Late

I despise artificial photography. Not really, I don’t despise anything but it’s certainly a vice. Anything artificial. The best advice about learning to draw or paint is that you have to learn to see, to really see things or to see them as an artist. The idea that beauty is everywhere and there all kinds of details, so many spontaneous little bits and pieces, and you just draw all the ones you notice. Try not to let your past notions of what a tree or a dog looks like interfere or pull you into some automatic repetition of old habits and instead draw what you see right now. I think seeing can be very healing. Can photography really be artistic? It seems so lazy compared to writing or painting or composing. And I dunno, all the talk about lenses has nothing to do with “art” if you ask me.

Here‘s a random example. I prefer the first three photos. But the fourth is the “real” photo. It’s too planned, imho. Are we afraid of the beauty of a simple passing moment? Plus, it spoils and cheapens itself by being explained. Indiana Jones and Spider-man aren’t violins and actors and costume designers and lenses. They’re living legends! Do we really need to take several photos and pick the best one and then touch it up? We know better than nature? Every music video ever features barely-dressed women, speakers, microphones, a band wearing the clothes people wore during that period, a douche yelling at the camera about how cool he is, Snoop Dogg, and a Ferrari in the desert. I thought fiction was about imagination. I guess this is non-fiction. Apparently music is (visually) about sound equipment and egos. Maybe every book should be about books and writing.

Ever since Transformers it seems like every movie has either robots or aliens or superpowers or something ridiculous. Every ad. An interesting phenomena, as if cgi passed a mini-milestone and now this fad is sweeping the world. Not all bad but it just seems a bit juvenile. 3d, now there’s a fad. I don’t think it will last long, I don’t like it at all. I agree with Nolan generally that it cheapens the movie-going experience. I can’t see pixels anymore! It’s no longer a canvas for stunning or moving imagery, it’s just stuff. The glasses are uncomfortable, the colour gets messed up, it adds absolutely nothing. It could work but we’re not there yet and no director has yet made good use of it. One or two theme park rides are alright (including Terminator 2 or whatever at Universal Studios or wherever – spraying water to simulate shattered glass – very classy). Final thing, I sound like a bad comedian but all these reality shows and medical dramas and crime dramas make everyone think they’re an expert on everything and yet they know NOTHING about law or medicine. I think the amount you could learn from movies and TV shows is astounding and (kinda like they say about the brain) I think we’re using maybe 0.01% of it! Entertainment is a strange thing. A disposal unit for your time.

I’ve whinged about Bloom’s Taxonomy^TM before but being exposed to it again, I can’t help but feel that some of those big words like evaluate, synthesise, analyse, demonstrate, illustrate are among the most overused (or too often used incorrectly or inappropriately) and hence the most ambiguous in the English language. There’s plenty of value to the idea of this kind of hierarchy but it’s not that simple. Memories can be rich, applications and evaluations can be shallow, creativity can be trivial or subjective. For some questions, students may be best off looking at how many marks a question is worth to tell what depth the answer should be, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Thinking about life, Forrest Gump-style. Do we control our destinies? Can the mistakes or “sins” of others weigh down on us heavily? How do we know whose fault it is? Is this life and we’re just weak? Those times when all we can think about is one thing. Nothing else affects us. Doesn’t make any sense at all, does it? Don’t lock yourself out. Bring out the good side. Better to be a tragic hero than a successful, albeit secretly pathetic and hypocritical civilian. Bad feelings are meant to be felt. Maybe they aren’t so bad after all. It’s just information. Don’t be afraid. If this made sense to you, you may need to seek medical attention, lol. I don’t know what I’m writing half the time…