DanteCWB

Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?

2011-02-27T20:05:00.003-05:00

(Lifted directly from this place.)

As you study for exams, remember its not the quantity it's the quantity. And remember there is no substitute for pure unadulterated bull

Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.

Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

1. If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
2. If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic."

The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.

Review: Monsters by Gareth Edwards

2011-02-02T23:39:00.002-05:00

So Gareth Edwards is slated to make the new Godzilla movie. So far he's only made one major movie. Monsters. I've just seen it, so here's my review.

I'll give a review based on the aspects of the film I noticed. Some of this stuff is -kinda- spoiler-ish, but I'm not revealing any major plot devices. Read it if you want.

Cinematography: Wow. If this movie has one thing down pat, it's the look. It looks very pretty. There was a lot of creative use of the camera and experimentation with depth of field. I would hire this guy as a cinematographer any day. If it came out that he was SHOOTING the new Godzilla movie, I'd be very satisfied. Given that he's slated as director, I don't think we're going to have any problems with a poorly shot Godzilla movie. He will make sure that it looks good.

Editing: Here we messed up a little. I'm a bit of a picky bastard when it comes to editing, but I noticed several areas where the pauses were just too damn long. I get that he was trying to create empty space with silence and such between the characters, and the editing for the most part was helpful in that aspect. But there were several instances where I was thrown off by the sheer amount of time in between dialogue. As for the rest of the editing, there were several abrupt cuts and what I like to call indie-jumps. Indie-jumps are those little cuts that have the same character with maybe a little bit different of an angle with the character in a different position to show the passage of time. They seem to only be in indie movies cause they're artsy. These are annoying and should die. He didn't overdo it, so it didn't crawl under my skin, but it was one of those things that jumped out at me and made me go, "Oh he's doing that."

Sound: Anyone ever heard of a sound blanket? The scene in the gas station reeks of air conditioner. But the exterior shots have very good sound for being exterior shots. I know how much of a bitch those can be with production sound. Crickets are evil. Post production sound design was significantly less creative. The environments and backgrounds didn't deliver while they were in the infected zone, and there wasn't much eeriness that wasn't done with music. I would have preferred a much more creative sound design. Also, with the monsters... he went with whales. Good lord. Everyone goes with whales when they want to make some kind of gentle giant. I wish it'd been something else. I'm a little worried about the sound design on Godzilla to be honest. I hope he takes it much more seriously than he did on this film.

Writing: I thought I'd disagree with the general consensus of this forum when people said the writing sucked. Now that I've watched it, I agree and disagree. I like the general premise and the idea. The setup is quite creative. But the dynamics between the characters on the screen felt forced most of the time and the boring little conversations were just stupid. I've seen a lot of indie directors make the decision in their writing to IMPLY EVERYTHING through mundane little comments like, "No, really, I mean what are you doing." to imply some question about life rather than the immediate moment. This, to me, generally comes off as pretentious and lacks the feeling of 'real' that is the goal. This assumes that people are way deeper than we are at every single point of time and we always understand what the other person is saying. Try to pull one of these off in real life, and someone just gets pissed because of miscommunication. And then there's the moments of saying by not saying during which I got the implication but it felt a little fake as well. This film is littered with those kinds of moments and they got tiresome. Much of it felt like a Lost in Translation Ripoff (only LiT did it very very well. This movie did it so-so). However, there were many moments where it worked. The -extra dynamics- of the two characters were interesting, but the female was unsuccessful. The male's extra little issue with his son kept me interested. Also the reference to illegal immigration was... well it was there enough to make me roll my eyes.

Directing: On set, directing has mostly to do with actors. And I don't think that he lived up to the challenge on this one. Like I said earlier, there were times when the moments seemed forced. This was not entirely to do with the writing, a lot of the acting made the writing seem worse when it could have been 'saved'. The fact that it wasn't throws me off a little. As for the rest of his directing ability, I hold him responsible for the issues with the other stuff, as well as the successes. He's very much a visual director, and I think we're going to get a visual film unless someone hires a beast of a post-production sound designer. Also the fact that he did everything himself in this movie makes me wonder if he plays well with others.

OMFG CG: I got very tired at the complete lack of practical effects in this movie. Signs were CG, trucks were CG, every tank or helicopter in the film was CG, wrecked vehicles were CG... even the busted airplane engine on the back of a real cart was CG. it wouldn't have pissed me off if it wasn't so obvious every single time. I was pointing at signs on counters going... well there's another CG sign. That wrecked train is CG. Then I noticed that not only was he the CG guy (i know he did it all on his computer, it's nice for a one-man show but practical effects would have looked much better) but he was also the physical production designer. Which means he didn't even hire an art director to figure out how to make some of these fake-looking CG shots more real. Not a good decision in my opinion. This is another thing that makes me worried.

The Monsters: Well... I couldn't help but think octopus when I saw them. Just... walking octopi. Wewt. He threw in some curious stuff about them in the last scenes to make me curious, but not enough to save the monster aspect from being a side-dish. Also WHALES? Biollante did it, Jurassic Park did it, and Cloverfield JUST did it. Give me a new friendly giant noise. What little monster action there was though was pretty cool.

Godzilla: Given this film, I think the filmmaker is smart enough to know that his approach to Godzilla is going to have to be very very different than his approach to this film. He's going to have to take off his artsy indie director hat and put on a whole new one to deal with this kind of monster. Godzilla isn't a mysterious background character to a light romance, he's center stage. It'll be interesting to see how he handles it. I really don't know if I approve. He has about as many minuses as he has pluses. But he'll be able to be controlled by the producers and that's probably what they want the most. Plus he's cheap. Someone else is probably -really- running the show here.

Many things have changed.

2010-09-03T13:12:00.001-04:00

My religion has taken an evolutionary turn. I'm getting more into Hinduism and immersing myself in a number of different studies. I shall be posting more soon.

-b00km4rk!!!-

The Baby Bible Storybook

2010-02-16T03:10:00.002-05:00

I found this interesting.

This pretty much hits the nail on the head when it comes to why I get a little bothered by Christianity. So often it gets modified a little bit until the followers are ready for what actually happened. Nature and God apparently aren't 'G' rated enough. Neither is the Bible.

Why do we hide the truth from our children so easily? This thing is missing so much crucial information.

It's also kinda weird that they included Sampson. He tends to get forgotten. It's cool that he's in there though. Might not be as popular if it wasn't for that 60s movie though.

That movie was awesome.

Controlled

2010-02-09T22:17:00.002-05:00

30 Minutes to Film: Controlled from Clayton Ward Bennett on Vimeo.

30 minutes to film. 2 hours to edit.

w00t.

This was a bunch of fun to make. I didn't really know what I wanted to make until about halfway through filming. I was just getting footage of Sean playing some vidya-games when I came up with the idea that it would be funny if he was fucking with someone else in the world using the controller.

Then we filmed me in a hallway. And it was silly.

Problem when editing is that I regret not getting enough footage of me flopping around in the hallway. The footage I got was good, but I wish there was more of it.

Anywho, had fun. Learned that I didn't really like the camera we used. But it had an interesting effect on the film anyway.

Wal-Mart Beggar

2010-02-02T07:17:00.001-05:00

A Minute: Wal-Mart Begger from Clayton Ward Bennett on Vimeo.

Found a beggar at Wal-Mart. Told him I'd give him a few bucks if he'd talk into a camera for a while. He thought it was a trick. I told him he could say whatever he wants and I'd already given him 2 bucks. So he talked.

Wind sucks. I'm probably going to re-edit this into something else soon.

He made five bucks that day.

Passengers

2010-01-31T07:11:00.001-05:00

Passengers from Clayton Ward Bennett on Vimeo.

Fucking around with Lumiere and Edison shorts. Had fun.

Communion as a non-Christian

2009-12-24T22:16:00.003-05:00

Today I had communion for the first time as a non-Christian. And it was on Christmas Eve. I'd been told that communion from a pagan perspective is a little strange, so I tried it out. And it's definitely weird.

It wasn't at a Catholic church, it was Baptist. So it was the little cracker with grape juice. Looking at the cracker with the realization that this is symbolic cannibalism is a little strange. I'm about to stick the body and blood of Christ into my digestive system and I don't even believe he's a god.

Normally I would have passed up the experience, but a friend of mine who is a pagan was caught in a situation where she had to do it or else she would reveal to her Christian family that she wasn't part of their religion so I tried the experience in honor of her. It's not one that I'll do again. Like her, I felt quite sick afterward and felt like I was betraying myself. I didn't go to the point of throwing up, but it was kinda close.

Communion has so much meaning applied to it for Christians. And I'm sitting in the church on Christmas Eve as a heretic and performing one of their more sacred rituals. Especially sacred to the Baptists since they only do it twice per year (albeit with grape juice and a cracker rather than good bread and red wine).

It's a feeling that I can't really write down easily. Again, I felt like I betrayed myself, but also I felt like I had betrayed the other Christians in the church, even though I didn't know any of them. I don't think that they would have really minded that much (a Catholic would be mortified), but I still felt that betrayal feeling afterward. Combine that with holiness and you have an idea of what was going on in my head.

Not planning on doing that again unless I become a Christian later in life. Even then I'm not sure if the ritual will make any more sense to me.

Oh Zeitgeist, You and Your Shenanigans

2009-12-11T10:04:00.001-05:00

I know this is long, I know this will probably be boring. But please read it so you don't get caught by this dumb propoganda video and spot when you hear someone reference this crap like it's fact. I've done my best to make it somewhat entertaining.

Okay, I saw someone had posted this video here with the subtitle that Christianity is pagan. While it's true that there is a relationship between Paganism and Christianity, this video is NOT a good place to look. Go ahead and watch this portion.

The sunset thing is BS. The only thing that this video proves is that the guy is good with puns. Sunset comes from the same place as sunrise. Set, as in setting something down is the root word. Not the god Set which wasn't even pronounced that way in Egypt.

Horus was not born on December 25th. December did not exist yet and there's no way anyone could know when he was born in the first place as the calendars are different and births/deaths weren't recorded in the same way they are today. No one would have known about the date of Horus' birth and no one would have cared if they did.

I'll admit that I don't know much about Horus' human life. My understanding is that he didn't even have one. Though it's possible. And if he did, he would have been the miracle performing type. But we don't have anything to go on. All the legends of Horus are when he's a god. But there's some problems here with the rest of what it says about Horus.

He was not known as the son of god, lamb of god, or any of these things because he is the principle God. Beyond that, there weren't any lambs in Egypt. He was ruler of both the night and the day. The Sun was one of his eyes while the moon was the other. Ra is the god of the Sun in the way they describe in this video. But he was a giant beetle moving the sun across the sky.

This battle thing is interesting. It's true that Set and Horus were locked in battle after Osirus was killed, but it wasn't symbolized by day and night since Horus was ruler of the sky rather than the sun. Sun was Ra's territory, and also the eye of Horus.

Oddly enough, this thing claims that Horus was born of a virgin named Mary and then quickly says Isis afterward. It's possible that Isis is the root name for Mary, but I find it unlikely. And the big kicker is that Isis wasn't a virgin. Horus is also the son of Osirus.

Horus could not have been crucified. Crucifixion hadn't even been invented yet. It didn't come around until the Romans decided it was a cheap and painful way to kill people. And the only god in Egyptian mythology to have been killed in the first place that I'm aware of (could be wrong here) is Osirus, who eventually came back to life as the god of the underworld, completely different from what this video entails. This video is taking aspects of other gods and combining them into Horus.

I'm not familiar with some of the other characters mentioned in this video, but my suspicion is that the same BS is applied to them.

Here's some things that I know about it.

KRISHNA: That would be a picture of Jesus. Also Krishna was born in July. And was the eighth son of a princess. Doubt she was still a virgin.

DIONYSUS: Born of a mortal, son of Zeus. Born from Zeus' thigh because the mortal womb couldn't handle a god. And the idea of Dionysus being called the alpha and the omega and king of kings when he was the god of partying is laughable.

The film this is from is called Zeitgeist. This is a video that is filled to the brim with modified facts that only appeal to people too ignorant and lazy to look things up. I've seen people cite facts that could not have been gotten anywhere other than this video before. there's several more parts to it as well. Look up EVERYTHING you hear that is related to this video independantly. Chances are it just came out of someone's... well not their brain.

We are God

2009-12-09T00:02:00.002-05:00

Energy has existed as long as the universe has existed. Due to the law of conservation of energy and the law of conservation of matter, there is always the same amount of energy and matter in the universe. That being said, sometimes matter turns into energy and it is also safe to assume that energy can turn into matter.

Energy is the fuel of life. And probably has much to do with what many call souls. There is no part of the brain that we know of where the consciousness is contained, and there are records of people's consciousness leaving their bodies and seeing themselves and others while they were technically dead. Since the 'soul' has no matter, and the only forms in the universe are energy and matter, it is safe to say that our souls would be in the form of energy.

Our bodies produce energy from almost nothing. Our liver does the work of several nuclear plants. We are an incredibly complicated form that somehow finds the ability to run itself until we, for some reason, die. Perhaps the fuel is gone, perhaps the spirit is tired, perhaps the matter of the body simply cannot hold the spirit any longer.

You have always existed, and I have always existed. We were born in the stars, energy and matter pushing together to eventually for the elements through billions of years to what we are today. But life is not some joyride that we sign up for. It is simply the status of the energy and matter that happen to make up our individuality today. When we die, it will be dispersed into the universe and will likely come back again in full or partial form as another being, human or not.

We are God. God is our projection upon this energy and is only there because we want him/her to be. Worship God if it pleases you. Deny God if this pleases you as well. It will not matter because God does not care. God does not have the ability to care unless he does in your mind. And then God will only care because you are God.

Live. Life.

For Good Clean Fun with Police

2009-12-07T19:38:00.001-05:00

From Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book

LACE (Lysergic Acid Crypto-Ethelene) can be made by mixing LSD with DMSO, a high penetrating agent, and water. Sprayed from an atomizer or squirted from a water pistol, the purple liquid will send any pig twirling into the Never-Never Land of chromosome damage. It produces an involuntary pelvic action in cops that resembles fucking. Remember when Mace runs out, turn to Lace.

Shocking Teachers and My Grandmother

2009-12-06T16:08:00.004-05:00

From a user on another website by the name of "mystic-spiritus".

In English class today, we were discussing how a Puritan poet's religious views influenced her writing. I was reading to catch up, since I had missed the previous class because of a doctor appt.

All of a sudden, I'm being asked by the teacher "Can you tell me any other religions?" I thought she had probably already had all the generic answers, as I'm not usually called on first. So I answered "Paganism. It encompasses a group of religions and spirituality." Apparently I was wrong. According to her, Paganism is a lack of religion. She then went on to elaborate on how a few of the substitutes in the past few years had been 'white' witches and how they practiced 'good' magic, and how 'black' witches worshipped the devil.

I was so astounded I couldn't speak.

Another girl asked if Wicca would be considered a religion, and she said no. At that point I butted in and said it was, seen as its an approved symbol for veteran's headstones. When she asked if there were any witches in the class I remained silent - it was pretty obvious that she was against it. After that, she went on a story about how a town half an hour from our house had a group of 40 witches that were doing sacrifices awhile back. She said they did everything from small animals to cows and horses. And apparently they moved away (all 40!) when the town started causing an uproar. I find it kind of hard to believe, especially with her (in my opinion) incorrect views earlier. My dad works near the town everyday, and I've never heard him say a think about witches sacrificing anything there.

I think my favorite class has just become intolerable. I wish I could go back to last years teacher.. The whole curriculum is almost based around religious texts too (not of her choosing, atleast).

And to think, it was just 3 days ago that she was lecturing a student not to talk about religions you don't know about..

I think this teacher's story about the 40 witches is bullshit too. If I'd been where I am religiously now while I was in highschool, I think I would have had more fun messing with people.

I ran into a situation similar to this when I "came out of the broom closet" told my grandmother that I was a pagan. I've learned that Pantheist or Earth-Worshiper is a better way to put it because of the controversy behind the word Pagan. But She thought I was saying that I was so devoid of purpose in a way that is worse than atheist on some level or something.

We agreed to look the term up in the dictionary and here's what it it says.

Quoth the Oxford:

pagan |ˈpāgən|
noun
a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions.
• dated derogatory a non-Christian.
• an adherent of neopaganism.

So basically when you say you're a pagan, you're saying that you're not Christian. So a Muslim is a pagan. There was another definition for Pagan with a capital 'P'. So I looked it up as well.

Pagan |pəˈgän|
ruins in Myanmar (Burma), located on the Irrawaddy River southeast of Mandalay. It is the site of an ancient city that was the capital of a powerful Buddhist dynasty from the 11th to the 13th centuries.

Not quite what I wanted it to say.

But I found this.

neopaganism |ˌnēōˈpāgiˌnizəm; -gə-|
noun
a modern religious movement that seeks to incorporate beliefs or ritual practices from traditions outside the main world religions, esp. those of pre-Christian Europe and North America.

A little more satisfying. But still not the definition of what I believe. But definitely closer to what I thought pagan meant.

But anyway, my grandmother was a little more satisfied with this response. It was in this conversation with her that I found out that my grandmother isn't a Christian. She confessed that she called herself agnostic, but was probably a pantheist as well. She understood what I was talking about when I talked about the mystery of life in relation to the earth and seeing life as something of reverence. But she made a few comments that made her sound like a Deist. So I showed her the definition.

deism |ˈdēizəm|
noun
belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe. The term is used chiefly of an intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that accepted the existence of a creator on the basis of reason but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind. Compare with theism .

My Grandmother said that she kinda agreed with that on some level. But still wasn't sure. She admitted that she hadn't really thought about it that much because she hadn't been asked about it that much. And thus had never really done the research.

She did ask about morality though. And I told her that I didn't believe in good and evil as much as I believed in positive and negative actions. That to define morality, one must consider the positive and negative effects of the actions they make, and act accordingly. A lot of times you can have an action that has both positive and negative effects, and you have to weigh the options. According to this outlook, it's impossible not to sin, but sin doesn't really matter int he first place because negative action isn't necessarily bad all the time.

This does make morality more subjective than objective, but there's really no other way to see it. Even objective morality is subjective from my point of view, because you define the objective morality as your own. Morality is purely created by humans in the first place.

This was a heartwarming experience on some level. I'd connected with my brother on subjects like religion and thought even though we're on opposite ends of the spectrum. But this was the first time me and my Grandmother had really connected as adults. It felt good.

Godzilla X The Kaiju Killer: Worth The Wait?

2009-11-04T20:30:00.005-05:00

Part 1 of 6 of the film Godzilla X The Kaiju Killer

Okay, so we have this long awaited Godzilla fan-film with a kinda stupid title. I'd had no exposure to this before I saw the trailer. And honestly I was a little taken aback.

The Trailer

I had a few problems with this movie going in. I thought the idea would be difficult for me to relate to, but I decided to give it a chance. I've been a Godzilla fan practically since birth, as well as an experienced filmmaker myself. I've worked on several independent productions and small scale films. With this in mind, if the filmmaker is reading this, he needs to read this whole article. This is coming from a g-fan who knows filmmaking.

A little background: Apparently this guy has been working on this for for about five years. And for a one-man-show, I have to say it's relatively well done. Especially on a first attempt. However, he made a lot of newbie mistakes.

I'll go through the film by the different areas of filmmaking.

1. Writing: This was by far the worst part of the film. After giving the plot a chance, I got tired and confused very quickly. Each time I finished a 'part' of the film, I buried my head in my hands and bitched about how I had no clue what was happening. The characters are impossible to identify with, and it seemed like the beginning of a shitty anime.

As a writing tip, saving the entire plot for the end of the film doesn't make any sense. When dealing with characters and civilizations that no one is familiar with previous to seeing the film, you have to do more explaining than shooting us into the plot. It's fine for an opening sequence, but after a few minutes we need to know more than nothing about these characters. When watching it, I had no clue who any of these character were, what was driving them, what inspired them... everyone was very flat.

We don't know the origin of the Kaiju Killer, we don't even know what Godzilla's origin is (or why he's even there). I've seen some of the explanations of the film and none of them can be inferred from the film itself. This is, to say the least, a problem.

Names: Many of the names in this were... alien. I understand that it was kind of the point. But coupled with a confusing plotline and not explaining anything, it makes the film that much more confusing when someone says a name and I have no clue who they're talking about.

