Thursday, July 31, 2008
Eyebrow contact |2:53 PM| I was at the Japanese print exhibit at the Blanton with Suzy on Thursday, which was very much worth the trip. I was fascinated at the cross over of influences between European impressionists and Japanese print makers, and once it had been mentioned on one of the blurbs I couldn't help but notice it. Particularly striking to me was the sudden changes to perspective from the decidely 2d to the inclusion of a vanishing point, of a landscape background, etc) in the Japanese prints after the artists' exposure to the impressionists of Europe. (Sadly I cannot find the examples I was looking for, as the Blanton does not have them online)
The impressionists themselves began including aspects of Japanese prints in their own work.
Japan had had its versions of iconoclasms, the banning of images of Kabuki actors or "large head posters" (The glamor shots of the day) etc. This led to a sudden burst of landscape prints.
The multi-woodblock printing system for the color prints was a marvel of craftsmanship, an early version of offset printing.
A silly addition to all this was Suzy noticing an odd facial expression of mine.
A long time ago I was reading up on how facial expressions are universal, products of evolution, and thus are common among all cultures. This guy Ekman studied it.
Clip!
I could already do the one ear at a time thing, so on a lark I learned how to raise the outside of my eyebrows while lowering the inside, the "worthless" Kabuki expression. I had no idea I've been doing to express...confusion? Concern? Deep thought? All I know is Suzy and I were talking when she told me to make "That face" again.
"Which one?" I asked.
"The eyebrow one! It's from Kabuki theater!"
I was floored, not only had I been doing this for ages without my knowledge but someone recognized it.
(2) comments
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
No rest for the wickedly idiotic |5:20 AM| How impressed can you be by someone's actions if you think said actions are intensely stupid? "Wow, he's damned good at pissing on alligators! In the eye, every time!"
I stayed up for some 50+ hours over the weekend. This, that is just colossally stupid. It is the Laocoon of poor planning, something to be studied as a nigh perfect example of dumb.
There was just too goddamn shit to DO. I'd had some issues this past Thursday and was basically asleep most of the daylight hours. Guilt from wasting a day became dedication to completing a huge portion of my current job list.
It's all pretty hazy but I think I was having crepe's at Suzy's place when this started.
First off was all the damn studying on Friday, I had to skip out on a birthday party for a roommate, a party at my very house, and some kind of wandering drinking adventure that ended up as a pool party. However I punched through a ton of Oceanography chapters, and I think that's when I got my hands on the hagfish article I'm using for extra credit. At about 4am the then-drunk Sandra was nice enough to help me with the assignment "...devise a method, using household items, to describe [some tectonic forces] to a school child". I had to crop my ugly mug out of most of the pictures, since my facial expressions would have surely affected my grade.
Unable to sleep that morning, I headed up to ACC to find the location of the buried treasure of me student loans. Arrr.
I finished the write up on the tectonics project at their computer lab.
From there I went to fix Cass's computer, killed a bunch of crap plugins and realplayer, cursed the bizarre Windows.0 folder I had spawned, and ended up helping Chris fix his machine as well. "Fix" really meant "Buy new power supply and spend twice as long as usual wiring it back in because it was a friend's machine".
From there I helped with some of their party projects, circular sawed some wood using a tree stump, big dumbbells and yelling as a saw horse, and picked up my cake container from Jami (I could tell by her reaction that I already had the bug-eyed, looney tunes expression I get when I've been up for too long).
I ended up staying the night at Cass's place as a social outing. Erik presented Rambo (gorgeous BluRay, damned impressive film making, great commentary by Stallone) I knew I'd crash if I slept so I stayed awake with Erik until 9am. I stopped by to visit Suzy again, went home to prep for the Roller Derby webcast, found out they'd changed venues, started negotiations for camera risers, found out my laptop was now a big brick, the normal problems. I had free passes for Suzy, Cass, Amanda. I ran into Amanda and probably spooked the hell out of her, whoops, great 3rd impression, Brendan, handed out the tickets, made cursory introductions between parties, and ran off to fix the server (Plenty of other shit went wrong, but none of it was noticed by the audience, because we're awesome. Not a single server reboot needed this time). Broke it all down, went home.
When the ibuprofen for my shoulder took affect, a hammer could not have knocked me out more quickly.
Stupid. Effective.
(0) comments
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Bookbinder |4:30 AM| I've been seeing a woman, named Suzy, for the past month or so. She is a book conservator, which is different than a restore-er. The important difference to me between these two words is that if I say she is a conservator she has no obligation to deliver a corrective bite to the shoulder, causing me to bleet like a sheep.
She works in the UT school of information, fighting tape someone put onto a letter from Sam Houston, carelessly 50 years ago.
She hates tape.
She keeps a lungfish, is a fallen vegetarian, and is moving to Illinois in August. We ride our bikes, we laugh at this image, make phone ringing noises at each other and try not to dwell on the ever present countdown.
There are also logic puzzles.
You enjoy eating all of your food.
And you enjoy Brendan being at your house.
And Brendan eats all of your fruity Cheeri-os when he is at your house.
Then does it follow that you enjoy Brendan eating all of your fruity Cheeri-os?
She bites "Like a crocodile" to quote Johnny Cash.
(0) comments
Eyebrow contact |2:53 PM| I was at the Japanese print exhibit at the Blanton with Suzy on Thursday, which was very much worth the trip. I was fascinated at the cross over of influences between European impressionists and Japanese print makers, and once it had been mentioned on one of the blurbs I couldn't help but notice it. Particularly striking to me was the sudden changes to perspective from the decidely 2d to the inclusion of a vanishing point, of a landscape background, etc) in the Japanese prints after the artists' exposure to the impressionists of Europe. (Sadly I cannot find the examples I was looking for, as the Blanton does not have them online)
The impressionists themselves began including aspects of Japanese prints in their own work.
