The single most important thing about art is context.

Meaning, medium, message, skill, idea, beauty -- all of those are completely worthless without context. And that is the difference in 'modern art' (i.e. contemporary art) that makes people go "waah, so-and-so is paid ridiculous amounts of money to splatter paint on a canvas and I'm not appreciated for drawing photorealistic pictures of elves!" The paint-splatterer has context. Context is the difference between amateur and professional.

Now, I did just say that without context it's all worthless -- but at the same time I don't mean to say that anyone should stop doing whatever they are doing. For all means draw, people! It's great fun, you're doing yourselves nothing but favours in being creative in any way you like (keeping your mind active through creative processes will help you in the long run). I'm not saying there is no value whatsoever in having a creative hobby. It's just like the difference between having an interest in crime fiction and being a detective. I simply ask you to see this difference. Without context it is nowhere near being professional.

Now admittedly, I am only talking about what I know, which is fine (read: useless) art. I'm not talking about the useful arts of making pretty pictures for other purposes (illustration, decoration, design, advertising...) because those other purposes hold very little interest for me. So, again I'm not exactly saying that you can't be a professional creative without context (though I will be very very surprised if you are - I'm sure even designers are aware of their context).

Context is really difficult. It's knowing what's around, it's the other things that exist that influence meaning and effect. A crude example: if I were to make a piece of art where a dead diver was suspended in a humongous tank, knowing the context (=Damien Hirst's shark-in-a-huge-tank -thing) makes it what it is. Without the context it isn't what it is, and frankly, I don't know what it would be. Possibly nothing.

Obviously this is a huge simplification to illustrate a point. Context is far more than one piece of work by one artist, and it's not limited to art: context is the culture, the time we live in, the moods and tastes of the world, the things we feel and think about - everything. That's why it's important, because it's the only thing that ties art into everything else. Art is not a solitary practice. No man is an island and so forth.

I think the question that needs to be asked is the same important question that is presented to us in the end of that viral Muppet Show video Mana Mana: What is a Mana Mana? Err, no, sorry, that's not it, I meant the other question: who cares? So what? Context is about as important to artists as having webbed feet is to a duck: it doesn't affect very many people in the end, so if you are not a duck, I mean, an artist, why would you care? If I just have told you in no uncertain terms that you are not really an artist, why should you care about context? Well, because it makes what you do so much better. It actually helps. And the principle of context can be applied across the board, to all walks of life. So maybe I have something to say that might be useful to learn (I say maybe because I'm pretty much typing this off the top of my head and I have no idea where it's going anymore, so I might forget to say anything useful in the end).

So lets have another simplified example. If you were an ET artist, making the kind of art that populates ET, what would you do with the principle of context? First, you'd need to look around you. See what everybody else is doing. For the sake of the example we'll restrain it to ET (though in actuality you'd need to be looking at a lot of stuff. A lot). There are people here that are doing a Thing, their Thing, and that is the most interesting sort of work that can be done (anyone who isn't doing their own Thing is probably doing someone else's Things - which is fine, that's how a lot of people start, but that's not an interesting Thing to do so finding your own Thing is pretty important).
Second, because so many people are doing their Thing, there are a lot of Things, and some of them are more similar than others. So for the sake of context you'd need to be able to identify Things that other people do that are similar to what you do. Note, I didn't say "look similar to what you do". I don't meant that the work/pictures/medium is similar, but that the Thing is similar. You are allowed to be a solitary genius with a completely unique look and style - but your Thing will still have some similarities with other people's Things. The long and short of it really is the ability to see connections (which is also a mark of genius: a genius will be able to see connections and associations between things that others wouldn't see) between what you do and what other people do.

So once you've kind of made yourself aware of what is around you, you will pretty much be thinking about that stuff even without me telling you to do so. But that's what I'm going to do anyway: think about stuff! That's the third on the list: look at stuff that other people have made, think about it, let it have an effect on your thinking, and let that thinking have an effect on your doing. And in anticipation of the plagiarism-accusations and 'z0mg art thief' -cries: just no. That has no bearing to this matter whatsoever. Context pretty much cancels the whole idea of stolen ideas, because all ideas of the world are a recycling -- with emphasis on the cycle: what we do affects what has been done in the past just as much as what we see having been done in the past affects what we do. It is not a linear progression. I call it 'standing on the shoulders of giants' - but you need to be on friendly terms with the giant in order to stand on him, and that way you both will reach higher. This is the purpose of art/culture/philosophy/human activity.

This mutual influence back and forth in time is a great big heavy responsibility that art has to bear. You musn't do something that'll ruin the past to lots of other people. That's why the 'real art' is such a protected discipline, not just about anyone can do it. A non-real artist can't ruin the past for others, only a real artist can. Because if you 'do it rong', you will wreack havoc amongst everything that we hold dear. An example is Tracey Emin and her unmade bed. Before that there was a theme in photography, it was a kind of a ticklish theme, very interesting, felt almost naughty... theme of these art photos of unmade beds. These beds had an aura, a mystery, a story. They talked about taboos, about human existence... And when Emin showed everybody her bed, she broke that boundary (which is good, don't get me wrong, breaking boundaries is important!) and those bed-photos lost some of that appeal they had. It was like seeing that glamorous rock star you idolise throwing up his liquid dinner in the gutter: you are better off having seen what you saw (increased knowledge etc) but at the same time... you will never look at him or listen to his music in the same way. Now imagine that somebody else had caused that loss to you and to lots of other people. That would sting. But still I maintain that stinging isn't bad, ruin isn't bad - but you do have to be careful.

