McCarthyism.




Book of the dead & detained of Iran in recent months. Far from finished; when finished, will not even hold all the names/faces.






Like a painting.










Jesus, Buddha, & Mohammed chilling out while Edward Cullen gets ground into sparkly sugar










From Maggie's last visit.





























seemingly random & unrelated note: have been listening to a lot of Tori Amos' music.

Brownie in a mug! With ice cream. I feel so gluttonous, but it actually came out well! It's kinda spiffy.

This is the recipe i found for it. I just ended up using the dark chocolate cocoa instead of the regular.

some stuff

Much of these are also on my DeviantArt account.

Far be it from me to keep anyone from doing something they like, especially when it comes to visual art. But i feel like the words "art" & "artist" (& maybe even "creative") get thrown around a lot. Maybe it's just me. And i'm the person who doesn't call herself an "artist" despite years of magnet school + college major classes. It just feels pretentious to me to call myself that. (But i'm also extremely uncomfortable with labeling. Like, i really don't like labeling at all.) And since i find that pretentiousness stupid, isn't it hypocritical kind of be like, "dude, why are you just gluing magazine pictures in your journal/sketchbook & then making little swirly doodles & then writing quotes"? It's hypocritical, stuck-up, & rude of me. I mean, if it makes them happy, right?

To contradict myself even further (liek omigod dont u just luv it???!!!11!!??/), i have discovered something else art related that aggravates me: the whole "oooooooo mystical; ooooooooo muse" thing. I feel like i've read quotes pertaining to this sort of thing. Really, seriously, art is not this ooooo wiggly fingers mysteeeeeerious thing that only certain people can do & ooooo the muuuuse, the muuuuse & diviiiine gifts & inspiration-- No. Really. Seriously. Maybe there's such a thing as talent, maybe not (i once saw, in high school, something in a friend's sketchbook about "What is talent?" & how it probably doesn't really exist; it's haunted me ever since). Maybe talent is dependent on how you take & use (or choose not to use) what you've been taught. Because, honestly, without classes or self-teaching, how many times is someone going to tell you that you have "talent"? Exactly. It's called "taking art classes that teach you stuff, or teaching yourself stuff."

Maybe the fact that i'm such a non-religious heathen also plays into why this idea annoys me, but really, it just makes it seem ohsomysticalandmysterious, when really, anyone who either has access to good visual art programs or the drive to teach themselves can learn how to draw. (And even then, like art in general, "learning how to draw" is probably subjective. Though i would assume that most people take it to mean drawing representationally?) It's not some gift from some god, it's not "divine inspiration." If you want to wax philosophical on the "magic" of something being made that wasn't there before, okay fine, i can see that. But all this new age-y mystical stuff that seems to still persist & surround visual art (&, what do i know, maybe other art as well) is just eye-roll inducing. Maybe not everybody can do whatever they consider to be art, but everybody can probably learn, one way or another.


contadictscontradictscontradicts

So on the eighth, i went to the public library with a list of names, of books, authors, & musicians, to go check. After wandering around for an hour (i thought they opened at 8; they open at 9 a.m.), i was finally able to go & complete this mission. Alot of the names weren't there, but a few were, & i came away with three books & five CDs. I wandered around Towson the rest of the day, & only bought The Golden Compass (used at Ukazoo), a turkey club wrap at Trader Joe's (i was so hungry i felt sick), & a cinnamon latte at the resident Barnes & Nobles' Starbucks cubby (& drew & listened to people whilst eating & drinking).

The books & CDs are due back a little more than a week from now, & i'm only just now actually getting through most of the CDs, i'm in the middle of one of the books, finished another, & the third i still need to do. But i already roughly know the plot of the third, as it is The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett, & i'm more than well acquainted with the movie. So i've just kind of flipped through it, & i think i might like the movie better, if i ever get around to reading this: there's a lot of "Jesuses" in the book, it seems, & while i'm One of Those Horrible Little Heathens more often than not, the feeling of the book doesn't seem the same as the movie.

The book i finished is Haruki Murakami's After Dark (if you want to write his name the Western way). I think Murakami's name is fairly prevalent when it comes to books, & so i picked up this book based off the dust jacket's little summary; it sounded interesting enough. It's also not a long book (just shy of 200 pages at 191), but i still didn't fly through it because i kept falling asleep early. And, as the setting is nighttime, i thought it only proper that i read it at night into the small hours of the morning.

