gossamer_tune

So rather a lot has happened since I last felt the urge to use LJ. Rest assured I'm not going to document it all.
Important bit first, though: On the one night cobweb_diamond was out of town, Amanda Palmer played the most INSANELY HOT of unofficial mini-gigs. It went like this:


So yes, that was the show. YES, it deserved that much writeup. Maybe I'll go back and post some actual news later.

Well I walked in and the flatties were playing... yes. Twilight.

To be fair this is after at least 30 hours of Dragonball Z (I kid you not)* over the last week, so I was in fact very relieved. Also, I've kept feeling I would eventually have to see this film. It's, yeah, horrible. Not SLJ horrible either, just cringe, for all the reasons people say. Quite satisfying too -I'd probably watch new moon, if it was offered (ie, like tonight, it requires all the effort of sitting down in the kitchen and giving firefox, woodcuts and the accordion a rest). Cinematography, oddly, was really good. And, what's this, 15-Step!?

So, that. But what do I miss tonight instead? The Needle That Sings In Her Heart -the Neutral Milk Hotel-based musical by afp's old drama dept. I mean I tried, but my internet really wasn't up to it. So I had a brilliant plan: I have the Strathfillan road wifi key. shirley_1989 appears to be asleep on texting him, but the thing is wifi's usually good for about 70 feet, far enough to get to the front door without me going in.
This plan DID NOT WORK. You guys can rest easy in the knowledge that without the scaffolding, your flat is not easy to break into.

*Noah and Hamish have procured over 90 episodes of that show. Watching them with it is just disturbing.

So now that I have updated the minutely detailed record of my life, on to the more important stuff: I've got Logic! EAT IT, Shirleykins. I also found a wonderful tool called OSCulate that lets you use all sorts of odd devices (inc. iphone and ipod touch) as midi controllers. It goes in my collection of inappropriately titled audio programs with Absynth, Battery, and Gleetchplug.

Also:


-I love this song, but this time with Michael Stipe in a silk skirt! Thom Yorke too, doing his Verbal-from-usual-suspects/small-kid-on-a-sugar-high wiggle dance. And it'll sound so good on accordion, trust me.

So the preceding weekend was interesting. It'd been down for some time as a weekend of many interesting things, including maker faire, my aunt and uncle from liverpool, cobweb_diamond, the hand-in of this term's research material, and the award applications. And yes, as I watched the list of interesting things get slowly longer, my mind went from 'woo, solid awesomeness!' to 'oh dear, impending trainwreck'. And it wasn't, but I wasn't that far off...

By Thursday I'd burbled my way through an interview being held becasue I'd flipped at the last minute and wondered if I should be in painting, pulled out of maker faire because my research was coming apart like silly, and changed my travel plans for saturday for the fourth time. The weekend itself consisted of three kickass nights, which I survived despite: Saturday: going out with my aunts and uncles was posibly the worst thing to be doing the nght after watching abigail's party, and I'd had about nothing to eat all day until then, so I was inappropraitely unsober for a portion of the time. Sunday, by which time I was utterly bricking it about said research, I curled up in Kapil's corner of the room during Withnail and failed to realise that the middle portion of the room was getting madly merrily drunk. I'd have joined in too, but each of those nights was bookended with work and by Sunday the party was pretty much the halftime break in a 36-hour writingfest. I got home that night, sat down with a pint of tea and typed. At some stage I got into bed, then got back out a few hours later and continued 'till about an hour off the deadline. This probably sounds pathetic to those of you who actually write for their work, to whom I say: there is a reason I don't do what you do.

But, qv post below, all's well that ends well. The weather is gorgeous, and no one can be bothered working. It's not as if this week even contributes to anything any more. I have 37 hours until I'm on holiday, then there's the concert coming up. It's kind of annoying that I only get two weeks overlap with the uni holidays, but it will be excellent. If every last one of you insists on being a workaholic through my holiday though, you will never be forgiven. You too mum.

