#pretentious kitsch

[haikuckuck]

Lovebirds(ceramics,with a mechanical watch)

[dustorangeheartssnow]

opinions?… 😬😬

https://www.tumblr.com/melmov/750293558453501952?source=share

link

Wfa =free, comics = $3.99 per -> subsidized demand -> market distortion -> :/ :(

The claim of that post—“people have gotten tired of unrelenting grimdark” e.g. actual DC main runs and therefore prefer “slice-of-life fluff [that] also presents a coherent, easy-to-enter, balanced storyline” e.g. WFA—is directionally accurate but its also sort of talking about a Different Group of People than DC Comics Readers.

in particular there is a group of people who have been pretty much totally deracinated from developing or being capable of developing their own opinions on media or humor or life. because of social media and maybe also they r very young. there is a general valence to that part of fandom: the incorrect quotes, the Canva-post-derived politics, the memetic vocab + jokes and like this weird very limited view of redditizedhistory and culture+literature consisteing of the binding of Isaac and twoheadedcalf poem. and so there is just genuinely not the ability to process things that haven’t been run through a filter of accessibility. and WFA, which has BEAUTIFUL art and lots of very sweet moments, IS super accessible and its also sort of been through the preapproved foundfamily neoliberal kitsch machine and come out with a passing grade. but yes it is missing that like elusive Something and it also lacks a seriousness and it isnt the Characters. it’s something else. And its so pretentious to say its for people who don’t have the like stamina ??? for longerform storytelling but yes if you pressed me i would say its a bunch of people, primarily young genz and millennial girls/women, whose critical mental faculties and attention spans have been fried by social media and underexposure to challenging original content

that’s a different new group being lassoed into dc stuff from the previous existing audience. The DC Comics Reader People. i don’t know how much of this to do gender politics with but comics fandom has DEFINITELY gotten MUCH more female in the last 2 decades and there was a distinctive male comic book go-to-the-LCS-and-get-physical-copies and rigorously-autisticslly-fight-about-minutia-of-canon culture. Men also r going to be the one who GENERALLY prefer your fightheavy “”””grimdark””” comics, as opposed to women who doooo generally prefer social relational content. And also women-dominated comics fandom spaces are obviously qualitatively different from men’s fandom spaces. So PART of the reason WFA outsells real DC stuff is market distortion and PART is the DCfan genderdemographic shift that favors content like WFA

I rly hesitate to endorse a lot of Canon dc tumblr’s posts about the fanony WFA-style stuff bc it seems so clear that a the latter is enjoyed primarily by a group of very young people and it also feels like there’s a weird power imbalance intellectually between fanon and canon people. AND I AM A BIG BELIEVER IN LET PEOPLE READ AND ENJOY THE CONTENT THEY WANT and they shouldn’t be shamed for enjoying something as visually sweet and cute as WFA. and a lot of canon tumblr’s rants abt fanon stuff r clearly sort of excessively vicious and insecure attempts to feel superior. although admittedly quietly they r correct but it comes off cruel idk. also i think that BATMAN and superman and to some extent some others ARE indeed very flexible in terms of what is canon and what you have to consume to have consumed The Character and The Story. ive never seen BTAS but as far as im concerned, someone who has only watched BTAS is someone who has the right to do whatever batman stuff they want.

Related questions are: Is mainline DC batman stuff GOOD right now? and Is WFA good? I agree that mainline DC stuff isnt the best right now and i haven’t read WFA so i can’t comment on its quality but i honestly don’t think its the case that “WFA is better written than actual Batman comics, so thats why WFA is more popular” lol

[astrum-aetherium]

What do you think Henry whispered in Camilla's ear at the end? It's a moment that really stuck with me somehow and I love hearing theories about it

what can possibly be more personal, more ponderous and intimate than i love you?

