My highly political experience

Lots of hubbub about the Presidential debate tonight. I saw the Presidential motorcade for the candidates today. I was out jogging whien I noticed there were police cars lining both sides of the street every block, so I decided to follow the trail to Belmont University where the debate was held. As the motorcade approached, two police cars scouted the trail first, followed by eight motorcycles, and two more police sedans. Something like twelve bulletproof vans rode the middle, most of them with 8 1/2 x 11 sign in the window announcing "PRESS." You could tell which vehicles held the candidates, because they were the ones with secret service agents looking nervously out the windows. Despite all the hardcore security, I did manage to weedle my way onto the Belmont campus. My adventures were cut short when one of the guards yelled at me, "Hey I don't know how you got in here, but you're not supposed to be in this area. How did you get in here?"

I don't have a cartoon for you guys today because I'm a little backlogged on uploading images, but as soon as I get myself to the library scanner, I'll bombard internetland.

Linoleum Cut #1

This is a relief I did for my printmaking class. It was the first time I'd used linoleum, so I had to get accustomed to the texture. The assignment was to illustrate a story from our family history. This is Simon,* a relative who suffered from a series of schizophrenic attacks several years ago. I really wanted to express both the frightened mania felt by victims of this condition, as well as the pain it causes family members who must helplessly watch a mind self-destruct.

*Name changed

The Tragic Divorce Proceedings of Mortimer G. Rabbit and Margaret L. Tree

Using discontinuous lines/abstract shapes to express mood is something I think I will probably be doing for the rest of my life. It is just that fun. Not only does this poor bunny have a destroyed home on his paws, now there are a bunch of right angles flying through the air that he has to worry with as well. WILL THESE TORMENTS NEVER CEASE?

A note on Tilly: I am indeed putting off my work on Tilly until fall break. I need large chunks of time to work on this project, and school gives me room only to do brief sketches such as the one above.

Shapes as People as Shapes

Crap, the punchline to this is blurred. Let me know if anyone can't read it. I didn't mean to end up doing this comic in pencil instead of ink, but sometimes the characters just kind of fall out of me without warning. I'm going to see if I can use these characters in the future, or at least other people in Shapeland.

I went to an art exhibit today at the Tennessee Arts League. The featured show, entitled "Heroes, Villains, and Comic Book Art," had been open for a couple weeks, so a lot of the paintings had already been purchased. The exhibit had another wing with more experimental assemblages and paintings that ranged from Orphist swirls of color to traditional Americana landscapes.

UPDATE: Turning up the contrast fixed the blurring. Enjoy the comic!

Clark the Clown

I have successfully moved in here at Vanderbilt. Getting the freshmen moved in was a truly rewarding experience, and I'm glad I was able to help so much. I would also like to give a big thanks to both Sean and Daniel for helping me carry all my boxes and furniture from East Nashville over to West Nashville. I bought a new bookshelf to house all the books I have acquired in the past four month, which has helped immensely in organizing my dorm so far. Feels like home already.



My final schedule for fall semester:

Relief Printing -- Mark Hosford
Shakespeare: The comedies and histories -- Andras Kisery
Survey of Calculus -- Linda Hutchison
Elementary Spanish I -- Jackie Willey
Sources of Contemporary Art -- ???

Books: The ballasts of our lives

Haha! Because I am so smart, and because I am so clever, I have waited until the last minute to start packing all of my belongings into cardboard boxes. I am scheduled to move into Vanderbilt either today or tomorrow because I am doing a week-long community service project with the campus recycling group before classes start. I have put in my two weeks notice at the Bound'ry, and am now in the process of remembering how heavy my possessions really are.

One of my coworkers took me to the sketchiest bar in all of Davidson county for my birthday, where I had a conversation with a stranger about the right way to lay electric wiring. Luckily, Michael rescued me by calling on the telephone to wish me happy birthday, which gave me an excuse to abscond after thirty minutes or so.

…And Now Miguel

So tonight I have officially reached my halfway point for the project I alluded to last blog post (yes, only halfway; give me a break I am working two jobs). I was looking at some of the panels that I will not be able to use in the finished product and decided this one would be good for a for-fun promo. The working title is Tilly (not be confused with Leo Lionni's Tillie and the Wall), and the pages will be 6" x 12." Right now the plan is 60 pages, but I have been consistently trimming that number down since I finished the script at the end of June. I have been going for a rather simplistic art style using cut-out shapes, but avoiding the flat South Park-y feel by mixing watercolor, acrylic, and india ink. Don't worry the typography will DEFINITELY not look this crummy upon completion.



Additionally, some fiction blurbs:

Bone by Jeff Smith
--Currently working through this, and I can't put it down. Smith spent about 13 years of his life inking this graphic epic novel, and his storytelling is superb. It is about three cousins exiled from their rural village and forced to question the nature of dream and reality to battle an evil monarch.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
--A bizarre story of a carnival family's grotesque and glorious self-destruction. Born a mutant in a family of mutants, the main character deals with gender roles, the nature of chance, and conceptions of the self through a life that puts the insidious ahead of the wholesome in the name of family unity.

The Great Divorce by C.S Lewis
--A short novel giving an fanciful interpretation of the afterlife, a topic that seems rather important to Lewisian Christianity. I couldn't buy into all the points he raised, but the descriptions of heaven and hell were refreshing and interesting.

