Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Robin flying on a Broomstick over LegoLand
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Finished and Not Finished
This utterly cool character is John Blacksad, from the french Blacksad comics I've yet to get copies of (DC, bless them, has finally brought out an English translation).
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Writing
Writing's a dirty habit, like picking at your skin or collecting half-full mugs of coffee all over your room until the penultimate domino effect causes you to have to change the carpet. And like most dirty habits, it's usually the result of you not having been taught better, and it's a little bit fun.
It also tends to embarrass when it spills into public life. Taking notebooks out at restaurants and parties can cause people to look over at you like a street-mime, even come up to and demand to know what you're doing. Evidence of literacy may show up in conversations. I'm one of those hapless individuals who attempts to have conversations like people in books do, and it's frustrating for me to find that real life conversation includes a lot more interruptions, a lot less soul-searching, and the wrong questions.
I've heard writing described as a psychosis. Bit sinister, but a certain deliberate insanity is involved. Writers make a world with which to view the world. They make characters and the characters in turn, make the writer. What characters get up to reflect the hopes the writer harbours about the way the word works: that in the end everyone deserving gets married, or killed, that glints of humanity shine off even hearts of polished stone, that God, in His own good timing, will give the plot a kick where necessary. It strives to be less common than muck, to find new ways of saying old things. The desperate optimism of being a writer at all is enough to break your heart. We are people who believe, on some level, that words can change the world, and want ours to be among them.
It also tends to embarrass when it spills into public life. Taking notebooks out at restaurants and parties can cause people to look over at you like a street-mime, even come up to and demand to know what you're doing. Evidence of literacy may show up in conversations. I'm one of those hapless individuals who attempts to have conversations like people in books do, and it's frustrating for me to find that real life conversation includes a lot more interruptions, a lot less soul-searching, and the wrong questions.
I've heard writing described as a psychosis. Bit sinister, but a certain deliberate insanity is involved. Writers make a world with which to view the world. They make characters and the characters in turn, make the writer. What characters get up to reflect the hopes the writer harbours about the way the word works: that in the end everyone deserving gets married, or killed, that glints of humanity shine off even hearts of polished stone, that God, in His own good timing, will give the plot a kick where necessary. It strives to be less common than muck, to find new ways of saying old things. The desperate optimism of being a writer at all is enough to break your heart. We are people who believe, on some level, that words can change the world, and want ours to be among them.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
War and Peace
Doing nothing, I've found, is a lot harder than it looks. I've had the rare opportunity in the passed couple months to do what may seem to the laymen like not very much, but in fact involves a complex series of exercises performed with ritualistic rigor to preserve sanity in a household continually threatened with unimaginable boredom.
Among the various peacekeeping tactics employed, regular rounds of tea is possibly the most important. It is simple to do, everyone takes their turn and it's all-round far less harmful a past-time than, say, smoking or breaking out a beer every hour. Tea encourages pleasant conversation or, in times where pleasant conversation has taken the turn for the worst, it helps to patch things over as a form of peace-offering.
Regular forays onto the internet are useful too. It gives the impression of networking and attempting to find a job. A few minutes a day are all you really needs to connect with friends and put over a few emails to feel like the world has not abandoned you utterly. A couple of evenings a month dedicated to getting together with friends or former colleagues to chat and hang out and get absolutely ratted also relieves an oppressive atmosphere.
Exercise goes without saying, and so in my case, it often goes by without comment either. Usually every three or four days my limbs will start to stick and I'll put myself through a few yoga stretches to limber up again. It helps, and I feel very positive for having done it, and reflect on how easy it would be just to do a couple of stretches a day seeing as I have the time. It never works. Days go by before discomfort drives me back to the yoga mat.
The truly tragic part about this whole hiatus from work is exactly that I have so much time on my hands. I could be doing anything: creating, learning, making the master pieces I so longed for time enough to make. But no. The gift of two months off is taken up with putting off the inevitable, usually till eleven at night, where I get on my PC and work a bit on my comic, or on a picture, or my website, or the book I'm writing. I'm spoiled for choice and time and I waste most of it reading or sleeping or looking for more work. Maybe I'm just the more densely scheduled type.
