#which is when it becomes babies first interaction with bureaucracy

[bruqh]

alright i have a meta theory for fhjy: i think it is going to be very high school centric campaign. sophmore year they traveled around the map and the bit was “modern teens in fantasy setting” i think they are setting up for junior year to be “fantasy heroes surviving high school”

[pokemon-legends-and-legacies]

Do you have any headcanons for Green/Red, Barry/Lucas, and Hugh/Nate?

Absolutely I do!

Green/Red

Green is the one who managed to get Red to come down from Mt. Silver by somehow beating him in a pokémon battle. Red was so stunned by his loss he just kind of followed Green back to civilization. This is the only time Green has ever beaten Red in a battle to this day.

Roy was already born when the couple visit Alola in the SuMo games and was about 10 or so months old (give or take.) And yes, they brought Roy with them! Leaf and Yellow (along with baby Amaryllis) also went to Alola and ended up having to babysit Roy a lot because of Green and Red’s frequent trips to the Battle Tree, whoops.

Red is technically unemployed, as he doesn’t really want to officially apply to be a professional pokémon trainer due to annoying bureaucracy. He still regularly seeks out strong people to battle with though, so his skills never go rusty and also because he thinks “stay at home dad” sounds way more boring than “Multiple Hall-of-Famer Professional Pokémon Trainer.”

They are a very sappy couple who like to show off how in love they are, though most of that’s Green being smug (”Look at me and my husband!”) while Red just goes along with it.

Green likes to think he’s a super cool dad who their sons will see as a role model but more often than not they go to Red for advice instead. Whenever this happens Green ends up pouting and needs to be comforted by his husband.

Barry/Lucas

A couple where people sometimes wonder how they got together due to how different they are. Definitely a very wholesome case of opposites attract.

Since Lucas was Rowan’s assistant, the two didn’t really meet until they were around 13 and didn’t interact much until after the events of DPPt. They met by chance at the Battle Frontier and when Lucas mentioned he wanted to improve his skills as a trainer Barry took him under his wing as a “Professional Battle Frontier Tour Guide.” Their romance blossomed fairly quickly, though Barry was pretty oblivious to his feelings while Lucas was realizing that subtle flirting wasn’t going to cut it in this case.

Dawn officiated their wedding and got trained to do so especially for her childhood best friend.

By the fankid era, Barry is a Frontier Brain like his father before him and Lucas has taken over from his mentor Rowan as Sinnoh’s regional professor, though he still has trouble getting used to being called Professor Hawthorn!

While they only planned on having one child, mainly due to how much of a handful Gavin was, they end up adopting Balthazar by chance due to some unexpected circumstances. Namely, Barry helps Dawn (who is Sinnoh Champion) take down a Cult of Giratina after they kidnap Dawn’s daughter, Tanith. While there, they find a boy who was raised in the cult to be a sacrifice and now has nowhere to go. The kid got attached to Barry  so one thing leads to another and he and Lucas end up with another son (Barry claims that Balthazar being blond and having a long name like him was a Sign that he was meant to be part of their family from the start.)

Nate/Hugh

Though Nate wasn’t the BW2 protag, he and Hugh were still childhood friends as he and Rosa are twins. They had quite a bit of romantic tension between them throughout middleschool, leading Rosa to urge them to try dating after getting fed up by hearing both her brother and best friend worry about the other’s feelings to her.

By the time the trio leave on their journey at 15, Nate and Hugh had been dating for about a year and a half.

Once it became clear that Team Plasma had returned, the two teamed up to fight them whenever they could, Nate mostly being worried about Hugh getting too angry.

Things reach a new level when, towards the end of their journey and when it’s looking like the final showdown with Plasma is approaching, Nate finds out he’s unexpectedly pregnant. While Nate himself is nervous due to his young age, he’s also excited and all the more motivated to defeat Plasma for the sake of his and Hugh’s child. Hugh, on the other hand, is incredibly nervous that Nate and the baby might get hurt now and ends up being rather overprotective of his boyfriend. This causes a bit of friction, but ultimately they’re able to work things out (with Rosa smoothing things over as usual whenever the two squabble.)

Glenn is born the summer after Ghetsis is finally defeated and Hugh and Nate stay in Aspertia for his first year or so, getting help from their parents and doing their best to raise him. At that, the two start looking for jobs so they can support their family, agreeing that whoever finds one first will take it, while the other will stay home to take care of Glenn. Hugh ends up getting unexpectedly scouted by Interpol, leading the family to move to Castelia, where they get married soon after.

Eventually, after Hugh gets promoted when Glenn is about 4, the family move to Opelucid to be closer to the League, which becomes their permanent home. When Glenn is about 6, they end up adopted their second child, Mindy, after her mother, Yancy, was looking for someone to adopt after she became unexpectedly pregnant. Glenn and Mindy are both handfuls but their parents love them (even if they hate each other lol)

[awkawardmissie]

Suho Personality Chart: The Planets

Please take these readings with a grain of salt. To be able to pinpoint the personality of a person, reading their whole chart is important, not just the signs separated. Take into account the houses and aspects.

I’m finally done with part 1! Enjoy! My Sun-Mercury brother!

Full name: Kim Junmyeon

Exo Power: Water, Leader of Exo

Birth Day: May 22nd, 1991

Birth Place: Daechi-dong (neighborhood), Gangnam District, Seoul, South Korea

Planets

Gemini Sun

Gemini’s sign is the Twins. It’s a mutable air sign. They adapt to their surroundings and social settings like chameleons and are full of surprises and contradictions. They are optimistic, joyful, witty, curious, and very social. They have an infectious and playful sense of humor.

They are ruled by Mercury, planet of Communication. They live for the exchange of ideas, the mind and the intellect. They have a gift for language and speaking. Their curiosity brings them to like to discover things, and their inclination to communication makes them liking to share that new knowledge. But while Gemini rules the mind, it also mean that they are prone to overthinking to the point of anxiety. Which is also a typical contradiction to their lighthearted, don’t-take-life-seriously attitude. But they’re also easily bored when they’re not intellectually challenged.

While they like to get different new knowledge, they’re everywhere at the same time. They’re Jack-of-all-trades, which can make them scattered, wishy-washy, and have a short attention-span.

They’re sometimes unpredictable, having sometimes multiple personalities (the Twin), and you’re never really sure which personality will show up. But as a rational sign, Gemini people are often detached from their emotions, sometimes too much, to the point of being irrationally rational.

I’m calling myself out at this point, I’m laughing so hard

Taurus Mercury (Planet of Communication)

Like Luhan, he builds up impressions carefully. He speaks slowly, but is thorough. Mercury in Taurus people are measured and placid. They are not the first ones to speak, but when they do, they demand attention. They are generally unscattered and not bubbling, which as a result make people listen to them. Their voice are generally pleasing to hear and their demeanor just as pleasant. Their expression is unlikely to be flowery or affected, but not harsh or abrasive either. They don’t yell or speak quickly. They have a pleasant tone and patient manner.

They are practical learners. They learn by doing the thing themselves. They work best in a relaxed environment where they’re not in a hurry to make leaps of logic. They may be slow to start a new project, but they see it through the end. They have a one-track mind. They approach progress with caution, planning out each step to make sure it’s on solid ground.

They may be hell bent on their decisions, and it might as well take an act of God to make them change their mind. They can get very passionate during an argument.

Cancer Venus (Planet of Relationship)

Key word: predictability, stability, commitment. More than anything, Venus in Cancer people look for emotional stability. They are very sensitive and rely on emotions to make a decision. They are extremely caring and nurturing, and they show their love and care to people by showing those traits, and they expect the same of their partner.

Home and family is the cornerstone of that Venus sign. While making a family isn’t everyone’s goal (even for every Camcer Venuses of the world), Venus in Cancer needs at least to be surrounded by people that gives them a feeling of kinship. They have a devoted nature, tending to overtake care, and “mother” others. And because continuity is important to them, most of them like at the very least to bepart of a very long-lasting relationship, even marriage.

They are great listeners who know intuitively what will make a person feel better. They like when everything is in order, and they hate melodrama (unless they create it). His charm is of the understated kind, but no matter what they do, they have a very sweet vibe. Not everybody likes it but to those who do, Cancer Venusians are irresistible and unable to stay angry at. 

They like art, music and literature and beauty is a necessity in their lives.

With his Gemini Sun, a Cancer Venus heightens the level Suho’s emotion, that is if he doesn’t over-rationalizes his own emotions (very typical of Geminis), which can result in him expressing those feeling very romantically, showing very kind and cherishing qualities.

Cancer Mars (Planet of instinct, anger, competition, sexual energy [modern astrology])

Interesting fact: In ancient astrology, Mars in Cancer is considered to be in its “Fall”. So Mars is said to perform more poorly in this sign, and the less impressive characteristics show more, such as misdirected anger, insecurity, selfishness and crudeness.

It’s also showed in the modern astrological writings. Cancer Mars is moody, passive-aggressive and tends to play with emotions, even others’.

They want to be secure before jumping into action, and that is for everything, including romance, which might make them appear as slow at making decisions. It’s hard for them to fake interest, if their heart is not in it. Despite appearances, they are very strong, and their strength comes from their tenaciousness (after all, he trained for 7 years!).  

They are threatened by indifference. There is nothing they dislike more. Their demonstration of anger isn’t fiery. It’s not an outburst of fury or outrage, but more like crying and throwing tantrums and they are very defensive. However they don’t like confrontation and tend to shy away from such chaotic encounters because they don’t like to be at the receiving end of another’s anger. But don’t touch the ones they love, unless you want to be at the receiving end of their rage.

Their sexuality is closely tied to emotions. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t have anything casual, but there’s an emotional price to it. They are very nurturing (it’s even their privileged courtship method), sensual and they are not very demanding... but they do want their lover to reciprocate the amount of effort they put in. The thought of conceiving a baby might be very attractive to them.

Leo Jupiter (Planet of Luck and Growth)

Like Kris, he must be proud of what he does in order to grow. He develops by celebrating what makes him, him. He gains wisdom by being courageous, proud, strong. He’s very confident, he believes in himself and his own originality.

Leo is a sign of exuberance, warmth of heart and generosity. Those traits are amplified with Jupiter in Leo. Those people enjoy encouraging others and helping them build confidence, which makes them very good friends, advisors, teachers or parents.

However, if they become too self focused they are likely to be excessively vain and prideful and have a desperate need for attention. All events and conversation will have to be about them and they will have to be the centre of attention in any social gathering or interaction with others.

Aquarius Saturn (Limitations, fear, sense of responsibility)

Those with Saturn in Aquarius are generally free-thinkers. They are problem-solvers, with an outside-the-box point of view. However they are very reserved and can tend to be a bit conservative in their approach, from fear of rushing things too rashly or impulsively.

Aquarius is generally a social sign, but Saturn is more closed off, so it can be difficult to make friends and maintain relationships, but when they do make some, they are impartial, responsible and loyal, kind of like a parent.

They pride themselves in being different and need a place to express their idea, no matter how impractical they are. They might struggle with communicating their ideas, and to let others have a turn in the discussion.

Capricorn Uranus (Where you stand out and change things)

Capricorn is a conservative sign, so this sign in the planet of change is contradictory.  They want to change and reform old structures, but want to be respectful of the past. The changes have to be well thought out, long-lasting and carefully planned.

They are great battlers, to a point where one might think nothing can defeat them. They are ambitious, stubborn, eccentric and radical. They might be restless or impulsive. They are tolerant of others’ differences and even-tempered.

They are responsible and handle power with ease. They have a natural talent to see upcoming trends and can pass as automatic innovators.

However they are unable to go with the flow and it’s hard for them to see plans not executed exactly the way they planned them to.

Capricorn Neptune (Dreams, intuition, psychic activity) ~Generational~

They idealize work, practicality, and the ability to attain reasonable goals, but also emphasize the need to be selfless and giving. They are discerning, wise, sensible and extremely rational.

They are reserved and refined in areas related to control, power, fame and success. They dream of wealth and power, even if they don’t really know how to attain it. They tend to focus on ways to increase wealth, power and influence.

They excel at organization and bureaucracy, and they are conscious of status. They like to be in authority. They may be a bit conservative and traditional. They reflect on spiritual matters, and are inspired by the Great Masters of art, music and literature. Many become cynics or critics.

Scorpio Pluto (Where you must seek change) ~Generational~

They are ruled by strong emotions. They react accordingly to their emotions but also to others’. They’re drawn to activities that involves them emotionally. Key-word: intensity.

The basic theme of the Scorpio generation is reform and transform. Both Scorpio and Pluto involve rebirth and new beginning. They involve making us face our demons and fears. They’re always looking deeper into any situation to see what’s really going on. They may as well see the darker side of things and are prepared for the worst.

Capricorn Black Moon Lilith [True/Osculating] (The Dark Side)

Capricorn Black Moon thirsts for power, fame, and status. It craves absolute. If it is not attained, Capricorn may as well destroy it and stay materialist. It’s an ambitious sign. However, the weakness in this position relies on the fear of not being able of doing things by themselves. People born with Capricorn in Lilith tend to want to play God with their lives, while being inflexible with others. They can be very cold and bad listener to others.

Inner isolation tends to be frequent because these people build a thick shell to protect themselves from the insecurities and other people. They tend to mix business with pleasure and their career is often connected to sex, and that makes drawing the line between emotions and ambition that much more important.

The best side of this position is a remarkable endurance, especially when it comes to conflict. They never give up, even when it seems impossible to achieve the goal. And it’s all linked to that thirst for power, that craving for absolute, that need to test their strong character and power. 

I’m very sorry for that gif but also I’m not because it fits the description so well, I’m proud af!

Virgo Moon (Habits, Reactions, Instincts)

People with Moon in Virgo take security in the little things. They like simplicity. They won’t say it, but they enjoy things like running errands, paying bills, taking care of the balance book, etc. If their security is rocked, life becomes unmanageable, and they can freak out. The routine or a simply a satisfying job is what they need to be alright.