The Avocado: Fruit not Vegetable

Yes it has been a while since I updated, and I'm sure you all have been worried sick, so here is a little ditty I put together just for you. I've been working on other artistic pursuits lately, which leaves me little time to do the quick sketches I generally like to post here. Hope you like iambic pentameter.

First of all, the Bound'ry is back open, to follow up on the last blog post. However, I am only pulling about a shift a week over there, possibly because my manager has caught on to my nefarious plan to abandon him once school starts back.

I did play laser tag last Saturday; the science center hosted a game of employees versus volunteers, which was lots of fun. The floor plan is already designed to foster plenty of running about, so giving everyone weapons made it seem very action movie. To give you a feel of the dynamic, most of the volunteers were in high school, while most of the employees were sophomores in college (there are six of us that are the same age--weird, right?).

The science center puts me in contact with a lot of children, so I am surprised I have managed not to get sick yet. How can children be so adorable and yet so filthy? One little boy liked the rides so much that he invited me to his birthday party at Disney World. Another one spat in my face (it was not malicious; he was simply unaware of what people generally do when they talk to keep spit from flying out).

Occupational Hazards -- Part 2

Last Saturday (the same day as the ASC's grand opening) I also found out that I no longer work at Bound'ry. And neither does anyone else. That's right--the Bound'ry is closed until further notice. Apparently one of the partial owners of the high-class eatery had a severe conflict of interest with management, and in response hauled all of HIS cooking equipment (grills, ovens, etc.) out of the kitchen. He gave everyone three days notice.

The official word is that the restaurant is undergoing renovations, which is partially true. The general manager asked employees to put their names and email addresses on a contact list if they were willing to work on the manual labor of reconstructing the kitchen area. It has been rumored that we will be back up and running in four to six weeks (just in time for me to be back in school and unemployable), but the estimates of those in the know have been slightly longer.

I am very grateful that I have a day job to fall back on. The people whose sole livelihood depended on the Bound'ry--the chefs and servers especially, since many supported families through that income--have been taking it very hard; really though all employees are duly feeling the harm done by this loss.

Occupational Hazards -- Part 1

If you live in Nashville, you may or may not have noticed all the advertisements that have cropped up in the past month about the Sudekum planetarium. If you do not live in Nashville, the Adventure Science Center has been working on a new wing to the museum for the past three years, which include (apart from the third largest planetarium in the country), an exhibit simulating microgravity, and a moonwalk. The planetarium has stadium seating for about 500 people, and uses an IMAX projected screen, displaying approximately 20,000 stars, as well as hosting animated featurettes. Yesterday was the Grand opening, and the mayor cut the ribbon for us, and everyone clapped. There were balloon contortionists outside, ice cream inside, and everyone had a roaring good time.

And then it started raining

I haven't thought of a title for this yet, but the girl in the center is named Valerie, and I think she will probably show up again. Perhaps in her new job she will make friends with Nina (from West Jersey). I can think of several things I would have done differently in this picture if I were doing it again, but I am beginning to think that if I spend a lot of time on anything, it will be of quality regardless of my biased feelings about it

Same Hat Same Hat is translating Shintaro Kago's manga Dance! Kremlin Palace! which has been amusing me recently.

I found out this week my boss at the Science Center frontloaded all my hours this month, so Monday night at Bound'ry was the last time I will work until Saturday, when I start shifts again at both places. I've got enough for rent, and I'm going to start a whole lot more hours in July, so it's fine by me. Four and a half day weekend, here I come!

I got a library card today from the Nashville Public system. I had been using Vanderbilt's library for all my needs up until now, but the college's selection of (ah... ahem, uh) children's literature is somewhat lacking, for reasons that are not entirely beyond me.

What I have been doing all this time

Though I've told some of you this in person, to verify I am in fact working two jobs right now, and they are completely different from each other in almost every way. Both these companies, however, shape a distinctive part of Nashville's identity in their own way.

The Adventure Science Center looks like a giant electric castle. It is pretty hard to miss if you are driving down any of Nashville's interstates (except 440 I think). I work the front desk, which means I sell people admission tickets/memberships and give people directions over the phone. Lots of sitting is involved. Occasionally I will run the flight simulator ride (BlueMax it is called), which is sort of like being inside a giant can of soda pop as someone shakes it up, except you are the one doing the shaking. I usually work from 9:30am to 5pm, and wear a red polo shirt with the Adventure Science Center logo on the left breast.

Bound'ry is a bar a couple blocks away from the Vanderbilt campus. I am a food runner, which means I stay in the kitchen until we get an order (or five or six) and then take the food the chefs have prepared, and deliver it to the correct table. This involves being able to balance several plates on a tray (or sometimes my forearms), and memorizing all one hundred of the non-sequential table numbers in the dining area. For this job, I usually work from 6pm to 10:30pm (unless I am closing, in which case it is much later) and wear a black collared shirt with black slacks.

I keep meaning to take photographs of either of these places, but never seem to get around to it. If I ever do, I'll post them here. Working two jobs leaves me little time for much else, so the infrequent blog posts will probably decrease further at least until school starts back.

"'But suppose God is black', I replied."

I did this in honor of the fortieth anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination in Los Angeles.

