#also I have a different zine idea cooking in my brain | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aughtpunk · 8 months ago

Note

oo for the high qna! how many funfacts have you learned while doing research for your fics/personal stories? also do you have any scrapped ideas/concepts that didnt end up making it into the final cut of some of your stories for whatever reason? love ur work btw!

Oh gosh there's been so many things

I actually went to a gun range and learned how to shoot a gun for the sake of my writing.

I learned how to cook Korean Army Stew for a zine that never got published and now that's become my ultimate "it's cold and I feel horrible" meal during the bad months

I ate so many baked apples for my one Zelda fic and now I'm eating cinnamon rolls for the Heket POV

I have a certificate in Horticulture and I got to brush up on those old skills for my Leshycat fic so I could figure out how to unfuck the farmland

And oh boy did I put in a ton of research for the Kallamar POV fic. I had to research what the first microscopes were like, how penicillin was actually produced, how the first vaccines were done, like I did so much research that didn't even get into the fic at the end.

There's probably more stuff I've done for the sake of writing but that's all I can think of with my wiggle brain.

Scrapped content is rare for me because I am a big believer in recycling. A lot of stuff that gets cut out will end up in another story eventually. But I got a couple of things I've removed from stores.

For the fic Notes in a Line I had planned an entire laser gun battle at the convention Hana and Sombra meet at. It was going to be a massive battle between the Overwatch agents at the convention and end with Sombra and Hana at a standstill, guns pointed right at each other, neither of them willing to take the shot. It got cut after my four year hiatus because fuck I'm not writing that for a series I'm not really into anymore

Swords into Plowshares originally had Leshy and Lemmy bonding in a different way. Lemmy was going to find out that Leshy could identify any plant by eating it and Lemmy would just keep bringing Leshy more and more flowers to eat and identify. Then the sex update came out and I decided I liked them bonding over teaching and drinks better

Okay you know that scene in PNN where The Lamb brings out the record player for Shaun? My original plans had Kallamar showing up and him and Shaun awkwardly dancing together. It would turn out that Kallamar can't dance well (too many tendrils) and Shaun never learned so it ends up a complete disaster. It got cut because it messed up the pacing of the chapter. Sorry, no lamb and squid dancing.

#ketamine #ket tine #q&a

8 notes · View notes

magnolia-sunrise · 11 months ago

Note

raises my hand i have a quastion: how do your other interests affect/influence your ocs and storytelling?? :0 (also i hope the next month is much kinder to you!!)

waaaa wow thank you for a very interesting question as well as the well wishes <3 its been just kind of a sludge of bad times in our household but hopefully spring will bring better days soon!!

and i would say these days i let myself get influenced by my interests A LOT and its really fun :D i think outside of art my main interest is in films, books and experimental theatre and especially horror genre. i try to purposefully surround myself by interesting and different ideas and art because so often it inspires me with my own stories or characters. like buying random art books and zines, getting into comics and manga that people mention or recommend, going out to see the new indie movie whenever i can, following people who are so passionate about their own craft and stories that it makes me more passionate too. i think admitting to those influences and letting them clearly show is a form of expression and communication as well, like look reading all of Steel Ball Run deeply rewired my brain and im very happy about that and im happy to let my JJBA inspirations show!! or that time i travelled to see Hozier in the summer and the live performance of Eat Your Young was soooooo much, when i got home i had to paint that one vibrant pink and blue piece directly taking from the stage design of that tour!

for example Wolfgang was borne out of my frustration with mainstream android / robot media of the time (Westworld, Detroit Become Human, Blade Runner 2049) but also the history of the robot genre and its lack of accounting for transness in general, as well as my interest in neonoir genre and crime fiction/ detective archetypes and characters who don't fit into those archetypes neatly (thinking Twin Peaks and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). and then so much about how they present has come from my interest in high fashion. and many parts of their story and personality are influenced by music in some way or another as well, and their world has grown bigger feeding on different and newer inspirations etc etc

i'm not a writer primarily, and so i feel like developing characters and worldbuilding sometimes doesn't come easy to me or it's just kind of piece by piece of random arrangements so i try to open my mind to this strange organic process of letting things inspire and influence me and see how it affects what's cooking and rotating inside

i also always think of how Berserk so clearly started out influenced by predecessors and contemporaries like Fist of the North Star, JJBA, Rose of Versailles and Hellraiser and has become this absolute monument that has influenced so many other artists and creators. and if you're familiar with those other works, how interesting it is to read it and recognize the influences. it's like it's own type of language in a way, it's almost like you get to know a little bit more about the artist too if that makes sense

#answered #this turned into a long ass answer once again fhhsfs #thank you again <3 #also have to mention the reverse of like getting more interested in random things bc it could be relevant to the OCs fhsfks #i read so much about 5th-15th century clergy in europe......

7 notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 4 years ago

Note

It's really surprising that you're so well versed in older fandoms and yet participate in new popular ones (that cdrama, kpop) is this by design? Im in my twenties and my interest turnover is already way slower than it used to be

You know, that’s a really interesting question. I wouldn’t say it’s by design exactly in that I do tend to just follow what strikes my fancy, and I can’t force myself to want to write fic for just anything. (I find it easier to like reading fic without serious involuntary emotional investment, but writing takes more. Vidding I can do on command most of the time, but I don’t usually bother unless I have a lot of feels or I’m fulfilling someone’s prompt.)

However, me getting into BTS was 100% due to me wanting to understand BTS enough to explain to people who weren’t very interested but wanted to know what was going on in fandom lately. Under normal circumstances, I run the dance party at Escapade, the oldest extant slash con. We borrowed vividcon’s thing of playing fanvids on the wall--all of them set to dance music--as the soundtrack for the dance party. This means I’m creating a 3-hour mixtape of fannishness, which has amazing potential to make people feel in the know about Fandom Today... and equal potential to make them feel alienated if nothing they care about shows up. Only about 100-150 people attend the con, so it really is possible to make a playlist that feels inclusive yet informative--it just takes a huge amount of work.

Every year, I do a lot of research on which fandoms are getting big and look for vids from vidders people won’t have heard of, so there is an element of consciously trying to keep up with things. Generally, I only get into these fandoms myself if I had no idea what they were and then suddenly, oops, they’re my kryptonite, like the buddy cop android plot in Detroit: Become Human, which sucked me in hard for like 6 months on the basis of a vid.

(So if you’re into cross-fandom meta and associated stuff as one of your fannish interests, you tend to have broader knowledge of different fandoms, old and new, than if you’re just looking for the next place you’ll read fic. It’s also easier to love vids for unfamiliar things than fic.)

But though I was only looking for a basic primer on BTS, BTS has 7 members with multiple names and no clear juggernaut pairing, not to mention that AU that runs through the music videos and lots of other context to explain. The barrier to understanding WTF was going on at all was high enough that to know enough to explain, I had to be thoroughly exposed... And once I was over that hurdle, oops, I had a fandom.