i'm sure this is something everyone who has read TSH has previously wondered about. i know i have. what i also know is that the most common theory is "live forever", and yes — it would make sense, given that henry is undeniably a devoted little teacher's pet to julian, but it does seem a little melodramatic to me (specifically because julian did abandon them all in the end as well, lol). henry going out with a bang (literally) wouldn't be defined by something as simple as that, however much meaning is attached to it in theory. besides, we've all heard that theory a million times over. i'll offer a new one.

he's goddamn pretentious. to the bone. he refused to take his SATs and thereby consciously denied himself the opportunity to attend any prestigious schools (which he would've certainly gotten into and dominated) for singularly aesthetic reasons. you simply can't get more pretentious than that. i always say that he's too intelligent for his own good — to the point it no longer benefits him at times. just too smart to possess any ability to reflect on himself. almost amusing in that way.

therefore, i believe it was something along the lines of a riddle — something that would keep camilla puzzling over it for a long time succeeding his death. and yes, you can say that his suicide was an impulsive decision and all that, but he had been (even verbally) entertaining suicidal ideology way before he actually went through with it. plus, he just seems like someone who would have something like that — his last words — memorized and ready to go at all times, specifically at a time as dangerous as toying with the possibility of being detained and thrown in jail for murder. just a thought.

i'm almost 100% sure it was also in any language other than english, according to his customs. i've already elaborated on how pretentious he is. he wouldn't make it easy for anyone to figure him out that quickly, not even camilla. the i love you was just a premise, nearly nothing compared to the whisper. and if it's not english, then it must be one of the languages that he does know. assuming that it's either latin or ancient greek, he would go out of his merry way to make it as complex and hardly translatable as he can. he would apply the most archaic of archaic versions of those languages, even with one simple phrase. as i said, he would've planned it out beforehand deliberately. it makes perfect sense.

what it would be, however, is a whole other conversation of its own. maybe that very "i love you" or previously mentioned "live forever", just in a different language. that is the simplest answer i can offer. i like to dig deeper when it comes to mysteries such as this one, though, so i've been gathering my thoughts all day today in order to predominantly satisfy myself with an obnoxiously pretentious answer. how about: "to the stars" (kitsch but fitting, obviously convoluted, and in a different language) or a translated version of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" — just to deride religion and tradition one last time. or, perhaps, "permanence". something that perpetuates his convicted disbelief in vanitas. "never gone"; "the conclusion". and i know, all of these sound dumb as hell in english, but do remember — they would be uttered in a different language, and in a complex way, too. to be mulled over; wondered about for a long time, even as a scholar.

someone needs to hook me up with ms tartt's phone number so we can settle this once and for all, lol. but then again, i don't want to know. i don't want a simple answer to such a mystifying, ponderous question. i'm fine with eternally musing over it — it certainly keeps me entertained.

[005708]

This feeling between going black and white brutalist pretentious style (as I am) or explote in color and blah blah kitsch.

[pyjamac]

Whats the name of the movie you were talking about in your last post ?

wish you were here (2018) is an american postmodern picaresque film about a former english teacher from queens, who goes on a cross country road trip in order to lose himself. the film deals with themes of grief, identity, social responsibility as well as america as a place and as an idea. it has been described as “kitsch existentialism,” “disarmingly funny,” “gruesome,” “really pretentious,” and “too confusing to watch.” it can be streamed exclusively inside my head bc it is unfortunately not a real movie abt my oc i’ve tricked my ownself into feeling like is real. :•)

[byneddiedingo]

Amy Adams in Big Eyes (Tim Burton, 2014)

Cast: Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Danny Huston, Krysten Ritter, Jason Schwartzman, Terence Stamp, Jon Polito. Screenplay: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski. Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnel. Production design: Rick Heinrichs. Film editing: JC Bond. Music: Danny Elfman. 