This problem is relatively common in movies with intricate plot lines and I've heard that this was an issue with Michael Mann in Public Enemies. It's very common in films that are one man shows. But you have to realize that even though you have it all straight, the audience doesn't have anything straight at the beginning of the film. It's your job as a storyteller to help them get to where you are, not expect them to already know.

This script should have been heavily workshopped with other writers before being locked into production. Even if the rest of the film is amazing, a bad script can ruin a production. I've seen it happen time and time again in movies I've seen and productions I've worked on myself. This film is not alone in that regard.

2. Sound Design: Great sound design. Sound effects were cool, and the dialogue was captured well. Props to the sound team. And Godzilla's roar was badass. The problem with the sound was the dialogue was difficult to understand. And it seemed like everyone was growling the whole time. Everyone was angry all the time regardless of their emotions.

Disturbed. Really? Disturbed wouldn't have approved of their music being used in a film like this. Neither would Three Days Grace. Lay off the heavy metal and stick with Akira Ifukube. The modifications on Akira Ifukube's music was pretty awesome. But, I got tired of Disturbed halfway through the movie because the filmmaker(s?) spammed the same song throughout most of the film.

3. Art Direction, Special Effects, and Production Design: Again, well done. The Godzilla suit especially looked pretty awesome, though a little bulky. The suits for the other characters looked pretty neat as well. But the problem with the other characters is that besides the dude that died really early (whoever that was) everyone looked too similar.

Though there were some drawbacks. A few of the characters looked very cardboard-y (the early dead dude) and The Kaiju Killer's monster suit looked very Bandai (and missing a horn? I've heard there's an explanation for that, but it wasn't in the film). It was also very floppy. The reason why I give such a harsh criticism here is because he had five years to make the film. This is not five years of work, this is considerably less.

Most of the time with TKK it seemed like there wasn't even anyone in the suit. It was just being thrown at the Godzilla suit. And there was also a headbutt sequence that lasted forever.

Headbutt.

Okay I'm done headbutting you... oh wait! I need to headbutt you again and again and again.

In one shot.

The fight scenes had a lot of the same issues that the Heisei movies had. The suits were relatively poorly constructed and very bulky, so there wasn't much they could do other than ram into each other. And when they weren't ramming into each other, they were flopping around on the ground as if they were bandai figures with no life whatsoever.

He could have used stop-motion, he could have made better models, but he didn't. The only real excuse for this mistake is laziness. He took five years and what resulted was floppy bandai figures rolling in dust that were filmed in a way that made things at least a little interesting.

Beyond the monsters, the aliens (and human?) in the movie looked like heavy metal rejects that had an illegitmate child with the new Planet of the Apes. I've seen this style used before the result is usually unappealing. Mostly it's used in crappy science fiction, and it tends to stay there. If this filmmaker wants to go anywhere with his production design (which is one of his better cards), he needs to break from this style.

4. Cinematography: Not many problems with this. Nothing was overexposed, most of the time we knew what we were looking at. But there were some issues during the fight scenes where I just wanted a wide shot to see what the hell was going on. And what was with the yellow look that the whole thing had? It seemed over saturated. When water is orange, you need to white-balance the camera.

That being said, there's promise in the cinematography here. Composition is good and lighting is very well done for an independent production, even though there's limited creativity in the shots. I would be interested in knowing what kind of camera was used, and how the lighting was rigged.

5. Editing: This film had a lot of newbie mistakes in the editing. Jump cuts everywhere. There's a scene when Godzilla comes out of the water and is walking around. And someone forgot to film inserts. The only reason for an editor to put this sequence together the way it was put together is if he didn't have much film to work with. Plus there were multiple shots that broke the 30 degree rule. So some of the cuts felt jarring. And what was with that smog shit everywhere? I get the purpose, but it was annoying on screen. It needed work.

All in all, this was a good attempt from a somewhat promising filmmaker. There's hope here, but overall this is not good work. The script ruined the production. I'm interested in seeing more from this guy, given that this was a first attempt. But this film is far from a masterpiece.

Depression

2009-10-10T21:17:00.002-04:00

Depression is the greatest feeling. It's so extreme. Revel in it, because you are alive.

Obviously Racist.

2009-09-15T15:10:00.003-04:00

Obviously he just hates black people.

Fucking racist.

House Rep. Joe Wilson SC(R) is a Racist?

2009-09-15T13:36:00.006-04:00

Click for good fun

What? Why can't he just be a congressman that's pissed off with the President? Why do we have to call him a racist? Is every black person that didn't like Bush a racist?

I'm baffled. Why did the LA Times print this article? It starts off fair but then moves into some sort of agenda based rhetoric. It's irritating. This is making me want Joe Wilson to run for President in 2013. He had the gall to speak out to the President when he was expounding bullshit about a Bill that doesn't exist.

I don't even think his call out was just about the illegal immigrant thing. I think it was much more about the speech as a whole piling up on him. I'm going to root for Joe Wilson in this whole thing. The criticisms toward him after he apologized is insane. Why does he need to apologize twice?

Ridiculous.

Why do we jump to racism so easily?

My comment on the LA Times Article:

Where the heck did the race thing come from? I'm very frustrated by this article. It starts off fine albeit a little slanted, but then just goes crazy racist at the end.

"For liberals, Wilson represents the just the latest face of those who will never be comfortable with Obama, in part because he is the first African American president."

This is pure speculation. What evidence do you have that Joe Wilson doesn't like Obama because he's black?

Satan

2009-08-19T20:01:00.005-04:00

I would argue that Satan is more loving than God.

God didn't want us eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Why? What could be wrong with the Tree of Knowledge? We can put all the values we want on blind faith, but the interesting thing to note here is that God wants little followers, but Satan seems to want equals.

God loves you unconditionally, but will only act upon it if you respond to it. Even if you don't even know that he exists. Satan on the other hand will accept you into his realm regardless of whether or not you're a Satanist. Satan's love is truly unconditional because Hell is full of all kinds. He's got Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Pagans, Satanists, Atheists, Taoists, Scientologists, a couple Catholics and every single legitimate rock and porn star known to mankind.

Satan only has one rule.

1. No Christians allowed.

But if you're a Christian and you want to come hang out, he'll probably let you in. Besides, since when did Satan obey rules?

But there's also the golden rule.

2. Don't feed Cerberus

not dead

2009-06-22T15:00:00.002-04:00

Just without internet for a while. I have it now, but God knows how much longer it'll be around.

Mannerism, the 'Death of Art' Movement, Purity, and Awesomeness

2009-05-25T22:52:00.030-04:00

It's hot as Hell.

I feel like this person.

Stupid A/C is broken.

Anyway. This ties into the three recent art posts I have made, and shall be the apex of my floundering.

Art: Once Removed

Art: Twice Removed

Art: Completely Removed

Now

Shortly after the Renaissance Era, a movement began that moved away from the classic talent of Artists before. The importance of transferring reality onto a canvas was left behind. Suddenly warping the image for the sake of symbolism became more important.

Madonna of the Long Neck

This movement allowed more to be said with an image than perfect representation. Symbolism crept into different facets of the image. Here we see the Baby Jesus with extended limbs in a position that looks almost lifeless. This told us about Jesus' destiny. He had to die, and his death was set in stone even before he began life. This drift away from the classic view of Art would change everything.

And technically, centuries down the road, it allowed for this.

Infamous

Duchamp's Fountain rocked the very foundations of art in a similar way, just much more extreme. People didn't think it was art. Duchamp shook Modernism with this 'practical joke' piece that flirts heavily with the idea of Post-Modernism at the same time. He took a urinal, turned it on its side, signed it with a fake name, and called it a work of Art.

But this was only the beginning of how things could get shaken up.

Now I have mentioned the Death of Art Movement before. And I insinuated that it has already come. This movement will never be featured in a museum because it will never be considered 'real Art'. Hence the death of Art. This movement doesn't really care about critical acclaim, nor does it care if it gets any attention. It also could care less if it has any meaning within itself.

A now famous work of 'Art' in this newest art movement is The Awesome Face.

AWESOME!!!

No one knows who made The Awesome Face, but it has become one of the more famous works in the newest movement of Art. It is not Post-Modern because it doesn't rebel. It doesn't care. It doesn't even really have an artist. It's simply awesome. The Awesome Face gets used everywhere, especially the internet to convey that something is awesome. But, since it is often used sarcastically, the little meaning that it has isn't even consistent.

This makes The Awesome Face the perfect representative for the 'Death of Art' movement. Because the movement itself is Awesome... kinda. Not really... Sometimes. But that's why it's a good representative.

But if The Awesome Face were ever to be recognized by any critic as 'Fine Art' the said critic would be lambasted to death.

Thus, it is up to me.

The Awesome Face rocks the very foundation of civilization

This movement, when recognized as a movement, will shake Art to bits. How can Art with no credited artist be considered art? How can Art with no real meaning except to lampoon be considered Art? How can art that is this easy to make be considered Art?

Truth: All of these things independently have been considered Art before. Many of Duchamp's works fit into the mold. Such as this.

Bottle Rack

No meaning except about the meaning behind a signature. This is basically an autograph. But it's considered a work of Art.

Beyond that, several poems and songs written by 'Unknown' or 'Anonymous' have made their way around the literary and musical art world (which strangely doesn't often enter the 'Fine Art' world) to much critical acclaim (which for some reason is the method of legitimization).

So, a purchased bottle rack with a name written on it is Art. And a great poem with no name written on it is Art. So what the hell is the criteria?

What's awesome about The Awesome Face is that it is under the purest form of art. Much like the writing on bathroom stalls.

Now here's a work of Art that can't even be considered Art in a classical way without being a hypocrite. This isn't even technically the work of Art, it's just a photograph of it. Now, who then, shall go out into the world and find the red bathroom stall on which this was written (guys or girls bathroom?), remove it, and bring it to an art show to be put on display (assuming it hasn't been washed off already)? Certainly not the artist. So whoever brings this Art out of hiding in the world would be a fraud. So the photograph that someone took of it floats across the internet for the sake of appreciation, and the provocation of thought.

The Awesome Face, and the art pieces that it inspires all over the internet, are pure in that no one makes money off of them (except when they do), no one cares about critical acclaim (except when they do), and no one even takes credit for them (except when they do). They simply find their way around. And even when there are exceptions to this rule, the exception is embraced. If the modified works are 'good' they survive. If they're not... well... no one uses them and they fade into the dark recesses of the intertubes.

and on your desktop, they are the center of the universe,
your universe.

Those that survive will make people laugh, make people think, or make people facepalm at the stupidity, and still survive. Thus the internet has become the ultimate judge of what is Art and what isn't. And also the collective judge of what is worth keeping around.

Can we consider The Awesome Face (and the subsequent inspirations?) a legitimate work of Art? Probably not. But if it isn't, then it highlights the hypocrisy in the legitimized art world in a way that might suddenly legitimize it. But, at that point, if it were to be legitimized, that part of the meaning would be immediately lost (such happened with Fountain when it was legitimized. Legitimization caused it to lose it's meaning in a strange way). Thus becoming a perpetual flipping statement of Art.

Since Mannerism was the first dissenter (or among them, probably the most famous) from the conventions of Art. I credit Mannerism ultimately for allowing the following movements. Including Modernism, Post-Modernism, and the Death of Art. This means, of course, that the Mannerism movement is, indeed, awesome.

Thanks Mannerism

[/floundering]

Richard Dawkins says

2009-05-25T04:44:00.002-04:00

that Pantheism is sexed-up atheism.

I say that atheism is pantheism without any fun.

:P

That is all.

Art: Completely Removed

2009-05-20T16:38:00.015-04:00

Moar floundering.

Art: Once Removed

Art: Twice Removed

And following the fall of Post-Modernism, some have theorized that this will be the Death of Art. This is, of course, assuming that art isn't already dead. Maybe Art has been dead all these years and is waiting to come back to life.

There will be a point when the very concept of Art has been so battered and beaten that it will die. A concept can only take so much. Fine Art of our age has already fallen from popular opinion. The common man doesn't care about what's happening in the art industry.

Apart from video-games, movies, advertising, and other things that a lot of people don't really consider 'Art'. The Art that finds its way into a museum is now the type that is only understood by the pretentiously sophisticated of our generation. Beyond that little world, the rest of planet turns their eyes to art and shrugs.

Question: Is that because they don't understand it, or because they're already on the side of enlightenment that Art's evolution will eventually place it?

The Death of Art will be an interesting experience. It means that the life of the artist will be put aside and people will simply accept art as the Chinese and Japanese saw it centuries ago.

Part of life.

The art behind a weapon is the aesthetics, how well it kills, the designs down the side and the family inscription on the blade. There exists inside the Japanese katana an art of design, beauty, skill, and malice in the same creation.

Art or Weapon?

But when it comes right down to it, it's a weapon. It does what it does.

It kills.

Personalization identifies the owner with the weapon rather than provoke a viewer. The death of art will really be the death of Museums rather than the death of artistic concept. Art will come full circle by the end of Post-Modernism and return to its place thousands of years ago.

We made the mistake of separating Art from other studies. Art exists in biology, aesthetics, astronomy, literature, war, philosophy, and millions of other subsections into which humans have divided the study of life and the universe. Art by itself doesn't exist.

Art or Science?
It's both, and we shouldn't distinguish the two.
Art is not it's own subject, it encompasses everything.

Art or Painting?

The Death of Art will be something to celebrate because finally we can stop asking all the questions and searching for true originality. Because, honestly, originality doesn't exist. No matter what we do, we will use materials that have already existed, and put them on canvases that were already there. Using art to find yourself can be useful, but it can't be used to find originality.

Post-Modernism struggles to delay the Death of Art as long as possible, until every artist searches every crevice of expression in the search for true originality until finally it's admitted that originality is impossible.

After the Death of Art, art will be art for the sake of being art. But it will allow room for the entire system to start over from the beginning. But if it does, there will be a certain amount of enlightenment in the next cycle of artistic movements that this cycle couldn't understand.

Next time, we'll know that the search for originality and trying to define art as it's own subject became Art's causes of death.

And it will become not Art, but art.

Art: Completely Removed.

Post-Modernism. Art: Twice Removed.

2009-05-20T02:54:00.007-04:00

First read the post on Modernism, and this will make much more sense.

So, in the same line of thought in asking about Modernism. What, then, is Post-Modernism?

And so my floundering continues.

Here's what Oxford has to say:

a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism that represents a departure from modernism and has at its heart a general distrust of grand theories and ideologies as well as a problematical relationship with any notion of “art.”

In other words. A sort of modernist response to modernism.

Modernism and Post-Modernism are both very rebellious movements. It's hard to apply any sort of rule or definition upon either of them. I called Modernism 'Art: Once Removed'. So it only makes sense that I call Post-Modernism 'Art: Twice Removed'.

If Modernism is a departure from structure and rules of classical art, then Post-Modernism is a departure from the departure.

The 'Art: Twice Removed' definition makes sense because Modernism and Post-Modernism define one another. Post-Modernism can even be considered a part of the Modernist tree, considering that it's so related. But given the extreme rebellious nature of Post-Modernism, it does to Modernism what Modernism did to the rest of Art.

The Post-Modernist looks at the entire history of Art and says, "Fuck you, I'm doing it this way."

And so he does

The canvas is left behind almost completely. Some still make Post-Modernist art on a canvas, not because it's the rules, but simply because there's no rules in Post-Modernism art so why worry about whether or not to use or not use the canvas in the first place. If it fits my vision, by God I'll use it. But may I remind you, it's not 'cause it's the rules.

Finally the very definition of art gets questioned on a very serious level.

The questions that we ask when looking at an 'art' piece get poked at prodded. Who made it? Do we care? Is there meaning? Do we care? Is the goal of art to make us think or simply get a laugh? Do we care? Is it about composition, meaning, or both? Do we care? What is composition anyway and why are we so damn concerned about it?

Do we care?
Do we care?
Do we care?

And if you do care... why?

And what the hell is the purpose behind all this Art stuff in the first place?

Ideologies behind Art and style get lost in the fray. The step that Pollock took with adding the screws and bolts into the painting get taken several steps further in the hopes for finding originality. Suddenly medias are mixed, styles blend, and we don't recognize Art anymore. Silk screening gets combined with painting and crayon in order to make a pretty picture.

And next to that piece in a museum will be a store-purchased pink bicycle with the words 'I'm an art piece' scribbled on the side with white-out. The base of art gets battered and ransacked until suddenly... the very concept of Art can't take it anymore.

And the death of Art is upon us.

Defining Modernism? Art: Once Removed

2009-05-20T00:40:00.010-04:00

What is Modernism? Is there a definition?

Oxford says- a style or movement in the arts that aims to break with classical and traditional forms.

The above definition is probably the only thing that is going to be technically right in this entire post. I have been taking an Art History class for about a year now (honestly too long for any class to last) and the teacher has decided to let us flounder in finding a way to define modern art.

So here is my floundering.

People started messing around with the idea of modern art in the late 1800s and it continued into the middle of the 1900s. A group of people apparently started to question the definition of art. For example: can an overturned urinal be art?

answer: yes. decidedly.

Regardless of whether or not the signature matches the 'artist's' name. DuChamp basically founded modern art on a number of levels. I believe that he turned his entire life into a practical joke. Occasionally making 'real' art to please the masses while occasionally flirting with the idea of post-modernism before it existed.

I can see him smiling after finishing Fountain. Which in my uneducated opinion is more post-modern than modern because it not only breaks from traditionalism, it breaks from the breaking of traditionalism. Pissed off a lot of people.

But that's for the next post.

I'd label/define modernism as "Art: Once Removed". As the definition above states, Modernism is anything in the art movement that breaks from the traditional rules of art. Which is strange because that kind of happened with every single new movement of art from Mannerism on.

Mannerism asked the question: Do we have to show things as they physically are, or can we change it to fit our purposes? And thusly, everyone started drawing strange versions of Mary.

The first true Modernist painting?

After this drift from the rules, movements that broke the rules developed by the classical Renaissance era started up all over the place. Europe being the only place these advancements really happened. In other parts of the world, art stayed mostly the same because the only people figuring out the definition of art in the first place were the Europeans. Other civilizations (Aborigines, Chinese, Japanese, Zulu, All the Native American tribes, etc) simply accepted art as part of the rest of their life. They didn't see a distinction.

Personally, I think it's better that way.

But moving on.

After Mannerism, several movements broke away from the great and powerful Renaissance and moved into 'new' areas of art. All the while trying to find some vestige of originality that might still be left while still using the same paints on the same canvas to paint discernible subjects.

Then Modernism happened and changed the whole game.

sploosh!

Pollock used some paint. Sometimes he used other things. I saw a Pollock painting up close (not one above) once and walked up to it. I discovered nuts, bolts, and screws stuck into the paint.

Why? No clue. Probably had something to do with his image as a 'working man' artist. But it was certainly a different experience. Pollock had made as step in the direction of originality. Whether or not it's pretty is up to you. But it's certainly original.

All the while still being technically 'Art'.

Take it as you will.

The Young Turks... oh dear God.

2009-05-14T20:02:00.006-04:00

Meet The Young Turks.

This guy is trying really hard to be a legitimate journalist. He's been trying to get a spot on MSNBC, which would be a good place for him, considering how partisan he is.

No conspiracy theory at all... amirite?

I commented his channel with this. So I decided I'd post it here because I feel it's important. I'm not even going to bother addressing the issues in the video right now because I have so much on my plate right now.

But short answer is: Obama made a good decision here. The last thing we need is propaganda material while our troops are spread thin over the Middle East.

Here's what I left them.

unsubscribed.

This channel is way too partisan. If you're going to be interjecting your own opinion in the news, you're not a journalist, so quit trying to come off as one.

If you're going to claim to honestly put forth the news, then your opinion has to remain out of it. Otherwise it's no longer news, it's commentary. Journalists trying to be commentators is ruining journalism, and you're not helping.

Beyond that, your commentary is one-sided. It's obvious that you don't think for yourself. So you can't even really be a commentator without sounding like your parroting other people. Either quit and find something you're good at, or change your show. If you don't, you continue to hurt the integrity of journalism.

And So, I Must Leave The Internets... For Now

2009-05-11T02:51:00.002-04:00

Editing a movie. The week shall be devoted to editing a movie I just shot entitled 'Real'.

The rest of my waking moments will be devoted to a second movie I'm producing/directing/writing entitled 'Land of the Faithless'.

Beyond that, I am finishing a final draft of a script for a movie by this dude that is a little overdue. This one is entitled 'Ultraman Sorta Episode 3 - A Moderately Threatening Invasion'.

