Black Art - A Mood

Ramblings Post #389
I like art, in all it's forms. From the small pieces, the large pieces, the graffiti, the abstract, the classical, the experimental. Music, sculpture, paint, writing, landscaping, culinary (yes, they're art!) and all the rest. My life is my mind, my imagination, and art is the key to the forces that shape it, that help me to interpret the world around me. Everything in my life is shaped by, oddly, everything else in life. And one day I hope to affect the world around me.

By Dwayne Jones

Digital Artist. Yes, because it's the finished project, not what he started with. I like this for the colors. It brightens up a face so often clouded by the world around it, but still allows enough of it through for the resolute attitude to display.  

theartofka2ra

I like her eye. The work has a soft feature, that feels more like a vibrant cartoon, which allows the viewer to assume certain things. I think of this character as smart, funny, and health conscious. She feels like a vegetarian, not a vegan, who works out at home because she took a spin class and didn't feel like paying $65 to sit in a room and pretend to ride a bike...and get yelled at. In simpler terms, the artist while not getting into details, has created a story from an image. 

By Arinze Stanley - Machine Man #6

And now this guy. This is NOT an photo. This is a drawing, Charcoal and graphite on paper. This guy's talent is absolutely amazing. The level of detail. The way he is able to capture the tiniest nuance. I hope he charges a grip. When I first found him he was just getting hot, and now he's doing actual shows. And I hope to be able to give him full price for his ability one day. 

I want to spend a day with art. 

Barkeep. A tall water. Seriously. I really haven't hydrated today, and I know I should everyday, and so drinking at this point would be just bad. Why don't you think I'm serious? I forgot.

Black Art - A Scene

Ramblings Post #388
This pandemic has brought out the worst and best of us. But as I've said, I am an artist. I find stories and tales in the small moments and build them into epics that cause mental thunderstorms of creativity. And I've looked upon the great works and sniff in derision that 'I could do that'. (By the way, I'm wrong, I probably couldn't do that, but who are YOU to tell ME.) And I am weirdly searching for perfection in a world where I know that the real beauty is in the errors. But I will continue. I will produce. I will create. I will be who I dreamed. If there is nothing interesting on TV. 

Visual by Desiree Mattsson

 

I like this visual. It's staged by Desiree Mattsson for Vogue Arabia, which I guess is a thing. I'm not sure how magazines that focus on style work in countries or regions where the people I imagine are their focus are suppressed, but if it works for them, well hey. The look is cool in tone, with the highlights of jewelry that catch my eye. It is very nice work.  

by Naledi Tshegofatso Modupi

And there is this piece. Striking hard edges mixed with curves and shapes. It feels like I'm missing something but can still feel it. She describes her work as reductive or semi-abstract, a sort of getting down the essence of the person.

"85 To Africa" (2019)by Dr. Fahamu Pecou

This, right here. This I do want. Perhaps it is the duality of the image, the visuals of both things that are typically African and stereotypically from Atlanta that get me. Or maybe that I've lived in Atlanta for a long time and this just feels familiar. Like I might see (or since we're in a pandemic - have seen) it in a popup shop in Little Five Points. Either way, he's got immense talent and I may have to get one of his. 

"Now, back to writing my own piece of art," he lied. 

Barkeep, do you have any chocolate milk? I know it's a bar but I'm just vibing on some ice cold chocolate milk right now. And I already drank the last of it? Right...

Black Art - A Vibe

Ramblings Post #387
This pandemic has brought out the best and worst of us. I've tackled projects I hadn't thought I would have time for, and woefully procrastinated on others as though I was doing something else. At heart, I'm an artist. I have two or three tools designed to make music, and the small pieces I've produced people have liked but are finally shelved. I'm still writing, short pieces when an idea moves me and slowly but surely through this second draft I'm working on. And years and years ago I used to draw. I one day hope to paint. I will one day have a show...an art show, a concert, a re-enactment of a scene I wrote. I will, it's on my bucket list. 

By Elie.A.Arts

I like this piece. Simple but elegant. The crown upon her head, the eyes wide open and full of curiosity. This is one of his more stylized pieces, his work generally runs a less particular. Unless his model really had such inviting eyes. 

By Curtis Newkirk Jr.

The focus has a regal look, even as he is adorned simply. I like the feeling of it, the fruit giving the portrait a light feel, but does not detract from the intensity of the subjects gaze. 

Heritage III - By Jeff Manning

We should all have something by Jeff Manning on our wall. His pieces are just a wonderful mix of style and color. The models take on new aspects under his hand. If I can work out this year right I may give out his stuff for the holidays.