It's a great idea for a movie: the downfall of a hugely successful artist who took the credit for the work done by someone else. It allows a filmmaker to explore such topics as fraud, the difference between capital-A Art and works that are “just popular,” the nature of value when it comes to works of the imagination, and in this case, the relationship between men and women in the art world. Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz) persuaded his wife, Margaret (Amy Adams), to let him pass off her work -- paintings of large-eyed waifs -- as his own. The trouble with the movie is that it never quite decides what it wants to say about any of the important issues it raises, other than that Margaret Keane was a victim of the male-dominated society of the 1950s and '60s. It doesn't even settle on the issue of whether Margaret's paintings were mawkish kitsch or actual works of Art, though I think it rather smugly assumes that viewers will have enough taste to decide on the former. But it complicates this position by starting with a quote from Andy Warhol proclaiming that the Keane art is "terrific! If it were bad, so many people wouldn't like it." And it turns the critics of Keane into pretentious snobs, represented by the gallery owner (Jason Schwartzman) who resents the fact that the Keane paintings outsell his rather arid, minimalist abstractions, and by John Canaday (Terence Stamp), the New York Times critic who prevents a Keane from being exhibited at the 1964 World's Fair in New York. So what we are left with is Margaret Keane, the victim who finally has the courage to turn against her monstrously manipulative husband and become a hero. That she is a hero in the cause of women's rights is presumably fine. But is it also fine that she becomes a hero by asserting her right to profit from making bad art? I don't think either screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski or director Tim Burton have decided for themselves. So we are left only with Adams's terrific performance as Margaret, which could have been bolstered by a fuller backstory, and Waltz's somewhat overdone performance as Walter. What Burton does best in his movies is milieu, especially when he can caricature it, which he does here, with a little more restraint than usual, in his portraits of the business of art in the 1960s. And he gets us into the head of Margaret Keane: When she is grinding out big-eyed paintings for Walter she goes to a supermarket and hallucinates the clerks and customers as big-eyed grotesques. But the movie probably should have gone more in one direction or another: Either into a realistic portrayal of the relationship of the Keanes or into a more vivid and surreal lampoon of the art world. Trying to do a bit of both undermines the film.

[slavicbeastie]

Happy winter solstice and Yule!!

Here are some Christmas recc for watching for those who don't like kitsch, forced sentimentality and commercialisation of the the holyday. Or are maybe just of different religion/not religious at all (moi) .

Most of these have irreverent/dark humour and are free from cloying sentimentality while retaining humane warmth of winter solstice season. I listed them in order from darkest to lightest story/atmosphere as I see that as good idea for going towards longer days. Not the newest stuff but my reliable choices, so if you have some more recent suggestions or any feel free to add in reblogs. Enjoy :)

The Ice Harvest (2005), film

Honesty only film noir I like. Usually I find them so pretentious and forced cool, and all characters get on my nerves. I think I like this one cos it doesn't take itself too seriously, it's satire of noar really, and placing it at chrismas time gives it additional dark humorous flair. But with it being noir, with genre typical violence and cynicism, and ambiguous ending, it's definitely darkest on the list.

Doctor Who 4x00 The Voyage of the Damned

RTD's revival of Doctor Who had truly my favourite christmas specials cos they are so irreverent, satirical and dark - very much in contrast to cloying atmosphere one would expect (not the new soft reboot - it's disniyfied nonsense from what I've seen)

This episode is on the top cos of very high body count and tragic/bittersweet ending.

Doctor Who 3x00 The Runaway Bride

While also quite dark and sad, this episode also has plenty of humour cos of interaction with temporary companion (at the time). Also high body count, but mostly off screen.

The Addams Familiy (1998.), film

This can barely be on this list, since it has got only one scene at time of christmas but it fits general theme. It's a satire of basically everything conventional, especially shown in USA media and in their WASP culture. But while the Addamses are shown and strongly suggested to do and enjoy many horrible things, and they are obviously not fully human, they are absolutely a role model for how family should be, perhaps the best one shown on screen. Unconditionally supportive, accepting and loving in their unconventional ways, they will warm your heart this cold season in unexpected ways.

Doctor Who 2x1 The Christmas Invasion

Positive new beginning for new Doctor's regeneration but with fair amount of darkness. This has everything: angst , humour, killer christmas trees and Santa Clauses, sword fight, deposing UK prime minister, happy ending with creepy snow. Good times.