P.S. Kapil: get on the bandwagon and write garbage with us!

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I've been accepted.
I AM AN ILLUSTRATOR.

I totally didn't realise how happy this was going to make me.
There's been running around and silliness and I wish there were people here right now.

I believe I owe quite the writeup of the recent days, but in the meantime:

YES. OH THANK YOU YES.

Well, as I finish writing, it's 5 AM. shirley_1989, Hector and I spent over 11 hours straight tonight on the 24 Hour Film soundtrack, which is shaping up to be a dark ambient avant-garde monster. The majority of that time was spent basking in the awesome quality of the recording gear borrowed from the music department and getting samples to work with, of everything from atonal accordion grinding to Shirley playing 'another one bites the dust' on his teeth. Don't ask. Also accrued was five minutes of unspeakably horrible noises made with our mouths, six minutes of pretentious wineglass bowing, and three minutes of an extremely drunk man several floors above caterwauling along to the proclaimers or something. Hec and I got back from an emergency penguin-bar errand, heard this thing echoing down the stairwell, looked at each other and dashed in to get the equipment.

The completed thing will be created in the morning. It will be ghastly and beautiful.

Other things that have happened:
Thursday's highlight (despite actually happening in Friday morning): Watchmen, at a minute past midnight, in a corner of the city I'd never before met people in. The more I think about it, the more great that film was. There were so many times where I felt that neither editing for film length nor accessibility issues made sense as a justification for the more INFURIATING adaptation decisions made. Having said that, I cried several times (mostly at the beginning), totally loved many things about it, and generally think they did a real good job. As to whether it was an objectively good film, I will need to see it again, because I couldn't help spending most of that first time comparing it to the book. The soundtrack is in this case very worth mentioning, being a mixtape of iconic singles of the past century, sometimes beautifully placed (Times They Are A-Changin', the Akhenaten movement) and sometimes hilariously random (All along the Watchtower, Hallelujah). If we meet in person I will (or already have) given you my two cents on every last bit of the film.

Hector's arbitrary 21st (several months apart from his actual birthday). It was rather crackers. On the costume instructions of 'musical, literary or other artist', we had Gordon's rather handsome Bob Dylan, wrongeyed_jesus's seductive Siouxsie, and shirley_1989 's latest flirt with androgyny: a rather well painted Robert Smith. Kapil also wowed with his rendition of The Edge, which was weird in it's realism, up to the way he walked, and also dr_octavia's reduced facial hair for the purposes of Frank Zappa. I still have aches in my thighs from spending most of the night impersonating the extreme shortness (not to mention beardedness and bowler-hattedness) Of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The guy who came as Will Blair actually was Will Blair, which was pretty cool. Another night full of fun and silly.

Other things that will happen:
I must hand in a statement of what I intend to study for third term (which I will almost certainly be studying for the following three years) next week. After all this time being sure of illustration, I now find myself torn with the Fine Arts for some very serious reasons. During our crit the tutor opened the floor about the choice, and slowly but surely all the bile and confusion and fear about our futures, and how little we've ben told about what will happen, and has happened, came out. He was absolutely on our side, and I for one feel a great weight lifted after the day. I think wherever I end up, I'll be happy and doing what I want. It's a hard time, everyone knows it's meant to be, but I'm good. I'm back in touch with the course, which I don't think I've properly been for a while, and that's amazing. We're all on a stupidly dangerous career path and if we lose raw love for it then we're dead people walking.

cobweb_diamond will be here next week. Some very bad news, some very good news.

Today consisted of:

-Painting (It takes you to a weird trancey place after too long and I look forward to a long break from a) acrylic paint and b) machinery. Why did I ever pick that combination for two weeks of solid work?)
-Buying Watchmen (I caved, and have reasoned it's one of those volumes you really should own).
-Reading Watchmen, then scan-reading it again for good measure. Wonderful book. I caught myself wondering whether or not it was better than  Cages. I'm maybe too in love with Dave Mckean.