'Real' cannot be posted on the internets, but if you want a copy, let me know and I will get one to you. As for 'Land of the Faithless', that one might go onto Youtube or Vimeo.

But my point!

I will most likely not be posting anything for at least a week outside of small shit. Just wanted to let ya'll know why.

Project Pitchfork: Requiem (Water Mix)

2009-05-07T15:28:00.003-04:00

Dude, fuck yeah. This song is the latest thing to be playing in my ears over and over. It's off their album Ch'i.

I don't really know much about the band, but I've recently come across a lot of their music. It's pretty damn awesome. Have a taste.

Pantheist: A disconnected ramble about why I believe what I believe.

2009-05-01T19:04:00.005-04:00

So, upon further examination of my articles Theism or Atheism and Thin Places along with my own thoughts on the world and how it's composed, I've decided pretty solidly that I'm a Pantheist.

I figured out some time ago that if there was a God, it probably wasn't a sentient being. And what sentience that God does have is ours, because we are linked to God.

God is just as much a part of us as we are a part of God.

God is a part of his creation and the creation is a part of God.

And, to complete the triangle, We are a part of God's creation as much as the creation is a part of us.

God, Creation, Us

We watch over the creation. This is where I think that the parable of Adam and Eve has some validity. We, God, and the creation are one and the same, even if different in concept. If there ever was any such trinity, that would be where it is.

I came across this belief when I read a concept in the Hua Hu Ching that basically read that we are all a part of the same whole. When I threw my understanding of God into that mix, I realized that I was a pantheist without yet knowing the term.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes we as humans have empathy for even the tiniest of animals? Have you ever saved a ladybug from a puddle? Have you ever rescued a dog from execution in an animal shelter (like Obama decided not to)?

NOTE: Yeah, I threw the Obama thing in there. I'm just really pissed that he didn't get a pound puppy instead of some purebred fancy breed. As an owner of two pound-pups, I'm kinda pissed that he didn't follow through on his promise to get a dog from a shelter. When he made that announcement, I was like... oh cool, at least I can like him for something. Turns out... not so much. Watching this guy break promise after promise is infuriating.[/rant]

Anywho.

Our empathy for animals of other species (as a whole) surpasses that of any other animal. Though sometimes the animal kingdom has its heroes.

As awesome as this is, why didn't anyone help that dog?

For any of you that want to know what the result is: The dog that was rescued died shortly afterward and no one can find the hero dog. After about a month of searching they called it off.

My point is that humans have a respect for life that far surpasses any other species. Even the hero dog of Chile only saved another of his species. If it'd been a cat, or raccoon in the road, no such action would have been taken (most likely, can't say for sure. That dog is pretty impressive).

But there's constant stories even among our own childhoods of finding a wounded bird and nursing it back to health, or feeding a stray cat. When we see the death of animals with our own eyes, sometimes we cry because those are our brothers.

Plants are People too

Sometimes we eat those brothers (both plants and animals), as we cannot survive otherwise. But this is the natural order of things as life consumes life all the time. But humanity will eat plants and animals while still having a pet dog and a garden. It's not hypocrisy as much as it's balance. There's a balance in life, death, and God. The responsibility of the human is to watch over it carefully.

In the parable of Adam and Eve, God charges us with the responsibility as rulers over the environment. We are to guard that cycle, because we, like it or not, are the only creatures that can truly handle that responsibility. Although recently our civilizations have become so narcissistic that they have forgotten this purpose.

So God, whether you can call the subconscious spirit of nature God or not, links us to everything, and each other. I think that if people realized that, we'd live much more peacefully with one another.

Egoism and LSD

2009-04-29T02:26:00.014-04:00

(a midterm)

There are people who see the world the way they want to.

There are people who see the world the way it is.

And there's the artist.

My Brother, Hunter, aka: Atlas, is a serious artistic photographer. He has recently acquired one of these Blogs and will be posting soon if you wish to check him out.

Hunter focuses on existentialism and takes it to a completely different mental plane. He is the kind of person who has delved so far into his mind that sometimes he has trouble getting out. The result is an explosion of artistic creativity.

Lengthening Sensual Development

The above photograph with a smiling girl and paint splattered around her as if to come out of her ears is one of this artistic photographs, entitled: LSD, or Lengthening Sensual Development.

She's smiling as if she has reached a new high. The splatter paint looks as if her brains may have just exploded out her ears. But, she enjoys it.

But believe it or not, my brother's photograph makes no direct reference to Acid, except that LSD is a drug that expands your mind. This girl is on no drug other than herself. The brain has the ability to take you incredible places if you want it to do so. Some have tried to harness this ability through meditation, and those people are on the right track.

But, anyone can sit on a mat and hum for eight hours. The key to this act is sheer willpower and a resistance toward society. When your mind is grounded in the accepted reality of society, it becomes difficult to see the world from any other perspective. Once you are able to find this resistance. The result is an explosion.

An explosion that looks very similar to butterfly wings. Unique, colorful, and with the ability to fly, whereas before this metamorphosis you simply walked with everyone else.

Part of this resistance is the ability to go into the self and take apart the mind from the inside out. Organized religions, support groups, activist groups, schools, and even family can all act as a deterrent to this process. You must become the blank slate, and then create.

What you do at that point... is up to you.

Egoist, Jared Foust

Another work that comes along the same line was created by a close friend of mine, Jared Foust, aka: DaiKamanohashi, who recently discovered the difference between Egotist and Egoist.

Quoth the Oxford English Dictionary.

USAGE The words egoism and egotism are frequently confused, as though interchangeable, but there are distinctions worth noting. Both words derive from Latin : ego (‘I’), the first-person singular pronoun. Egotism, the more commonly used term, denotes an excessive sense of self-importance, too-frequent use of the word 'I,' and general arrogance and boastfulness. Egoism, a more subtle term, is perhaps best left to ethicists, for whom it denotes a view or theory of moral behavior in which self-interest is the root of moral conduct. An egoist, then, might devote considerable attention to introspection, but could be modest about it, whereas an egotist would have an exaggerated sense of the importance of his or her self-analysis, and would have to tell everyone.

He showed it to me along with the work of art he created, and I had an explosion of understanding of his piece and instantly fell in love with it. A word to describe intense introspection and self-evaluation existed. Nothing could describe the moment but the word 'cool'.

The three of us all have different paths to attaining the individuality which allows for great introspection. I've used eastern philosophies like Taoism and western religions such as Paganism, Hunter tackles Existentialism, and Jared simply embraces who he is and doesn't let a soul in the world tell him otherwise.

But even with these different paths, the goal is the same. Reach into the mind and pull out that world in which we truly belong. Art ensues as we try to invite that world into reality, and allow those in reality to gain a glimpse of who we are.

So there's the artist, who sees the world as he created it.

A Woman's Place is the Kitchen and the Battlefield

2009-04-28T15:17:00.009-04:00

Women's history is quite the boring subject for a number of reasons. It's only interesting if you're interested in domestic issues for the greater part of history.

Women's history had an awesome start in the Neolithic period, and in early civilization (Sumeria especially). But all that ended when people decided that Sumeria sucked and wiped them off the face of he earth. And then, with women's history being so focused on a small aspect of history, especially in the last thousand years, the rest of history became Man's history. Since that point, it's always been 'impressive' when we see a woman suddenly do something that gender roles of the time said they couldn't do. But these women are only popular for doing things that a thousand years ago would have been fine.

Women like Clara Barton and Sarah Rosetta Wakeman stand out as women of the Civil War period who did things considerably amazing for their time. But in the art of the time, there wasn't much that glorified this, even in the art by women. The 'Woman's place is the kitchen' mentality permeates through many women, even today.

It simply wasn't a woman's place to do anything other than cook or clean for her husband, make babies, teach, and walk around in a dress. While there's nothing inferior about these tasks, there's not much glorification of it. And sometimes I think that women's art in the 1800s and on is an attempt at glorifying domestic life.

But there's been a surge of artistic representations as of late of the woman-warrior, as rare as she is. Women have been popping up in video games especially as great fighters.

The Amazon of Diablo 2

In literal history, there weren't many fighting women. The pagans of Northern Europe (Gaul, Woads) had a few; there was obviously Joan of Arc; and the maiden archers of Scythia were a force to be reckoned with. But overall, the woman-warrior in classical European civilizations (Rome, Greece, Carthage, Macedonia, etc) is practically a historical fiction.

Most civilizations that employed women on the battlefield put them in positions where a small, fragile body could be utilized well. Even the Romans feared Scythian women on horseback with bows and poisonous arrows.

Scythian Noblewoman

And China has a large collection of woman-warriors. Mulan being the most obvious, but a better example would be Sun Shang Xiang, a princess of the Chinese kingdom of Wu whose handmaidens dressed in full armor. She would use hit and run tactics with cavalry to really mess with her enemies. And she was a great fighter herself, fighting in numerous battles during the Three Kingdom Period, utilizing both the sword and the bow.

But for some reason, around the medieval period, the powerful woman on the battlefield disappeared and never really came back, especially not to the scale of the Scythians who employed whole brigades of women. But in concept art and science fiction stories of ancient civilizations, we have the woman-warrior coming back.

I don't think she's in the kitchen

Scythia lives again, but only in the imagination of the concept artist. Rarely are these stories made into anything beyond the medium of graphic novels and sci-fi novels. Which are pretty fucking awesome, but aren't as mainstream as they probably should be. Maybe the woman warrior will truly return.

Holding the Treasure

2009-04-28T14:55:00.007-04:00

Shaqerlee made a really cool response to my recent blog post, A Quest for Treasure, in which I took a quest into the internet for a lost photograph.

She brought up a good question with her title. Now that I have the treasure, what do I do with it? Honestly, I just wanted it for my collection of interesting photographs that move me. Occasionally I go into them and look for that piece of inspiration I need. As a film student, photography inspires me to expand upon the picture into a story.

The Treasure

This photograph in particular reminds me of how simple life really is. We complicate things too much sometimes. Shaqerlee even admitted that she would have separated life into seven parts rather than four. This photo separates life into childhood, love, wisdom, and death. And they are separated into Morning, noon, evening, and night.

Three of those are obvious with the exception of Wisdom being the fourth. It may not have been what the artist was intending, but I see that as what we are left with when we have nothing else. He's looking at his wife's grave which was placed on the spot he had a romantic day. A day important enough to be represented in the portion of his life symbolic of love.

The character has nothing left but his memories, and his wisdom that he has attained over the years.

It's quiet there.

And then he's gone.

Along with the tree who traveled with him.

Night falls.

But the kite stays as a tribute to his journey.

And new life begins.

A Quest for Treasure

2009-04-27T22:35:00.007-04:00

(Found Object)

I had downloaded a photo to talk about it on here... or at least I thought I did. I ran into the issue earlier this morning when I suddenly couldn't find the damn thing. I have a handful of folders that I put insanely cool shit in, but after much deliberation and searching my computer for .jpgs, I apparently either deleted it or didn't even download it in the first place.

It was a really cool photograph. But the only thing I remembered about it was that there were some trees, a kite, people, it was set up in four photographs, and there was a life symbolism in it. I was going to write about it because it really inspired me. But the disappearance threw me into a rut. But I was determined to find it again.

Only problem. I had no clue whatsoever where I managed to find it the first time.

So anywho, I did some image searching on google for it to try and find the damn thing.

search: life kite
search: life kite tree
search: life kite four
search: life kite 4
search: lief kite four photograph

darn

search: life kite four photograph
search: photography life kite
search: fuck it
search: I hate you google
search: ???

I gave up.

But, being the brilliant technician of the internet that I am, I went to a SUPER SECRET WEBSITE and went to the requesting image forum. I put a description of the image in there and waited while looking around for other requests that I could fulfill.

After a while, someone else posted that he was looking for the same photograph. Didn't have it, but gave me a gift. Probably something he had found while doing the same search I'd been doing.

I really liked the picture, and it indeed has it's inspirational levels. But it wasn't the photograph I was looking for. So while sifting through the millions of requests for other stuff, I couldn't find anyone looking for anything that I had, given that I don't collect the type of stuff that people there tend to be looking for.

but, alas, after a few minutes more of waiting, myself and my friend in need both got what we were searching for.

delivered

So now, in addition to having the photograph and it's original meaning, it now has an extra personal meaning because of the quest to find it.

Life.

Diamond in the Rough: Born a Slave

2009-04-27T12:35:00.015-04:00

There's a shitload of photographs in the world. Most of them don't speak to me at all. But sometimes I see one that truly affects me.

Richard Avedon, William Casby, born a slave 1963

As a History note, the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln was in 1863. So this photograph might have been taken exactly 100 years after the proclamation.

Slavery has a long history in human culture. Not all of it was bad. Roman slavery, for example, was mostly for prisoners, and even then still had a way out. Roman slaves could earn their freedom, and one even managed to become Consul. American slavery, however, had just about every negative connotation you could find. There was no future for these slaves, which is what makes American slavery so horrible.

It was racially motivated, the slaves were all foreign, and there was no way out of it for about 150 years. If a slave escaped, he could not blend in with the populous as a Roman slave could have. There were no other nations for him to escape to other than Canada or possibly Mexico if he played his cards right. In Rome, a slave could escape to Gaul, or simply disappear to another part of the Empire and restart his life, but in America, every black man was a slave until some began to inherit freedom. And even then, there was still no future for them.

Sometimes life was better for a slave black than a free black. Especially a domestic slave for the right household. However, if you read Fredrick Douglas' book My Bondage and My Freedom, you see that even a domestic slave that lives mere miles from the Mason-Dixon line can have the roughest life in the world.

And then there was another 50 years of debate before war broke out over it. And after that, another hundred years of racial struggle for the rights of these ex slaves' descendants to sit in the same restaurant as the previous slave owners descendants.

To put this in context, here's what happened the same year this photo was taken.

Culmination of a Century of Freedom:
Maybe he was there
I don't know how old this guy was when the photo was taken, but it can be safe to assume that he didn't live very long as a slave. However, the hardships with slavery didn't end with the emancipation proclamation. There was still about two more years of war over the issue, and then the shit hit the fan with reconstruction (letting southern states back into the union, the formation of the KKK, voting rights taken away from southerners, uneducated blacks being voted into political positions).

I would think that a conversation with this man would be an intense experience. There's historical accounts where you get a broad view of what happened in a civilization, and then there's the personal accounts of the people in that time. These accounts include the signs of the times if you will, but this man's personal account would include each job he has worked, the women he loved, the friends he had, the times he had within this hundred year span of history.

This man saw a century of intense advancement in all aspects of society. And it can be seen in his eyes. His life is hardened. But he has lived to see this moment. The moment is over, and he is long dead now. But he made it.

Life.

ZombieJesus, Plant Ovaries, and Apache Indians

2009-04-26T22:35:00.013-04:00

I am a user on a Christian forum that allows for open debates between the users. I've joined to throw about my two cents, even though I am sometimes disregarded for being a non-believer (and told to GTFO). Others, however, really like that I'm present there and don't want me to leave.

So I stay.

But anywho, something I posted there could definitely double as a blog post here. This was made in response to a discussion about contradictions in the Bible.

There's a lot of people in the world that hate Christianity for beliefs such as Hell, anti-homosexuality, anti-abortion, so-on such-as. So they look all over the Bible for insane verses and philosophical contradictions. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it's just stupid.

The reason why I left Christianity is that the worldview of Christianity, while it makes sense in it's own little world, didn't make sense to me when I took a few steps back and looked at the broad spectrum of things.

It especially seemed ridiculous when I realized that Christianity basically worships an immortal zombie (hence the phrase ZombieJesus on the internet).

Also, I was turned off by Christianity's resistance to other schools of thought that don't come explicitly from the Bible. The Tao Te Ching is obviously a tool of Satan because it's a philosophy that comes from somewhere else. A standard that Aristotle was never held to (examine the history of Galileo Galilei).

Upon leaving, I've seen a few philosophical contradictions in the religion of Christianity mainly in how it's practiced, rather than the Bible itself. There's a few places where the Bible is nowhere near as clear as it claims to be, but even if it was, and still adhered to the philosophical worldview it always has (sacrificing literally means something to God, God is a sentient creature, Jesus' death literally saves us from Hell even though he didn't actually die... Cause he couldn't... but died for our sins... wait what?), I still wouldn't be able to follow it because it simply doesn't make sense to me. It even seems crazy sometimes.

So I am where I am. fluttering above a few philosophical ideas and but mostly settled on the issue of religion. Still changing because I am constantly exposed to new facts, but I like it that way.

Zombie Jesus!

To which a user named Hope responded:

that's what bugs me. people lump Christians into a category of all being so judgmental and hypocritical. and yes, in reality, many of us are. but then there's the ones that really get it, that understand the life Jesus intended for His followers and the law of love that was established at calvary.

and i'm pretty sure Jesus did die. . . at least in the Christian perspective He did.

i agree about Christianity seeming crazy. sometimes i wonder why i believe what i believe, and i feel like just quitting religion altogether. but the thing i love about my faith is that i'm nowhere near understanding how things work out "logically", and i don't have to be. i've experienced God in intimate ways that i can't describe to anyone. just feeling His presence in my life and His love and comfort when i need it most. it's completely and utterly beautiful.

I find that last paragraph extremely interesting. With that, I wonder where she'll be spiritually in five years.

Me again

Right. He died, was supposed to be a sacrifice to be sent to Hell to pay for the sins of mankind, but cheated his way out of Hell (cause he's God, lulz) and came back to life in the form of his physical body, making him technically a zombie.

But then I go back an examine why he had to do all this in the first place. And it goes back to eating the wrong plant ovaries (fruit). The fruit in question gave us the power to tell the difference between good and evil.

Now disregarding whether or not it's possible to gain such wisdom from eating a kind of apple, is it really such a bad thing to have this knowledge? And why did God want to hide these things from us. And furthermore, why did he decide to hide it in fruit?

And once again, I don't understand why that makes us need to go to Hell in the first place. If Adam was dumb enough to take Eve's little plant ovary, giving us knowledge between good and evil, why does that make it possible to go to Hell in the first place when clearly Eve didn't know any better before she ate the apple?

If eating the apple was a sin in the first place, then clearly we had the ability to sin pre-apple. But only the ability to go to Hell post-apple.

So pre-apple we had the thinking abilities of a Dog. Which was, of course, a good thing. But the 'fall' of man flipped things around and allowed us to have some of the knowledge of God, which God apparently wanted to keep to himself... except that he put a magic tree in the middle of a garden that was full of said knowledge.

When the roots of the religion don't make much sense, I start to think it's a little crazy.

I know the comfort that you're talking about, as I have felt it before. But that doesn't mean that it's the Christian God. It could be the Great Spirit (Apache), which seems much more likely to me. God could not be God if he didn't do things logically. And since there's a large amount of logic missing when it comes to the base of Christian beliefs (in my eyes) my potential faith in those beliefs flounder.

All true, but doesn't make much sense when you put it that way

Hope responded a last time

Jesus was never supposed to be sent to hell. feel free to give me a verse that supports your claim to the contrary. and He was fully resurrected back to life. this definately makes Him human, not zombie.

the reason it was a sin to eat of that fruit was because God had told adam and eve not to do so, therefore it was a sin of disobedience. when they were protected from the knowledge of good and evil, they didn't have any problems. the world was perfect and they were free to have fellowship with God and there was no sin to hold them back.

it wasn't that they didn't have a knowledge of God before the fall, it was that they now had a knowledge of God AND a knowledge of sin. therefore bringing forth murder and adultery and all the other horrors that would have been preventable if they hadn't partaken of the ONE fruit from which they had been forbidden.

and i don't think your "great spirit" would give me comfort when i have no belief in him. in fact i have such a strong belief that my God is the only true God in existence that any other 'god' would probably not be in the mood to comfort me in my time of need.

the reason i base my religion on faith is that i wasn't there at the creation of the world. i'm not going to demand scientific proof as to exactly how the world originated, because that would be impossible. everyone claims their belief as fact and that gets us nowhere.

The Color Red... or Yellow.

2009-04-24T19:48:00.014-04:00

Anytime Paul Gauguin comes up, I am reminded of this little tidbit from my childhood.

Calvin and Hobbes

I read this as a kid with Calvin's perspective. Who the hell is he? I didn't know, and I didn't bother finding out.

But... Well, he liked to paint.

Paul Gauguin, Vision After The Sermon

Red.

Smooth pasty red.

A lot of what impressionism is about has to do with the way the mind perceives color. Red classically represents a number of things. It can represent love, anger, passion, life (blood), or death (blood) depending on how it's used. But, some people, like myself, identify color with numbers, letters, music, and memories.

