I was inspired by today's success of the Philae lander on comet 67P, aka the first time mankind has landed on a moving comet, and made this image to share my feelings on the subject. Lately, some of you may be like me and have felt frustration that many of the topics from current events or controversies that burrow into our conversations with friends and coworkers, or play on our screens at night, are not actually relevant in the grand scheme of things, though we get angered and worked up about them despite our otherwise happy and glowing souls. By grand scheme of things, I'm referring to the universe and its cosmic age as compared to say, Victoria's Secret and it's recent Perfect Body controversy. One of those things is important, and one of those things isn't.
So congrats to the ESA. I'm incomprehensibly proud of humankind today, and so thrilled to be alive during this enchanting time in history. I've been feeling bogged down lately around some people, to whom it's all gloom folding in upon itself out there in the world today. But to me, events just pass on along the thread of time as they have for at least the last 13.5 billion years, and today was one little part of it that chanced to be beautiful and exciting. So hats off to you ESA, for looking ever forward and keeping us believing!
I just heard that Christopher Nolan has a new movie called "Interstellar" about trying to save civilization by finding a new habitable planet because earth has become environmentally devastated and Matthew McConaughey will pioneer the wormhole. It looks a little cheese ball to me but, maybe that's just because Anne Hathaway is trying to act in a serious role again. The trailer looked like they were trying to be all emotional about the end of the world, which I found boring. I think emotions in movies in general are boring. I like raw facts, a series of events, and people reacting with simple expressions like laughter, anger, or shock. So really, that Nova documentary about the Siberian meteor that I watched on Sunday was my perfect movie.
Scene A: everyone's like OH MY GOD
Scene B: scientists are like WHAT HAPPENED?
Scene C: people tell scientists that some things happened
Scene D: everyone's like BOY THAT WAS AMAZING
Perfection.
Although, I'm not entirely willing to write "Interstellar" off because it does involve space travel and wormholes and stuff, which I typically go bananas over. But they better not have too many emotions, or I'll shake my fist in their direction.
You totally can't even yell at us, because we're smiley old people!
Don't be fooled by imitators
Do not sell your soul to the devil!
Commit to surrender - offer it voluntarily
to God
please see pamphlet
Certain restrictions may apply.
God's promise - Rainbows
This offer is not valid if you are: Atheist, Agnostic, not Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, a stem cell, Animist, Ancestor Worshipper, Stone Mason, Asatrú, Bahá'i-ist, Brahma Kumarist, Rational, a Witch, Celtic Pagan, Confucianist, Divine Lightmissionist, Sciencer, Chinese, Druid, Druid's assistant, General Druider, General Druider's assistant, Dualist, Engaged in Research, Ebionite, Educated, Eckankarist, Subway sandwich artist, Catholic, Gnostic, French Nationalist, Gay, Hare Krishna, Jedi Knight, Mithraisist, a sitting princess, Native American, Occultist, Pagan, Pantheist, Bigwig OR Hazel, Raja Yogist, Rastafarian, Sodomizer, Santeríst, Satanist, Scientologist, Previous Contestant on America's Next Top Model, Shaman, Shinto, Gordon Ramsey, Taoist, Voodoo Master, Necromancer, Theologian, Homosexual, Vegetarian/Vegan, Pro-Choice, Reasonable, etc.
Ou, Le Critique D'Art Invisible: Un Grand Début
(si vous préférez la française) We are talking about art here, so let's class it up, shall we?
I have had ups and downs with my relationship to art, artists, and the world of art in general. For the last several years, I have been in a perpetual down, because I can't help but fail to see the relevance of art as having any higher performance than that of eye candy. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that! Jasper Goodall is fun as shit! Also, artists help me understand science. However, an article has just been brought to my attention which inspired in me a new idea, a sense that I may have a relevant voice in today's equally relevant visual arts agenda.
I am going to be an invisible art critic. That's not to insinuate that I myself will become invisible as an act of visual phenomena. Although, I must point out that if you're reading this right now, you're likely not looking at me also, though I may claim to exist, can you yourself actually prove that you're not making up the contents of this essay inside your own head? Perhaps I am invisible, as is my artwork. Not in the self-help-book sense. In the actual sense.
