Graphics and such

I went on a vector/graphic-making frenzy today and this is what I came up with after some time with the pen tool

Not a single outside resource this time, surprisingly. Even that robin was one that I managed to photograph today. I guess I'm getting better at this.

Hemingway, a manly man

Ernest Hemingway, in addition to being one of my favorite authors and human beings, has plenty of incredibly intriguing photographs from all phases of his life. Here are some I consider noteworthy:

A young Hemingway and his gun in Michigan, 1903.

Hemingway, a Red Cross volunteer, in Milan in 1918.

Hemingway in his Paris apartment, 1924. Even I can't wear a beret
that well to be honest.

Hemingway fighting a bull (quite literally, that's him at
the bull's head) in Spain, 1925.

Hemingway on safari in Africa, 1934.

Hemingway, a friend, and a fairly large marlin in Key West,
1935.

Hemingway with his 12-gauge in Cuba, 1952.

Hemingway and some boxing gloves.

With a cat and wine in Cuba.

Hemingway kicking a can, my personal favorite.

Hemingway in his bath.

How literature has become a discontented youth's bitch

In this universal rebellious teenage phase that the internet and general sub-25 population as a collective unit seems to be going through, having deep, angst-ridden thoughts is hip, man. It's edgy to be misanthropic. Life is a lost cause. Throw on your wayfarers and scowl at humanity behind them, bro.

You know what's also cool? Having literary classics to back up your angsty thoughts. That makes your misanthropy legitimate. And who better to legitimize your emotions that the holy trifecta of Plath, Salinger, and Fitzgerald?

The internet's peculiar love affair with these three authors rests simply on the fact that, with some mild misinterpretation and misapplication, their works and ideas can serve as a seemingly solid foundation for disillusioned youth everywhere. From "man society sucks Plath gets me she puts all of my profound thoughts into words I just want to stick my head in an oven" to "Holden Caulfield is my kindred spirit Salinger's writing is so accurate" to "Gatsby had it right we never get what we want society is just one huge facade" to the works of many other authors, literature has been bastardized left and right to help a blasé and discontented teen spirit express itself.

Just google blog posts about Sylvia Plath quotes, I dare you. Sylvia Plath, along with the aforementioned authors, has become more of a brand than an author. Like Mac or Starbucks, Plath has become a name, one which, when plastered on anything really, lends it some sort of legitimacy as a disgruntled societal statement.

Take, for instance this quotation:

"We are not angels. Nor are we the devils you have made us out to be."

If I claimed it to be from Sylvia Plath, the internet would attack it like a troupe of starving hyenas, dismember it, and use it to express deep thoughts and the frustration of today's youth. Maybe something along the lines of normal people in society think we folk who choose to express our feelings and grievances through the arts are useless and abnormal. If I revealed that this quotation is, in fact, from Slobodan Milosevic, perpetrator of the Bosnian Genocide, and regards international views on the conflict, all profound interpretations would immediately disappear. It's not Sylvia Plath anymore, so it doesn't express our societal views, man.

It's a shame, it really is, that great works and great ideas by great authors devolve into statement pieces like this.

A Century of Slang

An aspect of pop culture that is exceedingly fascinating is slang and popular phrases that can be ingrained into every sentence one decade and incomprehensible the next. So here's to some bits of slang from the decades of the last century:

1900's:
lollapalooza- something great or fantastic
livewire- an exciting individual
bunk- nonsense
bash- a drunken spree
to have bats in one's belfry- to have nonsensical, wild ideas

1910's:
a stuffed shirt- a pompous individual
meathook- a hand
roscoe- a handgun
floozy- a loose, promiscuous woman
wino- a homeless alcoholic

1920's:
to take for a ride- do drive someone away in order to kill him/her
butt me- give me a cigarette
gams- the legs of a woman
putting on the ritz- doing something stylishly
spifflicated- drunk, also canned, corked, tanked, primed, scrooched, jazzed, zozzled, plastered, owled, embalmed, lit, potted, ossified and fried to the hat

1930's:
platter- a record
lunger- a person with tuberculosis
cement mixer- a bad dancer, also a dead-hoofer
dog house- a string bass
drilling- shooting someone, also plugging, throwing lead, filling someone with daylight, or giving someone lead poisoning

1940's:
motorized freckles- insects
active duty- a promiscuous man
to bag- to shoot down a plane
lettuce- money, cash
to be rationed- to be in a steady relationship

1950's:
passion pit- a drive-in theater
tank- a larger car driven by older people
ankle biter- a small child
lid- a hat
radioactive- popular

1960's:
copasetic- all right, okay, sure
bitchin- great, enjoyable
shotgun- to blow through the wrong end of a marijuana joint
crash pad- a place to sleep
dove- a pacifist

1970's:
to veg out- to relax
to book- to run away, to flee
to close the shades- to shut up
peelers- police, also pigs, the man
the rabbit died- I'm pregnant

1980's:
tubular- interesting, exciting
road pizza- roadkill
ill- uncool
eat my shorts- a comeback
grindage- food

1990's:
fugly- very ugly
to wig out- to go berserk
the shit- something excellent, also fresh
dawg- a friend
to bounce- to leave

Luftpost

I got a birthday letter today from friends in Nürnberg, Germany. To be honest there is something so appealing about letters like these in the mail. If I had the choice between a myriad of emails and one handwritten letter, I would pick the latter without hesitation.

