this was written a while back, but:

(12/17/10)

So my mother was "watching" (read: she had the TV on but was on her laptop) something about, i think, France in the first half of the 20th century, & all the vibrant things & people who were inspired by it, especially Paris (oh wait, maybe it was all about Paris). And Marcel Duchamp came up & at first i had my gut reaction in my head of "EEEUUUURRRGGGHHHHHH DUCHAMP" because Fountain i just really kind of want to stick it out a window or something somewhere. Not a major fan of "readymades." But then it was mentioned that Duchamp felt like art was already there in the idea, that something like painting was merely an "accessory." And i find that really interesting, actually (& then i'm like, "BUT IT'S DUCHAMP WHAT AM I DOING AGREEING WITH R. MUTT BOY ARRRGGGH" & then i rip my shirt & epic stuff like that. i know, right?). Concepts are kind of interesting to me right now, especially when i go through my stuff & find something that i made back when i was a kid, but now it's loaded with all this extra stuff (meaning, baggage, whatever) caused by the passage of years. That was obviously never intended, but it's there. And i wonder if i could now put it in a room with blank white walls & a little piece of paper next to it, with a title or even "untitled," & call it art & would others accept that? Would i accept that?



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Also, unrelated but important:
-Whole Foods Supports...GE Alfalfa?
-Hell Breaks Loose: USDA Allows Genetically Modified Alfalfa
-The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto: What Now?

Nice to know Obama & Whole Foods & the USDA really care, isn't it? That's sarcasm, by the way. I'm absolutely disgusted & pissed off right now.

What's actually going on with Betelgeuse

Betelgeuse and 2012
“The actual science in the original article is pretty good; they talked with scientist Brad Carter who discusses the scenario of Betelgeuse going supernova. The whole story is pretty interesting — I wrote about it in detail the last time there was nonsense about Betelgeuse blowing up — but in a nutshell Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star in Orion with about 20 times the mass of the Sun, and it’s very near the end of its life. When stars this massive die, they explode as supernovae. The distance to Betelgeuse is unclear (it has a very puffy outer atmosphere which makes distance determination somewhat dicey) but it’s something like a bit more than 600 light years, way way too far away to hurt us.

“It’s the question of when that the two articles [the news.com.au & Huffington Post articles] go off the rails. Betelgeuse may explode tomorrow night, or it may not go kerblooie until the year 100,000 A.D. We don’t know. But given that huge range, the odds of it blowing up next year are pretty slim. And clearly, the original article was really trying to tie in the 2012 date to this, even when it has nothing to do with anything. The tie-in was a rickety link to scuttlebutt on the web about it, but that’s about it.”

If you’ve read the original Australian article (from a news source that is apparently the Aussie version of Fox News) &/or the mentioned Huffington Post article, you should probably read this one. We’re not going to die; Betelgeuse could go now or way later, & we’re not going to get a Tatooine twin sun effect. Also, try to spread it around, to counteract the false science being spread around all over the place, even on "serious" news outlets. It's really pretty pathetic when you think about it.

(Four days till spring semester. :((((((((( )

from my book for the sketchbook project 2011 tour.
here is a map of places where you can go to see it in person.

please visit it if you can.


also, cow mug:

looking like the simple dog from Hyperbole and a Half

Today is kind of a crappy day, so here are pictures of the paintings of the fall '10 semester. Why not, right.










The spring semester doesn't start until the end of the month, & i'm not looking forward to it. Maybe other people do, or can, but i think the best feeling is when you finish your last final & the semester is just done, over with, & gone. I never look forward to them. More like dread.

oh my

I have a few more followers now. Crazy!


Anyway, the last bits of stained glass. First, a kind of better picture of the second window:



And finally, a few of the third & final window (Nov-Dec '10):




For the final window, i documented most of the process in pictures-- just in case. I kind of think it'd be nice to do this again in the future, but the tools are all so expensive.

Also did more paintings in the course of the semester (well, duh), which was really hard to get through, all things considered. But i don't really feel like uploading all those pictures right now (i'm about to actually turn the computer off; isn't that nice), so here's a group shot of them all.