Five is yellow to me, for example. Always has been.

Uno anyone?

And there are several orange memories in my life, as as well as many blue ones. Last summer was particularly yellow.

Probably doesn't make any sense to you. Or maybe it does. Most people I've talked to who are 'creative and gifted' know exactly what I'm talking about, even though the colors don't always match up. It makes no sense to me why anyone would think that five is anything other than yellow. Because... it's so obviously yellow.

Uno disagrees.

Fuck you Uno, five isn't red.

Now it seems that yellow is one of the colors that inspires me the most. Quite honestly it isn't. It's very out of character for me. And I honestly don't really like the color if it's overused.

Vincent van Gogh, Night Cafe

And I think the same reaction would come from someone who hates the color red. But honestly, the color red reminds me of Dynasty Warriors, Orcs, and just about every Chinese film I've ever seen (House of Flying Daggers was Green, and Hero was every color in the book. But they did those things on purpose, which impresses me.). All of which are things or concepts that I enjoy. So the color red does something for me, and I'm able to appreciate this painting beyond the subject matter simply because of the sheer amount of red that it uses.

If something is red in my mind, chances are that I'll enjoy it.

My response to the painting has almost nothing to do with the subject of the painting itself, just the fact that it spams the color red everywhere. Alternately, the Night Cafe has the opposite problem with me because it has the color yellow fucking everywhere. Even the red is yellow. There are times when the color yellow can be used tastefully, but in this case, it doesn't seem right to me.

haha

2009-04-20T00:47:00.001-04:00

Yes, I shall post this after bashing youtube.

Twice.

Youtube again.

2009-04-19T23:57:00.006-04:00

So why did I bash youtube (or at least give it a hard time)?

Before I answer that, watch this.

Now if you could survive this guy's annoying voice and inflection, the message is that there's a possibility of corporations taking over youtube videos. So, all the vlogs, short films, and yes... even the youtube poop, will be destroyed by the onslaught of bullshit. Youtube is becoming just another television channel in the same way that Hulu became about a year ago.

Now the difference is that Hulu set out to do this. Youtube was just meant to be a video sharing site. Hence YOUtube. YOU made the videos (or stole them) and posted it. w00t. But now, it's going to be CORPtube. Or hulutube or whatever stupid nickname you want to give it.

I think that youtube is mostly crap, but I also don't watch TV because I think it's even crappier. Soon, youtube gems such as TheAmazingAtheist, Thunderf00t, LonelyGirl15 and other random things stuff I've subscribed to are going to be eclipsed by episodes of Family Guy.

Two years ago, youtube was better. Better free speech, clearer regulations, and less bullshit. But still overwhelming amounts of youtube poop. And it's only taken two years for even the poop to turn to shit.

Which seems to be the trend with time marching on. As years pass, we get exponentially more bullshit along with technology, comfortable living, blah blah blah.

Sure, youtube has allowed us to be able to share videos that we make with everyone in the world. But what does that give us? A bunch of people sitting on their asses watching videos on the internet. The only difference between that and TV is that there's some interactive applications, lower production values, and there's less commercials.

In the grand scheme of things, how is it good that our generation can be easily defined by this?

although... It's awesome that short films are becoming more popular as a result of youtube.

The Director of this short film.

However, it's hard to make money with them considering that youtube is mostly free (money being made off advertising). But with the oncoming of this HULUtube, the short film trend will disappear as shows such as Family Guy, Lost, and Heroes become a lot more readily available. This may also kill the DVD market for those shows, or at least damage it.

It also may be a good way to fight piracy. Make the money with the adverts rather than people actually purchasing the films for film's sake. But with this, independent filmmaking will die.

Mankind is Obsolete: Still Right Here

2009-04-19T23:48:00.007-04:00

I've been going back to my dark period as of late. It's a little tardy, considering that I usually go into those moods during the winter, but whatever. It's fucking cold out, so I guess that makes up for it.

Anywho, discovered this band along with a couple others that are pretty fucking cool. I'll occasionally post some videos from bands I like on here to kinda mix things up.

Yeah. Pretty rockin. The video itself isn't all that awesome, but I like the music.

plus, the chick is hot.

sexy

2009-04-16T10:50:00.002-04:00

is what this is.

yay

Modern Madness: Youtube Edition

2009-04-03T02:30:00.005-04:00

When asked 'what defines today?' in class. I could really only come up with one word:

youtube.

This is actually pretty sad, because the words that I would use to describe youtube would be:

Cesspool of Free Speech.

A lot of us spend a lot of time on youtube. I'm not immune to this accusation, which is part of the reason I'm so angry about it. There's a couple of users that I've addicted myself to, and I like checking up on them. The vast majority of these posts on youtube are VLOGS.

Video Logs. Also a play on the word Blog.

The vast majority of video logs feature some person just staring at the camera talking about mindless bullshit.

This was actually a webseries that I was addicted to for a very long time. About two years. Because the above video eventually turned into this.

What kinds of birds chirp at 2:40 AM? I mean really. There's a flock nesting outside my window or something.

Anywho.

YOUTUBE!!!!

Youtube is mostly what a certain internet community has deemed 'youtube poop'. These are crappy Vlogs, horribly edited music videos of people mouth syncing to Ashlee Simpson (or shitty anime music videos), along with the multitude of skateboarding accidents.

Despite the nickname 'youtube poop', this poop gets a lot of smells... er... views. I try to avoid it, but sometimes I like the skateboarding accidents. Those were classic before youtube even existed. (ah the days of Stupidvideos)

But, sometimes, even among the lame vloggers, you have people that are true gems of the internet.

Anywho. Beyond just the shitty or not shitty vloggers that spam youtube with their boring lives, you occasionally get some people with actual editing skills on youtube.

Youtube has built itself the reputation that if you want to find a video of it, it's on youtube. With the obvious exception of porn, which youtube doesn't like. Youtube has terms of use that you HAVE TO READ (not) before posting a video. These terms of use are very vague and sometimes used to delete seemingly random videos because they are 'not suitable for minors'.

If a video is flagged a certain number of times, you have to click a button that says you want to see a video that is not suitable for minors. Like this one.

As you can see. Youtube is a little arbitrary about this kind of thing. This video got flagged like crazy by creationist votebots that vote to take down pro-evolution or anti-creationist videos. It's an interesting mini-war that rages on youtube and is quite similar to the war between Anonymous, an internet group, and Scientology, a pseudo-religion.

The subject of youtube is far to vast to write a complete work on in a blog post. This is much like our modern society. We define ourselves by the vastness of our opinions and ideas, most of which have a representation on youtube.

In Protest of No Camera

2009-03-11T11:49:00.008-04:00

I went to the Louvre in France a while back. I can't post any pictures because the powers that be in their infinite wisdom have declared that there shall be no cameras within a 200 mile radius of the Mona Lisa.

In addition to stabbing, shooting, blowing up, or doing other cartoon-like things to the famous Leonardo painting... God Forbid someone might take a picture.

So, in keeping with this, there shall be no pictures of anything in this post. Because the Louvre says no. No pictures in this post whatsoever. I swear.

I took this trip long before I had any real appreciation of paintings, sculpture, or anything I saw in the Louvre at the time. But I most remember the Victory (a sculpture stationed on a cliff for sailors). Note in the picture that I haven't posted (no cameras) how much detail the artist put into the folds of fabric. And the wings are absolutely beautiful.

Anywho.

Seeing the Mona Lisa in person for the first time was breathtaking... even though I didn't fully understand very much about the work itself. Here I stood in front of the most famous painting ever made. I noticed the sky first. The Mona Lisa prints I'd seen before this had a bland gray sky of a dreary day. But the real thing had a multicolored sky that looked like the middle of a beautiful sunset. Too bad my protest doesn't allow me to post a picture.

I broke my promise.
What are you going to do about it?

Frustrating as hell not having a camera. I can't find any images of the Mona Lisa that depicted what I saw when standing in front of the thing, so the above work is what you get to see.

Anywho, the Mona Lisa isn't yellow like the above picture. It's FULL of color. It saddens me that the real work isn't all over the internet. It might have something to do with the real thing hiding behind bulletproof glass and security that even Bugs Bunny would have a hard time getting through.

The Mona Lisa is so important that it's importance is controversial. All this security to prevent activists from the radical artistic positions from destroying it. Even those who want to destroy it because of it's importance hold it important to destroy. Makes them hypocritical to me.

Can They... Do That?

2009-03-09T10:46:00.003-04:00

The Swing was painted around the dawn of the Rococo period in the 1700s. The man who commissioned the painting wanted a rather controversial painting of his mistress (That's right, not his wife).

Here was the result.

infidelity incarnate

This Fragonard painting is not just a shallow painting about a french man's little girlfriend residing at his pleasure house. One man in the painting guides the woman on the swing with a pair of ropes. The other hides in the bush so that he can see up the woman's dress.

As you can probably guess, the man hiding in the bush... yes bush... pun intended by the painter...

Anywho. The man hiding in the bush symbolizes the man who commissioned the painting. He has positioned himself so that he can look up the woman's dress. He's having a little cheap fun... a little vulgar, but why not?

The other man with the ropes was originally supposed to be a bishop, or other member of the clergy, but Fragonard depersonalized the idea and made the character simply another man.

The girl in the swing wears a frilly dress (usual attire for the rich in the period) and sings happily, her shoe flying off. This shoe has a number of symbolic values. The shoe in French symbolism represents virginity. When shoes come off... well... you can guess what comes next. So this woman's shoe flying off her foot is meant to be more than just a little mistake. It means something more.

Now, this is all fine and dandy. The work of art is an appreciated work of art typical of the Rococo period.

But check out this little screenshot of the new Disney movie, Rapunzel.

flying shoe!

Now Disney is Disney. There's a pretty glaring issue here. It might be offensive, it might not be. The 2-D animation for Rapunzel will be meant to look like an animated traditional oil painting, so the reference is anything but accidental.

The question is, should Disney be making reference to this type of symbolism?

Take it as you will.

The Archangel of Justice, Tyrael

2009-03-02T14:23:00.016-05:00

Continuing my series on Angels.

See my posts on Angels in Art and Angel Wings.

This post will be talking about a truly unique representation of an angel in popular culture. The Archangel of Justice, Tyrael.

He's ready to kick Satan's ass... again

In the video game series 'Diablo', starting with Diablo 2, the Angel Tyrael, who is the Archangel of Justice, makes an appearance as the angel who is charged to help the human hero defeat Diablo.

Tyrael is introduced in the beginning of Diablo 2 as a supernatural being that has come to visit a man named Marius in prison. We find out later that's not exactly what happened, but you'll just have to play the game.

The first real introduction of Tyrael was in the cinematic of the game preceding Act III. In this cinematic, Tyrael comes to fulfill his duty. But he is distracted, fighting Satan himself who Tyrael misjudged as being the greatest threat to the release of Satan's brother, Baal.

And well... see for yourself.

"The Beast contained herein shall not be set free, not even by you!"

Those words have power. Especially for those familiar with Christianity. Tyrael is willing to fight to the end of time to keep this creature trapped. And he's so incredibly powerful. Yet, he still fails.

And even in failing, his ability in battle is only surpassed by his faith in humanity. He entrusts the person who released Baal to imprison him again. Charges the sinner with erasing his own sin while he attempts to contain the two prime evils in this tomb.

Poetic.

But on to what I want to talk about.

The first thing that is noticeable about Tyrael is his wings.

Balance is a bitch

Since the Babylonian inspiration of wings that has so affected the Christian representation of angels, angels with wings have simply had those... wings. Angel wings have only been used to do what wings do... fly.

Now, compared to most representations of angels, Tyrael is a bit of an oddball. He has these tentacles of light that make up his wings. He doesn't fly by flapping them, he just levitates around. The wings are not to fly, but are just as much of a weapon as his sword. He uses them as whips and extra hands.

Also might use them to gain energy

They also represent his illuminating holiness in the same way that an aura or halo does. Thus, Tyrael has no halo. His wings already do the job. They even get bigger in situations that require great faith.

Most angel representations use their wings as wings. Wings simply give them the ability to fly around. Tyrael is the only angel I'm aware of that uses wings as something else, especially as a weapon, and beyond that, doesn't use them to fly.

I would like to see more angels represented like this.

Tyrael, though fictional even from most Christians' point of view, remains my favorite angel.

Can't wait for D3

Fuckin Finally: ULTRAMAN 2!!! well... sorta.

2009-03-02T00:38:00.009-05:00

Well, this was finally fucking made.

See this absolutely incredible blog that all men should aspire to!

Making this film was one of the things that solidified my dream to be a filmmaker. After only a year of film school though, I've realized really how much more we could have done with this if Jared had remembered to bring an extra damn tape.

My part in this film was Camera operator some of the time, combat director, and the part of Ultraman when he's in his awesome mode. Because, Jared isn't cool enough to really direct in prime from inside a suit with beady little eyes.

Acting in this was fun, but wearing that suit was a bitch and a half. After the first round of shooting, I took of the jacket and my shirt was literally soaked (and I hadn't been anywhere near water). That was a very warm costume. Can't imagine what the oldschool Godzilla Suit must have been like.

me

Working with Don Frye was a blast. For someone that you would expect to be up his own ass with egotism since he can kick everyone's ass, he's really laid back. Seriously, Don Frye is awesome.

When we asked him to do the project (or really Jared), he was really chill about it. He was like, "Sure!"

I told him that he was going to do a fight scene with me and he gave me this look like 'dude, sweet'. Then he found out what it actually was and he laughed his ass off.

Yes, there was supposed to be a lot more choreography in the fighting, but dumbass Jared didn't bring an extra tape, and the one he had only had fifteen minutes left, so we had to cut the fighting footage short. Which was honestly a shame because I did a lot of extra fight choreography with grappling and throws. But we only had time for the beams and telekinesis.

The nerd-festedness that covered the shoot made the experience all the more fun. When Jared stood up and asked, "What's the motion that ultraman does that does the buzzsaw thing... it's like... (trails off)" Someone else stood up and said, "I know! It's like this! (does motion)."

Unfortunately, the morning of the shoot for the prelude, I was hungover with monster movies or something, so I couldn't join him. Which is really kind of a bummer, because looking back, I should have gotten off my ass and went.

But I didn't, so oh well. It turned out well though.

I'm grateful that Jared involved me in this shoot. I love making movies with him because he's so randomly inspired and the shoots are always spontaneous, so you never know what to expect. I don't think we even knew what the next shot was going to be half the time until we set up for it. Whereas a lot of people would get angry at this, I loved every second of it.

w00t!

Editing fun

2009-03-01T23:51:00.003-05:00

lookit!

So I made this film using Micah on a whim as an experimental film. Working with editing. Expect expansion on this concept in some upcoming experiments. I'm making a five minute short that is going to be dealing with this concept, so I'll be making some experiments to increase my skill with people doing unnatural and supernatural things through editing. Mainly disappearing and teleportation.

Teleport isn't in the oxford english dictionary by the way.

WTF?

Newfound Appreciation

2009-03-01T17:59:00.003-05:00

I've found that over the past couple years I've been finding a new appreciation in art (paintings that is). I've even made some myself recently.

Before I took a screen-printing class last year, I had no interest in Art or Art History beyond literature and film, or other forms of art that I had already invested in. Since that class and the more recent Art History class that I'm still taking, I've found that there's a whole world of art that I've previously had ignored, and even hated out of some ignorance.

I still find most Madonna and Child paintings redundant, but whereas I found nearly all paintings boring, I've connected them to my historical interests and my interests in philosophy. I've found that most artists were interested in many of the same subjects that I'm interested in as well. They simply embodied these interests as well as their opinions on them in their paintings.

I find that my life is simply one eye opening experience after another. I can either embrace these experiences or ignore them. In the case of Art. I think I'll embrace it. I value understanding over most other things.

Nothing really profound in this post, just a remark about my constant evolution in opinions. A side-effect of having an open mind is that it changes often.

God, Michelangelo, and Noodly Appendages

2009-02-26T10:11:00.013-05:00

And then God created man. And he was full grown and naked.

STFU, I'm creatin' stuff

This painting combines what we see today as classical with a few things that might be a little more out there, depending on what Michelangelo meant by the painting.

Firstly, we see that everyone is a huge hulking man. Michelangelo for some reason liked to paint huge hulking men. Michelangelo himself was quite muscular (and apparently an asshole) and it seems that artists have a habit of painting themselves into their work.

I don't think that Michelangelo meant himself to be Adam or God in this painting, considering that he probably wasn't thinking about it beyond subconsciously including his physique in both Adam and God. My reasoning for this is that Michelangelo was painting a shitload of other works on the roof of the Sistine Chapel and probably put himself in a few parts of it, but not every single little work.

lookit!

As we can see, with so many characters, it's hard to assume that Michelangelo conciously put himself as a person into more than a handful of these people/angels. There are repeats of characters though. God, for example, is depicted a few times.

The Jews probably shit themselves when they found out this was going on. For so long they had felt that depicting God in any image whatsoever was not only impossible, but just completely wrong to even attempt, sinful even. The Temple had no paintings or statues in it because the Jews didn't want to make the mistake of worshiping an image rather than God himself.

As an obscure history note, Caligula wanted to put a statue of himself in the Jewish Temple to make sure they were under control. He was eventually convinced that this would put an already fragile region in total chaos.

The early Christians seemed to make this mistake of worshiping the image before God a few times. Whereas the Jews didn't want any images of anything anywhere near their Temple, the Christians couldn't get enough of them. We have paintings, stain glass windows, and statues everywhere. Even the rosary has a little Jesus on it.

Another interesting thing about the painting of the creation of Adam is the shape that surrounds God. It looks like a brain. Some have postulated that Michelangelo might have been theorizing that God was created in the mind of man.

Thus.

yer gonna get tentacle raped!

For those of you that haven't heard of the Flying Spaghetti monster, it is basically the incarnation of atheism. The point of FSM is that there is as much proof for God as there is for something as ridiculous as a flying spaghetti monster. The entire idea is a mockery of Christianity in particular, given that Christianity is the religion that most criticizes atheism.

Followers of the Church of FSM claim to have been 'touched by his noodly appendage', a clear mockery of being filled by the Holy Spirit. The concept points out some of the absurdities in the conscious higher power, however it doesn't really apply to the belief of the natural pantheistic subconscious god. Say what you want about the Church of FSM, but the mockery is all done in good humor. It's like drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Some people find it funny.

I don't know what members of the Church of FSM would think about pantheism or other forms of the subconscious god (such as some forms of elemental paganism), but odds are that they wouldn't appreciate it.

Cuteness in Art

2009-02-25T14:54:00.007-05:00

I like this video.

But I don't think that my reasons for liking it extend beyond the fact that she's perpetuating an inside joke of the internet and she's kinda hawt. So, to me it scores a 10.0 on the cuteness scale and I'm able to appreciate it.

There's a whole slew of videos like this on youtube. A lot of them don't get more than three or four views. But occasionally you find a 'cute' video that has... half a million to twelve million views. Obviously these videos have gained popularity in our society.

Why the hell is this?

Regardless of the sheer shallowness of 'cute' art, people like it. It makes people smile and pulls an emotion out of them. People like positive emotions, and for most people it doesn't take much to make them smile. So these videos get a lot of attention.

This never fails to make me laugh.

But do we consider this kind of stuff art? I don't know. I don't really have an opinion. I don't really appreciate it for the deepness and levels in its meaning... but I do enjoy it because of the reaction it gives me. That being said, I've seen several drawings that take a lot of talent to make that have the same sort of depth. But that's somehow different.

Does the popularity of this kind of art mean that our society and our generation is more shallow than those before us? I don't really think so. It may hint at that. But there's now a slew of people in our society who want to be artists and are climbing over one another to make the 'next big thing' on the internet.

As a result we see stuff that is entertaining, but not necessarily deep. These videos certainly take the effort of sitting down and making them, but sometimes not much more than that. The above video is a cool little dance number that obviously requires more talent than mouthing the numa numa song, but it gets about the same amount of attention (if not less) as the numa numa joke.

We like those little internet videos as a society. And sometimes we associate them with our personal experiences to apply another level that was never there at the video's conception. Occasionally, however, we come across a gem that really does have a shitload of levels. Sometimes literally.

This is appreciated in much the same way as the others, and has that million view count. But, it's a legitimate piece of art as well. This by comparison to the other above videos seemed to take more effort and has more meaning, but still manages to be in the midway of popularity on youtube.

