Fear draws out creativity – telling ourselves a story that we made up can be soothing. When we share our stories they go from sublime-to-mundane.
Good writers manage to capture some element of the sublime experience and convey it. Dragging some element of magic along in their prose.
Some writers make us feel more sublime than we have lived or experienced – their words point to something we can only imagine at that moment. Some rare writers create new possibilities by writing them into existence.
Amateur etymology is really my bag. I love learning where words come from and understanding about evolution in context. Several VERY smart arguments from this first episode of Victoria Coren’s show Balderdash and Piffle from 2006.
Great premise where she pitches revisions to the OED. The focus on a few words and the mix of investigative reports / bad CGI and face-the-camera-and-lecture tactics work for me.
I think Mitchell is wrong about the inclusion of gay from the context of the Gertrude Stein quote. I don’t dispute that the quote is dripping with queerness, but the forced inclusion in the dictionary seems like tokenism. It also sort of positions the dictionary editors as resisting the path of inclusion – which is distinct from the request for gay to get an earlier citation. The editors seem to want evidence and Mitchell has suggestion. I can’t help think that early journals and letters could provide this evidence. Not to mention that the actual dates for queer history are important (First gay man on television).
The pig segment is awesome and the narrator seems pretty cool (until the barbecue scene!)
The Ploughman’s lunch is a pretty cool vignette. I like that the evidence tracked down is anchored in consumer advertising culture post WW2. The use of nostalgia to market British cheese may not be the most romantic of origin stories, but it is credibility enhancing that the show would lead with this kind of honest inquiry.
I associate the Hellacopters with Pittsburgh. It was the second year that I lived there when a friendly record store clerk and they suggested “Grande Rock,” the third Hellacopters LP after noting my purchasing patterns.
At the time I was heavily into hardcore and punk and had a fairly purist view of DIY ethics (necessary) and corporate record labels (evil). But I will acknowledge a healthy love of classic rock. Part of the reason that I started collecting vinyl LPs was to buy second-hand records and bypass the guilt associated with supporting a multinational death company that might have purchased the soul of some poor talented musician.
It wasn’t uncommon for me to buy an brand new copy of the New Bomb Turks CD and also a thrashed J Geils band LP on Atlantic from the dollar used bin. Which honestly is a pretty good description of the Hellacopters.
Guitars. My memory of the first listen was dominated by the guitars. Slashing, thrashing and almost indulgent levels of guitars. And then that sort of goofy piano playing that becomes so necessary after many listens. Then you sync into just how good respectful 4/4 drumming done well is. And then it’s the guitars, catchy songs and genuine respect for rock n’ roll traditions.
Saw ’em live at least once, maybe twice during these years in Pittsburgh and they were fantastic. About everything you could imagine – with a performance at a pub being particularly memorable for the energy level and amount of beer poured on my head.
From the position of socially-distancing during Covid-19, you sort of wonder what forms music and rock n’ roll will embody in the future. I find myself nostalgic for the kind of energy and excitement of the crowd in the video above in Stockholm in 2018 when the band kicked into “Gotta get some action now” . . .
But the lived nature of a band like the Hellacopters is that they should be enjoyed. The band worked because they weren’t straightforward 70s rock clones, and they weren’t afraid to lay down a lick that was melodic and Zep-worthy. They just rocked and never really looked for justification or permission.
We can trust that the spirits of rock n’ roll can’t really be destroyed and will always re-emerge in some new presentation depending on the local circumstances.
This morning I went to pick up bagels and two seagulls launched from a power line and flew down the road in front of me – hovering about a hundred feet ahead of me leading the way through the fog for several blocks.
I’m sure that this kind of thing has always happened. But I’ve become cued to observe birds more closely recently. Part of it is the boardgame Wingspan, and I’m spending more time out-of-doors during Covid-19.
Similarly, I’ve spent a lot of time connecting with the Melvin’s catalog recently. Like seeing squirrels, birds and neighborhood cats who come into relief when you are paying attention, the Melvins grow in importance and meaning the more you look for them.
Here are the Melvins in 1993 playing in all their glory at UCLA. Buzz with a savage sound and performance energy. The weirded out passers-by. Dale’s gardening gloves? The drama-stage drum riser that seems to be set up in a car park or something. All captured on VHS glory.
But the winner of the video is Lorax or Lori Black the bass player. Disinterestedly smoking a cigarette, playing that drone string with a herky-jerky chop – fuzzed out bass chords that stop on a dime. Worth a listen.
Long out of print in 2019, I was pleased to get a copy of the boardgame Wingspan this summer. Since it arrived we have played Wingspan almost every two days. Wingspan is one of the best constructed and fun to play games of all time.
Wingspan allows you to build an collection of birds in meadows, forests and wetlands. You operate mostly in solitaire mode, drafting birds, getting food and laying eggs for future generations. The mechanics resemble natural processes and the subject (170+birds) are simply beautiful.