In terms of old vs. new, here’s the thing: kpop fandoms in English and c-drama fandoms in English right now feel a lot like anime fandom in English did in the early 00s. I had a Buddy Cops of the 70s phase in the middle, but my current fannishness is actually a return to my older fannishness in many ways.

What do I mean about them being similar?

Yes, I know some wanker will show up to say I think China, Korea, and Japan are indistinguishable, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the way that I used to routinely meet Italian and French and German fans, Argentinian and Mexican, Malaysian and Indonesian and Filipino too. English-language fandom of SPN or MCU may have all those fans from all those countries, but it feels very American most of the time. English-language fandom of a non-English-language canon is more overtly about using English as a lingua franca.

It also tends to attract people who as a sideline to their fannishness are getting into language learning and translation, which are my other passion in life after fanworks fandom. (I speak only English and Spanish and a bit of Japanese, but I’ve studied German, French, Russian, Mandarin, Old English, and now Korean.)

Nerds arguing about methods of language learning and which textbooks are good and why is my jam. This is all over the place in English-language fandoms of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean media. Those fandoms also tend to be full of speakers coming from a Germanic or Romance languages background who face similar hurdles in learning these languages. (In other words, if you’re a native Japanese speaker trying to learn Korean, the parts that will be hard for you are different than if you’re an English speaker, but you’re also usually not doing fandom in English.)

There’s also an element of scarcity and difficulty of access and a communal attempt to construct a canon (in the other sense) of stuff from that country that pertains to one’s fannishness. So, for example, a primer explaining the genre of xianxia is highly relevant to being a n00b Untamed fan, but just any old thing about China is not. A c-drama adapted from a danmei webnovel is perhaps part of the new pantheon of Chinese shit we’re all getting into, but just any old drama from decades ago is probably not... unless it’s a genre precursor to something else we care about. Another aspect here is that while Stuff I Can Access As A N00b Who Doesn’t Speak The Language may be relatively scarce, there’s a vast, vast wealth of stuff that exists.

This is what it felt like to be an anime fan in the US in 2000. As translation got more commercial and more crappy series were licensed and dumped onto an already glutted market, the vibe changed. No longer were fans desperately trying to learn enough of the language to translate or spending their time cataloguing what existed or making fanworks about a show they stuck with for a bit: the overall community focus turned to an endless race of consumption to keep up with all of the latest releases. That’s a perfectly valid way of being fannish, but if I wanted that, I’d binge US television 24/7.

Anime fandom got bigger, but what I liked about anime fandom in English died, and I moved on. (Okay, I first moved on to Onmyouji, which is a live action Japanese thing, but still.)

Hardcore weeaboos and now fans of Chinese and Korean stuff don’t stop at language: people get excited about cooking, my other other great passion. Times a thousand if the canon is something like The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, which is full of loving shots of food preparation. People get excited about history! Mandarin and Japanese may share almost nothing in terms of grammar or phonology, but all of East Asia has influence from specific Chinese power centers historically, and there are commonalities to historical architecture and clothing that I love.

I fell out of love with the popular anime art styles as they changed, and I’m not that into animation in general these days. (I still own a shitton of manga in art styles I like, like Okano Reiko’s Onmyouji series.) I’ve become a filmmaker over the last decade, and I’m very excited about beautiful cinematography and editing. With one thing and another, I’m probably not going to get back into anime fandom, but it’s lovely to revisit the cultural aspects I enjoyed about it via live-action media.

BTS surprised me too, to be honest. I really dislike that early 90s R&B ballad style that infests idol music (not just Korean--believe me, I resisted many rounds of “But Johnny’s Entertainment though!” back in the day). While I like some of the dance pop, I just don’t care. But OH NO, BTS turn out to be massive conscious hip hop fanboys, and their music sounds different. I have some tl;dr about my reactions in the meta I wrote about one of my fanvids, which you can find on Dreamwidth here.

But back to your comment about turnover: I know fans from the 70s who’ve had one great fannish love and that’s it and more who were like that but eventually moved on to a second or third. They’re... really fannishly monogamous in a way I find hard to comprehend. It was the norm long ago, but even by the 90s when far more people were getting into fandom, it was seen as a little weird. By now, with exponentially more people in fandom, it’s almost unheard of. I think those fans still exist, even as new people joining, but we don’t notice them. They were always rare, but in the past, only people like that had the stamina to get over the barriers to entry and actually become the people who made zines or were willing to be visibly into fanfic in eras when that was seen as really weird. On top of that, there’s an element of me, us, judging the past by what’s left: only people with an intense and often single passion are visible because other people either drifted away or have seamlessly disappeared into some modern fandom. They don’t say they’re 80 or 60 or 40 instead of 20, so nobody knows.

In general, I’m a small fandoms and rare ships person. My brain will do its best to thwart me by liking whatever has no fic even in a big fic fandom... (Except BTS because there is literally fic for any combination of them, like even more than for the likes of MCU. Wow. Best fandom evar!) So I have an incentive to not get complacent and just stick with one fandom because I would very soon have no ability to be in fandom at all.

My appetite for Consuming All The Things has slowed way down, but it also goes in waves, and a lot of what I’m consuming is what I did back in 2000: journal articles and the limited range of English-language books on the history of m/m sex and romance in East Asia. It’s not so much that I have a million fandoms as that I’m watching a few shows as an expression of my interest in East Asian costume dramas and East Asian history generally.

I do like to sit with one thing and experience it deeply rather than moving on quickly, but the surface expression of this has changed depending on whether I’m more into writing fic or more into doing research or something else.

But yes, I do do a certain amount of trying to stay current, often as a part of research for fandom meta or to help other people know what’s going on. Having a sense of what’s big doesn’t automatically mean getting into all those things, but I think some fans who are older-in-fandom and/or older-in-years stop being open to even hearing what’s new. And if you’ve never heard of it, you’ll never know if you might have liked it.

#fandom meta #fandom history #Anonymous

55 notes · View notes

anhed-nia · 4 years ago

Text

BLOGTOBER 10/4/2020: SOCIETY

Without having a survey to back me up, I feel comfortable asserting that as a horror fan, you go through different phases with SOCIETY. It’s a basic fact of life, and yet it morphs and mutates underneath you, shocking you anew just when you think you’ve got a grip on it. You never forget your first time, because there is simply nothing like it. Then, after you get over the initial shock of its patented brand of body horror, you start to take it for granted; it's so broad and monolithic that it becomes something like the Grand Canyon--when it’s not right there in front of you, you begin to experience it more iconically, as part of the wallpaper of existence, rather than an in-your-face confrontation with the limits of experience. Then, you revisit it every few years (or months, depending on what sort of person you are), and the prophylactic layer that your brain has wrapped around your memories of it--the one that allows you to think of SOCIETY as a fun, wacky cheap thrill--begins to crumble, and you realize all over again how iconoclastically vile it is. Wherever you happen to be at, with this inimitable genre landmark, you'd be hard pressed to deny that it earns its royal status among horror movies, just for being so uniquely fucked up.