I'm putting visiting another art show on my list of things to do once the pandemic is over. But man that's getting to be a long list. 

Barkeep, and by that I mean me, make me a bourbon and coke. Wild Turkey if you got it, and I know you do.

The Final Pitch Meeting...

This is a political post. 

Open on a cold but clear Washington DC morning. You can feel the excitement in the air, something was about to happen.

Then there, in the sky. It is a man, a single man hurtling to earth. All eyes turned skyward, enthralled by his daring. Who would be so bold, so daring as to interrupt the swearing in of Joe Biden? Less than five hundred feet from the earth his parachute opens, a grand American Flag with a soaring eagle superimposed upon it. Cut to outside the gates guarding the Capitol Building forlorn supporters of the outgoing President who had prayed for a miracle suddenly feel their hearts leap with joy. Cheering wildly. The shots from across the nation all channels, the entire internet, suddenly switch to a live feed from the capitol.

He lands firmly at the top of the steps leading to the dais. His golden mane is perfect, shirtless his perfectly sculpted pecs and eight pack abs glisten with sweat and dignity. He is the embodiment of all good and true in America, the living embodiment of the perfect man. He is so amazing. He storms, no, almost Fred Astaire like, he dances down the steps. You see the crowd is in shock so nobody moves. As he starts the dancing down, the women are swooning at his rampant masculinity, the men cowed by the same. You can see the fear on their faces. At the bottom of the steps a hapless Obama tries to intervene but he is easily disposed of, almost casually, knocked aside as though he were an errant piece of paper. The golden one pushes a frail, stammering Biden aside, lays his hand across the offered Bible and growls at the quivering Chief Justice John Roberts, who we show has wet his pants. And he says, get this, he says "Swear me back in, I'm not going anywhere!"

Outside the fence the crowd ejaculates in joy, grown real men weeping tears of happiness that the truth had finally been revealed. The soldiers look at each other and immediately realize their beaten, you can see it on their faces. And then....

What? No good? I think the Q-Anon crowd will eat it up. My audience will love it! This could work, I'm telling you...

That's how I pictured Cheato trying to convince the Network to renew his contract for the President gig. Him and Guli at one side of the table, him huffing and puffing his way through the scenario, Guli doing hyping him up and doing sound effects. He's the master of the deal, I mean, he just needs another season.

And with that, this cycle of President comes to a long overdue close.

The reunion show is scheduled for a Federal Pen near you!

A word about Dr. King

Please don’t act like everyone loved my father. He was assassinated. A 1967 poll reflected that he was one of the most hated men in America. Most hated. Many who quote him now and evoke him to deter justice today would likely hate, and may already hate, the authentic King.
~ Bernice King

As we are on the cusp of a beginning of a return to what we hope is some degree of normality, we're interrupted on threshold as those people who have been enabling Cheato for the past four years are now invoking the words of Martin Luther King Jr. in an attempt to seemingly disappear their recent past. I've seen quotes from the good doctor by Senator Lindsey Graham and so to be former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany as though when they hadn't lived lives in direct contradiction to the man's teachings. The term hypocrisy doesn't even begin to cover it. 

But let's put that, and hopefully them behind us. 

We as a people like to re-write history to suit our own ends. Since his death Dr. King has been lionized in popular culture, but in the end he was just an ordinary man on mission during difficult times. In his life he was threatened, vilified, shunned and insulted. But he didn't let those circumstances deter him from his service. And some of us need to stop acting like America was always with him.

Dr. King hoped for a better America, and worked diligently towards that idea during what could be considered the Racial Cold War. He wasn't perfect, but who among us is. However his work and his legacy have served as inspirations for us to build on. Not just Black people, but all of us. But while we admire him, let us not drift into the realm of fantasy in our memory of him or his time. It does not serve him or us well. 

Despite fifty years and our best efforts we have not traveled far enough from where he left us. That's a reality. But that should not deter us from our efforts to push on. Overnight successes sometimes take decades. And since our goal is better place for ourselves and our posterity all we can do is grit our teeth and lean into the wind going forward. We may not live to see the final outcome, but we ARE going forward from where we are now.

Let us march.  

Five minutes watching....The Watch

I don't watch a lot of movies because I didn't have a lot of time. A lot of movies and television of late have become more niche oriented and horrible, I'm trying to write this sequel to a first book I haven't even published and I have a ton of video games I bought on sale I still want to play so there. So, I watch a movie or a little TV when I get a chance.  You know, I guess I really don't watch a lot of movies or television. Go figure. 