They are nurturing and there’s often a need to be need, to feel useful. They often are the ones rushing to help a friend in a difficult position, or they are the hardworking coworker. They are also thought to be critical or nagging, but it’s really just because they want to help, like a mom.

It’s also due to their sharp analytical qualities, which can result in unnecessary worry, picking at every detail. The tend to be stubborn, practical and organized. They need structure, on top of the routine previously written. They are also very health-oriented, maybe to the point of being a little hypocondriac (I don’t have enough litterature on that though).

They are modest and aim to life a simple life. They are shy and can be very self-conscious, with a low self-esteem. The critical trait is then aimed at themselves. They are their harshest judge, and even though they are quick to critcize things and people around them, they are very sensitive to criticism aimed at themselves.

And here is Mom Suho showing his Virgo Moon ass lol 

[twatd]

6,000 Years of Murder – Part One: Valley Girls

Tim: The Wicked + The Divine #36 finally gave us a definitive list of every damn Recurrence that has occurred since Ananke first started exploding heads, so we thought we’d take a walk through the annals of history (stop sniggering at the back!) and provide some context for what was happening at the time.

In our first batch of places and times, humanity develops urban settlements, written language and a cinema snack with an excellent profit margin. Spoilers (for real-world history, mostly) after the cut.

3862BC – Upper Nile We kick off with the big boy of early civilisations, in what will soon become Egypt. It’s worth noting that our very first introduction to Ananke and her sister in issue #34 didn’t give us a location, just a time, so we have no way of knowing where we were then, beyond ‘somewhere deserty’.

Anyway – the Upper Nile in the mid 39th century BC is an interesting place. The 5.9 Kiloyear event just happened, ending an extended period of wet and rainy conditions (the Neolithic Subpluvial) in Northern Africa and leading to intense aridification in and around the Sahara. This sudden dryness triggered migration to the river valleys of the Nile, with its nice predictable flood plains, and as more people gathered in a smaller area with ample capacity for agriculture… that’s the beginnings of a civilisation, baby!

3770BC – Mesopotamia From baby Egypt, we travel to another of the big players when it comes to early civilisation: Mesopotamia. At this point in human history, making a city of any decent size requires a lot of farms and, with irrigation still in its infancy, farming works best in river valleys. Therefore, early civilisations were mostly found in these areas, and the region between the Tigris and Euphrates was the Mac Daddy.

What’s going on in Mesopotamia? Well, there have already been permanent settlements in the area for almost 1,500 years, but the Ubaid period is about to come to a rapid close – at least in Northern Mesopotamia, where the same 5.9 Kiloyear event is making the area harder to farm, and will clear out most human presence for almost 1,000 years. Not a particularly successful Recurrence, then.

3678BC – The Indus Valley We continue heading east on our tour of early civilisation’s hot spots and find our way to the Indus Valley, the hottest and dankest of those all-important river valleys. The Indus Valley civilisation will later mysteriously vanish and be replaced (there’s a whole bunch of theories about why and who by) but right now it’s thriving, and it has Lothal to prove it.

Lothal was one of the southernmost cities of the Indus Valley civilisation, and included the world’s earliest known dock. Established a little bit after Ananke and co had been around, it was a thriving trade centre that connected with settlements as far away as West Asia and Africa. Discovered in 1954, it’s nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Nice work, Indus Valley civilisation!

3586BC – The Yellow River Our journey east brings us to the Yellow River in modern-day China, and the final of the big four “major civilisations of the ancient world”. People have been gathering around the Yellow River since almost 10,000BC, but the line of when those settlements and cultures turned into full-blown civilisations is heavily debated.

At this point, we’re entering the late period of the Yangshao culture, which flourished in the area that would become Northwest China. The people are still using stone tools and haven’t really embraced domesticated animals, but they are also creating decorated pottery and produce small amounts of silk. We’ve also got the first rammed earth wall produced around the Xishan settlement, suggesting permanent communities of substantial size.

3495BC – Uruk Oh shit kids, it’s the Uruk period! We’re back in lower Mesopotamia, and as the change in background suggests, we’ve got legit urbanisation. Uruk was a Sumerian city boasting a population of up to 50,000 people at its peak, and at the period we catch up with it, it has well-established trade routes with the rest of Mesopotamia and is expanding into what would become the Sumerian civilisation.

Full-blown urbanisation and trade means several innovations. We have writing (hello cuneiform!), we have accounting (hello bureaucracy!), we have goddamn tin (HELLO BRONZE!). All these advances may have helped Ananke’s sister learn a trick or two, as this is when we first see her fight back against Ananke’s serial murder habit. Full blown civilisation for the win!

3403BC – The Fortaleza Valley So far, we’ve not visited the Americas in our tour of Neolithic man, but that’s about to end, as we hop over the Atlantic to the Norte Chico civilisation in ancient Peru. Like all the others, we’re near a river valley, or in this case a cluster of them – the Supe, Pativilca and Fortaleza valleys. While large-scale human settlement isn’t going to hit for another 300 years, we already have a small city in the form of Huaricanga, the oldest urban gathering in the Americas.

With the lack of decent animals to domesticate (sorry, llamas), early American civilisations focused on agriculture, with sweet potatoes and corn forming a central part of the diet of most Huaricanga residents. Interesting fact – the first evidence of popcorn was found in New Mexico, dated to circa 3600BC, so we can probably assume it’s reached down to Norte Chico by this point. Maybe that accounts for the friendly greeting between Ananke and her adversary.

3311BC – Western Europe Western Europe, with its stupid lack of big reliable river valleys, has been chugging along in the background so far, unable to keep up with the advances of places like Mesopotamia and Egypt, which are currently busy beginning the Bronze Age and domesticating cattle. There have been scattered cultures (the Boians, the Wartbergs, the Funnelbeakers) but nothing to really write home about, because writing hasn’t reached here yet.

With five healthy civilisations on the go now, the Indo-Europeans could do with a Recurrence boost, and while the spread of Bronze Age civilisations is going to do the heavy lifting, Western Europe is giving the Stone Age a last hurrah. Tribes and cultures in this area have got pretty good at moving rocks around, and while Stonehenge won’t happen for another 1,000 years or so, we’ve got constructions like Maumbury Rings, the Carnac Stones and others popping up all over the shop. That said, Ananke is definitely slumming it at this point.

3219BC – The Indus Valley Enough of those filthy Europeans, let’s head back to the Indus Valley, where the Bronze Age is kicking off in earnest. It’s all centred on the city of Harappa, which is beginning to act as a centralised authority for the region, as well as establishing trade networks with related regional cultures and even distant ones for rarer materials. Crops include peas, sesame seeds, dates and cotton, and animals including the water buffalo are being domesticated.

Most importantly, the Indus Script (aka the Harappan script) has been developed. Largely pictograph-based, there’s huge debate over whether the script constitutes a writing system or even a language, but the use of it on seals could represent more complex trading, a more established religion or, from the interaction between Ananke and her sister, some extremely specific greetings cards.

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[yyh-revival]

Ok so about hxh I don't dislike the show it's a good show. But the reason I prefer yyh is the set up makes more sense. It makes sense for a place like the demon world to have a fucked up tournament like the black tournament. The stuff that Koenma's dad pulled to fuck over demons given the system and that kind of character. You know what doesn't make sense? Giving known assasins and psychopaths more access and power. In HxH becoming a hunter means you get access to all sorts of locations pt.1

That regular civilians dont have access to and a liscence to kill without getting into trouble and all sorts of other shit. And they give that power to Hisoka who never tries to hide the fact he just likes killing people and randomly killed one of the examiners last time. And Illumi a assasin who freely admits that he wanted the liscence for a job. He says this to the people in charge of the exam. And he still gets his liscence what the fuck. Not to mention his family the secret pt2

oldeck family who the public doesnt know their faces have a house so famous that tour guide point it out while going through the city. Like it might have unbelievable security but why would you risk people knowing? Not that it’s a bad show or I dont enjoy it. I’m not that far into the series. But things like that kinda take out of it. It kinda takes me out of it. Especially when this world isnt like this world of chaos its actually kinda like our world. Or supposed to be Pt.3

Yes, I have to confess the setting didn’t sit right with me, either. I typically enjoy fantasy (in fact it’s my #1 favorite genre, and my preferred to write in, whether that’s high fantasy like LOTR or something like Fullmetal Alchemist, or even modern fantasies like stories about vampires, etc. All of my childhood favorites have fallen into this category… aaaand still do haha)

But the setting always did feel strange to me. I never understood who or what was in control of this Hunter licence, and why they were giving them out to children, or what the point of them even was.

More under the cut. Long analysis of character, slightly more productive than what I wrote yesterday, and some more dissing of HxH (I’m sorry) and its poor management of plot, setting, and character.  Also, from now on, tagging all discussions and comparisons of HxH and YYH as HHD (for hunter hunter discussion) to keep it out of the hxh tag. 

Once again, this is all just my opinion, my personal feelings, and are not meant to grade the merit of the show or insult anyone who enjoyed it!

See, I typically also like “secret clubs.” But I like them being fleshed out. In Mass Effect, we know what a Specter is. They have almost unlimited power, but 1) they answer to a council which can strip them of this power, and 2) they have a clear goal – serving the council and the interest of the council races.

For YYH, we have the same thing. Yusuke has more power than the average human, having the authority to kill and having access to knowledge most humans do not have. But he 1) answers to Koenma, 2) has a clear goal of protecting the innocent from evil demons and other psychic phenomena. 

And that stuff is outlined the MOMENT our protagonists enter the secret club, in clear words, and it doesn’t take, you know, forever… But HxH, I have no idea what the whole Hunter organization even is? I looked it up and turns out I saw the whole 1st season, 31 episodes… and I have no idea what this hunter thing is.

So yes, I totally agree. For comparison, in YYH, we go through a rather good introduction to Spirit World all before episode 5, an intro to what Spirit Detectives are without learning all the details, but enough to understand, by what, episode 8ish? We learn how Spirit World can bend rules with Kurama and Hiei within the first few episodes, too. We learn Spirit World is a bureaucracy, that it has rulers and managers (Enma and Koenma), that it is occupied by mostly two species (ogres and Spirit World citizens, who are like spirits, neither alive nor dead), that they have prisons, that they take interest in human lives and society, that they have the power to revive the dead but that there are clear rules and procedures. We learn Spirit World citizens can inhabit human bodies made specifically for them. We learn Spirit World can unlock human’s innate spiritual awareness. We learn the Spirit Detective job is sorta a new and untested thing (sending a kid to fight 3 demons… Koenma seriously didn’t think the job through yet). We learn Spirit World houses powerful treasures like the 3 artifacts. We learn they have a freakin’ treasure room to start with. We learn you can break into Spirit World and its vaults. We learn that living creatures, even demons, can enter it. We learn spirits and living creatures can interact with each other as if both were on the same plane, tangible and all, while in Spirit World. We learn Spirit World watches and records events of interest in the Human World, sometimes flat out spying on humans like when they watch Keiko being chased or when the little girl (the investigator) stalks Keiko along with Yusuke and Botan. We learn ghosts aren’t allowed to stay forever in the human world. We learn that the spirit and the body have separate energies that converge together. We learn Spirit World uses actual technology, not just magic, like VHS types and pocket watches. We learn Spirit World citizens can live incredibly long lives and look like babies while being a couple hundred years old or more.

^^ See all that? That’s what I know about Spirit World from watching the first EIGHT episodes. Episode 9 Yusuke enters Genkai’s tournament… How insanely concise is that? Episode 8, and we know so much about just one aspect of this world.

Whereas HxH? episode 31… and I still have zero clue what hunters are, what their purpose is, what they can do, who they work for if anyone, what the qualifications for them are (just being able to fight?) We know nothing. 31 episodes!! 

For another comparison, by episode 31, Yusuke is in the Dark Tournament, fighting Chuu. By this point, we had all four main characters go through the first cycle of their character arcs, we were introduced to most of the supporting cast, we had relationships established, we got backstory on some characters, we learned how spirit energy and psychics work more, we saw Yusuke begin his second cycle, we saw the introduction of a major villain… we had a lot. Whereas with HxH, all I remember is the damn big boat in the storm thing.

Speaking of character arcs… I wrote this in a response to something else, but I think it also makes my point here. I am incredibly fascinated with character arcs and character in general, even more than plot or setting or anything else. To me, character is all. So here’s my breakdown of some character growth within the first 8 episodes.

YYH never really feels like it drags, maybe only in those moments I mentioned before. But it had an incredibly strong opening. Excluding Hiei, within the first 7-8 episodes, we have two characters (kurama and Yusuke) go through full character arcs that affect them all the way down the line of the show. The other two join after episode 25, though we also get to see glimpses of character background and some development even earlier (Kuwabara’s sensitive side is shown with the kitty, his devotion to friends, his honor code – all before episode 8 as well, but that’s not really an arc. He doesn’t have one till about the Yukina Rescue arc concludes. Though his is a bit weak, mostly because Kuwabara was… pretty alright to start with? It’s hard to develop when there isn’t many places you can go. And out of all the 4 boys, Kuwabara had the least amount of baggage.)

For Yusuke, we have the theme of “caring/not caring.” Yusuke stars off believing no one loves him and that he’s better off not being in anyone’s life. The wake proves him wrong enough that he makes an effort to come back. Then when he thinks he’s missed his chance by throwing the egg, and sees his friends and family happily talking about him returning, he mourns because he knows he’s not coming back. 180 from “meh, ima stay a ghost it’s better I’m not in their lives.” So, he goes through a complete cycle just in that moment, from I don’t care, to I do care and I’m happy, to I do care and I am sad. Not just a simple arc, from point A to point B, but A to B to C. It’s a very well constructed growth of a character. Full arch, full growth, and that’s why it tugs at the heartstrings. Because the moment he started to care… he thought lost his chance.

