Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Maximum Efficiency

It's been six and a half weeks after giving birth to my first child, and I'm surprised I guess to see that it took this long to have a complete breakdown of ego that consists of me finding it perfectly acceptable to eat with vomit in my hair and poop on my hands while someone screams in my face.

Even this post is taking me twice as long to write because I'm typing it one-handed.  And I've learned to become ambidextrous because having only one hand that can write is just dead weight at this point.

Being a mother requires a body that can maximize efficiency.


Saturday, May 9, 2015

Baby

Hello blog.
I went away.
I was pregnant.
And then I had a baby.
Now I have a baby.
And I'm busy.

Talk to you later, bye.
:) :) :)

Nobody likes god

Aren't we at a state yet, when we can make fun of the fact that no one likes god?  Like making jokes about people who are clearly trying to hide the fact that they're going bald, they pretend like it's not really happening.

Well, even if there was a god, no one likes him/her.  There.  We're done with that one.

B4by, Y0u C0mput3 M3



Graham says I do good impersonations of technology.





Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Rosetta Mission

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!




Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Interstellar


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.  



Nope.  No emotions.  Stop it.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Religious Solicitation- We Bring the Party to YOU



ACT NOW

We interrupted your peace and solitude 
so now take advantage of 
HUGE SAVINGS
 for 
YOUR SOUL 
conveniently brought right to your door 
in the privacy of your own home!!!

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.


ACT NOW
Pre-Apocalypse Sale
Use offer code "four horsemen"




Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Invisible Art Critic: Grand Debut

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:







Friday, August 29, 2014

Monster



Uuuuh..... someone left their monster in my closet.





























































































__________________________________________________




Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Artist



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.




pay off!

Mega Penguins Vital Statistics



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.





Image source

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

What I learned from FIFA World Cup 2014




L'homme pauvre!















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.

Yayyy!













Ooooh!












Thursday, July 3, 2014

Things I learn on Facebook: Part 2

I type faster than I think, WHAT?!?

Things I learn on Facebook: Part 1

Most people I knew growing up were hopelessly mediocre, but then I grew up to be mediocre too.  So I guess it turned out all right.




At least I didn't get fat.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Here's my Buddhist Moment

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.





















 But at least you're in the present.






Monday, June 2, 2014

Creative Dashboard Gauge

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. 


Mon-bullshit-tana

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.


Tuesday, May 27, 2014

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. 


Creative Commons License
This work by topvolumes.blogspot.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.