No! The critique will be invisible, it is up to the reader to utilize their imagination and determine how grand a scope the topics I digest. Am I being vulgar, or am I being passive? To what ultimate end does my opinion lend its incomprehensible weight? One must wonder whilst shivering into the long cold blank of my art criticism blog, which this blog will occasionally become, when the culture yearns desperately for clarification, nothing will be there. Yet nothing is bloated with possibility. And nothing is a constant that I can guarantee. Alas, I have said too much already, I am allowing the muddled fever of thought to infect the perfection of invisibility, and the imagination it would otherwise allow.
I shall now select the first piece for discussion today:
Chris Bradley's "Clyde" (2011), painted cast bronze and hot glue
"
"
By Beth, le critique d'art invisible
For professional credentials, please refer to the following invisible resume:
Sometimes I revel in how amazingly clever I am.
So then I drink a glass of wine to celebrate my astonishing cleverness.
I awake the following morning, slowly open my eyes and breathe in the air of a new day, and see that I'm not clever at all, that I'm actually exploiting my own mental handicap, which is the bloated ego of someone who occasionally thinks they have something clever to say. And then I become sad, and celebrate this sadness with another glass of wine, which ends up yielding an additional handicapped/clever idea that I am incapable of keeping to myself for any duration of time.
I'm smart enough to know that I should be ashamed, but dumb enough to think my ideas can provide entertainment. This is the cyclical obstruction of the creative mind.
In case you didn't already know, this is the only true definition of an artist. And I say that with a certain degree of love for myself, and all other artists.
But everyone fucking hates artists, especially artists. Maybe that's why artists all hate themselves, and lead perilously destructive lives. We realize how bullshit we are, but we just can't seem to stop. Somewhere in there, someone gets a kick out of it, which makes it all worth while. So really, people who appreciate the arts are not high culture, they are enablers.
People aren't visiting the Museum of Modern Art, they're visiting the Modicum of Mediocre Attempts.
All right that's not fair. Everything I've seen at the MOMA is profoundly more exciting than most things I see in any place at any time. Except for when I'm watching Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. THAT'S the most exciting thing I've seen in a while.
Okay well here's a collage for no reason, because reading text on the internet generally requires a visual pay off.
Finally, an image clarifying the difference between a mega penguin, the
common British man, and an emperor penguin. I can never keep these
things straight.
Here's something I learned during FIFA World Cup 2014:
I like football/soccer more than I like some of my friends. When they complain every day for a month all over Facebook about how evil soccer is, then we stop being friends, because that's a totally douchebag move to attack people's beloved summertime sport since we all know there are no redeeming qualities about the summer..... AT ALL.
Summer is hell. It's hot. It's sunny. No one can breathe. No one can move. You're angry. I'm angry.
But at least there's football.
So shut up about it already. I GET IT, the world is horrible, people are being displaced, corporations ruin everything, why don't we whine about it instead of accomplishing anything real and make everyone else who's totally overheating in this godforsaken summer wasteland miserable too by flooding their social media sites with complaints about soccer! SURELY then you'll feel better you douchey douche mc-doucher. No one likes you. Piss off.
In the mean time. This World Cup has been amazing! Right??! Germany blitzkrieged the life out of Brazil 7-1? First they sent them Nazi war criminals, then they sent them annihilation? Hoooo it burns, I can feel it from here in godforsaken Montana, the virulent libertarian fortress that epitomizes the true hellishness a summer can be because it's eight thousand degrees and there is no weather and no trees. When they say Big Sky, they're referring to the incessant vertigo you experience from the completely anchorless atmosphere. This shit is endless!!!!!!!
All right well I guess that's all.
I know this is poorly written. I'm overheating. Shut up.
There may come a time when you feel like there isn't a shred or remnant of who you used to be, that your history is irrelevant because that isn't even you anymore. It could be liberating, being freed from the past to focus instead on the present, or maybe even look forward to the future.
Unless, instead you just feel lost, like you have no anchor and are only left free-floating in a sea with no landscape on the horizon. The only certainty you know is being inevitably swallowed into the meaningless abyss and forgotten without having left the slightest trace of an impact of a life.