Are we shallow? Probably. But I think that the internet phenomena of catchy videos says that we're just easily entertained rather than shallow. And the first does not equal the other.

It's Offensive! I Swear!

2009-02-24T02:13:00.016-05:00

In a conversation with one of my previous art professors, he mentioned that he hated modern art as well as most of the recent art regardless of style. Art, he said, has denigrated from being a show of skill and craftsmanship to a person simply proclaiming, "Look how clever I am."

While I agree with him on a number of levels, every once in a while that 'cleverness' rocks society to a point of controversy that can't be ignored.

Piss Christ by Andres Serrano

You may or may not have heard of Piss Christ. This is a photograph of Christ being crucified in a jar of the photographer's urine. Surprisingly enough, the urine gives Christ a golden aura. As expected, this piece made a lot of people very pissed (pun intended).

I actually like this piece for several reasons. Firstly, the way people reacted to it was downright hilarious. Piss and Jesus simply don't go together in most people's minds. The idea of Jesus even taking a piss (or a shit) would never cross their minds, regardless of whether or not he ever did it.

But given that Jesus came in human form (even if he was God), we have to assume that he did human things. This does, of course, extend to expelling waste from the body. We know he ate food, so he probably got rid of it as well.

But all that aside, what this piece most profoundly says about our culture is that we think that our waste products are unholy and should never be brought to the forefront of anything, especially religion. To even think about it is labeled vulgar and disturbing.

Another 'offensive' piece of the Virgin Mary by Chris Ofili
Complete with elephant dung and porn cutouts of genitalia
This piece asks similar questions about the subject of holiness

Some other cultures didn't think this way. Many 'uncivilized' cultures believe that our waste products are in fact the most holy, and in some cases used in religious rituals. They wouldn't have a problem with Piss Christ in the way that most Christians do. As a matter of fact they'd put it in a very favorable light.

Some Catholics liked the photograph because it depicted what our generation has done to Jesus. Our generation has ignored Jesus' teachings and went about our own merry way, essentially urinating on his sacrifice. This of course assumes that you believe that urine is unholy.

Couldn't find what the artist said about the work. I think he has left it up to us. A tax-payer funded organization did purchase the work for 15,000 dollars. Maybe that pisses you off, maybe it doesn't. Either way, essentially, you bought it.

David vs David

2009-02-23T15:25:00.004-05:00

After a long hiatus, I shall return to Art.

First, a little background.

Standin' dudes

Alright. So here we see a very early version of the replication of the human image. I believe that the Sumerians made these statues for religious purposes, given that they were found near the Ziggurat of Ur. At this point, people made art for religious purposes. Early civilizations would use art to tell stories behind their mythology or to protect them from evil spirits. Art had a different purpose in these days. Art was not art as we see it now, art existed as an essential part of religion and life.

With art viewed in this light, it didn't advance very far. For generations of civilizations after this we see the same style of people just... well... standing. Changing style might change how the figurine worked. To make actual creative art influenced by religion might have been viewed as heresy. Figurines of humans would look straight ahead, supported by two legs, with their arms just dropped by their sides... no real expression on the face or the body language.

More standin' dudes
Complete with contrapposto
*sold separately

The Greeks decided to keep this aspect of art, but they added along with the mythological aspect the ability to advance in the methods. They created different mediums to tell their stories, and they created different ways to portray their stories on those mediums.

One of the added mediums is the one in the photo above: Bronze.

In the area of sculpture they added contrapposto. This made the look much more realistic. When people stand, they usually don't stand straight up on both their legs. People usually shift their weight onto one leg or the other. The Greeks noticed this and began to add the attribute to their work. Eventually, this stance became the standard.

Greek artists made the goal of art to replicate physical human nature along with the human image. However, they only went so far.

Then this guy got involved

Greek and Roman art influenced the Renaissance (obviously). But unlike the Greeks, the prevailing religion at the time of the Renaissance was Christianity. So, a flip took place between the emphasis on Greek Mythology to an emphasis on Christianity. Greek Mythology remained influential in art, but the people broadly followed Christianity.

Michelangelo created the sculpture of David to present the ultimate form of man. Many today still view this sculpture as the ultimate of human form. Michelangelo utilized contrapposto to further add a sense of reality to this form. But beyond the realistic representation, David isn't doing much. He's just kinda chillin.

It is here that I am reminded that artists
notice things in their daily lives
before they incorporate it into their art

Then Bernini came along and screwed up everyone's world. Starting at around age ten, he impressed even the Pope with his epicness (for lack of a better word) in many forms of art. He developed the ability to make marble look like actual flesh. He added indentations in the skin from a hand gripping across flesh on marble and pulled it off.

Marble sculptures of people grabbing people have appeared throughout history, but never with quite this much detail. Bernini took sculpture to a whole new level and then gave a subconscious challenge to Michelangelo when he made his very own sculpture of David.

Take that Michelangelo

Bernini took the extra step of venturing beyond contrapposto. He has David in the middle of attacking Goliath. He added an intense expression on his face as he is about to hurl a stone at a possibly over nine foot tall human being who thought he could get away insulting David's God for days after days.

His muscles are tense, his expression is not just intense but also concentrated, focused. He will achieve his goal. Bernini practically routes Michelangelo in the portrayal of David when it comes to expressing David as a person rather than form.

Bernini goes the extra mile of showing his form as well. With Michelangelo, David is the perfect form of a man. He has very little fat on him, very muscular, but relaxed at the same time. Whereas Bernini's version of David has a little weight on him, but every muscle present has purpose. Bernini's David is not about perfection, it conveys the story of David and allows us to jump into the moment just before the killing blow, when it could be argued that even David had no clue whether or not he would live or die.

I like Bernini's work because he not only shows us the story and physique of the human being, but he takes us into the moment of the story. He grips us with his image and makes us a part of the sculpture. I cannot help but jump into the situation when I see Bernini's work. With David, I am there, and I have just as much anticipation as the Jews who watched on when the story actually happened.

Youtube Ignores User Related Problems

2009-02-21T20:44:00.007-05:00

This video was deleted and thunderf00t was given a two week ban on posting videos. Thunderf00t posted another video through someone else's channel. Here it is below.

My letter to youtube. Write your own.

There is an issue that has been floating around youtube that has garnered my concern. It seems that someone has figured out how to get votebots to spam votes/flags and spam marks on people's videos and comments.

This buries small channels and even hurts the big ones. You should let the users decide how videos get rated, not just people who have votebots.

The main thing is unjustified flagging. A number of videos have been marked unsuitable for minors but simply aren't. There needs to me a rational thinking human in the mix to review these flagged videos if a way to defeat the bots isn't found.

Tracking bots isn't impossible. Blizzard and other gaming companies have been doing it for years. If they can do it, why can't you?

Dante

Disclaimer on the Religion Series:

2009-02-18T02:03:00.018-05:00

For your viewing pleasure

*ahem*

Now that I have your attention.

Religion is a rough subject. This subject carries beliefs that some people hold very dear and close to their hearts. However, many religions are also riddled with bullshit. That being said, Christians will not hesitate to say this about Islam, Muslims will not hesitate to say this about Christianity, Atheists think that all the religious people are nuts, and the religious can't understand why the Atheists are so damn stupid.

My commentary on religion is strictly my opinion. When I start talking about history, I often deal with historical theory. I find some of these historical theories very convincing. Along this line of thinking, there are loads of theories about Alexander the Great (Carnivorous horse, did he have anything to do with his father's death, who was it that killed Alexander himself). But many people have their thoughts on how it all really went down.

Many things in history, however, simply can't be denied, such as the violent history of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. There's no doubt that these religions have inspired war, and violence inspires many of their central beliefs (God kicking Egypt ass, Muhammad's conquest). This extends to nearly all religions. Try to find a story in Greek, Norse, or Egyptian mythology that doesn't center around some act of violence. Even if you find a handful that don't, compare it to the multitude that do.

An example of ass-kicking in Assyrian Mythology

Anywho.

That being said, while Islam, Christianity, and Judaism have violent histories, that doesn't mean they have to continue down that road. To use Christianity as an example: Modern Christians are a completely different animal from the Christians of the past with a completely different set of pros and cons. And even more different from the Christians pre-Constantine. Most of them are decent people. But there's some modern sects of Christianity that are getting out of control and want to redefine their history.

Sorry, you simply can't do that.

To my point:

If you are a Christian, Muslim, Jew, or Atheist and you're reading my site, You will come across some thought provoking posts. You can either take the invitation to think about things and discuss them, or react violently. If you react violently, I'm not going to give a rat's ass what you think. IF, however, you want to discuss something with me, go for it. I'm open to discussion and I could be wrong on some issues. But I won't know about it unless there's a rational discussion.

The Material Church

2009-02-17T00:08:00.008-05:00

There was a church that I considered myself a member of at one point called The Torch. I went to this church all of three times before I decided the whole thing was bullshit.

In this church (and so many others) there are TVs hanging from the ceiling (big ones), pool tables, a snack bar, electric drum set, several gaming consoles, and a ton of members. And this is just the youth ministry.

Now, this can be considered a miracle by a lot of Christians. Look at what God has done for this church. They are blessed. In reality, I think it's the opposite. Materialism is a plague that is further destroying Christianity from the gem that it was pre-300 CE.

I went to a revival at a tiny Church in North Georgia and it was one of the greatest religious experiences I've ever had. The conversation I had with a woman afterward was not-so-great when she asked me what church I went to... but whatever. The point is that the church was nothing but a tiny building with pews and a handful of pastors. Next door there was a kitchen and a dining room.

That's it.

That's all it needed, and that's all churches ever need. The rest is materialism.

What I look forward to when going to church

It was mentioned to me recently that someone was bragging that his church came fully equipped with a gaming station complete with PS3s and Xbox 360s so that they could play games like Halo 3 before receiving the message. This is not what the church is supposed to do. This is how cults brainwash.

During this time, I've never seen a religious question asked, I've never seen a prayer, I've never seen a lot of things going on that should be happening in a church if anyone takes themselves seriously.

It's hard to really consider any sort of Christian tenants other than the violent ones when you're shooting up your fellow church members in Halo 3. Nothing against Halo 3. I love the game. But it's not exactly Guitar Praise.

That being said, gaming can be good for fellowship among Christians. But my major point is that Churches shouldn't be spending about a thousand dollars to hang a flatscreen in a hallway (actually seen this) when there's real work to do for the community. They just let the poorer but harder working churches take up the slack.

Churches are on the front lines of the poverty war. They do a lot of things that no other organizations will do, so it frustrates me when I see a church that no only doesn't do these things when they have the capacity to, but spend their gobs of money on their members.

I'm not saying that you won't find good Christians at these 'material' churches. Occasionally you'll find a handful. But they're being fooled. While I was at the Torch, I met some people who were genuinely searching for God, but they subdued themselves into taking half-baked sermons at face-value without doing their own soul searching.

Whenever I find myself in one of these churches, I don't give to the offering. No matter what. I don't think that my 10 bucks for the poor should go to another Xbox controller because Timmy threw it into the flatscreen when Ronald spawnkilled him three times in a row for the ultimate pwnage.

Theism or Atheism?

2009-02-16T17:23:00.002-05:00

I just found out a few days ago that by some definitions, I'm technically an atheist.

I have defined myself as theist for some time now, but I'm also on a mental quest to define what 'God' is. I decided a long time ago that God is not a 'man in the sky' as evidenced by my Thin Places post. I believe in the most accurate definition of God that I can find which is the Taoist concept of the Tao.

Now, Taoists do not believe in God as a sentient figurehead that gives out rewards and punishments as religions like Christianity and Islam do. They believe in the Tao, which is something indefinable. You really just have to understand it over time to even get the concept in the first place.

Apparently, in order to be a 'theist', you must first believe in a 'higher power' of some sort. Then you can define yourself in the subsects of polytheism or monotheism, meaning multiple higher powers or just one. I think Christianity is Polytheistic on a number of levels, but that's another topic for another day.

The term 'higher power' insinuates that you believe in something that is sentient, or in control. I don't believe that. I believe in the concept of the subconscious god, or a god that doesn't have a higher consciousness because he simply doesn't need it. This god doesn't speak to people in a language because he doesn't work that way, hence why I don't believe that the Bible is the word of God.

So, since the term 'higher power' doesn't apply to me, I'm not considered a 'theist'. So what does that make me?

I must be someone who doesn't believe in God, more commonly known as an atheist.

It doesn't feel right saying I'm an atheist while looking at this

So here's the dilemma. The general definition of atheist means that there is not just 'no God' or 'no higher power' but it further makes the assertion that there is 'nothing' so to speak.

I find this concept to be bullshit as well.

I tend to make the 'mistake' of calling what I believe in "God". So when someone asks me if I believe in God, I say yes, truthfully, while at the same time I lie. God to me is the subconscious being that I made reference to earlier. 'He' is the life force, the energy of the universe. I believe that one person that I meet should be just as important to me as myself because that other person is a part of me, and a part of the whole that makes up 'God'.

So, I'm not a theist, I'm not an atheist. But I'm something in between. I'm neither, but I'm both. To ask me if I'm one or the other is really an unanswerable question because I fit into both buckets but not entirely in either.

I'm close to agreement with these guys

I do not think that life could exist without the force of life. The force of life itself is a miracle of epic proportions, scientifically explained or not. If science discovers the formula of life, then I say that they have entered the science of God, not disproved God. God will not strike them down for entering his domain, because he doesn't have the kind of emotions that would care.

But, this 'God' is still worthy enough of recognition, and is still a part of the supernatural. It is both spiritual and religious to believe in this kind of God, so it's hard to say that it's an atheistic belief, even though it's not belief in the so-called 'higher power'.

There's a lot of other things that make up my beliefs on God. And they're very different from the norm. And while I appreciate the fact that I'm unique on this subject, it's frustrating at the same time.

Violent Religions and Jesus

2009-02-15T23:30:00.005-05:00

With my previous post in mind, Jesus is probably one of the few peaceful religious figureheads. He sits up there with people like Buddha, except Jesus was less sheltered as a child.

Jesus did a lot of things that frustrated people who followed the Old Testament religiously. He really was guilty of a lot of heresy but refused to give in, and proved himself logically correct according to the spirit of the Law more than once.

The only thing about Jesus that can really be considered violent is his death, which as we know was not a violent act of Jesus. It might be considered violent when he overturned all the gambling tables in the Temple. But, in my opinion, that was completely justified.

Sup

Jesus did a lot of things that were progressive for his time. He stopped the stoning of a woman. He dined with prostitutes, validating them as people. He called the priests of the Temple hypocrites to their very faces.

However, Jesus is associated with a very violent religion: Christianity. Throughout history, Christianity has picked fights with just about everyone (even the Jews). The Old Testament has a lot of things that go directly against Jesus. There's a lot of things that make 'an eye for an eye' philosophy a good idea (see: Jericho).

It's not really Jesus' fault either. He's not the one who made the Bible and decided what would be in it. It's more the fault of Constantine, who delegated just that. Jesus has been used as a figurehead and an excuse for conquest and hatred on more than one occasion.

Christianity encompasses both the teachings of Jesus as well as the violent history and law of the Jews. If Christianity had become just the teachings of Jesus, it might have become an actually peaceful religion.

Today, however, it is not.

Peaceful...? Religion...? Really?

2009-02-15T22:45:00.003-05:00

Watch this video, then read. This post is really just a long comment on this video.

No clue what religion the guy in the middle is (Bradley Whitford: Actor), but it's pretty clear that the woman on the right (Sandy Rios: Fox News Contributor) is pretty much a run of the mill Christian of a relatively high ignorance level, while the guy on the left (Reza Aslan: Author of God but No God) is a relatively less ignorant but still ignorant Muslim.

Bottom line, while I was watching this video, I found my self growing tired of people just spouting bullshit. All four of them know a fair amount about religion, but I have to run a fact check on a few things that have been said.

Firstly, when Whitford says that the Christians have pretty much kicked the Muslim's ass, he only might be right. I'm sure that he's thinking about the Crusades where the battle was fought to a stalemate, but the Christians did the brunt of the killing through a lot of it. And probably the Inquisition as well. (I love that the fact that he's an actor gives him credibility).

However, he's forgetting about the dawn of the Muslim religion. Over the course of a couple hundred years Islam went from controlling one city to all of northern Africa, most of Eurasia, Spain, and were invading southern France.

Also, he's forgetting that modern numbers are much higher (when coming to the concept of "a lot of people") than the numbers of the medieval ages. It'd take some research, but I think the number of people who have died fighting on either side might be much closer than he thinks, especially if we only count when both sides consider the battle a Holy War.

Rios responded that it wasn't Christian teaching to kill. Well... maybe not to her interpretation of the Bible (in which she'd have to ignore some stuff), but it was the interpretation of the church in the middle ages which defined what Christian teaching was.

Not sure on the validity of this picture,
but it certainly reflects a lot of people's view

Secondly, Aslan states that no religion really teaches any sort of hate. He calls it bullshit. Quite frankly, that's bullshit.

Islam is not a peaceful religion, and Christianity is not a peaceful religion. Any religion that has God coming down to kick people's asses is by definition 'not peaceful'. So don't try to color it any other way. Christianity is a warrior's religion, and Islam is also a warrior's religion. Islam has the Lesser Jihad (and was even founded by a warrior), and Christianity has Revelation, Moses, Jacob, David, and the Ark of the Covenant.

I'd say that both religions have violent tenants. Denying that there's violence in Christianity or Islam is willful ignorance. In order to make Christianity or Islam peaceful, you'd have to rip out half their holy books.

Beyond that, I didn't have a lot of problems with what they said (Beyond that I disagreed with a lot of opinions expressed) but I did have a problem with the ignorance that comes with the worldview behind believing in a sentient god. Another blog post will be coming up on this soon.

The Source of the Angel's Wings

2009-02-13T19:35:00.004-05:00

A couple people have taken issue with me on the angels having wings due to the Babylonians. So I've come to defend myself.

Assyria and ancient Babylonia (not the Babylonia of Nebuchadnezzar) had many of the same Gods. The religion is labeled the Assyro-Babylonian religion. This is where the legend of the sea monster Tiamat (a name often given to dragons) comes from.

The religion resulting from these nations were the first to have gods with wings. Assyria popped up roughly the same time as Sumeria about 4000 years ago. Babylonia popped up with Hammurabi developing the first real written law about 1700 BC. The religion that these two nations shared become THE religion of the time.

I can fly and kick your ass, bitch

For some reason (I'm still looking into this) the Babylonians and Assyrians saw fit to put wings on their gods. It certainly made them more threatening and given that both civilizations were of warrior tradition, a god with wings would certainly be a good fighter.

With the amount of influence that these nations had at the time, it's not surprising that the Jews would give wings to God's army of drones, the angels. At the time it was not uncommon for people to believe that their god(s) was/were doing battle with the mythology of other nations when they went to war. The Assyrians and Babylonians flying gods would certainly be foreboding to the imagination.

He's big, mean, and coming to kick your god's ass

As a side-note, the above god is Nisroch.

Nowadays, we can hold the concept in our minds that a person without wings can fly (see Superman) but at this period of time, it didn't make as much sense.

Now the idea of angels sprouting wings from the Babylonians is a theory. But, it's very apparent that the Babylonians and Assyrians did it first. That being said, I repeat what I said earlier about stories of angels simply being tall humanoids with no wings.

People will believe what they want, and the evidence in this case is circumstantial as far as I know. But it is very interesting.

Angels and Art vs. Me

2009-02-12T12:15:00.007-05:00

I've loved angels for years. I have a little image in my head of what an angel looks like. But unfortunately, my vision of the angel is difficult to find in any works of art. I've seen several depictions of angels, from little orbs of light to people with wings. I tend to lean more toward the people with wings side of things, although I like the orb of light idea.

Just about right

While I like the above picture, I have some problems with it.

The main thing that I like about the above picture is the size of the wings. Too often (in film especially) angels, demons, and other 'flying people' have wings that are simply too small. This one has the wings about right. One of the few problems I have with her is her body is almost completely solid. While I have no qualms with that, I like seeing angels that look a little more spirit-y.

Also, I take issues with halos. The little floating disc thing doesn't make much sense to me. I understand that it is a representation of holiness and radiance, but I think that the symbolism is better when applied in an aura encompassing the entire body.

Check out their little bodies

These little bastards still have halos, but check out their bodies. Some of them are more complete than others, but some are completely missing their legs. Why would an angel need legs when it doesn't need to walk? Or, perhaps an angel only has legs when it feels the need to have them. Same with wings.