Doctors who 1x3 Unquiet Dead

Poor neglected Ninth Doctor didn't get christmas special, but this episode is really the most positive one placed at that time. The Doctor and Rose Tyler meet Charles Dickens, and get to experience some ghostly chrismasy mystery. Heartwarming, tense, funny and sad at turns.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 2x13 Murder Under Miseltoe

Murder mystery during early christmas celebration in Australia cos otherwise it's weirdly placed in middle of the summer. That is what you get when you force transplant culture where it makes no sense... Episode has everything: murders in snowed in house, deadly chrismas decorations, ghosts, unlikely gathering despite bad weather, singing chrismas songs and celebrating after solving the case while nearbly bodies chill in the snow. Literally.

Serendipity (2001), film

This is only one that I can't claim it's really free from sentimentality. Mostly it's in music/song choices and camera work and it is romantic comedy after all. However main characters are really flawed people, and they treat others quite badly sometimes which makes them more interesting/real than typical romcoms protagonists. And I think whole idea/concept for film is quite fresh and even thought provoking at times.

[onesaltyerik]

Summary of last week's studies for my classes cause i find it hilarious. Greenberg: Here is how 'kitsch" was evolved, also 'kitsch' is a vessel of propoganda Other essayist i forgot his name: Here is why Greenberg was a fucking idiot and wrong and stupid! Also he's pretentious as fuck and uses big words that are really good at saying a lot of nothing! Third essayist: Greenberg had a point but was really bad at explaining it.

[lost-dreamers-system]

Oh god help me, I'm practically writing a thesis on Our style...

The general idea of the style:

A depiction of the tension between the two halves of a soul, darkness and whimsy, horror and fairytales, 1960s psychedelia and 1980s goth to y2k's imitation of 1960s psychedelia. A retrospective and a flashback to a generation where everything feels like it was overshadowed by nostalgia for a previous decade ... Between the changeling child and the bloodthirsty vampire...

It's not refined at all. But the idea is to find the place where urban fantasy, fairytales, horror and whatever genre you wanna call BTVS, can blend together and where the various different stylistic loves of this collective of people can meet and synergize.

Fuck that feels like a total pretentious ad read, I sound like a douche. Anyway...

It's just trying to get everyone's shit to gel together.

Planning to do it by creating a set of style words and what those style words mean, then assign those keywords to specific alters - and then come up with key clothing items and say which alter they fit...

Those would be

Fun(ky): Hawaiian print shirts, kitchsy prints, 1960s psychedelia and 1970s Technicolor disco rainbow and 80s jewel toned paisely patchwork suede. Basically, shirts that are fun (kitsch) or funky (psychedelia, paisley, early 90s aesthetic patterns (Memphis something).

Dramatique: Excessive, 80s glamrock, 19th century romantic dandy, 18th century aristocratic hedonist, medieval court jester or fairytale prince (Jareth from Labyrinth is a perfect example of "dramatique")

Gothic: this includes the morbid and macabre as well as the ~romantic Victorian vampire goth~ style brocades has overlap with dramatique but is much darker and tends towards more violence. In essence, Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stokers Dracula and 90s vampires covered in blood and dripping in bondage gear (Blade's aesthetic).

Academia: look, we're on Tumblr. We know what this means. Things Giles would wear on Buffy but also with a hint of 80s prep drenched in black rit dye.

Flower Child: How Roz's memories think hippie should look. Harem pants and crochet and all of that. Hard to tell if this is his brain's interpretation of 1960s aesthetic or his brief exposure to early 00s hippies through the libertarian party in Colorado... But it's not quite the same as fun(ky). Crunchier and earthier and a little more adjacent to a softer, earthier sort of modern fae perception.

Whimsigoth: Where Dramatique and Flower Child intersect with Gothic... There's some good examples of this in Buffy.