The game play is very pleasing. I find myself lost in my own (almost solitaire-like) joy in strategizing how to get the right food to build a magnificent Golden Eagle or Mississippi Kite, the sense of competition falls away and I’m just in the zone. It is an innovative game mechanic – you finish every game wishing for one more turn.
Wingspan was created by Elizabeth Hargrave who has a robust life as a thoughtful board game intellectual. I’ve watched a few videos where she documents the process of creating Wingspan. She comes across as sincere, thoughtful and aware of issues of representation and power in all aspects of life. The below lecture given at the NYU Game Center is a good example.
Hargrave outlines the creation of the game and the development of the innovative game mechanics. When given the opportunity she also unpacks some of the gendered assumptions about Wingspan (“Am I making games for women?” she asks at 41:20. ) The response includes this great slide:
Hargrave’s talk is for a group of students (MA and BA) who are studying game design. You can watch the video on a number of platforms, but watching it on twitch has the added benefit of seeing the commentary as Hargrave’s lecture unfolds. (This is also a refreshing juxtaposition, traditionally the text chat on the side of a twitch stream would be rapid-fire trolling copy/paste spam, replaced in this case by earnest classmates joking with each other and riffing sincerely on Hargrave’s arguments).
Hargrave is on top of the significance of representation in boardgames. She also shared the tools and strategies she used to build, and publish her game. She shares information about inclusive calls by game companies and scholarships for new designers. She seems earnest in a desire to open up games for new creators and to encourage sincere support for each other.
I appreciate the values expressed by this approach of game design. She also just comes across as cool. At 46:00 when she encourages future boardgame makers to experience wonder by making games about things that they care about or describing her ban on games that include castles, I got the sense that Hargrave would be fun to hang out with and game with.
One thing that consumers who share the values of inclusion, accessibility and nonviolence can do is BUY these kinds of games. Wingspan is published by Stonemaeir games and you can get all sorts of cool stuff there. I recommend the European bird expansion set.
While praising the game you have to pause at the incredible art that covers the cards of Wingspan. The hundreds of birds illustrated for the game are almost scientific-style drawings, but are really beautiful. You can check out the artwork of Ana M. Martinez and Natalia Rojas on their respective websites.
I was very impressed with Boris Wild performing a stunning card / mentalist trick on Penn & Teller’s Fool Us. I think the trick threads the boundaries of the genre of magic (don’t disclose how a trick was done) with the fabric of the trick itself. To position yourself as a meta-magician (which becomes more evident when he is describing how he thought of the trick with Alyson Hanigan).
I appreciate the thoughtfulness and strategic communication of the 1UP graffiti crew. The above videos are a pretty good representation of the trans-national cohort bent on leaving their shared name on any (un)available surface.
1UP have challenged the stereotypes before with their coral reef tag, and the #LEAVENOONEBEHIND campaigns. They are graffiti extenders – moving the practices of graffiti into new mediums and methods. The crew seem comfortable with a variety of new application strategies including the whole crew whole car strategy with the car in service, fire extinguisher painting, and of course repetition.
These two videos present some of the more interesting elements of 1UP practice. I’ll observe:
Collaborative vacation. These videos document 2019-20 New Years Eve in Napoli. The crew pick a location and then paint up the town and socialize. They share a crew tag and a goal of making it beam from every surface in the city.
interactions on the street. The 1UP crew zip around Napoli and paint on the walls with passersby interacting. These offer up some great moments like the memorial tag at 2:28. But the 1UP crew seem social, jolly, the paintings all seem pretty crisp and they seem to pass cans to people walking by if they express an interest.
Include the failures. I really like the disruption of the standard graffiti video format. Including some high profile failures and semi-honest reflection about those tactics adds a lot to these two films.
Strategic painting. Two giant cans of silver paint with fat caps allow a person to cover a lot of terrain. The use of teams (one person doing the fill and another to do the outline) and the multiplication of these roles if they are doing something larger was really impressive.
Nostalgia. After a half a year of COVID-19 and stresses of the end of democracy in the United States, seeing a band of artists run through a European city on New Years eve seems like nostalgic hi-jinx.
Vele. The Vele houses in the second video (10:45) offer up one of the best case studies of representation and voice. My concern is that it would be exploitative for the community members, so I appreciated that they foregrounded consent with the neighborhood and participation in the message-making.
Art. I have some aesthetic preferences. Not sure what the face on the Vele houses was. Was not moved by the addition of the yellow streaks to most of the finished throwups. Really liked the rainbow drip piece. Appreciated the solid lines and old school letter styles used for 1UP across the project.
Ethics. I’m sympathetic to anyone who was disrupted in their transportation to work. I bet quite a few people were terrified by the giant firework explosions. And I think that some of the crew shots of large gatherings of hooded men may seem menacing to some.
Overall these two videos are great examples of communicative strategy both in the video construction and the 1UP artwork.
This website is intended for educational purposes. We attempt to make sure that all external artifacts, including article quotes, photos, graphics, and music correctly attribute the creators and sources.
If you are the owner of any of the media on this website and you would like it taken down, please contact us and we will be glad to respect your wishes.
Life of refinement 