That arc he goes through all before episode 5 cycles throughout the show, and makes us care because such a strong arc, such an emotional one, too, grabs the viewer’s heart by the balls and refuses to let go. 

It cycles in the Suzaku fight – he experiences horrible pain to save people, but in order to really motive himself, he must see Keiko in danger. He’s getting there, to the point of caring about humanity, but not quite. Then in the Dark Tournament, the lives of multiple people hang on his victory. But they’re still mostly people he cares about, though now that has extended beyond Keiko into Shizuru, Kuwabara, Kurama, Hiei, Yukina, etc., all of those people. He’s getting there, increasing the circle of people he cares for.

It keeps going up, challenging Yusuke to care more. The hospital had Keiko and shizuru in it. But also the new psychics. Then Sensui threatening all of humanity. Then the 3 kings arc threatening all of the realms. Yusuke progressively gives more of a shit about more people with time and new challenges and as he earns more friends.

And all of that is outlined in he first Fucking 4 episodes!! We know what hsi arc is, we know where he is going, we know what sort of character he is, and we get to see him become truly fleshed out in just 4 episodes.

That’s just Yusuke, too. Kurama also has a complete arc within the span of like two or three episodes, and those themes cycle throughout the show. (guilt, suicide and redemption – think Ura Urishima fight, when Kurama projects his want to sacrifice himself for Shiori to make up for his deception, where he tells the guy that suicide has no honor or redemption in it, even though the guy didn’t care for that, his lie was about getting out of having to hurt people without causing harm to his grandmother, not about redeeming himself – family, lies, the better of two evils – to lie to shiori and stay with her so she has a son, or stop lying to her and punish self for stealing her “real son” away)

It’s consistent, mostly concise, cyclical, and oh so fucking satisfying to my literature loving senses….

And then hxh… where apparently nothing of substance happens in the first Twenty Freakin Episodes. I legit cannot tell you about any character growth in that time. Or plot? They take a test. For who knows how long. Uh… kurapika starts to like leorio when before he didn’t? So he gets friendlier?? Maybe?? Killua begins a friendship with gon instead of getting himself that therapist… they play a ball game together. That gets them to like each other so much Gon goes chasing after Killua when he goes missing at the end of the season. Uh…. they are faced with the horror of fighting people they had to cooperate with before I guess. *shrugs* 

If you put a gun against my head, the only character growth or arc I could maybe try to name for the first 30 episodes is that Kurapika started to like Leorio and starts to address him with a bit more respect, cause they worked together, so uh… nope, nope, that’s not an arc in the slightest. Kurapika can simply be a person who doesn’t like others until he gets to know them… So yes, I’d get a bullet in the head.

And the fact that you need to skip the whole beginning of the show to even enjoy it, as @perpetuallyfrowning suggested … I can’t do that. I cannot enjoy any change in Gon if I don’t know where he was before. But I hate where he was before, and we’re stuck with that for so long… Even if you didn’t like Yusuke’s personality at first, you only have to deal with it for a bit because he changes so much so quickly.

So there it is, my rather lazy analysis of the beginning of YYH and HxH, looking at setting and character.

- Mod Lola

[elleiam]

My Teachers ~

I’ve been sick in bed for quite a few days now, but I'm finally mentally better enough to start doing things. First on the list, a blog post. (Actually first on the list was double check that I have everything done for Infusion that I need to do. Check. More on that in another post probably). I'm so many blog posts behind in my mind, with so much I want to talk about and so little motivation to actually talk about it. Even as I type this my eyes are closing and my brain is thinking… maybe I'm too sick to be doing this NO LAUREN. KEEP TYPING.

I want to write about some people at my school I'm thankful for, so, introducing some lovely angel souls of my life, I present this cast of characters that brighten up my days at Gakri Middle School when the kids are just too much to handle. (Also names are hidden because I'm shy and what if someone finds this!)

The English Teacher

My saving grace at school. She is always willing to make conversation with me, sharing with me dilemmas in her home life, problems with Korean culture, and always being curious about America. Her English is incredible, but honestly I think even if her English was not as good she'd still have reached out. Sometimes I feel like she's a mom taking care of me, making sure I have somewhere to sit at lunch, making sure I don't even go to lunch alone. She's always watching out for how comfortable I feel and that makes my heart so warm and happy. Sometimes when I was still in college I just wanted to be independent and live my own life, but now that I've come to this super unfamiliar environment with a new job, it is amazing to always feel taken care of. So I'm so thankful for her, for being my friend but also for watching my back. It must be tiring to keep putting in that effort, but truly her good mornings to me at the start of each school day really does remind me why I love working here. Plus, might I add that she is the most helpful co-teacher I have and I always look forward to my classes with her because though still equally chaotic, they're just more fun.

The Science Teacher

We say pretty much no words to each other, but she's one of my favorites. Our "conversations" are just her pointing to the ceiling, saying "dirty," and the us laughing for many minutes about our crazy students who like to throw their shoes up at the ceiling. Our interactions are always so brief, but it's the little things she does that really make me smile, like dropping off a handful of candy at my desk every time I leave the cafeteria in tears because the lunch was too darn spicy, or slowly and "sneakily" stealing my key chain from my pocket to ask "what is this" in Korean, or just sharing a smile with me when we just have nothing to say. I even ventured a Korean question at her once and it was so sweet to see her think really hard to try and respond in English.

The Music Teacher

At first I thought she didn't like me, not didn't like me but at least did not have the energy to try with me. Day one she said I was cute but she can't talk to me because I don't speak Korean. I remember thinking LAUREN learn Korean faster! But obviously I can't become conversational overnight and I could tell she got tired of waiting. We live in the same apartment complex and finally one day we got stuck walking home together. In broken Korean, I asked her if she had plans for the weekend. In broken English, she responded! We had a good laugh and now she actually smiles at me. We'll walk to school or home together, exchanging maybe two sentences before just walking in silence. But she is such nice company and I love how our friendship is based pretty much solely on pointing and awkward laughs. It's the small moments too, the two clementines on my desk, her coming up behind me and nudging my shoulder before saying hi, meeting her beautifully awkward sons at Daiso, the fact that she didn't just ignore me at Daiso and actually came up to me to introduce her sons.

The Fulbright Co-Teacher

Even if we are not the closest of friends, I'm really thankful that she always does her job. Every now and then she tells me to signs this or that, or I hear her on the phone mentioning my name. It makes me realize just how much work it takes to have an ETA at your school and I really appreciate her always being on top of things. Though she's not required to tell me any of this, she'll always mention an event that's going on at school I could attend, or tell me about time schedule changes, picture days, other things that get sent to me via the messenger system I still can't understand. Recently we've been sharing more laughs together. She'll drop by my classroom during the cleaning time and give me all the latest gossip about the students or just talk about the previous ETA (and how much more organized I am haha). It's nice that our bond is growing, and maybe I should try to be less intimidated by her.

The Third Grade English Teacher

One of my faves, she hosted a welcoming lunch party for me and another English teacher during one of the first few weeks of school. She's just always there to talk and hang out after class to tell me about her weekend or how her husband wants me to meet his mother?? It's a really great time and I'm really lucky to have her in my life. Her baby daughter is so incredibly cute (even though she causes her so much stress)! I haven't been able to talk to her as much recently because the third-graders have been having their exams, but this coming week I'm really excited to see her again and find out what she has been up to.

The Special Education Teacher

She has quickly become one of my favorite people. She is so outgoing and extroverted, constantly wanting to talk even though her English level is not great and my Korean is awful. She never gives up, and I can tell she actually wants to get to know me as a person and for me to get to know her. She has already taught me so much about being a special education teachers, the bureaucracy she needs to put up with and the struggles of her students; it is so wonderful to learn about her life and to have someone to hang out with outside of school. I can't believe she reached out the first time and continues to reach out.

The Home Economics Teacher

She is so shy but I love her! Our friendship started when she messaged me to review her English composition. I loved reading those because they told me so much about her. Once she came into my office but didn't talk to me because she was too shy - she messaged me after saying when she saw all those people she got nervous! Recently she’s been thinking about giving up on English, which is a shame because she is actually quite advanced, but I understand the frustration of hitting a bottleneck. I hope she will still be willing to talk with me though... guess I’ll just have to learn more Korean! I love hanging out with her and laughing with her too much not to.

The Nurse

We've only ever had one true interaction but she is still so kind to me, giving me an over- exaggerated wave every time we see each other, occasionally coming to my desk to whisper a nice message. She's the youngest at the school at 27 years old so naturally I feel a bit closer to her. She came to chat in my office one day and asked me for an English name, which she actually now uses! I listed a bunch of options but she liked Miley the best. I think it suits her and actually sounds a lot like her Korean name!

The Teachers Whose Names I Know Not

There are teachers I still haven't met yet, and teachers who don't really look my way. That's cool. There's 70 of us and I'm glad to you I'm maybe just one of you. But there are some teachers who consistently send a smile my way, or give me a cute insa before deciding nah I'll just wave at her. I wish I knew your names so I could give you a proper hello, but just know I am so thankful for your kindness, for not giving up on me and still giving me your positivity every time we run into each other in the halls. It's these kind nods and laughs, the mutual understanding that we'll only ever nod and laugh but that it's great anyway, that makes my days at Gakri really quite wonderful (even if the kids wear me out).

[tanadrin]

Has anyone ever tried framing the benefit no-fault divorce in the language of market efficiency? I am 1000% sure this is not an original argument, but I wonder if it’s ever been used as a component of actual campaigns to legalize it.

In societies without divorce, abusive or malicious partners have less incentive to work on their abusive behavior, because once a marriage is solemnized, the spouse cannot leave (and in societies where women are expected to be dependent on their husband, the effect is strongly enhanced); therefore, an abusive spouse or a bad partner has little incentive to improve their behavior, except innate human empathy, which is clearly insufficient if they’re abusive or malicious in the first place, because it is difficult for their partner to leave them. In theory their partner could leave, but as a matter of law and interacting with the bureaucracy they’d be married, and significant social and legal difficulties would follow them because this personal status could not change.

Societies with stigmatized divorce (traditional Jewish divorce, many countries with divorce laws on the books in the period before they adopted no-fault divorce) have the same set of incentives, only partially weakened. The conservative argument that making it difficult or impossible to abandon a marriage (favoring the repeal of no-fault divorce or, e.g., the creation of marriages with special status, the “covenant marriage”) improves incentives for both parties to work on their marriage ignores situations where marital problems are asymmetric in nature, and the person whose behavior is making their spouse’s life difficult is content (or more content) with the status quo. Social pressure to behave well to one’s spouse is also insufficient, because abusers are, particularly, known to be able to present a charming front to other members of the community, to the point where targets of abuse are often disbelieved.

No-fault divorce (and later marriage, and economic freedom for women) makes it harder for bad partners to find mates. They still do, of course, because human relationships are complicated, but the primary effect of the factors contributing to “instability” in modern relationships is that, in fact, people are better able to sort their pool of potential partners, which is also bigger, since one doesn’t have to marry the first person they sleep with, and children don’t have to be had while the couple is very young. If you can be choosier, you can weed out the jerks sooner (in theory), and jerks will find less success in the dating pool.

Therefore, I would predict, if this theory were correct, that rates of spousal and child abuse would go down in the wake of the abolition or decay of traditional, patriarchal expectations around marriage and childrearing. Thus, modern marriage, though it still has faults like being an ad hoc welfare state of two, should be much better at creating an environment in which to raise children, and should produce children overall with less traumatized childhoods, than historically. Measuring this effect would be complicated by the fact that traditional societies, or conservative and insular religious ones (here I’m thinking of orthodox Jewish communities, or conservative Christian ones, or all of Europe and North America before, oh, say, 1950, or whenever this issue became incorporated into the feminist movement) are likely to not discuss and not report child abuse and spousal abuse to the authorities, if these actions are even illegal. The reported rate should actually spike as norms shift away from conservative attitudes to marriage, and people report abusive spouses to the police to protect themselves and their children. Once they can rely on such reports being taken seriously by the police, and their family supporting their decision to leave an abusive partner (or just a toxic one, but it’s not illegal to be a gigantic jerk), only then should we see a decrease in the statistics, which would have lagged behind the decrease in the real rate for some years. There are likely to be other additional variables which I have not accounted for that you’d need to account for to get an accurate view of how flexible family structures affect child/spouse abuse rates.

One potential objection: single-parent homes have worse outcomes for children; this seriously challenges the above theory. But has anyone compared the outcomes of children in single-parent homes with the outcomes of children in abusive two-parent homes? Because if the option is “suboptimal family arrangement” versus “abusive family arrangement,” the former seems preferable to me when it comes to raising children who are well-socialized and happy. A great deal of non-systematic literature has covered the idea, from the children of such homes, that parents who divorce because their relationship is extremely dysfunctional are preferable to parents who stay together and are miserable. The prevalence of single-parent homes is also closely tied to poverty, and no one has sufficiently disentangled the two statistically, to my knowledge, to produce an actually useful result, much less a policy prescription that amounts to more than “keep adults who no longer wish to be together in a relationship with each other.”

Being able to select one’s partner freely also has advantages where formerly functional relationships become dysfunctional; and as optimistic as the view is that improving an existing relationship is better than social instability, no one who has advanced that view seems to support, say, additional state funding for marriage counseling, much less having it covered by health insurance, or seems to be in support of state funding for additional social services to address the issue of child abuse or spousal abuse, which become far more serious when the abused cannot escape without serious social and legal disability--and, for women, who would normally be housewives in the idealized marital arrangement envisioned, economic disability. Nor do they advocate delaying marriage and childrearing, which seem especially important to me in societies where you get to choose a life partner only once; people in their teens and early twenties are not at all known for being able to make resilient life choices that stand them in good stead until the day they die.