To bring all that back to our ET-example, without knowing context, you might ruin another ETer's work. (Here I trust my readers to be responsible artists and not take this as a hint to use context as a weapon in whatever little feuds you have in ET. Really, art should transcend all of that.) So be careful with it.

* * *

Here I ran out of steam. I have no idea what made me write all that, it just kind of spilled out of me incontrollably. I was intending to simply mention that context is the most important thing and then move on to tell you about Extreme Reading and my jumbled thought-process about my anti-conclusionism, but somehow there isn't really space for all of that right now, sorry. :S I'll do those next, but they'll probably be really long entries too, so I apologise in advance to the less patient ones of you :3

And as a reward to all of yous who read all the way to the end (or at least scrolled down), a link to a really cool interactive web-toy-thing. http://www.onemotion.com/flash/spider/ One of the coolest things I've seen in a long while, and a really cool example of the new Flash 3D stuff that is emerging.

Went to have another vaccine yesterday, and the vaccination schedule effectively prevent me from going on the mission any time before mid-July. *sighs* This thing is constantly being pushed back and back and back, it's vey frustrating. And I'll have to duck when I tell my bishop that it's pushed back yet another month >_>

I'm contemplating changing my ET-stylesheet from the green to be a bit more inconspicuous for work. Because let's face it, it's very green.


I have far more interesting things to think about. I don't know why I made you read those boring bits before giving you the following interesting bits.


I have come to the conclusion observed that my life revolves around fear and fascination (which is convenient because when I did Experimental Practice in university my teacher told me to explore something I have both a fear and fascination for (which is where my choice of words comes from) and I think I botched some of my Exp.Prac module by exploring things I only had a fear or fascination for, not both - though I pulled through in the end, and clearly learnt something from all of it so issallgood). Anyhoo, back to my observation. I claim that any emotion, experience, thought, etc etc that I have is something that I have either a fear or a fascination (or both) for. And that everything I can observe can be catalogged under one of those three categories. Of course it's not quite as simple and straightforward as that since there are different decrees of fear and fascination, some things swap sides depending on other factors etc... But still, it's very good to know.

Also I have a new project idea (I should consider finishing some of my previous ones... >_> That drawing of a typewriter with the text about Snowden dying in Catch-22 bleeding out of it needs to be shot... I know someone who might be of help but I'll need to investigate...) for photography-typewriter-mailart. If you would like to be a part of it, give me your mailing address at some point (I won't give out any details right now, I'll try something out first, so it's one of those trust thingies - sides the surprise would be totally spoiled if I told you what it was all like :3)

As you know (or may not know), I commute to work, which means I get the daily newspaper Metro on the bus (yeah, England's awesome like that). And while this keeps me more or less posted on the what's on in the world, there are also some incredibly funny things there in the text messages section. And in the fear of forgetting them, I'll share a couple good ones with you now.

A couple weeks back there was all sorts of industrial action/strikes over jobs in Britain going to foreign labour, and these strikes were called wildcat strikes. So someone sent a text message to the Metro saying "These recent wildcat strikes are so frightening. I hope that the wildcat doesn't strike me."

And today someone sent a text saying "There was a message on the office printer saying 'Jam in tray 4'. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered only a crumpled sheet of paper stuck there."


Yes, that is pretty much the most exciting thing in my life right now. :P
^{Well ok, no it's not, my life is plenty exciting, but for some reason I'm out of that phase where I need to tell everybody everything. So yeah, feel free to ask and talk even though I'm pretty absent.}

This bizarre thing is making the rounds in Facebook. So here we go for my Facebook-deprived ET-friends:
The REALITY of iippo revealed

(because I like reading about people >_> So dooo eeet)

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.


