Welcome!. Are you ready for it? Can you feel your potential fizzle? Could you even say for certain the moment things careened off the road? After-all that effort at collecting bad habits and lots of stuff -- Alas, you are drinking light beer, and the occasional obscure hazy IPA, so make no mistake that you are an adult now. Being one of those, comes with some obligations. But to thrive inside one's Docker's, and Lululemon sweat-pants just like everybody else, means sacrifice. To wear those 'ON's', and 'Hoka's' whilst doing this forward crawl the same way as everyone, with the same shit, the same dog, and the same ticky-tacky as both "Neighbor A", and "Neighbor X", may require ambivalence. How can you tell when you are actually doing this thing right? When you have given-up? When you are blending in, of course, I'd suppose... When you've become indistinct & indiscernible from anyone else... THAT's when you have nailed it! When the sum of your individuality is merely a clever 'Concert-T' you'll wear to some art fair, or music fest... it may be time. It's tough to steer clear of the loathing denial that you have alas peaked. Within the "voluntary donation" of your soul is a corral, where you sip from a plastic cup on boxed Pinot Grigio within a fenced-in public throughfare, and today you've ascended to feel as smug as a matte-black Tesla Model X with a baby seat. You feel so liberated to have been let loose this Saturday within a pen of your own beige peers. And here balanced upon Birkenstocks, you'll tap your card tonguing bits of bagel free from your canines -- The server flips the iPad in your direction to, "...Answer a few questions...?" (a question?) Up until this very moment you'd perhaps believed that this dome over your head guaranteed life, liberty, and the pursuit of keen stuff being delivered in cardboard boxes, for forever. Your best party debate, besides some clever sports drivel & the weather, is taboo political banter, and "whether this is IN FACT a bubble" under which we thrive. Beneath it's heavy lid you will top-up your sixteen dollar beverage once more, mill about the sea of covid dogs, "High Art", and kids, just before queueing in line for brunch some place. And, my friend, "Brunch" is where cool people go to die. "If the bus-boy would kindly clean-up the crayons, and muffin apocalypse which preceded 'your turn at the booth -- And please to do it a bit quicker... You could soon move up a level to the sovereignty of a Twenty-Dollar omelet", You recite this in your head. Somewhere here, within middle-earth where everyone grinds beneath the same spongy gravity, you believe that you have Made it. and ...Perhaps you have. Can there be any question, you are not merely a figment of this construct you call your perfect mid-life. Welcome to the Boom Town. Queue the music: Ms. Cristina drives a nine four four Satisfaction oozes from her pores She keeps rings on her fingers Marble on her floor Cocaine in her dresser Bars on her doors She keeps her back against the wall She keeps her back against the wall Bubbles steaming and angry, crack like popcorn against the lid, while we nervous humans pause to reflect upon the last time that everything seemed so absolutely perfectly artificial as Brunch -- That a BANG! may be coming for that bubble feels imminent. Sure!, Mid 80's was all pop, and bubble-gum, and Molly Ringwald grinding beneath an Echo poster. Whilst larger complaints lurked beneath (Naked) Raygun-omics, luscious green lawns were sprinkled with ashes, from the certainty that nukes would wipe-clean everyone's score-card. Soon, (perhaps) we'd all come to regret not fucking a bit more, drinking a lot more, even smoking more, and rolling Ten-dollar-bills to snort cocaine, just before burning them on a Trans-Am trip to Disney. Remember 10 dollar-bills, stuffed in the hands of Caddies, Cabbies, Cab-fare for Crabby One-nighters, and even the less fortunate..., roll "Flamingo Kid" would you? So I say I say welcome, welcome to the boomtown Pick a habit We got plenty to go around Welcome, welcome to the boomtown All that money makes such a succulent sound Welcome to the boomtown I saw an old friend who'd disappeared into obscurity (like so many others) during COVID, and what could have been a coincidental meet-n-greet on the way home from the office became a game of clandestine avoidance. Behind the veneer of the usual pretense and pleasantries, reside those "friends" who you'd sadly said "so long" to a few years back. They, (and perhaps you as well) had used pandemic austerity to re-align a "Self-Care" regimen under the new world order of Bull-shit, Saunas, & Hazy IPA's, pulse pumping with tik-tok prime-time video of shamelessness, and our cardboard consumption. ...Anyway the other curious back-drop to a lovely early summer dog-walk, is a fuck-ton of freshly hatched spring bodies yearning to slough-off some winter weight, and share their important tattoos with the world. Behind the veneers of all those happy joggers, and cyclists is a common enough schism. This knife edge deeply divides fractured public pledges to the either the "Fuck-it" side, or the "Fake-it Fantasy" crowd. 'Civics' is no longer taught, and at the cross-roads of your modern conscience lies a dialectic. Those who've said, "Fuck-it!" are generally fuzzy bears burrowing into a subculture of beards, bourbon, & bellies, fully invested in shameless exploitation of America's worst health habits eating cereal from a casserole dish... and grooming with hibiclens, and the grimy needle -- And Those who still strive toward something sustainably 'Paleo-Vegan', (free-ganism) appears completely bull-shit through our veneer doorway of cyberspace. Anyways, this former friend is walking home from work (ostensibly)... And they appeared to now lounge about on both, the other side of the street & that "health-food" paradigm overtaken by junk. It is kindergarten-dinner-time..., (shall we say), 5:15 pm, and walking home through our fictional wonderland at "happy hour" is my dog and I. We are watching both the healthy crowd, and the schlubs like Kevin, who now appear to be fully invested in a Churchill gauge cigar as he saunters home under a cloud of smoke. The shadow of his mid-section looming over his knees, and a beard with sufficient wind drag, seemingly prevents him from any future exercise pursuits. The last time we met, he'd smoked me in a basketball game, and today he smokes a maduro...? I needn't say it, but the resting side of the working class, are typically those who have lost their way one Sunday morning at Brunch -- And the cigar is now merely window-dressing for slouchy indulgence. Handsome Kevin got a little off track Took a year off of college And he never went back Now he smokes too much He's got a permanent hack Deals dope out of Denny's Keeps a table in the back He always listens to the ground Always listens to the ground You may love an Omelet, even Bacon, or you may be the type who is (gasp), still eating Pancakes..., But you could also make these things at home? Perhaps you are finding it hard to cook, even after two years in lock-down with a few thousand meal prep kits? But an Egg is quite simple, right? Brunch, in fact, is the broader branch grafted onto a tree which birthed a trillion bedazzled white and green paper cups carrying bespoke coffee-drinks around the planet as "status symbols". Our Psychological paradox of braggart brand shaming is where this fantasy all got wings. Now we need braces from sucking green straws. Without Bottle Service to flaunt your absurd one-up-man-ship, in the game of status drinking, we clutch the cup; perhaps sporting a pressed pair of Jordache Jeans to eek out a few more 'likes'. Our culture is frankly not impressed. So immersed in "self-care", and status today, we fail to recognize the faceless half who are marginalized without the proper uniform. Those who hold their paper cup, or their du jour Stanley/Yeti/Corksicle cup, to express civic standing. The Cup, and Brunch for that matter express what we do when we hand a bum under the viaduct some cash. The transaction is a social construct -- intent to Ameliorate one's unabashed smug-fuck shame, scraping the ceiling of our bubble, for change -- A warm fuzzy, and permission to carry-on being a douche. The Bum of course gets remuneration for not shaking 'the right cup' in hand; And you get to feel "helpful". So please enjoy your pancakes, and your smug-fuck company standing whilst glaring at someone who has yet to pay. Because you are now, (again) standing in line to order eggs, and we, 'the marginalized' will make do without brunch. It is true that tattoos are for people without real scars, and perhaps brunch, and branded paper cups are for people with sensitive skin, who's daily adventure is limited to foraging for their debit card at the Starbucks. It is also true that Starbucks even invented an exclusionary lexicon for ordering, in order to keep that guy you just gave coffee-money to, from stiffing the server a mandatory 25% gratuity for a five dollar paper cup. So I say I say welcome, welcome to the boomtown Pick a habit We got plenty to go around Welcome, welcome to the boomtown All that money makes such a succulent sound Welcome to the boomtown Back to Kevin and his cigars. I of course avoided his gaze, thinking that I didn't want to inadvertently dress-down his shameful "let himself go" mid-fifties 'pre-tirement' without meaning to do so... And he perhaps pretended to not notice me, and so we both peeled away through random runners, believing that we'd fully understood each other's constructed perspectives. I supposed that when one no longer feels compelled to sport that T-shirt from some obscure 5k, and finally says, "fuck it!"; that their path may hand them a fat cigar for their walk home from the train. And this seems fitting. But it is no more valid to say that we "understood" each-other's paths, than to contemplate what it must be like to have to pan-handle money for food, booze, or for coffee. Within the bubble, where we pretend to be considerate, but contribute nothing to common ground, we digress into self care or self loathing. When the server flips that iPad, and your only 'choice' begins at twenty-five percent, that coin never lands upon it's edge. Gratuity was intended to express our gratitude for exceptional service, and we all know how that evil tablet shakes one's pockets bare. On the walk home, you told the homeless dude you didn't carry cash, and then they shared a QR code for their Venmo account... so you said "Sorry", and patted your pockets to conceal your phone. Today we tip more than we give to charity, unless it is for delivery food, and then most people cannot be bothered to prop up the delivery economy whatsoever. The reason is simply because the "gig workers" aren't like you. So back to the shameless death of our culture, seen though the sparkling window of your local "Brunch Place". Soul-food was invented by scraps and necessity, and may have become more popular as affluent people searched for authenticity. Just as they do at Blues Festivals. But Brunch, loosely defined as a lazy late breakfast, or an early lunch became popular as affluence sought a way to boast the luxury of not needing to work at all, or even to learn to cook. Isn't it true that this is the new penultimate social construct?, Where people are all pretending to be at leisure, with fuck-you money all the time? Perhaps it started in the 80's with MTV, or perhaps with Lifestyles of the Rich and famous, and the internet just glorified it. First: If you are going out to brunch, you likely have a fuck-ton of spare-time. Second: If you are enjoying brunch for hours, you likely have enough disposable income to give to a charity, but do not for some political excuse. Third: Because there is absolutely nothing at a brunch place that you cannot eat quickly on the run, or make at home, and save the money, the time, and the tip... you have nothing better to do. and that says a ton about you. Finally... If you go to brunch, as a mini vacation, and use that respite to write a book, or blog, or screen-play, instead of taking a cruise, or something equally carbon insensitive... Then you are forgiven for being a brunch-goer. If you have elderly relatives in town, and getting them out the door is a chore... Then you are okay. If you are frequently bathing in booth-bacon like a sultan, lording over crayon place-mats, then you may want to find another hobby, or even a charity to donate your surplus free-time to. Welcome to the Boomtown. The well dressed, brand conscious, fashion-forward, kid who is trending well on tik-tok who is pouring your coffee, is more likely to be given absurd money as a "tip" than the charity case under the highway who is actually homeless. And brunch-goers are 75% more likely to order delivery, and 75% less likely to tip the gig worker delivering their breakfast, or coffee, because they don't respect them. So it goes that Brunch, (much like Golfing on verdant green grass in Arizona and Vegas) have come to represent that thin stretching of America's eccentric bubble. And they said the cold war ended in '91, But history repeats itself. When a teeny-tiny pin pops this fucked up bubble, and ashes float down like feathers in some bizarre mattress ad -- You certainly will not find my melted corpse at any boring brunch spot. Well the ambulance arrived too late I guess she didn't want to wait [Welcome to the Boomtown] -David & David
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Photoshop: 1. a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. It was originally created in 1987 by Thomas and John Knoll. 3. A digital means to arrive at the fake version of something which was once real, meaningful. 2. An insidious computer virus which has remade our natural world into a trashy pornographic online smut mag. Before 'meme' was a word, Americans were frustrated by newly-minted wealth which scattered work-a-holic Japanese travelers abroad to consume foreign cultures with relish through the lens of Nikon cameras. Standing upon the cliffs of Moher or the Grand Canyon incubated the fledgling meme precept we used to call a stereotype. This meme baby instantly became it's own irritating topic of ridicule. The vista was being populated, even blocked by tourists with (sometimes several) big expensive film cameras. Well, perhaps most of the outrage was merely misplaced jealousy. These visiting tourists had some really swell camera gear, and we broke families chose between lunch and a roll of Kodachrome. So absolute was this new stereotypical "Japanese Tourist", that people would vocally chastise only foreign tourists with cameras, placing selectively [racist] signs forbidding cameras as nuisance. This meme-ish nostalgic look-back is laughable by today's standards of public conduct. Suffice to say those bygone signs of an SLR with a red line through it are desperately welcome today -- But of course it is the phone we'd prefer to cross out. Our thrifty American answer to ray-gun sized camera envy c. 1979-80, was to reinvent the pocket camera, and later the disposable; although discretion was not an American affect abroad. Today... Seemingly before the image is even captured, the digital film begins to molt into the vulgar pornography of it's manipulated result. Today the digital Capture perfects our experience well before we even see the screen. Genius Adobe Gene-editing now reduces sacred places, museums, and libraries into another organism. A fake place, a plastic version of an event we'd not actually seen, because we were way busy taking bad pix. In 1980, every monument and museum I can think of strictly forbade professional cameras, and this continued through 2010ish for any music Venue. The justification was initially to sell the postcard, and the book as you'd exit through the gift shop. A concert venue hires pros to capture an event for media, advertising, and for resale. Today everyone carries nearly as much fire-power in their pocket, and the phone is seemingly unrestricted. The Phone is a bane, no doubt, as are its unwitting users. The tiny screen is every event's inevitable destiny, as mega-peta-bytes of our plastic world softly melt into an ocean of unsearchable digital film stock. The formula we use to fix the image is where the world goes rogue. The event is lost to digital, because busy snapping fingers, ignore the place entirely and nobody saw it. Later in the look-back, edits are either passable or sharable, or are swiped away. Billions and billions of images per hour fall from the cutting table. Our cancer of editing our natural world into a newer, better, zippy, colorized, contrasty version is a bit Like dolling up for a sex film. There is the moment when mere nudity seems a thrill, pretty, soft, inevitable -- And with a whiff comes the let-down... A freshly faded fantasy leaves us feeling dirty, ill at ease. Perhaps the very Britannica definition of porn possesses this nuance shift from lust to repulsion, from nude to naked. As companions go, the real thing is far more meaningful, even preferred with all of it's flaws, to one's quality time alone with a fake, the blow-up doll. Inadequate, unfeeling, incapable of seeing, and yet humans seem unable to leave that damn thing alone. Photoshop is of course apolitical -- We are all liberals here; abusing our 'liberal' application of filters to everything we capture -- Which means that the thing itself will never taste as good as the picture had promised. Unretouched could never be as good as the thing in the magazine. Nothing will ever feel as real as that edit appeared. And IT will inevitably leave us deflated, wondering why we no longer feel anything at all. Without deliberation... when it becomes too easy and all the film is free, all images lose their meaning, their value. If it is true that, "You can't take it with you", Then why are we taking so many fucking pictures? LONESOME? There was a short scene in the famous road trip film "Y Tu Mama Tambien" [directed by Alfonso Cuarón] where the heroine explains to the adolescents that if they touch that thing too much, they will always let a woman down. ...An important distinction between 'Well-Practiced" and "practicing", which any coach will attest reflects upon just how one should do something correctly. Back-stage actors in makeup look a bit doll like, and silly, but everyone is color corrected today, thanks to photo-shop. Salt and Tabasco may have replaced tasteless protestant diets, coating & concealing a palette which yearned for excitement. But blasé, can only be concealed so long, gathered in a bow, doused in hot-sauce, sugar, and duck-fat -- But a shit-sandwich is still shit, with or without a ribbon tied around it's buns. What is remarkable is how insidiously Photoshop snuck into our formerly beautiful world and fucked it all up. For now -- Today, what remains, (much like the chemistry of comida), is the new version, an alternate reality. The snazzy, brushed-up