Note: arranged marriages, I predict, should be even worse as childrearing environments from this perspective, since the person who makes the choice of spouse is not the person who has to live with it. The alignment of incentives is basically terrible--which reflects, in many cases, the history of marriage as a property transaction among men, not a childrearing arrangement between a man and a woman.)

Note 2: also, to be clear, I think even in suboptimal arrangements, most marital relationships are or can be mostly non-dysfunctional. That certainly doesn’t mean they’re optimal for human flourishing, to say nothing of the flourishing of children specifically. A functional marriage is not the same as a happy one, and a society even with many happy marriages is not the same as a society with many happy women, who, as the ones with the least economic freedom, are the ones who always seem to get the shortest end of the stick in these social structures.)

Final note: I’m sure there are interesting statistics on self-reported happiness in more constrained, traditional marriages. I also think it’s interesting, though, that violent crime in the U.S. has been declining since the 90s, 20-30 years after child abuse became a feminist issue, and the general availability of no-fault divorce. Lead is a persuasive explanation, but is unlikely to be the only contributing factor. Can’t find any good statistics on domestic violence over time in the U.S., but as I said above, I would expect the reported rate of that kind of crime to rise over time, even as the actual rate was falling. And I hope it is not controversial to observe that men abusing their wives tends to be more acceptable in societies with traditional and restrictive views on marriage. Poverty may be a confounding factor there--but I also expect that happier and healthier generations of children, less likely to pass on their parents’ dysfunction, are going to be better at leading lives with good economic outcomes, and thus that, over the long term, one of the ongoing contributors to economic growth is that we’re getting better at raising our children, and not routinely abusing and traumatizing them. Like, we forget this, but there have been ages of the world in which raping your wife, beating your children black and blue, forcing your daughter to marry someone against her will so he could rape her, and giving the baby a sparrow with broken wings to play with until it was crushed to death were all perfectly normal things to do, and that some of these things were perfectly normal in living memory in the Western world. And I could easily imagine that one of the reasons past societies have been more violent, poorer, more xenophobic, and more stagnant, was that everyone was by our standards constantly traumatized by their shitty upbringing. Is it a coincidence that in the 19th century, the temperance movement saw a society in which alcohol abuse was so rampant that it would be better to ban it altogether than try to convince people to use it responsibly. Now we think of them as hand-wringing moralists, but I think that their observations might have been pretty reasonable--but they only saw the symptom, not the underlying disease.

[zeemonkey1]

Why?

“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” 

I wish I were lying about all of this.

I used to ask why a lot, y’all. Why Curious George does the things he does, why he gets away with it, why everyone defers to MYH like he is the Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu of the universe. Whatever pain-starved and masochistic readers I have left will no doubt agree that I have attempted in my ramblings to understand the why, and I have failed as utterly as when I tried to play basketball in high school. Know your role, saith the universe, basketball is not for you. Not only was basketball not for me, certain things were for me, and none of them were athletic, nor were they attractive to high school girls. That, in itself, was enough why and why me and why them to keep me filling notebooks with whiny, maudlin, cringy bullshit for years, chasing an unobtainable goal through various adolescent stages of goth, emo, grunge and whatever-the-fuck else in an attempt to be something (anything) different than what I was.

It took longer than it should have for me to realize that ca-caw, ca-caw and tookie, tookie DON’T WORK.

Yell for the monster all you want; he will not show up until his time is fulfilled.

Ask why all you wish; God will ignore you and focus on the what and the who because, if thou canst not draw out leviathan with a hook, then buddy, God ain’t got to explain shit, feel me?

ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die

Consider Kafka. There is no point, and that is the point. Sometimes people wake up as insects; sometimes people get arrested and stabbed for no reason at all. Sometimes people get beaten up by hoboes and change their name to “Negro.” Sometimes the moment is structured such that our protagonist lives in a village for no reason, has sex with a barmaid for no reason, and bides his time by fighting against a faceless bureaucracy for reasons he doesn’t understand towards a goal that doesn’t matter and we don’t even get to know what that goal is because Kafka died before he could finish Das Schloss. And anyway we wouldn’t even know or care if Max Brod would have just burned the notebooks filled with whiny, maudlin, cringy bullshit like he was supposed to.

The Man in the Yellow Hat knows what Kafka was throwing down. There is no point to the monkey; there is no purpose to be served. Life is a serious of random happenings that occur without our interaction, without our blessing, and without any manner of the control we like to think we have.

This is why clowns are funny.

This is why clowns are fucking terrifying.

Clowns do not follow the rules society has set down; they perpetually exist in a netherworld of obfuscation and misdirection. Why do they look like that? Why do they do all the patently ridiculous things they do? Why do they exist?

Because they do.

In this episode, MYH and George are traveling to a clown school. Nobody knows why other than a vague MacGuffin of wanting to see Pepe El Loco, ”the world’s greatest clown performer.”

But it is not a clown school.

It is madness.

And I don’t mean Lovecraftian Mountains of Madness, where the countless gibbering things at least have an unfulfilled hunger, a desire to devour , a desperate yearning to escape the foul darkness and feast upon the cracked psyches of all who behold them. I mean the kind of madness that plagues Pink Floyd’s Lunatic on the Grass, a meaningless madness, laughing at things that aren’t funny, laughing at nothing at all.

MYH almost finds a parking space, but then a clown car full of two other clown cars and like fifteen clowns cuts him off and steals it. Thus, it is the parking lot that becomes MYH’s Kafkaesque hellscape, and Curious George must brave the clown school alone. He is told to proceed to the ninth floor, where the Pepe El Loco show will be held.

First Floor: George sees a clown dancing with three dogs dressed as clowns around a fountain that is also a clown. The lobby looks like somebody paid Betsey Johnson to gravely insult Banksy using only decorations available at Party City. Another clown comes in, joy-buzzes himself for no reason, and leaves. Then, a messenger clown gets attacked by yet another clown who comes out of the elevator with a bucket filled with confetti.

Somehow, this means two things:

A. George cannot use the elevator. He must take the stairs.

B. George acquires the messenger clown’s bag, hat, and nose, which now makes George the messenger, like what happens to that suicidal guy in the Piers Anthony book about Death.

doctor you have to help me

Third Floor: George is distracted by a clown walking down the stairs on his hands. He forgets what floor he is on, and so opens the door on the third floor to ask for directions. The third floor looks like the playroom in that Richard Pryor movie The Toy. The woman behind the desk looks like one of the Murmurs joined the Swiss Guard and sounds like Fran Drescher.

She hands George what looks like a twisted green bongpipe and then genuflects to the portrait of Dear Leader Pepe El Loco on the wall. She explains that the bongpipe is part of the “greatest clown gadget ever” and George must go to the fifth floor to pick up another piece of it. George tries the elevator, but as soon as the doors open, a clown shoots another clown out of a cannon. The clown that is thus ejaculated bounces off a trampoline and back into the elevator. Who could use an elevator with all that mindless bullshit going on? Not George—back to the stairs.

Meanwhile, MYH finds another parking spot, but it is reserved for elephants. A clown shows up on an elephant and demands that he move. MYH keeps driving; elephant is parked. The clown leaves the elephant, but only after he hits a button on his keyring and the elephant-car-alarm beeps.

At this point, I paused the show and screamed at the heavens. The heavens did not answer.

i am sad and depressed

Fifth Floor: George is dumber than a football bat. I wonder if his intelligence fades in and out, like a variable Flowers for Algernon. Sometimes he can build fabulous machines. Sometimes he can solve mysteries. Today, trapped in the Tower of Madness, George cannot count from three to five, and thus must walk all the way down to the first floor and start over.

On the first floor the clown and his dogs are still dancing. Stop asking why—hear you nothing that I say?

On the fifth floor a clown riding a baby’s tricycle and sounding like Snagglepuss gives George some sord of weird-ass metal thingie with a red disk on the end of it like that orgasm-game Commander Riker played on TNG. This clown says go to the second floor. George still can’t count, so he goes down to the first floor and watches the clown and his dogs for a bit.

A worm crawling in my brain tried to make me say WHY? but I ignored it.

life is harsh and cruel

Second Floor: Second floor was just Paul Lynde bouncing around on bedsprings tied to his shoes. George collects another piece of metal tubing, heads down to the first floor to watch the dogs-and-clown, and then climbs the stairs up to the eighth floor.

pagliacci is a famous clown

Eighth Floor: Edith Bunker is dusting a bicycle seat in front of the Macedonian flag. She gives the seat to George and tells him to go to the fourth floor.

George has an epiphany. Instead of walking back down to the first floor and then up to the fourth, he can instead tape numbers to all his fingers and use them to subtract eight from four.

MYH is still circling the parking lot. As soon as he says “I’ll NEVER find a parking spot!” a clown jumps out of nowhere and paints a parking spot around his car.

I begin to believe Marcel Duchamp and Frank Zappa wrote this episode in a Navajo sweatlodge.

pagliacci is in town today

Fourth Floor: The fourth floor is the swimming level from Super Mario Brothers. A seal gives George something that looks like a can of pepper spray. A clown with a Minnesota accent unfolds from a filing cabinet and tells George to go to floor ten.

Now, follow me on this. We were told at the beginning that Pepe El Loco’s show happens on the ninth floor. That was the whole reason George and MYH came to the clown school. Now we know there is a floor above nine. Why this made me want to eat aquarium gravel will be soon made clear.

you should go see pagliacci

Tenth Floor: Clown on stilts gives George a toilet plunger and says he better hurry to the first floor to meet Pepe El Loco. George hurries. The clown and dogs are gone. MYH and the great Pepe El Loco are there.

pagliacci will cheer you up

FIN: They all take the stairs to the ninth floor. Pepe El Loco’s all-important gadget is a disassembled pogo stick with the plunger as the bouncy part. He gets to the center ring of a three-ring circus just in time to bounce around and do little flips with it.

Y’all.

Y’ALL.

The ninth floor of this ten-floor building is a cavernous bigtop the size of the dadgum Astrodome. The ceiling is made of vaulted tent-canvas.

There is no tenth floor. THERE IS NO TENTH FLOOR EVEN THOUGH I SAW GEORGE GO TO THE TENTH FLOOR AND RETRIEVE A TOILET PLUNGER FROM A CLOWN ON STILTS

but doctor I am pagliacci

[asurint-blog]

Are You Shackled by Obsolete Recruiting Practices?

Cast your mind back to 1994, if you’re old enough to do so. Remember, Friends was a new sitcom on television, not a well hyped reunion tour. The internet was a newfangled thing, and the first online job website, Monster.com, had just launched there.  

Much has changed in the intervening quarter century, yet some human resources departments still believe their recruitment tactics are up-to-date as long as their job postings are on the most popular sites. The truth is, recruitment has come a long way, baby. Here are some signs your practices aren’t keeping up.  

1. You think social media is only for the Kardashians

Recruiters are really selling opportunity, and the savvy ones are leveraging the sales funnel like any good marketer would. An age-old term, the sales funnel demonstrates how customers—or in this case candidates—will, over time, gain awareness of a company, form an opinion, and ultimately engage, or not.

A funnel is, of course, broad at the top and narrow at the bottom. This means an employer must make a great impression on more people than will ever apply for a position. In a tight job market, companies can’t be satisfied reaching only active job seekers on Google or Indeed. They must entice passive and non-traditional candidates, too.

Social media is an invaluable tool for sharing a company’s culture with countless like-minded individuals and building relationships, which can culminate with employment. Additionally, online presence has significant impact when candidates are collecting information. An uninspiring Instagram page or harsh criticism on Glassdoor can be enough to turn an otherwise interested applicant away.

That’s why today’s best recruiters work to understand their target audiences and carefully curate a media presence for maximum appeal.

2. In-person interviews are required for every role

Many of us got into human resources because we value people and personal interactions, and this means we cherish the classic interview. As informative as speaking directly with candidates may be, however, we should recognize that interviews carry a large cost. Key decision-makers must allocate time to sit down with numerous individuals. And those individuals must, in turn, undergo the interview gauntlet.

At a time when top candidates are frequently off the market within 10 days, a burdensome interview process can take an employer out of the running. It makes sense, therefore, to consider alternative methods. For instance, video interviews, in which candidates record their responses to standard questions, can be completed on-demand. Or videoconferencing can bring multiple decision-makers and candidates together with less hassle than on-site conversations.

For some roles, the interview itself is going the way of the dodo. Retailers and other companies reliant on entry-level, seasonal, and even specialized personnel are finding that effective telephone screenings, complemented by skills assessments where appropriate, can be followed immediately by contingent offers. They’ve shifted the largely confirmative function of the interview to potential employees’ first day on the job, and they are staffing up successfully with this approach.

3.Pre-employment background screens take days or weeks

Many employers have gotten the message about time-efficient, candidate-centric recruiting. They’re casting a wide net online, making a great impression, and streamlining the process, only to lose talent at the penultimate stage, with the pre-employment screening. Sadly, any extra bureaucracy or wait time at this juncture can cause great applicants to leap to the next opportunity.

Most old school background check services haven’t kept up with current job seekers’ expectations. Their solutions remain separate from HR’s application tracking systems (ATS) and thus require additional data entry from recruiters or candidates themselves. The extra step increases the possibility of human error and incorrect background search results. And with the background check service sitting off to the side, results are more likely to be overlooked on hectic days and candidate notifications delayed. Moreover, many employment screening services are just plain slow, taking days or weeks to deliver an “all clear.”

For these reasons, the best recruiters have switched to background search solutions featuring ATS integration and a track record of instant clears and rapid-response investigations and drug testing. These systems reduce the burden of pre-employment screenings on HR staff, and they’ve become a necessary tool for any organization that wants to consistently secure their first choice hires.

4. Rejected applicants get the usual, “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

Yet another example of not taking optimization initiatives far enough—some recruitment operations have not reconsidered how rejections are handled. They may never notify candidates or never ask for their impressions of the recruitment process. Either way, these companies are missing out.

