Just across from the sign that says "Pros Only"

a comic on the internet about a videogame, who'da thunk

To make matters worse, I saw this thing halfway through drawing it, pfffffft is what I say to that

Apologies, friends pages



BUT THEN



Then there's this one, idea from Shannon:



Then I drew Shannon upon request

So, y'know, if anyone wants an exquisitely detailed portrait such as this done for themselves, you know who to come to

Did this for my school newspaper to be published next week, but oh well, that's boring
 

If you can't trust soap then what can you trust

I made myself a veritable fuckton of TMBG icons today.

I was just watchin some videos, then I dunno what happened, but there they were






I keep expecting to grow out of these guys, but no matter how far I stray, or how long I go without listening to them, I'm always drawn back eventually. Mine is a first love that runs quiet and deep. v_v




And look at them, can you blame me

 

I've been getting this question a lot lately, I wish I had something more interesting to say than "Oh, you know... stuff."

Also hey, I've drawn some Mario fan art, how 'bout that




I don't know why I'm drawing it this way I think something is wrong with me

growing my first beard

coming in black, bronze, and gold

a manly rainbow

Not to seem judgmental or stereotyping, but upon my honour, there's at least one of these on every corner in Hampton, NH this time of year. I must have seen hundreds of that exact same pair of sunglasses.

Went to the beach today. An Italian guy waved me over and asked for help with this English language workbook he had. I helped him out best I could. In exasperation, he was like, "This grammar is... mamma mia" and I was like, "Yeah, yeah it is." I apologised on behalf of my language for being so unintuitive and hodgepodge. You just have to stick with it; eventually you pick up on the general patterns. I sure don't envy anyone learning it as a second language.

I brought a book of literary interviews and read a really good one with Kurt Vonnegut. He says he never features love in his stories because "I have other things I want to talk about" and "If a lover in a story wins his true love, that's the end of the tale, even if World War III is about to begin, and the sky is black with flying saucers."

He says creative writing can be taught "About the same way golf can be taught. A pro can point out obvious flaws in your swing." I like that idea because it leaves it to the students, ultimately, to figure themselves out, and do whatever produces the best results, even if that means an unorthodox, Jim Furyk type of swing.

He says when his colleagues on certain art councils want to send notices to college English departments about literary opportunities, he tells them, "Send them to the chemistry departments, send them to the zoology departments, send them to the anthropology departments and the astronomy departments and physcis departments, and all the medical and law schools. That's where the writers are most likely to be... I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak." As someone going into an English program, this quote worries me.

It's easy to write Vonnegut off because he was a chemisty major, was kind of anti-romantic in general, spent a lot of time writing crappy pulp sci-fi to pay the bills, and so is maybe just old-fashioned, like a biased uncle or physics teacher. I'm not sure I can agree with him, but I'm not sure how I would argue against his points either. In a way, I guess he only means English students can fall into a rut of reading books for the sake of reading books, holding the classics above all else, and having no ideas of their own to express. Well, I'm not in danger of that at least. I've never been as well-versed in the classics as someone of my disposition ought to be; I spend too much time on the internet. >.>

He has a great sense of humour, though, Vonnegut:

And he allows himself the romanticism to say "every successful creative person creates with an audience of one in mind. That's the secret of artistic unity. Anybody can achieve it, if he or she will make something with only one person in mind" (for Vonnegut, that was his sister). That, at least, affirms a lot of what I do.

Also contributed to the Great Cosby Experiment of '09.

Haha I love this book.


It's so existential it's not even funny.

Also the Marabar Caves are especially rad—they're perfectly circular and smooth and make any noise, even really small ones, reverberate into this monotone "booouuuum," and it's so creepy it makes one character have a spiritual crisis and another realise she doesn't really love her fiancée and think she's been raped

I maked some comics










( And some shoddier ones )

So I'm pretty stoked for Hourly Comics Day on February 1.



This is not an hourly comic, it is just depressing

While trying to feel interested in college applications today, I happened across the one perfect and foolproof cure for any lack of ambition.

And that is listening to "Be Prepared" from the Lion King.

A few things...

This is Ezra Pound, modernist poet, punk symphony composer, photographed in 1920:



1920! Look at him! He was living in the 70s a half century before they happened! Now that's modernist.

I finished Watchmen today. It's such a great read. No heroes, no villains, just brilliant characters... the entire story unfolds in this morally grey haze, yet in the end, when it turns out Veidt was right... it's all very complex and satisfying. Relevant, even; sometimes even today, it seems like we're on the brink of our own sort of doomsday, just with economic collapse instead of nuclear fallout. Maybe all we need is restored perspective, an alien invasion...