sunset version of everything has trained us to only perceive, and eventually 'like' the online version. For a million billion bygone real things, we have but one "Online Persona" -- who has betrayed the person who we'd pulled a blanket over. A thing is exactly that, but the new thing we have substituted betrays the thing itself. Consider a landscape, full of fluffy clouds, anchored with orange glows, strong shadows, contrasts sweeping from peaked white to deep rich earth tones. What does it look like?, smell like?, feel like? Have you ever wondered how many of those revved-up images at the art fair get sold? How many bedazzled sky-scapes, sea-scapes, and landscapes go home with patrons just to compliment their sofa cushions? That Landscape is the new reference, and after it, one stops looking at the scenery. Countless unnumbered duplicates are generated with a strong tendency towards the artificial. Deep Fakes of our natural world accompany us home, and everywhere else. Have you ever taken a picture of a sunset, and then buried it back into your pocket, because the image didn't reveal the real experience? It is not your cellphone camera which needs to be upgraded, nor it's memory expanded... This falsity may go a long way to learning why we only see grainy black and whites of Space Aliens, and UFOs. Perhaps it is because some things escape us, simply because they refuse to be captured. They do not fit in that tiny box, nor do they belong in your pocket. Their capture eludes us simply because it was not meant to be. Atoms ducking and dodging our considered observation through twin slots. Even the atoms know we are infantile, weak, and insecure. Quantum Mechanics Mystery HERE As often as our version seems an established fact, our observation is frequently incorrect. How many times have you rented the headset, audio guide at some cultural attraction and followed along with a suave narrator, who carried you gracefully through a poignant event in time, articulating relevant cultural and historical context? Did you learn something new and compelling? And can we now get a show of hands for how often your moment was destroyed by someone nonchalantly ignoring every decorum, snapping pictures of literally everything, capturing even the little white placard labels as if for later review, with ZERO intention of ever revisiting this place, the exhibit, or even their tiny phone pix? No deliberation, no images are well considered, nothing captured resembles the place. Me, even with a great camera, would generally leave the place with a post-card, because I was humble enough to acknowledge that I didn't get that shot right. Today, It seems that in order to "get one's money's-worth, we need to cram and confine every actual moment digitally into the tiny device in our pocket like stuffing a genie back in the bottle or a rabbit back into it's hat. Here we forget that the magic trick was actually to reveal the genie and the rabbit, and not to make them disappear. Our cultural conflict is far larger than our strange penchant to stab at the air with ones zoom lens. To "Shoot" everyone with our ray-gun. As Susan Sontag used to call it, that phallus of the camera's lens, is still merely a masculine construct for compensation. Today, everyone is stealing souls as images, experiences, time, and every single moment, even brunch is memorialized, and then disappears without enjoyment of the actual monument. The actual cultural attraction is being felt-up, groped with 46 megapixels, whilst being wholly ignored. The statue, the model, is being prodded, molested, captured, doctored, and re-shared endlessly with nobody in particular, and then forgotten. Our obsession with color corrected photographs becomes a message in a bottle, floating amidst billions of others, clanking and yearning for someone to uncork our trivial moment, read it's message, and release the genie. Our moment is lost, Our moments crashed and burned, and their delicate value dissolves with a click! The cultural attraction photobombed, raped, and lay in ruin, because nobody can just go to the damned museum, and enjoy the art. Lest we mention Rock Concerts, Restaurants, Bars, and even the Lyric Opera. Last week I sat for a fresh new Shakespeare Production, and 20 minutes into the show, two ladies entered glowing cell phones to their ears, one told the person on the other end to hold on while she, "got dis picture..." before sharing it, and then sitting down to continue overshare more about herself with everyone in attendance. It was an uncanny performance art event -- A flash mob of two. The play irreparably disrupted. Shaken actors continued their dialog morphed with a soupy amalgam of competing storylines. Concentration forever corrupted for enraged patrons. The first act was trashed, reverse Photo-bombed by uncouth slobs. At intermission we were re-seated, far away from them.. but it wasn't until an actor paused the show, before they were alas asked to leave, once again disturbing everyone. Then came uncanny, but therapeutic applause for their exit. So the question which begs to be asked of our modern condition is, If a tree falls in the forest... Does anything actually happen, IF it is not Posted on TikTok? Does a thing actually happen if it is not documented, photographed, edited, shared, and properly fucked [up] by "photos" Photoshop and phone calls. In any case it is important to remember that a digital image capture actually is NOT a Photograph. My pro photographer friends unwind on weekends and vacation days with a real film camera, to shake off the bad juju of countless hours in "POST" [production]. When the thing does so much for you, it is comforting, and even therapeutic, when something makes you think, and perhaps you do it yourself. The retouched GIF of every experience from Shopping, to Menus, is a portion shrink-wrapped so that people can harvest experiences without contact. Perhaps it began at the video arcade when our three lives cost a quarter, and then four quarters, and... The appeal of never dying became so strong, that having unlimited lives, and unlimited image capture promised us we'd never make a mistake again. Rather, Photoshop promised, even shitty photographers would be cool. How much spare-time would an adolescent bank if each video game life cost a hundred bucks? Imagine the promise to recover the highlights, and then the lowlights, to fix the color, fill in the flaws, remove hair, add hair, lift the chin, fuller breasts, all of which means we are indominable, and we will never die. Endless lives and everything is free at ISO 30,000 right? Does our Sun even set without being photographed? Reality notwithstanding... Does the ipso-facto event of our sun setting even happen without being photographed, retouched, and reshared, and then subsequently liked? Does a Rembrandt actually hang on a museum wall, or should a Rodin stand in a piazza? Could we not sub in fakes everywhere, which are easier to capture. Perhaps a cardboard cutout David that we can manipulate for just the right angle and shadow? Could we wander aimlessly through a forest smelling and touching the bark, and moss, or do we need to capture it, and doctor it up in order to process the moment. Your phone and mine make irrelevant the experience of actually visiting a place, if we never look up from them. From the right angle, with the perfect filter, posted by the beautiful people -- The simulated forest is perhaps all that we need, because the actual one is way too 2-D, and Boring. Photoshop is complicit for the crime of dissolving concrete experiences in favor of the far more pleasing retouched, airbrushed, blemish-free version of them. Food Pictures, Fashion, Automobiles, Landscapes, all look better on your screen. Misery lurks within that chasm between the thing we've retouched and the real version. Clouds morph into foamy mousse. Food becomes waxy, torched, painted, colorized, and humiliated. Faces, and asses are flawlessly firmed, and softened into brioche before they are ready for a bow and some daylight. I have never eaten fast food which looks as appetizing as the photo, and so I pack a sandwich. It used to be that people got spruced up for dinner, a date, or the disco, but today it's done just for the pictures... you have become a paparazzi of one. Wait before you slam the door!... I'm only saying that the guy on the left may be a blast to chat with over dinner -- But If the guy on the right came by for BBQ, I would stand petrified at the threshold. Before dinner, if this horror-show / "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" version of Clooney blinks, I will certainly have a stroke right there in the doorway. OK, so for the kids... real truth is actually a fucking pencil. Pencils (a matriculation from crayons), are where one could begin to express themself. Of course you could start with charcoal, merely the soft naked art-school fuck-buddy of the pencil -- But both serve properly as your VIP ticket to that funky rave we call human expression. Here is where you'd likely begin with a fresh sheet of paper if you were to understand your 'ID', express yourself, and perhaps save thousands in therapy, breaking the cycle of this plastic life. You cannot begin to draw with a digital pencil, Stylus, digital pen, brush, raster editor etc... until you begin to feel, and work with the real thing. History will remember bad faith actors disgraced and pulverized under the tumble of this steamroller of disingenuity whilst a rickety combine separates the chaff of false morality from the textured wheat of the real thing. History will also recall the great masters, who'd managed to raise a pencil to paper earnestly striving to express themselves without the corruption of an iPad, or Photoshop. Perhaps this is why an actual art museum is so therapeutic, in the still morning before the crowd of phones come in. Generally we go there as we would a Cathedral, to revel in the awe-inspiring bliss of analog solitude. I've yet to visit a museum where 'Photoshop' was the main exhibit, and I've seen some strange shit. In fact, it seems that Curators & Docents deplore retouching. The chasm between analog sketchbooks, and those who'd cut their teeth on a tablet "Sketchpad", is critical to understanding the Photoshop effect. The digital sketchpad closes shapes, shades the top lip, renders the shadows, imparting a "3D Effect", and forging a thing until the thing is cooked... But the thing is not your thing, nor did you actually make it. Just as never having rolled a Patterson tank full of wet silver dust, will disqualify you from the basic understanding of capturing a photo. It is a false premise to state that things have changed... but they are for certain less authentic in photoshop. Creation of a thing requires mistakes, & to understand a thing requires touching it, not merely retouching it. A fresh sheet of paper, or a Canvas, or a roll of film promises plenty of margin for error, and perhaps a cost consequence for do-overs. Skill; increases with the consequence of no do-overs. This was true for video games, and it is true for graphic arts. The physics of light are the essence of photography, and the light and shade of a pencil upon paper is the rote required to learn to sketch. Paint is damn tough to lift back up off the canvas, or to swap layers, and create a clone... A program called sketchbook or sketchpad is a simulacrum of sketching, but it is NOT a sketch-pad, those are NOT pens, NOT Brushes, and That stylus is NOT a Pencil. Ce n'est Pas Un Crayon How to Mix and Develop Your Film with Coffee Instead of photoshop. To make 1 liter (roughly 4 cups) of Caffenol film Developer:
[Reprinted as a courtesy to Nathan from February 2023] Grape Cola Stone-Fruit Wheat Bright Sweet Caramel Cacao Cherry Grassy Flannel Lilac Toasted Bourbon Cream-Soda Lactic Floral Dish-Soap Anger Panic Rage... It would seem that everyone is adding "Tasting Notes" to each & every otherwise ordinary experience I may have today. This I dare say will only set me up for disappointment. Wine Store People seem to be retired Blockbuster Video clerks, who in truth were working at Comic Book stores in the 80's, and later graduated to Record Sales (c.1992) -- In each of these hallowed spaces, their vaunted careers issued them carte' blanche to berate clientele for not having refined enough tastes in Graphic Novels, Music, and in Film. So what was obviously going to happen at some point, was (is) that 'they' (my friend Nathan for short) now work at the local liquor store in the wine department, (As In they get to place their name like so): "Nathan's Favorite Pizza-Wine Value" 92 pts". Under which the subtext reads: "If you have only Twelve Dollars, and need something for a friend's Pizza and a Movie Party, you could do far worse than to pick this Nebbiolo". But our boy "Nathan" has far larger plans for your Movie Night... Doesn't he? Way Back when records were cool the first time around, (an era which lasted nearly half a century) we will recall this same guy, (our archetypal) "Nathan" raising his voice at a supplicant man-child for selecting "the wrong fucking" pressing of, or "the wrong blasted" issue of: Maus, X-Men, Replacements, Metallica, Husker Du, and cetera. Now I'm pretty sure "Nathan" works at my local Coffee Shop, projecting heirs like he owns the whole Fair-trade roasting cartel, and "Nathan" wants to set us up with Coffee, whilst using the same Bullshit Confusing linguistic circus he'd applied in his last four Big-Top Careers: Comics, Records, Video Cassettes, and Wine. We all know the collective "Nathan" and yet "Nathan" will never learn your name, and so... he'll call you Dude, Bro, and Dude-Man... Or just Man-man, hey! It was Nathan's Idea anyway, (wasn't it) to highlight his favorite Picks in each genre, whether it be: Amazing Spider-Man #14 (The First Green Goblin mag), or The 1957 Classic "The Throne of Blood". Back then, "Nathan" may have thought Kurosawa was a God, but We, (the lay public), may have thought 'Kurosawa' was a HiFi Stereo brand -- And perhaps some thought that Nathan a dick. Nonetheless he persisted with scotch tape, and signs were posted to chaperone your experience. Thankfully, Today The collective "Nathan" has brought us a whole new linguistic apparatus called "Tasting Notes", and thank god we have them so we know how to feel in advance of each and every experience. This week I discovered Nathan meddling in my Bot generated A.I. Movie Pix, e.g. "We think you may like", or "Because you Watched..." whereby we would have formerly relied upon a small laminated card below the tattered stack of VHS Cassettes at the Family Video -- Herein Nathan states with a flourish of fine point sharpie, that, "Reservoir Dogs is a decent violent 1992 plagiarism of the Hong Kong Action Flick, [City On Fire], but it's entertaining and has a fun, if loathsome soundtrack, and some wry humor by Stephen Wright. If you'd bothered to ask Nathan, he'd confirm [that], "basically every Tarantino Film is blatant plagiarism." This Plagiarism dilemma, (Our Fondest Form of Flattery) reminds me of a Susan Sontag Book where she tries her level best to define conventional beauty in the canon of art's aesthetic Nudes on a gallery wall vs. simply liking to look at Naked people. The 'Nude vs the Naked' so to speak is an un-winnable argument (particularly with creepy Uncle types) who brandish big cameras & so called 'home studios'). The Naked vs the Nude "discussion" always brings a froth to a DINNER PARTY, so I won't tarry with that unsavory topic here. BUT for the brevity of exhausting Fake, vs Authentic... [Which I will redress in another Post], I've linked a brilliant Passage here. But first that context... You see that the same sort of, let's call it nuance, applies to the things which we purchase for "Street Cred". We want to be liked, or simply admired, and as such we are bumbling through this life gathering things which are meaningful to us if only to win friends and influence people. We seek to wear what the Cool Kids are wearing, and this accounts for silly shoes, watches, handbags, and even the cars we drive. We see the slick marketing and we "Want That", and never pump the brakes to consider that wearing it, or owning it wont necessarily bring the good fortune, and friendship status promised in the AD copy. The dilemma is best seen through the lens of those less authentic persons Such as Lenny Kravitz, who in fairness is merely a patsy for Brands to authenticate their wayward identities with a whitish-blackish crossover "Rock Star". Lenny Kravitz is basically The Toyota RAV4 of the Music World, and he is for sale, because he is a sort of good looking, yet washed up star, and because Vegas has an "In residence" waiting list. So I'm lifting this article's synopsis from a far great writer without his permission because he hasn't emailed me back. This is relevant to our soul search for our own authenticity -- Mine as well as yours, which I freely admit is plagiarism. Just as blue-jeans come new with tags, in a deep indigo, and you can pay a child on a Bangladesh floor to rip some for you, to fade them, and to wear them down and distress them, and so you end up buying a "new-ish" pair of oldish pants which should give you some instant street cred. These are the most common forms of our mass appropriation, they are the so called Lenny Kravitz effect. That's It... There is the only awkward primer you will need to enjoy the following brilliant prose (below) from a fantastic if famous Camera Blog, https://leicaphilia.com/tag/lenny-kravitz/: Q: Is Thorsten Overgaard a con man? ChatGPT: I am not aware of any information that would indicate that Thorsten Overgaard is a con man. Thorsten Overgaard is a Danish journalist, photographer, and author who is known for his work with Leica cameras and his expertise in the field of photography. He has written several books on photography and has also produced a number of instructional videos and articles on the subject. There is no evidence to suggest that Overgaard is a con man or that he has engaged in fraudulent or deceptive practices. It is important to carefully evaluate the credibility of any information or advice that you receive, but it is not appropriate to make unfounded accusations or spread false or malicious information about someone. Q: If someone falsified their accomplishments and claimed to be a photographer who has worked for Life Magazine and has falsely claimed to have photographed the President and other important people and claims to have a vast archive of photos with major professional archives, and that man gives seminars based on his false experience, would you consider that man a “Con Man?” ChatGPT: If someone has falsified their accomplishments and is claiming to have worked for a prestigious publication like Life Magazine, photographed important people and events, and has a large archive of professional-quality photos, and is using these false claims to promote