I've done a brief illustration of a concept born from Shane Smith of Vice, which I strongly agree with. As a creative person, you want your work to be loved or hated. But as soon as you're reaching that middle ground, you know you're doing it wrong.
You know what? I've just got to get this out there.
I don't like Montana.
It's the kind of place that would be nice for a week.
But to live here makes no sense. Everything has to be shipped in at extraordinary cost, because the soil is dead, nothing can grow here, it doesn't rain, it doesn't storm, the people are uneducated, uncultured, xenophobic gun-hungry vagrants who think they're entitled to "god's land" or some such malarkey. The only thing Montana has to offer is shit that dies, like coal, lumber, the aging population, hunting licenses for out of state heathens who want to kill "a real animal." You know what a real animal is? Something that will fight back. Like a New Yorker. You think you're tough, asshole? Go buy a bottle of liquor on Bedford Ave. without shaking in your little spurs and tell me you're still a legitimate shred of testosterone. Thing is, I actually respect those fuckers on Bedford, because they're real people. These pudgy unilingual marshmallows I see around here are such a sad, sorry crime to human potential. The same goes for the land. The same goes for its weather. Or lack thereof.
Montana, you've got some pretty bits. But you're infested with fleas that bite and suck at your tired skin, while selling the remains to China. This is a culture with no future. That's actually what it deserves though, when you look at the sins these marshmallows committed to secure their promised land.
Disclaimer: If you're one of my friends in Montana, I'm obviously not talking about you. This is very evidently an exaggeration, meant to provoke and also relieve the anger I have about the abysmal fact that I'm still living here.
My left ear is plugged
and I can't make it unplugged. Why do the things on the left side of
my body never work? Good thing the liver's on the other side, am I
right? Although the heart isn't. Well. That's my excuse. My liver
works but my heart doesn't.
Today I got to thinking about holidays and movies, and how many holidays almost command the accompaniment of a film in order to feel complete and right.
There are some holidays that we can all agree constitute traditional, annual movie watching. For example, many of us have grown up accustomed to viewing White Christmas or Miracle on 34th Street after we've become fat on Christmas dinner and lazily nod off to a movie we've seen eight hundred times because our conscious and focused attention to the plot is irrelevant as we've seen it eight hundred times.. Ah, the memories. AH! The tradition.
Graham and I do not necessarily celebrate the established spectrum of American holidays as they're inapt to our lives/belief systems and also because we don't have kids and thus school parties to prepare for and we simply forget that there's a holiday. That's not to suggest that we don't take advantage of government mandated holidays with a boastful dedication comparable to William S. Burroughs in 1950's New York. Am I implying that we know how to have a good time? Or am I implying that we'll rob you if you fall asleep in our house? Or maybe we'll just rob you in passing, so as to continue having a good time.
And it's beautiful that family comes together for the holidays, bringing with them all sorts of precious valuables. Ah! The tradition.
There are some holidays we celebrate that aren't officially recognized on, say, your free National Wildlife Fund calender which you probably have six copies of, but might show themselves more readily among certain populations and age groups. Some of these are more unique to us, others are not. I will now bombard this post with a series of images to demonstrate and dazzle the point that I've already made. This is a trick statement. I haven't made a point. This was all just an elaborate ploy to list things and show pictures of things I like.
Trivia: I really like listing things! One of my more venerated personal items is McSweeney's Book of Lists. As you can see, it comes with unicorns.
Okay, so the HOLIDAYS
Here are the holidays we celebrate and the movies that are traditionally viewed with them, at least in our household.
Well I guess I should clarify that these are not all the holidays we celebrate, just the ones that have some form of media associated with them.
February 14th- Valentine's Day
It's so romantic, it's like what if the world went to shit? At least you'd have each other.
Maybe. If you don't, you'll die soon anyway.
If a little biology don't get ya in the mood, I don't know what will.
March 14th- Pi Day
This one is optional, depending on how pretentious/obsessive/isolated/disturbed you feel like being this year.
March 15th- BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH
No movies! Go read some Shakespeare. And make idle threats about stabbing people in the back.
