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Posts Tagged ‘art’

Intrepid anime fan Roger Harkavy recently discovered a hoard of previously unpublished concept art from Artmic studios, creators of Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada (Robotech Masters and New Generation for those who care). It’s got some great examples of early eighties mechanical design. Many of the creative decisions on these series were still being worked out, producing a lot of odd hybrids. This guy up above looks like the folks at Mars Base started experimenting with Invid Technology, or vice versa. You can find the rest of the designs in pdf form here.

Found via Mecha Damashii

Avatar is one of those movies that you just have to see. In our thousand-channel, billion-webpage universe, sometimes we need to have a collective cultural experience. The CGI is amazing. I couldn’t tell whether it was through the use of clever editing or new software tools, but the live action blended seamlessly with the animation in way I’ve never seen before. The story strikes a fine balance, incorporating enough hard science fiction ideas to inspire the visuals, but enough mythological tropes to keep the audience involved. It’s cheesy, but not too cheesy.

It is by no means a perfect movie. I would’ve liked to know why the corporation was willing to go through with genocide to get at their unobtainium (I would’ve called in macguffinite myself). This is a movie more about spectacle than nuance. But as the success of District 9 has shown us, there is room for intellectual SF movies as well as the booming blockbusters. Avatar has been an easy target for internet snark ever since the first trailers came out, but I find I part ways with the critics when they start talking about the film’s racist/mysoginist/ableist overtones.

I’m not going to go into every political grievance against this film. Even anti-smokers are getting into the game. Yes, Avatar is essentially “Dances With Wolves” in space, but that doesn’t make it white supremacist literature. People respond to this story, especially in North America because it is, in essence, their story. Most societies on the Western Hemisphere are here because of political edicts of older, more entrenched societies in Eurasia. As time went on, we adapted to our new home and eventually broke free of our autocratic masters from across the ocean. A lot of people died or were subjugated over this period of history, but it does not change the fact that it is our story. Instead of simply decrying movies like this, we should learn why they resonate with us, and in turn learn a bit more about ourselves.

I attempted to create this drink last night at a New Year’s party. The recipe was improvised, the ratio imprecise, but this version ends up tasting like a graham cracker with lemon, much like the ironic nostalgia that inspired it.

Kahlúa (Earth)
Spiced rum (Fire)
Nigori Sake (Wind)
Vodka (Water)
Yuzu liqueur (Heart)
Red bull (Your powers combined)

Think back a moment. How late would you stay up on Christmas Eve? How far would that sense of excitement and expectation take you? My holiday insomnia as a kid was notorious. My ability to keep conscious would stretch itself to the limit thinking about sleigh bells and presents under the tree. Waking up was no picnic either. If I was up past five, there was no way I was able to get back to sleep. In the end, I think this is my favorite part of the Christmas season. Finally unraveling the mystery boxes piled under the tree. Seeing the reaction of people receiving the gifts you bought for them. I think there is something wonderful about focusing all this importance on a single night of the year. It reminds us of the importance of all the other nights of the year, when the future, and all the gifts it will bring are little more than 12 hours away. Merry Christmas, Everyone.

For a child, the debate of whether Kris Kringle is really Santa Claus is not up for discussion. Children have the ability to suspend facts, expand their imaginations, and believe in the improbable. As children we truly feel that bigfoot must have a summer home in the forest behind our house, or that aspiring to be a superhero is a viable career option. However, as we become older, our world demands that we provide evidence for our beliefs or decisions. We must explain our reasoning, give evidence for our opinions, and create and test hypotheses. When we finally become practical, rational adults, our belief in the magical has all but disappeared. We rationalize all decisions, deride cartoons and toys as “child’s play”, and triumph in our need to look and think like grown-ups. If we do decide that we need to suspend some rationality and fall back on beliefs, we often turn to self-help books or websites to teach us again how to believe in ourselves and what we can accomplish. Why can’t we instead never lose that little bit of belief that allows us to see things that shouldn’t be there, or to keep that little bit of magic with us?

Now, I’m not saying we abandon all rational ways of thinking. We should use all the information we can to navigate our way through life. However, in the gruesome melée that is real life, we don’t always have enough information to make all of our decisions for us. The consequences of the decision to be naughty or nice are beyond what any one person can predict. For those times when our knowledge is not enough, when rational thought can only take you so far, then perhaps it’s time put your trust in that which you can only see with your heart. I think it was this editorial that said it best:

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

That’s me in the shepherd costume on thr far right, by the way. What is it about the holidays that brings out the performer in everyone? It always seems to be the more traditional modes of performing, too. Christmas concerts rarely get more contemporary than Sinatra. For whatever reason, churches and schools are always pulling out all the stops for their Winter production. The amount of work that goes on is quite amazing. Recently, I was helping decorate 100 Lava cakes for the Christmas concert at my wife’s school. You may have heard the carols before and the children onstage might not all be yours, but experiencing your own community when they put on a show is a precious thing. Remember how important you are as an audience member.

