“Every Act Of Communication Is A Miracle Of Translation.”

I can’t translate myself into language any more.

Alice Notley, from “Ruby Goes to Pieces,” Culture of One (via lifeinpoetry)

when steinberg said black sails made treasure island a different book he was right (because treasure island from the pov of silver is now a desperate last ditch attempt to Be Someone and a clear fulfillment of flint’s curse rather than a story about a greedy and manipulative man) but black sails has also made every adaptation of treasure island a different adaptation. they have all become distorted mutilated retellings of a story (about a story) that is inherently one-sided and presents silver as a monster to be feared

CAREER BOY: SELF PORTRAIT

Text ID for Statement Image:

18 x 26, colored pencil and oil pastel on paper

There is inside of me another self, who is almost wholly unobservable through the eyes of another person. Only I can perceive him although he is what I consider to be the truth of my existence. As a gay genderfluid person, I relate to the concept of masculinity in a very flamboyant and queer way– although I do not have the luxury of physically expressing myself in my everyday, public life. In this art piece I have through use of color, setting, and dress attempted to display this queer masculinity for the gaze of an audience.  

Directly inspired from the drag king and musical artist Dorian Electra’s track ‘Career Boy’ I have situated a vibrant drag persona of myself into a busy office setting. This is an acknowledgement of my longest held job as a receptionist, which I recently left in order to come back to school to study art. Instead of my typical appearance I have opted to display myself in fantastical, saturated colors in exaggerated makeup and a twirling mustache to make tangible my internal reality rather than reflect the physical one. 

I wanted to portray a vibrancy and playfulness in every element of the piece with a wide variety of colors but still have it remain visually cohesive. I opted to make the prop elements all colored with the same yellow, orange, pink, and purple palette to contrast with the color tones of the figure and desk. I hoped to create eye flow around the canvas by grouping the different objects in this way. However I also utilized warm pink tones near the eyes to draw in the audience’s eye to the face so the figure would not appear to be incidental in the larger scheme of the composition. 

Ruminating on Reading

10.2.2022

I worry the things I read may not be artful enough to be ‘worth discussion’. Although they have worth to me, personally. It isn’t that the short stories or books I read are devoid of substance but it’s not like I’m usually struck by a particular phrase that makes my whole stomach drop out or anything. I read a lot of Terry Pratchett, his Discworld series in particular. I think they’re clever and funny. Pratchett is obviously careful and artful with his diction but it’s written in a welcome and plain language. His writing contains a lot of big ideas packaged in a way that makes it easy to engage with. I think I read a lot of ‘sharp’ and ‘clever’ writing in my daily life, I think I am particularly fond of the language and rhythm of comedy and jokes.

“The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to “the serious.” One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious”

— Susan Sontag, Notes on Camp

“In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find – if it’s a good novel – that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it’s very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin, foreword to The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)

Not every story is about seeing yourself in it. Sometimes it’s about learning to see other people too.

Do you fall in love often?" "Yes often. With a view, with a book, with a dog, a cat, with numbers, with friends, with complete strangers, with nothing at all.

Jeanette Winterson, from Gut Symmetries (via lifeinpoetry)

Interacting with Language: Humor

10.2.2022

I, like many people, spend a lot of my time on the internet. It is the main medium in which I socialize and also interact with language. In particular I think the way that irony and sincerity is used for comedic purposes through posts on this website, which I have been a part of since 2012 has really affected my sense of humor and language in casual spaces. CJ the X on YouTube has an interesting video essay about the language of internet memes, and the evolution of the structure of that language– from the first macro image format to the more modern memes which often deconstruct and subvert their established setups. On Tumblr memes often manifest themselves through original text posts, often one post acting as a catalyst to spawn others similar in nature or as subversion. There are also many posts or memes that play around with irony and sincerity that I find very interesting. Irony here being defined in its colloquial usage and not as the dictionary definition. This understanding of irony being “an attitude of detachment or subversive humor” (courtesy of LitCharts.com).

