existence and I will be forever grateful to her for that.
this is a wonderful video with a beautiful message and if you haven't seen it yet you should, right now.
In it, markiplier (god bless his soul) talks about respect, and how he feels we have lost it, our very definition has become muddied over the years and i fully agree. akjnkfdjkjfng I love this video and I know a lot of people at my school who could use a watch of it to get it into their brains that you dont have to agree with someone to treat them like a human being, with respect and kindness regardless of how you feel about them. IM TALKING ABOUT YOU BRENDAN TIFFEN. god I hate that assnoodle but I still treat him with respect because i am a good PERSON WHO ISNT GOING TO HELL ON A FREAKING MOTORBIKE.

the golden palace

THE GOLDEN PALACE, gee whiz what a whopper of a bop. this is a very goodgoodgood song from the musical now. here. this and it is jaaaam packed full of meaningfullness lemme tell ya.
now here this is a musical by four people and its sort of like four autobiographies?? the premise is that its four people walking through the natural history museum travelling through time but there isnt really a plot, theyll like come across a chameleon exhibit and someone will be singing a song about 'dazzle camoflauge(which is a really good song too, check it oouuuuut) but most of the songs are individual or mainly talking about one of the actors lives/ moments from their lives.
So the golden palace is about one of the female actors lives. she tells the story of how when her dad grew up he couldnt read but he was a really good mimic so no one noticed. she then goes on to explain what the golden palace is. the golden palace is located just over the horizon, just out of reach. it is where all the great artists make great works of art. it illustrates the idea that art is an intangible thing that is not for normal, ordinary people like us but for the 'beautiful, stunning, clean, priveliged people'
it continues, her father is now an adult. working at a factory writing poems on the back of an unemployment form. skipping forward a bit and shes in college and going to graduate at the same time as her dad. she finds his old poem and encourages him, saying 'you can really write' to which he says 'i cant' she talks about the golden palace again 'its all going down in the golden palace', 'there is no room in the golden palace for girls like me, girls who come from what i come from'
she then breaks the frikin fourth wall and starts talking about herself writing that song, seeing her hands resting on the keyboard of her lap top, looking out of her window thinking about her paid for artists residence, becomes overwhelmed with the calliber of art that has come from the place 'i try to relax myhands, my finger, to write', 'i cant'
still in the artists colony, writing the song, she chacks her facebook and someone has updated their feed with the quote from john adams 'I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.' hbd
 she concludes, there is a golden palace, and it is anywhere we make it, it is anywhere we make anything. it is not out of reach, it is not over the horizon.

to me this message is invaluable. it gives me inspiration to create art and the courage to keep doing it. its like the quote from neil gaiman when he talks about the solution to every problem is to make good art , on the good days and the bad ones

later potater

An ode to Wikipedia

Dear Wikipedia,
you get so much shit and none of it deserved
for the world of knowledge which you preserve
teachers seem to hate you, say you're unreliable
but to me you are the most desirable
the bounty of general knowledge you posses
is the pinnacle of finesse

So yeah that was my poem I just made. I was overcome with a defensive affection for Wikipedia just now because everyone always says 'anyone can write anything on Wikipedia so its not a good source' but I disagree. firstly how many people go onto Wikipedia pages and make stuff up for fun? there cant be that many and there's a crap-tonne of Wikipedia pages anyway so the likelihood that the one you're looking at has been screwed with is slim. '
And while i agree that it may not give you the most in depth understanding of a topic, its certainly a good starting point anyway to give you a quick overview of a topic to perhaps see what part of it you want to explore more.
okay.
rant over.
later potaters.

MIKE WASOWSKI = CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Alright crazy theory time lets go
I have a theory that i just though of that the character mike wasowski is based on poet charles bukowski.
first of all some background. Charles bukowski was initially a writer who was trying to get published but then he sort of gave up trying to please the publishers and started writing for himself and thats how his poetry came about. In a collection of his works published after he died it says that he was a loser, sort of thought of himself as scum of the earth and he wrote for himself and all theother losers too.
Mike wasowski went to the monster university where he was trying to be a scarer but then sort of failed and eventually became something he was better at. he has a similar persona to bukowski, the loser, rejected kind of vibe.
first of all there is obviously the similarities of the last name bukowski/wasowski. But also there is the whole 'tried to be one thing but it didnt work out so they became a slightly different version of the thing" thing.
also, in the collection of bukowski poems, one of them mentions a friend of his who got published but he thought that he was actually a much better writer than him. this creates the paralell because wasowski is friends with sully who is better than hime even though he tries way harder which causes wasowski to resent him for it. also in the poem the published writer ends up losing because he becomes indulgent and old and fat and lazy, having lived a colourful life yet never really having lived at all. this is just like sully who ends up getting told that he would be expelled because he didnt try hard enough in his studies, he too, became lazy and sloth like.
taa daa
honestly i dont even think this is true but whatev.