The whole book takes place over the course of one night, starting at 11:56 p.m. & working its way on from there. After reading it, i can say that while the jacket's little summary could be called correct, it's also way off the mark. It makes everything sound like it follows a very linear plot, the kind that's recognizable in most stories. And there is something like that, but mostly the book reads very realistically, in that there are many unsolved things & people walk in & out of it the way they might over the course of a night. The summary claims that one of the characters' sleep is "mysteriously tied to the businessman plagued by the mark of his crime," but there's no revelatory part in the book where this is displayed. Maybe it's something tucked away in the story, something that makes you go "oh" when you make the connection. There is something of an obvious connecting bit, but it doesn't go beyond that; it doesn't elaborate.

There are some stranger bits to the story, concerning the sleeping character, Eri, & the unplugged TV in her room that turns itself on. But the majority of the story focuses on her sister, Mari, a little younger than she, & the events & people she meets when she stays out away from home one night. At first, the rhetoricalness of anonymity might be annoying, but if you keep reading, it steadily gets better. You can also pick out the differences between countries-- for me, between Japan & my place in America-- such as the convenience stores (konbini in Japan, apparently, genuinely live up to their name) & the concept of love hotels (&, i may be wrong, but i don't think Denny's over here stay open quite as late as the Denny's in the book?).

The characters are from all walks of life, as hackneyed as it sounds: Mari (a freshman college student herself) meets Takahashi, who's in a band; Kaoru, who is the manager of the love hotel Alphaville & works alongside Komugi & Korogi there; & a young Chinese prostitute, who ends up being beaten by a man who comes to the love hotel. Eventually the man who beat her comes into play, as well, & reading about his thoughts & doings, you wonder why he did it, what kind of man is he, really? But you don't ever find out much about him. Much is left unsaid & unknown about pretty much everyone in the book, & certain issues never climax. It's in a somewhat stark contrast compared to most other books, where authors try to try everything up neatly by the end. In that way, it seems more realistic: you're only seeing a portion of time that these people are all passing through. You discover bits about their pasts, but not everything, & you don't know their future. There's forboding signs for some, hopeful for others, but you don't know what's going to happen to them. The reader just simply isn't told. In that way, it's a fairly open-ended novel.

Of course, the fact that the book is translated from the Japanese can leave people to wonder about discrepencies between the original language & the one it's being translated to-- philologistical stuff like that. (At some point, i found myself wondering just how Takahashi & Mari were speaking, if they were using anything that got lost in translation.) But even with that in mind, it's well-done. It's written in the present tense & describes things as "we recognize the bed," & is very easy to read, &, i want to say, personable. I was kind of expecting it to be written the way many modern novels seem to be written, which i can't quite describe, really, but it's very often off-putting. But i didn't find anything off-putting about After Dark. The beginning made me despair a little, thinking that it was going that route, but as time went on, i was proven wrong. It's a strange kind of point of view: sometimes the reader knows things the characters in the story don't, but very often, the reader knows just about as much/little as anyone else.

For some, it might seem like a strange book written in a kind of strange way, & maybe the lack of a real definitive plot & resolution to things-- & there's something at the end that's a bit of an eyebrow raiser, maybe-- but overall it's an extremely likable, well-written, intriguing & interesting book. I think i'd like to buy it, myself. The only thing was that i did feel rather distanced from the characters-- not that i always take to characters in every book i read, but something about these people felt more distant than from other books. I mean, i liked them all, & at one point i definitely had worry flare up for Takahashi, so there was connection. It just felt odd to have such a palpable feeling of distance.

The last book is a book of short stories by Lorrie Moore & is called Birds of America. I am three stories away from being finished, but... i don't even know. This book is probably partially the reason for my current mood, & it keeps doing that. The praise for the book that they put on the cover talks about how it's "fiercely funny book," & "at once sad, funny, lyrical, & prickly." I don't know where these people are getting "funny" from, & maybe it's unfair of me to basically review & critique the book before finishing it, but i've read enough to say that i probably can't quite land on how i feel about this book. I think i like it, but i also think i hate it.

I can't decide if i like or dislike Moore's style, either. (This book is one huge ball of "i like it.... i hate it.") It's the kind of modern writing that i was worried After Dark would be filled of, & i don't feel like i can pick out any passage or sentence that would work as an example. Looking through, it feels like it has to do with how the story as a whole is written, & how it sticks together. I don't know how to put this "modern writing" into words: with Moore, i guess, there's a lot of weird-ish descriptions, a lot of depressing situations. I can't describe it, seriously; just find a copy & read it yourself. Or just one story, if Amazon or someplace will give the story list.

