Monday, May 31, 2010

Niceness

In niceness one treats all men and women the same way; There is a professional distance to be kept in his role as a fellow human being. In niceness there is no allowance, no consideration to the various possible kinds of response that you could get from the other party. Thus, a person who speaks out of niceness speaks not to one person, but to an undifferentiated crowd of platonic Mankind. This is why we are not always nice to our closest friends.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Eyjafjallajökull


Eyjafjallajökull / signed 28 May 2010

Original picture by unknown

Thursday, May 27, 2010

The Emotions of Morosity

I may be as bland as bread and as morose as a full-day spell of sleet, and not given to emotions of too strong a nature, but that does not stop me from writing about them today. Do morose folk have feelings? Of course we have.

1. Guilt, fear, shame.
The false prophets preach arrogance, greed to push life to greater heights. The negative emotions of guilt, fear and shame are the ones that summarily guide me and protect me day to day. They are very important.

2. Withdrawal to self
I have this to blame for a low level of social aptitude.
Self control is good, but when we abuse it to avoid looking stupid at all times, we end up looking stupid at all times.
It is quite hard to grasp admittedly, esp. for me. I am often withdrawn before strangers, and it is quite the effort to open up (chances are that I'm not the one doing all the work)
But nevermind, because meanwhile there is

3. Ecstasy
I experience this ecstacy in the heats of work, be it military training, or maths homework, or art projects, etc.
I love work. If work was a woman, imma marrying her on the spot. All you slackers out there will never understand this passion.
Which brings us to

4. Arrogance
The 职业病 for commandos is arrogance.
Admittedly it's hard not to feel snobbish from time to time while my term lasted... though generally I liked to be humble. Because arrogance gets in the way of doing work.
Sometimes I do act humble, then try to feel good afterwards. That's doing it wrong. Yea, it be hard to grasp and all.

5. Morosity
I am morose these days for good reason.
You may know as well as I do that the 9 months after ORD are pretty much the most rotten in a life. In these times one turns away from the jungle's beckoning, they cut themselves off the elements with a huge heave of relief, and then they realise that they have also been cut away from their own friends.

-All your friends from school, where are they now?
-Who will you turn to now if you needed to talk?
-Who from your past will remember you?
-Who from your present will accept you?


You are dumbfounded when confronted with such questions, because now you are officially a hobo.
No one likes hobos.
Except for family. Now I know of folks who don't like their family and try to run away. These are either petulant teens or plain fools.

6. Love
Yes, morose people can feel love.
Since my social-butterfly days have been dead and buried for two years and then some, I grab whatever people that's left, and then LOVE THEM TO BITS.
Yea, I be talking about you. Be careful though, I may not be this stable all the time.
I treasure my friends. That is true.

7. Having stupid crushes
Yes, morose people can have stupid crushes.
Sometimes having crushes can get in the way of work. But there are times when I am so inspired by this wonderful blossoming thingimmabob within that I create whole paintings and writings based on their person and dedicate these works to them without them ever knowing or finding out because I am so discreet.
I may have dedicated something to you now. If you ask me I can tell you, but you might not want to know so badly.

8. Disliking politics
Before this post descends further and further into the trivial, here's the last one to disliking politics.
I started this passage becase I read an acquaintance's blog... he was tortured by class politics from the earliest days in JC, even though he was one of the most goodwilled and talented people I have ever had the good fortune to know.
I was starkly reminded of the politics in my own class, I did not notice it at the time, but looking back it was all very blatant.

-Where there is Water, there will be Chinese
-Where there are Men, there will be Politics


I do remember a class outing when they invited everyone but me and three of the guys who were closer to me. I had to find out about it myself and call the remainder along. I will never forget.

Now how did I ever survive two years of this? I don't know, maybe it's because I was somewhere else most of the time, thanks be to God.

In a rat race of this nature, people of my streak rarely play to win, or bother with anything at all that gets in the way of our work. That is why leadership rarely comes in our way, and also why we disrespect authority deep down.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Khanty Reindeer Sled


Khanty Reindeer Sled / signed 14 May 2010

Original picture by Scott S. Warren - [link to article]

How To Tame Your Canvas

First you choose your canvas size. This is called sizing up the catch.

Secondly you either make the purchase in an art store or make a special order (if the kill is particularly formidable). If you go to Creative Hands, you can purchase three pieces together at a cheaper price. This is called tackling the herd.

Thirdly you bring the canvas home.
Keep in mind that before you tame the canvas, it is a wild animal. It will fight the fight of the cornered beast. However, you, the artist, must have the courage to do what is right and not back down.

After that, you may proceed to hunt in one of three ways:
1. paint on unprimed surface. You are relying on a combination of luck and machismo for interesting and unpredictable results. This is called tracking by heavenly signs. You are fearless and I respect you.
2. paint on primed surface. You are rigging the canvas to maximise your hunting advantage. Canvases are basically stretchable cloth and priming the canvas makes it vulnerable to the advances of your brush. This can also be called trap-rigging.
3. paint on washed background. The safest option, in my view. In order to maximise psychological advantage over the canvas, you cover the entire primed surface with one colour (usually the dominant colour / undertone that you are working with). This is called setting up enclosure, in Chinese 关门打狗.

After this it is pretty much up to your hunterly skills and styles. For example, painters may tackle a small part of the painting at a time, which takes a longer time. This is also called hunting by attrition, or stalking the rabbit hole.

On my part, I tend to be less nice with such animals. My painting approach mirrors Mental Ray's mode of rendering images and Genghis Khan's mode of conquering Eurasia. The policy is to paint in multiple passes, gradually improving in the treatment of detail as more passes are performed. This is why it is similar to Mental Ray, and why it is also called whittling escape routes on the chase.

The end product is already established and is recognisable in the first pass. Almost on the word go, the canvas' defiance will give way to raw terror and helplessness. This is why the method is also called scorched-earth.

Attrition or no, now that you have the canvas under your power (I assume- no, of course you never gave up). It would be befitting of you, the new owner of this piece of livestock, to place your mark of ownership upon the canvas. This is usually referred to as signing.

You can also bestow upon the painting (yes, it's a painting now) its own name. I know people outside Scandinavia generally feel funny about individually naming their animals. In the code of painters however, this is very much the norm. But if your painting has been unruly, feel free to incur upon it the name Untitled, just to show the accursed beast who's boss.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

The Four Chord Song



They didn't cite Pachelbel's Canon, though you can't sing that-

Saturday, May 01, 2010

Skálholtdómkirkja



Skálholt Cathedral
Acrylic on Canvas / 29 April 2010