I've never been good at just sitting and doing one thing for long periods of time, even if I'd normally enjoy it. I fluffed about far too much in the process of doing these two simple things. Still, a productive day.

I seriously CANNOT WAIT to see the film. Ohhhh for Thursday night.

Johnny Vulgar And The something Pylons are actually pretty good. I mean they're still at the proto- 'whee, we're in a band' stage, but everyone's got skillz and Kapil and Chris are doing some pretty decent and clever writing. Bannerman's on Thursday was the first time I'd seen them play a serious gig, as opposed to acoustically decorating the jazz bar, and that's when I noticed just how well arranged they are, which I can barely remember any local-gig-circuit band achieving at all.

Kapil's singing is also getting pretty good, I mean if anyone said they were covering videotape I'd expect them to kill it, but no, I'm enjoying that, so much as what they change in the song is actualy adding to it. That song was pretty soiled though by the techie not noticing HE HADN'T TURNED UP K'S MIC. I mean it's a ballad, a famous one at that, you'd think he'd notice there's something missing. And he applied binloads of reverb to it for no apparent reason. But to the point: if they keep pushing their ideas further, I could see the band doing some very good things. Bravo.

Last night: back in Glasgow town for the first time in a few months, which was quite odd. Mum+I went poking around the Mac shop, went to the Dhabba, and saw Robert Alston's latest dance production, in three parts set to Liquid Days by Philip Glass, movements from Petrushka and two of the Brandenburg concertos respectively. I'd been going totally psyched for the best combination of classical music ever, but: the Glass and Bach were playback, and Liquid Days=dull as all hell. Petrushka, however, was a piano solo, performed by a guy set up right in the centre of the stage with the dancers around him, and it was phenomenal. I <3 Stravinsky. Also: I hadn't really been going for the dance, and that turned out to be extremely stupid of me becasue apparently Richard Alston is some sort of choreographic God, and well, it was the most amazing thing ever. I've never seen any kind of dance, contemporary or otherwise, be that good. I didn't think human beings could be that graceful. I'm not sure they were human.

Right: we need to get to Stirling before the shops close, so I'm being hurried along, but, IMPORTANT:

Things you will want to see:
Tomorrow (sunday) "a comedic, theatrical, and musical journey through the streets of edinburgh's old town' -running at several times from noon onwards. Run by the Scottish National Museum, totally free. Come with.

Waiting for Godot, in Glasgow, on the 18th of April. I don't know who's home that day, but you'll want to be because it's played by the theatrical forces of nature Ian Mckellen and Patrick Stewart. In Other Words: X-Men/Beckett crossover fic, but for real.

Well I hand in all my work today (technically today, it's 4am) and I've no idea whether or not to feel good about the work I've done this year, or more to the point, the work I've done this week in collating it. My room, which I've always considered are more artily disheveled than messy, now looks like a studio store cupboard. At some stage I'm gonna have to dig my bed out and sleep in it a bit before I take my things in.

I'm listening to Tunng for the first time in months. Can I just say for the umpteenth time how much I LOVE Tunng? They are what my actual dreams sound like.

Glass is over, and despite the bumpy process it rocked and I pulled it off. It occurs to me that, if we spoke tonight or last night, that I have been tired in a very literal and non-artistic way and I blame my dullness and possible irritability on that.

On Thursday afternoon I was hanging around the metal workshop and I got talking to one Rachel, a Masters costume designer and one of the more famous faces around the college. I was somewhat flattered as she (in conspiratorial tone) was the one to ask me if I was into steampunk, and the conversation went rather predictably from there. I think we ended up discussing the overuse of gas masks as a fetish motif. As for why she's famous, well this is her:

With new rocks and kimono embroidery, every day.