In fact, 62% of candidates who liked an employer’s recruitment experience would recommend the company to others, according to IBM. With word-of-mouth capable of reaching millions of people in nanoseconds, a small investment in making every candidate feel appreciated, regardless of whether they are selected, can reap outsized returns.

What’s more, many organizations are finding new value in their applicant universe. They’re reengaging candidates who weren’t the right fit for one opening but whose interest in the company and skill set make them a great prospect for another. When talent is so hard-won, why not preserve and promote these potentially helpful relationships?

5. HR doesn’t use data to manage talent

The emergence of big data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are offering HR leaders cutting-edge opportunities to automate and enhance their recruitment processes. From talent management software and résumé screening systems to AI-based candidate-to-job matching solutions and smarter background search technology, HR is benefiting from an array of exciting products and services. While some offerings are best trialed by risk-tolerant early adopters, the forward-thinking recruiter will keep an eye out for solutions delivering real results, right now.

There can be no doubt, getting ahead of the competition has become increasingly important as HR transforms into a strategic business partner. Because it’s a talent economy, and the organization with the best people wins.

[tessatechaitea]

New Titans #110

DC has been "unleashing" characters for over twenty-five years!

Twitter might be a smoking rectum of a filth and despair but let me tell you what it's given to me. I signed up to Twitter nearly ten years ago, mostly to secure the name Grunion Guy. I think my first tweet was "Why are they called Sixlets when there are only five colors?" Fucking insightful stuff, that. Anyway, at some point, a junior high school girl from Missouri followed me on Twitter. I followed her back and she lost her fucking mind because Grunion Guy started following her. It turned out, her and two of her best friends loved A Really Scary Story and some of Grunion Guy's other stories that were online (I say "Grunion Guy's other stories" and not "my other stories" because some of them (some of the best of them and certainly the first of them!) were not written by me. I just sort of took over the persona). Apparently the stories had been something fun they shared and they were excited to be acknowledged by Grunion Guy. They were funny and clever and I enjoyed reading their tweets and following their lives. Since then, I've watched them grow into compassionate, hilarious college students. I'm proud of them like I would be proud of my actual nieces if they were the kind of people to make me proud (ha ha! Just kidding, actual nieces! Whatever your names are!). But there's a dark side to this other aspect of Twitter, this allowing instant access between writers and their audience. For the most part, it's what makes Twitter truly terrible. But long before Twitter, fans already felt entitled to the stories they expected. But if they didn't get them, they actually had to write a letter that would almost certainly only be read by some person whose job was to act as a firewall to the creator. Now when Tom King writes Batman stories where Batman actually has to deal with the existential ramifications of taking on the role as sole arbiter of justice to the universe, Batman fans can tweet directly at him saying, "You suck! Batman is about punching things, idiot!" I would like to believe that most creators ignore what the audience claims they want and just continue to express what they feel they need to express. Art isn't about feeding the masses what they want; obviously it's about stroking one's ego as if it were a massive cock that just needed orgasmic release. Mostly when people scream at me for writing shit they don't agree with, it doesn't bother me. On the other hand, there's a part of me that feels proud that when those three young kids from Missouri found something they enjoyed in my writing and subsequently followed me on Twitter, they were able to find that the person behind those stories was somebody they actually enjoyed interacting with, somebody whose beliefs they could respect and agree with. I can't imagine how disappointing it must be for, say, a Dilbert fan to get online and follow the douche that does that comic book only to be greeted by his terrible politics and inane philosophies. Actually, I can't even imagine somebody being a Dilbert fan so that was probably a poor analogy. Ultimately I know that who I am doesn't matter when somebody reads A Really Scary Story (a story which, might I add, was once read out loud (by Daniel Heath Justice, no less!) before an audience that contained Connie Willis. So I'm practically a Hugo Award winner myself!). But I'd rather be seen as a somewhat enlightened, mostly compassionate moron than a selfish asshole who thinks they're the smartest fucker in the room. While I'm rambling on about Twitter, here's a little free advice for debating online: only respond to the person angrily responding to something you've written if your response makes you laugh. And never respond more than twice (only once if at all possible. I just say twice for a little bit of latitude). I generally don't engage in "discussion" on the Internet. I "write" posts. If somebody responds angrily, I'll either ignore it, say something whimsically stupid in response, or will clarify once and leave it at that. Most people having debates on the Internet seem to think that they're arguing their side and that they really have to make sure their point is understood. But that's a huge mistake! Because nearly 100% of the time, the angry respondent has intentionally misunderstood what you've written, and will continue to believe that what they said you said is what you said. So even one clarification is probably too much but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Very occasionally, the misunderstanding isn't intentional and we can part on good terms. Anyway, Dick is traveling through the rain forest looking for Kory this issue.

Dick seems shocked by the acrobatic oral sex customs of these indigenous peoples.

Dick finds Kory in the jungle telling stories of her homeworld to this Amazonian tribe. If Dick doesn't stop her, Starfire's stories will soon usurp the stories of the native tribe, being that they're far more exciting and filled with more aliens and space lasers. She's going to destroy this entire culture nearly as fast as a white Christian missionary! Before Starfire can supplant the basis of the village's cultural understanding of their place in the universe by telling space operas, the stars of one of her space operas attacks the village! And just as the story begins to get exciting, the scene changes to the bureaucracy of Checkmate running the Titans. Now that the Titans need the government's help to battle lawsuits brought against them for their familial disputes causing citywide destruction (which the Titans deny but, I mean, have they been reading their own comic book? Eighty percent of their battles are against family members and the other twenty percent are against villains who have a grudge against the Titans themselves), they're being given political missions by the government. On one hand, it's despicable that they're going to be used as pawns for political and corporate interests. On the other hand, there's at least a 50% chance they'll actually be helping to make the world a better place for once.

What a surprise. There first mission is against a guy who wants to make the world a better place by saving the environment! I wonder if the Titans uniforms will have Shell, Mobile, and Exxon patches added to them.

How do I not remember this guy? That was a rhetorical question that means "I love this guy! Why didn't I have a shirt with him on it?! Why did I spill so much semen over Lobo when this guy existed?!" What I really meant to say was "Terraist? No wonder nobody remembers this guy!" You know when something clever goes a bit too far into clever so that it becomes fucking idiotic instead? That's the name "Terraist." But he's cradling a cat and a rose and he's battling for the environment! How is this guy the bad guy?! Just because he lives in Zandia? Fucking racist, man. Oh wait. Maybe I should have listened to the rest of The Terraist's rant. He plans on destroying the world quickly unless government's stop all pollution immediately. That doesn't seem insane and unreasonable at all! But I don't think his cat is into it. The cat just wants a few nice chin scritches and a plate of fancy food. The lasers that hit the rain forest were part of The Terraist's attack to save the world by destroying it. Maybe I was wrong about judging the people of Zandia. Maybe they are all fucking assholes.

"We know you can't get into space but we need the Titans to stop Terraist and his death satellite!" "You know there are heroes that can fly into space?" "WE NEED YOU!"

Red Planet declares that they will help and Arsenal is all, "Are you fucking nuts?! I don't have a rocket arrow!" But Flash is all, "I used to hate you because you were a Communist and Russian, Leonid. I just wanted you to know!" Fucking Wally. Although in Wally's defense, I once said this same kind of bullshit. I once told Mistina La Fave of The Prids how I didn't really like their music the first time I heard them but that I loved the show I had just watched before saying that horrible thing to her. Now in my defense during Wally's defense, the first time I saw The Prids (way back in like 2000 or 2001, I think? Yeesh), I also saw The Faint for the first time (touring for Danse Macabre) and I can't be responsible for comparing everything else poorly in relation to that glorious spectacle. But I still suck for saying that thing. The Titans decide to accept help from Alexander Luthor since he's the only private citizen with a ship that can get them into space so they can stop an eco-terrorist from saving the environment in completely the wrong way. This was twenty five years ago. It's like nothing ever changes! Why does anything we do matter if we're just repeating the same shit over and over again?! Oh God, I'm so tired! New Titans #110 Rating: B-. If you were paying attention to the cover, you might be wondering when Baby unleashed his beest. It happened over one panel where he attacked Steve Dayton but Dayton instantly downed him with some neuro-laser. I'm not sure why Checkmate didn't hire Steve Dayton to take down The Terraist since, using the transitive property, if Dayton can defeat the Titans, he should also be able to defeat The Terraist. Also, he probably has a ship that he's not letting the Titans use because he's tired of being used by them. Also he might still be insane seeing as how he's working on another Mento Helmet. Maybe going insane is the cure for being insane? So a second Mento Helmet is the cure for a first Mento Helmet! Man, no wonder I'm not a genius. When I break my arm, I rarely ever think the cure is breaking it again! But then, I know I've heard doctors talking about rebreaking arms to help fix broken arms! So I really am stupider than I thought!

[polkadotkat]

I’m an INTJ Woman and I’m not cold

To those who don’t like verbosity, I apologize, but I make good points, so please read on.

I keep reading all these articles about INTJs and how cold and calculating they are. How they’re distant and private people. How they take a long time to open up to you...This pisses me off and I’m going to tumbl all over that nonsense.  First of all, I was raised by ENTPs. My family is full of NTs, and NPs in general. This made my J stand out like CRAZY. And it made me feel a lot of feelings as a teenager because NO ONE would hear me out (and by that I mean, listen to what I had to say and agree that my logic was irrefutable). They’d all tell me I was flying off the handle (and let’s be honest, y’all, any J is apt to fly off the handle when injustice slaps them in the face AND they’re hopped up on puberty hormones for a few acne-studded years). This was incredibly frustrating, but it did make me very aware of how my emotions would manifest themselves around issues of injustice and leadership. I became highly skilled in examining my emotions and sharing my thoughts and feelings in a detailed manner to help me argue my points on both rational and emotional levels. I learned to look for and ask for compassion so that people would listen to me long enough to see my side before shutting me down right away. I had to do this because a lot of people would just stop listening when I reacted to injustice in a passionate way. They didn’t like my passion or interest in leadership (often because I am a woman), so I had to show them my ability to empathize in order to be seen as a nurturing leader (the only type of leader women were allowed to be in an evangelical environment, for instance). And in many ways I am a great leader - I am great at showing people how to improve, giving them feedback on overarching patterns in their behavior, and recognizing systemic issues that affect all people involved in a process/system - but I had to learn how to do this in a tactful way for anyone to be able to give me leadership opportunities. I had to show that I could train new people well without expecting too much too fast for people to trust me to take on that kind of a role. There was a lot expected of me that wouldn’t have been expected of a man who was trying to do the same sort of thing.

And guys, it wasn’t that freakin’ hard to do. I just practiced talking out my thoughts and feelings to the people I trusted. I had a good inner circle, my whole life, because I needed people to talk to when I encountered obstacles that prevented me from taking on the leadership roles that I wanted. I also asked these friends to keep my ego in check, and they do. They tell me when I’m expecting too much of myself, when I’m beating myself up for not being good enough, and when I’m acting mightier or holier than thou. It’s good to have people you can trust to do that. And sometimes I react poorly to their feedback in the moment because I’m hurt, but I always say thank you and apologize soon after--I’m always immediately regretful of being mean about the feedback too, but sometimes my wounded ego takes a few days to heal before I apologize. I’m sick of reading INTJ profiles that act like INTJs are incapable of this. That’s BS. If I can do it, you can too, so stop your bellyaching, INTJs. If you want help, contact me. Or ask your favorite INP, they’ll give you a lowdown on how you hurt people and ask you questions until you figure your sh&t out.

I feel I’ve always been an open book with people, because I really have nothing to hide. I don’t like hypocrites, and I want people to call me out when I am one. If I expect people to be forthright about their issues with me, I’m going to be the same. If I have a problem, I’ll tell you and I am really not afraid of conflict. If we’re friends, I’ll share first about most aspects of my life. I know myself well, I reflect a lot, and I ask good questions that get both parties thinking and reflecting. I’m not at all a cold person. I’m blunt, but not cold. I’m serious, but I’m not cold. Nothing about me comes off as cold. Why does every INTJ profile say COLD!?!? I’ll get in a conflict with you and stay in it until we are both satisfied with the resolution - does that make me cold? I think it makes me stubborn as an ass, but not cold. Sure there are things I might be shy to open up about (they’re what most people keep private, like sex or money), but I push myself to share in those areas with a trustworthy person because I know that others will probably benefit from my story of pain/suffering/challenges/overcoming and I recognize that the shyness is mostly rooted in social norms and not logic/reason anyway.  But you all, I really don’t see my story showing up in other INTJ stories. And maybe it’s because I’ve tried to be more of a servant in order to become a leader and avoid some of the pushback that comes with just jumping right in, but I still feel like these other INTJ profiles, even other women INTJ profiles, leave out some of the skills and traits I’ve worked really hard to develop in order to adapt in the 21st century world. Maybe it’s being a millenial, who grew up within a very differently gendered society than the Gen Xers or baby boomers? But I’m definitely curious if other INTJ women (especially millenials) have felt similarly (please let me know!)