themselves and their business, then it would be appropriate to consider that person a con artist or a fraud. Making false claims about one’s accomplishments and qualifications is dishonest and deceptive, and it is not acceptable to use these false claims to gain credibility, attention, or financial gain. If someone is found to be engaging in this kind of fraudulent behavior, it is important to confront them and hold them accountable for their actions. It is also important to inform others about the true nature of the person’s claims and to be cautious when dealing with them in the future. Q: Has Lenny Kravitz ever been a war correspondent? ChatGPT: I’m not aware of Lenny Kravitz ever serving as a war correspondent. Lenny Kravitz is a musician and actor, and he is known for his work in the entertainment industry. It’s possible that you may have misunderstood something he said or that this is a joke or rumor that has circulated online. I recommend verifying the accuracy of any information you have heard before drawing any conclusions. Q: If Lenny Kravitz has never been a war correspondent, why does Leica sell a camera called the “Lenny Kravitz War Correspondent” Leica camera? ChatGPT: It is possible that Leica has released a special edition camera or lens that is inspired by or designed in collaboration with Lenny Kravitz, and that it is being marketed under the name “Lenny Kravitz War Correspondent.” It’s also possible that this is a joke. Today, (meaning actually today), I discovered that the Bot we now Call Netflix, which replaced "Nathan" professionally during the pandemic, (handing him payroll protection funds, and then sending him packing into a career spiral as a school teacher), is also using succinct if wholly exaggerated single word adjectives such as: Witty | Irreverent | Dramedy | Parenthood | Danish -- Or: Ominous | Suspenseful | Thriller | Slow-Burn | Ensemble. Taking queues from 'The Sommelier Nathan' which my Netflix AI is certainly not, (nor is Nathan for than matter)... We should not let it pass without scrutiny that "Dramedy" is NOT a camel Like Mammal with a Hump to store reserve liquids, Nor is that Camel "Danish" Like that fraudster Thorsten Overgaard... But you may find the need for subtitles, which is basically what this charade is promising, along with some "Slow-Burn", and some other bull shit tasting notes. I know now that IF, I pick-up a bottle of White Bordeaux I can expect, "Freshly Cut lawn-grass, Honey, Minerality, Spice and Butterscotch" -- Just before selecting a film to watch, (Deadpan, Offbeat, Thriller, Addictive, Anthology). In selecting early, let's say round 12:15pm, I may still be sipping from a Pink Bourbon Single Origin, Shade Grown, Fair-Trade, Light-Roasted, 1300m ASL, Washed, and Fermented on raised beds Columbian Pour-over, with a tasting profile as follows: Tangerine, Caramel, Blueberry, Fruity, Acidic, White peach, and Lavender. Or just plain Caramel, Bread Yeast, and Raisin, if it be over-roasted, (frowny face). Above is a limited edition “Correspondent” version of the Leica M-P digital rangefinder, “designed by Lenny Kravitz”, currently for sale on Ebay for 15k. The special edition is “strictly limited” to 125 sets worldwide. This is 029/125. Now back to our regularly scheduled tantrum about Nathan. Ultimately Nathan is now hard at work again in the shadows of my A.I. lifestyle, to bring me a pre-conscious agenda and the sophomoric tools with which to converse loosely about Coffee, Wine, and Film like a total twat, at any given event. But... Cautious enough to NOT discuss "Nudes vs Nakeds", nor my store-bought false authenticity. Proverbial Nathan, (my personal A.I, & formerly my roommate who'd never washed dishes nor laundered clothes); Is now successful in setting me up for both failure, and disappointment. Almost suddenly, (as in, moments after) taking a spot in queue to order a simple pastry from this profanely overpriced local take-out Bakery window, I'd realized that this was perhaps the wrong way to waste 18-22 minutes of mid-morning. Masked Gen-ZZZ's sleep-walked forwards, strolling prams, and ill-behaved pandemic puppies, tethered by Burberry leads, muzzled mouths recited news feeds. Our cherished post modern posers posted profanely about their dinner and drinks the evening prior. Personal shopping A.I.'s plague their giant iPhone margins with banners waving suggestions for scandalously banal precious things they'd "for sure need to be buying" today... Murmured masked dialog seemed inescapably blasé, if churchlike. Amateur parents inched the line forward with infantile conversations, about the re-release of some new retro trainers, from a resuscitated brand. Conceit, & consumerism have replaced our ability to choose, and we are lost without banner ads, & the fucking tasting notes. In our digital temple God will deliver us the curated post which tells us how to behave. followers pass the basket whilst buying all the same shit as that other fuck-wit beside you. Yelp is your north star. Unmoored and inauthentic. It's not that I'd have made better use of this time, per se', nor made a better breakfast -- But I did know what the fuck I wanted to order in advance of arriving at the head of the line. Today, It would seem that every other person, had no fucking clue, and so the line's pace was how I'd imagine early Scuba Divers walked along the bottom of the sea, in Metal and Tarred Cotton apparatus. So, I kept my money out in my hand, in the chance the next person may say, "Go ahead, we haven't decided yet" . A smarter me, the one I was now cursing to in my inner dialog, may have at least spared himself the embarrassment of spending (was it) Sixteen dollars, and twice as many minutes, lined up for a slice of quiche. Blissful baby steps like a Tiny Tim Conway moving forward beside people I cannot stand. Yes, I'd just spent that much on a slice of quiche...? It's Eggs right? Quiche IS EGGS after-all, right? Right. So the day didn't begin here, but it seems like this day could now stray from comfortably numb -- to wondering what else may piss me off. It wasn't the money thing -- Nor the smug fucking glances through throw-back dorky RayBans. I'd endured far worse, but today it felt raw... like I was being led into a gas chamber where my final moments would be endured beside adult children, who were themselves still nursing pacifiers, but somehow drove Range Rovers the three blocks to disembark with strollers, blankets, leash the dog, and then stand in line for hipster abuse, before reversing the process back home to have a nosh. Today felt like Tailgating sober, waiting for Morrissey to show up, only to find he never boarded his plane at Heathrow. Just before the Gas valves would be opened, I'd have to watch politely while people in full view of all these delicious offerings, "decided" like chess-masters whether to have the Bialy, or the Fucking Brioche. (because they couldn't make this check-mate move until the cashier actually greeted them). Alas we peel away another adult child from the line as prickly venom from a smug-fuck cashier flips the iPad back from it's default opportunity to add 28% to an already scandalous tab. Tasting Notes... Perhaps this line would move if they'd only had some tasting notes to tell them what emotions were packed into their sticky-buns. Tongs, waxed paper, and a bag... Exotic Tools which required very little of this staff member's post-baccalaureate, in "Communications". Yet, adoring fans lavish praise, voting "Yes", "Smiley-Face" and "Thumbs-UP" adding gobs of gratuity with their chip cards, Instagramming that shit, while biting into the other CCP mind-suck tik tok charade. Todays Tasting Notes... (sigh) Somehow this line felt engineered by the same "Childish Consultant" who brought us the toothpaste aisle where every last tube is locked behind a Lexan vault, beside a "press for help" button that simply chimes an alarm sound until pissed-off yawning staff come to douse the fucking racket just before blowing their brains out. ...And please don't get me started with Deodorant. What if you'd just wanted a bagel, or a slice of Quiche?, Is it mandatory to suffer so? Then, there is the cost for this ride; Roughly Twenty-Four Bucks for a bagel and such. No foamy hot beverage, just a biscuit in a fucking brown bag. I wonder if the Bagel, and the Bag have their own clever tasting notes, or if the Bagel may actually use the tasting note: "Brown-Bag" as an adjective. Money is pretend anyway, so why not pay the employees directly for this food and the tasting notes they bring?.., this way the company doesn't have to pay them. My inner dialog with the rational me, recites the job interview: "...Um-like, the tips are pooled, and everybody gets some, Also you get to eat anything that falls, or is broken", "And you get free coffee, and this cool selvage blue apron ...here" -- "Oh, But.., um like, we don't actually pay wages or anything, and so, here is a 1099." What I'd realized in that line was that whether it be Larry, or Nathan who'd be judging me today at the check-out line, chiding me for not quite getting the most out of what was on offer, It was perhaps their moral duty to assist by being a bit less judgmental, and a bit more authentic. I'm not saying that Tasting Notes should (necessarily) be ascribed to each and every pastry, (Leeky | Cheesy | Flavorful | Fucking Good) but, perhaps if "we" were to exchange the tasting note-card for an authentic interaction, I'd like that. Today I pull away from a sneering purse-lipped flaming gender-ambivalent person, whom we'd all formerly known as Larry. Now perhaps pejoratively "Lipstick Larry" or more fondly "Lonna"... But 'they' (Larry) are nevertheless not flattered with crimson lips and purple eyeshadow... It's really still just Larry, so we all go along with the transformation each morning. And so, I am straddling my bike, awaiting my brown-bag flavored breakfast. Combined in said sack, is a smashed quiche, and basic bagel for ~$24 dollars plus tax. It was now 8:04 AM, and the day was well underway. I'd soon need coffee to come to grips with my reality. This morning's routine flatland half-century took me barely two and a quarter hours, to earn the bonus bagel. Head now cleared by a few hundred thousand breaths, unrelenting runny nose, chapped lips, freezing toes..., and a long humiliating line devoid of tasting notes, I'd head home to grind the beans & make my own fucking coffee. (as if people still did that). In my fridge were of course some fresh eggs, butter, ham, cheese, shallot, garlic, assorted micro-greens, and even crème-fraiche, but the fridge seemed to lack the motivation to make it's own fucking quiche, so I'd have to warm the oven for this brown-bag breakfast, and it's accompaniment, the bagel. But why the bagel? Did I even want one? I'd burnt about a billion calories, and grabbed that on Impulse -- like one may grab the Inquirer, chap-stick, condoms. Perhaps never to read nor enjoy. Comfort often arrives through trivial shit, so I'd had it with lines and bought the bagel too. But bagels are all beige and empty, and acting as metaphor for my morning. Bagels are the Dockers of the breakfast world. Maybe there is a balance between the beige inauthenticity of this line I'd escaped from, and the eccentricity of Nathan, or Larry for that matter. They were all just lined up there were they not?. But in spite of the saturation of my own saltiness, Nathan and Even Larry were somewhat authentic, because they had their own opinions. And there is noting beige about glittery teal eyeshadow. Nobody really pushes the bagel, right? -- And perhaps they are the last to sell out because of their beige nature. Nobody publishes the price for these. (nor anything for that matter) Quick maths, prove the bagel to have cost roughly two-seventy-five. As I recall, the slice of quiche was delicious, The Bagel, completely inauthentic -- but the Beige-Bagel, while disingenuous was as close as I'd come that day to pulling on a pair of dockers, and using those condoms with a long lost "MPLS Friend". Dare I say that the Bagel may just as well have tasted like 'Nathan'. Whether you order one of those meal kits, or have an annual subscription dropping pre-chopped stuff on your doorstep, you've likely taken credit for being "A Good Cook" at some point. This is just fine with everyone else who was side-eyeing your snack contribution at that super bowl party, whilst you peeled away plastic wrap. We've all nailed something tasty ONCE, and then maintained that future charade where everything we'd crank out is flawless. Your latest routine may have been Chili, or Guacamole. Perhaps you've stuck that landing once on Mini-wienies, or perhaps that was the reefer, and not your crock-pot which swayed the judges. However we position our casserole in the line-up, it's still only casserole. We are all basically a big casserole, an amalgam of parts, and influences, shaped by taste, reflection, honesty, and correction. Self correction is our most costly ingredient. So what happens when we can no longer be honest with each other? And... This is not one of those tongue-lashings upon a generation who'd never been asked to help out in the kitchen. Or of a talentless generation who's parents worried more about causing them a bad emotion, than any constructive criticism. In many universities -- every paying student passes and then graduates. So, how could you be held to account when you couldn't properly nuke a Hot Pocket? Mid-Life therapy sessions will later suss out who was to blame that you cannot chop or slice anything properly. Or the chip on your shoulder from helicopter parents who'd failed to make chip dip. Only You are accountable for your failed launch. Dishonest Disaster struck well before countdown began. Your Parents simply wanted to be your friend throughout the divorce, so naturally you were never wrong. Be kind to your parents, because that was a long time ago.., and social pressure forced them to baby you. It is not your fault that the coddled culinary caravan passed you by as a wee lad, whilst you'd clicked insta-something, and chugged Redbulls in your parent's basement. But, Can we please stop pretending that 'we' have a silver palette if 'our' singular cooking accomplishment was to mix Red-Hot with Mayonnaise?, or to successfully fry friends-giving turkey without dialing Nine-One-One, again? It is likely that the low bar for entry to our celebrity culinary cruise hangs upon uber Creeps like Guy Fieri who cannot simultaneously be your chef god, and be the loathsome slob who drips greasy food down his ironic Concert-T on the "Food" Channel. You can adore celebrities, Sure, but you cannot adore "Celebrity Chefs" who cannot even make a good grilled cheese sandwich. Of course, we won't all agree upon who deserves to win the cook-off -- but in some netherworld fantasy-land devoid of Polish-Sausage Police Procedurals and nauseous Netflix re-runs..., we've elevated uncompelling ordinary cooks in the kitchen, to be forefront celebrity chef-ish assholes. Clever Chefs who'd once made us smile with flourish and a bit of knack in the kitchen have become mega-stars. How can this be? How can it be simultaneously true that it takes 12 hours to shoot a 20 minute cooking show, another 20 hours to edit -- just to celebrate a single 'clever' contestant soundbite? Julia Child and Jaques Pepin made the entire meal from prep to tasting in front of a single camera cut. What's been rising in food-land's sacred pyramid, is mostly made of glass. Chefs who'd once aspired to cook for people, now aspire only toward celebrity -- And also to berate staff and their unworthy guests. Yelling for likes, in the socials is noteworthy if only because if this were the case with Doctors -- Or wait... That's the wrong analogy, ...because Dr's are generally untouchable douchebags too. Napoleonic aspirations have perhaps simply become part of the modern condition. The loudest and most brutal amongst us are buoyed to stardom, because it's all part of our celebrity popularity contest, which used to be just another humble job. So let's say that if teachers became celebrities, like congress, chefs, and presidents -- then we'd barely learn our ABC's before dropping out to become a Firestarter. So, when did it all go wrong? When did the humble kid who hung onto mom's apron become a Trumpian Tantrum? Is the Camera to blame? The internet? Cable Access TV? What Year and where did we kill the affable charming chef, and spill 'Kitchen Confidential' all over the ceramic tile? I distinctly recall the year 1993, when I'd visited a "Hot" local restaurant and well before closing the kitchen, the chef and a few sous came forward to the bar with a bottle of Stoli vodka. Just before spilling even more shots, they'd finished an 8-ball on a piece of crockery, then they cranked up Motley Crue to a fuck-you volume before dancing on the bar-top... shocking guests. The music roared, and although I was a young punk -- Even I was appalled. The next Month we were seated at a wildly expensive Prix Fixe "Hot-Spot" to burn scarce money and 4.5 hours on Foam, Foix, and some Jellied crap, between more foam, and some more sorbets... I recall we'd left hungry -- So we hit up the Wiener Circle for a Char Dog and Fries. Perhaps the Early Nineties spawned that Insolent Brat Chef Cult. Perhaps... Or was it Vegas? Hollywood? Cable Access? Can we blame Cats?, or what? What remains unshakable from those infantile years which conceived celebrity chef ethos were their cocaine-fueled F-Bombs, spilling forth from the back room. Mom-inspired kitchens yielded to a lunatic fringe of Guitar rock, and experimentation, and over-fancyfication of what was once good food. Things were getting silly, well prior to 1993, as "Investors" were bank-rolling the most infantile expressions of a new brat pack. And then came Vegas Two-point-O'. With absolutely no authenticity of its own, The desert wasteland known as Vegas synthesized it's new persona brandishing a fine toupee' atop the Stratosphere, before setting about to recreate Paris, and then Venice, whilst convincing every washed-up singer song-writer, and Magician to take up residence in Sin-city. It may be Vegas, that slow cooker, where this maelstrom of haut cuisine went sideways. A desert crock-pot incubator of make-believe, bad taste, and squandered resources -- Vegas was certainly complicit in the death of the earnest chef. Trapeze replaced your sommelier, with ariel acrobatics, and every portion went from Fred Flintstone Steaks a la carte, to Foam, and Glace' courses. When all the M.A.S.H. re-runs had ended, hungry cameras came to devour darling charlatan chefs such as Bobby Flay and his Nacho cat. There is no wisdom here, as per usual, but for the warning that a culture in decline never sees the moment when they've become the brunt of the joke, until the laughs dry up. But the first rule of course correction, is to be honest with oneself, and then perhaps letting others know.