Japan had had its versions of iconoclasms, the banning of images of Kabuki actors or "large head posters" (The glamor shots of the day) etc. This led to a sudden burst of landscape prints.
The multi-woodblock printing system for the color prints was a marvel of craftsmanship, an early version of offset printing.
A silly addition to all this was Suzy noticing an odd facial expression of mine.
A long time ago I was reading up on how facial expressions are universal, products of evolution, and thus are common among all cultures. This guy Ekman studied it.
Ekman and Friesen decided that they needed to create a taxonomy of facial expressions, so day after day they sat across from each other and began to make every conceivable face they could.
I was trying to follow along with him, and he looked up at me. "You've got a very good five," he said generously. "The more deeply set your eyes are, the harder it is to see the five. Then there's seven." He squinted. "Twelve." He flashed a smile, activating the zygomatic major. The inner parts of his eyebrows shot up. "That's A.U. ---- distress, anguish." Then he used his frontalis, pars lateralis, to raise the outer half of his eyebrows. "That's A.U. two. It's also very hard, but it's worthless. It's not part of anything except Kabuki theatre.
Clip!
"Moving one ear at a time is still the hardest thing to do. I have to really concentrate. It takes everything I've got." He laughed. "This is something my daughter always wanted me to do for her friends. Here we go." He wiggled his left ear, then his right ear.
I could already do the one ear at a time thing, so on a lark I learned how to raise the outside of my eyebrows while lowering the inside, the "worthless" Kabuki expression. I had no idea I've been doing to express...confusion? Concern? Deep thought? All I know is Suzy and I were talking when she told me to make "That face" again.
"Which one?" I asked.
"The eyebrow one! It's from Kabuki theater!"
I was floored, not only had I been doing this for ages without my knowledge but someone recognized it.
(2) comments
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
No rest for the wickedly idiotic |5:20 AM| How impressed can you be by someone's actions if you think said actions are intensely stupid? "Wow, he's damned good at pissing on alligators! In the eye, every time!"
I stayed up for some 50+ hours over the weekend. This, that is just colossally stupid. It is the Laocoon of poor planning, something to be studied as a nigh perfect example of dumb.
There was just too goddamn shit to DO. I'd had some issues this past Thursday and was basically asleep most of the daylight hours. Guilt from wasting a day became dedication to completing a huge portion of my current job list.
It's all pretty hazy but I think I was having crepe's at Suzy's place when this started.
First off was all the damn studying on Friday, I had to skip out on a birthday party for a roommate, a party at my very house, and some kind of wandering drinking adventure that ended up as a pool party. However I punched through a ton of Oceanography chapters, and I think that's when I got my hands on the hagfish article I'm using for extra credit. At about 4am the then-drunk Sandra was nice enough to help me with the assignment "...devise a method, using household items, to describe [some tectonic forces] to a school child". I had to crop my ugly mug out of most of the pictures, since my facial expressions would have surely affected my grade.
Unable to sleep that morning, I headed up to ACC to find the location of the buried treasure of me student loans. Arrr.
I finished the write up on the tectonics project at their computer lab.
From there I went to fix Cass's computer, killed a bunch of crap plugins and realplayer, cursed the bizarre Windows.0 folder I had spawned, and ended up helping Chris fix his machine as well. "Fix" really meant "Buy new power supply and spend twice as long as usual wiring it back in because it was a friend's machine".
From there I helped with some of their party projects, circular sawed some wood using a tree stump, big dumbbells and yelling as a saw horse, and picked up my cake container from Jami (I could tell by her reaction that I already had the bug-eyed, looney tunes expression I get when I've been up for too long).
I ended up staying the night at Cass's place as a social outing. Erik presented Rambo (gorgeous BluRay, damned impressive film making, great commentary by Stallone) I knew I'd crash if I slept so I stayed awake with Erik until 9am. I stopped by to visit Suzy again, went home to prep for the Roller Derby webcast, found out they'd changed venues, started negotiations for camera risers, found out my laptop was now a big brick, the normal problems. I had free passes for Suzy, Cass, Amanda. I ran into Amanda and probably spooked the hell out of her, whoops, great 3rd impression, Brendan, handed out the tickets, made cursory introductions between parties, and ran off to fix the server (Plenty of other shit went wrong, but none of it was noticed by the audience, because we're awesome. Not a single server reboot needed this time). Broke it all down, went home.
When the ibuprofen for my shoulder took affect, a hammer could not have knocked me out more quickly.
Stupid. Effective.
Labels: Cass, ChrisH, Erik, Suzy
(0) comments
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Bookbinder |4:30 AM| I've been seeing a woman, named Suzy, for the past month or so. She is a book conservator, which is different than a restore-er. The important difference to me between these two words is that if I say she is a conservator she has no obligation to deliver a corrective bite to the shoulder, causing me to bleet like a sheep.
She works in the UT school of information, fighting tape someone put onto a letter from Sam Houston, carelessly 50 years ago.
She hates tape.
She keeps a lungfish, is a fallen vegetarian, and is moving to Illinois in August. We ride our bikes, we laugh at this image, make phone ringing noises at each other and try not to dwell on the ever present countdown.
There are also logic puzzles.
You enjoy eating all of your food.
And you enjoy Brendan being at your house.
And Brendan eats all of your fruity Cheeri-os when he is at your house.
Then does it follow that you enjoy Brendan eating all of your fruity Cheeri-os?
She bites "Like a crocodile" to quote Johnny Cash.
Labels: Suzy
(0) comments
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