For all the spending that goes on every Christmas, there seems to be a flurry of editorials dedicated to making you feel bad about said spending. You’re harming the Earth! You’re creating consumer debt! Don’t you know that there’s more to life than material things? It’s the same song and dance year in and year out. Don’t get me wrong, I see their point. There’s more to gift giving than spending a lot of money. We have to do all we can for the environment, because if Copenhagen’s any indication, our government is simply not interested. Still, there’s something missing from the “Buy Nothing” philosophy of Christmas.

The money generated from Christmas essentially pays most retailer salaries for the fiscal year. What would happen to them if Christmas never came? Is it a good thing for those people to be out of work? And how about that Chinese plastic crap they sell? The Chinese don’t need that money. All they’d do is spend it  on education, labor laws, and environmental regulations.

There is no one philosophy that explains everything. Our society is so interconnected that it takes variety of perspectives to figure out what to do. It’s complicated, but if we listen to the people that are affected by our actions, we can come up with actions that will result in some real change.

It’s funny how Christmas changes as you become an adult. After you leave home, you inevitably curb that personal freedom a bit every December to head back home for Christmas. When you start to work, you find staff Christmas parties are an integral part of any office culture. Once you find that special significant other, you find that your trips home and staff parties to attend double. All of a sudden, you are on a Christmas grand tour.

Traffic and inclement weather are only the start of your worries. You haven’t met with these people outside of work since last year’s Christmas party. If it’s your significant other’s staff party you may not have seen these people before at all. Seeing family can be even more awkward. How has everyone been this year? Will they like the gifts you brought? Will the apple pan dowdy you made pan out at dessert?

The Christmas grand tour is a whirlwind of preparation, travel, and society. You can drive yourself crazy making sure things are just so. But when you turn that doorknob, and smell a Christmas Tree or taste a Christmas dish, you know you are not in a place of scrutiny or judgment. Christmas is not a competition, but a common interest that at least once a year gathers all: friends, family, and co-workers alike.

What do stories like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, It’s a Wonderful life, and A Christmas Carol have in common? Now, I’m not talking about snow, Santa, and the Baby Jesus. That’s just trimmings on the tree, so to speak. If you were to take a critical survey of Christmas movies, poems, and literature, you might notice a few thematic trends. The protagonists all make a transition from a place of despair and doubt to a place of hope and belief.

Some people balk at this, claiming that these stories teach you that leaving behind your logical faculties is the key to happiness. While it’s true that these tropes have produced some truly awful Christmas specials, it addresses an issue that everyone (in the Northern hemisphere at least) has to deal with every December. The days are getting shorter and colder. The trees are black and bare. Those of us with central heat argue that there’s no reason for us to fear not making it through the winter in our modern society. Yet for reasons we cannot explain, we feel depressed. The negative thoughts and questions of our lives seem more present in the dark of winter. Are we good people? Are we living up to our potential? Do we really deserve all that we have? These thoughts begin to influence our decisions. At some point it’s not enough to know logically that winter will pass, that hope is real and just around the corner. We adorn our houses with the light that we so miss from brighter seasons. We give each other gifts so that we can symbolize in something physical. Some people even do daft things like erecting trees in their houses.

So if you’re concerned that you are celebrating a Holiday that is based on mere Christian/Pagan/Saturnalian traditions, or on things that aren’t real, ask yourself this. Is happiness you feel from Christmas real? If your answer is yes, then you understand that the celebration itself is its own reward. As long as we have the long, dark winter months, we will have Christmas.

When most people think of Christmas Shopping, the word “Scrum” comes to mind. The malls become choked with sweaty bodies all dashing in every direction to reach store shelves picked clean of taste or value. And how the heck are you supposed to buy for adult loved ones? Let’s face it, if they want something they usually have a job that gives them money to buy said thing whenever they want it. You can try to mitigate that using lists, but the people writing them feel greedy and the people reading them feel daunted when their shopping budget just got spontaneously high-balled. When the inevitable Visa hangover comes in the mail you think to yourself, Why did I just do this? Why do any of us do this? Are we so under the spell of corporations and money-making enterprises of all sorts that we prostrate ourselves, year in, year out, on the altar of mass consumption? Boy, those corporations sure have us licked. I once saw a corporation eat a live puppy once. True story.

Or so I used to think. My wife, Sara, loves giving gifts and shopping for gifts. However, she laments that her shopping stamina is not up to par with her mother, who can go 8 hours without so much as an Orange Julius break. To Sara, when you give a gift, you are not just placing filthy lucre at the foot of a torch-lit shrine to Sam Walton. A gift is a symbol of how well you know a person. It is, in effect, your relationship in effigy. Finding the perfect gift is kind of like a game. You try to pick out the person’s hopes and desires from observations you’ve made of them over the past year. The search isn’t always fruitful. Sara will still ask her quarry if nothing comes up. But if you’ve got that kind of information about your loved ones, be it a snippet of conversation, or a glance of a magazine open on a coffee table, wouldn’t you act on it? Even if navigating the retail landscape is confusing, you get a little peek into their world, their experience. That, my friends, is a gift that all the realities of modern manufacture and consumerism cannot cheapen.