Do you think that's where the word "idle" came from originally?
Idle (ahyd-l) adj:
1 To become motionless as in having recently been stabbed on the Ides of March
2 Unremarkable statements as that of a seer precipitating a warning that fails to be taken seriously, resulting in being stabbed by the Senate.
Well, as of March 15th 44 BC, we now know better.
I should have known by all the idle banter.
April 20th- Four Twenty
David Attenborough or John Hurt versions only, kay thanks.
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.
Any Day in the Summer- Random Summer Blockbuster Day! It's always best to keep your blockbuster close, and your Crichton closer.
Okay, I don't know if these were all originally summer movies. In my opinion, their distinct Crichtonian quality makes them eternal blockbusters, and blockbusters are for the summer.
July 4th- Independence Day Light the fires and kick the tires, big daddy! It is still recommended to drink excessively or smoke something or blow up something (preferably all of the above) on this holiday, as I believe the movie portends. If you haven't had a close encounter, you haven't found your independence.
November 5th- Guy Fawkes Day
Remember, remember,
The fifth of November,
Natalie Portman is hot.
I know of no reason
Why Sir Hugo Weaving
Should ever be forgot.
I don't think Hugo Weaving is a Sir....yet. But no seriously. One of the most important movies of our generation.
November 27th-Thanksgiving No animals were killed in the giving of our thanks.
Oh right, that's not a movie. But it is a postcard that comes with the tofurkey "bird."
December 21- Winter Solstice Well what can I say about this one? The best holiday movie since 1989. They don't make 'em like they used to, am I right? And that includes the people. (Because I was born in the 80's and I'm saying that I'm one of the best people! What percentage of today's population was born in the 80's? I bet it's the best percentage of the population.)
So thank you for journeying with me to the pleasant predictability of tradition, with all its sentiments of family, mirth, and media. Particularly in this spring time of year when there are fewer government holidays and less time to ourselves and our own creative projects, we all need the reminder that
Okay I just want to make a quick self-indulgent
announcement here.
I just discovered that I really like Macklemore
and Ryan Lewis.
And here is a picture I drew of them.
It began, as many things do, on a Monday morning,
searching Facebook to see what my finely filtered version of the
world has been up to. Tunisia signed in a new constitution, the
Ukranian leadership doesn't seem particularly concerned about the
past week's violent uprisings, and the value of the Turkish lira is
dropping which, in addition to continued Chinese economic stagnation
and global civil unrest, has some concerned that the recession is
about to take a second and fairly violent .....how do you say in
French....."chute" or "fall". The French
are protesting unemployment as well, despite Europe's supposed
stability, just like always.... because the global community is
collapsing upon itself....blerty blerty bler......
That and, several people were bragging that they
didn't watch the Grammys last night. They're so cool and
superior and not a slave to the whims of pop culture that they didn't
EVEN watch the Grammy's last night.
Well I've got them trumped, because I didn't even
KNOW the Grammys were on, nor did I recognize anyone who was
supposedly ridiculously freaking amazing.
Except for Daft Punk, but come on, it's Daft Punk. They're
French robots, and they give voice to the common plight of working it
harder, making it better, and doing it faster.
Though it does make us stronger.
I realize however, now that I am not a teenager,
that universal exclusion from one's culture is not necessarily a
thing to be proud of. At a certain point, it might just be
ignorance. For example, I currently live in a place that
struggles to receive streaming internet service. So, do you see
me bothering with ipads and netflixes and google goggles and 3D
printed heart recuscitations? Fuck no. There isn't the
satellite capacity for such ventures. And even if there was, who
exactly am I going to go show off to? Some white pudgey bumpkin
whose idea of sufficient humanitarian progress is smiling at the
three black people occasionally seen around town?
Maybe I make claim to this ignorance with a sense
of pride, because I'm so anti-culture that I wouldn't be swayed by
all those paralyzing ads to buy products I neither want nor can
afford. I can form my own opinions on world affairs without
even knowing what CNN thinks about it first. I don't have to
dress like they do in magazines, I can dress myself in whatever way I
want! I'm an independent thinker because I've eliminated all
forms of exposure to pop-culture way out here in the countryside!