One reason I think I developed my F side so much was because in my most formative pre-teen and teenage years I was communicating mostly via instant messenger. For my Ni Te Fi functions, this was the perfect form of communication. I could intuit and feel alone, but think out loud with another person. I could turn my feelings into thoughts to share them and instantly read and interpret how others understood me. I was really comfortable interacting, because it was through a text medium and that was second nature to me. I was (and am) a very fast typer, and an even faster thinker. I could almost keep up with my thinking. And when I got bored, there were plenty of other interesting people or websites to interact with. Drama was always a few steps removed because I’d be able to walk away/sign off/block. It was great. But the people to whom I was loyal, of course, walked me through how to be a better friend. I was always drawn to NFPs (and a few NFJs, though they were hard for me to identify at age 12) who would teach me about being compassionate and get me to understand my hurtful behaviors. Sometimes it was them overreacting, and sometimes it was me not listening, but I worked hard to settle our scuffles because I loved them.  Over time, I think I managed to adapt an E like personality for internet relationships - I’m dynamic and funny and good at keeping in touch over email or messengers. I also feel like I managed to adapt my F to be a bit more of an empathetic and listening person. I also learned to love stories and center people’s voices and stories through everything. Being a sociology major in college helped immensely with this. Listening to the Moth podcast helped too. This trait has made me especially in tune to the idea that systems exist to serve people, and the moment a system stops serving people are starts serving itself, we need to work as swiftly as possible to change it. A wise INTJ will recognize that the way to investigate whether or not a system is in such a pickle is to actually listen to people’s stories about the system. Being a (Spanish) literature (and Sociology) major really helped me understand this as well. I recognized that bureaucracy and inefficiency were most easily recognized by listening to people’s stories about their interactions with systems. If an INTJ is so absorbed with making systems more efficient that she doesn’t listen to the stories of others about how they’ve been wronged by the system as it is, she won’t be a very effective leader, and she’ll fail to make any long-term changes that people actually buy into. It seems pretty obvious to me, since systems exist for people, that people need to buy into how the system will change in order for it to change, AND that systems need to benefit people (and not themselves) otherwise they’re ineffective/inefficient. OK? Great. Obviously there is a lot more to a person’s personality than just what the MBTI can tell you. Your gifts, skills, and adaptations are all developed and shaped by your experiences throughout your life, your relationships, and the environments in which you find yourself (where you’re most comfortable and least comfortable). For me, I was lucky enough to adapt feeling skills and masquerade as an I/ENFJ (who strangely never makes [big] decisions based on feelings). I’m definitely a passionate and strong personality, with enormous leadership potential and will rail against bad leaders until I’m blue in the face. This doesn’t make me a whole ton of friends. I’m easily frustrated by injustice, stupidity, unquestioning obedience, and inefficiency, which annoys the hell out of those around me when I actually express such feelings, because I can’t let go of how wrong things are. I also can’t stop examining and analyzing what could be better, and people who don’t see why these things matter to me can be easily hurt by it. But overall, I think I’m a lot wiser, a lot gentler, and a lot more feeling and willing to feel (I cry at least every three weeks, which is a TON for an INTJ, and I have no idea if it’s often for INTJ women, but I’d bet so) than the average INTJ, and certainly than the average INTJ depicted on most personality websites or even in articles written about INTJs by INTJs. So, tell me. Is anyone else out there like me? 

[flauntpage]

Review: Institutional Garbage

It’s December. The time of year when all the ‘Best Ofs’ and just-in-time-for-Christmas reviews spill out from the internet, beckoning you to consider your engagement with the year just passed. In January of this year, I was invited to “write something” about Institutional Garbage, a book published by The Green Lantern Press and edited by Lara Schoorl in conjunction with an exhibition of the same title. Like the residue that is the content in the book itself, my review got buried in the rubble of other demands. So as I (finally) sit down to write, three things are at the top of my mind:

Critical reviews of books usually serve two functions: to lure readers to read or buy the book in question, or to bolster the significance of the book or its contents.

Book reviews are derived from the books they review, which in turn are derived from their subjects. This means both are traces, at least once or twice removed from their sources. In other words, they are debris – the garbage leftover from experiences.

Reviews of books produced outside of a timeline deemed relevant to their release date are even more garbage-like.

This, of course, is subjective. But in this case of this review, given that Institutional Garbage the exhibition took place in 2016, that Institutional Garbage the book was published in 2018, and that my review of it takes place in the final dregs of 2019, I think it’s safe to say we’re in the garbage zone. Thus, I posit this a sort of ‘anti-review review’: one so late as to hardly be useful, and which is more a reflection on the possibility (or impossibility) of the book’s content, rather than a review of ‘come hither’ promotional value. Another trace.

So, what was (or is) Institutional Garbage?

According to those in charge of describing it, it (is/was) an experimental publication that endeavors to grasp the memory, feeling, and trace of an online (and physical) exhibition that took place in the fall of 2016 through Sector 2337. The (no longer extant) gallery’s website states that it is “the administrative residue of imaginary public institutions produced by artists, writers, and curators. Contracts, email correspondences, documented unproductivity, syllabi, scanned objects, obstacle courses, and other fragments were collected to illustrate the backend activities of imaginary bureaucracies, to trace the private life of institutional endeavors.”

But what (is/was) it really?

Having been to the physical space that was Sector 2337 three years ago during the time of the original exhibition, I have some impression. There were details about the exhibition printed on paper towels in the gallery’s bathroom by artist David Hall, which viewers wiped their hands on and promptly tossed (I kept mine, to add to my ironic consumable-art collection – ever more ironic in the face of Maurizio Cattelan’s recent exploits). There were physical performances, and a website I was encouraged to (and, my apologies) did not really engage with. Probably there were other things. Then came this book.

The authors of Institutional Garbage encourage you to go through it in any direction or order, which I promptly ignored in favour of a classic cover-to-cover engagement. The book, after all, does nothing to break convention. It is artfully designed in a way that I can only describe as contemporarily Dutch, like many of its contributors. (I get off saying this because I’ve lived in The Netherlands for the last two years, and trust me – any poster in any city for any purpose is done with near identical visual cadence and designerly minimalism, down to the Helvetica Neue and Knif Mono typefaces). In the midst of this perhaps atopical slickness, reading this book is a bit like an act of rummaging. I will categorize and highlight a few “finds” here:

Teasers: Daniel Borzutzky’s “Data Bodies (excerpt),” which came in the form fragments of poetry and text that left me wanting more, such as the rife-with-implications correspondences between Chelsea Manning and an unknown other in which she describes listening and lip-synching “to Lady Gaga’s Telephone while exfiltratrating possibly the largest data spillage in american history”

(Grimly Familiar) Traces: Jane Lewty’s “Dear Committee [To be Read Alongside CV],” which painfully engages institutional biases around gender and mental health

Gratifying/Formally Succinct Works: Lise Haller Baggesen’s “The Archive,” a series of science-fiction emails to be read from the first to the last (in other words, backward) that chronicle the interaction between two women around female genius in the year 2033, rife with productive feminist metaphor, and ending in a baby swap…

Negating/Formally Succinct Works: David Hall’s “The Lid on Garbage Can,” which does well not to appease in the robotic ‘spamming’ of its own text (a coded program that renders a fragment of barely sensible legalese completely incomprehensible)

Bird’s Eye View: Jill Magi’s “Thirteen Thoughts Contextualizing “Institutional Garbage”,” that describes garbage as an expression of middle-class consciousness/good citizenship, and waste management as theatre for an institution’s ecopolitical stance

Garbage: The overblown academic-speak of Rowland Saifi’s “Statement for a Configured Curriculum,” which exhibits a flagrant wastefulness of language: “A hermeneutic condition of Open Chronotope Objects is conducted in the state of Deep Interlocking Ambiguity and, therefore is in a state of multiplicity. This creates the condition of an Architecture of De-puzzlement.” Like most writing of this kind, one has to do backflips to get anything from it, even in context, and I won’t.

In the end, what struck me about Institutional Garbage was how my experience reading it was so very unlike the process of sifting through trash (a task that I have, in varying states of poverty and privilege, done a great deal of). The book does self-consciously attempt to complicate itself in some ways, as with the curatorial section largely blanked out with white ‘paint’ (then promptly ‘explained’ by descriptions of the actual events curated for Sector 2337), with images of these performances Ben Day dotted to near oblivion, and with mixtures of fact and fiction. But the strong curatorial vision and inherent desire to preserve the integrity and relevance of its contributors is staunchly maintained.

Perhaps the only clear thwart I found was buried deep in Institutional Garbage, in Jill Magi’s “Curious, Fugitive, and Unedited (The Art Labor Archive of Teaching Days).” In this writing, Magi re-presents “the detritus of in-class writing exercises” by her students as part of her own work titled “The Labor Archive.” It is unclear whether or not she obtained permission for this, but her “dangerous citational practices” are precisely where the rubber meets the road. As any homeless person in the United States could tell you, trash becomes public property once it leaves private grounds. This is what makes dumpster diving possible, and why some businesses have resorted to compacting or, even more heinous, to poisoning food waste to keep humans out of it. In some ways, I almost wish the creators of this publication hadn’t curated or commissioned anything at all, but rather had taken what they wanted from what institutional garbage they could access. What would the ramifications have been for a publication which picked through digital trash, and braved negotiating the line between digital garbage and digital property?

In their emails to one another, Caroline Picard and Lara Schoorl speculate on the impossibility of a perfect, imaginary, “alternative, ideal, utopic institution” might look like. As a reader, the more pressing questions at hand seem to be these: are curating and garbage-making polar opposites? And what does it mean for curators to ‘make garbage’ (render slightly less clear, slightly less complete, and in some cases, slightly less contextual) the practices of art-adjacent people? I’m reminded of Marcel Duchamp’s “sixteen miles of string,” which in order to achieve its overarching vision intentionally paved over and inhibited viewing other work in the exhibition. Contemporarily, of course, it’s a dating faux pas to view curation in this light. In Institutional Garbage, Tricia Van Eck produces a hand-written letter called “Alchemy and Curation,” stating that “[…] it’s important for curators and artists in group shows (and even in solo shows) to share the oxygen in the space for all artworks to breathe.” Trash is stifling – it erases meaning through its surplus of meaning and scarcity of space. Aesthetically, this book has a lot of breathing room.

Of course, proclamations of impossibility and desirable failure such as those in the correspondences between Schoorl and Picard are like get-out-of-jail-free cards that anticipate any potential wrongdoings. But I think the real key to Institutional Garbage lies in Fulla Abdul-Jabbar’s essay, “Always,” at the book’s end:

  “What we really want from our time with this book is that which is not this.

I don’t think you mean to sound that way.

Do you mean to say it like this?

Perhaps you can rephrase this.

Can you expand on this?”

  To which we respond, of course, always. But not now.

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Epilogue:

On a small shelf in my house a sun-baked candy from Félix González-Torres “Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)” oozed and leaked in dangerous proximity to my Ai Weiwei “Sunflower Seeds.” So I took David Hall’s paper towel program and wiped it up. I’m not sure, but I think this has something to do with art.

Thank You, Kathryn.

Shit is REAL

Will I Space Close from Lack of Funds?

Top 5 Weekend Picks! (6/28-6/30)

Top 5 Weekend Picks! (2/18 & 2/19)

Review: Institutional Garbage published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[papaculture]

Ivor the Engine

There is a moment in most parents’ lives when their children discover trains. Having been a budding trainspotter myself — and briefly, if less glamorously, a bus-spotter — I’m at a loss to fully explain the magic that things on wheels possess. To be honest, I’m still slightly magicked.

Most magical of all trains is, of course, the steam engine. With its belly of fire and snout of steam (the mechanics of which appear reasonably and appealingly explicable to a young ‘un), it’s the closest most kids will get to coming face-to-face with a mythical beast.

Trains are also all about rules. While cars and trucks are unwieldy and unpredictable, capable of going anywhere, a train (and to a lesser extent, a bus) is confined to a fixed course. I suspect there is a comfort in that.

Signals and junctions and forks and turntables provide kids with a whole language of control. As a six-year-old, I used to plot extravagant courses with marker pen and butcher’s paper and run my Matchbox trains to a strict timetable. Clearly, I had issues.

Thomas the Brown Noser

For Child One, the train obsession really took off when she was two. It sprang from her early love of books. We found a beautiful volume of Thomas The Tank Engine stories in a Chapel Street op shop, which tickled her bibliophilia and my nostalgia bone. While One enjoyed the stories (except the distressing one where Henry was bricked into a tunnel), it didn’t take me long to realise the Thomas stories are pretty seriously unpleasant.

Leaving aside the issues around gender representation (the later books attempt to redress this somewhat, but even then it’s often a female engine a) causing trouble or b) trying to prove she’s almost as good as the boys), there’s a real well of nastiness to Thomas.

The engines are constantly bickering and attempting to “pay each other out”. Their sole purpose to is to become “really useful engines” — rather literal cogs in the machine. The Fat Controller is a cruel headmaster figure, frequently delivering extreme scolding and punishments.

If you went to an English boarding school in the 1950s, it would likely feel grimly familiar. Likewise if you went on to work in a bullying corporate environment. I quite enjoyed a recent theory that argued that the Isle of Sodor is actually set in a dystopian parallel universe.

Ivor the Engine

Looking to cater to One’s new obsession with steam, I remembered Ivor The Engine. As a child, I’d had two Ivor books — The Elephant and The Dragon. Written by Oliver Postgate and illustrated by Peter Firmin (the duo behind Bagpuss, Noggin the Nog and Clangers), these lyrical tales are a perfect antidote to Thomas’s brutal world of bureaucracy, backbiting and workaholism.

In one of the stories, Ivor and his driver take the day off to go fishing. When Thomas tries his hand at angling, it nearly kills him and he learns to keep his mind on the job.

Ivor doesn’t have a face or a voice. He doesn’t even have a name (Ivor is a nickname because “the  Locomotive of the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited… was a long name for a little engine”). But through his whistled interactions with driver (and interpreter) Jones the Steam, he is given more depth and humanity than any of Awdry’s trains.

Ivor lives in rail shed attached to a railway in the top left-hand corner of Wales, a branch line that is described as being neither long nor important. When he proves himself useful, it’s as a member of the local community rather than through ruthless efficiency. He helps lure pigeons from a villager’s roof, assists a wounded elephant, saves lost sheep and runs packages to the needy up and down his branch line. When hunters threaten the lives of a local family of foxes, Ivor and Jones effect a clever escape.

While Thomas and “friends” are in constant competition to prove themselves the fastest, prettiest or most efficient worker, Ivor instead takes pleasure from his surroundings, his friends and, well, just being alive. There's mindfulness for you.