There's several accounts of personal engagements with angels. They're almost exclusively really tall people dressed in white without wings. Perhaps angels (should they exist) don't have wings, and just appear and disappear whenever and wherever they feel like it. Angels didn't even have wings according to the Christian and Jewish mythology until they interacted with the Babylonians next door, who worshiped gods with wings.

Since then the angel has been depicted with wings, and they've kinda stuck. Personally, even if existing angels don't have anything even related to wings, I like their symbolic value if nothing else.

I would love to draw/paint angels. However, my drawing/painting abilities are that of a stink bug. I do what I can artistically with the skills that I have. But as far as making a realistic representation of anything, stick figures is about as far as I can go while still being satisfied with the result.

That being said, my vision of the angel might not ever make it onto paper, but I think I'm going to do a few more blog posts about angels to expand upon these thoughts.

Thin Places

2009-02-10T21:07:00.003-05:00

I believe there are certain places in the world where the line between the physical world and the spiritual world is very thin. I am not the first to think this way. The Celtic monastic orders were famous for doing the same thing in places like Innish Moore and Glendaloch. They, however, forgot to bring women. So they all died out. Oops.

Glendaloch:
Considered a Thin Place by
the monastic order of St. Kevin.

The idea of so called 'Thin Places' is a concept that has arisen throughout Celtic history in both the pagan and the Christian religions up to and shortly past the fourth century. Several places in Ireland in particular are considered 'Thin Places'. Glendaloch, The Hill of Tara, and Innish Moore are some of the more obvious examples. But I've found some interesting places that I consider 'thin' within my own back yard.

I fail for not having pictures of this place, but I will later. There's a place at my dad's cabin in the mountains that I feel most at home. There's a rock staircase that goes down to a creek with a small beach. A dam made of stones that my brother, father, and myself put together still creates a little lake in the area. The sound of rushing water can be heard and there's greenery everywhere, including a tree whose roots do battle with erosion to hold up a six foot wall of dirt.

This place is far enough away from any structures that it is completely peaceful, and it's in it's own little canyon, so I can enjoy the stillness of life there. I remarked upon my feelings there in my copy of the Tao Te Ching.

Some of my notes
in my copy of the Tao Te Ching

Later in life, wherever I have lived, I've tried to find a sacred space that I can go to think. The creek at my Dad's cabin was my sacred space for some time. But I was often not there, and when I went to college, I had to find another one. During my year and a half at Piedmont, I would use the Baseball field at night, and a bridge that went out over a lake (at night as well) as my places to think and meditate. Since coming to UNCSA, however, I have not been able to find such a place.

Since becoming a much more international and worldly person, I've picked out a few sacred spaces in other countries. I have a few in Ireland, even though I've only been there twice. The Celts influence my way of thinking so much, that it's hard not to find beauty in the simplest of places there.

The first one is the Hill of Tara. I took a pilgrimage to this place some time ago. I took a series of buses from Dublin and made my way up the hill itself on foot. The place is fairly simple. A small Catholic church sits on top of the hill, converting what was a pagan fortress to Christian holy land. The hill is now simply a hill with a burial ground and a few man-made humps here and there, but they are arranged in a set of rings and trenches that make up what was an impenetrable palisade fortress.

The view.
Good luck invading without being noticed.
You can see 3/4th of Ireland from up here.

Call me crazy, but I stayed around this place for more than a couple hours, just soaking it in. I even took a nap under the ever gray sky of Ireland. I met a Bulgarian who was doing the same thing I was. He sat and I sat on top of the burial ground while he played a tune on his guitar-like instrument.

At Glendaloch, the Monastic Order of St. Kevin made their way into the wilderness and started a small all-male civilization in an incredibly secluded part of Ireland. The order only lasted a generation, as people lived their lives and died with no offspring, but according to legend, the people there gained control over nature. St. Kevin was known for hanging out waist deep in the lake with outstretched arms and a bird would come to perch on his arm.

Just being in this place is mysterious. Mountains surround an elevated lake with strange natural structures that make some of the most beautiful sights in nature I've ever seen. St. Kevin made this place a church, but he considered not only the buildings that were made, but the land itself as the house of God.

No shoes allowed

St. Kevin's monasteries are spread out among the area. One of them in particular the members of my class that I went with my first time to Ireland took off our shoes to walk inside. The simple act of being that much closer to nature was powerful. Our guide (a Catholic Priest who barely believed in Catholicism) noted on his tour/sermon:

If we picture God as a little man in the sky, we're chasing an illusion, I think.

-Father Michael

The lesson to be learned in this is that God is not a figurehead of a church, or some 'bean counter on cloud 9' as a friend of mine put it. God is everything and everywhere. He is the force of life and death, and he is inherent in his creation (regardless of whether or not it was created consciously or by some instinctive force).

St. Kevin's churches embody this as the ruins become more and more one with nature themselves. As you can see they are slowly wearing away into the past themselves, creating an ultimate piece of natural art. The roof is gone, bringing the person within the monastery closer to the sky. The stones have become weathered, and the weak ones have fallen away, making the monastery seem as if nature had built it herself.

A lot of the same weathered effects have happened to the monastery-fortress on top of the Hill of Slane, another of my personal Irish 'Thin Places'.

St. Patrick's Monastery-Fortress.
I broke some rules to get this.

The Hill of Slane is the second highest point in Ireland, and from it you can see all the places that you can't see from the Hill of Tara. In St. Patrick's battle with the non-Christian Druids, control of both these hills was key. He held Slane with this monastery-fortress. The tower would be used to signal the Hill of Tara if an army was attempting to come at them by hiding in one of the Hill's few blind spots.

Even though there's not really a huge religious significance to the Hill of Slane, there wound up being a huge personal significance for me. The aged effect here was similar to the effect on St. Kevin's Monastery. I can't quite explain the spiritual feeling that was here, I only felt like I had lived here before. This was probably the only real place that has made me seriously consider reincarnation.

This felt very much like home.

I spent more than a little time here. I nearly missed the last bus back home without realizing it. The above picture was taken inside the fortress portion of the Hill of Slane (not shown in the other picture, I actually took that picture from the top of the fortress).

I can't really explain a lot of what happened here. I felt both at home and I had a strange feeling of dejavu while I was there. Now that I'm gone from these places, I want to go back really badly. I was home.

Shocking... but real: Madonna with a Flower

2009-01-26T11:35:00.002-05:00

There's nothing less than a shitload of paintings created around the 1400s-1600s that depict Mary and Jesus hanging out when Jesus was a wee lad, and there's a lot of them that aren't particularly incredible. But there's a few that really are... quite amazing.

I saw the painting Madonna with a Flower and it was said that it was done by Leonardo. It didn't quite snap with me until a few seconds later that it was Da Vinci. But when I saw this, I thought... well damn. Mary is friggin young in this painting. Then I realized that women during the first century were usually married very young, and if Mary was a virgin anyway when she was impregnated with Jesus, then she would have been around fourteen tops.

More realistic than you'd think

So that being said I realized that this painting is actually more likely than the 20something or 30something year old Mary that we're used to seeing with Jesus as a baby. She's usually young but not quite this young.

This gave me a whole new perspective on the relationship between Mary and Jesus, especially if the Catholics have it right that Mary knew roughly what was going to happen to him. This is a girl rather than a woman really, and she's been entrusted with the Son of God, and she's only a little more than ten years older than him.

Intense, to say the least. I have this image of a 15-16 year old Mary trying to teach someone that she knew would be the messiah how to talk.

Wow.

Ranting. Art. Movies. Literature. Politics. History. In that order.

2009-01-26T02:43:00.001-05:00

I believe there's a good way to rant and there's a bad way to rant. I do both.

There's ranting about something you understand and there's ranting about something you don't understand. Some of my rantings about art are a combination of the two. The rest is bad. To be honest, I don't understand a lot of art, especially the more recent periods (recent being from 1200 AD to present). That is the point where it all runs together for me and I don't understand much. I think there's too much focus on the paintings as art pre-1200 spans across the spectrum from worshiping items to bowls to weapons to prosthetic toes.

Not to be confused with the Etruscan ritual toes, which weren't prosthetic.

That being said, art now is incredibly controversial. Is a chair art? Is it meant to be? A chair or bowl from the neolithic era might be considered art to some, but not to another person. That being said, paintings on the walls of Egyptian palaces are certainly appreciated as art, and if made today would be considered art. But people back then saw it as a history book. And I bet many an Egyptian student was bored sick of them by third grade.

A photo can be art, a fresco can be art, an amazing computer can be art.

I think that now I'm finally beginning to understand the concept behind what whatsherface said in that book somewhere (descriptive, aren't I?) about certain things not being art that we can hold dear in our hearts as being art. And this is probably the reason why we have things we consider High Art (think Mona Lisa).

Then we get into Modern Art, where we have toilets and green canvases being called art.

Probably is. Might not be. Depends on a number of things. Was it made to be displayed, does it have meaning, does the meaning matter, does it matter if the meaning matters assuming it has a meaning?

I do, however, understand a lot of film because I've immersed myself into it. I know how it works, I know what goes into it, and I've made some myself. And for how much I hate modern art, I've made some of that too. Look at my friggin masks. But I digress.

One of my guilty loves (love, not pleasure, love) is Monster Movies (capitalized). I love them. But at the same time I know it's a genre that is almost completely dead. And there's a lot of crap to sift through (Lake Placid 2). But when you find a good one (Cloverfield), or see a classic (Valley of Gwangi), it's amazing. A lot of people wouldn't agree with me that Godzilla vs. Gigan is one of the most fun films ever made to watch (if not THE most fun), but then you haven't experienced it the same way I have.

That being said, I've never been passionate about art that I've seen outside of what I've been exposed to as a History Nut. I don't understand it, and when I don't understand something, I get frustrated and sometimes resort to ranting. But there's a difference to ranting about what I understand and don't understand.

Take my little bitching about the Inaugural Poem. I know my literature. I know my poetry, especially epic poetry. But poetry has been beaten to death by the last two or three generations that it's hardly worth expressing with anymore. Poets like Langston Hughes, while very good, have jaded me to the medium. I've written one poem, it won an award, and then I never went back to it. Never was inspired that way again, and never considered myself a poet.

I took a class on literature in college and realized that the teacher wouldn't talk about a single white male poet or author. While Langston Hughes and other minority poets and novelists were shoved down my throat seemingly to feed my white guilt, important authors such as Robert Frost, John Milton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and a million other authors were skipped.

So, when I saw the inauguration and saw more of the same racist bullshit, I flipped my lid. "When White will embrace what is right?" What the fuck, man. Fuck yourself and your alienating bullshit.

So I bitched the poem, purposefully not understanding it. I can't agree with a Praise Song with the theme of changing our ways and walking forward with appreciation when all we're doing is walking backward with the illusion we're doing the opposite. We're stuck on the race issue like we have been for the past 200 years, and it's honestly quite sad. I'll probably have a more detailed blog post on this later.

And that's my self explanation for now. Some of this may have been bad ranting, much of it was good ranting. As I said earlier, I do both. And I know it. Sorry if I offend.

Obama's Inaugural Poem

2009-01-25T13:54:00.002-05:00

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

(True)

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

(I think this is over assuming)

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

(Americans tend not to do this anymore. If we need to repair something, we give it to the repair guy, or call the repair guy to come do it. If our clothes suck, we tend to buy new ones. Some of us like wearing old clothes, but a lot of us just buy new ones. Our culture likes it.)

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

(Boom box? This stanza is so full of bullshit... You can't make much of your own music with a boom box. You CAN however, forgo creativity and make someone else's.)

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
(in England maybe, public transit in America has gone to hell.)
A farmer considers the changing sky.
(American Farming is going to hell.)
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.
(American Schools are going to hell.)

(And beyond that, why is the woman's son waiting for the bus skipping school if all of this is happening at the same time? You can get sent to jail for that nowadays.)

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

(Where are you going with this?)

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what's on the other side.

(Like the chicken? Still don't know where we're going with this)

I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

(What?)

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton (racist) and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

(Did you just end a sentence with a preposition?)

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

(I understand this less and less as it goes on. Who thought this was good?)

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

(how very hippy of you. First stanza about love is good, now you're hammering it home a little too hard. Still don't know where you're going with any of this.)

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

(That was it? I don't get it)

My Present Problem With Art

2009-01-23T10:11:00.001-05:00

I love art. I love appreciating it. I love making it. But I have a problem when taking a class on it.

There's a period of history in art around and after the Renaissance that all the artists in the world decided to get religious and start making Christian pieces about random aspects of the Bible.

This is all well and good until you realize how fucking much of it there is. Some of it is cool, and as a period it deserves to be recognized because it happened. It was also around the time that individual artists started painting for themselves rather than in places like the Hagia Sophia. Suddenly, everything has an artist's name attached to it.

It's all respectable art, but it's the point of art that I'm really not that interested at all in except when looking at some of the subject matters. But after a while of looking at the subject matter, it starts to get redundant because literally EVERYONE painted stuff about Christianity.

Now I have an assignment to reflect upon art in class and how it affects me, and it started on the day that we got into this period. A lot of them have aesthetically pretty pictures, some of them advanced in art a little bit. Duccio and Masaccio (Jan Van Eyck is fucking amazing) are particularly cool, but I'm so jaded to the subject that I don't care about them.

Fucking Masterpiece

And this is all well and good, but art doesn't get any better after this. Before Christianity declared a monopoly on art, it was pretty awesome. The pagan arts are amazing to me. And I could sit down and respond to each of those pieces with a lot of insight and emotion. But after Christianity moves in on art and practically takes over completely... things get boring.

The Muslims didn't bother making any religious art because it's against the rules to make a likeness of Muhammad. Makes me think that he was ugly or something. And no one cares what kind of art was being made south of the Sahara, East of the Ural, or West of the Iberian, so Christian art takes the cake.

AFTER this period, we get into the kind of over ostentatious art that is made about the same time that Louis XVI built the Palace of Versailles. Ugh. And some people LOVE that stuff with everyone dressed up in all fancied.

But back to the world at hand. There's good art in this period. But in some periods, EVERYONE did the same damn thing. And we see it still today. No one makes intricately designed sculptures anymore the way the Greeks did. No one makes detailed symbolic alter pieces anymore (a lot of artists are atheist now, and Christian artists don't really monopolize any corner of the artistic world anymore). Contemporary art is also mostly the same depending on style. Everyone's copying one another in the now rather than drawing form the deep past.

Youtube sucks donkey dick

2009-01-13T23:45:00.002-05:00

because it covers the side of my blog when i post a video now.

Big Swords Always Make Up For Being an Asian Male.

2009-01-13T12:33:00.002-05:00

Check out our good buddy Red Ranger.

Happy New Year and Winter Solstice just to piss people off. I know it's late, but if you don't like it, I don't care. What's the deal with time anyway?

So I've decided that Holidays are God's way of telling us that he made sure our families would be composed of people who don't understand one another. I was talking to my brother around Thanksgiving and we decided to vacation Thanksgiving together to take a Holiday from our relatives.

Screw 'em.

We got tired of holidays in which we get judged, ridiculed, misunderstood, or someone goes crazy, dies, gets in a fight, gets in a heated discussion about another family member's behavior, so on such as.

Its odd to me that my entire family is composed of the same genes, yet the only thing that we seem to have in common is that everyone is always stressed out besides my brother and me.

I just read Watchmen recently and I now have a few articles in mind for LWMUWCFFA. I swear every time I see that I think 'let's waffle'. I'm not sure how they're going to pull off turning that book into a film without loosing a lot. But we'll see how it goes. I know Alan Moore has been consistently unhappy with how his graphic novels have turned out as films, and he apparently doesn't like Watchmen either, but we'll see if he's right or just a pompous ass.

Anywho, I'm blogging instead of writing my autobiography (10 pages, w00t) to turn in to class tomorrow.

Y'know, not much has happened in my life given it's only been about 21 years, but the story should take up more than 10 pages, so I'm not quite sure how I'm going to stuff it all into that little make-up, but we'll see. My life hasn't been incredibly long, but it has been eventful. I definitely won't have room for everything, but I'll catch the highlights.

General Rules for Dancing and Music

2009-01-07T11:31:00.002-05:00

This is something a friend of mine named Brandon wrote that is nothing other than sheer genius. Take a gander. I probably agree with all of these.

DANCE RULES:

1. God hates hardcore dancing. It makes Him very sad indeed to see his beloved children awkwardly do battle with imaginary opponents. Frankly, God is just sick of breakdowns, guitars in drop C tuning, and predictably unimaginative 2-step riffs. Though He appreciates what the whole straight edge/metalcore/sXe/hXc culture is trying to do in His name, He'd really much rather you all just sat down, took some deep breaths, threw on a Phish album, and mellowed out over some tHc.

2. "Dry raves" are about the same as "Shark-free ghettos." In the ghetto, you don't worry about being eaten by sharks, you worry about being robbed, raped and murdered. People don't go to raves to drink, they go to raves to drop acid, and eat handfuls of research chemicals with names that rarely contain more than three characters. If you see people praying, odds are that they just popped a handful of yellow tablets decorated with stars, Mickey Mouse, or Mitsubishi logos, and they're seriously concerned about what their X was cut with. Raves are just dirty, depressing events frequented by dirty, depressing people. Odds are, you have something better to do. Raving with your friends in someone's backyard or basement is a good time. Raving in a cornfield or an abandoned warehouse with lots of people you don't know is a good way to wake up naked on the side of Interstate 71.

3. Girls should avoid dancing in a provocative manner. This rule need not apply if the girl in question is attractive. If this is the case, keep on doing what you're doing.

4. Soulja Boy has all the creativity of a lead pipe, and about as much street cred as Barney the Dinosaur. Even if that weren't the case, the dance that bears his name might as well be called the Mongoloid Air Swim, or just the Help Me I'm Confused.

5. Up to and including their masterwork No Strings Attached, everything in the *NSYNC catalogue is solid gold.

6. Clearly, God is huge fan of breakbeat electronica. Why? Just try not to party when listening to The Prodigy's The Fat of The Land or The Crystal Method's Tweekend. Or, just save yourself the trouble--it can't be done.

7. There is no grammatically correct way to express the idea of "too many glow sticks." Miriam Webster would probably disagree, but frankly? He wrote a dictionary. If I had a dollar for every party that I really doubt he was invited to, I could probably purchase the rights to the English language.

8. Have fun. If you're not having fun, leave. There's a special circle in Hell for buzzkills. No flames, no torment, just other buzzkills. They mope around, start drama, and drag each other down for all of eternity.

9. When moshing, be sure to take note if you step on something that feels more like person than floor. They'll thank you.

10. When selecting music, follow your heart--literally. Your heart beats in 4/4 time signature. If your heart beats in time with any song by Tool or Dream Theater, that's called a heart palpitation, and you should probably seek medical assistance as soon as possible. If your heart beats in time with any song by Sunn 0))) or Brian Eno, you're probably experiencing cardiac arrest.

Stupid People.

2008-12-17T22:59:00.001-05:00

Those are not Butterflies.

Those are horses.

EDIT: tried my best to work around disabling the embedding crap. But youtube is shut solid. I'd have to mirror the thing on my account, and honestly I don't want to go through the trouble.

Artist's Block?

2008-12-17T18:52:00.002-05:00

It's not that I don't have any inspiration to make art, it's that I don't have any art supplies at the moment and I'm living with my all-too-stressful mother at the moment.

Trying to keep a low profile in this place is like storing your lighter fluid and fireworks on top of the stove.

Obviously high-stress environments do not an artist make in my case. Sadly, I'm an artist that thrives in peaceful environments. Right now I'm just kinda 'going' on with the writing of this blog to ease my senses.

I've got a few outlines written for some scripts I want to work on, but I'm probably going to have to exile myself to a nearby cabin before I actually get any writing done. Probably will be happening in the near foreseeable future.

I was an idiot and left all my masks and spraypaints at the dorm which is a five mile drive away from here. Relatively easily remedied though with a small purchase and a change of medium. I'll probably be stopping by Wal-Mart relatively soon to get some paints.

There's a variety of personal issues that have been throwing me off in the past week. One of which involving my mom destroying all her paintings, and giving me back the copy of my book i gave her telling me "She's read it already".

This does not help the balancing of my Chi. I'll probably escape into some old Chinese writings relatively soon, looking for a bit of inspiration to turn one of my outlines into a full fledged script.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms!

2008-12-08T14:59:00.002-05:00

Oh fuck yes.

This was a fun movie to watch.