Celebrity is America's only goal today, and the internet made that happen, but well before that point -- We'd decided to worship our children, our cats, and the brat-pack chefs. From the fin de siècle pursuit of modest happiness to our contemporary Pursuit of Celebrity Stardom, we have reinvented our society ten-fold in the image of conceit. Instead of rearing kids to be societal contributors -- Careers of service; Doctors, Inventors, Clergy, even the President... [Big Sigh...] Today, nobody wants to earnestly improve anything through hard work & service -- They want to be serviced. We want to be Pimps and Hoes, slackers, and influencers. Everybody wants to be the celebrity. Nine Year old kids get a $7.50 Mocha thing or they cry in the back seat, and we cannot have that. Why? Actually, why means very little at this point. One could generally argue that Celebrity Striving is OK because "At least kids are trying to be something, aren't they? Please Select one for them, because they know not what they want: A. [] Celebrity chef B. [] Influencer C. [] Crummy Author D. [] Loathsome Basement Dweller E. [] All of the above The trouble with the flavors in this Crock Pot are the people striving to be Celebrity cooks or Influencers are not good at anything in particular, because nobody told them otherwise. Honesty is now merely a social construct -- Construction always begins by tearing down others. Back in the 1990's someone helpful told you NO, and the defeated humbled you had taken up another instrument, until you surrendered to being an account manager. It would seem that the world began afresh, c. 1995, to ignore their phone-a-friend ethos or to chastise their children's outfit which "Honestly" looked terrible. We've ignored our friends absolute tone deafness, or their bad chef skills, and instead (and this is the key element) -- Friends, relatives, and parents didn't just ignore their shortcomings, but they've encouraged them to strive toward "celebrity" something or other. Here, Let me get that for you... Chucking, Ha Ha!, we all truly knew -- that you were unqualified to be C. [x] A Crummy Author. "You are perfect", "You are Beautiful", "You are Talented", but, "You still Cook like Shit!"...and you cannot sing. Not everyone can sing, be a celebrity chef, be an influencer, or be famous and popular. They just cannot. Unchecked talentless striving is unfair to them. That's what Karaoke reveals. Karaoke lays bare one's real raw talent... Or it did when people went outside. Encouragement that your special someone "looks great" in that awful mid-rift outfit, is cruel schadenfreude. (/shäd′n-froi″də/, noun: Malicious enjoyment derived from observing someone else's misfortune ) Honesty is the collapsed Monopoly-money backstopped by deceit, myths, and our good intentions. We all should do our friends and relatives a favor, and at the risk of conjuring some bad emotions, break it to them gently, and let them know that they'd bombed the talent show. Stop handing out trophies for participation. Not everyone can be popular, because if everyone is now going to be popular We will need a fuck-ton more server space. Swipe left Toothpaste exists to drive people to madness. Why else is an entire aisle dedicated to the same glop? If not to ruin your life?, and to foretell the end of days?, why are we doing this? Toothpaste is dedicated to making a shit-ton of money for massive detergent manufacturers. You are their patsy, you have been all your life -- And YOU are falling for some strange symbolistic end of days puzzle, which proves that you have so very little time left on earth to make things right. You may wish to ask your psychic how this ends. If you don't yet have a psychic, you could do a lot worse than to call Sondra. There was a moment when Retail evolved into something lovely, rewarding, and elegant, c.1861, and then there was the moment when retail died. (Let's just say c.1994). Of course Time Magazine did not decry the "Death of Retail", as iconically as God's Death... [q: "Is God Dead?" a:'Gott ist tot' ] In a recent slumber party, Nietzsche told me that "they got that article all wrong", [and that] "The article [was] Missing the Point", AND that [he'd] "prefer not to be quoted any more, just the same", [as a dead person of course...], and after all it was Time Magazine, (which is a rag) So I wont tarry with his legacy here. I woke in a fever substantial enough to finally kill my lingering nasal infection, which is how I know that I was winning the proverbial debate. Abrasive + Fluoride + Detergent = Toothpaste Toothpaste has literally nothing to do with Nietzsche, nor does Nietzsche have anything to do with Toothpaste... However, The end is near and God IS in fact dead, and your toothpaste saw this all coming. I have always been mediocre in all endeavors, with ZERO expertise in anything, and less in oral hygiene... How could I know what the meaning of toothpaste really is for mortal earthlings, our galaxy, or the broader cosmos, except to say... ...Nothing -- Because Toothpaste is bullshit masquerading as patriotism. Pure and simple toothpaste exists to drive people mad. Do you really have sensitive teeth and gums? or does your angst with the state of the world make your teeth scream in anguish as you brush far too harshly? A 2016 systematic clinical review indicated that using toothpaste when brushing the teeth does not necessarily impact the level of plaque removal.[7] However, (it was cited) [that] the active ingredients in toothpastes (fluoride) are 'able to' prevent dental diseases with regular use.[8] I will say, as the bulbs dim in my ceiling cans, (so to speak) That it often becomes difficult to see with certainty that exact moment when something significant changes. Slow Decay, is something which nearly always appears irreversible, once we actually discover it's movement -- And far fewer people see it coming. Generally, the Romans didn't see collapse coming, and indeed it took some time to happen... But for a few, who knew they would be dead well before everything went to shit -- Juvenal for example, saw it coming. Alas "the end is nigh" sandwich boards wouldn't come into fashion for a dozen centuries hence. ...And Juvenal was a satirical poet, so nobody listened to him. Anyway his acid tongue would not have been tamed with any dentifrice (toothpaste). We all saw that pollution was going to soon account for Asthma, Allergies, Cancers, and many more health complications, but we preferred our cars to caring about Climate, and health. So why would anyone second guess oral care's effect upon mental health? When it comes to preventing our own destruction, why even bother with Toothpaste? Lest we digress into discussing corollary climate related destruction, Pollution, Toxins, & micro-plastics..., (also in your toothpaste). For every bullet we seem to dodge, (so to speak) -- There was someone who'd yelled "Duck!", and another round in flight, before you'd flinched the first. Recently -- I'd also gotten worked up about the unfathomable variety of Deodorant at the corner drug. This is only slightly less confounding than Toothpaste, but because my local stores keep deodorant locked-up behind Lexan Doors, I'd never given this assortment too much thought, (if only because it's such a challenge to purchase roll-on, locked up like Jewelry). Dare I beg to sniff one before I buy it? -- I think I will just go without deodorant. If you are losing your religion right about now, you are not alone; hold fast because there is perhaps some squishy wisdom from the toothpaste aisle, but not much. It is a dark Prediction which may help a wee bit, as we slide off this tilted saucer on an oversized glop of toothpaste. We'd seen it all coming, and perhaps repositioned our bodies to land upon someone less fortunate. So there is this campy radio Advert. in constant loop amongst mattress ads, and Injury attorneys for "California Psychics" and their golden throated announcer with a western whistler as a soundtrack, explains that some states are great for commerce, others for banking and such, but if you want a clairvoyant person you need to call someone in California... They also end their AD reading by saying, "If your experience with "California Psychics is NOT life changing -- Then it is free..." HMM.... well... I'm not saying that the fluoride will kill you, but that Toothpaste and making "the right" decision on which model, is a serious talisman of societies' unwinding. So, What is Toothpaste Actually For? It's for cleaning your mouth right? OKAY!.. Alright. But. perhaps you've strolled down the toothpaste aisle, and not even considered why there is a "Toothpaste Aisle". I wanted to say in full daylight of our dimming future -- that the size and complexity of the Toothpaste aisle is inversely proportional to a culture's advancement, regardless of it's general oral health.. Toothpaste is just dandy! OK? It's unchanged composition, and excessive variety will foretell the imminent demise of all who'd frequent this pasty orgy. I've never heard a radio ad for California Toothpaste, but if it came with the same "Life-Changing" guarantee... Then that would be the brand for me, I suppose. My grandparents had a full set of dentures by my current age, but I would not call my mouth a win for oral hygiene. And you could guess my age, not by my teeth, but because I listen to terrestrial Radio at home, and in the car. My Grandparent's rapid decay rest upon my beloved grandmother's second-shift job, working on the line of a candy factory for a decade. If it hit the floor, it was free -- And the cost per calorie in their generation (when there were perhaps three loathsome tooth-paste options available) -- meant that candy would supplement their income in at least two ways -- Flouride be damned. But they drank tea. Lots of tea, and black and green tea has more Fluoride than most Toothpaste, so it's fair to say that the Toothpaste couldn't save them then, and it wont save you now. Regardless of the mid-century ubiquity of Minty Toothpicks, Fluoride, Mouth-wash, floss, etc... one's pearly white enamel can only defend it's castle for so long -- and then the crown crumbles beneath wint-o-green, and butterscotch hard candy. So today we have better teeth, (perhaps) but diabetes will get you if the tooth-ache does not. Anyway -- Fluoridation in tap water, ground water, and even tea is so ubiquitous, that it circles back to... What is Tooth-Paste really for?, if not for making gobs of profit for Detergent Marketers. If you had to invent the perfect widget, with the lowest cost to produce, and the highest margin/consumption rate... I dare say, it may be simply: chalky paste, fluoride, and flavoring. (Fluoride [Fluorite CaF2] is the 13th most abundant element on earth).... And yet nobody even considers it's ubiquity, when mixed with Calcium Carbonate, Limestone and AKA Chalk [CaCO3], another uber abundant and cheap component, a paste is formed and mixed with flavoring to make you salivate, but the brushing is your salvation and not the toothpaste aisle. Fluoride (/ˈflʊəraɪd, ˈflɔːr-/)[3] is an inorganic, monatomic anion of fluorine, with the chemical formula F− (also written [F]−), and, it is essentially a white and colorless salt. There is almost as much fluoride in Green Tea, as a pea-sized dab of toothpaste, right? So when we begin our California Psychic session, we've already fed a certain amount of data into the "Life-Changing" machine. Name, Address, Credit Card, and from a few data points one can extract a rather large sample to base-line who's calling. What I wanted to know specifically and not from a mid-western psychic, was, "whether the end was Nigh and whether Toothpaste contributes (if not) to our unwinding, but then as predictor of our imminent doom". So I called California to get a base-line on how the Paste Aisle would save/destroy humanity. And... Don't get me started with Hummus (ous) or Hommous... and IF we are all bound to an exaggerated wordsmith lexicography whereby Three ingredient pastes have culturally sensitive mis-spellings, then we have some soul searching to do before rounding the corner into Yogurt (ghort)... Surely misspelled... and finally into the psychic nourishment of the Frozen Pizza aisle. Whereas variety was once the spice of life, it now foretells doom and destruction. Here is How. If everyone you know buys toothpaste, and everyone opens their mind long enough to consider it's constituent parts, then any school-age child (psychic or not) could conclude that the packaging, and then perhaps the flavor profile decided their preference. All of the rest of the marketing is perhaps residual bull-shit. Have a look at the spin. Toothpaste needn't be applied in a long glob the size of a mature caterpillar, the instructions indicate a "Pea-sized" amount. There is no technical reason that it comes patriotically spiraled, or has "Flavor Crystals" -- There is no upside to an advanced abrasive, baking soda, or "More Whitening" -- As fluoride and scrubbing are it's only real scientific attributes, and one was more or less disproven. Fluoride itself is used to create Hydrogen Peroxide, and you could simply swish & gargle with some flavorless peroxide to whiten you teeth. Nobody should give two shits about which, or what brand they choose, because it is that simple -- Toothpaste has but three components: paste, fluoride, and flavoring. The question of what toothpaste is for, has been answered by every dentist, and nearly everyone acknowledges that it may be a good idea. So we go along with the seemingly logarithmic charade of choice. The fractal fluoride aisle is so staggering in it's complexity as to cause paralysis for many upon entering the "Choice silo" If there were only two or three models, you would be happy? This was going to be my first question for the "California Psychic". There is however derision on the topic of flossing. Floss cannot be made sexy, tasty, nor enjoyable by elaborate marketing spin. Flossing is innately masochistic, quite boring, and loathsome. Depending upon your mood, Toothpaste, like gum or deodorant, can be personalized even tasty. Lest we forget, that it is always the same basic shit: Paste, Fluoride, Flavor... And Floss is just string. Variety, and we are not discussing chips or beer, but Toothpaste -- Can reach a point where deciding causes angst, regret, even disappointment. It is fair to say that too many choices exist. If Toothpaste were organized hierarchically such that there were a 'clear favorite', or 'best option' presented with some secondary/ tertiary choices... Then we would not fret, nor regret our selection. But nearly all toothpaste is now packaged in glossy, metallic, foiled and patriotic cartons of red white & blue. You are doing the right thing selecting nearly anything except for those "Natural" ones. In fact if you ignore "Tom's" you are still doing your proud nation a favor with nearly any other choice. OH!, sorry I almost forgot, about the latest dark-side lunacy -- Charcoal. Charcoal, the Yang to Baking Soda's Yin, is a sordid ebony and ivory love story and neither really matters to your mouth. If you've thought the better of using Charcoal on your arm-pits, whilst wearing a white oxford, then why would you brush with it? If you were born before 1980 then you would recall a time when Baking soda was NOT marketed as beneficial to everything you'd consume. You simply used it for baking and perhaps some household clean-up. You are going to be fine; IF you could just steer clear of