Filmmaker Brian Yuzna is best known as the co-creator of the indispensable RE-ANIMATOR (or as the co-writer of HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS...depending on what sort of person you are, again), itself a milestone achievement in the blending of sex and gore that so characterized '80s horror production. That film clearly brought out the best in Yuzna and frequent collaborator Stuart Gordon (also of HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS fame...among other things), but it's interesting to see how they operate apart, to understand the unique ingredients that each filmmaker brought to the more perfect union of their classic Lovecraft adaptation. Gordon skewed darker and more intellectual, as evidenced by the end of his career with the shattering mob thriller KING OF THE ANTS, the disturbing true crime drama STUCK, and the Mamet-penned EDMOND. Yuzna, for his part, is almost anti-intellectual, preferring to cook up blackly comic, semi-pornographic nightmares like his two increasingly horny RE-ANIMATOR sequels, the terminal S&M fantasy RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3, and the shamelessly hokey comic book adaptation FAUST: LOVE OF THE DAMNED. Yuzna's lack of shame is really his defining feature as an artist, and nowhere is this more obvious than in his directorial debut and signature masterpiece, SOCIETY.

Salvador Dali's "The Great Masturbator," a chief visual inspiration for SOCIETY.

Yuzna was able to leverage the success of RE-ANIMATOR to lock in two directorial opportunities, BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR, and a bizarre body horror exercise about a Beverly Hills orphan who discovers that not only are his adoptive family from a different bloodline, but they're not even from the same species. That both pictures employed the writing team of Woody Keith and Rick Fry gives you a little taste of what to expect from SOCIETY, but to be frank, the latter threatens to make the former look like a very special episode of ER; "overkill" barely begins to describe SOCIETY’s ambitious assault on the human body. In a recent interview, the philipino-american director giggles perversely, "I think my friends were a little embarrassed for me (when they saw SOCIETY)," and this sound bite reminded me that the last, most important ingredient that Yuzna contributes to any project is unabashed joy. It's a little hard to imagine stomaching SOCIETY without it.

In this unusual scene from the class struggle in Beverly Hills, Billy Warlock (son of HALLOWEEN 2's Michael Myers, Dick Warlock) plays Bill Whitney, a rich, handsome, athletic high school student with a heavy duty anxiety disorder. Although he appears to have it all, he is plagued by nightmares and hallucinations, reflecting suspicions that the family that spoils him is also out to get him. Perhaps this is all understandable, though. Bill is under a lot of pressure these days, with his parents devoting all of their attention to his sister's coming out party, and his narcissistic girlfriend pushing him to ingratiate himself to the assholes higher up the social ladder; it's enough to make any teenager feel alienated and insecure. But, do these garden variety anxieties account for his visions of his sister's body deforming itself unnaturally, or the dubious evidence he finds that her debutante ball involves incestuous orgies and human sacrifice? Is Bill simply crumbling under the strain of societal expectations, or is the friction with his shrink, his parents, and his peers all symptomatic of an elaborate plot against him by elites who are truly less than human?

I can’t believe they use this cheapo blanket trick MORE THAN ONCE in a movie that is famous for its unforgettable special effects, and I guess I kind of love it.

In case I haven't made the answer abundantly obvious, I'll add that while SOCIETY is the purest expression of Yuzna-ness on the market, it has an important co-author in Screaming Mad George. The eccentric japanese FX master, whose name is apparently an amalgamation of Mad Magazine, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and...George, has produced some of horror's most outrageous makeup and visual effects, mostly for Yuzna, many of them in SOCIETY. If you've seen even a trailer for Alex Winter's 1993 oddity FREAKED--which is itself a grossout criticism of American social standards--then you are already familiar with SMG's trademark style. He specializes in twisted perversions of the human form that would make a cenobite blush, driven by a penchant for puns, and influenced equally by THE THING's Rob Botin, and Big Daddy Roth’s Rat Fink style. Screaming Mad George is instrumental in articulating Yuzna's premise: that behind the shimmering veneer of success and sophistication, the upper class are just a bunch of degenerates, who literally degenerate into something unimaginable behind closed doors. It's impossible to imagine SOCIETY without his sinuous, slithering monstrosities, or his indescribable realization of their most important social event, "the shunt".

One of many great images from a zine I wish I owned, on SMG’s Facebook page.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by SOCIETY's visual impact, but its message is just as potent now as it was at the end of the Reagan era: Rich people are not only different from the rest of us, but in fact, they aren't even human. Writers Keith and Fry make an interesting choice of hero to help put this across. A lazier writer would have selected any archetype from the Freaks and Geeks set to create an easy Us vs Them tension, but SOCIETY is led by a promising young man who, for reasons he himself does not yet understand, is just not "the right kind of people". Bill appears to have every advantage in life, including a level of popularity that wins him presidency of the debate team despite his nerdier rival’s superior prowess--and yet, he suffers from a stigmatizing psychiatric disorder that is the natural result of feeling indefinably different from one's peers, and intuiting that, as a consequence, they don't even really like you. The shallow jock with deep-seated emotional problems is a much more interesting protagonist for this kind of social allegory than the charismatic outcasts that you get in movies like THE FACULTY and DISTURBING BEHAVIOR, for whom the idea that the elites could be aliens is just de rigueur.

It's worth noting that this complexity of character extends to Bill's love interest, sympathetic society girl Clarissa Carlyn (Playboy Playmate Devin DeVasquez). At first, she seems villainously eager to introduce Bill to the many splendors of "the shunting", but as the plot against him mounts to its horrifying conclusion, she defects. There appears to be a reason for this, although honestly, this is the most difficult part of SOCIETY for me to wrap my head around. Clarissa lives as an essentially independent adult, only burdened by her mother (Pamela Matheson), a possibly brain damaged hulk who lurks in and out of various scenes just to be disturbing, always announced by some toots on a tuba, before eventually siding with our heroes. I'm really not sure what's supposed to be going on in this part of the movie, except that this character contributes to a number of distasteful jokes. But, I hold on to the idea that by virtue of whatever disorder Mrs. Carlyn suffers from, she serves the purpose of priming Clarissa to rebel, since her very existence makes her daughter something of a societal outcast herself. That's the best I can do.

In any case, everyone working on SOCIETY commits completely, with Mrs. Carlyn being no exception. The movie's climactic orgy of the damned is an all hands on deck operation, just as reliant on Screaming Mad George's artistic abilities as it is on the actors' responsibility to make you believe that this fucked up shit is really happening. There's a visceral patina of sleaze spread over the entire film, dripping from the way that characters talk to and touch each other, flirting and flaunting their bodies in a distinctly unseemly fashion, even when it stays within the realm of mundane reality. This constant sinister, insinuating attitude on the part of the whole cast lays the foundation for what is to come, and while I appreciate everybody's hard work, my favorite performance is from an actor who only comes in at the very end: David Wiley as society king Judge Carter. Wiley's career consisted almost exclusively of the most ordinary sort of television work, which makes his outrageous turn in this alien porno flick all the more respectable. While other characters transition from suspicious pod people to full-on mutated perverts, Judge Carter has to show up just for the finale, establish his authority, rip off his clothes, and plunge straight into a sea of slime, happily fisting his way through the cast. Wiley meets this challenge with aplomb, making of himself a hybrid of Robert Englund and Gene Hackman, perfectly embodying the movie's joyful absurdity, and never betraying the slightest hint of embarrassment.