Things I found out:

• Her current project involves a sheet-steel corset with sculpted plates designed to look like a ribcage and spine. She and her partner (a photographer) are mad to do a photoshoot when its finished, and yes, I will do my best to recommend you, wrongeyed_jesus.
• This girl has, I think, the best career plan I've heard form any eca student so far: she's currently setting up a business in gothic/alt clothing design, aiming to bring to it her experience in costume. She was very adamant about being able to do more sophisticated and creative work than the current status quo (suggesting the tagline No Bloody D-Rings), and when I asked, she promised to seriously improve men's fashion in the area.

Long story short, watch this space.

And tonight shirley_1989 and wrongeyed_jesus had picked A Clockwork Orange for a film night. I think we'd all expected rather more people to turn up, as opposed to the three of us sitting there being sleep-deprived. It was definitely one of the most powerful and well-made films I've seen in a while -it's an amazing piece of fiction. I wasn't sure though what to make of the glossy coat that seemed to cover the narrative -it felt strange by modern standards to see a film dealing with such raw content being presented in such a clean, sometimes comical tone. The shifts between the original Beethoven and the funny Vangelis-synthesizer version was messing with Iain and I as well.

We also discussed Peter Gabriel falling out with the Academy. I've huge respect for him both as a musician and a person, but really I've no idea what he he's thinking.

Absolute lifesaver: doing my dishes in the bathroom sink.

I no longer have hopes for the kitchen to stop being up to it's eyes in rubbish, but I can at least have a rotation of usably clean stuff.
I am attending Maker Faire. With what I've yet to figure out, I want to have a decent plan of what I'm doing, but yes I'll be there with bells (if not goggles) on.

I almost passed out from watching Kittens, Inspired by Kittens. I mean nine tenths of boing boing's well chosen, but. This.

And Yup, as predicted, 4am. Still awake. Why O WHAYY?

...is what I said to myself about an hour ago. But no, it's now on boing boing, afp, created in birmingham and every second facebook status I'm seeing. In between times, I countered the rising cabin fever and guilt at not enjoying the snow by going on a walk. Well it is the COLDEST FUCKING THING out there; really. It started by raining but then progressed to stripping-my-face-off wind. I went and delivered the usb stick back to shirley_1989, and for want of something to do wasted his time with maths puzzles when he had work to do. Sorry, Iain. On the way back I strode out into the middle of the meadows, and went into a very strange mental place, through a combination of cold, fogged glasses, disorientation (that corner between the meadows, marchmont and bruntsfield is a labrynthine monster that will eat even the wary alive) and linkin park. I should point out that in spite of the description, it was quite a head-clearing experience. I was trying not to draw parallels with Frank Cauldhame. -on the subject of which, I just read the Wasp Factory, the one Iain Banks book anyone outside my family seems to know.

"d'you like Iain Banks?"
"yeah, The Wasp Factory?"
"err..."

It's a very good book. It didn't disturb me half as much as I expected, in fact I found lot of it quite fascinating -with the notable exception of the 'incident' -that moment is a masterpiece in sadism.

And Transatlantics was okay, but not nearly as good as last year. The sessionists lacked the long recording period that's normally behind them by the time  Celtic Connections comes around. I mean, they let Eddi Reader SING LEAD no less than four times. Owie. But Dan Tyminski -best known for voicing George Clooney in O Brother, Where Art Thou- was there, and rocked (and yes they played man of constant sorrow).  The first half was ended with a never-ending set that started with the Van Halen of lap-steel solos, moved into a jig about vegetable-selling, and included, as an instrumental break,  Phil Cunningham bashing out the ENTIRE glasgow reel at frightening speed. That made me happy. It aslo made me learn the glasgow reel this afternoon.