Either way, two month's solid rest is nothing to be ungrateful for. I feel I've used it to relax if nothing else. In the words of Calvin (from my favourite comic Calvin and Hobbes): "At least when I have a day off, I can tell the difference."
Among the various peacekeeping tactics employed, regular rounds of tea is possibly the most important. It is simple to do, everyone takes their turn and it's all-round far less harmful a past-time than, say, smoking or breaking out a beer every hour. Tea encourages pleasant conversation or, in times where pleasant conversation has taken the turn for the worst, it helps to patch things over as a form of peace-offering.
Regular forays onto the internet are useful too. It gives the impression of networking and attempting to find a job. A few minutes a day are all you really needs to connect with friends and put over a few emails to feel like the world has not abandoned you utterly. A couple of evenings a month dedicated to getting together with friends or former colleagues to chat and hang out and get absolutely ratted also relieves an oppressive atmosphere.
Exercise goes without saying, and so in my case, it often goes by without comment either. Usually every three or four days my limbs will start to stick and I'll put myself through a few yoga stretches to limber up again. It helps, and I feel very positive for having done it, and reflect on how easy it would be just to do a couple of stretches a day seeing as I have the time. It never works. Days go by before discomfort drives me back to the yoga mat.
The truly tragic part about this whole hiatus from work is exactly that I have so much time on my hands. I could be doing anything: creating, learning, making the master pieces I so longed for time enough to make. But no. The gift of two months off is taken up with putting off the inevitable, usually till eleven at night, where I get on my PC and work a bit on my comic, or on a picture, or my website, or the book I'm writing. I'm spoiled for choice and time and I waste most of it reading or sleeping or looking for more work. Maybe I'm just the more densely scheduled type.
Either way, two month's solid rest is nothing to be ungrateful for. I feel I've used it to relax if nothing else. In the words of Calvin (from my favourite comic Calvin and Hobbes): "At least when I have a day off, I can tell the difference."
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Main Irk
I believe it was Maragaret Attwood who said that in order to inspire herself a little to write, she'd paint her fingernails. Well all ten my fingernails are now black, as are my toes, so let's see where that gets us.
First, in premature response to the black, I'm not an emo. There are moments, but I can't call myself a full-fledged child of the night (nor, I believe, can most card-carrying emos, but I'm not going to stoop to bashing this time). It turns out I'm too reliable. I'm that solid doesn't-fall-to-pieces sort who keeps her head in an emergency, no matter how much I don't want to. It's a virtue, I'm sure, but it doesn't put you in the running for Ms. Femininity. Although I'm sure historically speaking, the feminine role has more often than not been one where the women sigh when their men drag the bleeding kill across the carpet and cope with any amount of household work ranging from raising small armies of children to scraping out the privies to defending the castle while their husbands are away crusading somewhere. We're a generally reliable sort, women.
It's a tiresome thought sometimes. We just... cope. It's been true of our own family, where we've done very little but cope for several years now. Just get on and do the best we can under less than sporting circumstances. It's not because we're mostly women in our little family of four, it's just I wonder how it might be different if we were all big and bluff and knew kung-fu. Possibly it wouldn't be all that different, apart from other guys in pubs trying to start fights with us rather than buy us drinks.
First, in premature response to the black, I'm not an emo. There are moments, but I can't call myself a full-fledged child of the night (nor, I believe, can most card-carrying emos, but I'm not going to stoop to bashing this time). It turns out I'm too reliable. I'm that solid doesn't-fall-to-pieces sort who keeps her head in an emergency, no matter how much I don't want to. It's a virtue, I'm sure, but it doesn't put you in the running for Ms. Femininity. Although I'm sure historically speaking, the feminine role has more often than not been one where the women sigh when their men drag the bleeding kill across the carpet and cope with any amount of household work ranging from raising small armies of children to scraping out the privies to defending the castle while their husbands are away crusading somewhere. We're a generally reliable sort, women.
It's a tiresome thought sometimes. We just... cope. It's been true of our own family, where we've done very little but cope for several years now. Just get on and do the best we can under less than sporting circumstances. It's not because we're mostly women in our little family of four, it's just I wonder how it might be different if we were all big and bluff and knew kung-fu. Possibly it wouldn't be all that different, apart from other guys in pubs trying to start fights with us rather than buy us drinks.
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