Ray Harryhausen's special effects really got big with this movie. The Beast is the earliest monster movie that I know of. It was made in 1953 and the effects of the monster rival that of Godzilla with Harryhausen's stop motion genius.

The movie starts off with a nuclear explosion in the arctic. After checking some meters in the area afterward, the scientists/explorers bump into 'The Monster' within a few minutes of the movie's beginning.

Afterward the explorer who saw the monster isn't taken seriously, and much of the film is the main character (who is a physicist) trying to prove that he's not insane by tracking down what the monster could be. Meanwhile there's reports of a 'sea serpant' attacking ships and the reports are slowly moving southward.

Ima eechuu!

The Beast's city attack takes place in Manhattan, which is honestly a great city for a monster on the loose film. The actual monster's special effects are well done. And the storyline behind the monster was well constructed. But it's origin story was that it was an oversized dinosaur that was set free by the atomic bomb. Apparently it had been frozen solid for over 100 million years.

As far as the origin story was concerned, Godzilla beats The Beast. Godzilla is an old radiated dinosaur with a beam (which explains why he's so beefed up), whereas The Beast is an old dinosaur fresh out of the microwave.

As far as comparing The Beast with Godzilla and other Japanese monster flicks, Godzilla takes the cake as far as depth of the film. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was a comparatively shallow film and mirrors a lot of the same problems that Varan The Unbelievable has with its story, such as not having much to the plot other than the monster.

One thing happened with The Beast that I wasn't counting on. The creators of The Beast brought to the table that the monster on the loose could carry a disease. It's obvious that the makers of Cloverfield were inspired by this part of the film. As these are the only two monster movies I'm aware of that this plot device is used. And especially because there is apparently a screenshot of The Beast attacking Manhattan in the film somewhere.

For all monster movie fans, this film is a must see simply because it's classic. The monster is an amazing creature. The rest of the film, however, is a B movie plotline complete with random romance. Overall, however, worth the 79 minutes it takes to watch it.

THEM!

2008-12-07T17:49:00.002-05:00

In color?

THEM! is one of the earlier films to use radioactivity to create a monster of some sort. The team that made it is relatively unheard of, even among monster movie fans. But, it is nevertheless a very good film.

The setup to the film is done very mysteriously. It's an awesome film to watch when you have no idea that a shitload of ants are going to come later in the film. The characters at first think a torn apart trailer and general store are the work of some homicidal maniac that just has a strange taste. They find that someone is stealing shitloads of sugar and using formic acid as a weapon.

Mysterious hole in the wall.

The origin of the monsters in this film is that an atomic bomb testing in '45 has given off a significant amount of radiation and mutated a mound of desert ants. These ants have gotten progressively bigger and the radiation has caused a significant change in a lot of their biology along with just making them huge.

The writer obviously did his homework on ants. One of the first encounters with one of these ants is dealt with by shooting the antennae and disabling it's senses. THEN someone unloads a machine gun into it, proving that they're not really that invincible.

That's a big fuckin ant.

As the film goes on, the characters find and attack a nest full of these bastards and then invade it to check and make sure that everything's dead. These scenes are actually about as gripping as they should be. And for 1954 American special effects, well done.

After this, the ants are GONE for what seems like a very long time until essentially the end of the movie when there's a quite impressive standoff between the military and a bunch of ants. The lack of sheer number of ants is excused by the period in which the film was made, but I would like to have seen more of the buggers.

Flame throwers: better than a magnifying glass.

As far as the rest of the film goes, there's not much to it. I learned some cool info on ants through the mini-documentary that they have in the middle of the film. This definitely showed that the idea had plenty of badass points. However, I still raise the same complaint to this film that I had with The Beast. There needed to be more meat on the bones of this film.

As a film bearing shitloads of monsters and another random light romance, this is a good film. And this film should be seen due to it's classic-ness. I was the only person in the room of about sixty film students to get a joke someone made about this film that was hilarious. Everyone else suffice to say missed out because they didn't check this out. Give it a watch just for the 'cool' factor.

Another quick comment on Twilight:

2008-12-05T22:05:00.002-05:00

I agree.
But I make no excuses.

LET'S WATCH MOVIES UNTIL WE CAN'T FEEL FEELINGS ANYMORE!!!

2008-12-05T17:19:00.001-05:00

There's a new blog that some friends and I have put together called

Let's Watch Movies Until We Can't Feel Feelings Anymore!

LWMUWCFFA for short.

http://111-archer-avenue.blogspot.com

From now on, I'll be posting reviews that I write personally on here only after at least a day has passed with it being up on LWMUWCFFA, perhaps longer if I happen to feel lazy. There's also several other authors reviewing other movies at this site, so check it out! Follow it, subscribe, whatever.

BECOME A MINION AND LET'S WATCH MOVIES UNTIL YOU CAN'T FEEL FEELINGS ANYMORE!!!

Film: Twilight: I'm Revoking Hollywood's Vampire License.

2008-12-04T18:18:00.001-05:00

The Bane of my Existence.

Everyone involved in the making of this movie needs to be killed by vampires.

I've heard about the recent craze about a vampire book a few years ago. I heard that it was the new Harry Potter. Now I never read the Harry Potter books, but I have seen the movies and I think that it's a good story and it does justice to wizards. The story is intricate, detailed, classic, and just overall awesome for pretty much anyone that doesn't hate it with prejudice. I have little criticism of the films.

With all this in mind, I had high expectations for the Twilight series. I took it in stride the same way I took the Harry Potter books. Listening to the craze but not really taking part in it. When I saw the trailers to the film, I turned skeptical.

Things were happening in daylight.

I was confused.

As any diehard vampire fan knows... daylight doesn't agree with vampires.

Finally, I went to see the film because there was a required showing at my film school. I got a good seat, and watched.

I was wracking my head the entire time at the shitty dialogue that happened throughout the beginning of the film. When this Edward Cullen character WALKS UP TO Bella and says "I think you should stay away from me." I hit the floor with laughter as did the rest of the theater of film students who are used to seeing stuff that's actually good.

THEN this stupid chick responds with "What if I don't want to?" Now keep in mind, this guy has been acting like a creepy stalker thoughout most of the film. So I deduct that the character Bella is either stupid, shallow, or both.

A few scenes later the two characters are head over heals in love with one another. Completely and totally irrationally and unjustifiably. No effort was made to get the audience to get in the relationship with these characters. They just suddenly confessed their love to one another as if it were literally on first sight.

You'd think that someone who's been a vampire for 90 years would have a somewhat mature understanding of love.

So after this they're running around with more shitty dialogue. This dialogue is not only shitty, it takes eons to get out. I swear there were scenes between these characters that were just there to take up time. About seven minutes would pass and about six two-word lines had been said. Beyond that, this movie contained the longest forced kiss I've ever seen on film.

In all of this, I summed up the film to a crappy little emo-girl vampire fantasy of living her oh-so-shitty life (cries) and is then whisked away by a vampire on some pre-pubescent wet dream fantasy of a limitedly attractive pale 'dream boy' devoid of personality.

A modern vampire that is still an actual vampire.

But what pissed me off the most about this film wasn't the shitty acting, shitty story, or shitty writing... but how this movie treated the vampire. Legends of vampires have been around for centuries and the story behind what they are varies with the exception of a few things. They always have fangs, and they always die if they get in the sunlight (speeds vary, but the rule is the same). There's an exception to Daywalkers, but those are only the most powerful of vampires.

John Carpenter's Vampires: Explode into flame when they get in the sunlight.

Dracula: Burns in the sunlight.

Underworld: Skin slowly burns off.

Let The Right One In: turn into an inferno.

Anne Rice Universe: Turn into ashes.

TWILIGHT: ...

VAMPIRES SPARKLE!!! (and have no fangs)

And then the pretty ponies and unicorns come out and celebrate. A vampire just went into the daylight!

Sparkles!

Stephanie Meyer has just revealed that all of her Vampires are not only supercharged in strength and speed, but are ALL DAYWALKERS!!!

All of her vampires are now practically invincible. Nothing can kill them. Absolutely nothing. Every Vampire character in this series is Over Powered to an insane level. Vampires are threatening and evil enough of an enemy as they are, but now we have 100% daywalker from birth vampires.

Bullshit.

Vampires cannot survive in daylight for an extended period of time. Twilight vampires only become obvious.

This film does no justice or respect to the traditional vampire. The vampire is a dark nighttime creature that is nearly invincible but can be killed by the simplicity of the Sun. Even if it's cloudy. It's what makes them poetic. It's what makes them real and identifiable. They have a weakness and that weakness adds to the character.

Stealing this weakness can either take away or add to the character. In the case of Daywalkers, (John Carpenter, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Anne Rice's Lestat) it makes for a badass invincible vampire that is a force to be reckoned with BECAUSE he lacks the usual weakness.

But in the case of Twilight, it fucks up the whole concept by making ALL vampires invincible and logically impossible for a human to kill. Every single one of these vampires are on par with Lestat and Dracula even if they haven't lived beyond even 100 years as a vampire.

This is essentially babying down the vampire. Stephanie Meyer has stolen the real darkness from the vampire by liberating them from the night. They still get the pale skin because they avoid direct sunlight for no logical reason other than self-pity, but they lack the prison of night that so affects the vampire psychology.

In the entire cast of vampires from Twilight, I saw vampires hiding from essentially nothing. They have a power that is very corruptible with no weakness whatsoever, but they hide with the same fear we've seen of vampires before us. If you want to make all vampires Daywalkers, run with it. Make them monsters. Don't pussy out. If a human lives for more than 100 years with no weaknesses and a constant thirst for blood. Someone's going to get power-hungry.

Fail.

I'd have less of a problem with this insanity if it wasn't so damn popular. Everywhere I look I see girls (and some guys) running around with their Twilight paraphernalia and talking about how hot Edward Cullen is. I even heard a review saying that Twilight is what a vampire movie should be. It saddens me that someone has babied down the vampire and is getting a positive reaction.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

Vampires have been influential in my life all the way back to the classic black and white Dracula. There's plenty of crappy vampire movies out there. But this one is the worst that I've ever seen, and I've seen some shitty vampire movies. But the reasoning behind the shittiness for this one for me is that it spits in the face of everything that came before it.

This movie is by far the worst of the recent crappy releases to come out of Hollywood.

Film: Children of Paradise

2008-12-03T23:55:00.001-05:00

I saw this film on the big screen on a print. It was showing at my school and I figured... foreign film (french), B&W, made in '44... I'm game. It's also apparently ranked no.5 or something among the greatest french films ever made.

Being recently interested in French cinema, I decided to check it out. Afterwards I found out it was three hours long. I figured... well alright. I've seen movies pour over the normal time limit and do fine. Seven Samurai and Kingdom of Heaven to name a couple.

Apparently it was separated into two movies because the Nazis would not allow commercial films go over 90 minutes. I tend to agree on the Nazis on this one. But not completely. So what the director decided to do was to end the first film suddenly, and then release a second film with the same title subsequently.

The first half of the film is mostly a disconnected plot line with shitloads of people irrationally falling in love with one another. There are several characters that are rather easy to keep up with, but I found that I didn't identify with a single one of them (except probably for one character who I found to be the saving grace of the film).

This guy is awesome.

The film is mainly about a mime (funambul) who has a beautiful girl in love with him who he has no real feelings for. But he falls in love at first sight with this not-so-pretty woman who he has a passing moment with and she smiles at him and gives him a flower or some shit. This is the main plot out of several characters who get intertwined in an intense plot that has everything to do with irrational feelings of love (we're talking maybe three minutes after they met and confessing love for one another).

I found myself frustrated throughout the first half of the film with the illogical actions of the characters. It had it's moments of awesome, but was mostly disjointed and the characters kept getting out of character. Not to mention it ends suddenly on a very random note that has nothing to do with the rest of the plot.

The French are so weird.

The second film, or second part rather (damn Nazis) was much more satisfying. I was thrown aback by the introduction when it summed up the first part of the film up to the completely random ending and then said SEVERAL YEARS LATER.

What?

The ending was so random, I had expected it to jump right back into the story, but no.

I won't give any spoilers about the rest of the movie because it's probably worth checking out for the sake of knowing your French Cinema. And the characters actually stay true to themselves throughout the second part of the film. But there was one awesome character who hates all of society that does some pretty amazing stuff in the second part of the film. Of the entire film I found that character to be the only saving grace of the whole thing.

Overall, I walked out of the theater feeling like I had wasted three hours of my life, but having another classic under my belt and feeling ultimately satisfied with the few minutes of film that mattered. If I had been the editor of this film, I would have cut it down to about 90 minutes and made the Nazis happy as well as future viewers.

Masks: The Wall

2008-10-24T20:56:00.002-04:00

The Wall

I'm working on more masks to go with the story of The Idealist. I've posted all the masks on the side of my dorm room for all to see. Some people get a little freaked, and some are extremely curious and examine it closely. And still others just ignore the damn thing.

So far all the masks have been the same make mask using spray paint and some with duct tape. I don't know if I'll be using anything else with the masks, but if I do I'm sure it'll be fun.

So far there's quite a few masks to go. But I'm making them. Whenever I come up with a concept I go ahead and make it. Most of them have worked out pretty well. I'll be uploading the occasional mask on here for the sake of it.

Masks: Mistake.

2008-10-24T18:53:00.002-04:00

I've been working as an artist for a little while. Producing a couple films and directing one very recently. But something that's been filling my time as of late a new hobby of mine.

Mask making.

This is the first mask that I'm uploading, and probably my favorite. It's called Mistake given that it was made accidentally.

Mistake

This mask has inspired the character 'Mistake' in my new mask themed story The Idealist (Running Title). I was trying to experiment with blood tears by spray painting the backside of the mask and getting the paint to trickle through the eyes. The experiment failed utterly and some of the paint got onto the front corner of the mask. Then the mask fell on it's side into a puddle of red spray paint.

The Puddle

I shrugged it off and started work on another mask called Cold that I'll be posting soon. I got some of the blue on the side, and then got frustrated with the location of the mask. So I randomly sprayed the colors I was working with on the experimental mask.

accidental blue line

After it dried for a day, I looked at it and really liked the result. The mask inspired me to add a character to the story I'm working on as another anti-hero in the story. A series of female masks have come out of this character, and there'll be a few more to come.

Personal: Back Up and Running

2008-10-23T00:13:00.001-04:00

A few of you know that my computer took a swan dive from my bed and killed herself. Luckily a lot of the pieces are still intact and she can be repaired if I take the time to perform some surgery. For the meantime, I have two new computers coming in. Apple is made of win so I bought an iMac.

This is the reason why I've been gone recently. I borrowed my friend Micah's little itty bitty macbook until I got this baby in the mail.

Behold Celos, named for the Etruscan Earth Goddess

I've done all I can to recover files. Luckily I had a lot of my shit backed up on an external HD, so I've got that back. I also lost one of my favorite wallpapers for my desktop. But a /r/ in *that unknown website* fix'd that.

Suit yourself.

Two other wallpapers of mine are here. I have my computer looping through them every five minutes.

Aya Ueto as an angel

Hey look! It's Earth!

Was Earth...

Anywho, I'm obviously back up and posting. My week or so being MIA was not completely wasted, however. I've been making some mask-themed art with spray paint. I will be posting pictures of them shortly.

Rantings: This is made of Win and Awesome.

2008-10-22T14:43:00.002-04:00

I was clicking around on Myspace, and My friend Ariel posted this beautiful piece of awesome.

Dear preppy girls,

Why do you dress up as Goths for Halloween? I know that Party City makes this relatively easy on you. After all, you can buy a little Goth Girl outfit in a plastic bag. You can even get matching accouterments, like black lipstick, pointy bracelets, and long purple wigs.

I helped a girl in birkenstock shoes and a polo shirt find black lipstick in a makeup store the other day. When I asked her why she would want such a thing, she happily informed me she was going to be a goth for Halloween. She then proceeded to show me the all-black ensemble she had picked up for her costume. Had I not been informed of her outfit choice, I would have thought she was going as Bret Michaels (a much funnier choice of costume, indeed).

So, it's creepy, you know? It's just a little weird that you're all dressing up as me circa 2004 for a holiday. I mean, why not just raid my closet? I could certainly provide something more authentic than a strange 40-year-old-rocker-looking-for-love outfit that you've prepared. At least do me justice. Seriously.

I'm just letting you know that as epic payback for your sucky costume, I'm going to dress as you this year. That's right, you! I'm going to prance around in a semi-drunken stupor in Uggs and Abercrombie shirts. I'm going to spray so much fake-tanner on myself I'm going to glow an eerie, translucent orange. I'm even going to smear a little powdered sugar on my nostrils, because real cocaine is just too darn expensive.

Love, Ariel

Wow... I concur.

Art History Feature: The Ziggurat of Ur

2008-10-22T03:21:00.002-04:00

The Ziggurat of Ur

The Ziggurat is considered a precursor to the Pyramid. Many early civilizations started to build them at about the same time. Among these are the Sumerians, who were the first, and the Mayans. Ziggurats also appear in a few areas in south eastern Asia. A question among historians is where the original idea came from and whether or not these civilizations on opposite sides of the world were inspired by one another somehow.

The Ziggurat of Ur was one of the first major religious monuments in history, and is one of the major characteristics that makes the Sumerian culture the first civilization.

The city of Ur was the most powerful city among the four major Sumerian cities. Although the Sumerian cities were all of the same civilization, worshiped the same gods, and were all of the same race, they warred over the territory between their cities. Ur's Ziggurat would have been a show of militaristic power just as much as a homage to the gods. It can be noted that the Ziggurat looks like a fortress, and is built in a way that it could be very defensible if needed.

Religion became a major part of Sumerian life, as it did with many early civilizations. The Sumerian Ziggurat was supposed to be a dwelling for one or perhaps multiple gods. It also doubled as a place of worship for zealous civilians of Ur to go and pray.

It's made out of hand-made clay bricks that were sun dried by the Sumerians. These bricks were then assembled into the massive temple that is the Ziggurat. After several layers of brick, the interior of the Ziggurat is filled with sand, as if to prevent anyone from inhabiting the interior of this massive building. Atop the Ziggurat is a temple which would house a Sumerian holy man.

When the Ziggurat was made, it was by far the largest building ever made by man. And it was not devoted to a man, but to the gods. It shows that the Sumerians had an immense amount of respect for their gods in order to spend their time and wealth to construct such a massive structure. However, at the same time, it shows that the Sumerians feared their gods. What did they fear might happen if the Ziggurat was not built?

The Ziggurat's lifetime of use by the Sumerians was relatively short in comparison to the actual existence of the Sumerians. Some time after the Ziggurat was completed, the Elamites conquered the Sumerians and destroyed them city by city. No one knows quite where the Elamites came from. History only accounts that they came from the east and settled in Sumerian land after defeating them. Later they would fight the hardened warrior culture of the Assyrians in vain.

Politics: 700 Billion Dollar Failout.

2008-10-11T15:45:00.001-04:00

I'm officially against the 700 Billion Dollar Bailout.

For many of the reasons I said beforehand. It tries to save our failing economy by putting us further into debt which hurts our economy to save people who failed at helping our economy.

Seriously, let them die.

But I didn't see this coming... even though I should have.

I was told recently that the bailout had supplied money for some high executive party or some shit. I did some digging on this and found out that this is indeed true.

The insurance company AIG was bailed out 87 Billion dollars and half a million of this was used for a happy party at an expensive resort with the executives of this company including a large lump sum for 'spa treatment'.

This is retarded. I'm staying at home so as not to use gas and eating cheap food while the government-created-socialized-billionaires get spa treatment at a resort. This is why I hate socialism in any form. You'd think that people would value this money that the government is giving them to save their asses. But they KNOW that if they fail again, the government is going to simply bail them out.

The money that they've been given isn't theirs and therefore they will not treat it with the same care they would if they had earned it their own damn selves.

I believe this is going to be the first of many stories like this. The treasurer needs to come out and wash his hands of the duties assigned to him by this bill. Let the economy drop as the weak companies die, and then the strong ones will fill the gaps.

In the meantime, while the corporations are screwing themselves, something needs to be done to protect the American worker that is employed by the part of our economy that is doing well, which is the small business sector. The person who works at the flower-shop on the corner needs to be protected in this time of economic trouble. I don't see any efforts to do it.

Taoism: Chpt 1: Taoing

2008-10-08T01:26:00.002-04:00

Note: Ten thousand is a sacred number to the Chinese. The Ten Thousand things can mean everything, but can include the sacred and celestial.

