Also, I found my old TA's work online. Titus' work is some of the most inspiration I've seen at Yale. While it's taken a much different direction from when I first see it, I really like the ideas he's been playing with, especially towards the bottom of the page. Titus really explores identity and portraits in an endearing way. Please visit his work here.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
My Mind in Pictures
There are a million things I could be posting about right now. And I will later on in the week. For now, however, I'm posting the pictures I've been working on lately. Here are a few of my favorites. The themes of my thoughts can be found represented within them, see if you can decipher them. Paintings are coming later in the week as well.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Party of the Right Photo Project Part 1
Here is phase one of the pictures I took 10/2/08. These aren't done, it's just the first phase of editing. I'm hoping to move forward on these in the next week or two, as well as take more content photos.
I'm also posting these as a rough example so alumni can get a look at them and decide if they would like their pictures taken and edited during Orgy and Banquet this year. It takes a few minutes to get your picture taken, and I'll send you the edits over the next month or so (depending on volume). Finished edits will be e-mailed back to you when they're done.
I'm also posting these as a rough example so alumni can get a look at them and decide if they would like their pictures taken and edited during Orgy and Banquet this year. It takes a few minutes to get your picture taken, and I'll send you the edits over the next month or so (depending on volume). Finished edits will be e-mailed back to you when they're done.
The Chairman of the Party of the Right
Mr. Shaffer, the Former Chairman
Mr. O'Connor, Sometime Chairman
Mr. Solomon, The Secretary - Treasurer
Mr. Bristow, The Former Chancellor of Cards and Games
As I said, this is just the first round of primary editing. Pictures will be tweaked, framed, and finished, downright polished. I'll post future edits as I get to them. Big thanks to everyone helping out with this project, it means a lot to me.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Take Two, and a Cultural Return to Simplicity?
I'm giving this thing a second attempt. I'm hoping to actually keep up with it this time and write something of substance at least weekly. We'll see how it goes. While I swear I often think substancy thoughts, I rarely take the time to write them down, and it's exactly this need to slow down and get a thought recorded or at least mulled over thoroughly that I'm aiming for.
Perhaps it's just my own craving for simplicity and stability that's coloring my world view, but it seems that the west is making a cultural movement towards simplicity and the classics. The world and society we currently live in is too overwhelmingly busy and complex, especially in urban centers, that it seems almost necessary that our collective soul is crying out for a little peace and sanity.
I've noticed more and more in songs on the radio lately that while we have the technology and chops to make extremely complex, erratic music, and the general public now has the ear to understand that kind of music, we're moving back towards simple rock and roll aesthetics, especially in the rhythm sections, which I believe most people register most strongly when listening to most types of music. Perhaps it's the similarity to a heartbeat. Perhaps it's the way we can feel it as well as hear it. Perhaps it just calls out to our natural rhythms. I've been listening to Coldplay's Violet Hill and The White Stripes Icky Thump lately, and while I know for a fact that these musicians have done more complex stuff in the past (yes, even The White Stripes have rarely actually relied solely on a single beat on the floor tom for such a significant portion of the song, and as much as Jack shows his chops on this song, he's holding back from his usual mess of garage-fuzz scales and near-metal-solo antics.)
As my friend posted on his blog a little bit ago, fashion is going the same route. Simple. Covered up. Conservative. Old School. Simple.
Art went this way a while back in the 80s with the black squares and primary colors, and as much as I love Mondrian, these movements were so conceptually dependent and complex that it did nothing for most viewers. Nowadays, graffiti and poster art, especially silk screening, are in vogue, and these mediums necessarily call for simplifying the subject and blocking colors into bold, telling shapes.
I'm hoping we're starting to apply this to social relationships and affairs as well. Perhaps now that Wall Street's falling we'll go back to affording what we buy. It also seems we're starting to fall back from the 70s sexual revolution and monogamous relationships and even marriage seems to hold some worth again. Even most conservatives, and even liberals, of my generation are gravitating towards Libertarianism, a call for less complex government interaction and a smaller government organization with more clear, defined, limited roles.
Society cycles through these aesthetic leanings. Individuals do as well. My own craving for stability comes towards the end of a period of almost kamikaze-style engagement in worlds I never had access to and dreamed about when I led a quiet, secluded life. But at the end of five years, I feel the need to slow down a bit, quiet down, and focus. I've planted the seeds I needed to plant, and now no longer have to run around building connections, proving myself, and exploring the different tracks I wanted to run down. I can now sit back, do my work, and seclude myself once again, at least a little more, because of this comfortable position I've gained.