Y2K Nostalgia: mall goth and the stuff Roz liked as a six year old.

Pansy: oh boy Roz why this word okay anyway, this is just "does it tell the world I am a dirty rotten queer and a degenerate bondage pervert?" Thing kind of comes out.

Femme/Queen: OVERTLY "femme" stuff. This is all vibes that we can't 100% explain . (Could honestly call this category "Morgan" and "Florian")

I think that's a pretty approximation of the words we're working with....

Next part: who is what category...

Fun(ky): Laurent, Louis, Daffodil

Dramatique: Louis, Adam, Daffodil, Florian, Morgan

Gothic: Adam, Louis, Laurent, Daffodil

Academia: Adam, Laurent

Flower Child: Morgan, Daffodil

Whimsigoth: Morgan, Daffodil, Louis

Y2K Nostalgia: Florian, Morgan

Pansy: Florian, Daffodil, Louis

Femme/Queen: Morgan and Florian

Some key fashion items:

- fun(ky) or dramatique button downs

-gothic, dramatique, pansy and flower Child dress shirts

- turtlenecks

- fun(ky), academic and flower Child sweaters and cardigans

-fun blazers

-pointed or clunky heeled boots

-interesting pants

-slutty mesh

- too many vests with so many patterns

We've gotten....kinda sidetracked and lost sight of what we were doing. Posting this so we can check it later.

[lepartiprisdeschoses]

Not radically different from 50's kitsch maybe?

"Common life depicted on afternoon TV

It's spiked [designed?] to give the miserable a vogue identity..."

^ not that the sentiment of this lyric is original or easy to express without coming across as pretentious, but it's true isn't it?

[mkyurttas]

O.B.A., 2023

Organisms are Algorithms, Performance, 4 hours, First Saturday

O, Performance, 4 hours, Second Saturday

B, Performance & Workshop, 4 hours, Third Saturday

A, Performance, 4 hours, Fourth Saturday

oba, Performance Installation, 32 hours, Every Monday and Friday for 4 weeks

“... used to migrate to Antalya Lara Dsi Camp with their family every summer to spend the whole summer there, in a camp by the sea. Their house, which was a tent in the first years, turned into a prefabricated structure over time. Mustafa learned many things in this camp and met many of their best friends here...” Efe Meral, Sketch State Exhibition, 2017

“… pretentiousness, frivolity, naive middle-class vanity, and shocking extremism… Camp sees everything in quotes. It is not a lamp, but a 'lamp'; not a woman, but a 'woman'." Susan Sontag, Notes on Camp, 1964

“oba'' gives its name to the O.B.A. project and 'reproduces' the structures called oba, where the artist lived during the summers from their childhood to their youth. The work exhibits the collaboration of Mk Yurttaş and Efe Meral in mikaye (where the artist defines their practice as an artist collective made up of personas) and touches the queer(ish) tones of fragility, vulnerability and failure of Rhodesia.

The performance thinks about the homophony of the word “camp” related to the architecture (area/region) and the queer; over the possibility that the experience of "growing up" in a summer camp by the sea may be free of identity and roots, and the possibility of camp aesthetics, alike irony and kitsch, being out of the mainstream. The temporary structures reproduced by the performance of Mk in 5533 within these and other possibilities,  are experienced as constructions that tend to disintegrate at any moment, multiply irregularly, leak out and disappear.

Photo credits: Orhan Cem Çetin, Mk Yurttaş, Can Küçük, Performistanbul

[haikuckuck]

My old ceramic watch( mechanical,handwinded)."its almost too late"

"Porcelain pigeons ".white doves. Lovebirds.

[sourkitsch]

ohhh since you posted school of apelles, i have to ask: thoughts on Odd Nerdrum, his notion of Kitsch and etc?

My url literally has the word kitsch in it (a term from a different essay that I found compelling) & my header image is a Nerdrum preparatory drawing so um. I like him.

