awesome awesome use of the phrase “trying to square the circle”
I remember meeting a guy at a bar a year or so ago who told me he worked at the international consortium that does the porn parodies of all the top-grossing film releases. He said that the whole Barbenheimer situation presented his combine with some spectacular highs and lows. Because he said that with Barbie, right, the thing about Barbie is that there's already kind of a three-way ideatic, structural parallel between the curated artificiality of Barbie as a children's toy, the curated artificiality of Barbie as a mass market film, and the curated artificiality of pornography as a genre. Add on top of that that Barbie as a film is already feeling this tension, right where it's trying to be about a character graduating from the platonic sexlessness of a children's franchise to the functional-and-frank sexuality of being a living human woman, but it's also being bogged down in the "Everyone-is-beautiful-no-one-is-horny" aesthetic restrictions of any contemporary big-budget mass-market film so the two states end up looking pretty similar, he said. I mean the film itself is very aware of that tension, right, with that joke about how "casting Margot Robbie is the wrong move if you want to make that point," all that jazz. So, all that in mind, Barbie-themed pornography, he said, is in a weird way actually kind of complementary to the extant project, gesturing at unaddressed tensions and ideas, a dark mirror, the shadow self it wants to deny but can't, there's a lot of room to play in the space. He used the adjective "Lynchian" a couple of times, he seemed super stoked, he was talking with his hands. Oppenheimer, on the other hand. Oppenheimer he said presented a problem. Because obviously you can eroticize the detonation of an atomic bomb, we're all probably three mutuals removed from someone on this site who does exactly that, but obviously that's a niche market, and moreover it's a market that has a ton of overlap with high-minded thinkers who treat the historical use of atomic weapons against Japan with the level of gravity that atrocity demands. So they were stuck. They were really stuck. He told me that they'd been pulling their hair out for months trying to square the circle and all they had to show for it was a big whiteboard with the phrase "Grope-nheimer" written on it
Illustration of Satan (Devilman) by Takeshi Obata. This drawing was included in the art book ‘Illustrations of Devilman’ published in 1999 by Kodansha, as part of an event that began in 1996 to honor Devilman creator Go Nagai. Famous illustrators and artists were invited to submit fan art of Devilman and this was Obata’s submission [press link in the source]. Of note, Obata says in How to Read that the design of L from Death Note was partially inspired by Akira Fudou in Devilman, particularly L’s eye bags.
Can i say something problematique for terminally online millenials and people born after that point: I think the seeming lack of ability or willingness to call one another and chat on the phone with friends unprompted or out of the blue contributes to whatever hellish loneliness everyone is talking about feeling these days. Say what you want about boomers and old people but those guys mostly knew how to keep in touch with each other. Idk man call a bitch today
transforming the state of a substance and therefore transforming the state of the soul (l’état d’âme)
beeswax, India ink, watercolor on paper. 65x50 cm
[ my idea book ]
basically, this little journal is a physical version of a pinterest board. it's a place where i can write down new story ideas, paste in clippings from magazines, sketch out new OC's, leave future me notes. i think every creative person, or really every person in general, needs one of these. a journal, a junk journal, a smashbook, an upcycled novel, a planner with sticky notes and scraps of newspaper articles stuffed between the pages - anything. something that can't just be deleted. it doesn't matter what it is, just as long as you have it.
regardless of how convenient digital mood boards and spreadsheets are, i think there's something truly magical about holding a physical manifestation of your thoughts and ideas in your hands. at least for me, i've always felt like my ideas and goals were more tangible if i had something physical to work with. a paper copy of a manuscript in my hands. a journal filled with thoughts. an anniversary card i can hang up and cherish, rather than a text that will just get buried in a sea of other texts.
and with the rise of a.i. we need a return to traditional art now more than ever. we need people drawing, painting, writing, knitting and crocheting and embroidering, sewing and making jewelry and writing plays and movie manuscripts and poetry, pressing flowers and binding books.
billionaires want the war on art. they want us to stop creating so a.i. can take over. a.i. art is cheaper. a.i. art does not illicit the same feelings art created by a human being does. a.i. art is numb. it lacks heart, and that's why the ruling class wants to replace us with it.
because heartless art doesn't touch anybody. it doesn't dare us to move. to change. a.i. art is shallow. lifeless.
they want us compliant, easily pliable. they want us to give up on our dreams, to give up on the hope that the world could be a better place where everyone is equal and valued. billionaires and ceos and politicians don't want that world because they can't control us in that world. which means they don't want art.
art is what gives hope to the soul.
when we stare at monet's water lily paintings, they overwhelm us with their beauty.
when we read 'do not go gentle into that good night. rage, rage against the dying of the light' it sparks a fire within us; it makes us want to keep fighting, to do something that matters with our life.
when we read about katniss everdeen in the hunger games, we understand the beauty of sacrifice and what it means to truly stand up for what is right no matter the cost.
still i rise by maya angelou.
the 'be kind' speech from everything everywhere all at once.
the scene in the handmaid's tale when offred can't walk and all of the other handmaid's bring her scraps of food so she can still eat.
aragorn's speech in lord of the rings.
these things touch us in that deep place, leaving us irrevocably changed. this is what they hate most. not the art itself, but it's ability to connect. to bring us together in spite of our differences.
art is rebellion in the purest form. art is, and always has been, about humans reaching out, extending a piece of their heart so that someone else might see it and resonate with it, and in doing so both the artist and the art appreciator are reminded that they are not alone. it is a coming together. art is a battle cry. someone crying out and saying 'no, this will not break me. the world is brutal and i've lost everything but i am going to turn this grief into something beautiful. i will persist, no matter how much they want me to perish.'
which is exactly why we need art. good art. terrible art. pretty art. brutal art. fucked up art. half-assed art. creepy art. lovely art. traditional art. abstract art. it doesn't matter if you took a crayola crayon and scribbled all over a piece of paper. it's still art. it's still made by human hands and for that reason it will always be superior to anything artificial intelligence can come up with. keep creating.
keep resisting.
do not perish.
persist.
george gurdjieff the struggle of the magicians more the the struggle of creative project development. maybe spread your esoteric teachings to convince hundreds of “students” to fund your opera and make it for you
i get it tho
i feel like life is like a number line and every day has different factors and divisors except some days you get no factors- prime. and sometimes the primes cluster. but other times you get a string of composite numbers, even perfect and abundant numbers. i think birthdays are square numbers, with a little bit more chance of prime numbers in between now and the next.
do you think if we ever invent fully sapient AI, they’ll be sad about all the kinks they don’t get to participate in by not having human bodies
the best cure for ADHD is immediate existential dread and the best cure for immediate existential dread is cherished company and the best cure for cherished company is the passage of time and the best cure for the passage of time is drugs and the best cure for drugs is jerking off
Jk… unless…?? 😳😳😳
This would have been the most unbelievable part of all of Gundam so far if not for the fact that both sides buy from the same supplier. #capitalism