My supervisor at the Science Center was out today, and it was kind of a slow day anyway, so I had a lot of time to sit and draw as I sat behind the front desk. These are some sketches I did in preparation for the cartoon you see above. Also, I got my paycheck today, which means I'm going shopping tomorrow at the art supply store (WOOHOO!)

Another Hilary-ous reason to keep fighting Obama

Here is my latest endeavor in the field of political cartooning. I think I like drawing political cartoons in a looser style to give them more of a New Yorker feel.

Additionally, this is a study I did of an Obama caricature by Rick Meyerowitz on Stephen Heller's NYT blog.

Finally, I've found that even though he is quite a bit more conservative than I am, I love the art of Michael Ramirez. When I was in grammar school, my mother used to get this opinion paper called the Conservative Chronicle that was littered with Ramirez's work. Since I've long since formed my own political values, it's really refreshing to be reacquainted with him.

My second ever political cartoon

Update: NPR reported this morning that the Nashville City Council has in fact approved the budget that would decimate its bussing system. As a reaction, I sketched this during my lunch break today.



I have found that I am letting myself get more and more riled up by politics these days, so I have recently tried to direct some of that agitation into something constructive. Thus, a political cartoon. I am going to have to practice drawing Barack Obama a lot more before I can start doing cartoons about national politics. I've got Generic Terrorist Guy under control, and I'm still working on George Bush.

My first ever political cartoon (in case you were wondering, because I know you were) I made about eight years ago regarding the 2000 election controversy. I will probably never see it again, because I made it when I was ten. Just thought I'd let you know that I have experience in this kind of work.

In other news

Also at work today, I decided that my office is pretty vulnerable to a zombie attack. I do my work on the second floor, but zombies have been shown to have little difficulty climbing stairs. My potential weapons arsenal includes:

a)The miniature flag I have of Hong Kong beside my desk (don't ask me why it is there, it just is).
--This would have to be a pretty close-proximity weapon, and if I didn't jam into the zombie's skull at exactly the right place to penetrate the brain, I would be boned.

b)My telephone with all the fancy features
--This is fairly heavy and would probably do damage if there were only one zombie. However I fear that flailing it around would cause the part you hold to your face to get tangled up somewhere, thus making use of the heavy base really inconvenient.

c)The keyboard to my computer
--This is the one I finally decided on because it has the greatest combination of mobility and weight. If I yanked it up real quick and it did not easily detach from my PC tower, I would be toast, but when zombies attack, you sometimes have to take risks.

A portrait of Felicity

This didn't really turn out the way I expected, but hey, what does? After I lettered this I realized it might not make any sense. Felicity is talking about her unborn child. Jason is her ex-lover. Just making sure its crystal clear.

Space Patrol

Our body is basically a tool for processing energy and releasing it back into the world. When the body processes nutrients it must exert the energy it receives back out into the world. Human beings do not simply emit raw energy though. Our bodies must find some context in which to put this energy. Athletics is one such context. It provides high rates emission, and is composed largely of simple repetitions, thus requiring little complexity. Social engagements are another method. Creative expression is my personal favorite.

All of these contexts rely on contraction and relaxation of the muscles. Contraction is the withdrawl of energy and relaxation is the release. With mental contexts such as creative expression and social engagement, it requires the contraction of the brain, which is a muscle just like any other, followed by the relaxation that releases the energy. We refer to contraction of the brain as thought. This is why one cannot simultaneously try to remember the names of all seven dwarfs while holding a conversation about Walt Disney's career. One cannot think and engage simultaneously.

Private thought, masterbation, fat conversion, are all internal methods of energy use. They recirculate the body's energy inside the individual. Thought requires high levels of complexity, while fat conversion requires no complexity. Obesity is generally observd to be a negative trait in humans because we identify a fat person as someone keeping all of his energy inside himself.

School provides humans still developing their methods of contraction and emission with ways in which to organize their energy into forms that will lead to a life both productive to society and satisfactory to the individual.

Eventually, the agent will find a method of energy use he feels comfortable with, and will allign himself with this context for the duration of his life, settling into its patterns and rhythms, while becoming more and more familiar with the nuances and details of his chosen emission path, thus increasing his skill at navigating these patterns. This is what we call a career.

The energy exerted must allign itself with methods previously identified for productive energy emission. If a person reads a lot of books, he will want to write his own. If a person talks to a lot of poeple, she will get good at interacting herself. This is a basic input/output function. The creator needs to put what he is expressing into contexts similar though distinct from the content he has consumed.

The point of all this is, I have been eating a whole lot, and then sitting a desk for the entire day exerting minimal energy. This is why I have been arting like a madman during my free time.

Here is a picture.

The decline of Nashville's mass transit.

As a Nashvillian who relies on the Metro Transit Authority to get to and from my jobs, I feel some responsibilty to preserve this important service in my city. Yesterday I attended a meeting led by a representative of the MTA, explaing to the public that city budget cuts leave it short about 2.9 million dollars. To get around this the MTA is considering several options:

Eliminating Service on the weekends.
Eliminating Service at night.
Eliminate about a third of the routes.

I ride the night bus home on weeknights. I ride the bus on Saturdays and Sundays as well. It is PACKED. If these bus routes are cut, that means all those people will be unable to get to and from work.