Hooray hooray!
But, at one point in my life, I did live in a
major metropolitan area or two, and despite my staggering cultural
independence, I was at least aware of certain aspects of pop
culture. I acknowledged that the only way to succeed in
business was to be plugged into a Blackberry 24/7, excessive facial
hair did not give a professional impression, and brown boots do not
work with gray-toned outfits that are otherwise black, white, or
blue. Those boots need to be black. Seriously, this is
basic color wheel stuff.
In fact I would have then, and do now, make the
argument that putting the effort into being aware of your bright
plastic false sense of community, by which I mean American pop culture, does not mean that you can't
be an intelligent and free-thinking person. It means you
acknowledge that there is in fact a game, and that you are willing to
play it to one degree or another. The phrase, "to beat them at their own game" comes to mind. There are plenty of clever
and liberated minds who do this. As an example, The Wachowski's of
Matrix fame, who construct the highest order of cinematic instruction
on how to "unplug" by tactically employing the promotion
and funding by capitalism to question the true merits of unchecked
growth and endless consumerism, both material and psychospiritual.
Okay so.... everyone on Facebook was like uuuuh I
didn't EVEN watch the Grammy's last night, cuz I don't even kerr and
pop music is formulaic and predictable and pandering to the lowest
common denominator, which I am not! HuH!
While I agree with many of those charges, I do
think that pop music has its place. Like Pharrell, he's a
ridiculously happy guy. And in times of turmoil and riots and
economic collapse, Pharrell's like, here comes bad news, but I'll
be just fine, because I'm HAPPY! A sentiment that perhaps should
not be entirely crushed by the nay saying snobs of the world.
So then this French guy on my Facebook newsfeed
was like Daft Punk a remporté l'album de l'année
and so I watched a clip of their performance on France24 because Daft
Punk is French and I like to practice French by watching things in
French. One of the music commentators started getting really excited about Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, who appeared to be two white
guys riding shopping carts with thrift store bitches at their side.
I was intrigued, and so tracked down the music video and was
immediately delighted by its unassuming humbleness.
As playful as they
were, I admit to being a little surprised to see a song with a more serious
topic called, “Same Love." Aside from being a totally exquisite song, it's a fairly bold move as a white male
rapper to go against his stereotype and provide an honest commentary
on something that grieves such a large number of people, which is
intolerance. I guess this was the song they ultimately performed at the Grammys. One hell of a platform for such a positive message.
This is another example of where pop culture and mass appeal serves
its purpose, it has its place.
Here's another
confession. When I'm really overwhelmed or upset about something, I
have been known to go to PerezHilton.com, even though I don't know
who any of these teeny boppers are. It's just a helpful reminder
that people are trying so hard, and have these ideas of legacies that
they'll leave behind. But nothing actually matters. It's just life. You
just live it.
No biggie.
You know, life comes
with some sweet music too.
Hey thanks pop culture!
I never actually did watch the Grammys. I guess this post has thus far implied that I did.
What I did learn, other than that pop culture has some big important resounding social merits, was that I need to put a little effort into knowing what's going on culturally in this country. If I plan on moving back into civilization in a year or so, I need to cut this back country keep-to-myself fantasy that I've been living, because I'm just not going to be able to keep up if I can't perform basic city functions. Like programming the neighbor's microwave with my ipad, without them even knowing it. That's what people do with those, right? Instagram their laundromat to deliver streaming dinners while their moles are satellite-lazored from their backs?
Why.....
hello my lovely, we haven't met. Your name implies a certain.... shall
we say.... Cinnabun-ness, and your photographs shudder my breath to a
halt-
I mean the volcano. Not the terrified, fleeing people. I doubt
they're actually that frightened. They live in Indo-fucking-nesia.
This is like weather to them.
This sassy little mistress is only 25 miles from the Lake Toba supervolcano!!!!!
I find this exciting.
"YEAH! I'm in an ERUPTION"
Is that a pterodactyl in the foreground there? I think that's a pterodactyl.
I find this soooooooooooooo exciting.
These images were taken from the Time.com article listed above.