Life and society aren't going to get any less complicated, busy, or erratic, but it seems our culture is starting to grasp at simplicity in the few ways it can now. The aesthetic climate is changing, and I like it.
Perhaps it's just my own craving for simplicity and stability that's coloring my world view, but it seems that the west is making a cultural movement towards simplicity and the classics. The world and society we currently live in is too overwhelmingly busy and complex, especially in urban centers, that it seems almost necessary that our collective soul is crying out for a little peace and sanity.
I've noticed more and more in songs on the radio lately that while we have the technology and chops to make extremely complex, erratic music, and the general public now has the ear to understand that kind of music, we're moving back towards simple rock and roll aesthetics, especially in the rhythm sections, which I believe most people register most strongly when listening to most types of music. Perhaps it's the similarity to a heartbeat. Perhaps it's the way we can feel it as well as hear it. Perhaps it just calls out to our natural rhythms. I've been listening to Coldplay's Violet Hill and The White Stripes Icky Thump lately, and while I know for a fact that these musicians have done more complex stuff in the past (yes, even The White Stripes have rarely actually relied solely on a single beat on the floor tom for such a significant portion of the song, and as much as Jack shows his chops on this song, he's holding back from his usual mess of garage-fuzz scales and near-metal-solo antics.)
As my friend posted on his blog a little bit ago, fashion is going the same route. Simple. Covered up. Conservative. Old School. Simple.
Art went this way a while back in the 80s with the black squares and primary colors, and as much as I love Mondrian, these movements were so conceptually dependent and complex that it did nothing for most viewers. Nowadays, graffiti and poster art, especially silk screening, are in vogue, and these mediums necessarily call for simplifying the subject and blocking colors into bold, telling shapes.
I'm hoping we're starting to apply this to social relationships and affairs as well. Perhaps now that Wall Street's falling we'll go back to affording what we buy. It also seems we're starting to fall back from the 70s sexual revolution and monogamous relationships and even marriage seems to hold some worth again. Even most conservatives, and even liberals, of my generation are gravitating towards Libertarianism, a call for less complex government interaction and a smaller government organization with more clear, defined, limited roles.
Society cycles through these aesthetic leanings. Individuals do as well. My own craving for stability comes towards the end of a period of almost kamikaze-style engagement in worlds I never had access to and dreamed about when I led a quiet, secluded life. But at the end of five years, I feel the need to slow down a bit, quiet down, and focus. I've planted the seeds I needed to plant, and now no longer have to run around building connections, proving myself, and exploring the different tracks I wanted to run down. I can now sit back, do my work, and seclude myself once again, at least a little more, because of this comfortable position I've gained.
Life and society aren't going to get any less complicated, busy, or erratic, but it seems our culture is starting to grasp at simplicity in the few ways it can now. The aesthetic climate is changing, and I like it.
New Blog Arena Take 1
Original Post February 2007
Just a side note to explain the context of this blog among the oddity that is my online existence. This is a hybrid between my Myspace and Facebook blogs that gets published as a more "finished" approach to the things I feel the need to communicate to people about. This will be more of an experimental research and expression of curiosity type of forum rather than necessarily a more personal journal as my Myspace account has been. In the past entries, taken from these two previous arenas, some new blogs are "joint blogs" in that they draw on both. That is, they generally address an issue that I've blogged about in the two places and I feel that they relate to both areas of my life. I hope for this blog to become that middle ground that I have been long struggling to keep.
Just a side note to explain the context of this blog among the oddity that is my online existence. This is a hybrid between my Myspace and Facebook blogs that gets published as a more "finished" approach to the things I feel the need to communicate to people about. This will be more of an experimental research and expression of curiosity type of forum rather than necessarily a more personal journal as my Myspace account has been. In the past entries, taken from these two previous arenas, some new blogs are "joint blogs" in that they draw on both. That is, they generally address an issue that I've blogged about in the two places and I feel that they relate to both areas of my life. I hope for this blog to become that middle ground that I have been long struggling to keep.