this toothpaste aisle, and all of it's hellish demands. My next question for my "California Psychic" was, "Am I using the right toothpaste?" Am I doing this right? How difficult is the actual act of deciding? The menace of toothpaste whitens, polishes, and sodium mono-fluorophosphate binds atomically (radioactively) to your teeth enamel, bones, and is generally then pissed out within 24 hours. Fluorine is the 13th-most abundant element in the Earth's crust It is widely dispersed in nature, not entirely in the form of fluorides via the toothpaste aisle, but in loads of natural stuff. How much do you actually know about your preferences? Does anyone do research on the package claims?: "1000% Whiter Teeth in Just 7 Days", "Noticeably Whiter Teeth in One Brushing", "Restores Enamel", "Lowers Sensitivity", "Freshens Breath All Day Long", "Works while you Sleep" "Includes Carbon Offsets", "With Charcoal" (for some unknown reason) "With Burnt Logs Inside", "For Sensitive Fuckers"... But will toothpaste actually get you laid? What is the real goal here? Brush Brush. Green Tea has nearly as much fluoride as your toothpaste, and a liter of tea can reach the Maximum daily fluoride intake. Anyway Fluoride is a neurotoxin, so how much is good? and when have you had too much? Does this factor in your decision to get jacked on fluoride. Straight from the NIH: "Each increase by 0.5 mg/L in the water-fluoride concentration was associated with a decrease by 8.8 IQ points in the children who had been formula-fed in the first six months of life." Which explains some of my own issues... You are welcome. But don't worry because it is not the Fluoride which will kill you, it is the abundance of choice. You are simply not wired for this many options of the same fucking thing. So... I'm sort of right here -- That Toothpaste is sort of bad. Too much of anything... And, Everything in moderation, right? Yep, I know what you are thinking... It's not your fault that you and your kid are having trouble deciding on what brand neurotoxin, you'd prefer. Perhaps you've reached your Recommended Daily Allowance already, and are just entering that dreaded tunnel. But seriously, all of this has been studied to death, and you will be OKAY once you find the right toxic combo for you, even if you've become so retarded as to select Charcoal, and its slimy comrade, Baking Soda to juice up your freshening routine. What you are still sure to struggle with, is WHICH ONE? ...And the existential even Nietzschean question of Why? God may not be dead, and anyway, you will not need her by your side for this Sisyphean drama. Researchers have found that some ways of measuring the negative impact of too many fucking choices upon decision-making -- (They seem to be less reliable than others)... Namely, perhaps that the most dramatic measure of decision confusion — "paralysis", or the likelihood of someone simply refusing to make any decision whatsoever —is “wildly erratic” across the range of studies and scenarios. Toothpaste is that exact quagmire. It is simple stuff, but it is killing us softly, willingly. "MY" California Psychic (Sondra), said that I was not likely really channeling Nietzsche. She told me that, "Toothpaste was not innately evil", "but that my angst was perhaps fraught with the scale and menace of too many damned choices", "That I would not directly die from Fluoride, hunny...", and then she gave me the number for a "California Psychiatric" service. She'd predicted that, "Once I actually made a few choices of preferred: Toothpaste, Deodorant, Hummus, Yogurt, and the like", "that [I'd] likely just stick to that brand, and [I'd] be OK", "but" she conceded [that] "Therapy was not really her thing..." Anyway she, (Sondra, my psychic) said [I] "...should avoid the toothpaste aisle altogether", and candy too". and she knew that My grandmother worked in a Candy Factory, even knew which one... and she also knew that My mother recently passed away with all of her teeth, and that she was quite indecisive... She also said that I "had a cute blonde dog", and I'd supposed that all of that was likely out on the internet someplace... Except for the bit about my Grandma's second job, and her dentures... which was weird. I have to decide now whether her consult was "Life Changing", But I suppose I have some decisions to make first.
A well formed sentence never comes as easily as insults, or curse-words. Our poverty of compliments, like currency, can't mature without some seed money. Whether you are on your way up, on your way down, or simply on your way out... Holding the door for someone can change someone's day, and a positive ripple occurs without condition. Any Simple nuance can change people slightly, just as the subtleties of an object can inspire creativity. But subtleties can be tough to identify, let alone gather in our digital age. Forming an object in your mind, misses a lot of nuance as humans were wired to consolidate patterns not context, and fill in blanks by bias. Appreciation of simple forms is lost to the robots we've become, and the nuance as it were, is the special sauce of art. Modern vision means that forms are separated cleanly from all that goes into making them, and what they should be. What do you cherish? Prejudiced, retouched, cleaned-up, weightless, without atmosphere or shadow, leaves only the flattened GIF version of what was once cherished. Gestalt efficiencies to our world view frees-up space in our crowded minds exchanging a cuddly warm bunny with a compressed cardboard cutout of a cat. Because gestalt principles already filled in all the blanks, we see a lot of our worlds alike, and we see them without considered objectivity. With our heads buried in screens, we surf select & shop shapes and colors; We befriend a cover photo, and even get romantic with a GIF. (E)fficient perception is flatter than 2D, and it is a total bore. The shopping graveyard of online detritus resting beside any dumpster, commits our historic record to the landfill in a comical sediment. Cheap-shit forms our historical record. Excavations will later reveal the archaeological absurdity of compacted crap we've consumed by GIF. Some say that not getting wrapped up in the little things -- Or fixating on what one wished for, but didn't achieve, is peaceful, even blissful. But If ignorance is truly bliss -- Then why am I so miserable contemplating dumb shit on a rainy Sunday?
Mindfulness. If gravity let go today, the Abyss you'd fall into would be 'space', and all of the crap you owned would scatter around you like flakes in a snow-globe. The fractured jetsam (a billion tons of cheap-shit) would smack you in the face and neck. Assuming you'd showed restraint in your online life, you'd still be throttled by someone else's Shake-weight, or Shark Vacuum. And of course that wake-up call would arrive far too late. If we are edging toward the apocalypse, via A.I. and Climate Crisis, then what kind of flotsam would you prefer hit you in the head? Something nice from your shoebox of collectibles, or someone's discarded Ab-Flex? Shouldn't postponing all plans because of lousy weather, leave me at peace to consider larger analog concepts? Perhaps take a bubble-bath? Finish some house project, build a jigsaw puzzle in my bathrobe? Or... perhaps more online shopping?, because I don't own a bathrobe. Consider the shape of our digital world, where actual context became the faded fantasy of the digital age. Sound-bites and snap-shots support 2D scrolling for the forgeries of our forgotten authenticity. Digital consumerism is like unfolding a map of the place rather than visiting the place. Software becomes the Pumpkin Spice Latte, while Hardware is the Coffee it should have been. It's a cover-up for the daily crime of not tasting, seeing, feeling, or touching anything intrinsically valuable. Can you even trust a person who drinks shitty coffee? We are all typically busy rushing around getting shitty coffee and such, and in spite of so many daily considerations, we often fail to recognize the patterns and the objects which connect us with our path. Since the Big Bang, this our home, our universe, even our multiverse trends toward only one end -- Exponential Complexity.
Consider the Bicycle. In over 200 years it's form has not changed significantly, if at all. They rust in a barn, deliver lunch, are decorated for parades, and picked clean beside a street sign, but they give back with no apparent conditions to whomever throws a leg over. The simplicity of their form is enviable to any young engineer. Their parts are interchangeable and the essential analog bikes don't require any owner's manual. They will (of course) have motors added, but inevitable complexities will temporarily phase out the analog bike, and this evolution will only betray its nearly primal elegance. The Bicycle may soon be regarded like the record player is today -- revered for what it once was -- Now disregarded in a fog of compelling "E" advancements -- The Marketing of Cassettes, CD's and then Spotify. The inevitable convenience of a button press, for a playlist betrays the humanity of the "Mix-Tape", or actually listening; even to the B-sides. The analog bicycle is morphing into obscurity, like the Cassette, and later the LP; becoming something else. A classic Ten-Speed has become a GIF on a webpage; and once your robo-E-bike arrives, it waits for you, props up some tools and perhaps a tarp, still an elegant potential energy, but aging ungracefully with uncharged batteries. Complexity confounds our primal understanding of just how entangled we are with the simplest objects, without giving them any thought. A Pencil, A Carrot-peeler, a Puzzle, a Pocket-Knife, or Watch. Some days I wonder why Rolex still markets such an antique idea on the back of every fucking magazine, in spite of Casio, Android, Fit-bit, and Apple. And it is because of a lack of nostalgia for certain... But it is far more than antiquarian marketing. They are selling a version of authenticity, and the opportunity to feel something timeless. To hold something analog, authentic, with a tiny heartbeat (for a fee of course) is market gold. 'Something' precious (using the other definition for the term "Gestalt") begets an object greater than the sum of it's parts. Something "Classic", with or without attached Nostalgia -- It is worthy of regard.
Considering the value of something and not its price, is an ancient lesson. The simple process begins with regarding something, and not merely possessing it. Holding something which is so essential, so elemental, like a glass of cool water; touching the cool glass, considering its weight, shape, and the edge of the rim as it closes to your lip. We sip and seldom consider how lovely a cool glass of water is to behold. From the Vinyl age, clicks and pops of the stylus danced as the diamond drives down the canyon of an elegant groove, rolling through a forest of bumps, and valleys. Driving the shoulder, spiraling inward to finish beside the label of a B-Side. The composition, simply music of course, but it was also a journey -- The pensive regard for being there, Music like braille produced by touching. And it requires our careful hand, as custodian to the tone-arm. The needle spirals to rest along the shoulder and rotates in an eddy. As metaphors go, we rush to our vacation and never consider the route, the path, a slug-a bug, nor the roadside attractions. We "Fill UP" so we "don't have to stop", This, perhaps is why a record is so mesmerizing, because it is the roadway, and the road-trip, and the intersections, the fruit-stand, Ice-cream, and the pit-stop. When the stylus hits the run-off and slows to stop... we became enriched by the travel, and also by not arriving any place at all. Mom tossed your records in the trashcan c.1997, and decades later the "mature you" sniffles through mildewed bins of stacked cardboard in feverish re-discovery of that one "Sticky Fingers" zipper jacket you'd once taken for granted. Never giving full weight to the gestalt of it's art-form. Slugworth will keep tugging at you to cop a feel of the new feature-laden yet soul-less E-scooter, and you will inevitably cave to the gentle pressure of a throttle. Spotify will diligently tweak your algorithm to better feed you full of 'preferences' as if stuffing geese for Foix gras. You will donate your steel wonder-bike to charity, and embrace some new-fangled transport chair... Never considering the vacuous exchange of one's soul for a fucking gobstopper.
What can be said for the tug from these foreign objects in space? The Software, whose gravity imperceptibly strips us of our souls, and leaves us weightless, floating. Adrift in an empty house, where lonely echo's are damped by meaningless crap? Balling up yards of wrapping paper should give anyone pause. Pushing back from the table with the meat sweats, The wave of our Consumerism breaks against the rubbish bin, and we wander back in from the cold with the same shallow sinking feeling. An intangible urge to own something authentic. And... Rolex can fill that void, but a "Pre-Owned Rolex" may end the search for authenticity, for the moment. The trouble with the digital age is the software; Software subtly wiping clean our hardware's heart. Those tangible objects we'd actually care to hang on to, make the circuit from precious to packed-away.. A photograph is only numbers or chemicals in a bottle until it is printed. A slide-show can only inspire, when presented at scale. Nearly everything pinched or zoomed lacks the context to be truly inspiring. A vampire casts no shadow, and without that simple anchor she is always unmoored, adrift, and eternally alone. When it is all cleaned up, it becomes nothing more than a click-able icon. Many cultures don't believe in photographs; Some even believe they are harmful -- That they may take a copy of a soul away from where they belong. Unlocking part of them from local shadows, smells, objects, and appropriate atmosphere. Whilst another image can transcend the moment, and convey far more than the subject or topic. The composition of a photo is now so easy, and ubiquitous, as to perhaps be the very definition of ubiquity, but where do they all go? How are they kept and cared for -- displayed, and cherished?
I'm Okay with the "convenience thing", (giving my soul away to the android)... but I want to be certain to keep a few things sacred, those meaningful things, close to me. I've got to thinking about what fits in the box we carry from city to city. In fairness your home is just a really large carton, but from house to house -- The proverbial shoe-box contains the things which perhaps even your spouse has never seen... or was unaware were important. If you lost your home tomorrow, what treasure was in that precious box? How would you fare knowing it was lost? Dumb junky shit, for certain... but whether the box is tiny, or figurative, it may possess some 'analogue' things. This is the box which contains or represents value. Valuable tokens can be a shell, or a shell collection, a doll, a coaster, matchbook, or a pen-knife... They are valuable because they remain loosely anchored within a place, time, and texturally enmeshed with their provenance. These analogue items have value not because of their marketability, but because they are not. They are totemistic in the least, and infinitely valued for their back-story. There is a story behind every object. The modern dilemma of which is that nobody gives a fuck about that back-story. It's all junk!
