I Wish I'd Made These

Well, not really, but the photographs (ambrotypes, specifically) and camera obscura installations that Stephen Berkman makes really fit in with some of the stuff I've been playing with. (Via Brass Goggles and crossposted to Camera Obscura Nova, my Livejournal.)

Now This . . .

This is a watch I'd rather like. Pocket watch, roman numerals, mechanical (which is to say not battery-run, as in you have to wind it), chrome (not a big fan of gold, I), window for peering in at the gears working away . . . Very cool.

Madness, Shapechanging, Art

The Journal of Mythic Arts Summer /Fall 2006 issue is now up at the Endicott Studio website, and my paper "The Artist as Shaman: Madness, Shapechanging and Art in Terri Winding's The Woodwife" is included. You can scroll down the page to find it (but be sure to look at the other wonderful stuff too), or if you must, skip straight to it here.

This was originally written as an assignment for a workshop/seminar I took at SUNY New Paltz in . . . 2003, maybe, or was it 2002? So it's really Heinz Insu Fenkl's fault that I wrote it in the first place. And, of course, Terri Windling's for writing a book that made me ramble on at such length. (The mistakes and the stupid things are all my own fault of course). The paper was first published in the Mythic Passages web journal.

Two Ronnies Mastermind

Watch this: Two Ronnies Mastermind (the usual warnings about having anything in your mouth apply).

The Shire of Bend, Oregon

Maybe the Tolkien Estate can sure them? The Shire of Bend, Oregon. I shudder. Many times.

School! Books! Etc.

School started up again on Thursday. I had Architecture, Culture and Photography with the lovely Mr Fish. Like Intro Photo, it should be a really good class, but lots of work. On Friday I had Graphic and Typographic Design with a prof who had a Scottish accent and a tendency to trail off at the ends of sentences, but I think he'll be easier to listen to when he's actually talking about design and not reading out the obligatory course descriptions and rules about respecting the historic buildings our school is in. I'll have that class twice a week (Tues and Fri mornings). Then Friday afternoons I have Intermediate Book Arts with Joe Landry, who also taught Letterpress in the summer (and who gave me an A+). It's going to be a really, really great class (even though I managed to cut myself while sawing a recess on the spine of my sewing sample -- Joe and half the class were out of the room fetching sewing frames, luckily) (for those of you who don't know, if it's pointy or sharp, I'll eventually stab or cut myself with it, though it's never serious). And that's what my semester is going to be. Only three classes, but two are 6 credits, which is kind of like double. So I'm still doing 15 credits -- the maximum anyone is allowed to take at once.

And I've just spent some time entering all the books I have out in the living room into LibraryThing. Go look if you want (you can search for me as "feynico"). Basically, you can see most of my geek books, some of my nonfiction and a very small amount of my fiction. The bedroom shelves will be next, but I'm going to need to get a paid membership before I'm done. There's a nice lifetime membership option which only costs two and a half times the yearly membership, so I'll probably do that (unlesss someone wants to get me a gift membership). I really like the idea of being able to keep a record of my books online, for insurance purposes, if nothing else. I'm probably also going to (finally) get some kind of book cataloguing software for offine, too. I had one all picked out a year ago, now I just have to figure out which one it was . . .

One Down . . .

It's been an ambition of mine (one of a short list of things I want to have happen before I drop dead) to have work on the Endicott Studio website or be mentioned there in some way (like if I had a novel published and they put it on the recommended reading list or something). Anyway, there will soon be a paper I wrote in the Endicott Journal of Mythic Arts. And not only that, but I'm listed in the "Contributors to the Journal of Mythic Arts" in the right column of the Endicott blog. I'm only two names down from Neil Gaiman!!

Swashbuckling

You Are A Pirate!


What Type Of Swashbuckler Are You?
brought to you by Maddog Varuka & Dawg Brown

I Rule the Freakin' World

I picked up my grades from the summer today:

Basic Book Arts ---> A+

Intro Photography ---> A

Survey of 20th Century Art ---> A+

Letterpress Printing ---> A+

Plus, I got my paycheque, a notice from Canada Post to pick up a parcel, and a notice from UPS that they'll try again to deliver a package tomorrow. All in all, a good day.

I Have the Best Job in the World

So have I said lately how much I love my job? I really, really love my job.

Twice this week, a nice FedEx person has showed up at my door with packages for me. One was two anime UMDs, for an upcoming special guide I'm planning on Anime on UMD (or Anime for PSP). The second was a Beta build of a wacky Japanese PSP game called WTF (which does not stand for what it stands for; it stands for "Work Time Fun"), with a t-shirt! So now I have cool stuff to review and write about.

Like I said, I love my job.

Mild-Mannered

What does Niko say when a Jesus boy asks her if she wants a Bible tract? Why, she politely says, "No, thank you."

And what does Niko say when said Jesus boy then asks, "If you die tonight, will you go to heaven?" Why, she says, "I'm not going anywhere."

And then turns around and yells after him, "I'll just be dead!"

Art for Sale!

Yes, finally some things I can sell! Buy a coelacanth print, and get a coelacanth card free! Pics and info here.

I'm going to have some photos for sale soon, too.

Punctuation Matters

Just ask Rogers about that single comma. Not enough attention to the details of punctuation may cost them a lot of money. (Via Neil Gaiman.)

Shiny Airship Watch

If anyone should ever wish to spend a tidy sum on a watch for me, this is the one I'd like.

Rayguns!

I really need these.

Oh, and I need this to be released in North America.

Joining Things

Yeah, well, you all know how much of a joiner I am. But I found a few cool sites that seemed worth the effort of registering.