Piercings as Cultural Indicators and Personal Catylists
Original Post February 2007
I've been reading up on the cultural history behind body piercings and it's absolutely fascinating. While in the past I was more concerned about body piercing from a medical perspective, and still am in many ways, the cultural curiosities of this history is much more compelling to me. The popularity of certain piercings during certain eras in European History, for example, gives a unique insight into high societies. For example, in the Victorian era, nipple and genital piercings were a huge craze. So much for that repressed society, right?
I'm becoming especially interested in how certain types of image stereotypes really refer to deeply ingrained cultural or social beliefs about certain types of people. For example, "pirates" are the stereotypical figure for the gold earring. This comes from the early belief among sailors that a pierced ear lobe improved sight (which ties in closely to my interest of how certain parts of the body are oddly connected to each other) and it was also thought that a shipwrecked sailor's body could wash ashore and offer the gold ring in exchange for a proper burial. It makes sense that such a defined aspect of the typical "pirate" or "sailor" image includes something that was perhaps the most important part of their beliefs and were probably the one adornment they felt the need to pay such strong (and expensive) attention to.
Other stereotypes like this exist, such as the primitive man and the septum piercing, for various reasons. I find it not only odd but tragic in many ways that with all these culturally and medically interesting piercings, the ones in fashion today are not only perhaps the worst procedures and risky ones available, but also just the most profoundly boring and meaningless adornments I've come across. Indeed, the "history" of navel piercing, aside from a few pharoahs that used them for status (and not in any significant way), starts with Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell.
Perhaps my first assumption is right and that this trend does indeed tell us a lot about our contemporary culture.
***
It's starting to become apparant that I've been going about this whole lifestyle change all wrong. In some ways at least. The all-or-nothing is helpful for now but can't be permanant. Eventually, once I feel I have control over my addictions and desires again, I can start figuring out which parts of that lifestyle are okay, and can have in healthy moderation. Eventually.
I'm becoming excited about the idea of really settling down into New Haven for at lest a couple of years. I'm finally getting a small sense of permanancy and rooting that I haven't been able to feel for a while. Even for the past four years, it felt fleeting. Now I realize that I can stay as long as I wouls like. And that things matter and are mine in this city. This is what I need.
So now I'm reclaiming everything in my life. I'm repainting my room so and continuing to make things feel permanant and lived in and, well, me. I'm also slowly balancing out my lifestyle to involve both, or all, of my worlds rather than one intensly at a time. Slowly but surely.
For now, I'm getting my nipples pierced this week, and completely getting into their history. Putting one's piercings into context makes them so much more interesting and meaninful because it connects one to that legacy. Nipple piercings themselves are really the perfect thing for me at the moment. Mostly recorded in European history throughout the Renaissance and Victorian eras, they were initially a response to men adorning themselves with earrings and later in the Victorian era were still part of the high class culture and often had a connecting chair or string of pearls as a left-over fad from the Elizabethian era of plunging necklines and creative adornment. However, what's most interesting to me is that even in such a "repressed era" of Western culture, genital and nipple piercings were extremely popular. So I'm going to keep pursuing this and try to figure out why it was so popular at that exact and try to figure out the mentality of this combination of repression and sexual adornment in such an extreme way. This may answer a lot of questions for me or at least help me get ideas about how to address the different needs in my lifestyle. At the very least, I'll have two new piercings to care for and keep me happy.
I've been reading up on the cultural history behind body piercings and it's absolutely fascinating. While in the past I was more concerned about body piercing from a medical perspective, and still am in many ways, the cultural curiosities of this history is much more compelling to me. The popularity of certain piercings during certain eras in European History, for example, gives a unique insight into high societies. For example, in the Victorian era, nipple and genital piercings were a huge craze. So much for that repressed society, right?
I'm becoming especially interested in how certain types of image stereotypes really refer to deeply ingrained cultural or social beliefs about certain types of people. For example, "pirates" are the stereotypical figure for the gold earring. This comes from the early belief among sailors that a pierced ear lobe improved sight (which ties in closely to my interest of how certain parts of the body are oddly connected to each other) and it was also thought that a shipwrecked sailor's body could wash ashore and offer the gold ring in exchange for a proper burial. It makes sense that such a defined aspect of the typical "pirate" or "sailor" image includes something that was perhaps the most important part of their beliefs and were probably the one adornment they felt the need to pay such strong (and expensive) attention to.