Anyway, it's all very thought-provoking, and there's no way the movie will live up to it, but oh well. Directors and screenwriters, y'know, they just have this compulsion, this oath, that no material shall ever pass through their maws untampered with. I really appreciated how it ended with a John Cale quote... do you think you'll hear any John Cale or Bob Dylan or Elvis Costello in the movie? I doubt it. You just have to hope people read the series. It should be the price of admission.

My headphones finally died today. It's really quite tragic. I can't listen to anything here now, unless everyone is out. I have nothing to block out bus noise on the way to school, besides the songs in my head. Yet I'm not too upset. Hopefully a replacement will come for Christmas, or my siblings will dig up or bring me an extra pair when they visit. In the meantime, it's back to stuff like reading and peoplewatching. I had hardly taken my headphones off when I first noticed something silly: there were these two girls sitting behind me, and one was really bright and talkative, discussing the Twilight premiere, drama between her online friends, etc., and the girl being subjected to this would make these polite responses once in a while, like "hmm" or "wow" or "oh gosh," with this barely perceptible hint of discomfort that the talking girl was cheerfully oblivious to. It made me smile. There was something familiar about it, but I'm not sure who I was empathising with—the enthusiastic girl or the patient one. Maybe both.

Then I was on such a high from finishing Watchmen that I was able to mull through the boisterous, pushy crowds at my school all day, which are without a doubt spotted with actual criminals as well as future ones, and just observe the self-satisfied way one would carry himself, or the possessive, threatening arm another would put around his girlfriend, or the obnoxiously loud calls of "EYYYYYYYYY" that jocks around here throw to each other upon sight... and you know what? After reading Watchmen, it didn't bother me so much. I was in too thoughtful a mood. So today is a day in which I came to hate humanity a little less. That's what a good story does for you, I guess.

Pushing Daisies isn't on today because of the Country Music Awards, so now I'm sitting here trying to figure them out.

It seems like every time I hear someone talk about their musical tastes, they say something to the effect of "Oh, I listen to all kinds of music... *grimace* except COUNTRY." It sounds so ignorant, close minded, categorically dismissing a mode of expression like that. I mean, I get it, it can be really trite, conservative, hard to stomach, and whatnot, but that's really indicative of bad songwriters, not a bad genre.

I've been listening to a lot of Neil Young lately—beautifully earnest, distinctive, Canadian, kind of a rock/country blend—and the Eagles are apparently country, because they're playing tonight, and then there's folk, which is a hip thing to like still... bah, labels, genres. Everyone knows they suck.

Anyway, I get the feeling that a lot of people around here just object to the folksy, "down home" flavour to it... but it isn't even folksy. I don't know what it is. I just saw a bit of the show: Hugh Jackman got up, Hugh Jackman, and some other Australian chick (non-American Hollywood thespian Commie types no doubt), to introduce the winner for Single of the Year. The guy who won held up his trophy and thanked the people who wrote the song for him, thanked the musicians who played the song, and thanked the guy who produced the song. What exactly did this guy do, then, to deserve an award, besides having money and a cowboy hat?

I wonder if there's country music purists. Are there people who are disappointed or alienated by what I'm seeing on TV tonight? Is it safe to assume the CMA is no more representative of country music than the Grammy's are of music in general? Maybe, then, there are genuine musical patrons who appreciate country, but have to suffer as much as the rest of us through its popular representation.

But maybe the corporate show is all that's really left of country.

A girl in my class, really smart, a wannabe lawyer, was talking today about how she went on a trip to Alabama, and how disgusting it was. She told about how the people were fat and the ground was covered in trash, and how there was a mall in one town full of young girls, really young, wearing makeup and slinky clothes, looking like prostitutes. She said it was embarrassing the way they live, as if it was their choice. And maybe it is; who can draw a line between nature and nurture, choice and circumstance? She suggested America would be better off if the south was just cut off, if we were two separate countries. Maybe it would. She complained that Tennessee accents make women sound like little girls. I understand the feeling. My family vacations sometimes at a Sea Pines in South Carolina, and we drive through scary-looking towns, and encounter annoying accents filling the pool, cawing at the beach, sunny and superficial, and it makes one feel very other. But... I can't be comfortable with that kind of sentiment. People are people, regardless of the society, and thus can be rationalised, be relatable, defensible, no worse, inherently, than our more immediate countrymen. Right?

Next time someone hates on country music, I'm going to ask them for clarification. What is country music, exactly? I don't understand. I really don't.