SOCIETY is very much a don't-look-down type of endeavor, a fairy that could expire at the slightest lapse in faith. There's a visual pun in the last act that's so gross, so offensive, so frankly idiotic, that I don't have the courage to describe it; my whole body tenses up when I know this scene is coming, as if it were the meat hook scene in TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE or the brutal rape in the middle of SHOWGIRLS. I don't like it, but at the same time, I respect Yuzna's unhesitating commitment to show it to me, and I think that actor Charles Lucia should get some kind of award for shouldering the burden so valiantly. SOCIETY is a daring movie in the truest sense, a film with more balls than brains, and in this it exposes the limitation of intelligence and taste, and the real need for pure transgression, in producing art of any real value. You might argue with me about whether Yuzna's masturbatory magnum opus really qualifies as art, but to respond to that, I'll quote the great transgressor Alejandro Jodorowsky: "If you are great, EL TOPO is a great picture. If you are limited, EL TOPO is limited." So stick that in your shunt and smoke it.

youtube

PS Here, have this stuck in your head for the rest of your life.

#blogtober #2020 #society #brian yuzna #screaming mad george #woody keith #rick fry #billy warlock #Keith Walley #devin devasquez #david wiley #horror #black comedy #satire #body horror #social criticism

27 notes · View notes

sciencenewsforstudents · 5 years ago

Link

When she was young, Christine Liu didn’t plan to become a scientist. But chasing her curiosity led her to love neuroscience, the study of the brain and the nervous system. She’s now a graduate student and researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. There, she studies what nicotine, the addictive chemical in tobacco and e-cigarettes, does to the brain.

Outside the lab, Liu makes art, including some that communicates science. As half of the collective Two Photon Art, with environmental scientist Tera Johnson, Liu makes self-published magazines that illustrate science concepts. And the pair designs and sells science-themed items such as jewelry and clothes. Liu also shares her work on Instagram (such as the posts embedded in this story).

Christine Liu sells some of her art at a zine festival.

CREDIT: TERA JOHNSON

Liu isn’t yet sure if her future is in the lab or making art, but she knows that neuroscience will be a big part of her career. In this interview, Liu shares her experiences and advice with Science News for Students. (This interview has been edited for content and readability.)

What inspired you to pursue your career?

I pursued neuroscience because of a curiosity about how the world works. Even as a little kid, I was interested in how people experience things differently. So I would ask questions like, “Is the red that I see the same as the red that everyone else sees?” When I started learning about psychology and biology and answers to these questions that researchers proposed, I got more interested. In college, I jumped at the opportunity to get in the lab as soon as I could. And I quite like doing lab work. But I’ve been doing research for almost 10 years. So I might take the opportunity when I graduate to do art more seriously.

How did you get where you are today?

I grew up not really being that great at anything. It wasn’t like I knew I had a special talent in science and that I was going to become a scientist. I also grew up low-income. My family didn’t have a lot of money. As a kid, I spent a lot of time helping out around the house. I translated documents for my family and made sure that the rice was cooked before my parents got home. And I started working part-time jobs really early. In high school, I worked at a Jamba Juice and at a science museum. I did a bunch of jobs in college, too.

My college applications weren’t very strong. So I didn’t get into the colleges in California I actually wanted to go to. Instead, I needed to apply last minute to the local state school. I went to University of Oregon in Eugene. It wasn’t on the top of my list, but there were a lot of opportunities in neuroscience there. I was really able to take advantage of them. I overcame a lot of what I thought were shortcomings in my ability and competitiveness to do science.

When I started doing research, I was lucky to be in a lab with other female students. And I had done summer research programs with a diverse community of students and researchers. But when I started grad school, I was a little surprised at how few women and people of color I saw.

I also wasn’t sure how to express myself — if I needed to conform more or if I could really be myself. But then on Instagram, I found all these women who were not compromising how they express themselves. They were doing incredible science. And they were wearing lipstick and doing their hair and being feminine. This was something that I hadn’t realized was missing in my life. I immediately tried to connect all of us on Instagram, and I created a group called The STEM Squad. (STEM is short for science, technology, engineering and math.) We now have over 1,000 people who identify with the gender that’s been underrepresented in science. We each share our experiences and support each other.

How do you get your best ideas?

I get my best ideas when I’m taking a break. This happens for a lot of people. It’s like getting your best ideas in the shower or on a walk or right before you fall asleep. I find that when I’m taking care of myself and getting enough rest and social time, I come up with ideas I’m really excited about. Oftentimes, I’ll have a breakthrough in planning experiments when I’m not thinking about them. It’s the same for artistic ideas of what to draw or make. I think when I let my brain rest, it does its own thing in the background and ideas just spark.

#science #scied #sciblr #art #neuroscience #sciart

12 notes · View notes

yellowsyro · 2 years ago

Text

1. Photoshop

2. Facing left

3. Female protagonist that have mommy issues

4. Boobs

5. 90% is being posted (if I am not counting the art I did for job)

6. I don’t knowC I guess I never noticing my subconscious actions

7. Concept art for animations projects

8. Cyberpunk killer that targeting one corp employees to find a long lost twin brother that was kidnapped by that corp for experiments but then plot twist, her brother is a ceo of that corp and keep doing experiments on kidnapped people as well as the previous ceo did

9. Always name them with what in that files

10. Leather jackets cause they are cool

11. Playlist of my characters, horror podcasts, true crime videos, unsolved mysteries.

12. Head

13. Huke

14. Let’s go lesbians let’s go. Also buff women, any woman, I am thirsty btch

15. I can draw only in front of my working desk. Doodles on paper is hard to do for me

16. If I am good at something I always have fun. It’s hard not to get fun of little things you good at.

17. Coffee or water, hydrate yourself bitches

18. Only once I broke my pen for Wacom tablet.

19. Bottles with drinks

20. Love to draw backgrounds rooms, it feels special and so much fun to fill the spaces with little details that could tell something about person who live in there

21. Super cartoonish like Anna Cattish

22. lifting my body from bed

23. Phhh of course I do, everyone does

24. Barely, I prefer to use photo shoots of models to see how different material folds or look. Also models and actors to get inspiration for my characters look

25. Don’t know, I didn’t seem much comparisons

26. No idea

27. Nah too lazy

28. Sht ton of artbooks and zines yeah:

MYTHBOOK 1, 2, 3. Horror book, fairy artbook, Christmas artbook, mermaid artbook, witch artbook, Horizons Zero Dawn zine, the comicbook collection of short stories with cyberpunk genre(I was one of the authors, there was a plenty of them), a comics collection of short stories for Russian cartoons, a comics collection of horror stories. Well I was also colour artist for some Russian comics series, also drew cover art for one comicbook. If it counts

29. That’s hard, my overly obsessive brain can hyperfixate to anything

30. My cooking skills

Weirdly Specific Artist Ask Game

Didn't see a lot of artist ask games, wanted to make a silly one.