1. My Finnish is really bad. Really. It's my native language, so I obviously understand it just fine and speak it too - but I speak it with a ridiculous English grammar, and I can't tell when I make ridiculous English grammar -influenced mistakes in Finnish.
2. This one most people should know: I'm planning to go on a mission. Hoping to leave aroud early June. It's for 18 months, and I can be sent literally anywhere in the world.
3. I love walking. I love being on the road. Ever so often I get the urge to go far and wide. The furthest I've walked so far is 30miles, from Coventry to Leicester. Took 16 hours.
4. I like machines. I don't know why. But I also want to be a Borg, or a Cylon (or have the Cylon Leoben's babies... <_<)
5. I also like older men (not sure if I should tell people that, but hey, it's random).
6. My taste in music is reversing along the decades: I started out liking 90s stuff back in the 90s, then change of millenium I got into punk and through that to other 70s stuff (I conveniently skipped the 80s), then I grew up a bit more and got into 60s stuff (Beatles, Stones and all the other classic rock), then I started liking rockabilly and proper rock n' roll with the King etc... and then I slid back a step and hit the crooners like Sinatra and co.
7. I don't take myself seriously, and therefore I struggle to take other people seriously.
8. Harpo Marx is my soulmate separated by a hundred years. I miss him, and can't wait to see him. ;_;
9. I had a personal Free Hugs campaign going on for a really long time. I wore a badge that offered free hugs. I got a lot of free hugs as a result, even from strangers, even in Coventry. That helped me believe a little bit in humanity. And I had my butt pinched only once.
10. Terms defined in the UrbanDictionarycom that define me are: "WoWBagger", "Butterfaith", "mouse potato", and "imaginary bluetooth"
11. I play pokemon. And no, it's not a thing like "I still play it" indicating that I used to as a kid. I started when I was over 18.
12. I can't wait to get old and be a granny and beat youngsters in the shins with a walking stick. :D This is my way of saying that I don't believe in the cult of youth.
13. I also don't believe in the cult of speed. I am for the Slow movement in every aspect of life.
14. I have crushes on pretty much everyone around me. A poet once said "I didn't fall in love; no, falling would be far too graceful for me - I face-planted." That describes me well.
15. I like my hair short - in fact, all shaved off. I could make a list of 25 points why it's best to be bald.
16. I should probably mention that I'm a properly trained Media Artist. That's still so weird to say: I'm a qualified artist.
17. My smile is man-made, and I love the fact.
18. I've decided that I want to die of hypothermia. It sounds like a fairly pleasant way to go, plus it'd be subtly ironic, because I'm such a chilly-cat and get cold easily.
19. Me and my dog turned 21 on the same year (that is, he turned 3 which in dog-years is 21). He's pretty much my best friend.
20. I'm dead afraid of wasps, bees and most flying, buzzing animals. There's a traumatic summer in the background there.
21. I'm stubbornly holding onto my mobile, which is 9 years old at the time of this writing and the back cover is held in place with masking tape... But if/when they close the GMT network and force everyone to go 3G, I shall boycott and not have a phone from then on.
22. I desperately want to play croquet and cribbage. Please someone play with me ;_;
23. I hate it when people praise Firefox at me. It's just a browser! Get over it! (I've also decided that to people who insist on telling me about how wonderful Firefox is, I will tell them how wonderful Jesus is).
24. I obsess over the "right colour" which is a sort of light-beige, off-white, old colour of tea stains and sand and light wood and pale skin etc etc etc... and only recently I found out why: it's the colour of all the light in the universe averaged out! (Sidenote: the opposite of the right colour is not the wrong colour, but the left colour).
25. I go to the cinema a lot by myself, because I'm selfish: I don't think anybody will like a movie, or get into the experience as much and as deeply as I do. Please someone prove me wrong :3

Halp halp and plz can I has some moar halp?

Alright my literate friends, I turn to you. I am faced with two questions. One is for me, one is for a friend. Firstly, mine, because it's 'easier' (that is, easier to write down, but it'll take more research).

I want a passage from a book that describes a character being shot and bleeding (preferably to death). It's for art. It has to be pretty long, because I'll type it with my typewriter (in red) and cut it up and use it in an art to make a puggle of blood (for a typewriter that is bleeding to death - all this makes so much more sense when- no, wait, it doesn't actually. But anyway, I need it all the same) - it's a big paper and a big puggle so I'll need big text. So far I've thought of Godfather, James Bond, The Dark Tower, 100 Years of Solitude, Silvie suggested No Country For Old Men. And preferably it'd be a book that is not super-recent (like... pre 90s maybe) so that there's a possibility it was written on a typewriter by a writer who could have possibly written stuff on a typewriter. And I'd like the death to be not particularly heroic, although at this point of shopping around, I'll look at even the heroic deaths (I don't want it to be heroic death because of this whole necronaut thing - "the necronaut doesn't die well, or right"). But even a heroic death might be necronautical death, we'll see.

[Edit] Nevermind, this is totally solved by the awesomeness that is Catch-22. Snowden's death is necronautical, a turning point for Yossarian, the book is a seminal piece of literature and it was written in the 1960s. Fits the bill perfectly. And the death-scene is dealt with in more than one place, so if it's too short at a point, we'll just take the next bit. :)

* * *

Then my friend's question.
I know this guy, and he's a bit like me (no, this isn't one of those stories where I try to admit to some problem by referring to "my friend" and meaning myself, I actually mean someone I know who actually asked me something he thought I'd know) - he's quirky. Arty. Shy. Anyway.
One time we were walking home on a Saturday night, and I stopped at the bookstore window (this is actually a really good story about High Fidelity, if I haven't told it you yet, do ask, it's good), and yesterday he called me and said that the way I was outside that bookstore window really left an impression on him. That he witnessed passion for books there, that I'm someone who doesn't only read to learn stuff, that I read because I love to, because I love books. And it's true (and it's kinda cool that he could see that from watching me at a bookstore window). And then he told about the shoe in the other foot, how he doesn't like it when he has to read stuff in order to do stuff: he loves to cook but he hates it when they have to pour through cookbooks to construct a menu; he loves to draw and make models, but he hates it when he has to read how to do something before doing it. Having to read something to find something out. And I can understand that - after all, who really reads manuals? And he said he wanted a passion for books too. He wanted to love reading, love books. And he came to me for advice.
Which leaves me in a pickle.

How can I help him? o.O The way I feel about literature is as natural as breathing to me. My mom is the original bibliophile, I've gotten books for presents ever since I was- heck, even before I could read. I learnt to read at the same time as my older brother, when he went to school - and I envied him going to school and me having to wait for two more years before I could go. He had to tell my mom to remove me from the room when he was doing his homework because I was doing it for him and it annoyed him. And when I started reading books without pictures in them, I walked to my mom all dazed and amazed and told her that I could see pictures in my head while I read. Ever since then I have had hundreds of friends that I have met only through pages of books, most important one being my soulmate separated by a hundred years, Harpo. And books without stories have taught me things and helped me to think and draw parallels and see connections between separate things -- all of which is important mental capital that I treasure and will carry with me throughout my life.
Yeah, I have a passion for books alright. But how can I share that?