I keep thinking everytime I sit to write, I'll do 'Radiohead, a riposte' in which I clarify my thoughts on a newly-favourite band that everyone seems to have an opinion on. Not this time. Never mind.

shirley_1989 and wrongeyed_jesus's new exercise ball is so much fun. Iain jitters on it like nothing so much as a phone on silent. Whilst watching the crazinesses of Sin City, I made off with masses (i.e a bit more than I'd said I would) of claire's music. It rocks ever soo muuch. Yann Tiersen, Dresden Dolls, T.Rex, Beirut, Linkin Park and Chemical Brothers to name those standing out to me. I may not sleep. And yes, if only for the purposes of scrobbling, I'll set up last.fm

I also have 'dub side of the moon' and 'radiodread' on here. Iain, wtf did you do?

Update: I somehow failed to pick up any PATRICK WOLF, which was the point of the exercise. Ugh.

Oh, before, I go: I wonder if I can get RSS or something for wiktionary's word of the day? I dug through them last night and they're great.

Did you know:

Spadassinicide: murder by inciting someone into a gentlemen's duel you know you will win
Imprimatur: (If I understand correctly) the ownership of printing rights to a document
Craquelure: the distinctive cracks in the varnish of an old painting (HOW did I not know that?)
Banjaxed (british slang) 1: destroyed 2: exhausted
Tomnoddy 1: A puffin 2: (british slang) an idiot

Slumdog millionaire was EPIC. I loved it to bits. Visually both beautiful and brutal, and a well-told and interesting biography tale. You'll excuse me for comparing it in that respect to Amelie and Breakfast on Pluto? The happy ending is only validated by the strangeness and sadness of the protagonist's story. Ignoring for a moment shirley_1989 's thoughts on the matter, the soundtrack was wonderful. A very attentatively mixed medley of techno bhangra and folk songs, and 'paper planes' was so well placed. It was a fun scene anyway, but I was dancing a little bit in my seat right there.

I feel I underused the photography elective a bit, I have to admit I took my eyes off the road the last week or two. That's an easily fixed mistake. But I discovered some cool darkroom tricks, and they liked the work. Next up, glass! oh yeah.

Iain's just texted me being like 'so you coming to watch sin city or what?'. As a style of invitation, you've got to admire it. In this case, off I go. The accordian can wait up for me.

Sometimes I sing along to music in public if I think I'm out of earshot, but it was 9 am, the sun was doing that thing it does in the meadows, and I'm a Cuckoo came on. I got a funny look from a guy about forty feet away. I'm still humming it:

...I'd like to see you,
I had a funny dream and you were wearing funny shoes,
you were going to a dance,
you were dressed like a punk but you were too young to remember...

It wasn't a bad start to the day.

I'm still in photography and it's so cool. Darkrooms are sheer alchemy and after a lot of work I've still no clue how people make the quality of images they do in there.  Glass next fortnight, then fine art painting. It makes such a change to have solid technical training this term -the main reason I can't wait for next year. The jazz bar was good tonight, some really precious stuff for an open mic night. K's band, whatever the hell they're called, were on very good form. Well arranged and clever, if ramblesome. Not that I can talk, having never gotten around to producing a piece of music with 'verses' or even so much as a discernible lead. Quite the combination of folks in the room: Will and the recent amsterdammers and economists and High School people and Cpt. P -it felt quite surreal. shirley_1989  was there too, but had to leave early-ish due to a fear of the builders breaking in again. I couldn't help think that if it comes to fending them off the premises he would be the least effectual, at least Hec can confuse them to death with literary analysis. Don't blame you though Iain, I'm genuinely freaked out by the fact that they did that.

I said to myself on Sunday this needs to be a week of early nights. Epic Fail in that respect.

President Obama. I'm saying it to myself. What remains to be said?
The speech was more impressive and persuasive than optimistic blather, which is so rare for ceremony speeches I don't know what to say.
Aretha Franklin's hat. Aretha Franklin's voice. Woeful poetry, non-woeful but pedestrian classical piece performed by the A-team of chamber music. 'Flubbing'. SASHA! The unintelligable Dr. Morris-esque civil rights man. It was like a sitcom wedding: the more off the plot it got, the more you felt good about the day.