BUT. I find him a bit pretentious? Which is hilarious coming from me I guess. I think he’s intelligent person and his art vs. Techne thing is a valid discussion to have via the over-emphasis on concept over skill. Personally, most of the work I find impactful has equal consideration to both. I enjoy how he discusses art history, he makes it engaging and clearly has strong opinions which… I also do.

All that being said he has created a cult of personality around him that I don’t quite buy into? Many “traditional” painters tend to shit on work they don’t understand without trying to understand it at all, and he’s definitely guilty of that. And that goes double for people who aren’t working within the western tradition. In the past he’s also parroted some harmful art historical motifs without actually understanding the impact of said images (his Wandering Jew painting…).

While our personal politics and ethos don’t align, I’ve learned a lot from studying his work! The Apelles YouTube channel has a lot of valuable demonstrations and I’m going to try to try some experiments based on them over the summer. They almost act as a repository for knowledge that would be otherwise lost— ie mediums! I use a lot of synthetic mediums by gamblin, and while alkyds are great as a student in an art institution that prefers acrylic paint, I would like to eventually move away from them in my work, especially as I consider academy training.

More on the kitsch thing: I have personally encountered some eye rolling when I talk about my enjoyment of allegorical and symbolic painting so I get it. Also Nerdrum having a breakdown when he was a student bc of a Rauschenberg… I get that too. First time I read Greenberg’s Avant-garde & Kitsch screed a few years back I saw red. As for the movement itself, it resonates deeply with me. I think there’s incredible value in understanding basic human experiences and impulses through figurative art and even though it’s something that has “been done before” that’s no reason not to continue the tradition. I think art spaces (and in general left leaning spaces tbh) are too focused on wholly abandoning the past without reflecting and learning from it first. Despite all the shit there’s so still much to enjoy. There’s also the new cultural view of like “skill and knowledge is elitist” which is… uh.

Also, I don’t think Nerdrum is as antiquated as people seem to think he is. Honestly I feel like he’s at home in 20th century art. He’s very psychologically motivated and has a lot to say in his work in the vein of psychoanalysis. Don’t kill me but I do kind of think of him as a surrealist with several extra steps.

Ok I could literally talk about this forever but I’m gonna stop now this is already like an essay !!

[trust-me-i-just-get-weirder]

Film students are just media studies majors with artistic aspirations and a sense of haughty individualism and media studies majors are just film students with a smug self importance and memes.

[acesydneysage]

I'm very curious about what Adrian's art is like and what his style would eventually settle into. Gonna talk about a bunch of aesthetic stuff that I have very little actual knowledge about, but I think it's fun to consider it.

The man is old, old money, literally aristocratic, so you expect certain artistic sensibilities of him. But when Sydney describe his taste it always seems interestingly dissonant to me. It makes me wonder about both of them.

His fashion sense is more standard, it's simple and is usually compared favorably to other people by Sydney, who has pretty conservative taste. Although it's a bit more daring then people who don't care it's still not outlandish, as you see in Sonya's wedding, where he's wearing blue instead of plain black but looks very normal compared to Abe. He's trendy, and sometimes dressed inappropriately for the occasion but not accidentally

But his taste in decor seems to be downright kitsch, it's kind of delightful. Sydney claims his sofa really clashes with the yellow he picked for his walls. While his choice in second hand furniture and his happiness with it might have more to do with his financial limitations and his joy in actually having some autonomy, making his own choices and doing this adult thing by himself (I believe he describes his place in court as a glorified dorm), I doubt the paint would have been more expensive in a different color, he chose that one.

Yellow is also the color of Sydney's aura, which is part of it, but he probably wasn't consciously thinking of that so early on, and there were probably more muted options. From Sydney's perspective his decor seems to be an affront to good taste, but also something she's immediately fond of because it shows his personality so clearly. In the golden lily she says both drive away the shadows (of the bad memories in the apartment, of her own troubles).