• Library Thing lets you catalogue your books online, and searches various databases and bookstores so you don't have to type everything in. It even includes covers. You can add 200 books free, and then have to pay a yeary or for-life fee. I like the idea of having a list of books online, where I can access it from anywhere should I need it for insurance purposes. It won't be long before I have to pay, though, assuming I get around to adding all my books. If you want to look at my books (have only added a few so far), seach for me under "feynico."
  
• TV Shows on DVD is a site where you can find out if your favorite shows are on DVD and vote for them to be on DVD if they're not. You can also make want lists for existing and yet-to-be-pubished DVDs. Now everyone go and register and vote for The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne. Do it now. Please.
  
• My Livejournal. It's so much easier to keep track of other people's Livejournals when you have one of your own. I'll probably end up putting personal, daily-life type stuff, plus writing updates, here on Anagram for Ink, and use the Livejournal for visual arts stuff. No doubt they will cross over a lot. But there you go. One more thing for me to neglect.
  

Font Geek

What does it say about me that I was more excited that my 20th Century Art teacher complemented the font I used on my midterm paper than by the fact that she gave me an A?

Oh, it was 12pt Garamond.

The Usual

So, school goes along pretty much as usual. Photography is my favorite class. It's intense but lots of fun. Letterpress can be a bit on the dull side at times, but I've discovered I really like setting type. It should be really boring, but I like it. I'm going to buy a small letterpress, if I can find one on eBay that's both a reasonable price and in good shape. In the meantime, I bought a camera. This camera. Yes, I finally blew all of my birthday money, plus a bit more besides.

Now I'm saving up for a sewing frame and a book press for bookbinding purposes. With what's left in my bank account (aside from what I need to, you know, live) I'm going to buy PSP stuff to review, and probably a second hand PSP on which to run homebrew -- I have an idea for an article series for work, following my attempts to downgrade the firmware and get homebrew running. Potentially, therefore, the second PSP could pay for itself.

Hardcore

Some of you may know, either just from knowing me or from following my ramblings on this blog, that I am entirely non-religious, yet also fascinated with (and sometimes horrified by) religion. So someone I know who is a student of Zen (hmm . . . should that be capitalized or not?) was reading this book called Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, and the Truth About Reality (by Brad Warner). I thought it sounded interesting, so I asked to borrow it. I just finished reading it this morning (and, since I only borrowed it Thursday afternoon, you can safely draw the conclusion that it was an absorbing read, and therefore also a quick read). Hmm. I expected it would be interesting and well written, from the things my friend said about it. I wasn't really expecting so much of it to resonate -- and resonate strongly -- with the way I already think about things, religion included.

For example:

It's only when people believe that their beliefs are above questioning, that their beliefs alone are beyond all doubt, that they can be as truly horrible as we all know they can be. Belief is the force behind every evil mankind [sic] has ever done.

Or:

Religions, the supposed institutional repositories of humanity's understanding of the deeper mysteries of the universe, have never offered anything more to me than sophisticated methods of avoiding the truth, of building elaborate fantasies in place of reality.

The older I get, the more I think the dangers of religion -- any religion -- far outweigh the benefits, though I know there are an awful lot of people, even non-religious people, who would strongly disagree.

There are simply too many interesting things in the book for me to quote them all -- too many times when I stopped reading so I could absorb something properly. Here's one, though:

Buddhism won't give you the answer. Buddhism might help you find your own right question, but you've gotta supply your own answers.

Hunh. I'll stop quoting now, and gushing. I think I'm going to have to get a copy of this book for myself, though, and read it a few more times. I'm not going to suddenly become religious, but this is, I think, something that warrants further investigation. Anyone want to read the book and tell me what you think of it?

Back to School

Yes, today it was back to school again. I had my first Letterpress Printing class, which is going to be very exciting. Real printing with real moveable type. The kind you can take out and move around in different configurations, without the use of a computer! Okay, I am being silly, but I think it will be a good class. The prof is not the mot dynamic speaker ever, but he knows an awful lot about the history of printing and book binding, and stuff, and seems to have a vast store of amusing stories that probably only book geeks actually find amusing. Luckily, I am a book geek.

Today we had a kind of show and tell with lots of samples (both real and reproduction) of manuscripts and early printing. Then we got a tour of the print shop (I think the third I've had this year, but I love it there, so that's fine with me), and we got to poke around in the basement, where all the type is kept and where we will be spending a lot of time in the next seven weeks. Yay!

I also spent a fair bit of time in the dark room, working on my prints for the portrait/self portrait project. My portrait negatives came out pretty thick; I'm not sure if it's a shooting problem or a developing problem. They're not beyond hope, though, and I got some decent prints from them. Quite a few were not in great focus though, which is a bit disappointing. Part of the problem is that my subject was moving quite a bit, but I very much didn't want her sitting still and posing, so the only solution would have been more light. I guess I should have used both of the lights I had, instead of just one, so I could have used a smaller aperture and therefore had greater depth of field. But anyway. She was a great subject, so I am happy about that.

Tomorrow I'm going to shoot some more self-portraits, even though I really already have enough for the project. I have some mad scientist ideas, which are just too much fun not to do. I do wish I had more props, though, so this is a project I may revisit in future. I also still need to make some prints for a sort of related project, which I may hand in as part of the portrait assignment -- a book of me playing on my PSP while also doing everyday things like doing the dishes and getting dressed. It'll be a day-in-the-life sort of thing, and each photo will have the time under it, but no other text (except possibly to say what I'm doing -- for example "9am, brushing teeth" or something).

And finally, I had Survey of 20th Century Art, where I handed in my take-home exam/essay (which is, I think, a decently written blather), and got back my slide test (only an A-, alas, but pretty good considering how little time I ended up having to study). So that was my day.