At this point (of initial shock and awe of 'dude you're so awesome but this question is too hard') I'm kinda thinking it's to do with experiencing things that you wouldn't experience otherwise. I have never done drugs or been raped, but I have experienced those things. But then again, surely you can get that kind of vicarious experiences from other media (movies, TV etc) ((oh, oh! Sidethought Silvie! Vicarious experience horror movies? We like being scared by horror movies because it's a way we can have those experiences and emotions safely? Not only the experience of being stabbed in the eye, but also stabbing someoneelse in the eye?)) so why would books be so special? Why is it that "the book is always better"? Well, there's the imagination. You get to have things your way (my Ford Prefect isn't black >.<), and I've noticed that environments in books tend to be more familiar - because I'm imagining them as something I know (in the forest behind my home has been visited by hobbits and ringwraiths, lost dalmatians, the seven brothers, World War II soldiers and Moomins.) But then at the same time I have visited far-away places (and places that don't exist) by staying in and reading. So it's not all about the familiar mixing with the fantastic. And even the hyper-realistic books that describe reality in such gory detail that you'd think you don't need to read about that since you're living it - even all that I love. So. It's probably less about the content of the books. Could it be about the book itself as a medium, as an artefact? The action of writing, producing, bringing forth words. The other human being making something that reaches me and... and... and... all I have to do is think of Harry Potter to realise that this isn't the case (I don't really adore J.K. Rowling for having written such amazing books, I don't marvel at her mind and praise her imagination - I love Harry as I love Harpo: I want to be there. I don't want to be him, but I want to be with him. And through books I can: I grew up in New York and chatted with the Algonquin wits; I went to Hogwarts).

But that leaves out all the books that don't talk about doing stuff. As a child I loved our set of children's encyclopaedia - I knew everything I child needed to know about the American giant redwood trees (they build roads through them trees!) by the age of 8. And now one of my favourite books at this time is (no, not Finnegan's Wake :P) The On-Going Moment, a book about photography. So there is an element of learning something I didn't know before. Which is what my friend doesn't seem to be much impressed with. Then again, I didn't need to read about trees or photography in order to do something; I had no need for the knowledge. But I acquired it and loved it all the same. But would I have if it had been presented through other medium? Would I watch a documentary about trees? At this point in my life - no. As a child I probably would have. But I have no passion for television. Would I read about photography on the internet? Well, probably yes. But it's again not the same. I wouldn't love it uberly.

So. If content isn't king... it must be the package. I love the smell and feel of books - but that can't be the reason I love books.

Also, I love it that the same book can be read by more than one person. Books build a life as they touch the lives of different people. That's why second-hand bookstores are better: the books in them have lived and are ready to live again. And don't even get me started on libraries... :3 But that's digging a bit deeper, and probably doesn't have a lot to do with the question at hand. (That's to do with aura)


This turned into an essay. I hope you didn't read all that. Just answer the question: how do you develop a passion for books And don't give me any of this "you're born with it" bollocks.


Later:
My boss went with the sort of "I grew up with it" angle too, observing that it was a way to exercise imagination (and he added that he feels sorry for the kids of today who have everything spoon-fed to them visually). But while we were talking about the "damn it's hard to think of life without having been into books since kid" and wondering if it would be possible to develop that book-thing later in life, he made a poignant parallel: he couldn't imagine not being a mormon for all his life, while that change is something I have done, and therefore I have an insight into what a change like that is like.

I got Finnegan's Wake from the library. And everything I had heard of it before did not prepare me for it at all. I'd heard it was a difficult book - what an understatement. o.O Even 'book' is the wrong term, 'reading' does not describe what you have to do with this... object. But true to my idioticly stubborn nature, I picked it up and I must finish. I've gotten through about five pages, and... well... I do... like it. But not as reading, as... some other kind of activity where a text is heard and seen (I read out loud, otherwise it doesn't work) and you just kind of let it come out of you and up from the page and swirl around and you do your best to not suck and you accept mistakes and not understanding words. Grah, I'm suddenly very self-aware of the fact that I'm trying to describe Finnegan's Wake >.< Ok, moving on. That didn't make any sense, but at least you know that currently there is something... big/small/strange/difficult in my life at the moment :P


I read in the paper about someone figuring out how to make an uber-energy-effective LED bulb and not have it be stupidly expensive (like LED is at the moment), and it said we might replace Tungsten lights with those. But with all this green stuff raving it seems that often we don't think of anything else but greenness. I can't be the only person who thinks that Tungsten bulbs are nicer than other sorts of bulbs because of the way they look and feel. They have soul. I have never met anyone who thought tube lights were nicer - how likely is it that LED lights will have that soul that Tungsten bulbs have? It's a different kind of light, and though you might think "so what" I think the quality of light actually makes a difference to how you are feeling.

Now usually I don't care about people fussing over the green option (there's lots of options around for all sorts: low fat stuff that doesn't taste as nice as the bad-for-you stuff, etc... I personally have to opt out for the coffee-substitute which isn't as nice as the real thing) but I'm worried that this'll be one of those choices they make for you. That Tungsten bulbs will be pulled out of existence and we're left with crappy soulless LEDs that make you feel miserable. If that happens, I will opt out for candles and large windows -_-

I've been reading stuff recently on the interwebs, so it's time to share:

Dead Media Project
An Interview with Bruce Sterling
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=208

Lots of interesting things said there, Dead Media is basically any media (a message-delivering device) that is no longer used (either because it doesn't work, or whatever). It's really interesting-sounding research from a techno-social point of view.