Other stereotypes like this exist, such as the primitive man and the septum piercing, for various reasons. I find it not only odd but tragic in many ways that with all these culturally and medically interesting piercings, the ones in fashion today are not only perhaps the worst procedures and risky ones available, but also just the most profoundly boring and meaningless adornments I've come across. Indeed, the "history" of navel piercing, aside from a few pharoahs that used them for status (and not in any significant way), starts with Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell.
Perhaps my first assumption is right and that this trend does indeed tell us a lot about our contemporary culture.
***
It's starting to become apparant that I've been going about this whole lifestyle change all wrong. In some ways at least. The all-or-nothing is helpful for now but can't be permanant. Eventually, once I feel I have control over my addictions and desires again, I can start figuring out which parts of that lifestyle are okay, and can have in healthy moderation. Eventually.
I'm becoming excited about the idea of really settling down into New Haven for at lest a couple of years. I'm finally getting a small sense of permanancy and rooting that I haven't been able to feel for a while. Even for the past four years, it felt fleeting. Now I realize that I can stay as long as I wouls like. And that things matter and are mine in this city. This is what I need.
So now I'm reclaiming everything in my life. I'm repainting my room so and continuing to make things feel permanant and lived in and, well, me. I'm also slowly balancing out my lifestyle to involve both, or all, of my worlds rather than one intensly at a time. Slowly but surely.
For now, I'm getting my nipples pierced this week, and completely getting into their history. Putting one's piercings into context makes them so much more interesting and meaninful because it connects one to that legacy. Nipple piercings themselves are really the perfect thing for me at the moment. Mostly recorded in European history throughout the Renaissance and Victorian eras, they were initially a response to men adorning themselves with earrings and later in the Victorian era were still part of the high class culture and often had a connecting chair or string of pearls as a left-over fad from the Elizabethian era of plunging necklines and creative adornment. However, what's most interesting to me is that even in such a "repressed era" of Western culture, genital and nipple piercings were extremely popular. So I'm going to keep pursuing this and try to figure out why it was so popular at that exact and try to figure out the mentality of this combination of repression and sexual adornment in such an extreme way. This may answer a lot of questions for me or at least help me get ideas about how to address the different needs in my lifestyle. At the very least, I'll have two new piercings to care for and keep me happy.
Musical Hangovers Bring Gender Role Enlightenment
Original Post February 2007
Whatchu gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside your trunk.
This has by far been the most fulfilling weekend I've had in a long time, and it's not over yet. I'm currently at work during Family Day, and there are a ton of little rugrats running around listening to stories about art and doing arts and crafts. It's absolutely amazing, I wish every day were like this. From behind the information desk, it's a special treat to watch kids interact with their parents, each other, etc in a chaotic yet serene environment. I'm impressed.
The past two days have done something for me that I've been missing terribly for a while. Ever since I stopped throwing parties I've been dissatisfied. Cooking and hosting on Friday evening reminded me of what is actually meaningful to me.
I got into a conversation about whether or not it's important for me to be a prominantly vocal intellectual presence in an organization that sets out to do so. At this point, I realize that it is more importatn for me to uphold certain standards of behavior and the intellectual work I do should be apparant but not obvious and definately not advertised. In fact, I find myself abhorred more often than not by those who hold everything on the surface and leave nothing to be discovered. Nothing should be hidden, but silence an anonymity are underrated these days. However, making myself a more intellectual presence is necessary, and it's time to challenge myself to be such without compromising my beliefs on feminity.
It wasn't until lately that I figured out that I have old-school beliefs about gender roles. And it wasn't until recently that I've figured out exactly why they didn't seem to make sense before. Indeed, how can I be feminine in respect to a man if that man is not fulfilling his own role. The fact that men now act less manly is what is to blame for this abomination that is the current female role of weakness, stupidity and gracelessness.
Grace. Again, so underrated these days and so rare.
Enough of this tangent however. Keeping things mundane. I cooked and hosted on Friday. Yesterday, I drank and danced and had a blast. This morning, I was ready for work, dehydrated and with a musical hangover. I've had the Black Eyed Peas and Sean Paul in my head all morning. I'm ready to have my own dance party here at the information desk.
Tonight will be filled with creating. Actually, the next week will be an intense creating session, which may be exactly what I need. It's been so long since I've done art in any intense form, but after putting it off so long, I feel ready for that. Someday, I'll be able to figure out how to communicate.