The feeling of so many of the stories is just so bleak & sad; as the back of the book says, they really are about "the lost & unsettled of America." A few of them end in a way that leaves you confused, with a lot of strange descriptions, things happening suddenly & confusingly (was he dreaming? is he hallucinating? why is she a bird all of a sudden?) & just kind of left there. It's a different open-endedness than After Dark's. It's not the kind that implies that time moves forward & you as the reader won't see all ends. This is just a confusing open-endedness, like at the last moment, the story took a sudden strange & inexplicable-- sometimes inexplicably unrealistic-- turn. At the absolute end of the story. It gives you the feeling of, you know, it's bad enough i just read this depressing short story, but now the ending makes no sense whatsoever. The only story i can think of off the top of my head that had a slightly more uplifting end was the second one, "Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People."

I'm not saying, "How dare Lorrie Moore write sad stories!" Who doesn't write or make sad things, & who doesn't listen to/watch/read/look at/whatever sad things? They're completely relevant & needed. Maybe for me, it's more the circumstances that Moore's characters seem to end up in that i find frustrating. A lot of it has to do with relationships, it seems, including the occaisional mention of an affair somewhere & that type of emotional wreckage. The woman at her family's over the holidays with her dyslexic husband. The woman whose boyfriend confesses that he slept with another woman who was of the 1960s. The woman who moves away from Hollywood & her bit as a small-time actress & starts going out with some guy & it seems like her what can't even be called a life is just crumbling & old & decrepit & that story makes no sense, i tell you. I think maybe the misunderstandings & the feeling of overanalysis are what i find frustrating. No, nothing's ever simple, but why can't people just believe in some things a little more? Reading these stories seems to hit on a lot of things that make me sad, & so they don't put me in the best mood ever. I even took ages to read two today, in front of the TV while MythBusters was on, thinking maybe that could counteract the sadness. Needless to say, it didn't. But at the same time, i can't help but like the book. I don't understand, really.

eurgh, why do i look vaguely like some hipster or something? & you can't even see the bracelets in this.

i'm just really sick of hipster indie cleverness. i mean, i'm a cynical person, but apparently i have my moments of optimism (perish the thought), & this "cleverness" that just seems to pervade most sites i end up on seems somewhat opposite of feeling, if that makes any sense...? like, okay, fine, you can write some word or some quote in your neat little artsy lettering, or you can get some skinny-ass girl to bend over like she's in despair or something, but guess what? your "indie-ness" is hackneyed. it's overused, it's not fresh. i'm uncomfortable now with some of the images i've saved onto this thing (still-unnamed-laptop) because they're the kind i'm starting to get sick of. or just, i don't know, it's difficult to describe.

i'm not trying to insult anyone, or their way of being or ideas of beauty. it just seems like there's some sort of glut on such images, where some sort of modern writer's quote has been written in fancy lettering in a moleskinnie, next to either some "artsy" drawing or a model cut out from a magazine. and, just, i'm sure many, if not all, of such images are still made from feeling & honest intentions, but you see it everywhere now, so that it feels forced, it feels overused, & you find yourself asking, now, is this actually the person's style, or are they just trying to be "artsy," & trying too hard? it feels hackneyed & dull, & devoid of true feeling. this obviously goes into what each individual thinks is "art," of course, which is a discussion i always hate to get into, because people can get so angry (it ranks up there with religion & politics, which seems kind of odd, if you think about it) because it's so individual to a person. i found myself backed into a corner one day when i made a face at mentioning Thomas Kinkade, & was asked why i felt that way. i can't even really name it; it's just something about that stuff that turns me off & away. but that doesn't hold up as an argument. it all depends on the person, & oftentimes, likes & dislikes don't come with a nice explanation tacked on. sometimes dislikes can be very mean & hurtful.

but really, all in all, i just feel sick & tired of seeing these "artsy" little things that don't feel right. they feel like they're trying too hard, more like they're trying to fit into a lifestyle more than anything else. they don't feel sincere, they feel jaded. i think that's what's bothering me the most. me, a total pessimist, feels like these things are jaded in the most uncomfortable way. i can't describe it; i feel like there's a difference to my cynical pessimism-- in which i can be very mean, very uncaring about pretty much everything-- & the weird, artsy jaded feeling that i get from these drawings & pictures & things. i feel like outright, "fuck-the-world-because-it-sucks" pessimism feels more real than some overused quote in fancy lettering next to some skinny pretty magazine model. i mean, hello. how the hell does that add up, how does that work?

i'm probably being contradictory in my arguments, & a hypocrite to boot. but i really fail to see how these are so liked, when so many of them feel like void. i think you can tell when someone's bullshitting & when they're not. when they're trying too hard to sound or look or seem "artsy" & "different." i'm not saying i'm any better. oftentimes i feel like one could look through my own sketchbook & see that. but then, on the other hand, you have to try out new & different things, & not feel shackled to one way of making or doing things. apparently, writers get told there is a finite number of plots; music students get told there are a finite number of scales. you don't really have that in visual art. maybe that's why so many people just go & do whatever. on the one hand, i know what things make me roll my eyes, but on the other, how bad would it be if we were told, "well, you can't do x, y, & z." and that does get said, i think, in some places. what, you want to do narrative art? that's illustration; ewwww-- like it's any less of an art? simply because it's narrative & not artsily abstract & filled with the current "artsy" trappings, & is devoid of an artist statement like, "i am interested in the spaces between people and the planets and birds sitting on wires." (i dunno, that doesn't illustrate my point, i don't think.)