Full disclosure: I am a Terry Pratchett fan. Excuse me, Sir Terry Pratchett. To me his Discworld series is really a series of essays and treatises on government, economy, society, gender identity, religion, tradition, belief and more all disguised as high fantasy. Or low fantasy depending on your point of view.

And when the BBC decided to create a series I got excited. Then I heard they would be updating the stories and characters I got nervous. Then I saw the promo photos and got confused. Then I saw the first episode and now I wish I never had. It went off the rails about thirty seconds in and never looked back. 

I own 31 books in the series and recognized two of these characters. One was the rock person.

So how bad was it? Very, very bad. Imagine if they had taken Harry Potter and instead of Hogwarts set it in an stereotypical Hollywood "inner city" school and claimed they'd made it better. It's like the people who made it didn't read the stories, or even if they had didn't understand what they were working with. What emerged here is, in perhaps a good-hearted attempt to be inclusive, is a ridiculous mess that can't even keep up with the basic architecture of the city Ankh-Morpork, which in the books is practically a character itself, much less create the setting need to tell the stories that come later. The stories that actually make you think, that make this a cut above just plain fantasy. 

From here down, SPOILERS. Not that I think you should ever watch this, but still, got to be fair.

This version of death sounded like Wendell Pierce from The Wire (when I wrote this honestly didn't know that was actually him). That's not terrible, but the characterization did not sound like an ethereal being curious about humanity. Its interaction with Vimes as a framing device was way too casual, too chummy. DEATH speaks in capital letters. DEATH is aloof.

This Sam Vimes looks like a dirty bum version of Jack Sparrow, and that alone says a lot. Maybe it was the black eye liner, but that was not a good first image to invoke. Vimes is a complex character, this guy feels more like Frank Gallagher from Shameless than someone competent just half in the bag.

Was that dog at the beginning supposed to be Gaspode?

Why does the Patrician's palace look like it's in the middle of a grand estate and not right in down the city off the river? What are the soaring peaks and tall hills littering in the background, isn't the city at the bottom of the Sto Plains where it meets the circle sea? This just feels so off. Later we get a crows eye view and it looks like the Unseen University is atop a lush green hill as well. The city is a part of the story, and here is feels like they cast it wrong. I mean, the books were written in part to so that you could follow along on a map. This looks like the visual designer just thought of how pretty and majestic this all would look.  

How is Cheery Littlebottom, a dwarf, almost as tall as Carrot Ironfounderson, who is a large human? And why is this person beardless? The entire dwarf story arc is discussion on gender identity, society and acceptance and here it's just rinse washed for clarity. The writers basically threw away a multi-season B story and perhaps a whole season if they ever got to go to Uberwald. This is what I meant when I said the people who did this either did not read the whole series or didn't understand it. How they did Angua I don't even want to talk about. Even worse how they did Detritus. And Lady Ramkin is not Batwoman despite how much I like the actress playing her,

And since I'm here, the whole series develops a number of strong female protagonists. Angua, Lady Ramkin and Cheery are just the tip of the iceberg, I mean had this been done well we might have gotten a Granny Weatherwax headed Witches series, but this show felt a need to stuff things in at the beginning and just ruins it. You want to make the Head of Assassin's Guild a woman? Fine. By the way, the producer needs to realize the point of some the stories was that ill informed old men were making all the less than intelligent decisions, which was discussion on bad governance, but hey, inclusion. Maybe they just chose the wrong actress to swap out the Patrician, so maybe that, but I would have preferred the Charles Dance version quite frankly, in the proper setting of course. But they swapped out Dibbler? What was the point of gender swapping Dibbler? Meat pies, guaranteed one hundred percent pig! You mean pork? I said one hundred percent pig.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly....No Nobby Nobbs? No Fred Colon? That's just not right. 

I want to be generous but so much of it didn't make sense, from the weird mix of sci-fi and fantasy to the how the story didn't want to respect the characters or the audience they'd obviously hoped to bring in by using characters "inspired by" the Discworld series. It's a series with millions of books sold and instead of at least an attempt at faithful adaption we're giving this. If it was going to go this far afield, twist it so much to update it and fix it, then why even use the Discworld names?

I am not amused.

If this all shows up on a streaming network four or five years from now and I'm holed up in the house unable to walk and can't find the remote, I'll give it another go. But for now this just isn't for me. 

Barkeep. I'm getting healthy now, thank you. I'll have my bourbon with branch water please, thank you