This budget cut comes at a time when more people are relying on public transportation than ever. From 2004 to 2006, the number of people who used Nashville's MTA increased by about 250,000 people. From 2006 to 2008, the MTA gained 1,500,000 new riders. That brings current ridership up to 8.5 million people.

Most cities have a tax that funds their MTA, giving it a steady source of income. Nashville does not. Only about half of the MTA's income comes from the city, and only twelve percent is from is from the state. These numbers are far lower than the national norm for busses.

Most of the city council members head wealthy families and the MTA does not appear to directly concern them. About 80% of the people that ride the bus come from low income families. When the budget was being drawn up, most of the concern went to

a) Education
b) Police protection
c) Fire protection

Most of the people affected by this change ARE NOT EVEN AWARE OF IT.

If you live in Nashville, please come to the Public Hearing on June 3 at 6:30pm at City Hall. Your very presence will weigh on the minds of those in authority.

Based on a childhood memory

I'm dabbling in a new style with this one. Drawing scratchy/messy requires a lot of confidence in what you're doing.

I originally thought I was taking most of the influence for this from Natalie Kocsis, an artist I only recently discovered online. Then I realized my high school pal Jobathan has been drawing like this all his life.



A new bill is facing congress right now called the U.S. Orphan Works Act of 2008. If it passes, it would require that artists register every single image they produce with a private company or their work becomes public domain. The bill also loosens the rules for creative property. This means if someone finds something you drew online, and the image is separated from your name, the finder can use it for his company and make lots of money from it, and the artist will never see a dime.

Our contemporary economy is driven by creativity; companies everywhere have realized this and now understand the need to catch their clients' eyes. If this bill passes, visual artists will be left with fewer rights than they already have.

Following the memery

A few days ago Dave Valeza posted a challenge on his livejournal to draw your teenage self. The responses have reached the hundreds.

Okay so technically I am still a teenager (19 in August), but I mean come on, I am not a high school kid anymore.

ANYWAY, inked up this morning and posted above, is a portrait of me at age sixteen. God I can't believe I used to smoke. I want to hit myself for it.

Tiskets, taskets, et cetera

This was my final project for art class. The theme of our drawing was supposed to be "FLIGHT." I decided to do a triptic exploring what happens when people attempt to fly. The last panel was originally going to show the person whose viewpoint you are experiencing jumping off the building and plummetting towards the ground, but I decided to go with the less depressing alternative in which the jumper gains the ability to fly. When I tried to express this in the same terms of the first two panels I wasn't positive the black and white captured the feel of the magical event that had just taken place, so I borrowed some pastels to finish up with flair (we had not worked with colors all year so it was kind of a risk).




I had my portfolio review today for Art Class. Apparently my ideas are too far ahead of my style. My "head is moving faster than [my] hands." I ended up with a B+ because I was supposed to be developing technique instead of thinking of interesting methods of representation. I guess that's not so bad. The professor told me it's a lot better than being someone who can draft with amazing precision but has no ideas to instill life into. The solution: get better at art.

Hardy Heron

This is Nina from West Jersey. She's a prostitute by trade



OK guys it's time for another geek-oriented post. In honor of Ubuntu's latest release coming out tomorrow, I've compiled my own little top ten eleven list of reasons you would want to switch to Ubuntu 8.04

1. You spilled coke on your apple key and just don't want to deal with it any more
2. You can have conversations with Computer Science majors that completely alienate everyone around you
3. You have a lot of spare time on your hands and nothing to do with it
4. Text based interface trumps graphical interface any day of the week
5. You're not really interested in running "mainstream" programs
6. You're broke
7. You want to meet all the friendly new people that hang out in Linux support forums
8. You can use Kernel panics as an excuse for handing in the occasional late paper
9. No one can ever accuse you of supporting a giant corporation
10. You want to become really familiar with the names of every single component and driver that make up your system as you spend hours online hunting them down
11. Feel better than all the people you hear asking questions like "Wait, what's see-plus-plus?"


Convinced?

Download Hardy Heron right here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/

A dead art form

It's recently occurred to me that there are no new jokes being circulated in my culture. Which is not say that comedy is dead, or that everything has stopped being funny lately. I'm not talking about Chuck Norris jokes or Saturday Night Live. I mean the witty question-and-answer gags or those absurdist anecdotes. I haven't heard a new one in ages.

Two drums and a cymbal fall down the edge of a cliff

Budump-chsh

I'm assuming you've heard this one, probably more than once. Why then has no one invented a single new joke (to my knowledge) in years? I feel like a good number of jokes originated from screenwriters who would put them in their scripts to break up a tense scene or to give a character a different dimensionality, and they would then spread as an oral tradition among the moviegoers' friends and their friends. I have a few suspects for the death of this idea:

1. Joke books. People who were incapable of being funny on their own in social situations would buy these things and study them like textbooks before going to a party or something. "Oooh look how funny you are" the partygoers would say and the joke distributor would get a little boost in self-esteem. These books were super-popular in the seventies and eighties, but then people realized that you can make limited profit selling joke books, so publishers just started compiling a bunch of used jokes instead of writing new ones to make money.