:read more:

Again, Sydney has pretty conservative taste, but Eddie is usually the representative of normality and he seems to agree that it's all a bit much. He also thinks a similar color on the Ivashkinator is ugly. Meanwhile Sydney likes it because it's the historic original color, and Adrian likes it because it matches his walls (and Sydney's aura, perhaps more consciously this time). I love it when Sydney and Adrian arrive at the same place through different routes.

Finally, the actual art he makes. It's very early on and he's still exploring his style. He makes a lot of different things for his first homework (nerd) and when he's supposed to make a self-portrait he ends up gluing together parts of very different pieces which he wasn't satisfied with.

There's a lot of very abstract stuff, and Sydney teases him about some of it but she's clearly fascinated by his art and loves a lot of it. Some of it expresses his emotions in a very direct way, some of it gets sloppy when he's drunk. It can be very earnest or very pretentious, probably normal in a young artist.

But this post was actually prompted by a post about how people who paint "badass pictures of skeletons with fire and motorcycles" should get more credit, and Adrian definitely appreciates them. He has more high minded stuff, but he's also here for the Van Wizard School of Art. The skeleton pirate biker was an absurd thing he came up with while desperately reaching for stuff to say, but he made it into a shirt and actually wore it.

He also does some more surrealist things, we see a painting of a building which gets smashed during his fight with Marcus. Surrealism matches his themes in a very obvious way considering how important dream walking and delusions are in his arc. Something inspired by the dream world and the subconscious mind would be directly linked to that.

I know nothing about art, but I really love looking at stuff by Hilma af Klint and Remedios Varo, and I wonder what he'd think of them.

Hilma did abstract that was very inspired by the spiritual world with beautiful vibrant colors that seem cheerful to me.

Remedios did some amazing surrealist work, which I find somber, strange and striking.

Okay, I'm done now

[bemusedlybespectacled]

For the unusual ask game: sage, aloe vera, and nutmeg! 💝

sage ⇢ what ‘medium’ of art (poetry, music, fiction, paintings, statues etc.) is the most touching to you? why do you think that is?

Depends on the emotions I'm going for. Fiction is the most capable of making me cry, but really good architecture provokes a sense of awe. I think it's a difference in scale. Fiction is personal; architecture is public.

aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

I really wish I could swim. I feel like going to the beach (or the pool, or a water park) would be way more fun if I could swim.

nutmeg ⇢ how’s your room/home decorated? do you have a specific theme or style going on?

Oh lord, this is actually kind of funny.

So I do have an Aesthetic™ for home decorating, which is mostly very plain neutrals (white, beige, grey, gold). And florals (and sometimes owls). Like, the other day my parents gave us an old mattress they were going to toss to use as a guest bed/day bed, so we wandered around the Macy's clearance section to get twin-sized bedding, and the ultimate winner was this:

My philosophy is that neutral-colored stuff pairs with other, later-bought stuff easier and makes the actual colors pop more (in my workroom, that's one of my pillows, two of the posters on my walls, and a big cashmere wrap I got for my wedding). It's way easier to match white with white than it is to match, say, red with a different red.

I also tend towards shit that is honestly kind of pretentious. Like, the posters on the walls of my workroom? A Mary Cassatt painting of a girl sewing and a French realist painting of a girl knitting. Because my workroom is for knitting and sewing. I also have two Waterhouse paintings in my living room and a different pre-Raphaelite painting of a girl with an owl.

On the flip side, I also really like cheap kitschy shit. I'm not quite Rae Dunn levels of kitschy, but I unironically have Pioneer Woman curtains in the kitchen that I got from Walmart. They look like this:

Like, the only thing that is stopping me from buying a bunch of grandma decor with big flowers or butterflies or whatever is that a lot of it is Christian kitsch and that is an immediate turnoff for me.

@zrayak, on the other hand, does not like this at all. He thinks neutrals look boring and wants a lot more color than me, he likes more contrasting color than me (he wanted our wedding colors to be teal and red), and his decorations of choice include taxidermied frogs. They look like this:

tl;dr: Neutrals, florals, and owls, which is an ongoing debate between me and my husband.