The day concluded with some hairbrained organisational skills on all our parts leading to me,shirley_1989, Hector and eventually Kapil sitting in a sports bar at a time of night unsuitable for two bad colds and four early mornings. Everyone praised the cheapness of the drinks and I tried not to advertise how I'd paid £3.80 for Deuchars. A guy kept coming up and examining our coats on the off-chance that this time one would in fact turn out to be his.

President Obama.

By the way, it never occurred to any of you to mention Patrick Wolf to me? Of all the bands I've been recommended, just someone be like 'oh there's this guy, he plays about twenty different folk instruments and sounds like everybody you like smooshed together. and he happens to look like a postmodernist fairy.'

I saw this, and had to get up and pace to work out the adrenalin rush of awesome/hilarious.

Apparently, there's a 'goodbye george' party somewhere about. I'm tempted to go. I mean I was ten in the 2000 elections, this is quite epic.

I meant at first to set this as a private post solely for my own benefit. While I don't expect interest from anyone, I have nothing in it to hide.
I need to decide how I censor this blog for rambling/ranting. The problem of course being that that seems to be what it's for.
Any thoughts on that?



Hector made some very interesting points tonight, and I know I need to record them in order to remember them.
Really the points were the product of the discussion, (dr_octavia, Hector, shirley_1989 and myself) and in what I'm listing here some of it was what I said, but it was really thanks to Hector that it happened.


-Most art students give the impression of knowing very little -of having a childlike, sheltered quality to their work. They are not taught or do not have the theory -i.e. the knowledge, self-criticism/self-analysis and life experience- to give their work meaning.
-Even temperament was not invented by Bach, it wasn't. It was as recently as 1890's/1910's that it was implemented, so done because it made all keys function identically using the same twelve notes for each. Previous to that was well temperament, which evolved from the traditional just temperament: the version taught in school physics in which the scales are perfectly fitted to the exponential freqency/note ratio. Shifting key is impossible, but it sounds cleaner than any other temperament because it is mathematically correct.
-In music, visual arts, and books, it seems to be that the extreme has been reached. No one can make something more extreme or frontier-pushing than 4:33, or Finnegan's wake (Hec's call, I don't know it) or I guess the equivalent is Duchamp. We shouldn't feel the need to beat them. Indeed, now we have the opportunity to explore within the given boundaries -the frontier has been carved but the space within has not yet been fully explored. It never will be.
-Film is, even right now, evolving in inexplicable ways, in huge leaps. Most good (high and low) films of last or next year contained some element that was unique -that could only happen in this time. This includes the single-shot feature movie, watchmen, and even the new harry potter film. We can see the first film ever made. That can't be said of almost any other art form.
-The internet is changing everything. We complain nothing big is happening in our generation, but this will be one of a handful, if not the most revolutionary event of history. It is the gutenberg press, it is the production line, it is non-subsistance agriculture.
-Internet slang compounds almost scientifically transparent etymology with total nonsense, but with a good ear for phonetic aesthetics. Case in point 'roflcopters'. It's the most common example of the internet being embedded in daily offline culture.
-'We are from the internet' is a powerful statement. Events in the web impact on real life more and more by the month. It is a place with it's own culture and there is a slight but perceptible difference between those who live in it and those who don't.
-We are the last generation, in my case almost to the year, that will remember a time before the internet.
-What is also evolving fast: comic books/graphic narrative. It has been introduced to the art world under the work of a few intensive artists. Now it's time to see where it can go.
-Computer games too. Alex and hector agree that Final Fantasy VII-IX was the greatest use of the open world and the idea of a 'book-like' narrative. You care about the characters. Each is about 200 play-hours, and would be a massive multi-volume epic if written down. Little has done what it managed before or since. Hector says he would cite it as one of his biggest influences in life, alongside James Joyce.
-Though the US is villified, and though there is reason for that, america is built on a belief in what it says it's built on a belief in: freedom, democracy, equality. These are not necessariily inherent to many other states potentially able to take world power. Islamism, Maoism, or the brands of capitalism practised in Russia or Japan to not follow this in the same way.
-China's not so dangerous as we think. Reaon 1:they like us if only for our investment. Reason 2: they're within earshot of Russia, Korea and Japan, all of whom are worrying and all of whom they don't like much.
I don't know what I make of Hector's thoughts on Japan. I've always felt the dark aspects of their society are much outweighed by their virtues.