Rationally, everything not accompanied with it's contemporaneous marketing, is Junk. The spin is in the software. The hard edges of life's real Gestalts are the boundaries defining a fucking rainbow, the Pyramids, the Eifel Tower, or your record player. The real world is made of things and not fantasies about those things. Your world is brought to you by tangible objective thinking. For some, a car crash may awaken them, to the "important things" in life, and for other's there comes no shock from a catastrophe which would shake them from a video game, or their Insta-Meta-Fix. But The Company doesn't love you, and being their product means that the other actors also do not give a fuck, as long as you "LIKE" them. Which can leave one clawing back for something tangible, authentic.
Back to the analog thing... There are objects which even out of native context represent value, utility, and authenticity. They are not fake, and are no longer marketed, But the photo of something gets super fucking complex when the Philosophes get involved in their assessment, or worse the Shrinks evaluate how you should see it.
In fact, it can be said that objectivity toward anything is blind-sided by its own Gestalt. Basic tenets of fleeting observation will "F" UP the whole perception thing leaving you struggling to find value in dark corners. In 2024 I re-upped a resolution to be mindful of the important things, and to regularly put a roll of film in -- A record on the turntable -- And to regard every rock I skip into the ocean for what it is. In plain view of everyone, I vowed again to focus on those tangible things, and not the "Likes". I'll struggle without a light meter, as I did in college, and to deliberately make things harder for myself, but I'm paying close attention to their details, and laying waste to my forcible indoctrination into the cult of Gestalt Psych. With Gestalt Principles there are apparently a shit-ton of rules to the brevity of our vision which hijacks objectivity in attempt at making us more efficient observers. It is a 2D render of the real world, where I apparently live, but nobody knows anything about. You can skip over the science part here:
The rules as it were, are so unforgiving that we tend to forget about the Punctum, and the Product. How an orange tastes, is exchanged for "Orange", and nothing rhymes with orange.
Moving forward, much like wading through some musty records, I'd prefer to find a few things which I enjoy, and get to know them better, and even get better at them -- with them, than to get some new shit. I'd really like to rediscover a few simple gestalts from my top drawer, which like my Leica M3 or my wife, are far more than the sum of their parts. Recently another scuttlebutt regarding whether Steve McCurry retouched, or "Gasp" photo-shopped some of the most iconic images of his generation, puts a lens on authenticity vs. artificial... The android versus the flesh, analogue versus digital. The Jealous cardboard cutout GIF hunter, versus the Creative Renegade ...[And fuck A.I, right?].... We can banter about whether McCurry is obliged to share his potentially dirty secrets, or if he is destined to lose face, and value because he "Cloned" his work, doctoring images and dressing them up in a new EXIF, to share as fraud-ish. This is one gigantic 'sour-grapes' argument for the record books, in full stride with the envy, jealousy, and storm of divisive mud-slinging, that has become our world. This envy could re-write history and open Magnum to digital critique. I'm not sure what side of the argument I fall, nor if, "I'm not a photo Journalist..." grants amnesty and absolution for de facto fraud. If kids glued to screens were to visit a gallery and see a McCurry in person, and pick up a film camera in hopes of carrying that analogue torch forward in such a boorish digital world... Then The value of McCurry's work remains bedrock. If there is going to have to be a "Man Behind The Curtain" then let it be you, and may you be a good one. The truth is that My Apple Watch never worked properly, and doesn't give me much pleasure, and nobody ever asks you, "Hey is that an Apple Watch"? But When I put a 21 jewel mechanical complication on my wrist, whether is was kept up someone's ass as my birthright, or not... It's polished gestalt form often starts some fascinating conversations. The vanity underlying an arsenal of token junk in my top drawer is precisely how one envisions being regarded for having bought them. This is the sizzle of marketing. Making the right choice, with meager means, also means cherishing what one owns. The currency of having a cool-ass iPhone wore off c. 1997-8, and what would be really cool right about now is being spotted chatting up an old friend on my old steel Nokia slider, with a built in FM radio. Not sure If I can get than to work on 5G. ...And NO, I don't have a Rolex. "When Talent Fails, Indignation Writes the Verse" -Juvenal But if You see a Steve McCurry Photo in person, or you Listen to Tom Waites' "Early Years Volume One", on Vinyl, (because it is not available on Spotify)... Or if you struggle to clean the Carb on your vintage Beemer..., Then you know the value, and perhaps passion of Gestalt Objectification. And Regardless... If you didn't wade through the monsoon floods holding 27 pounds of analog camera gear over your head to frame the shot of a man rescuing his only means of income from the flooding... (and you are ready to crucify McCurry for decades of magic making), Then you have a lot of soul searching to do. And if it's not interesting, then you are probably not close enough.
McCurry Post Script:
LINK “Photojournalists can debate the issues until they’re blue in the face, but the public at large simply doesn’t care. The public believes images are manipulated because they are. And they don’t discern between a photoshopped magazine cover of Kim Kardashian and a news photo from Afghanistan. Why should they? They only care whether the photo moved them during the 0.5s they viewed it. Internet culture demands our outrage. We align or distance ourselves from Team McCurry instead of focusing on the real matter at hand: Can we produce an image that our intended audience believes they cannot make? And does it make them want to consume more? If “everyone is a photographer,” then professional photographers will only succeed if they offer a unique and “better” product to their intended audience, which translates into a high quality image and good service.”( )... “McCurry has an audience. Afghan Girl is so ingrained in popular memory that I’ve seen it used multiple times as a Halloween costume. I can’t think of another photo that has reached that threshold. Castigating him for having the imperialist eye of a white male? Totally valid, but remember he’s a 66 year old white male from Darby, PA who helped define the very genre he’s criticized of shooting within. This is akin to criticizing Bruce Springsteen for having an 80s rock sound.” MAY 18, 2016 ALLEN MURABAYASHI
https://petapixel.com/2016/05/18/opinion-steve-mccurry-doesnt-matter/
lugubrious /loo͝-goo͞′brē-əs, -gyoo͞′? - adjective
Autumn adheres like plaque to the un-showered wading amongst her dead leaves -- Soggy beneath the wheels of winter's gloomy greyhound. Solstice they call it; Idling smoggy behind Daylight-Savings. The Solstice Bus Vinyl upholstered womb-like canned-goods carrying tallow gray bodies, In the condensing belly of winter. Our calendar has been defined by festive meals, and traditions, such as Mc Rib, Enjoy! Over-wrapped unfashionable parkas circle arctic-ly for months smelling ourselves. Sweaty yellow-green glazing filter our shortened soap opera days, aboard winter's sodden bus. Here, in the solstice, we yearn for something authentic to occur, to shake us -- A crash, perhaps or a derailment. The bus of winter's discontent drones along concealing a retired sun. Here, pine-green safety glass, becomes the prophylactic pinhole of a total eclipse through a metal whale. Scarred tint film shows nothing alive, no glow, nothing warm -- no infrared, just lengthening goldish shadows striping the belly of our 40 ton coffin, and a phone with no charger. Within the Solstice, everything vibrant comes to die. "Winter Solstice", an elegant name for gloom. Here we ratchet up our snacking. Crisp Factories run extra shifts to meet demand for salted fat, and the false hope that 'Pita Chips' might be a safer alternative enroute to diabetic coma. Autumnal discontent abord this "so-called" Celebratory "Holiday" bus-ride; We compress our desiccated summer selves into forced air. Corrugated skin confined, anguished versions of our bygone Golden Hours. Sleeplessly self medicating, we endure ritual seasonal affective disorder... Adjectives Explode: Salty, Fatty, Sugary, Nasty, Arterial Pudding, Inflammatory, Constipatory (quote) "Comfort-Foods" engage our softening savage selves. Here abord the Melatonin Mobile we swaddle into track-suits, leggings, and moo-moo's -- Ample stretch endures the broadening, and dreadfully long celebratory season of the Witch. The Solstice is not in and of itself evil incarnate, nor the Devil stalking you, but a test of your wit, your strength, and your will power. Technically speaking, It is nothing more than the concealment of the sun at the Pole of your given hemisphere, when it hides like a coward from you completely for a brief moment. 3:28 AM this year to be precise. The upside of which is inventive snack-foods, pagan rituals, and "Holiday Joy". Another Bright-side is that after December 22nd at 03:20, you can begin to claw your way back to verdant shamrocks. Druidic peoples, so called Pagans, and basically anyone (even practicing Catholics), who ever worshipped the sun, realized rather early that not having the sun around most of the day long would lead to long liquor lines, food shortages, inventive alternatives, and depressive snacking. "Creative Alt-snack sellers served Newts Toes, and Coca Leaf Crickets, Chicle, and ground a bunch of stuff up with spices and called it sausage... or chorizo. Hungry Savages even found a way to milk sheep, goats, and cows. It becomes a real existential struggle to find any 'rando' fare of sustained winter energy. Ever more inventive candy coatings would come much later. In the so called "Dark Ages", Snack-Food stumbled into more earthy flavors such as Mud and Dirt. Finally, as colonized slavery made all the labor easier for the leisure class a " Happy Snackcident" happened the Moment reluctant Spanish aristocracy sweetened the mud-like bitter cacao powder, iced it and served it at church while worshipping Santa. In 1680 cocoa was served in combination with melted ice to the nobles present at the auto-da-fés. The popularity of the drink among noble women was such that, (not content with drinking it several times a day), they were drinking it in church too. This indulgence pissed off the bishops, who started a propaganda poster campaign in 1861, banning chocolate sipping in churches during lugubrious sermons.[36] What would later become a "Coffee Clutch" ...Chocolatadas, held at the end of "church services", became popular amongst the ladies. And so they built Rectories. It should come as no surprise that this ritual and new found snacks were stumbled upon around Winter's Shortest Day. When one stares back at a fancy package and remarks that eating "THAT" or Eating the whole bag of "THAT" was a bad fucking idea; It is born of despair, and necessity. At Stonehenge the Primary Massive Trilithon faces outward from the middle toward the mid Winter Solstice Sun, a sort of "Talk to the Hand" from a far smarter, and industrious pre-history. Today, inventive adult assholes decided that Clocks (another nasty invention, born of restless loathing for increasing darkness) are reset to accelerate the squalid greyish glow of our skin against our LED daylight. In Modern times we scuttle outdoors in metal coffins for food, and race home to compress crumbs beneath our blankets for another 15 hours of darkness. Pasty pallor betrays the Instagram filter. Bygone "Boys of Summer" or "Madonna" singing "Holiday", aboard a cute dimpled grin, we dine upon dreadful grey salty crap, bad bar food, frozen meals, canned goods, and all-in-all we act like eating crap is worthy of the so called "Holiday Season". We even substitute cool Music for old fucking Christmas Carols which most mumble through, for want of anyone recalling the second verse. Snack bags, and Cookies you'd steer clear of in mid June -- will now make your "Season bright". As many times as we have endured the winter's grip, we remain amateurs. Amateur /ăm′ə-tûr″ Noun: 1. One who has not yet figured out how NOT to do something. 2. One lacking the skill of a professional, To not be good enough at something as to make it one's profession. 3. One who has not or does not accept money in exchange for a task/ activity. Our elastic relationship with the truth, stretches thinly veiled toward greedy gluttonous boredom. Unsurprisingly Spam and the Mc Rib by which we hail Seasonality have roughly the same ingredient count, and shelf-life. We are all amateurs this Holiday, because as many times as we have been here... Our recidivism rate is 100% re·cid·i·vism ri-ˈsi-də-ˌvi-zəm : NOUN, 1. a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior. Recurring. From the Latin recidivus (Re) Back, and Cado (I Fall). e.g. Fall Back. (Funny Right? just like Daylight savings time... I digress) 2. The act of a person repeating undesirable behavior after having experienced negative consequence of/for that behavior. Consider anything called "Pumpkin Spice". And ask but one question... Why? Why does this caloric fictional horchata-fueled abomination propel anyone around our equatorial "upside-down"? Desperation. That's Why. In here fictive orange Wonka characters serve "Turkey", beside cemented fruit segments locked like Han Solo in verdant Jell-O. Is there any moral in this fable? Yes, simply stated, Watch Out! for the fucked up inventions of the idling brain, including those scriptured in bad blogs. This Junk-Food will all will flush counter clockwise until spring which is a mere six months away. Have Faith, and crumble some chips atop your casserole. Fictive traditions purport to perfect celebratory smorgasbords of pure evil. And Yes, this awful nostalgia fueled Holiday cuisine may kill us all, if the hum drum doesn't do it first. Hence the inventiveness of space-age snacking. As if the so called Holiday's were not beige enough on the merits of Venison, Dark Meat, Herring, and Casseroles... our decor, (excepting a trillion tiny light-bulbs strung everywhere to simulate the bygone sun)... We are now forced to decorate, nay deck the halls with really dumb shit. 1. A dead Tree, desiccating in the corner dropping needle dander. 2. A Fucking Red Plant, know as the churlish Poinsettia. Noun: A Crimson abomination, (basically) a tiny blood stained tree which never fades, Poinsettias are not a flower, They do not "Point" at anything in fact, and they smell like vomit on compost. 3. Pumpkin Spice..., Period. 