Star Wars: A New Heap
http://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/4/star_wars__a_new_heap

"The Death Star is an essential work of minimalism, and its destruction is a turning point for modernism."
There. You didn't know that, did you? Star Wars is all wrought with minimalist aesthetic - but also delightfully the sort of 'discrete stage' -aesthetic of Robert Smithson (which basically says "machines are assum" which is what I agree with a lot :D)
So yeah, interesting article, and the zine looks really cleverly done too - though a little wee issue with their layout is that old ladies like me can't read the darn tiny print, and making the text bigger on the browser really fuxx with their system-thingie.


The INS Declaration on Inauthenticity
Also, I've been focusing my commute bus journeys in making sense of that INS declaration. And while it still is full of win, and still is somewhat over my head and can't quite get all of it, I have two new pieces of information to share about it: 1. Silvie should read it. It talks about tragedy a lot. 2. It's a disappointing declaration (disappointment is an emotion). I fight my way through it, reading all these interesting thought-provoking statements in it only to come to the end, which distills into "we want artists to continue to steal" (they point out that art is all about repetition, which I already know though the world is a bit in denial, at least if you haven't been to art school), and then say "art tries to use repetition to create authenticity" (they are against authenticity on this declaration) and then... that's it. The end. The last 5 or so clauses of the declaration are not declaration they are art (it took hours of research on the internet to figure that out). So the last paragraph that is part of the declaration leaves the thought unfinished. Now this is good from a critical thinker -point of view (no easy answers), but from an emotional artist point of view, I wanted these smarter-than-me people to tell me what contemporary art is about and what it should do, what I should do. But no,they leave it open. Damn you James Joyce.

It also showed me holes in my reading, which I intend to fix (well, some of them). I downloaded and printed Rilke's 'Duino Elegies' which I'll struggle though next, and I will also need to tackle 'Finnegan's Wake' - I've avoided it for too long.

An Important Experience

On Saturday I went to London, to the Tate Modern and the Tate Britain. In the Tate Mod I went to see the new part of the Unilever Series in the Turbine Hall, TH.2058 (mentioned in <blog:1061738>) It was kind of a far-fetched huge installation of blue and yellow bunkbeds, humongous sculptures (a giant spider, a giant apple core and some abstract blobs), a video of scenes from scifi movies, and futuristic books on all the bunkbeds. I also spent some time in front of the replica of the Large Glass, and I also hung out for a while in the room with all the Fluxus stuff. I also stumbles by Jonas Mekas's video diary playing in one dark room and sat watching that for a bit, and his view of John and Yoko's Bed-In was on there too, so that was nice to watch (from a non-art/fan point-of-view).

Then I meandered along Southbank over to Tate Brit to listen to the International Necronautical Society (INS)'sJoint Declaration On Inauthenticity. It was nothing that I was expecting, it was very controversial (I found it difficult to accept), but it certainly made an impact. I felt very out of my depth there, and had to find a transcript on the internet today and print it and read it, to understand what they are talking about (I still don't quite understand, but I'm working on it). Basically, the society is approaching death as a space to be explored, charted and, eventually, inhabited. And the question of inauthenticity is... well, I don't know. But in it they describe the necronaut (basically we are all necronauts already). And I feel like they are describing me, things that are lurking at the back of my mind, things that I struggled so hard to express on my MA, things that my lecturer found fascinating in me (he's a sadist and enjoys other people's struggle :P) - but I can't understand this description of me.

But I fully embrace this declaration.

You can look into it a little in http://www.necronauts.net/declarations/inauthenticity_release.html


On a slightly less important note:
Today is supposedly Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. I've been so happy all day it's unreal. Now fair enough I had a major meltdown on Thursday, and Sunday was wonderful, so obviously I'm all charged up with happy... but I thought it was really pretentious of me to be happy on the most depressing day of the year. I've been grinning like an idiot to myself all day.

An Important Discovery

You may or may not be aware of my 2+ years obsession with 'the right colour'. I became aware of this obsession around the last year of my BA. I knew sort of what I think the right colour is (the antithesis of which is not the wrong colour, but the left colour) but I didn't manage to quite specify it. It was this sort of pale-ish, off-white-ish, yellow-ish colour, the colour of pale skin, light wood, cream, sand, masking tape, tea stains, etc... So it was less of a colour and more of a colour-range. Some of them are more perfect, some less, but they all were to me the right colour.

Today I found out why.

They have calculated the average colour of the universe. That is, taking all the light in the universe and blending it together makes this pale beige colour (crudely called the Cosmic Latte, but we can forget that bit - most colours have really stupid names - in fact the whole idea of naming colours in the first place is debatable, but we are humans and we need to name stuff). But my right colour is the colour of the universe (if someone were to look at it from far away in order to see all the light as one light source). Let me repeat: my right colour is the colour of the universe.

You can read the study here
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~kgb/cosspec/


In other arty news, this exhibition sounds wonderful
http://www.aldrichart.org/exhibitions/shearer.php
I hope there would be an exhibition view, because I'm imagining it looks amazing in situ (and obviously I can't go to CT to check it out for myself... I wish this exhibition would travel to Europe, too).

Arendt acknowledged her deep affinity with Rahel Varnhagen, née Levin, calling her “my very closest woman friend, unfortunately dead a hundred years now.”
(From the article 'Beware Of Pity' in the New Yorker)

Finally, words to describe my relationship to Harpo <3



Another lovely bit in the article:
The lesson that Arendt drew was that a beautiful soul is not enough, for “it was precisely the soul for which life showed no consideration.” To live fully and securely, every human being needs what Arendt calls “specificity,” the social and political status that comes with full membership in a community.