2. Gilbert Gottfried. Most stand-up comedians do not use the joke form I've described in their acts. "Something funny happened inside my brain when I was stoned" (Mitch Hedburg); "Boy the news sure is funny, aint it?" (Jay Leno); or "I can make funny noises with my lips" (Dane Cook). Gilbert Gottfried was always classicist joke-teller though. His forms followed the structure I've described above, but he always pushed the envelope beyond what could be told in general social settings. This is actually not solely Gottfired's fault. Jokes will just not spread as easily when they involve sexual organs or stereotyped demographics. Every time anyone hears a joke like this and says "I find that offensive," the joketeller and all those listening are discouraged from telling that joke again, which I think subconsciously discredits the medium as a whole.

3. Science. Remember in 2002 when scientist made a survey to figure out what the funniest joke in the entire world was? Whose idea was that? Anyway the winner turned out to be that one about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and that missing tent. I never thought it was that great, but who am I to argue with science? I think a lot of traditionalist joke writers felt the same way. Why write any new jokes if it's always going to come in second place to that damn Dr. Watson joke? Thanks a lot objectivity.

In the beginning was the word

"As living information the plasmate travels up the optic nerve of a human to the pineal body. It uses the human brain as a female host... in which to replicate itself into its active form"
--Philip K. Dick
VALIS



Information perpetuates itself the same way viruses do, using living organisms as hosts, and diffusing hierarchically. Once we become infected with a particular idea, it makes a nest for itself in our thoughts, reproducing and occasionally mutating until it can find a new host.

The idea reproduces by sending out reproductions of the original information contagiously to the people we come in contact with--either directly, through academics or conversation, or by creating new hosts for this idea through books, films or other boxes of representation.

The lifespan of ideas is much longer than that of physiological viruses; in an individual this spans anywhere from a couple of years to one's entire lifetime, depending on the strength of the idea. In social or cultural organisms (i.e. nations, civilizations) strong ideas have been known to last well over a hundred years (i.e. Romanticism, Protestantism).

College is in this sense a sort of anti-hospital, in which we purposefully infect ourselves with the hope that these ideas may perpetuate and transmit themselves through us into new forms.

There are very few ideas that are benign--accepting an idea into one's system rarely has a nil effect on the host. Whether that idea be feminism or Reaganomics, when the idea has matured into its adult form (capable of reproduction), it will incorporate itself into the full being of the host, including his actions. Some ideas have been known to be fatal (such as suicide, cigarette commercials [now an extinct form], or daredevilism).

It is possible to build up resistance to certain ideas by purposefully vaccinating oneself with an idea that is mutually exclusive with the target idea if an exposure can be predicted beforehand, such as reading Emmanuel Levinas before reading Friedrich Nietzche. Likewise it is possible to nourish an idea by frequent exposure to compatible or complementary ideas, which is why soda machines and snack machines are usually juxtaposed geographically. They are built as cellular agents for the idea of stimulating the taste buds and the idea of microconsumerism. (Man, I could go for a Snickers bar right now. Oh wow, Skittles! I haven't had those in so long. Crap, now I need something to wash all this down with).

The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses lists these criteria for a virus:

1. Viruses arose from non-living matter, separately from and in parallel to other life forms.

2. Viruses arose from earlier, more competent cellular life forms that became parasites to host cells and subsequently lost most of their functionality*.

3. Viruses arose as parts of the genome of cells that acquired the ability to "break free" from the host cell and infect other cells.





*This can be read as previous functionality, as in "I can no longer function as an Objectivist after being infected with the idea of Keynsianism"

[Post Script: About half a day after publishing this post, I remember that this is exactly the premise of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. Damn]

God prefers alternate story forms.

This is Sylvan. No one will play with him because they only see him as monster...

This is how he began life:



I'm actually not sure which one I prefer.

In other news, I spent all of Saturday at a conference on how to make your newspaper stories more interesting by using alternate story forms (charticles!). It's kind of shame I don't write newspaper stories. I was supposed to spend all of today there as well, thus eating up my entire weekend. However, I slept in waaaaaay too late this morning to make it.

The First Day of Spring

My Astronomy lab took a field trip to the Dyer Observatory today. It was pretty amazing. It is a construct South of Nashville's suburbs. with a 24 foot telescope. The guy who runs it assured everyone that it was an awesome place for picnics, so I feel like I may be visiting up there during the warmer months. Speaking of summer, I picked up applications for two different summer jobs this afternoon, both of them in bookstores. Immediately after this Woody texted me to warn me not to get a job in retail. That put a little damper on my summer anticipation.

Also, the poor chap you see above is named Winslow.

Valentine's Day, remember that?

This is something I started about a month ago, so it's a little dated. Also the scan's not as good as I would have liked. Even so, my thanks goes out to Dave for letting me use his scanner. Also I really need to practice my lettering.

Update: Picture now uses slightly less suck

Transcendence through dance

Hello all. Sorry I do not have a picture for you today.

Having participated in MOSAIC myself as a high school senior last year, I decided to sign up to host a visiting student in my room for three nights this weekend. Thursday I met Justin, a prospective student from Florida, at the Student Life Center, and I helped him carry his stuff back to my room. He asked to come to my morning class on Friday, so I introduced him to my astronomy professor. He seems like a pretty cool guy. However, it is right now 4am, and I have no idea where he is sleeping tonight; it is apparently not in a sleeping bag in my room. I'm not sure if this makes me a bad MOSAIC-er. I did sort of abandon him this evening when I went to din-din and I did sort of imply that he wouldn't actually get in trouble if he decided to party somewhere tonight.