Especially letters like these. The only aesthetically pleasing ones I get come from Germany. It's as if they don't sell these envelopes anywhere else.

Honestly if I got my bills and library fines in envelopes like these I would be happy to pay them.

Eisenstaedt at Penn Station, 1943

Alfred Eisenstaedt was a Prussian-born photographer who is probably most famous for his iconic V-J Day in Times Square photograph. Eisenstaedt had worked in Nazi Germany, photographing personalities such as Hitler and Goebbels, before fleeing to the United States in 1935. There, he worked with Life magazine, taking photographs of both iconic American scenes and celebrities such as Hemingway and Sophia Loren.

To me, however, some of Eisenstaedt's most moving photographs are the series he took in New York's Penn Station in 1943, of soldiers leaving for war.

and my favorite

You can find some more here.

Minimalism Appreciation

Although I personally see clutter, to a certain degree, as comforting, minimalism is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Anywhere from art

from Frank Stella's Black series

to interior design

via Juan ValldeRuten.

to architecture

via Good Millwork

to food

via nicknamemiket

to film posters

via Pedro Vidotto

minimalism is refreshing. Stripping something down to its core meaning, purpose, or design is a fairly arduous task, it's not just look-mom-I-drew-a-circle-on-a-piece-of-paper-am-I-a-minimalist-yet. It takes an incredible amount of skill to make something seem simple and clean without making it cold or meaningless.

Then again I am extremely hodgepodge-appreciative and would never manage minimalism on my own.

But you catch my drift.

BASTARD FROM A BASKET: There Will Be Blood and how it is unironically perfect

Few things are more depressing to me than when genuinely perfect cinematic feats are reduced to a few catchy lines or an iconic scene. Take 2004's Der Untergang, for example, a German film chronicling Hitler's last days cooped up in his bunker. One of the top 100 films ever released on IMDb? Countless Bambi award winner? Oscar nominated masterpiece? Nah, who gives two shits. The internet in all its glory has forever reduced Der Untergang to a single scene of a shouting, red-faced, and incredibly irate Hitler pounding on a table due to god-knows-what. But who cares? It's extra hilarious with fake subtitles about the new iPad. Look ma, no hands!

The same goes for one of my favorite films of all time, There Will Be Blood, a 2007 release by Paul Thomas Anderson, with the magical ever-disappearing fairy princess of the British thespian world- Daniel Day Lewis.

Usually my conversations about this film go as follows:

Casual bystander: So what's your favorite movie?
Me: Well, probably There Will Be Blood.
(Casual bystander is overcome with a quizzical look)
Me: With Daniel Day Lewis?
Casual bystander: ...
Me: About oil tycoons at the turn of the century?
Casual bystander: ...
Me: That one movie where that one guy goes 'I drink your milkshake.'
Casual bystander: Oh that one yeah I think I saw that.

All right that scene is admittedly unintentionally hilarious. And sometimes I like to think of There Will Be Blood as a comedy about bowling and father-son relationships. And Daniel Day Lewis and his method acting and his mustache are probably all I'll ever need in life.

But let's get kind of serious over here. There Will Be Blood is nothing short of a masterpiece. Its plotline is so beautifully complicated, balanced out with simple, incredibly moving scenes of Plainview and his son. Daniel Day Lewis' acting is off-the-rocker fabulous. That "I've abandoned by child" scene makes me want to die and never come back. To be honest, this film is everything I will ever need. It should be showered with Oscars from now until forever in every category.

Honestly though if the only reason you've ever heard of this creation has to do with milkshakes, you should quit your homeostasis until you get your derriere to a Blockbuster and rent the thing.

I leave you with a word of wisdom from Daniel "Drainage" Plainview:

Ready to Start

I am faced with a tragic flaw in life- my incredibly and unnecessarily short attention span. Unless I have a 12-gauge to my head, I honestly don't think I can spit out more than two or three sentences at a time without suddenly realizing that there is something astounding taking place elsewhere. The same goes for the fact that I have thus far clung to blogging platforms focused largely on cats and misanthropic "lol humanity sux am I edgy yet" statements that can be maneuvered with one hand during the early morning hours.

For instance, during the process of typing the paragraph above I checked two other tabs on my browser, stared out the window for a while, and stuffed spinach pierogi in my mouth.

Another flaw of mine is my inability to get right to the point of anything. The point being the fact that, congratulations, the universe has birthed yet another blog full of musings of a lackluster human, and, well, other things. I'm not going to assert that this blog will be unprecedented™ or exceptional®. Actually, I don't think I can even say it will survive that long.

Most importantly, I really can't say what you'll find here. I can't guarantee much. Let's see how this pans out.