POOP POOP POOPETY-POOP went Ivor’s whistle as they rounded the bend above Llaniog. He wasn’t whistling a warning. He wasn’t whistling a signal. He was whistling for the joy of being alive and steaming, for the joy of seeing the cows in the fields and the sheep on the hills and the big wheel of the Pit spinning in the sunshine.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to see a touch of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milkwood to the writing here, which embraces its Welsh setting through a conversational style peppered with colourful turns of phrase. Even if a parent isn’t bold enough to attempt a Welsh accent, these books are a joy to read aloud.

Rail Against The Machine

Bureaucracy is often the enemy here. In the first story, Ivor decides he wants to join the local choir, so Dai the Station has to check if it’s against regulations. (Head office ultimately sign off on it.) In The Dragon (star Idris is “not one of your lumping great fairy-tale dragons… [but] a small trim, heraldic Welsh dragon, glowing red-hot and smiling”), Dai tries to force Ivor’s scaly new friend out of his firebox and into the “proper container for carrying livestock”. Later, Idris is forced to flee from the railway after an “investigation” is launched into his existence.

“NO!” cried Idris. “No! Dragons are mythical! No, I must not be investigated! No! No! No!”

Thankfully, the local community come together to shield Idris from the excoriating gaze of authority.

Most frighteningly, Ivor himself is threatened when the owners of his railway decide to sell off to a national company that plans to replace him with a diesel. (Not quite as frightening as when Thomas’s cronies are threatened with the scrapyard.) His salvation comes not by proving himself a vital asset to the functioning of the marketplace, but rather as repayment for his past kindnesses.

There is a joy and a magic to these tales that doesn’t undermine the background texture of social realism — the mines, the gasworks, the fish and chip shop. Thomas might depict society as it often is, but Postgate and Firmin offer a glimpse of community as it should be. People who delight in their interactions, who tolerate eccentricity and who find pleasure in their work but are not crushed by the weight of material aspirations.

Compassion and Contentment

The real star, Ivor aside, is Jones the Steam. He is a man in his element, happy in himself and his work and seemingly wanting nothing more. He doesn’t aspire to be a station master or to run his own railway. Although he enjoys performing his errands, Jones’s greatest pleasure is making his morning cup of tea from Ivor’s boiler.

He is compassionate and sensitive, always keen to help, and blind to his own quirks. It’s left to us to decide whether Ivor has an intelligence (I think he does) or whether Jones merely ascribes one to him. Other characters rib him for talking to Ivor, but affectionately so. There is no cruelty here. Only once do we see Jones lose his temper, when dealing with a truculent elephant.

I first encountered these stories as books, without realising they were sprung from a television series that originally screened in the 1950s and 1960s. (The books are far from the usual afterthought cash in, each story lovingly rewritten and reillustrated by the original team.) 

The colour episodes are available on DVD and were some of the first television we showed to Child One. There is an enchanting simplicity to the cut-out animation and a leisurely pace to the storytelling that makes them feel very much like a picture book brought to gentle life.

Postgate does most of the voices himself. He is a perennially comforting, sedate presence. As Charlie Brooker once wrote: “there is no more calming sound in the world than the voice of Oliver Postgate. With him narrating your life, you'd feel cosy and safe even during a gas explosion. It floated above all these stories, that voice; wound its way through them.”

The episodes are also available (in pretty terrible quality) on YouTube and, thanks to Postgate’s tender narration, make for delightful audiobooks if you leave the screen off. By a stroke of luck, I recently found a copy of ten of the stories on vinyl.

BOOKS

The Ivor books are all out of print, but readily available via eBay or Abe’s Books.

Ivor The Engine Storybook (published 1982). This is the perfect starter, containing four tales. The First Story, Snowdrifts, The Elephant and The Dragon. Hardbound. Each story takes about 10 minutes to read.

The First Story

Snowdrifts

The Elephant

The Dragon

Ivor’s Birthday

The Foxes

All released in hardback in the early 1990s.

DVD

The Complete Ivor The Engine (Universal Pictures, 2006, 186 minutes)

All the colour episodes of the classic Sixties and Seventies children's series. Enjoy once again the adventures of Welsh steam engine Ivor, Jones the Steam and the good people at the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company - not to mention the dragon and his chestnut barrow!

AUDIO

Ivor The Engine And Pogles Wood by Vernon Elliott

Not sure how much the kids will enjoy this, but it’s pretty delightful. Woodwind and brass score, which (like the sound effects from the TV show) has the benefit of being easily imitated by non-musical parents

MERCHANDISE

Not a lot. There’s a board game I haven’t played, some resin models of Ivor and — perhaps most tempting — a plush Idris the Dragon (not baby safe). Etsy has a few handmade treasures.

THE SHORT STUFF

Age and stage: 2+

Gender stuff: not great. There's a female vet, female shopkeepers and a batty old woman or two, but that's about it. I tend to read the dragon as female, but he's described as being male.

Drama: minimal, with few moments of tension. When younger, Child One was only distressed by the fox hunting sequence in The Foxes (spoiler: the fox lives).

Outdated bits: leaving aside the old school tech and above-mentioned gender issues, it's hard not to feel uneasy about the stereotyped Indian elephant keeper. There's otherwise a distinct lack of diversity.

Themes: community, individuality, compassion, anti-bureaucracy, mindfulness, tolerance, contentment, mythology, the wonder of steam.

[thecloudlight-blog]

New Post has been published on Cloudlight

New Post has been published on https://cloudlight.biz/how-to-play-computer-games-for-a-living/

How to play computer games for a living

Last month most beneficial league membership West Ham announced an exciting new signing. However, it wasn’t the full returned or center forward the membership so desperately desires – West Ham had signed Jamboo, a 21-yr-old who is currently ranked as the primary player at FIFA17 at the Xbox, to the membership’s ‘eSports’ group.

Sure, human beings truly can make an actual dwelling from gambling laptop games all day. So how does it paintings? If you’re a wizard at Mario Kart, may want to you turn it right into a salary?

The large earners for gaming pros are the most important tournaments held the world over – and on occasion televised – because the prize money may be full-size.

Consistent with the eSports Champions internet site, about £439 million may be given out in prize cash this yr.

Remaining 12 months, the members of the triumphing team at Dota 2’s

The International tournament bagged £1.forty two million Every. By contrast, prevailing the golf US Open Final yr ‘best’ netted Dustin Johnson £1.four million.

The eSports Champions web page claims that 27 humans have earned more than $1 million (around £780,000) in prize money from gaming to date, even as greater than 500 have pocketed winnings in extra of £80,000.

There are loads of events taking area on a normal basis, or even visiting gala’s, encompassing a number of various video games.

The closing weekend as an example the DreamHack event in Austin, Texas befell, with a gaggle of tournaments for special video games, which includes Hearthstone, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Avenue Fighter V.

In overall prizes given out at DreamHack Austin came to a totally first rate £267,000.

You may even come to be on the telly

Areas Of Misuse Of Computers And The Internet – Computer Misuse Act

You must already be acquainted with facts [data: information without context, for example, a list of students with serial numbers, is data. When these figures represent the placement in a 100-meter race, the data becomes an information] and PC misuse [the data stored electronically is easier to access]; with software program [software: a general term used to describe an application or program], which won’t be reproduced without permission. The effects result in software piracy [piracy: the acquisition, benefit from the use or making changes to copyright material without prior permission]; and hacking, and can lead to statistics corruption; accidental or deliberate.

Forms of laptop Misuses

Misuse of computers and communique may be in distinct bureaucracy:

Hacking

Hacking is when an unauthorized character makes use of a network [Network: A group of interconnected computers]and a web modem [modem: a piece of hardware that connects the computer to the Internet] to get right of entry to safety passwords or other safety of information saved on every other computer. Hackers from time to time use software hacking equipment and frequently goal a few sites on the Internet. Their exploitation isn’t always only confined to non-public networks however additionally to government and corporate computer networks.

Misuse of facts and unauthorized switch or reproduction

Copying and illegally shifting facts quick and without difficulty online using computer systems and big garage devices which includes difficult disk drives [HDD: a device used to store large volumes of data, on a hard disk], memory sticks [memory stick: a thumb-sized portable storage device mainly used for transferring files between computers] and DVDs [Digital Versatile Disc- used to store data, for example, a film]. Non-public facts, organization research, and written paintings, inclusive of novels and textbooks can’t be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder.

Copying and distribution of copyright software program, tune, and movie

This also applies to the copying of music and movies to circulate at the Net without the copyrights [copyright: Indicates the creator of an original piece of work and controller of the publication, distribution, and adaptation] authorization holder. This is a massive misuse of each computer and the Net that overlooks the copyrights regulations and rules.

Pornography

A huge part of indecent fabric and pornography is available via the Internet and may be stored in electronic shape. There were numerous instances of materials which are categorized as unlawful, or that display unlawful acts, discovered saved on computers, susceptible to prosecution for possession of those substances.

Identification and financial misuses

This topic covers misuse of stolen credit card numbers to attain goods or services at the Internet, and the usage of computer systems in monetary frauds. These can variety from complex nicely concept deceptions to simple programs, such as printing of counterfeit currency the usage of shade printers.

Some Reasons Why Kids Love To Play Games

Kids are in love with video games. That is because games are brief and they attract Children with all the animation and moving photos. It’s far to be mentioned that the video games youngsters like to play are not among the ones which can be smooth to play. Most of them are quite tough which are tough to master. Exploring these kinds of games takes the time to learn thru centered gambling and therefore mastering on the quit.

It isn’t a truth that on which sort of tool they’re gambling the games. The video games can be each video games and the Pc games. each type of gadgets does appeal to them. There are several motives why kids like to play games.

After they had been asked that what pursuits them to play games so much

Maximum in their solutions was the love it relaxes them and places them out in their learning and homework pressures. In a manner, they’re pretty actual. These days the Children are a great deal pressurized with studies. Pronouncing this I do no longer mean that research is bad. No! It’s miles honestly that there needs to be a right stability that should be maintained so that the Kids discover the time to recreate and refresh their minds.

Any other reason that Most of the youngsters have highlighted are that they are able to shape groups with friends and revel in the games. Sure, That is what you could call a bonus of modern-day generation. games have become interactive. Team contributors can engage with every other, help them in video games.

Why should dad and mom permit their youngsters to play games?

Properly, in case you are a discern and worrying about your child’s gambling conduct then I might say It’s far pretty herbal. However, I assure you now not to worry a whole lot. Just make sure that they’re gambling the right sort of games. There are games which have been designed to growth the intelligence of the kid. Some games boom their learning and memory.

In case your infant is a preschooler allow them to play video games that teach them A, B, C, D or 1, 2, 3, four. There are sure apps which additionally teach them to jot down and study the phrases related to it. Even the college goers can advantage with the aid of gambling games that want strategies and trouble-solving skills. In the end, your baby will remember that winning and dropping is a part of the game and triumphing will become less difficult if they are able to learn how to rectify their mistakes.

Living With Pets: What Can It Do For You?

Man’s love for animals is quality exemplified by his ardor for pets. Many people have lived with pets, ordinarily domesticated kinds because of many motives. Considered one of that’s due to health motives.

In keeping with numerous studies, pets significantly assist in lowering the stress in their proprietors. Humans generally tend to turn out to be extra relaxed after gambling or spending some time with their pets. There is similar research that found out pets influence the moods of humans.

In lots of places, animals like puppies and cats are actually used within the therapies of men and women with essential contamination. They help deliver tremendous mindsets to sufferers which in turn assist them to reply higher to the medications administered to them.

Families who very own pets also attest that having pets at home make kids expand a sense of responsibility at their early ages.

They take care of the animals, feed them, and play with them.

Every other benefit of living with pets is associated with safety. Animals are recognized to expand loyalty to their proprietors. As such, they understand who they may be living with. In many cases, it has been established that pets play crucial roles in safeguarding houses which additionally they treat as their very own. puppies bark at humans who they hardly ever see or by no means sees at all.

Animals have also instincts and senses that are a long way more advanced than what people have. They are able to odor smoke, chemical compounds, and other materials that may pose the chance to Man. There also are proofs In lots of information around the sector that pets can shop lives of human beings in risk.

There were times while dogs deliver people out of burning homes.

There are educated cats that can appropriately enter bubbles and lead trapped people out.

Despite the many proven advantages of residing with pets, there also are drawbacks. This type of is related to the maintenance of fixtures. Even though pets are domesticated and educated, They could still display their wild aspect and harm furnishings like couch and beds. If left uncaged, they also can play with flowers and other garden or garden substances.

If you have pets and you are planning on taking them with you to your new residence, better don’t forget the advantages and drawbacks mentioned here.

Distinctive neighborhoods also have Different guidelines and policies on the subject of pet ownership. You have to follow them in case you do not want to broaden issues with your neighbors.

Your neighborhood actual property agent permit you to find a home in a neighborhood which significantly appreciates pets.

[soulcrazy2017-blog]

Roblox Has Raised $92 Million To Expand Its Gaming Platform

New Post has been published on https://soulcrazy.org/roblox-has-raised-92-million-to-expand-its-gaming-platform/

Roblox Has Raised $92 Million To Expand Its Gaming Platform

Social gaming platform Roblox announced Tuesday that it had raised a $92 million spherical of funding, led by Meritech Capital Companions and Index Ventures. Joining the Roblox board because of the deal (in observer seats) are Meritech’s Managing Director Craig Sherman and Index co-founder Neil Rimer.

Roblox

Roblox is a three-D sandbox platform aimed commonly at youngsters and young adults. The platform allows for its users to create buildings, make games, and do other forms of reports for other users.

“We’ve got a vision of creating an imagination platform – the final platform for play,” stated CEO David Baszucki. “A place for children around the sector to play, create, construct, and believe together.”

“We’re already worthwhile,” Baszucki persevered. “However we wanted to bolster stability sheet as we pursue our vision.”