Speaking of parties...

I went to a club tonight, which is something I have not done in quite some time. Or possibly ever. At least not a dance-appreciation club. Now when I say "club" I do not mean one of those plywood treehouses with NO GIRLS ALLOWED signs posted beside their non-existent doors. This club highly supported women joining their ranks, often encouraging them to "make some damn noise" in appreciation of the master of ceremony's musical tastes. This club excludes instead people under eighteen and those who do not have driver's licenses.

"Fuel," as this club was called, did not sell gasoline or any automobile related-products, in fact. Nearly all the men, I noticed, used hair products. The light was dim. I could not suppress the urge to dance. At the end of the night, several half-naked men climbed onto the stage to flaunt their pot bellies and blood alcohol content. This means I had a pretty good night. Thank you Beta Chi Theta; in gratitude, I promise that I will stop pronouncing your middle name like "chai."

Still in Nashville. Even though it's Spring Break

http://www.surelyfunctional.com/pages/08.html

There was once a family with three children who loved tomatoes so much that the mother and the father decided to plant a tomato garden in their backyard. They went to the store and bought a packet of seeds, but when they planted them in the soil, one of the seeds refused to grow. Of course the family did not realize this. All they saw were the tiny green sprouts shooting up from the soil. The one little seed who stayed in his shell was outside of their awareness.
His sprouting brothers would say to him "Why won't you come out? It's much better up here in the light"

"No!" He would cry. "I don't know what's up there, and I'm perfectly fine down here"
So the sun beat down and the tomato plants grew and grew.

The ornery seed soon found that no matter how hard he resisted though, the sunlight somehow drew his stem towards the sky. Hating the light for the monsters it had turned his brothers into, the little seed resorted to eating his own shoot to prevent succumbing to this terrible fate. And it hurt. It hurt him very much, but it was all he knew how to do, so he told himself this pain was all there was. It was worth it, he kept telling himself, because only the weakest plants needed light, and he was going to be strong. There was no alternative.

As the other tomato plants began to blossom they cried out to their little brother. "Seed, please come out. We love you and want to see you, and it hurts us to see you destroy yourself like this." But the seed would have none of this nonsense. He wanted to have fun, and how could a plant have fun by conforming to the lifestyle of all the other plants? He wanted to stay in the soil forever.

Summer came and the tomato plants bore their fruit. The family that planted them made tomato soup and homemade ketchup and salads and sandwiches, and they loved all this food very much. The sprouted plants told their brother how happy the children were and how much care the family gave them by watering their roots, and fertilizing them, and even talking to them occasionally.
"Bah! Children! Family!" Called out the seed. "How do I even know these children even exist! You're all a bunch of fools."

Fall came and the plants still had not given up on their lonesome brother. And he still would not accept their love. But on the eighteenth of October, the tension holding back his shoots and leaves was to much for the little seed to bear. In agony, he did not know where else to turn, but to the sun. And in that first moment when he touched the air, he know he had been wrong all those months. As much as he wanted to deny it and stay in his shell, he had no choice but to obey the transcendent call. And his brothers smiled down on him, and the sun shone his rays on the little sprout as much as on his brothers, but winter was fast approaching.
Though there were no I-told-you-so's, no reproach or condescension of any kind, the tiny sprout shed his only leaf in grief, like a teardrop. He wept for all he had missed spending his life in fear, in isolation, in horrible pain. But there was only love for the little sprout now. A new freedom that fed his soul and made his existence bearable. Only love.

Occasionally I take photographs of total strangers (but only with their consent)

I was coming back from work today when I passed someone walking down the street playing the accordion in traditional Swiss garb. I asked her if it would be weird if I took a picture (it's not every day you see someone walking down the street playing the accordion). On closer inspection it turned out not to be Swiss garb but just really fashionable clothes. She said she lived in the neighborhood and it just seemed like a nice day to play the accordion.

"Well, thanks for sharing your accordion skills with the world"
"Thanks for appreciating"

I realize I should feel weird about doing things like this, but really I'm just a little kid with a toy camera.

"Ethics is the method by which the soul binds itself to the Good"

I've been doing a lot of religious studying this week. Last Friday, I went to a Shabat at the campus Jewish center, on Sunday I attended the morning service at the Unitarian Universalist church, and yesterday I went to a panel discussion with ten representatives from different religions. And now I start research for a paper on a particular religion's concept of the creation of the universe.

I had gone to one Shabat before this Sunday but didn't really take much from it because it was almost entirely in Hebrew. This Friday I followed up the service with a visit to Rabbi Schlomo's house (the Rabbi who hands out pamphlets outside the Dining Center). I've decided the Jewish Identity has a lot in common with the Modernist mentality because it is about alienation. One of the Jews at the lesson explained to me that to be a Jew was to live in exile. Even the Jews who lived in the Holy Land still felt a strong sense of spiritual exile, that is, alienation of the soul from God. Another aspect of Jewish life is the focus on the pain and suffering of religious brothers, which is expressed through an internal focus whether it be individually with an emphasis on private study of the Torah and Talmud or culture-wide with an immutability of tradition and an impenetrability of community. This made sense to me because I associate a strong sense of self (identity) with alienation and with suffering.