Nudder one:
“One truth that is unfamiliar to the Jewish people, though they are beginning to learn it, is that you can only defend yourself as the person you are attacked as. A person attacked as a Jew cannot defend himself as an Englishman or Frenchman. The world would only conclude that he is simply not defending himself.”

There's a futuristic short-story-writing contest in regards to an exhibition in the Tate Modern. Have a look if you like to write stuff. :)

http://blog.tate.org.uk/unilever2008/

*edit*
My entry:

Fifty Years Ago.

Every so often humanity looks back to the past to see how different life was when their grandparents were young.

Fifty years ago people had more time for themselves, they had less confusing choices to make in their lives, they considered family to be important. Fifty years ago the world was a real place to be in, and society was something you belonged in. There was much variety between people of different areas, so that all of humanity had a richer culture as a result.

Fifty years ago technology was simple and unintrusive. You didn't need to constantly be connected to everyone else - you had a choice. You could switch your phone off, you could log out. And you could talk face to face, and even send letters and postcards and parcels; that is, pieces of physical information that would take a couple days to travel through space, carried by people employed to carry this physical mail to people's places of residence.

Fifty years ago it was common for more than one person to live in the same address.

Fifty years ago a normal commute to work took much longer than three minutes, and intercontinental travel lasted for hours and hours.

Fifty years ago some things were safe and innocent. The worst things criminals could do to you on the street was kill or rape you. Nobody could attack your mind or identity. Nobody could steal your soul.

Fifty years ago health and medicine was incredibly infantile: It was possible to catch a life-threatening disease just by having sex. Also energy-giving medicine like Ecstacy was illegal, yet habit-forming drugs like Lunesta, Halcion or Sonata, which make you mellow and drowsy, were considered medicinal. In fact relaxation was not just for society's outcasts and drop-outs; you weren't expected to be always wired up and alert and active to be considered a decent person, a respectable member of society. It was okay to relax sometimes.

Bob's Diner

I'm testing a new feature. You can has ignores.

I have this theory, or thought, about television, as a medium. For a while now I have thought that TV still does things that other media do better, and that it's about time for TV to et a grip. Mainly my gripe is TV series with long overarching plots, things like Battlestar Galactica, Gilmore Girls, Lost etc... I hate cliffhangers, and I find those kinds of programmes best when consumed in excess: several episodes in a row, just one after another. That's how I like my GG and BSG especially. So I think those kind of programmes are best served on DVD. TV is good at things that are always the same but with a slight twist: sitcoms (you don't need to know what happened before to get the hang of Friends or Simpsons, and they always stick to a kind of system or formula that makes it what it is and it works); also things that you'd want to watch once and only today, like news, current affairs programmes or talk shows. TV is good at making things snappy, and while the Internet is better at give-it-me-nao, TV is still better quality in image and sound etc broadcasting (internet is for narrowcasting). So while neither the internet nor DVD (or papers or radio or whatever) replaces TV, there are things they could collaborate on. The Internet is mimicking both TV and print media, and that's not what the web is best at (internet is king of audience participation, or even breaking down the barrier between audience and author). But we're getting there with YouTube and Wikipedia and all the rest of it. Also TV is taking some pages from DVD's and Internet's book through TV-on-demand -things.
But I digress. The point was, I thought "BSG is better served on DVD" end of.

But.
A couple days ago I realised what it is that TV does that DVD doesn't. Sharing. Being able to meet your friends or coworkers the next day and go "amg, did you see what happened in *show* last night, I was about to go bonkers when I saw that!" - Sharing the experience. Everybody watching the same thing, sharing the experience, at the same time in a same kind of setting (home most likely), and being able to talk about it later. DVD doesn't give that kind of community feel to the programme. When I obsessively watch my sister's Gilmore Girls DVDs all night long, it's all mine. I am the long-lost Gilmore Girl and nobody has ever understood these characters like I do. It's all mine it's about possession. And when my sister occasionally joins me, it doesn't really have that shary feel with it, because she comes in cold "which episode you at, is it after the wedding or before?" and she hasn't just experienced the excruciating break-up between Lane and Zach. She knows they're going to get back together, she knows what's coming because she's watched and owned the whole thing many times before I have. No sharing, no community. And that's something that TV has value in: though you are not physically in the same location, you are mentally in the same place: in Stars Hollow, on the Island, aboard Galactica. At the same time. There's value in that.

So now I have to re-evaluate what is the best way to serve BSG.

End of line.

* * *

Next week on iippo's diary: Miracles. I figured out what they are, when and why and how.

iippo's version of
'The Movie Game'
1. Pick 16 of your Favourite Movies.
2. Go to IMDB and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everybody to guess.
4. Strike it out when somebody guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. No Cheating! (No google, or IMDB to help!)


01. Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west, and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce, they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.
02. Which one of you fine gentlemen would like to join our team? The Dark Knight. [windowframe]
03. Hello. We're teachers on sabbatical and we've just won the lottery. Quantum of Solace. [Linderel] and [windowframe] 
04. Give it up old man, you can't fight evolution, I was built for speed!
05. You mean she would rather imagine herself relating to an absent person than build relationships with those around her?
06. I'm gettin' kinda fond of you, kid. Not that I wanna pick out curtains or anything. Aladdin. [Teufelsweib]
07. No, I don't think he likes you at all. No, I don't like you either. Star Wars. [Mortified Penguin]
08. I hit him in the head with a frying pan and put him in the trunk... so he wouldn't get hurt. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. [Draugluin]
09. I am not third world ugly, women think I'm cute. Rush Hour 2. [sequeena_rae]
10. {introducing Carol to Simon} Carol the waitress, Simon the fag. As Good As It Gets. [Mordigen]
11. When I die and I stand before God awaiting judgment and he asks me why I let one of HIS miracles die, what am I gonna say, that it was my job? The Green Mile. [Teufelsweib]
12. We'll get a sign: "No Spiders or Visigoths Allowed."
13. When you're born in the gutter you end up in the port. (Viking is not allowed to answer this one)
14. The farmers have won. We have lost.
15. I haven't got time for this Mickey Mouse bullshit.
16. Professor Marvel never guesses. He knows!