Whatchu gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside your trunk.
This has by far been the most fulfilling weekend I've had in a long time, and it's not over yet. I'm currently at work during Family Day, and there are a ton of little rugrats running around listening to stories about art and doing arts and crafts. It's absolutely amazing, I wish every day were like this. From behind the information desk, it's a special treat to watch kids interact with their parents, each other, etc in a chaotic yet serene environment. I'm impressed.
The past two days have done something for me that I've been missing terribly for a while. Ever since I stopped throwing parties I've been dissatisfied. Cooking and hosting on Friday evening reminded me of what is actually meaningful to me.
I got into a conversation about whether or not it's important for me to be a prominantly vocal intellectual presence in an organization that sets out to do so. At this point, I realize that it is more importatn for me to uphold certain standards of behavior and the intellectual work I do should be apparant but not obvious and definately not advertised. In fact, I find myself abhorred more often than not by those who hold everything on the surface and leave nothing to be discovered. Nothing should be hidden, but silence an anonymity are underrated these days. However, making myself a more intellectual presence is necessary, and it's time to challenge myself to be such without compromising my beliefs on feminity.
It wasn't until lately that I figured out that I have old-school beliefs about gender roles. And it wasn't until recently that I've figured out exactly why they didn't seem to make sense before. Indeed, how can I be feminine in respect to a man if that man is not fulfilling his own role. The fact that men now act less manly is what is to blame for this abomination that is the current female role of weakness, stupidity and gracelessness.
Grace. Again, so underrated these days and so rare.
Enough of this tangent however. Keeping things mundane. I cooked and hosted on Friday. Yesterday, I drank and danced and had a blast. This morning, I was ready for work, dehydrated and with a musical hangover. I've had the Black Eyed Peas and Sean Paul in my head all morning. I'm ready to have my own dance party here at the information desk.
Tonight will be filled with creating. Actually, the next week will be an intense creating session, which may be exactly what I need. It's been so long since I've done art in any intense form, but after putting it off so long, I feel ready for that. Someday, I'll be able to figure out how to communicate.
Paraneoplastic Syndrome
Original Post Date February 2007
As my last semester here is whizzing by, I'm finding myself caught in a weird sink or swim situation where I'm realizing that this is my last chance to either accept or completely reject this world I've been visiting for the past four years or so. While it's always been a love-hate relationship, I'm starting to realize that this "vacation" of sorts can no longer be seen as such and I'm wondering to what extent I want to keep myself in this kind of world, and more specifically how reasonable it is to expect to do so.
I know it's really lame and it's the absolutely worst time to be thinking about these things, but it's becoming more and more important to me that I figure out in a more profound way the kinds of people I should be hanging out with, and more importantly that kind of significant other I want to be seeking. Even as I type this I realize that I don't even believe in that train of thinking, even more so that it wouldn't be possible to do so anyway.
Still, what encourages me more and more is when I find glimpses of these oppositions in either world. When I see people that are able to successfully "cross over" in a manner I can only hope to aspire to. Whether it's talking about Objectivism with Darryl at the bar or a Party member mentioning punk rock or Lovecraft, it comforts me to see that this ideal I've been fighting with for so many years may indeed actually be possible.
As my last semester here is whizzing by, I'm finding myself caught in a weird sink or swim situation where I'm realizing that this is my last chance to either accept or completely reject this world I've been visiting for the past four years or so. While it's always been a love-hate relationship, I'm starting to realize that this "vacation" of sorts can no longer be seen as such and I'm wondering to what extent I want to keep myself in this kind of world, and more specifically how reasonable it is to expect to do so.
I know it's really lame and it's the absolutely worst time to be thinking about these things, but it's becoming more and more important to me that I figure out in a more profound way the kinds of people I should be hanging out with, and more importantly that kind of significant other I want to be seeking. Even as I type this I realize that I don't even believe in that train of thinking, even more so that it wouldn't be possible to do so anyway.
Still, what encourages me more and more is when I find glimpses of these oppositions in either world. When I see people that are able to successfully "cross over" in a manner I can only hope to aspire to. Whether it's talking about Objectivism with Darryl at the bar or a Party member mentioning punk rock or Lovecraft, it comforts me to see that this ideal I've been fighting with for so many years may indeed actually be possible.
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