(I wrote this while sick out of my mind last year and it's been collecting dust in my drafts, I might as well let it run free) 1. Art programs you have but don't use

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even)

3. What ideas come from when you were little

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn't supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it)

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in

9. What are your file name conventions

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

12. Easiest part of body to draw

13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn't your thing

14. Any favorite motifs

15. *Where* do you draw (don't drop your ip address this just means do you doodle at a park or smth)

16. Something you are good at but don't really have fun doing

17. Do you eat/drink when drawing? if so, what

18. An estimate of how much art supplies you've broken

19. Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.)

20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

22. What physical exercises do you do before drawing, if any

23. Do you use different layer modes

24. Do your references include stock images

25. Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by

26. What's a piece that got a wildly different interpretation from what you intended

27. Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with

28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines)

29. Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated

34K notes · View notes

liliannorman · 5 years ago

Text

Curiosity drives this neuroscientist and artist

Christine Liu sells some of her art at a zine festival.Tera Johnson

What inspired you to pursue your career?

How did you get where you are today?

View this post on Instagram

everything matters

. Or is it that every thing is matter? Here are some molecule constellations! Molecules and constellations are very different in size but they have a lot in common too! The lines dont depict anything with mass, but rather a connection between two points. In the case of a molecule, it is a bond caused by very strong, but tiny forces. In constellations, the lines mean little more than a game of "connect the dots" with what we can see with our eyes from earth. Another thing that they have in common is that they are both quite pretty and fun to draw

A post shared by christine ramen liu (@christineliuart) on Jan 29, 2020 at 10:01am PST

How do you get your best ideas?

What’s one of your biggest successes?

What I’ve been able to do with my art in grad school has been one of my biggest successes. It’s brought me a lot of joy and connected me with people. It’s also given me an idea of how I might actually be able to continue doing art after I finish grad school.

Labs in my research area can be competitive. Oftentimes, we don’t want to share our experimental results until we’re ready. So it wasn’t until this past year, my sixth year of grad school, that I presented my research at the biggest neuroscience conference. I presented it with a poster. But I’ve been going to this conference for the past four years because they have a section for neuroscience art. Presenting my art there was a big success.

What’s one of your biggest failures, and how did you get past that?

What I perceived to be a failure was when I worked hard in high school to try to be competitive for college. And I didn’t get into a school that seemed like a good choice for me. I was really sad. I thought I was a complete failure. A lot of my peers had gotten into great schools. But in the end, I realized that every failure is actually an opportunity to do better. I think if I had let myself get sucked into the narrative that I just wasn’t good enough, I never would have recovered. In the end, the University of Oregon turned out to be really great for me.

What do you do in your spare time?

I make art! Because research is really hard, there can be lots of failures. Experiments might not work. Or they might work and prove your hypothesis wrong. During a stretch of months when research feels like it isn’t working, I find it fulfilling to go home and draw, paint or share a piece of art. I really love painting. It’s one of my favorite activities. I love the colors and mixing them. And I like how it’s a little bit messy. I also do other things that keep me happy and healthy, like cooking and visiting my grandparents.

View this post on Instagram

The sketch I made for the mural I’m working on at @missionscienceworkshop! The Mission Science Workshop is a really cool tinkering and science education space in the Mission and Excelsior neighborhoods in San Francisco. I’m excited to paint two walls adjacent walls to give some context for kids to learn about where different kinds of rocks are formed and whether fossils were found! I made this sketch in @procreate on my iPad and then mapped it onto a photo of the walls. You can check out the progress made during day 1 of painting in my story highlights!

A post shared by christine ramen liu (@christineliuart) on Nov 25, 2019 at 7:16pm PST

I also try to support other scientists who have artistic interests or artists who have scientific interests through The Stem Squad. We raise money through artists in the community who submit their art. We print it on shirts, hats or things like that and sell them. This raises money to give out awards for people who do volunteer work to improve inclusion in STEM.

What piece of advice do you wish you had been given when you were younger?

If there’s something that you really want to do, you have to take baby steps and start to do it as much as you can. If I had waited until someone invited me to join a lab, maybe I never would have started my research career. But because I was so in love with the idea of doing brain research, I emailed a bunch of professors and begged for a chance to work in the lab. Then I proved to myself that I can be a really great scientist despite my mediocre high school grades.

Also, if I had waited until I had more time to make art or until I felt like a perfect artist before selling my art, I don’t think I would be where I am today. It took me a while to become comfortable sharing things that aren’t perfect and trying things even though I probably wasn’t the best person for the job. But taking the risk and putting myself out there and being willing to learn — I think that’s what’s gotten me the furthest.

This Q&A is part of a series exploring the many paths to a career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). It has been made possible with generous support from Arconic Foundation.

Curiosity drives this neuroscientist and artist published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

0 notes

aitian · 6 years ago

Text

July 6 2019

3:15 am (saturday?)

it feels like july fourth was just a few hours ago, & june should not have passed yet. i really wish i had someone to love in these moments. it really feels like once again no one really cares for me (in all meanings; im not interesting or tasteful or attractive or desirable or worth understanding/being around). i feel so strange about my body as smth that i do not totally mind being in but also feel mildly disgusted by bc of how other ppl have treated me based upon it. it predicates so much of the violence & suffering that i have internalized. also i am hitting a rock with a few things- i spent all of last night (the night before?) looking up careers & etc things all over the internet & i still have no real dreams relating to working & being a worker- i am more & more uncomfortable with my transness & feeling like i will b disgusting & foolish if i become more feminine but also that i am disgusting & foolish already in how i have always looked & felt- i keep looking at these websites related to queer apa groups & literary things & “opportunities” for someone like me & they just fully do not feel like they are for someone like me bc i feel at the same time too privileged & too lacking to be who they want to support & also that i am simply annoying & burdensome for trying to do anything yet feeling like the work that they do is sometimes annoying & useless anyway so what gives them the pride to deny me & then circling back to these ideas abt money & power that seem antithetical to the stated goals of all of us but totally in line with our actions. it all makes me feel increasingly isolated & resentful that i am unable to change how i feel & live in this moment. it feels like i am back in high school with the part of my brain between my eyes aching yet unable to scream & cry. i know i am different now, but not enough, & not in a way that feels loved. i know that part of my problem is not having a large enough heart to love others first, but when i have not been extended kindness in ways that feel right to me, it is hard to step out & be generous to others who i know deep down will no reciprocate meaningfully. i feel stupid for having these desires that seem totally arbitrary & just make things harder for me (a masculine loving force, being treated as a queer femme by my friends & the respect that comes from knowing i have complex thoughts & emotions, codependency & mutualism in a way that may only be “unhealthy” because of how capitalist dynamics structure our interpersonal relationships) but i cant figure out how to change. i dont want to be uncomfortable & unfulfilled for the rest of my life. on the other hand, i now feel so much shame for wanting these things & pursuing these things in the way that i always have such as studying & licking the toes of elitism bc i understand that this is probably not a channel for me to truly gain comfort but a small part of me (& a huge part of the rest of the world) says yes, it really can be.