I attended the Universalist service with Sean, Daniel and Aimee at the church in Green Hills. It began with the children's choir singing not about some textual Bible story or specific religious concept, but about using their imagination. In fact all the songs in the hymn book were about using the mind through rational or creative thought to find God. It was definitely a service that seemed to bring about the better aspects of mankind. My only problem with it was that since their ideology is so open and accepting there is very little to focus on. Their entire creed fit inside the order of service, which means they have no strong, absolute concept of good that they preach. Instead religious stories are studied from an almost-academic perspective. The sermon was about the Ancient Chinese story of Creation, and the preacher described teaching Sunday school lessons of God as if he were a part of a tale, not too different from a Mother Goose story. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

The religious panel last night was very enlightening. There were representatives Ba'hai, Hindu, Mormon, Protestant, Catholic, Islamic, Atheist, Jewish, Jainist and Buddhist faiths. I thought the Jainist and Ba'hai representatives did an excellent job, and I even learned something about the Protestant faith I didn't know. The atheist representative however did not know how to answer the question and instead started swearing about taxes and Jack Benny(?).

And remember that resolution I made a while back to learn more about Hinduism? Well guess what I'm writing my cosmology project on. Anyhow, I'm now really late for class

Linux has no Blue Screen of Death--it just dies

Wednesday night I had a philosophy paper to finish before my 8am morning class. Which made it the perfect time to erase my hard drive. Yes, even the mighty Linux is not impossible to crash.

***Skip this part if you don't want nerdy techno-babble***

I had opened up Linux's automatic update system to import plugins from the multiverse spectrum, which includes updates outside Linux's approved web servers and programs list. This gives a lot more updates, but it means not all of them are compatible. The computer froze up while compiling one of these. When I rebooted, my kernel was totally gone. In tears, I called up Vanderbilt's ITS help desk, only to find out that no one there knows how to handle Linux. I have nothing.

***Okay you can start reading again***

I was not even able to start the paper until after 3am. Luckily I had my old Ubuntu live CD in my desk drawer, which means I wrote my paper on about 650 megs of Operating System and entirely in gedit. I finished the paper despite all this 'cause I'm a trooper like that. My professor was very understanding when I explained the reason the font was Courier New instead of Times New Roman and there were no headers, footers or citations. I was planning on going to the Apple store this weekend and buying Leopard so I would have a plan B if Linux flakes out again, but my paycheck was late so I'm still running my laptop on a Live disk (gross). I'm also refusing to reinstall the same distribution I had before, which, puts me in a precarious position, system-wise.

Why are things like this looked down upon by conservatives?

I had an interesting experience on Saturday night--my friend Downs invited me to this concert that was being held at the yoga source downtown. It struck me as an odd place for a concert, but that didn't really deter me. In the entranceway before the standing room there was a giant closet/changing space where everyone was encouraged to put their jackets, cell phones and other loose objects. In the concert hall proper (if you could call it that) the hundred or so people that had arrived before us were all sitting cross-legged on the hardwood floor or on one of the prayer mats that the sponsors were handing out. The band, called Samavayah, consisted of two percussionists, two sitar players a lead chanter, and a dancer (I think--it was kind of hard to see). The kirtan-style music was all in a call-and-response format, so the group would project maybe six Hindi words on the screen behind them, explain their meanings in English and then repeat them for the entirety of a twenty-minute song. Most people chanted along with their eyes closed, but by the end of the performance, the audience was dancing and singing in full unity with the musicians. It was an extremely energetic experience. Another one of the people in our party said the sounds inspired to him to see images in the air around him; if you had been there, this would not have surprised you a bit. Would attend again.

Laser beams, Collard greens, and Jelly Beans

On or about 12:17 this afternoon, I realized that I have now missed half of my astronomy lectures so far this semester, which amounts to somewhere in the general vicinity of $472 down the University toilet. Ugh. It was because I stayed up late last night. It was generally a busy day, to say the least.

I had to rush from my Art class (which ends at 4) to the bus that drove everyone to the polls (which left campus at 4) in order to vote. *By the way, even though it was super-exciting to exercise my duty as a citizen, I could not prevent Hilary Clinton form winning the state of Tennessee* At five o'clock I had to attend a Mannafit, which was a benefit dinner for this Central American relief agency. This event lasted much longer than I was comfortable with. Also the tables were decorated with live goldfish, which made me quite angry, and I think I ate a little bit of meat, which made me almost throw up.

Back in my room, just when I decided to forgo watching the West coast returns in favor of my 80 pages of English reading, who should show up but the Tornadoes. Yes we had quite a storm last night if you missed it, and the RAs in my dorm had everyone sit in the first-floor hallway away from the windows until the storm warning expired. *My friends at Union University are safe but say the campus is a total mess* As I get back to room, I'm almost ready to start with the homework when Daniel suddenly decides to shave his head. I somehow got wrapped up in that for a bit (It's not everyday you get to see someone shave his own head).

The good news is I wrote my first program in Unix today! Granted I had a step-by-step tutorial to rely on, but it still made me happy.