4. Old Socks hanging around out in the open, some with snacks in them? 5. Glazed Meats, [You are welcome]. And... Every other first year intern-brainfuck snack-food creative project from Frito-Lay, Mondelez, Heinz, and InBev seem to be introduced this season, when you simply lack the will power to say no. Introducing the worst shit ever invented and packaged by your thirteen year-old stoned-self. It' is how things get done during the Holidays. Seasonally speaking our culinary journey for the forthcoming 6 months is simply to suffer the indignity of snackcident. To survive our limited edition decor, Blasé' activities, and stranger than fiction snack remorse make this runway sketchy, and anyway this plane is way too heavy to get off the ground now. The very seasonality of everyone's Holiday will be predicated, punctuated, even postulated upon the King-Fucking-Missile of fast Food... Le Mc Rib. This Winter, as full grain silos compress into Muesli, 56 day-old chickens mature into boneless wings, just before being basted in Franks Red Hot and Butter... The Cattle, Horses, and The Pigs all lie down... and Dog Food factories smolder to consume the rest... And viola!, delightfully ripe Pigs wander nonchalantly out of the manger into a tall corrugated processing plant, where they are picked clean to their carcass for the Celebratory Holiday Cuisine we have all been fasting for. It is Mc Rib Season people!, Celebrate... And Mc Rib rings in the true spirit of the holidays! It harkens in our winter wonderland, and even punctuates a fearful Hannukah -- but it cannot last. Pork, Water, Salt, Dextrose Rosemary extract. “That’s it! Only five ingredients.” Lovely... How can it be that a former McDonald's Chef de Cuisine became a TikTok Star doing nothing more than the "grand-reveal" of how the McRib came to be made? Zero Cover-Up? Fully Transparent? Perhaps there are less components in Mc Rib, than Spam, and certainly less than Pumpkin Spice Spam, but it is nevertheless a cult of it's own. The venerable McDonalds wanted to clear the air about their most successful special edition, Pre-Hannukah wonder drug that it is, which hits the shelves round Thanksgiving -- well prior to their Spring-time second-runner-up -- The verdant seasonal Gaelic fascination, the "Shamrock Shake". This Druidic late add to the calendar is the way forward, so look for it. Here calendars will be synchronized like seal-team chronographs, to ring in the holidays with McRib, then quarterly kick that shit to the curb drowning a shot of Whisky in a near neon Shamrock-Shake, before celebrating spring's rebirth with Caveman Jesus, and a Filet-O-Fish. The Devil lurks in less frequented corners of your favorite Grocery, and Bodega... Lucifer follows you through the grocery aisles for months making ludicrous suggestions. Shit Man!, And you believed beginning with full sized bars at Halloween was the end of it. Just this one, and then you would break free of "the habit" as soon as the clocks changed. "Double Down!", you holler at the dealer. "Hit Me!" ...And so he does -- Introducing Grain Alcohol infused with Doritos scum, Yessss! In the orbit of your most stoned imaginary friendships, you could not have invented a cult of crap foods as outlandish as the Velveeta Martini, Candy Mac N Cheese, or an Arbee's Vodka... Let's face it that if you don't write for South Park, you likely cannot see clear of the car wreck which is happening in real time. Yet the empty wrappers keep coming back to haunt you in the night like Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim. Steer Clear of the madness of crowds. Just say no, ... and Yes!, that plain vanilla ice-cream will do. But just as I have no business eating a Mc Rib this holiday season, I could be tempted; right? OKAY, so Candy fucking mac-n-cheese, in all it's Rosicrucian splendor seems so foul that one can add to their Xmas List for Santa to bring nothing but the head of this Kraft intern to them in a pillow case. Come the 22nd at around three in the morning, we can begin to look back at this like a bad dream, or maybe just wait until after New Year's Day to change your trajectory. It is a slow snowy road-trip, so drive carefully, perhaps humming a bit of U2 or King Missile instead of a carol, and remember "Nothing Changes on New Year's Day". Curly Fry Vodka is as real as Santa Claus ...And so it Goes that I have nothing more to say. Except Good Luck. Left and Right as ideological perspectives were coined during the French Revolution, referring to the seating arrangement of the French Estates General. Those seated on the left generally opposed the Ancien Régime and the Bourbon monarchy and supported the Revolution, the creation of a democratic republic and the secularisation of society[7] while those on the right were supportive of the traditional institutions of the Ancien Régime, Monarchy, and the King. One may choose to sit with like minded peers, just as you did in the classroom, or the lunchroom. If this choice sounds familiar, then you likely live in the United States. If not -- Then you are likley b.b...b.b...British, or of an era sympathetic to monarchy... Meaning that you can really relate to being told what to do, by far more affluent, better fed, and likely better clothed role models. Today 'Left', 'Leftist', 'Left-wing' all have their own deeply sordid pejorative fantasies, Or in the very least bad press from the "Right". Six Hundred and sixty six shades of gray matter make up the medulla of the so-called liberal mind. Left has come to represent a crap-ton more deeply confusing dilutions, which confound any Poli-sci, PHD. Whereas, "Right" may simply mean you are a narrow-minded D-Bag. BUT, This "Right-Wing" curse could also mean (as Ted Cruz would say) -- That you are "Un-Woke" which is to say... that, (depending upon your age), you are sleep-walking, fast asleep, sound asleep.., or simply so effen tired of having to "use your words" any longer that you just mutter and eat Fried Chicken. [See also Right-Wing Senator "#Asleep@thawheel"]. Sinistrality (left-handedness) affects only seven to ten percent of the human population. But most Marsupials such as the red kangaroo are left handed, and they amazingly use their left for fine motor skills, but their right for heavy tasks, like shoving and punching out Right-leaning politicians. The Lefties, have been battling for equal rights such as proper desks and pens, zippers, buttons, happy meal toys, and such for literally forever.., And yet the "Lefties" are of course in the minority, and so... We can (of course) ignore the claims that they deserve better, or special treatment of any kind because they are few and far between. Some clearly biased research, written by right-handed scientists AKA "The Right", show Lefties more likely to suffer from certain diseases, or possess inherit traits which make them less amorous, or less desirable -- unless they happen to be in a fight, or pitching in the World- Series. Herein they have the so called "Upper Hand". Left-handed people are somehow inconveniently more likely to sit on the right side of The Estates General, Aisle, Parliament, Congress, or the classroom, because that's where they (The [Christian] Right) have placed the only two minority "left-handed" desks. We used to call these the "Mental Desks", but that was back when "Mental (obviously) meant Smart". Anyway this form of forced recruitment of the Left-handers (Those with a sinistral propensity) is totally bullshit; but it goes a long way to explaining the slight majority, and perhaps Senator Manchin. In the Darkest Times, which are actually today, when we are so plainly close to a civil war, The Orange Criminal actually said in his Veteran's Day speech that: "He [we] will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-Left (handed) thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country -- That lie and steal and cheat on elections" So that means that 7-10 percent of the population who cannot find a proper desk, nor zipper, nor keyboard for that matter, are totally fucked come the revolution. The Lefties belong to the Proverbial "Left" whatever your oppressive ideology may hold. It should be said that the Left leaning, and the Lefties, can no simpler become an "Un-Woke Conscript" than a Right-Winger can consume their own left-overs. That shit is going into the trash simply to prove the elitist rule of Abundant Ascendancy of the Deserving Class, over Prosperity For All by Social Reform. Afterall... What are you a Commie? "Left-Overs", now known simply as leftovers were once also in the minority, and perhaps also occupied the marginalized periphery of anyone's fridge, table, or recliner, and these "left-overs" were also likely chewed-on the 'left' side of the mouth, but in classical political sociology, there is no empirical evidence that Right-wing, Right-Leaning, The Christian Right, and the Un-Woke do not eat Leftovers... Excepting the fact that the "Right-Leaning" population generally disdains public and social assistance programs -- They would prefer to toss their "Left-Overs" in their own trash simply to keep "The Needy" or "The Disadvantaged" or even the "Woke" from eating them. As far back as college, one could predict the future tense of their Right-Leaning roommates by watching the fate of their tiny paper to-go containers. Quantization of this tell-tale indicator of one's political bent, is a rather accurate means to predict whether a friendship could endure. As a Left-leaning roommate would most likely observe, them with malicious intent trying to destroy said "charity doggie bag" rather than share the bounty of a second meal. The Left self-righteously felt that They should be the one to consume said origami paper take-out carton before suffering the indignity of both parties watching these rot merely to prove an elitist rule of the so called Ancien Régime ...See also 'Monarchy'. This Thanksgiving, I will be spending family time in the "Deep South" where they celebrate being "Right" nearly all of the time, and never lost the civil war. I will be grateful to recall what all of that being right means. It generally means the civil war is still being fought, and perhaps the proverbial leftovers are collateral damage.
Anyway. What happens when the Woke, the Left-handers, and the leftovers all get eaten by the so called "Right"? Right? This is a quixotic perhaps socio-political thing which evades the "Left" and the "woke", and belies the name "Right", but also defies semantic explanation. It is like calling oneself super-man, uber-mensch, or Steve... You have, (perhaps) the dumb luck (exclusively by virtue of your 'cool-ass' name, like Stephan, or Lars, or Maximillian) to not be called a pussy, simply because you have a cool name. An Emerald Club status you don't have when you represent the "Left". You Sleepy Un-woke muther-fukers smugly feel that your self assured fat ass is always and forever "Right". Which I suppose is "right", because you never can leave the Cult, can you? So, I will again be taking both yours, and my Thanksgiving leftovers home, and I will be eating both of them at my (mental as fuck) rare left-handed desk -- And I will #NOTBEFUCKING (W)RIGHTINGANOTHERFUCKINGWORDABOUTTHATSHITWHILEYOUGLOATABOUTYOURRIGHT (white)PRIVILEDGE on this Thanksgiving Day. Here we celebrate the oppressed (ordinarily the left) saving your fucking fat orange obstructionist ass from Winter's Peril.! I'm also Grateful for your leftovers by the way. Thank You. What an irony that Two Bicycle Makers, (brothers actually), became America's first gasoline-powered car makers. Charles and Frank Duryea were keenly interested in the compelling new gasoline engines and in imported automobiles., and so they set about to build themselves some cars. It should be noted that these two were certainly curious tinkerers, and continued to pursue challenges of both engineering, and to score them some wins in their need for speed. Somewhat laughable today, These were not the speediest machines, in fact some contemporaries on bikes rode beside them in their inaugural road race. The Duryea Bros. participated in races, nearly as soon as they had a working prototype; Of course they did. Frank & Charles Duryea became the first Americans to launch a successful commercial automobile company, and they were thrilled to participate in any challenge which would get them needed market exposure. The brothers Duryea were also the first to incorporate their American business to build automobiles for sale to the public. They studied the internal combustion engine at their public library, and after begging, everyone for start-up capital, they set about to make something so pedestrians and cyclists would forever live in fear of crazy drivers. At 8:55 am on November 28, 1895, six motor cars set off from Chicago's Jackson Park for a 54-mile (slow car) race to Evanston, Illinois -- and back through the snow to the park. Incidentally this is a route that I do in my bicycle in about half the time, but one could argue the roads are a bit nicer today... I'm not so certain. Car Number 5 driven by inventor Frank Duryea, won the race in just over 10 hours at an average speed between 5.4 & 7.3 mph. This "Thanksgiving day Race" pitted him against three imported Benzes and two electric cars. Charles helped, his brother Frank cracking a crop to speed his horse-drawn sleigh through a snow-storm supporting his brother with parts and repairs for the car. Bad weather forced these cars to slip & slide into each other and snowbanks. Frank Duryea was the only one to actually finish the race. The winner of the annual Thanksgiving race scored $2,000. (more than $50,000. In today’s money). An automobile enthusiast from the crowd notable for giving these new horseless vehicles the name "motorcycles" won $500. The race was sponsored by the Chicago Times-Herald Newspaper and after the thrilling race they published, "Persons who are inclined to decry the development of the horseless carriage will be forced to recognize it as an admitted mechanical achievement, highly adapted to some of the most urgent needs of our civilization." Wow!! As far as staying power is concerned, most early inventions explode, deteriorate, completely flop before getting legs, or immediately become eclipsed by a new fashion, or a far better contraption. The namesake Duryea automobile, and later sold only 13 units, before the brothers arguments split them up. Frank continued to tinker and became quite successful with his new "Steven's Duryea" automobile which was sold in a more-or-less similar and expensive limousine version from 1896 into the 1920's. The initial hand-built buggy was little more than a carriage, tiller for steering and a motor., It was a handsome, and efficient machine for its time. Fully Formed in Springfield, Massachusetts -- within one year of their Chicago Publicity race, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company soon disbanded, with Charles pursuing different trades, and Frank following his dreams to build a better machine than Benz. Before the two split and Frank formed his second company, the two made many new ideas work — But Frank would later invest considerable time in a 6 cylinder engine. Frank Partnered with the Steven's Firearm Manufacturing Company to build his new engines and 3 models, and so Steven’s investment in both the company and manufacturing brought Stevens primary naming rights. The second phaeton was an expensive limousine, which remained in production in some form for 20 plus years, making Frank and Steven’s quite wealthy. Two months after their first winning race, "Customer Number 3" -- A New York City motorist, Mr. Henry Wells Esq., struck a cyclist piloting the original Duryea. The rider suffered bruises, and a broken leg..., and Mr. Henry Wells spent a night in the city jail. This auspicious incident became the nation's first recorded traffic accident, and injury.
