Me opening up the word doc and getting stuck in the exact same place as last time

I got a copy of Tablets at Work by Claudia Wollny last weekend and really fell in love with the Diagonals section of the book. (It's also called Egyptian Diagonals in some circles, but I guess the Egyptian part is questionable so she dropped the term for her book.) They create a really cool, 3D like effect so I wanted to warp up an example for the tablet weaving workshop I'll be teaching in a few weeks. This is 20/2 mercerized cotton, and also my first time winding a circular warp on an inkle loom for tablet weaving.

I had two false starts but finally got it on the third try! I had forgotten that each square in the pattern corresponds to two picks, and I was doing just one before turning the tablets.

That is a very nice pattern. I love those diagonal weave and knot motives. It's like a weaveception.

- Reacher Gilt in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal

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What the fuck

This is absolutely fascinating. I've now been looking at Alex Colville's paintings and trying to work out what it is about them that makes them look like CGI and how/why he did that in a world where CGI didn't exist yet. Here's what I've got so far:

- Total lack of atmospheric perspective (things don't fade into the distance)

- Very realistic shading but no or only very faint shadows cast by ambient light.

- Limited interaction between objects and environment (shadows, ripples etc)

- Flat textures and consistent lighting used for backgrounds that would usually show a lot of variation in lighting, colour and texture

- Bodies apparently modelled piece by piece rather than drawn from life, and in a very stiff way so that the bodies show the pose but don't communicate the body language that would usually go with it. They look like dolls.

- Odd composition that cuts off parts that would usually be considered important (like the person's head in the snowy driving scene)

- Very precise drawing of structures and perspective combined with all the simplistic elements I've already listed. In other words, details in the "wrong" places.

What's fascinating about this is that in early or bad CGI, these things come from the fact that the machine is modelling very precisely the shapes and perspectives and colours, but missing out on some parts that are difficult to render (shadows, atmospheric perspective) and being completely unable to pose bodies in such a way as to convey emotion or body language.

But Colville wasn't a computer, so he did these same things *on purpose*. For some reason he was *aiming* for that precise-but-all-wrong look. I mean, mission accomplished! The question in my mind is, did he do this because he was trying to make the pictures unsettling and alienating, or because in some way, this was how he actually saw the world?

omf i never thought i'd find posts about alex colville on tumblr, but! he's a local artist where i'm from & i work at a library/archives and have processed a lot of documents related to his art. just wanted to give my two cents!

my impression is that colville did see the world as an unsettling place and a lot of his work was fueled by this general ~malaise?? but in a lot of cases, he was trying to express particular fears or traumas. for instance, this painting (horse and train) was apparently inspired by a really tragic experience his wife had:

iirc she was in a horrible automobile crash, as the car she was in collided with a train. i find it genuinely horrifying to look at, knowing the context, but a lot of colville's work is like that? idk he just seems to capture the feeling you get in nightmares where everything is treacle-ish and slow and inevitable.

Jesus Christ.

Legolas + bow and arrow 🏹

THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY 2001-2003 | dir. Peter Jackson

People who say bi erasure doesn’t happen need to realize Freddie Mercury is known as the most famous homosexual man when he identified himself as bisexual. If that’s not bi erasure I don’t even know.

Also PoC erasure, most people don’t know he was 100% Indian

Specifically he was Parsi. Also raised Zeroastrian.

*zoroastrian 

#i dont think the white boys can handle a queer brown guy being their god

^^^ centuries of religious art featuring white-skinned blue-eyed Jesus have made that pretty clear

His real name was Farrokh Bulsara. He was born in Zanzibar.

Okay but why is “farrokh bulsara, from Zanzibar ” more inspiring and better sounding than “Freddie mercury from England ”?

Can I add this tidbit I found?

ID: “During a Queen concert in the 70s, a heckler shouted “you fucking poof” [gay slur] to Freddie Mercury during the middle of their set. Freddie responded by ordering the crew to turn the spotlight on hte man, asking him to “Say it again, darling”. The heckler cowered in shame.