Two things.

One.
I drove somewhere with a music buff friend, and in his car we listened to a mixed CD (he is the master of the mixed CD) and I heard a song I kinda liked, so I asked him to email it to me. He said he'd rather burn it onto a CD for me, as he's had troubles attaching mp3s to emails. I said I don't want just one song on a CD, so he suggested I pick some others and he'll make a CD with more than one song. I tried to figure out what songs that would have in it. And then it hit me: I asked him to make me a mixed CD of anything whatsoever (and he is the only music buff that I know that is completely unprejudiced against any genre. He listens to everything - he may not like everything, he still has taste - he doesn't diss anything). He liked the idea, but asked for a theme, because free reign would be way too mind-bogglingly hard, so I came up with a theme: experimental. We talked about the theme a little bit and he got it: songs that did something that no one else had done before, songs that paved the way for the future generations, songs that sound like nothing else, etc... And he got pretty excited about it, and the next day he gave me two mixed CDs he labeled "History of Pop" and said volumes 3 and 4 were to follow! :D He is so awesome. So I've had my musical horizon slowly broadened by all these amazing songs on my new Quad. I'm probably going to do some kind of big exploratory wiki-thingie of it at a later date (when I have more time).

Two.
I went to see a film called "Waltz With Bashir". It's an animated documentary about a man who fought in the Israeli-Lebanese war in '83, and he can't remember anything of it, and he is trying to bring back his memories of the event, and the film follows him piecing together the events, talking to people he knows were there with him. What a film. What a story. It scarred me for life, in a good way. Its impact on me was much alike the impact the manga Son of Hiroshima had on me, and in a milder scale Maus did. There is something about the drawn that communicates to me better. Gets through my defenses and desensitisation and hits me where it hurts. But I've said it before, it's the important kind of pain, the kind that makes you see and know. I can't quite define it yet. A review might follow (I wrote it already, I just need to type it some day. No time for ET anymore).


^{The song was White Lines by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel. That's right. iippo wanted a rap-song.}

I don't know if you are aware or I've told you before, but Coventry (where I live in England) is a city that is keen on peace and reconciliation (mainly because it was bombed flat in WWII). Something I said in a conversation in a wiki reminded me to tell you the following. In the 60s, John Lennon and Yoko Ono did a bunch of art projects where they planted acorns of peace, that would grow into oaks and people could find solace and comfort in the oaks, etc... Long term project, right? They did that outside the Coventry cathedral. And what did Coventry do? Dig out the acorns and steal them >.<;;;; And today I was thinking that the following statement applies: it would be cooler to have an acorn from an oak planted by John and Yoko, than an acorn planted by John and Yoko. >.< It would be great if people that come to Coventry could actually get an acorn that grew in the tree that the Ono-Lennons planted as a token of peace.

End of line.

Bold if you've done it
Italics if you want to do it

1. Started your own blog (lasted about three days)
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity (I cancelled the direct debit three months later :C)
7. Been to Disneyland (Disneyworld)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo (and botched it up XD)
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (pretty much, even though I went to art school too)
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning (twice - it was a roommate on both times)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables (my family does, that counts because you can be singular or plural)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort (sounds cooler than is, probably. This is just something you do in Finland)
25. Held a lamb (I hae held a piggy, though. Stinkier and not as soft)
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice (oddly enough, we didn't do this bit when we went to Venice...)
29. Seen a total eclipse (vague recollection)
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run (I used to be darn good at Finnish baseball)
32. Been on a cruise (again, just something you do in Finland)
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors (This is actually quite high on my want-to-do -list, as I'm doing my family history)
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language (tried several times - does that count? :P)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's David (I've seen a replica...)
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant (I'd also want to be a stranger... :3)
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling (I think I need to want to do this, because someone I like is a diver...)
52. Kissed in the rain (lets not talk about it)
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater (So far, this is the thing I want most on this list)
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class (Tai chi - was great for the back)
59. Visited Russia (As slightly as possible, just a wee bit over the border... Didn't do it justice, didn't like it. I'll have to retry this some day)
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got/gave flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma (Speaking of whih, where's my blood donor card? It should have arrived by now... Damn...)
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi concentration camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy (saved from what?)
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar (My grandma really liked it, so I'll have to gie it a try some day)
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone (Technically, the doctor broke it, now me...)
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem (I want Jerusalem syndrome :P)
84. Had your picture in the newspaper (Something pointless and school related, nothing exciting like "local woman saves drowning idiot")
85. Read the entire Bible (Grr, second time I'e been asked this and forced to say no. I really need to get that done)
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (Hmm, we once prepared half a slaughtered pig for eating - but we didn't kill it ourselves...)
88. Had chickenpox (I thought everyone has o.O)
89. Saved someone’s life (Possibly, how can you know?)
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous (I'm not saying I want to meet anyone who is famous, but I would like to meet certain famous people)
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake (Well I should do a trip to Utah at some point probably...)
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone (...what? Who hasn't?)
99. Been stung by a bee (a wasp counts because the bastards are worse than bees: they don't even die from stinging you, so you don't even get that little bit of satisfaction >.<)
100. Read an entire book in one day (Harry Potter always took too long a wait...)