Is it any wonder that the first ironic American Automobile crash of any kind, was some rich dude striking a cyclist, in a car built by Bike Makers? Perhaps Not. It is only comforting to recall that these sweet rolling coffins hit a top speed downhill with a tailwind of no more than 14 Mph, the average speed of a bicycle in America today. Effigy /ĕf′ə-jē/ noun 1. A crude figure or dummy representing a hated person or group. 2. A model or other object that represents someone, especially one of a hated person that is hanged or burned in a public place. 3. A Crude representation of someone, used as a focus for contempt or ridicule and often hung up or burnt in public: ex. "Crowds marched through the streets carrying burning effigies of the [prior] president". Effigies, Icons, and totems date back to 'Pre-History', and although the ancient Egyptians created some of the most bad-ass, handsome, and priceless effigies They didn't tend to burn anyone. -- It's fair to mention that a master-class in crispy dumb-shit misappropriation must go to the modern barbiturate fueled "Burning Man" Festival. Millennia before this past years' flooded fuck-fest & perhaps well prior to Mesopotamia, people have had an axe to grind with authority. Some may have torched their surrogate enemies in effigy -- While Burning Man (festival) is the formulaic fictional forgery of a druidic ritual -- It is proof that 'Authenticity's' late body was strangled, cremated, and laid to rest long ago by fantasy-fiction under the Thunderdome of the Innerwebs. However flammable you build your Mad-Maxian structure, a Big Fucking Balloon is more portable. Since the invention of silk, canvas, latex, and later Mylar, we've advanced inflatable technology to vilify our worst adversaries 30 feet above a chanting mob, (unfortunately most of that shit is now flame retardant.) ...Speaking of Retards... What about the whole Burning Thing?.. While not being intrinsically cool or crispy, we often struggle with 'rational' v. 'make-believe'. We may fancy ourselves as fictional characters, projecting false competencies which today we don't really possess, while dwelling in a fictive construct we call "our reality", [See also: Social Media]. I, for instance, do not resemble that one Linked-in cover photo any longer, but I don't update it. Our new american pageant floats its figurative, fictive idols above everyone like obese Parade Balloons. Tethered to tiny human hands marching slowly below the protective dome or my WAN I.P. (See also MAC Address)... Normies (marginalized minions who blindly follow, see also: 'canon-fodder') struggle against gusty winds -- Bumping, and lolling, like drunks in sumo fat-suits... A tiny broken slave class which keeps wandering, holding up ludicrous swollen cartoon babies. [See also Zombies]... In this life -- Who wouldn't want to burn some shit to the ground? "I suppose the pay is good", one guy mutters as his shoulder yanks leftward, and another replies with a labored "Whew, fuck it's hot!", then a nod and a tired grunt. Occasionally the people required to suspend cartoon icons above the parade route, have an itch to scratch -- But they humbly hold on tight, squirming whilst idiots wave and jockey for a better view. Sickly sunburnt supporters who sucked at gym-class, safely dodge & bob their celebrity dirigible. All dressed up in slogan-wear to shame even Lollapalooza. All longing for an elusive signal. A sign... praise perhaps from their air-filled god. A nearby clown twists phallic balloons into elaborate shapes, and it would seem to the passer-by that everyone along the parade route is buying cheap glowing logo'd jetsam with government money. Asking the clown for a straight balloon was a non-starter. All of this is figurative, I suppose you could say. Insurrection, or Parade? -- Heathen Idolatry, or Ecumenical bake-sale? Completely devoid of authenticity, they wear the same tired uniform -- A six-year wash-worn C.M.A. awards outfit, complete with cut-offs, or plain Carhartt's and a cap. The occasional Outlier yells, "This fucking revolution is coming for you! -- (and) YOU MOTHERFUCKERS will be the first against the Wall!" ... Nobody hears another zealot over the squelch of cultists hoisting their puffy baby aloft. Occasionally the pageant slows, while support staff ask themselves "What the fuck am I doing here?" Short-lived self correction is quelled by the smell of Corn-Dogs, Port-o-Lets, and Diabetes, right before tossing a trash-can through a window. Aligned with the desire to restore narrow-minded 50's 'Archie Bunker' doctrine. Racism, and fundamental fascism override any fleeting notion toward self-correction. Everyone just does this same bumbling zombie-wander forward, whether it be On-line, or In-line... They hold meaningless slogans, and a balloon on a leash as clever retort for misplaced rage. Most are wearing red hats, ordered from Alibaba -- Furiously flinging mildewed junk from Chinese cardboard into the crowd. Make America Magic Again, and again... MAMA. Same logo emblazoned upon their giant rusty orange balloon head, donning, a plume of yellow. A pasted swoop covering two thirds of its plastic hair plugs. Role Models..., sigh. "My Life was real before the internet. My rage, my fears, my ambitions, and my desires came in knowable packages, which only needed to be opened". When the deliveries stopped, I filled my life with trash, and lost my grasp. "Anger is an Energy" we suppose... But what is the motivation of the misinformed undereducated, (Normies) skipping work for unpaid racist cheerleading? Interviews reveal that most hold themselves culpable in sedition sentencing. -They still believe their last stab at the totem pole was stolen by a fiction called ANTIFA. When the carnival comes to town every fucking day, through a gap in the tent so small It takes a few fingers to zoom in, one is bound to forget which was their favorite attraction. Under the Big Top, we fall in love amidst a cartoon of bizarre faded fantasies. We prize "reality TV", and Coke IS the real thing. Its a filthy orgy and nobody checked for surveillance. When you imagine back to when you were 7, and how you saw your life play out, or end... Few could say they saw this coming. Cultists, affixed to a fictive icon so surreal, so pornographic, so unaligned with its crowd, as to be alien, and forgiven for getting them convicted. Fewer can say that they'd imagined themselves striving for "likes" or praise in a subreddit about nonsensical venom, because few imagined themselves ever striving (To be a "Supporter"). Far fewer "supporters", imagined themselves in an actual cult -- But well... the same cadre of normies stormed the capitol, and the rest is history. Nobody brought their own agenda, Most were there for the ultimate seditious selfie... ''Supporters' (See also: Minion, Normie, Super-Fan, Lacky), conflated algorithmic agendas spun by social media with bored contempt bled into their dialyses. All the while their fictional super-hero sugar-daddy didn't have his own plan. The end game was never an accomplishment -- Only to be popular! Your adolescent Hollywood Crush was exaggerated, (of course it was). You know it is fact, that if you'd ever met your pin-up crush, (Eric Estrada perhaps) He'd soon tire of, and come to loath you too. Or soon enough you'd explore his/her dark side -- perhaps within a month?.. Short-lived idolatry doesn't retain the friendship you thought you'd forged. And so the poster comes down leaving tape and tack holes. This is why posters are cheap, and possibly why expedited Vegas Weddings are a real cash business, but also reasonably priced. One does have to ink the deal before the fantasy fades in a wink. But, most crazy Cults are forever. Perhaps, this is why winning someone back, never fucking works. No real emotional or tangible capital is spent to recover the wayward ("day jus gone!")-- unless you are Patty Hearst. What is it with Cult leaders, that sticks so tenaciously to the tongue of the meek? Why do we recite, and buoy up belligerent balloons (fuckers), at the expense of our true tribe?, Our true selves? -- Escapism? The chemistry of White frailty crystallizes in the void of positive role models. Watching cartoons as a kid, was rather straightforward, advancing a classic Good v. Evil architecture. Today, evolutive Heroes and Villains are built more exaggerated & more grotesque, by the year. Fantastic and fleeting icons with sweet skills, seemed far better than the real people you'd bunk with. But isn't this the current landscape?, Awash with so called savants, super-heroes, charlatans, billionaires, and mega-villains? From the hijacked amygdala of video game and Marvel franchises, flows an Indulgent golden stream of lunatics who teach resentment via idolatry. ...And being a minion is so fuuucking easy, right? Our Current world is populated with similar exaggerated frenemies? All of them boasting enviable lecherous features which defy gravity & nature. Once meek super-heroes, with some sweet, if altruistic skills, became biopics of complicated inner turmoil; The mental and moral dilemmas deep within the psyche of homicidal Homelander. Our Idols are a smooth and sexy, nee pornographic version of the plain ordinary beige people we'd actually enjoy drinking light beer with. But, glossy Fakers, and retouched Fucktards get all the hits, make the clicks -- whilst we ordinary humans wish it so? I don't know any big celebrities personally, but I do know fake, and lame when I see it. The Internet is an epic exercise in chaos -- A free-market enclosure chaperoned by spoiled children -- It's all a fucking cartoon. My young hero worship may have been Bukowski, and Miller -- Yeats, and Bowie, but I always knew that they did not give a fuck about me, and these giants came from humble roots. The catalytic effect of positive role models works when we see ourselves within their own analog timelines, and when we see our upbringing as ordinary. There is no "Kool Lottery"! Studying Graphic Novels in College (rounding out a liberal arts baccalaureate), informs the majority that what we imagine is Fiction, is exactly that... Didactic maybe, but false. What we pretend and what we believe share that gray space, just below the bleachers where bright paths may change, but never seem to. For effect, (perhaps) the internet has made a Porno out of nearly everything pure, wholesome, or altruistic. The Internet, lacks compassion, a compass, and a timeline. When you imagine the calendar, most people see an elongated flat disc, not unlike a clock face, and the months coordinate to ordinal compass headings. Oh, Hey shit! that's simple human shit! The Internet is an epic exercise in Chaos Theory -- A free market chaperoned by a few coddled kids tugging the strings of every balloon animal floating below its ozone. No clock, No Compass, No mooring Ball... It's all a fucking cartoon now, Everything -- And nobody is sitting far enough back from the TV to tell their fantasy from a polished turd. Stepping outside of their bubble to Storm the Capital was the first real thing anybody involved had done in years, or in decades, so it's no wonder they were excited! (They even got permission slips from the President!) Breathing only the base liquid of the World Wide Web, & of course Fox -- Can the truly idiotic be themselves? Be accountable? Can the misguided know choice? If Their fate is a vile silo, should people be forgiven for being stupid? Today, within the bubble, Kids can't love anyone, because everyone is reprehensible as compared with their avatar. Youth cannot be intimate, because intimacy requires vulnerability. Nobody is ever wrong, because wrong requires googling alternative facts to right, and fiction is spun to counter bad reviews. Inside the Bubble, good cannot thrive. Each and every conceited twat float their own balloon up a rope in defiance of the real gravity beneath their gaming chair, which takes up a fuck-ton of space in here -- where a drought from anything clever... will strand most boats. 'Those who can't do -- Teach, ...and Those who cannot teach -- Teach Gym. ...And those who cannot teach Gym -- Well... They dress like a gym teacher and run for office. And while this may punctuate the average politician's credential [Jim Jordan, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott], it is no less frightening to regard powerful lawmakers, as that one Sadistic Detention Officer from "The Breakfast Club". The rest of us may "Like" and "re-Tweet" what the cool kids are saying, if they still even repeat shit their parents once said... But if a person cannot write a sentence, they'll ask a chat-bot to plagiarize something. A fool may assume the great oracle of the internet is not the master of the aforementioned Muppets. A fool will simply mimic what they see in front of them, which is the Internet. Your internet life is a social construct. We are all tightly packed within a massive Balloon-Effigy, waiting for the spark. Authenticity is a strange currency. And while balloons are cheap, and easy to pop; the facade we never desire to sneak behind, has no wizard to speak of -- Just a racist algorithm pulling some strings. Celebrity is a totem, and like religion, or any cult, it requires consensus to build. Because there is no intrinsic cool person floating above all this, except perhaps Bowie, Prince, Hemingway, Kerouac... the lift to get that exaggerated inflatable animal above a crowd, isn't born by the celebrity puppet., but by the cult itself. When I was a young Punk, with a handful of axes to grind, I'd had no real agenda. I'd invented larger issues to synthesize something blasé' to rally against, and I made mayhem from complacent mediocrity. Tedium, in the bored, lower-middle-class rust belt exaggerated my ubiquitous failures. The Government was surely to blame, perhaps a handy scapegoat. With a couple of safety pins through every appendage, we'd learned the blame game, to escape our own culpability. We also learned to dislike those in charge. Today anger moves like a liquid through nearly everyone, and some of the dicks I ran with back when, are probably running shit now. I'd heard one was a mayor back home. All dick-heads take shade beneath a similar agenda. Evil oozes like plasma because everyone has given up trying to be their best version. At 6 years old Spider man would swing in and throttle the bad guys, and today, (yawn, he may be busy playing a video game); But he too has a dark side. The darkness of the societal alter-ego consumes even the happy-meal version with "Venom" The Bad Spidey. So it isn't surprising that the Evil Spider Man is Black, right?. Through this lens we can empathize with a billion disenfranchised late comers to the early 80's version of my adolescent discontentment with government. What happens when all of those sporto-orphans ignored by their daddies, grow up? Ron Fucking De Santis. That's what happens. The closer you are to your enemy, the harder it is to hate them. A pin-drop..., as with any energy, never entirely fades away -- quiet as it seems. The words we speak never leave the universe, so it's best to say something nice now and again. Our Background noise never vanishes, and our long sustained reverb of angst, builds a headwater of hate. Matching this sustained disdain with the eternity of the internet, produces an evil ooze like the Manhattan sewer in "Ghost Busters" V.1. The fact is that the collective rage of NYC in that original Comedy, is likely also the fault of Donald J Trump. (Did he do a cameo in that?) Too many motherfuckers who just can't seem to apply themselves to anything good, back-stock bugout shelves with bullets, bourbon, rage, spite, porn, candy and cigarettes. So let's add a bad diet to the anthropological record. Research proves that Trauma, and perhaps evil may build like plaques within us and it is passed on like archetypes through successive generations. Its then not surprising that my Brother read on the internet someplace that It's his sibling's and even his ancestor's, fault should he become a fuck-up. To me that seems like a cop-out, but...As you may know, the internet is always right. The dam cracked along the headwater of hatred, c. 2015, or perhaps earlier and the drug-fueled carnivores, with guns now run everything. ...from the Supreme Court, to the State of Florida, to the strings of the Balloon Animals. "Maybe next time I'll stay home", he thinks. But you never do. This momentary doubt called self-conscience often creeps up along the parade route, but second thoughts are for pussies, and are suppressed by the crowd's collective and spectacular envy for the darker attributes which we ourselves lack... Jump in the Mosh Pit. Courage, Faith, Kindness, and Consideration Shimmer in the bartender's braces, and in that shiny sequin number who just walked by exposing too much cheek. But, It's not real. The schism, which my other brother balances upon -- Where one leg or arm touches something beautiful, and the other holds a rock, is Today's mental health crisis. It could be a beautiful rock just the same, but Fuck it, , he yells and throws it. The "Fuck Trump" hats we cannot or do not order on Amazon, and the courage we cannot muster to rally against bad fuckers, and evil, for some lofty semantic or moral courage. The "Liberals", (lacking balls), give free license to bad bitches like Marjorie to poison it for everyone. An Idolatry of idiots with zero scruples, and less shame is at the pulpit preaching to pews full of brainwashed children. If we cannot be cool, we find false prophets to worship. Plenty freshly minted idiots on toxic diets of news and Red-Bull, become wayward zombies which gain mass and momentum. We want to be like that good person, but nobody wants to put in the work to prevent your friend from turning. So we look for short-cuts: Diets, Drugs, Vitamins, Elective Surgeries, and perhaps we even get a Maltipoo, or a Corgi... But while we keep doing stupid or senseless things for acceptance, We give a nod to the narcissist, diddle the dictator, and blow the boss -- Afterall, we seek their praise, Today, truthfully, we have nothing better to do since leaving the Church. Our Idolatry in neutral, whilst picking off people in First-Person shooter burns the clock waiting for our chance to sit on the Orange Santa's Lap. Filled with rage, envy, and adavan, we worship the wrong cause. Truthfully nobody's had an original thought since that "one thing" which got them arrested in High School, and any cause, however horrible seems to be better than just sitting around. Heroic, fat, and filled with warm air, our iconic giant balloon-headed cartoon god shines cynically down from the parade upon its sheepish supporters. New Boosters arrive by the minute, some marveling in a colored smoke-filled pageant Some skeptical that it's handlers may drift and bump a street-lamp or pop their prophylactic Messiah. Some just hoping an loathsome shooter in the crowd won't take aim at its worshippers. Most not speaking their dark desire; wishing, "...A bullet will pop that fat-fuck balloon", so we can all let go of these cursed ropes, and...." "BLAM!!" The 80's Mosh Pit served the lost, the angry, and the disenfranchised with a vent. A small valve in the angry balloon which will soon explode, or lay flaccid on a beautiful beach someplace. Perhaps the gulf coast. The path your one friend took a few years back which entreated a vote for a lunatic, fractured more than just your friendship. Draconian pathways to stem "the Numbers" made them invest in white sanctuary cities, and so now as "Supporters", or "Normies" they too are fully vested in the Red Pill Club. On the Rupert side of the iron curtain it is in fact so dark that one cannot see their hands upon holsters. You can forget about pretending that they are OK, or that a relo to a temporary condo in FL is well ...temporary. They are no longer your friend. It may be safe to say that anybody who moved off the cuff to FLA (even the elderly) between 2018 and 2022 may have lost their marbles. What this magnificent parade needs today is to unplug, to cross the streams, and perhaps a trunk-full of marbles, and some good old fashioned 80's punk. Could a mosh pit, vent sufficient steam? Deer Hunting, in lieu of a school? Could Burning an effigy of ones enemies, or several for that matter, provide sufficient surrogacy for vengeance? Happiness, Is most likely a decision we can make. This Halloween, if you have nothing nice to say, and are considering a violent coup, perhaps tap into your pagan past. As daylight dwindles, put on a punk playlist, stuff some old pants, and a hoodie with recycled Amazon trash, pin a name on it and fire it up. |
Age and Treachery will overcome youth and skill. Archives
January 2024
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