A review of june:

kicked off the month with sherry leaving. we had our philly day trip to eat cheesecake in late may & then our trip to toronto where we met up with grace for a day & then on the last day we hung out until smth crazy like 4am & i sat on the pavement of our driveway & cried as they back up their cars and left.

the next few days include hanging out w adele, going to hershey to visit alice, & hanging out w adele a little bit more before she left to go on vacation.

around the middle of the month, i did a lot of cooking & eating & sleeping at the correct time & trying to nourish away the emptiness that was slowly creeping in. i was also sewing a shirt with mom that we finished & it looks pretty cute.

mom & i took many trips. after the weekend at hershey, we went to philadelphia just to eat & hang around, & we went to baltimore at the end of the month (just last weekend). we also went to stone valley/shavers creek & walked around.

around june 20th or so everything started to become a blur. i was/am working on the zine, sleeping at the worst hours, & feeling so empty inside.

things on the immediate & horizon:

- i bought silkscreen supplies but have not set up a studio situation yet. i am trying to make smth that i am proud of first i guess.

- i am trying to illustrate a zine/comic but i have totally lost steam. i just want it to magically manifest as a finished product because idk how much i still believe in it in this moment of depression & fear it will never come to fruition. part of why i stopped was bc i started feeling like it was shameful to draw these things that i imagine could be a part of a wonderful life because other ppl could look at it & think abt how foolish & disgusting & simple i am.

- em shared these two articles which are rly fucking with me. i guess its comforting that they describe ugliness as smth that shouldnt be treated badly but they also do not have conclusions abt how to not treat ugliness as undesirability which fucks with me. its this strange rhetoric that undesirable people should be valued but maybe still remain undesirable? while acknowledging that value & desirability r unfortunately but definitely related. the more i think abt it the less sense it makes. esp bc i am struggling so much with feeling wholly & totally undesirable. i sent a msg to em today abt it bc they asked me how i am doing & i think it was too much bc they just liked it & didnt reply.

https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/moving-toward-the-ugly-a-politic-beyond-desirability/

https://thebodyisnotanapology.com/magazine/how-to-be-fat-caleb-luna-sub/

- im supposed to have my wisdom teeth removed at the end of august & im pretty scared tbh. i have never had surgery, & there are multiple parts that are intimidating to me. i fear being totally not in control of my body being cut up & gouged & not having the choice rly to object because waiting can only make it worse, i fear the physical stabbing & poking & bleeding, i fear the recovery & the pain & indignity, & i also fear the part abt losing consciousness. i dont know what part of my anxiety keeps telling me that its the same as dying, that losing myself to a strange limbo is terrifying, & that framework even makes me suddenly afraid of sleep. on top of that, i am afraid of what i will say & do as i am coming back into consciousness because i think my base thoughts & emotions are not things that i would want mom to hear.

- i am relearning dr. gradus & here is a section that i played today. ngl i practiced just these measures for the video but also i am rly beginning to string the piece together.

0 notes

rum-and-shattered-dreams · 8 years ago

Text

Personal ramblings and continuing frustration with art block...

Some days I can’t ignore the actual very terrifying underlying reason for being depressed and having anxiety. I have tried so many times to prove people wrong when they said I’d never be able to make it on my own. Doctors said I’d never be able to work full time or go back to college because of my chronic illness in 2001. They said I’d probably be dead by 30 but I’m still here. I found my own ways, outside of their prescriptions (which gave me brain damage and didn’t actually help anything.) to manage things and survive but I believe the root cause of everything was never touched upon. I believe the stress from trying to conform while having no idea that I’m on the Autistic spectrum caused my illness to flare up. Maybe if I’d known earlier, a lot of my life would have been different. (But I’m not even going to go there because I didn’t, it wasn’t, it’s over now, and there’s nothing I can do to change that past. I just want kids now and future kids to have a better experience with a more knowledgeable society.) And now it’s becoming more and more apparent to me that I can’t prove the friends who said things like “I can’t imagine you living on your own” and “what are you going to do when you’re 30 and still living with your parents? You don’t want to be that pathetic person, do you?” wrong. I had to quit community college once because I couldn’t keep food inside me for nine weeks and nearly died. I did make it through an eight month technical school and managed to get a job in my field for a while but the company went out of business right around the time I figured out that every day was leaving me a little more drained than the last. I probably would have had health issues again if they hadn’t gone out of business. Other than that, I’ve worked retail and had to take breaks from full time hours when my health took a downward spiral again until I finally had to quit that too. Anyway, what it all boils down to is that I’m trying to come to terms with not having the mental/physical capabilities of functioning in a full time job which also means constantly not having enough money to afford living on my own. I’m pretty good with household things like cooking and cleaning but if there’s more than basic bills to pay I start to get overwhelmed with that too. And of course there’s the inevitability that my parents won’t be here anymore someday. I don’t have any siblings and to be honest, I haven’t seen any other family members in so long that if I met them at random, I’d have no idea who they were. Not that that would happen since they all live in another country. So quite honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t make friends easily (but I love the few I have) and probably will never have a significant other because apparently there’s something inherently off-putting about me even if I try to look nice. And being a sex-repulsed asexual doesn’t help (but it really sucks when you do crave romantic physical and emotional experiences. Ha ha ha what does it feel like to cuddle? IDFK...) I simply don’t know how to interact properly and the lag in my comprehension of things (especially spoken words and physical signals) means I’m always slow to pick up on what’s going on and even slower to react and my reaction will most likely be inappropriate in some way. All of that means that it takes more energy to interact with people and makes interacting with groups nearly impossible. As an example - I love the idea of D&D style tabletop games and I love listening to people play but if I try to play, my comprehension lags and I end up a nervous wreck who can’t even figure out which side of the D20 is actually facing up. Someone else would have to help me add things if there’s multiple rolls involved. So, while half of me wishes I could find a group and join a campaign, the other half just stays home because I don’t want to drag them down and make them have to pause every time it’s my turn to do something. And then probably pick something dumb as an action and be completely boring because I can’t think fast enough to be funny and am overwhelmed by everything. So basically, I’ve always known I’m not invited. And I get why. And I don’t blame anyone for it and I try to make it easier for them to feel like there’s no obligation because why should they have to make special accommodations for me? It’s not fair for me to make an entire group have to change the way they do things. So I just try to stay out of the way because I’d feel uncomfortable with people having to sacrifice anything to include me (which is a much deeper feeling than it appears on the surface. I want to be able to keep up. I want to be able to do what they do and when I can’t and others have to treat me differently, I feel like a humiliated child so, believe me, I know it’s not other people who are a problem and I don’t want anyone to feel guilty or anything. I know other people try the best they can. But, there’s probably nothing anyone else can do. I know it’s my problems and I’m the only one who can do anything about how I feel.) And that’s where the suicidal ideation cuts in and I have to fight against my own brain. At the moment I’m at least useful for helping my parents with things around the house. But when things inevitably change, I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough to fight my own brain anymore. I know what my options are for things I can do when the time comes as far as continuing to survive (sell things, move into a smaller place, try to find a job that doesn’t kill me, probably move out of the US since I’m not a citizen here for the reason that I’ll probably move away at this point because there will be no reason to stay.) but I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough to actually do them and to do it alone. And this is probably causing a lot of my recent art block. I’ve been trying to get better at it but suddenly I don’t know why. I probably won’t be healthy enough to find a job or go back to school. And I’ve hit this point where there’s something about all of my drawings, something about the curves and angles of my lines or the overall feel of it that I really hate and I don’t know how to fix it. I know it’s not good enough. I know I’m not there yet. And I feel like I’m still stuck back in art class when my work was never good enough to be accepted to the gallery shows and the only time it was ever displayed was when we were required to have a piece displayed. Somehow I always miss when there’s a zine looking for works and whenever I do happen to catch one, I’m not accepted so clearly I still have a lot of practicing to do. I’m not willing to open commissions yet because people don’t even want to request things from me most of the time (Super thanks to the people who do! I appreciate it so much. I really do want to get better and you’re helping me practice.) and I know part of that is that I don’t send requests to others because I never have any good ideas (hence why I need requests). TBH when there was a call for Gravity Falls fan artists on twitter, part of me kinda wished someone might suggest me but part of me is glad no one did because if I’m not good enough for someone to have done that, then I’m not good enough to do whatever it was they needed an artist to do. And I’m just at that point of frustration where I don’t know what to do next in order to move forward and get better or if there’s even a point to it. It’s getting harder every day to make myself sit down and do daily drawing or look for tutorials and classes to try to make some sort of headway but I don’t want to stop because then I’ll never get anywhere. I’m trying to fight and stay as positive as I can but sometimes I just get tired and start to wonder why I’m even bothering to try because it stops being fun when the frustration kicks in. I need it to be fun again, I guess. Maybe I’ll get there again.