what it comes down to, i guess, is just that i have these certain preferences. i feel like certain things try too hard to be stereotypically "indie" or "artsy," & that this seems to be the prevailing idea nowadays when it comes to art. it seems more about some sort of lifestyle that's been glamorized that people want to have. it's not about making things, or you can tell when it's sincere & when it's bullshit, when it's just about "omg look i'm so, like, different & artsy." maybe i'm being mean & hypocritical & maybe i just need to shut up & let people just be. but it's just been nagging me a little bit more recently. it's like, it wants to try & be artsy & maybe glamorizes a lifestyle & emotions & things (especially more depressive emotions, because i guess that's artsy too. i don't even know. don't glamorize feeling like shit, come on), but it feels jaded & devoid of actual emotion. like, i mean, going with the whole idea of "feeling depressive is suddenly cool or something"-- i think there's something behind the idea that more creative types have issues (or whatever you want to call it), which lends itself to creating (when it's not debilitating), but i think that there are people who have taken that notion & glamorized it, like it's cool or something, or the hallmark of a true artist. of course, most people might say they wouldn't give up such horrible feelings, because when they're happy, they can't make anything worthwhile. i'm not talking about that, not about people who actually feel this way because that's just their temperament, how they are; i'm talking about people who, it just feels like in trying too hard & trying to have this lifestyle, they reason that, well, they ought to feel depressed too, but oh, what a lovely thing it must be. they romanticize it & turn it into something more pleasant. some romantic ideas, you know, may feel near the mark or close to home to someone who really actually has such feelings, but the whole idea of it being "cool" & marketable somehow, & of "collages" consisting of pretty, skinny, kind-of-worried-looking model girls & oh, just look at the depths of my emotion-- it's worthy of many an eyeroll. and i'm probably being mean again. have you seen me capitalized anything but proper nouns? most might chalk this up to be being "artsy." i call it being in a chair that demands you switch positions, one of which is not very condusive to using the shift key very often, so i get lazy. the point of that tangent being, really, that i probably cannot talk, that i do & maybe even feel things that could be exactly what i claim to dislike.

and even so, it is all simply my own feelings. and really, i wouldn't force them on anyone. not even when i see a canvas painted white would i want someone to decree what you can & can't do in art. because really, it's awesome that it has room to do so much in, & is so flexible, & all that. that doesn't keep me from feeling aggravated with certain aspects of it. and the same could go for anything (& really, i'm pretty annoyed by a lot of things): "artsy" things, clueless preps ("what does 'habitual' mean?" swear to god. and we are in COLLEGE), vulgar gangsta boys, vulgar males in general (remember, i want to deck the douches, which include at least two of my cousins!), &c., &c. and at the same time you have to remember that there are exceptions to the rule, & that people are people, with lives & feelings. but a lot of the time, it feels so aggravatingly unfair to have to remember that when you're fed up with things, when other people are so carelessly unthinking. so, i don't know, OH WELL, we're going to get angry & annoyed with people, & we're going to bitch. that's what i do just about every single day. and i get accused of making sweeping generalizations. so you see just what kind of a person i am.

all this because of some derpy-ass webcam picture; what the hell. and my japanese final is soon, & then russian one is at 3, & i'm tired & feeling kind of lonely & cold & hungry. yeah, i know, "b'awwwww, poor baby, now shut the fuck up." oh well.

errrr.

So i put my monotype of post-being-bombed-by-Luftwaffe England up on DeviantArt, & got this comment:

Very powerful image, the technique works well with your style, what kind of printing technique is it?
War is so sad, you can see it in his pose/body language too!
It would be interesting if you did an image of the bombings that happened afterwards in Germany, it would be like seeing the repercussions of our actions, and how no one wins in the end. lol maybe Im getting too deep there XD

I always end up getting comments like this from people who know more about certain things than i do. Like, my “Mythology for England” thing, & someone commented like, “Why not do one for Greece with the myths? :)” The last time i admitted that i didn’t know a Classical story (it was Theseus & the Minotaur), the reaction was, “Oh. Where do you live? ….Oh. :|” Of course, i’m American, so i’m an ignorant asshole! OF COURSE!

So yeeeaaaaaahhhhh…. it’s just kind of sort of really awkward. ._____. Just kind of.