The primary focus of the new investment is in hiring and assist of the company’s infrastructure. If not anything else than to keep track of its developing reputation. The sport currently has 48 million lively customers gambling The game every month. And to offer you an idea of how a great deal boom it is seeing after I interviewed Baszucki 5 years ago, the employer was seeing seven million lively customers a month.

Roblox is hiring at a growing price, too. As of December 31, 2013, the employer had sixty-eight employees. By way of the give up of 2016, it had 163 – and the range’s only going to develop to help the participant base. And even though the employer might no longer divulge specific numbers, they did declare that their sales in 2016 turned into eleven times better than it turned into in 2011.

Its users see some that revenue, too. A touch over three years in the past, the employer opened up sales sharing for its customers, letting them rate different players for positive games or stories the use of Roblox’s in-platform currency. The sales sharing has been very a hit for its top builders, who would possibly earn $50,000 or greater according to month. A few developers, Baszucki said, are even forming studios especially to create video games and studies for Roblox’s platform.

Platform

Developed by the Roblox Company, and compatible with Microsoft Windows, Roblox is a downloadable sport that requires 1.8 Ghz processor and 512 MB of RAM. It’s far an internet recreation that calls for Net connection and is a multiplayer recreation, too, so your baby will be able to talk and interact with other gamers. When your infant downloads The sport she or he might be able to personalize the man or woman that they need to play as using selecting a spread of things from the catalog. In this catalog, there are many things which can be created by using the customers of The sport, extra sorts of things which can be already gifted, too, made by way of the Roblox organization, and your child will have the capacity to choose matters consisting of apparel for his or her person that is non-public and representative of your toddler’s desire and style.

Also your toddler can choose fashions for their characters that nice constitute them and pix, specific styles of heads and faces are available, as properly, so your infant may be able to create a form of avatar that is excellent consultant of who they may be and they will feel as they actually are playing The game. They can select equipment, too, from the catalog, that they’ll use in The game, in addition to diverse other units that could help them after they start playing. In case your infant subscribes to Roblox and turns into a member, they can also have palms, legs, and torsos which might be made and designed with the aid of the agency and with the intention to distinguish their characters from nonparticipants who nevertheless have to get entry to all other capabilities of the package. If your baby may be very pleased with his or her advent, then he or she will take it to the Roblox catalog, and if It’s far preferred with the aid of different characters and players, then it may come to be part of the catalog as nicely, and other human beings can pick out it inside the destiny.

Roblox offers over eight million varieties of video games that your toddler can take part in. Your child gets to select a genre for the region wherein they will play The game, and They can pick pieces to build from that have been already made or can create custom worlds wherein They can play the use of block fashion elements that they devise words from that are regularly maze-like. Normally a participant could make approximately 100 one of a kind locations using blocks for constructing which might be given to them in an unlimited amount and supply. Even as the player is building, They can use Lua scripting, which allows them to music their constructing procedure by growing a button and doing other matters that decorate the building enjoy.

In fact, the builder may even use GUIs to assist them to construct, and with those GUIS, that were once simplest used by directors, gamers could make a manipulate panel for a game with buttons and alternatives that permit them to do certain matters. There may be a massive sense of custom constructed and self-made amusing in Roblox because the places are constructed through the players and the aggressive nature of The sport rises from the fact that numerous it changed into a self made, down to the buttons and the panels for control alternatives.

Players Also play for cash currencies, as they earn it relying on matters they do and have the capacity to alternate Robux and Tickets after they want to buy matters. When humans visit the locations that they have got constructed, they’re awarded this forex, and whenever they log into The sport, also they get paid. Additionally, if individuals need to promote their very own creations, too, they’ll earn cash that way, as properly.

Video games are the maximum common forms of electronic video games today. These provide human interplay with the assist of person interface, enter and output devices. Video games are performed with the assist of various gadgets namely the input controller, predominant console, and a visual display unit. The users use a sure enter device Additionally called recreation controllers to generate visual feedback on the video device and all that is managed by the main console.

The platforms thru which video games are played were evolving since the beginning. From easy pinball machines to arcade machines, they had been played with exclusive devices. There are several structures to be had for playing electronic games in recent times. The popular ones are namely: personal Computer Systems, Video game Consoles, and Mobile gadgets.

Non-Public Computers

Private Computer systems are one of the most convenient varieties of Online game systems available today. They may be laptop Computers or Laptops with a special hardware configuration that enables customers to load up and run those video games on their system. The device needs to include an effective primary reminiscence and Also an image processing memory called GPU. Powerful GPUs are taken into consideration better for producing superb output. Collectively with those and different not unusual hardware of Pc together with a show reveal, keyboard and mouse video games may be without problems performed.

Personal Computer systems also can be configured with extra gadgets like joysticks to make the experience better. The experience also can be improved by using connecting Computer systems to large Tv displays with the help of cables like HDMI or VGA cable that the Television supports. Collectively with these kind of, private Computer systems serve as a first-rate gaming platform.

Online game Consoles

Online game consoles are devices which might be mainly created just to play video games. They come with input gadgets consisting of a joystick and the main unit that does all of the processing work. They are connected to Television displays as a way to see the visible feedback of the consoles.

There are numerous kinds of consoles to be had within the marketplace nowadays. The famous ones are Xbox 360, Wii and Playstation three as an example. These have ended up a reachable name for electronic game consoles. There also are hand-held consoles such as Nintendo DS and PSP Vita. These handheld consoles are mild in length and characteristic their display unit. So, the Video game consoles are any other popular platform that’s extensive to be had nowadays.

Cell Gaming structures

Gaming

The rise of Cellular gadgets delivered Cellular gaming to the scene. Mobile games are performed on cell telephone gadgets or handheld capsules. These two are the principle systems for gambling Cell games. Mobile video games are available in diverse bureaucracy. The Mobile video games are typically constructed for the running system that the phones have. Nowadays the modern ones are Android Mobile running device and iOS for iPhones. There also are other Cellular operating structures consisting of Windows Cellular and Firefox OS.

Heaps and Heaps of games are available on the Mobile platform. This is probably due to the reality that the Mobile devices are becoming genuinely famous each different day. Games are to be had without cost or for a rate; they can be easy or maybe be filled with complicated high pics.

[flauntpage]

Review: Institutional Garbage

It’s December. The time of year when all the ‘Best Ofs’ and just-in-time-for-Christmas reviews spill out from the internet, beckoning you to consider your engagement with the year just passed. In January of this year, I was invited to “write something” about Institutional Garbage, a book published by The Green Lantern Press and edited by Lara Schoorl in conjunction with an exhibition of the same title. Like the residue that is the content in the book itself, my review got buried in the rubble of other demands. So as I (finally) sit down to write, three things are at the top of my mind:

Critical reviews of books usually serve two functions: to lure readers to read or buy the book in question, or to bolster the significance of the book or its contents.

Book reviews are derived from the books they review, which in turn are derived from their subjects. This means both are traces, at least once or twice removed from their sources. In other words, they are debris – the garbage leftover from experiences.

Reviews of books produced outside of a timeline deemed relevant to their release date are even more garbage-like.

This, of course, is subjective. But in this case of this review, given that Institutional Garbage the exhibition took place in 2016, that Institutional Garbage the book was published in 2018, and that my review of it takes place in the final dregs of 2019, I think it’s safe to say we’re in the garbage zone. Thus, I posit this a sort of ‘anti-review review’: one so late as to hardly be useful, and which is more a reflection on the possibility (or impossibility) of the book’s content, rather than a review of ‘come hither’ promotional value. Another trace.

So, what was (or is) Institutional Garbage?

According to those in charge of describing it, it (is/was) an experimental publication that endeavors to grasp the memory, feeling, and trace of an online (and physical) exhibition that took place in the fall of 2016 through Sector 2337. The (no longer extant) gallery’s website states that it is “the administrative residue of imaginary public institutions produced by artists, writers, and curators. Contracts, email correspondences, documented unproductivity, syllabi, scanned objects, obstacle courses, and other fragments were collected to illustrate the backend activities of imaginary bureaucracies, to trace the private life of institutional endeavors.”

But what (is/was) it really?

Having been to the physical space that was Sector 2337 three years ago during the time of the original exhibition, I have some impression. There were details about the exhibition printed on paper towels in the gallery’s bathroom by artist David Hall, which viewers wiped their hands on and promptly tossed (I kept mine, to add to my ironic consumable-art collection – ever more ironic in the face of Maurizio Cattelan’s recent exploits). There were physical performances, and a website I was encouraged to (and, my apologies) did not really engage with. Probably there were other things. Then came this book.

The authors of Institutional Garbage encourage you to go through it in any direction or order, which I promptly ignored in favour of a classic cover-to-cover engagement. The book, after all, does nothing to break convention. It is artfully designed in a way that I can only describe as contemporarily Dutch, like many of its contributors. (I get off saying this because I’ve lived in The Netherlands for the last two years, and trust me – any poster in any city for any purpose is done with near identical visual cadence and designerly minimalism, down to the Helvetica Neue and Knif Mono typefaces). In the midst of this perhaps atopical slickness, reading this book is a bit like an act of rummaging. I will categorize and highlight a few “finds” here:

Teasers: Daniel Borzutzky’s “Data Bodies (excerpt),” which came in the form fragments of poetry and text that left me wanting more, such as the rife-with-implications correspondences between Chelsea Manning and an unknown other in which she describes listening and lip-synching “to Lady Gaga’s Telephone while exfiltratrating possibly the largest data spillage in american history”

(Grimly Familiar) Traces: Jane Lewty’s “Dear Committee [To be Read Alongside CV],” which painfully engages institutional biases around gender and mental health

Gratifying/Formally Succinct Works: Lise Haller Baggesen’s “The Archive,” a series of science-fiction emails to be read from the first to the last (in other words, backward) that chronicle the interaction between two women around female genius in the year 2033, rife with productive feminist metaphor, and ending in a baby swap…

Negating/Formally Succinct Works: David Hall’s “The Lid on Garbage Can,” which does well not to appease in the robotic ‘spamming’ of its own text (a coded program that renders a fragment of barely sensible legalese completely incomprehensible)

Bird’s Eye View: Jill Magi’s “Thirteen Thoughts Contextualizing “Institutional Garbage”,” that describes garbage as an expression of middle-class consciousness/good citizenship, and waste management as theatre for an institution’s ecopolitical stance

Garbage: The overblown academic-speak of Rowland Saifi’s “Statement for a Configured Curriculum,” which exhibits a flagrant wastefulness of language: “A hermeneutic condition of Open Chronotope Objects is conducted in the state of Deep Interlocking Ambiguity and, therefore is in a state of multiplicity. This creates the condition of an Architecture of De-puzzlement.” Like most writing of this kind, one has to do backflips to get anything from it, even in context, and I won’t.

In the end, what struck me about Institutional Garbage was how my experience reading it was so very unlike the process of sifting through trash (a task that I have, in varying states of poverty and privilege, done a great deal of). The book does self-consciously attempt to complicate itself in some ways, as with the curatorial section largely blanked out with white ‘paint’ (then promptly ‘explained’ by descriptions of the actual events curated for Sector 2337), with images of these performances Ben Day dotted to near oblivion, and with mixtures of fact and fiction. But the strong curatorial vision and inherent desire to preserve the integrity and relevance of its contributors is staunchly maintained.

Perhaps the only clear thwart I found was buried deep in Institutional Garbage, in Jill Magi’s “Curious, Fugitive, and Unedited (The Art Labor Archive of Teaching Days).” In this writing, Magi re-presents “the detritus of in-class writing exercises” by her students as part of her own work titled “The Labor Archive.” It is unclear whether or not she obtained permission for this, but her “dangerous citational practices” are precisely where the rubber meets the road. As any homeless person in the United States could tell you, trash becomes public property once it leaves private grounds. This is what makes dumpster diving possible, and why some businesses have resorted to compacting or, even more heinous, to poisoning food waste to keep humans out of it. In some ways, I almost wish the creators of this publication hadn’t curated or commissioned anything at all, but rather had taken what they wanted from what institutional garbage they could access. What would the ramifications have been for a publication which picked through digital trash, and braved negotiating the line between digital garbage and digital property?

In their emails to one another, Caroline Picard and Lara Schoorl speculate on the impossibility of a perfect, imaginary, “alternative, ideal, utopic institution” might look like. As a reader, the more pressing questions at hand seem to be these: are curating and garbage-making polar opposites? And what does it mean for curators to ‘make garbage’ (render slightly less clear, slightly less complete, and in some cases, slightly less contextual) the practices of art-adjacent people? I’m reminded of Marcel Duchamp’s “sixteen miles of string,” which in order to achieve its overarching vision intentionally paved over and inhibited viewing other work in the exhibition. Contemporarily, of course, it’s a dating faux pas to view curation in this light. In Institutional Garbage, Tricia Van Eck produces a hand-written letter called “Alchemy and Curation,” stating that “[…] it’s important for curators and artists in group shows (and even in solo shows) to share the oxygen in the space for all artworks to breathe.” Trash is stifling – it erases meaning through its surplus of meaning and scarcity of space. Aesthetically, this book has a lot of breathing room.

Of course, proclamations of impossibility and desirable failure such as those in the correspondences between Schoorl and Picard are like get-out-of-jail-free cards that anticipate any potential wrongdoings. But I think the real key to Institutional Garbage lies in Fulla Abdul-Jabbar’s essay, “Always,” at the book’s end:

  “What we really want from our time with this book is that which is not this.

I don’t think you mean to sound that way.

Do you mean to say it like this?

Perhaps you can rephrase this.

Can you expand on this?”

  To which we respond, of course, always. But not now.

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.

Epilogue:

On a small shelf in my house a sun-baked candy from Félix González-Torres “Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)” oozed and leaked in dangerous proximity to my Ai Weiwei “Sunflower Seeds.” So I took David Hall’s paper towel program and wiped it up. I’m not sure, but I think this has something to do with art.

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