-Surrealism is a language. Surrealism for it's own sake, without rules, is gibberish. Magritte knew amazingly how to speak in surrealism, if not what to say.
-How will visual-literary work evolve? If books alone have so much force, as does visual art, what forms can their union take? Is Charles Avery's work really so odd? With him as the new 'extreme' (and let's be honest if you wanted you could take it much further than him) where might I go?
-Every project I receive a has a deadline, and it is the complexity of my idea as much as it is the time given that will determine whether or not i have time for experimentation. -less thinking time means more working time; that's a choice I need to consider as I make it.

That's all I remember for now.

I'll include the following from 23/12/08, becauee I always meant to:

Gavia loved the Dresden Dolls since she was twelve.
It's not the best example, but its certainly what I'm thinking of.
I started writing this in a conversation to her. Not that this isn't for you, Gav, it just isn't solely for you, and it's too big for IM. I'm always overambitious.

It seems, to be frank, like this: I find myself trying to become the kind of person people I know have become as they grew up. For some it seems like they just grew into it, like a garment that was always theirs, working and fitting better as they grew up. I don't think it's imitating people I respect so much as having respect for people who are how I'd like to be anyway. It's what I think would come naturally if I'd had the courage, if I'd known different people, been less antisocial when I was younger, or whatever else I should've done or not done. I always learn most from my peers rather than my teachers, so just as in my work, I'm finding myself flooded with new sources of inspiration. I could read more, and better, find music and other arts that fit me rather than making myself fit it, be pragmatic and open to new things, have confidence with new people, think more about others, and in doing so understand them better, and in doing so understand myself better. I've forgotten what it is that defines me as a person, or rather what I used to think defines me as a person, because I was probably wrong.

Dear God, the amount that quite certainly passed me by in school. And now there's that sneaky feeling that I'm overboiling the social and personal analysis, and being self-important in the process. This time I don't care.

There's the parts of this that are about letting go of normal. I choose to give myself the liberty to be autodidactic, to be undefined by gender (so much as I can be), to be neo-victorian and goth and geek (in a broad sort of way), to use every part of my mind and body to be an artist, not just daydreams. This isn't entirely a surface aesthetic thing -it involves my inhibitions, my outlook and ethos in life. Of course choosing to be is in some cases a long way from being, as well. My point though is that there's more to it than that. This isn't a case of finding self definition by trying to be different -that artificial and rather pretentious journey that generates much of the hardcore of every subculture cult- but trying to find sincerity.

Is that what I've been trying to say? Finding sincerity?
It seems to fit. Knowing (getting to know) sincere people, and being (trying to be) sincere about myself and my daily life.


P.S. Really in all of this I'm in the same boat and on the same journey as my two similarly hopeless friends from the academy, but I think I'm lagging a bit. I blame only arriving at Edinburgh this year. Partly.

The necessary hindsight-disclaimer: In some ways I am lagging, in some ways not. One of Mary Shmich's best comments is 'In the end the race is only with yourself'. In that respect I feel I am lagging, as in I feel I could go harder. I stand by my measurement before and after things like New Year's Eve or whatever. We all have our conceits, and I can only try to know mine. Jealousy doesn't mean you hate someone for what you want that they have. You can love someone unreservedly and be jealous of them. It doesn't make it any less stupid of a mindset.

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