Astronomy vs Jean Paul Sartre

I slept through my Astronomy lecture today. I woke myself up at 6:30am to do homework until 10:00am and I ended up falling asleep again. I couldn't bring myself to interrupt such an enthralling dream until it reached its riveting conclusion, which made me oversleep my class (The dream was entitled "Being and Nothingness" (yes my dreams come with title cards)). Anyway I wouldn't be so concerned if I hadn't missed two other lectures already, or if we didn't have a test next class, or if Existentialism wasn't a pretty standard motif in my dream narratives.

These are piddling trifles though. The important thing is the long awaited return of Buttercup Festival has finally arrived. David Troupes, you complete me.






These are my brothers with whom I hung out this weekend. Michael is in the chair, McCord is on the ground.

Cheering up user... 96% complete

I decided around Monday of last week that I would go back home this weekend. Despite the pleadings of Daniel and Tiffany, I left Nashville around 8pm on Friday night after dinner, with Frank Herbert's Dune in the CD tray. (Such a good book)

It felt great to see my family again. The home cooking alone was worth the tank of gas I had to buy. I gave my little brother Camus's the Stranger to read as a present (He's an atheist now), and chatted with my mother until the wee hours. I slept last night like I hadn't slept all week.

Today's project is to install another version of Linux on my notebook. (Switching form Xubuntu to Linux Mint). Does it make me a dork that I'm doing this to relax? Probably, but it's also not nearly as bad as it sounds, I assure you.

While my system compiles, I'll be refining my course schedule for the next three years (a double major is not beyond reach), honing my skills with an ink pen, and pretending I don't have class in 40 hrs.

The point is I'm home, doing things that I enjoy, and minimizing stress. Callooh Callay!



In this picture, the quintessence of my home town. From a photo essay I did about a year ago.

"Give her a cup of tea and four vanilla wafers and she'll do whatever you want"

Bill Clinton held a political rally at Fisk University tonight. Hillary apparently is incapacitated with some sort of sickness--something that if she is elected will be drastically reduced (better general health was actually one of the platforms discussed). I was only told about the rally fifteen minutes before it was supposed to start, but there was about an hour of buffer time, which means the line of people outside the auditorium before the event began had plenty of people in front and in back of me.

I'm glad I got to be a little better versed Clinton's campaign. Bill emphasized Hillary's domestic and economic positions. He detailed her plan to raise America out of the current recession, admitting that taxes would have to increase, but assuring the tax refunds for the wealthy would be redistributed to help the more needy parts of the country. He also explained her heath plan in great detail, and why it would work this time.

--Rough Quotes--

(only as accurate as I can remember them, which means not very)

"When I was campaigning with Hilary in New York, I was talking to a crusty old conservative in the country, and I asked him if he thought he'd vote for Hillary to be reelected. He said 'Well, I didn't think it'd come to this, but I guess I'll have to. We've had other senators come through these parts and shake our hands and smile and all, but she's the only on that ever did anything for us'"

Q: "What do plan to do about the scare tactics surrounding social security"
A: "The money we have for social security will run out by 2038... but those ideas are only spread by people who want to privatize social security, and we don't need to do that, so you don't need to worry about that.

Q: What do you plan to do for universities such as historically black colleges that are suffering from financial problems--not just historically black colleges but all universities that have a lack of funds? [Fisk is dead broke, fyi]
A: Under Hillary's plan, institutions will be relieved of economic strains with her higher education plan giving loans out directly to the students at rates based on their post-graduate income. This will encourage more people to apply to college and to continue all the way through. The schools will also save money through her plan to reform energy distribution.

Q: What does Hillary plan to do for the homeless and jobless?
A: Those with no jobs and no address would still be covered under the existing Medicaid program which is like a safety net. That seems to be working pretty well so I don't see a need to change that.

Q: "WHEN Hillary gets elected President, I'm assuming you won't want to be called the first lady. What would you like to be called?"
A: "I've been called so many things in my life it doesn't matter too much to me... I suppose I'd be called the first gentleman"


tl;dr:
Here's a picture I drew of people at the Clinton rally






The title quote comes from the confused and murmur-inspiring introduction the wrinkled former Tennessee Governor Ned McWherter gave to the absent Hillary Clinton.

Today I am full of Good Things

First class today: Sociology.
--I draw until I have to start taking notes.
Second class today: Philosophy.
--I take notes BY drawing.
Third class today: Art.
--I don't stop drawing for three hours.

Guess what my new favorite class is?



Charcoal on paper. It's really big.

Things I keep doing-- Part I

So I live across the hall from this guy Daniel. We became such good friends that a while back we agreed that since we share so much of our stuff, we should just keep an open invitation to eachother's rooms. He borrows stuff from my room, I borrow stuff from his room whenever the need arises. This morning I really needed a calculator, but I forgot he has a girlfriend now, so when he didn't respond to my knocking on his door, I assumed he was out for brunch. This is the second time I've walked in on him naked. Not even a little bit awkward.

Some of what I've been working on

Partially because of the influence of David Troupes, and partially because I think they are amazing, I'm trying to get better at drawing trees.




Yes, it's on fire. I've been taking lots of photographs around campus of trees and studying root, trunk and branch structures. This is one of many of the tree-like sketches I've done. I'll probably be posting more of this stuff as I feel the mood strike me.