This remains the most understated, elegantly phrased "Fuck around and find out" ever committed to video.

Mira Furlan was utter perfection as Delenn

Such a funky moment :D

Okay fuck so for like the entire first part I thought this person was like... Using one of those 3d pens to replace lace in this curtain somehow

Then the next couple I was like "wait are they just like painting the curtains a different color? Were the lace threads just black or something on that other one?"

Then finally it clicked and I freaked the fuck out

EXCUSE ME

The artist’s name is Leeah Joo and you can (and should!) check out her work here

Truth is, it reads more like "she can do everything" and "him, it's just Ken"

And ken (idk the actual spelling since it's extremely familiar and therefore oral) is a slang used in French that means "to fuck"

So "Him, it's just fucking"

Which I think is even more hilarious

Unrestrained summer fun

A surreal moment

Currently background-watching Transformers: the Last Knight (don't ask me why; these things happen) and on hearing a line of dialogue, actually had to go and check IMDb to see who the director was.

Because this was the line, spoken unironically... one I'd previously have sworn to God I'd never, ever hear in a Michael Bay movie:

"I don't have enough ammo for that."

No but guys, GUYS, we need to talk about how important this scene is.  Because the commonly accepted lore about unicorns is that they are so good and pure that they’ll only appear to young virginal girls.  Because Molly Grue is a middle-aged woman who has been living with bandits for most of her life and is as far from innocent and virginal as you’re likely to get.  Because she’s so angry that this creature, embodying everything that society tells her she’s lost, everything she’s thrown away through her own choices, is here now when all that The Unicorn represents is long since behind her.  Because she knows, in a way that only someone who’s been steeped in an oppressive system her entire life can ever know, that she’s missed her chance and doesn’t deserve to be seeing a unicorn now.

And you know what?  The Unicorn doesn’t give two fucks about her virginity, about her supposed loss of innocence and purity.  She’s not repelled by Molly being older, being experienced, being a full human person.  None of that has ever mattered to unicorns, only to the people telling stories about them.  Not only does she step in to physically comfort her here, but before long this bandit’s wife becomes her friend, closer to her in most ways than Schmendrick.

This story is fucking revolutionary, you guys, and I just have a lot of feelings about it.

I heard Peter S. Beagle speak about this scene at a convention once. He said he just kept writing and writing into the scene and suddenly here was this powerful, moving dialogue which came out very strong and natural, flowing directly from inspiration.

He said it was one of those moments when “the writer just gets really lucky.” 

This is one of those scenes you nebulously get when you’re ten and comes up and punches you in the face when you’re thirty.

https://youtu.be/xtUv_9qkwwk

…“[the scene] comes up and punches you in the face when you’re thirty”?

(gentle smile) Try it when you’re seventy.

whatever our souls are made of, you and me are going to end up stuck in the same ice hole

IN A DISTANT and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part . . .

See . . .

"GNU Sir Terry Pratchett" - L-Space Wiki / Ursula K. LeGuin / "Terry Pratchett" - Wikipedia / "GNU" - Urban Dictionary / Going Postal by Terry Pratchett / Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett / Brandon Sanderson / Paul Kidby / The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

It’s ok if you’re tired.

🏳️‍🌈Happy Pride.🏳️‍🌈

<3 BE HAPPY AND LOOK AFTER YOURSELF <3

A language tip for all the french guys out there

...That's sorted THAT out, then.

(And also: this way, when you get back to wherever you're staying, the people there don't start with the "Wait, where's the rest of the one we sent you for?!")

Watch: John Cena continues, “So, let’s try this one more time. Close your eyes.” 

x

King

dancing lessons! have to pass the time at camp somehow 💃

Rosalie Lettau (based Germany) - 1: Whisper  2: Offering  3: Ritual  4: Lure  from Coven series, Drawings: Pencil, +Digital