Taoing

The way you can go
isn't the real way.
The name you can say
isn't the real name.

Heaven and Earth
begin in the unnamed:
name's the mother
of the ten thousand things.

So the unwanting soul
sees what's hidden,
and the ever-wanting soul
sees only what it wants.

Two things, one origin,
but different in name,
whose identity is in mystery.
Mystery of all mysteries!
The door to the hidden.

Le Guin states that a perfect translation of this poem from Chinese to English is perfectly impossible. This poem supposedly contains the whole book as an opener and sets up the rest of the Tao Te Ching.

The part that I find important in this is the passage "So the unwanting soul.... only what it wants". It highlights how we can see things when we separate ourselves from an issue. Someone who is blinded by their desires or beliefs cannot see what doesn't go along with those desires or beliefs. The Taoist tries to see what 'is' rather than what he or she wants to see.

In the passage "The way you can go.... isn't the real name" it can be produced into a sociological point about how we are offered a way through life that is the one we are supposed to follow, and then there's the spiritual way that you can go which is ultimately more satisfying and true to yourself.

Religion: Taoism

2008-10-08T00:56:00.002-04:00

The Tao Te Ching was a book written by philosopher Lao Tzu about 500 BCE (about 800 years older than the Christian Bible). It's an eye opening holy book that reveals a lot about the nature of the universe. I'll be using this blog to post excerpts from it and post my thoughts along with it.

I may create another blog with a compilation of my Taoist postings, but as of now I don't really see the need.

The translation that I'm using is by Ursula K. Le Guin. Her translation attempts to keep the spirit of what's said while preserving the artistic value of the writings. This is the copy I carry around with me and the copy that I use to understand Philosophical Taoism.

It's important to realize that Philosophical Taoism is different from Religious Taoism. Religious Taoism brings in the idea of physical immortality, potions to help you attain physical immortality, and multiple gods interlocked in a huge drama. This is not what I follow because it has the same problems as all other religions like it.

Philosophical Taoism helps the follower understand The Tao or 'The Way'. The Tao could also be a singular God or simply the energy of the universe. There are many Taoism references in Star Wars when talking about The Force. Several things brought up by Yoda are lifted directly from the Tao Te Ching.

Now, Yoda's cool and all, but the things brought up by Yoda were not the important parts in my opinion. There are several things in the Tao Te Ching that talk about contentment and letting go of material things. The main thing that the Tao Te Ching does is bring peace to the reader.

Sometimes that's all we need.

Art History Feature: The Mask of King Tut

2008-10-08T00:11:00.001-04:00

The mask of King Tutenkhamun was the lowest part of the sarcophagus made by the Egyptians for good ol' King Tut when he died. It would have been placed directly over his face and would have been a likeness of his actual face. Clearly, a lot of time was taken in the making of this mask.

The journey of the dead was very important to the Egyptians, especially the journey of their Pharaohs as evidenced by the construction of huge tombs and pyramids. The sarcophagus was designed to protect the body after death and to help preserve it so that it could be used in the afterlife. This mask could possibly have been for use in the afterlife along with the belongings he was found with.

There's lots of gold used in the making of this mask along with stripes of blue. A great amount of detail was taken in the forging of the mask and the careful design of the facial features. We can see a row of beads along the bottom of the mask as well and some black paint to accent the facial features of the mask.

As a work of art, the meaning behind this piece is purely religious. It clearly took a large amount of time to create due it's complex nature. The piece doubles as a tribute to the Pharaoh and his life. Obviously the maker of the piece respected the pharaoh or at least believed in his need to traverse across the celestial plane to the afterlife.

Religion: God and Science (Intellgent Design)

2008-10-06T11:51:00.001-04:00

I had a conversation with someone recently who thought that Intelligent Design was a scientifically applicable idea. I tried my best to explain that it wasn't, but I don't think I reached her.

Intelligent Design is the basic idea that where there is design there must be a designer. So a newt looks the way it does because it was designed by a higher power. This belief is all fine and dandy until you get into scientific aspects of it. Intelligent Design as a scientific theory offers that the gaps in the evolutionary theory (such as why the newt's earliest legged ancestor started to develop legs in the first place) can be explained in the simple sentence that 'God did it' with the premise that it's that way because God designed it that way. This way of explaining things is counterproductive to science.

Science, especially biological science, gets into the nitty gritty details of it's subject and asks all the questions. The answer 'God did it' isn't good enough. Whether or not God did it, science asks the question of HOW it was done regardless of whether or not God was involved.

Personally, I believe that God has a lot to do with why the universe is here and how it came to be. But, I also recognize that in order for science to work, God needs to step out of the theoretical picture. Because God offers no real evidence for his existance other than the emotional connection between him and humanity's subconscious, God has to step out of the realm of science until evidence for his existence is found.

Until then, Science is the study of how rather than why. Religion is the study of why. When the two get intermingled with one another, people get pissed off as evidenced by the evolution vs Young Earth Creationism debate. In my opinion that whole debate is almost worthless. What Young Earth Creationists don't realize is that the world didn't have to come into existance six thousand years ago in order for God to exist or for life to have meaning.

What that whole debate boils down to is Biblical infallibility which is a subject heading for later.

Art History: Art with a capital A: History with a capital H: How old is Art?

2008-10-02T17:58:00.001-04:00

The day after I posted the previous blog about Art, I presented it in my Art History class with much approval from the rest of the class. Afterwards I had an in depth talk with the teacher who is a fan of this kind of art with hopes to better understand it.

She explained that much of the Modern Art paintings featured in these museums featuring one color or printed onto the canvas by an artist are not supposed to be appreciated as a subject, but appreciated as a 'poke' at art. With this understanding I can appreciate it.

Much of the point of pieces such as the 'Green' canvas I make reference to could actually be making the point that we shouldn't care about the brush strokes of the artist, nor should we have the response 'oooo this is a Van Gogh painting' because when it all comes right down to it, it's just a damn painting. Why do we stick these people on a pedestal?

Duchamp's 'Fountain'
A little poke at how Art is perceived

I can respect this aspect of Modern Art as a poke at the rest of the art genres, but I still disagree on a level. I retain the point I made about the chair in my previous post. Though I can appreciate the design qualities of a chair as art, I don't quite think it belongs in a museum because it has no statement to make.

A fair majority of the art that inspires me is from many ages past. People invested their time and soul into these pieces without individual gratitude for the completion. They believed that the only gratitude that they received would be from the god they honored or the historical figure that now resides in the underworld (Achilles or Odysseus for example).

A major difference between art in this era and art from ages past is individuality. Egyptian art is all the same. Changing that art would get you killed. It was not the art of the artist, but the art of Egypt. Same with many other civilizations featuring religious art. Art was supposed to remind you of the religion or the person and the story surrounding that person. So in order to truly appreciate this art, you must know the stories.

For example: A stain glass window of Jesus or Mary is worthless to the person who doesn't know anything about the Bible.

The misconception is often made that 'art' as we see it today did not exist until a couple hundred years ago. Art was not appreciated as an individual's creation until recently. To me, this is untrue.

A scene featuring the Qin Emperor in 'HERO'
The very title of this film is a play on calligraphy
in that the word Hero in Chinese calligraphy is both plural and singular.

During the era of the Qin Emperor in China (about 220 BC, the same era as Alexander the Great) calligraphy was being appreciated as the individual's artistic accomplishment (The Qin Emperor saw himself as an artist and a philosopher as well as a ruler). People would look to calligraphy to understand the writer/artist in a number of aspects. Calligraphy was supposed to reveal a number of things about the artist's subconscious, including the artist's skill with a weapon. People would travel great distances to fetch a single word to be painted by a famous calligrapher.

Expanding upon that, China also recognized martial arts as the individual's artistic accomplishment. China was constantly streamlining the ability to fight along with the schools of thought behind fighting. We can't look at these original pieces of art today because they have disappeared with the bodies of those who created them, but we can see the art piece itself surviving with those being taught martial arts.

Guan Yu: Martial Artist from about 200 AD.
Creator of the weapon 'Black Dragon'

Many moves in martial arts and scrolls of calligraphy can be considered the oldest forms of individual art, yet none of them are appreciated in museums because this form of art has been mostly glossed over as far as appreciation is concerned.

I've noticed that History with a Capital H is also an issue here. History seems to ignore Asia when considering accomplishments. As a matter of fact, it tends to ignore everywhere but Europe. This is probably one of the reasons that no one quite understands China today. History rarely gives China credit for discovering the crossbow, chrome plating, or in this case, individual art.

Art History: Art with a capital A: My Inspiration.

2008-10-01T02:18:00.002-04:00

I'm going to take a break from the failure that is American politics for a moment and talk about 'Art' again.

I was asked recently what inspires me visually as an artist. Honestly I don't create much visual 'art' so it's difficult to really answer that. But I'll go for it.

I had a conversation recently with my friend Shannon who said that her college class was going to take a trip to the SF MoMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and that she was reading this book on the definition of Art.

The book discredited ancient art as being 'art' because it doesn't fit with 'our' concept of art. It cited that the Mayans didn't create their art to be looked at, but for religious reasons. I call bullshit on this...

Now, I've never been to SF MoMA, but I have been to NY MoMA (same shit, New York) and I think it's safe to assume that they show the same type of bull. I saw everything from a canvas featuring the color green to a kinda cool looking chair. Can this really be considered art that is worthy of a place in a museum?

Really?

The above chair is featured at NY MoMA. Why?

This is the kind of stuff that doesn't inspire me at all. In fact it does quite the opposite. People will pay to go to a museum to see this stuff while the real art in the world is deprived of the valuable space taken up by this crap.

I see that there is artist value in some of this stuff, but that doesn't mean that it needs to be showcased in a museum as if it represents our times or something. My hatred of Modern Art doesn't mean I don't understand it. I understand it fine. I just think it's worthless.

Art in my opinion should have a purpose. One color on a canvas has no purpose unless you bullshit one. I can appreciate the color green somewhere else, get this canvas out of the museum and put up a work of art please.

Art that was made 400 plus years ago had meaning and purpose. Otherwise it wasn't bothered with. Michelangelo and Leonardo created with purpose and meaning. The purpose and meaning can be debatable, but we know it's there. Each work says something.

Modern art does something rather strange. Instead of trying to recapture any meaning or purpose, it decides to abandon it and have none. Instead, Modern Art creates that which looks good or just interesting and sits there.

This does not inspire me.

Behold, Art that is inspiring to me.

New Grange.
No one quite knows what those spirals mean.

Godzilla, representative of the nuclear bomb.

Tyrael, the angel from Diablo 2.
Representative of Heaven's hope for mankind.

Cowboy Bebop. Anime series. Watch it.

Amazing church windows.

Celtic High Cross. Covered in hieroglyphs representative of Bible stories.

The Monastery of St. Kevin.

Now this is just kind of a handful of visuals that mean something to me and therefore inspire. I'm inspired by a lot of different things (especially ancient art). I'm not impressed by things that simply are. I'm impressed by things that are there for something. Art, to me, represents life, or some aspect of it. Art that is meaningless represents the meaningless life and therefore does not appeal to me.

Surrealist, religious, written, even anime... it all means something to me, and is created to mean something. The reason why the 'art critics' have a different definition of Art than most people have isn't because they have taste and we don't. It's because they have lost sight of what art is supposed to be and has been for years. Art is the celebration of life in any form. Art that is meaningless cannot celebrate life because life has meaning.

Politics: The Ultimate of Dumbshittery.

2008-09-29T17:00:00.001-04:00

RepresentativePress on youtube. Go subscribe. Now.

http://www.youtube.com/user/representativepress

Rep-Press made this probably assuming that the bill would pass. As we can see, it didn't. As you can see, I made comments earlier about the bailout compromising our capitalism. For the record, Obama came out in favor of it, McCain said 'maybe'. But, we'll never know with absolute certainty because neither of them got to vote for it.

But, it would have been SOMETHING DONE rather than NOTHING DONE, so the market was depending on it. It has now come out that some sort of partisan argument started by Pelosi (so say the republicans) caused some people to vote against it. 95 of the democrats voted against this bill (140 for it), and Pelosi has come out saying that the democrats held their end of the bargain. Rather difficult to accurately say when well over a third of their house members voted against it.

Republicans voted against it rather overwhelmingly (65 yes 133 no). Looking at this bill, it's not very republican. It spends a lot and involves a form of socialism. Even though McCain had talked about backing it, the conservative agenda doesn't normally go for this kind of thing.

The Scorecard for the 700 Billion Dollar Bailout Bill
The ultimate result of this has been that the Dow Jones Industrial has fallen like a damn rock. Today it lost 777.68 points putting it back near the 10,000 mark at 10,365.45. The Do-Nothing Congress has once again done nothing. They need to immediately go back to the drawing board and create SOMETHING that will fix this situation. Economy dropping like a rock coupled with no gas in the southeast (where I live) is killing the morale of the people.

Politics: The Presidential Debates: ROUND ONE

2008-09-28T16:20:00.001-04:00

Wow this was depressing.

I watched this with another McCain supporter, three Obama supporters, and an independent. We were all surprisingly relaxed with one another while the candidates talked nonsensically about the issues. There was one major thing that brought us together, our mutual hatred for both the candidates.

Since his nomination, I've been a McCain supporter. I hated Obama from the beginning, and still hate him. The only thing that could have gotten me to vote for him would have been if he chose Richardson as his running mate. But he didn't, and probably because Richardson is Latino.

But all that aside, the debate was horrible. I watched the Saddleback Church 'debate' in which both candidates were brought on the stage in a controled situation and asked the same questions. I thought Obama danced around most of the questions whereas McCain answered straight-on which garnered my respect (whether I agreed with him or not). I was hoping for a round two of McCain actually answering questions while Obama put on his point shoes to dance around questions.

The first question was asked and both candidates wasted their time giving the boring thank-yous and introducing themselves with little mini stump-speeches. Then the moderator had to verbally slap them by asking the question again. I figured that the problem would not persist and both candidates would at least be better about it for the rest of the debate.

First question is about a minute into the video.

The rest of the debate was a travesty. Both candidates danced around the question by either not addressing anything remotely close to the subject of the question or by redefining the question and THEN answering their own question (Edwards used to do this by outright saying 'the real question is' and then answering it).

Note Gravel answered the question HEAD ON. The other two didn't even touch the issue. Ballerina alert on Obama. What the heck does that have to do with the question? At least Edwards tried to answer the question before redefining the question and then not answering it.

This is a major problem with presidential candidates. I want to see some answers from the candidates at some point. This has gotten sooo irritating for me. It seemed that the only two candidates who never danced around a question were Mike Gravel for the democrats and Ron Paul for the republicans, and neither of them were given any value for it.

It's depressing.

Politics: 700 Billion Bailout Plan?

2008-09-26T16:45:00.002-04:00

Nevermind that Obama supports this blank check (or at least a form of it) as well. Moveon.org loves to bend facts when they're not completely lying. This is a bi-partisan issue that I'm not quite sure whether or not I support because I don't know enough about it. But here's what I do know.

Apparently this new bill is being worked on to bail out some companies whose success would help the economy and whose failure would hurt the economy. There hasn't been a list of companies posted anywhere that I know of, nor is there any real cap on the amount of money being spent.

The way the thing is written, it gives the treasurer the right to bail out Wall Street by using a process which I don't completely understand yet, but is limited to using 700 Billion dollars at one time. Then, it goes on without any specification to how many 'times' the damn thing can be used. So if used twice to its limits, 1.4 trillion dollars could be spent to bail out the economy, thus putting us further and further into debt and... destroying the economy?

700 billion dollars of government money being put into the free-market compromises our capitalism. This is a direction that several governments have gone before us. This is bringing a few terms to mind: Communism, Socialism, Command Economy... etc. I just saw one of the penguins down in our government say that he "hoped" this would be temporary. THAT has been heard before several times in history.

America has some problems.

This is a weird bill that's being put through. But all the penguins down at the senate and house seem to support it. I just got done watching Pelosi talk about the progress being made, and McCain just said that significant progress was made yesterday so he's deemed it alright to debate today rather than be absent from the debates.

I'm not quite sure how all this is going to play out. But this whole thing makes me shift in my seat a little. It just smells bad. A lot of limits need to be put on this thing if my understanding of it is correct, and I hope there's a lot of limitations I don't know about. But if there are, the media isn't showing them the light of day.

This could be compared to FDRs New Deal, or it could be compared to something completely different. I hope it works.

Watch and wait.

Art History: The First Graffiti Artist?

2008-09-26T11:42:00.002-04:00

An airbrushed hand at Lascaux Cave

There's a painting in Lascaux Cave that has a negative image of a hand surrounded by a red nova that could have been created by modern spray paint. The red fades into the rock behind it at different lengths around the circle before it disappears completely. The middle two fingers are a little close together, and look as if the artist had injured or deformed fingers. Both of these being a great possibility along with the possibility that the human hand has simply evolved from what it used to be.

This piece seems to me that it should win an award for first graffiti. It looks as if someone put their hand up against the wall and spray painted over their hand which could be the first 'Ug was here' graffiti. This makes me wonder what was the point of him making the little hand print. And did he get punished for it?

Maybe it was supposed to be part of a bigger picture, but this is certainly quite different from the largely animalistic nature of the rest of the paintings in the cave. If this wasn't graffiti, maybe it was that kindergarten project in which you're supposed to make a turkey out of your hand, or perhaps it was simply artistic experimentation with the primitive air brush. Either way, I love to think of it as the first artistic practical joke.

Art History: What is Art with a capital A?

2008-09-25T22:57:00.001-04:00

On the first day of my Art History class, the definition of "Art, capitol A" was challenged. Apparently the modern definition refuses to accept things with aspects to them other than art, such as the Woman of Willendorf. The Woman of Willendorf was probably a religious artifact of some kind that might have been used in ritual or perhaps was a pregnant woman's self portrait.

Woman of Willendorf

Art is apparently to be looked at. Modern Art fits this model with its strange blocky colors slapped onto a canvas and hung in a museum. I'm still trying to familiarize myself with Modern Art, so I don't quite understand it.

After this class, I wrote on my notebook the following:

"Art with a capitol A has been put on a pedestal by so many critics that it's hard to appreciate the artistic value of the simple world. Art the way I see it is therefore broadly unappreciated. With this in mind, Art with a capitol A is, in my opinion, inferior as a presentation of art. Where religious artistic endeavors are multi-purpose, 'Art' only has a solitary purpose."

To expand on that, I look to one of the two pieces that I have been presented with, 'Dancing Hunter' from Catal Hoyuk, one of the pre-Sumerian settlements from about 6000 BCE. I don't have the art history book yet, but I can infer from what I know of the time period and the location that this is probably religious as well, given that in this time almost all art was religious in some fashion. Pagan religions in this time drove humans to make paintings to honor the many thousands of gods or singular god in their religions. This is apparent in the art from Ireland on the stones guarding the Hill of Tara or New Grange from a similar time period.

Dancing Hunter

New Grange is an underground temple in Eastern Ireland that was designed to honor one of the solstices. The temple has stones with spirals all over them around the entrances. These spirals show up in other artistic/religious works of the early Irish pagans. No one quite knows what they mean, but they are definitely religious art.

New Grange

Two aspects of this suggest that the Dancing Hunter is religious to me. First of them is the fact that it exists in the first place. Without the religious drive to create art, most people in these periods of time were more focused on surviving than anything else. The second is the fact that the Hunter is dancing. The dance is probably to celebrate an ancient pagan god. Dancing during the neolithic age was a common religious practice, and I actually don't know of any other reason for dancing in that age. Most areas in which we dance in modern society either didn't exist in that age, or the purpose of celebration was supplanted with honoring their god or gods.

So, considering all this, is the Dancing Hunter Art with a capitol A? Probably not with the religious connotation. It might have been made to look at, or as a house decoration, but that wasn't the sole purpose of it. The painting has a number of other purposes than 'being art'. In my personal opinion, this qualifies as art, or at least artistic.

Film: Mobster Mountain Dew

2008-09-25T19:56:00.002-04:00

While I'm posting some of my older stuff, here's something I made about a year ago. It involved about two hours of filming and editing to make seventeen seconds of goodness.

This video doesn't really speak as much for me anymore since Mello Yello is all I drink. At the time I made this, I liked both of them but I still liked Mountain Dew a little better. Since then I've changed completely.

This video was made to practice some stop motion and get myself familiar with editing on iMovie. It wound up being kind of a failure for the sake of practice since I should have been practicing in Final Cut rather than iMovie from a professional perspective. But anywho, I got a nice video out of it.