Sharing time. If you care, this is for you. If you don't, sorry. There will be a YouTube video at the end.

More excuses for online absence: I start on Monday. :) I has job. That pays real money. That requires me to commute. I'm silly like that, I've always wanted a job or school or something that would require me to sit in a bus for a long time every day. I think bus-routine sounds cool, traveling on a bus... head-space... Y'know. I'll probably learn to not like it after a while, but hey ho. I like it now. The job is computer-ey (data entry) and not arty, but that's ok. It comes with lots of very good (or bad, depending on your point of view) personal reasons why I want to work there *coughcoughRaycoughcoughcough* - sorry, I have a cold (which I'm self-medicating with Lovehearts :p)



Sorry, no YouTube video. You were conned.

I'm ill. Therefore I have the right to be a bit absent lately - right?

Also, what the hack is up with this redirect?! -> Rule 34

Heh.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/eamon-mccann/eamonn-mccann-what-if-mormons-are-right-and-catholics-and-protestants-wrong-13955402.html

The thing that really surprised me about this article is that the author isn't a member of the church. And that it's actually on a real newspaper (or at least its website). And that it's not totally bashing the mormons. o.O Huh.

He's surprisingly well-informed about the basics of the idea (I didn't know baptism for the dead was argued over and rejected in Synods), though he does skip the bit about freedom to choose: we believe that even those who are dead still get to choose whether they want the baptism to have aneffect or not (we're not forcing anyone to heaven, here o.O) and that the performance of the baptism - whether the person is alive or dead - alone is not enough to get you anywhere, we think it's a far more active thing, you actually need to want salvation and show that willingness in the stuff you do. But baptism is the necessary first step, and we want all people, living and dead, to be given that choice in the first place. We want everyone to be in a position where they can say "no thank you" or "yes please". And that's why we are baptised for the dead, that's why we serve missions and knock on people's doors.

There is one thing that the work makes me worry about though (besides the fact that there are mind-bogglingly many dead people and therefore this is a hugenormous undertaking), and that is the people we don't find. As it suggests in the article, we find the dead people from parish records etc... (the ideal situation is that everyone does the work for their own ancestors - that way you get to know a bit about them before you all meet up again in there - but there is also work straight from parish records through 'extractions of names'). But what about people who lived before such records were kept? :/ Censuses go back only so far (there's a reason they call the Medieval times 'the Dark Ages' - and it's not because the sun didn't rise as much). The only answer for myself that I have at the moment is that Jesus will somehow sort it out when he gets back (apparently there will be a lot of baptisms for the dead and other temple work in the Millenium). But I still sometimes worry about that.

* * *

Top 10 Places Thar I Think Would Be Awesomest To Go On My Mission

10. Alaska.
I keep mentioning it jokingly when people ask where I reckon I'll be sent... It'll freak me out a little if it actually happens.
9. Finland.
Home... I'd be a wee bit gutted, but it'd be kinda awesome since it's the country, it's the land, my roots and all that jazz. They often send missionaries to where their ancesters are from, plus I already know the language.
8. England.
My other home. Would also be a bit meh to miss the travel opportunity, but then again loads of people I love live here...
7. A place I can't even begin to imagine.
It'd be sorta awesome to be sent somewhere that I can't even imagine ever going to. Like... heck, I can't even think of an example! :P
6. Georgia, US.
Home of [Aradon Templar] and my awesome singer-friend who is convinced I'll be sent there to her. If I was sent there, I'd insist Tempie to come meet me (though sadly I wouldn't be able to hug him :/)
5. Indiana, US.
Home of [Viking]. I like the sound of Indy a bit better than Georgia (temperature-wise) but I wouldn't be allowed to hug him either. :/
4. Argentina.
Home of [All_Most PUNK] - also, they are building a new temple there, so that's always exciting. Temperature and no-huggage-of-PUNK don't appeal, but it would require the learning of a new language, which would be awesome.
3. Belgium.
Home of [ally]. New language, and I would be able to hug her, yay!
2. Brazil.
The home of my best friend evar, Tibo. Bit too tropical for me, but would include a new language. But it's also a scary place from what I've heard her say...

1. Scotland.
My best church-friend evar is serving her mission in Scotland right now. I can't begin to imagine how totally awesome it would be to serve in the same area. We'd be a nightmare if we were a comapnionship! XD Amg, I just imagined what'd be ike if she were my trainer! XD XD Sadly, couldn't write to her while in different areas, though, we're not allowed to write to missionaries within the same mission... But still. Would be the awesomest place evar, so funny. Like, I'd follow in her footstepas, literally. :P

I'm randoming in XKCD, because, you see the thing is, yeah that's why.

And I want to live in xkcd world:

http://xkcd.com/150/
http://xkcd.com/462/
http://xkcd.com/96/
http://xkcd.com/249/
http://xkcd.com/227/ (the hover to this one makes me cry tears of joy :P)
http://xkcd.com/171/
http://xkcd.com/340/
http://xkcd.com/343/
http://xkcd.com/45/ (hover r00ls again)
http://xkcd.com/144/
http://xkcd.com/140/ (amg, life... explained...)
http://xkcd.com/162/
http://xkcd.com/165/

Ok I'll stop now. *sigh*