The post above plays with sincerity, humor, and meme language. An anonymous person confesses to user exitwound about how they have influenced their life by introducing them to eating frozen grapes, and follows with a sincere statement of “thinking about the web between us all”. This is then followed by a softening and couching of the sentiment with “yknow”. “Yknow” used here as a sort of buffer between the genuine sincerity of their original statement. This reminds me of something I do in that often times I will state something vulnerable and personal, and then as an acknowledgement of the ironic and humorous tone of Tumblr as a platform, punctuate the statement with an ‘lmao” or ‘lol’. In addition exitwound has answered this ask with a meme, two images of grapes with the text, "frozen grapes got me thinking" on the top image of frozen grapes, and "about the web between us all" on the bottom image of fresh grapes growing on the vine. with an additional caption "you’re so (expletive) real for this anon".

The meme image format and the use of the expletive are both important in reinforcing the dialogue between ironic humor and genuine sentiment.  By including “you’re so (expletive) real anon” user exitwound acknowledges the sentiment behind Anonymous’s confession being genuine and open about how that simple act of Anonymous eating frozen grapes because exitwound (a user that the Anonymous user presumably follows and therefore in a sense sees and interacts with regularly) eat frozen grapes connects them to another person. These frozen grapes therefore symbolize a human experience that is larger than Anonymous' own individual existence. They connect Anonymous to exitwound and also to anyone out in the world who has ever eaten a frozen grape. As a side note, I happen to be an enthusiastic consumer of frozen grapes, and so now I am personally involved in the fibers of this web as well. In addition to echoing the sincere sentiment, by specifically including “so (expletive)” in this sentence exitwound also reflects the tone of Anonymous' language here. The expletive softens the sentiment of “you’re so real for this” with an irony tinged humor.

The specific image used of freshly grown grapes to illustrate “the web between us” is also meaningful here. In these sorts of internet meme formats typically only one image is provided. In this post there are two images of grapes, one of frozen grapes on the top, and one of fresh grapes growing on the vine below. Tumblr user exitwound could have provided only the single image of frozen grapes, a literal illustration of the subject matter. But instead they provide two which I believe further acts to point out an understanding of the dialogue between irony, humor and sincerity. To meme using only the single image of frozen grapes would be to approach this jokes as only ironic. The frozen grapes being a mundane, consumer product and within the culture of ironic humor on the internet that image alone would be simply reduced to "funny" and "ironic".

However, including the grapes in a more “natural” setting and thus framing them not only as the end product that we consume but as the plant that grows and flowers and bears fruit once again brings sincerity and "sentiment" back into meme. It brings to mind not only the idea of grapes as food and as a product but as a cultivated, living plant. As if we the viewer are meant to be thinking about the greater experience of grapes in connection to humanity. To think of all the people working and tending to the plants throughout their life cycle. To think of the harvesting of the fruit. To think of all the ways grapes are used and enjoyed by people– to eat, to process into wine and juice, to turn into jams and jellies, to stick in a freezer before consuming. A dialogue of casual irony and humor, and the sincere sense of feeling connected to the world around you.

What she says: im fine

What she means: the average age of conception over the past 250k years is apparently 26.9. Let's round it down to 25. Think of your birth mother. Hold her hand. Imagine her holding hands with her mother. Within 4 people, you're back in time 100 years, and it's an intimate family dinner. Just after WWI. Add another 16 people, a small party of 20, and you're in the 1500s. Double it, twice, and you're at 80 people. Your family would fill a restaurant, and you're at the height of the Roman empire. At 100 people, Confucius is alive but Socrates has not yet been born. 100 people. That's a medium sized wedding. A small lecture theatre or concert. 200 people, probably the biggest party i could ever hope to host, takes you back 5000 years. The guests at your soirée of parents would be contemporaries of the Egyptian and Indus Valley civilisations, although you'd probably be too busy fixing drinks and nibbles to talk to all of them. Just imagine it. 200 of you. That's all it takes to get back 5,000 years. And we could go further. 1000 people, a decent sized concert, a large high school, and we're at the end of the last ice age. Your ancestors are comparing their pink floyd vinyl with music played on instruments carved from wood or bones of long vanished species. Wander through the crowd. See your own features and phrases and gestures refract out like a kaleidoscope. What would they make of you? What do you make of them? Why does it feel so unfair that even that first 100 years --that small family dinner of four--is out of your grasp? Maybe it's because questions of spatial distance have become negligible to us now. why, oh why, does time hold out against us so stubbornly