#whining #art block #personal ramblings #depressing things #Eeeeehhh sorry I usually don't do this because I don't want to bring people down #so please don't feel like you have to read or reply or anything this is just like... for the sake of putting how I feel out there #For the sake of honest communication I guess.#And because sometimes I can't fight being terrified #by covering it over with cartoons and fics and art

7 notes · View notes

michaelfallcon · 5 years ago

Text

A Very Special Holiday Gift Guide From The Founders Of Sprudge

Our celebration of the holiday season continues here on Sprudge. First, we brought you our annual Sprudge Holiday Gift Guide, a curated selection of gift-giving ideas for the coffee lover in your life. Now we’re bringing you something a little more personal—a Founders Guide, created exclusively for Sprudge by co-founders Jordan Michelman and Zachary Carlsen. This guide reflects how we make coffee at home, and the products we’re really loving as coffee drinkers during the holidays. Happy slurping!

Hario Scale

The first item on my Christmas gift list is a simple Hario brewing scale. Coming in at just around $40 it’s a blush less expensive than the more advanced Acaia Pearl recommended in the Sprudge Holiday Gift Guide. It’s the perfect gift for someone in your life that wants to up their coffee game without diving too deep. It’s also just a simple, dependable piece of equipment. It turns on, it has a timer, and it weighs coffee/pour-over/my smoothie ingredients. — ZC

Baratza Encore

Another time-tested piece of equipment coming in at under $150 ($130 on Amazon last time I checked) for someone in your life that might still—gasp—grind their beans at the grocery store or use a—clutches pearls—blade grinder. The Baratza family of grinders range from the entry-level like the Encore to the pro-sumer level like the Baratza Forte W. We think the Encore is a great little grinder for those who maybe make a big pot in the morning and a little pick me up in the afternoon. —ZC

Kaffe Box subscription

Coffee subscriptions are nothing new, of course, and the market has gone through several phases: from fresh-faced new concept to same-y clutteredness to today’s stratified milieu, in which a couple of the best, most interesting services are able to rise to the top. Over in our Staff Guide, we recommended Yes Plz Weekly, a subscription service from Los Angeles that delivers a very accessible filter coffee and an alt-weekly style zine to your door each week. (I’ve written a couple of things for the zine.) This year I’ve also fallen deep in love with another subscription, this time from Europe, called Kaffe Box—a monthly rotating selection of roasters with a focus on Scandinavia.

Yes, the light roast Scandivanian coffee craze feels very Twenty-Teens, and yes, I agree, a lot of American roasters who tried to imitate it over the last decade wound up with a lot of undrinkable, ghastly product. But in the right hands, a lighter roast profile can, I assure you, yield a cup with expressive, fruity, tea-like notes, which isn’t what I want to drink every single time I have a coffee, but can be delightful from time to time when done well. This shouldn’t be a controversial opinion. Different styles of roasting are fine. Don’t yuck my yum.

Over the last year, I’ve got to try Kaffe Box offerings from some really interesting Nordic micro-roasters, whose stuff I cannot otherwise regularly enjoy here in America. Being able to drink through a bag of Jacu, or Langora, or Morgon Coffee Roasters is interesting and fun. Kaffe Box’s packaging always shows up clean and crisp; the bags are never damaged by the journey, and the coffee is always rippingly fresh, impressive for having been shipped from literally the other side of the world. This is my special treat coffee and I love it. JM

Fellow Stagg Gooseneck Copper Kettle

I use this kettle every morning and not a day goes by that I don’t admire it. Fellow released this in 2016 and since then have released different versions that have spouts better suited for tea, plug-in kinds for those that don’t wanna use their stovetop, and all manners of colors and finishes. But the shiny copper stovetop kettle is my favorite. Get it for around $100 on Amazon. ZC

Breville One-Touch Tea Maker

I’ve never met an automated tea brewer that I didn’t like. The Breville Smart Tea Maker has been a staple in my kitchen for over six years. You see, what I do is, I take big chunks of ginger, I cram it in the tea-hole, and then I set it to brew for ten minutes at a boil. By the time I’ve forgotten, I started this spicy tisane the dang thing is beeping at me telling me my perfectly steeped ginger brew is ready to glug. On days that I’m not gobbling root, I’m making delicate oolongs steeped at precisely one minute at just the right temperature. This is a tea toy for tea lovers and I’m living for it. ZC

White 2 Tea subscription

I love a good, weird subscription and I love good, weird tea. We talked a bunch about the Kunming, China-based brand White 2 Tea here on Sprudge during Tea Week 2019, and in the months since I’ve come to really appreciate the monthly delivery of White 2 Tea’s tea club offerings.

Each and every month is totally different: sometimes it’s an entire fresh (or “sheng”) pu ‘er tea cake ready to be drunk; other times it’ll be a handful of little oolong parcels, or 50 grams of nice green tea, or a little pressed brick of cooked (or “shou”) pu’erh to be picked at and enjoyed over the course of a month. Each month’s club comes with a little note written by the mysterious White 2 Tea brain trust, which includes info on the tea and recommended steeping instructions. The club feels fun and seasonal, and like I’m getting a really good value for my money (it’s $29.99 a month), and you can commune with fellow tea nerds on Instagram because trust me, they all follow White 2 Tea and will be sharing images of their club arrivals.

Tea is good, this we know. The White 2 Tea club is one of my favorite ways to enjoy it throughout the year. JM

KeepCups

The colorful reusables from KeepCup have been a perfect stocking stuffer for years and in 2019 they’ve introduced a whole new line of stainless steel cups. Available in six different colors and finishes, the stainless steel cups are sure to be a crowd-pleaser. For Star Wars fans in your galaxy, the folks at KeepCup have adorable R2D2, Chewbacca, Stormtrooper, and Darth Vader themed cups. ZC

Hype mugs

I spent a lot of time this year thinking about clothes, for reasons both work–related and personal, but along the way I’ve been surprised to see how much overlap there is with the world of coffee. Earlier this year we brought you a story about coffee and sneakers, but it turns out there’s a whole world of coffee + contemporary streetwear fashion collaboration, most especially in the realm of promotional mugs. Brands like Supreme, Patta, A Bathing Ape, Kith, Palace, Only NY, Aimé Leon Dore, Human Made, Stussy, and many more are producing fashion-forward, eye-catching mugs that look great both at home or in a nice cafe. It seems like pretty much every good brand has a mug, or has done one in the past; a lot of times these are in-store-only pick-ups, which rewards checking out physical retail locations wherever you might be.

If your favorite local cafe is run by sneakerheads, or someone on your list has recently used the term “drop” as a clothing-related transitive verb in casual conversation, these mugs make a truly delightful holiday gift. — JM

A Meaningful Donation

There are so many great charities worth donating to this year. One in particular we’re fond of is @getchusomegear, a Durham, NC based organization whose mission is “hookin’ up marginalized baristas w/free coffee stuff.” The org, created by Chris McAuley, works with baristas just getting started in the industry or looking for a leg up to access equipment and information. Both companies and individual donors are welcome to contribute to the project—you can reach out by emailing [email protected] and get involved this holiday season. JM + ZC

Jordan Michelman and Zachary Carlsen are the co-founders at Sprudge Media Network, and the authors of The New Rules of Coffee: A Modern Guide for Everyone out now on Ten Speed Press.

The post A Very Special Holiday Gift Guide From The Founders Of Sprudge appeared first on Sprudge.

A Very Special Holiday Gift Guide From The Founders Of Sprudge published first on https://medium.com/@LinLinCoffee

0 notes

shebreathesslowly · 5 years ago

Text

A Very Special Holiday Gift Guide From The Founders Of Sprudge

Hario Scale

Baratza Encore

Kaffe Box subscription

Fellow Stagg Gooseneck Copper Kettle

Breville One-Touch Tea Maker

White 2 Tea subscription

Tea is good, this we know. The White 2 Tea club is one of my favorite ways to enjoy it throughout the year. JM

KeepCups

Hype mugs

A Meaningful Donation

Jordan Michelman and Zachary Carlsen are the co-founders at Sprudge Media Network, and the authors of The New Rules of Coffee: A Modern Guide for Everyone out now on Ten Speed Press.

The post A Very Special Holiday Gift Guide From The Founders Of Sprudge appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge https://ift.tt/38c7VCz

#Sprudge

0 notes

feifeifionachen-blog · 7 years ago

Photo

My Experience of The Value of Collaboration

The theme of our group is “loneliness” and our first group discussion on Monday 15th January was about how we could adjust our own topics a little bit so we could put our findings under the big theme in harmony. We also discussed how many pages each of us should do and set a timetable for the following steps.

On Friday 19th January we met again and shared our findings with each other. Then we discussed in which order each of us’s work should go so the whole zine could have a natural flow. We also discussed the format and design of the zine: the cover is black and the content within is also black & white because loneliness is a depressing and negative feeling.

In the second week, a fifth member (who missed previous sessions) joined our team because her topic is “ Black”, which has a connection to “Loneliness” in a certain way. So we decided to make her work into a poster (also black and white) which could be a insert or freebie in our zine.

On Thursday 25th January, the 5 of us did a collaborative collage together using the images we gathered in our research. Then we put all of the individual InDesign pages together and designed our cover. The printing and biding part were quite tricky but we managed to do it as a team.

The collaboration is quite pleasant, smooth, productive and full of fun.It feels so good to work with people who are responsible, creative and dedicated to the project. We had a clear timetable so each of the team member knew what to do next and finished our own work in time. And I’ve learnt a lot during the process from my teammates.

I think working together makes us more creative and improves our problem solving skills. During brain storming and discussion, new ideas always emerge. For example, our cover is totally black indicating this is a quite serious topic. So we came up with an idea to drill a small hole on the cover because dots mean loneliness. Through the hole, viewers can see part of a image ( corner of an empty swimming pool) which invites viewers to open the book and read it. (For me, this small image on first page kinda make me think of a little girl sitting in the corner of an empty room,crying)

During the process, I can also draw inspiration from what my teammates say and what they find out. It’s always a pleasure to look at other people’s research and listen to their own interpretation and thoughts.

The collaborative collage making process was also a lot of fun. Because there were five of us, it didn’t take long and we enjoyed ourselves by putting different images together and discovering new & interesting connections.

Since now my research question is “Information as food”, I would put my collaboration experience as follows: My teammates and I as producers/collectors of information are like chefs cooking a dish using the best ingredients, cooking them the most properly way and plating them nicely to render a visual pleasure. During the process, we are being each other’s information filter or advisor (nutritionists) to decide what images or texts (ingredients)should go into the zine (dish), the best way to organize each one’s findings (cooking) and design the whole look of the zine (plating).It’s a team effort that we make the dish more delicious and desirable and we’ve become better chefs along the way.

To further my research, I’ll look at things like peer review and editorial panel since they are the filters currently used in information production today. I’ll look for psychology reasons why people like fast food as well as why people settle for “fast journalism” but couldn’t find the patience to slowly enjoy a good book. I will also interview people about their experience of consuming food and information.

(Please scroll down if you wish to see in detail my part of research in this collaborative zine)

0 notes