A Trip to the Art Supply Store

I made you something. :) It is a draft playable one-page solo journaling RPG about shopping for art supplies. You can check it out here: https://cfcollision.itch.io/a-trip-to-the-art-supply-store.

There may be some revisions / updates coming, and it's just barely possible that this is the beginning of a larger project. (Okay, okay, cards on the table: I was working on a bigger game, with a different subject, and got stuck on a couple things, including a list of prompts and how to ... win.)

This is probably mostly @metal.txt's fault, for initially making Sweaters by Hedgehog, which was one of the first of these I ever heard of. I also had a good early experience with Wanderer, before discovering the works of Anna Blackwell, which absolutely rule. All of them, in mechanics and style, have influenced this, as has the super good 5-min-e, mostly in tone.

I've also bought and tried Miru, and fooled around with the Alone type genre, including Alone Among the Stars, a prog album cover description generation engine (complimentary), and Alone on a Map. Check out Deus Sex Machina for a maximalist approach that's mindblowingly good.

I Have a New Hobby :)

I suppose I have two new hobbies, where "new" has some relationship with "haven't really appeared on the blog yet". The first is running, about which the less said the better (if you've been in person with me since about the middle of 2022, I haven't had much to say about anything else, for which I am sorry). The second is a twist on my longstanding fixation with office supplies, including notebooks and pens, my interest in journaling, and even my experiments with drawing.

(Current Status of The Collection)

What we've got here is:

1. Unbranded Wooden Pen
   A gift from a few years back! Writes nicely, now that I finally got it cleaned properly.
2. Zebra V-301, Fine Nib
   Picked this up at a drugstore during the height of my Zebra fixation a few years ago. It doesn't write very well comfortably—it's VERY scratchy—but is fun to draw with, for some reason?
3. Lamy AL-Star, Blue, Fine Nib
   Another gift! This is really the one that got me fired up about this stuff.
4. Kaweco Sport, Red, Fine Nib
   Bought this one from Flax, a local pen shop because I needed a pen in red. Unfortunately, in person, it's very orange, but it's also a pen I truly love, that writes beautifully in my current notebook (Traveler's, because now I'm That Guy).
5. Kaweco Liliput, Brass, Medium Nib
   A gift from Noodles for my bday! A beautiful object, that writes like a dream (on almost everything), fits my hand, fits my pocket, fits my life.
6. Lamy Safari, Cherry Blossom, Extra-Fine Nib
   I bought this one, haven't inked it up yet. I love the way this one looks, and am excited to try a different size of Lamy nib one of these days.
7. TWSBI Eco, Heat, Fine Nib
   My friends Abe & Sarah gave me a gift card to the local art supply store (hi again, Flax!) and so I treated myself to another orange pen, because ... I wanted a red pen and wanted to try a TWSBI, and for some reason, they just do not make a red pen?? Come ON TWSBI, make a dang red pen! Anyway, this one is fun af, because you can see the ink sloshing around in there, and it writes nicely and feels great in the hand.

A slightly strange side effect of this hobby is that it has made me much more interested in novelty. For years, my usual preference was to find a pen a liked and just use it forever and ever. Now, though, I find myself halfway through an ink cartridge and thinking "I want to try something new".

Yes, "I want to try something new" IS code for "I bought a ton of inks too", and obviously I picked up that excellent pen tray (thanks again to Sarah and the White Elephant Sale), and some other knickknacks, geegaws, and foofaraw.

(I also made a special spreadsheet to track my pens and inks, which required me to learn about both VLOOKUP and QUERY, but, in honor of the reason I'm writing this blog post—to be impressive and cool, natch—I will hold off on describing this spreadsheet at this time.)

I'm trying to be a bit disciplined about what I have inked at any given time, because I don't want to carry THAT that many pens with me. I also haven't quite figured out how interested I am or am not in trying to do anything like pen / ink reviews. But this is where my thoughts about my hobbies get published, so here have been some of those about one of those.

2024 Year End List of Favorite Movies Seen in Theater

      

1.     Ick (2024, Joseph Kahn)
2.     Nutcrackers (2024, David Gordon Green)
3.     Gladiator II (2024, Ridley Scott)
4.     Juror #2 (2024, Clint Eastwood)
5.     I Saw the TV Glow (2024, Jane Schoenbrun)
6.     Lisa Frankenstein (2024, Zelda Williams)
7.     Anora (2024, Sean Baker)
8.     Blitz (2024, Steve McQueen)
9.     Challengers (2024, Luca Guadagnino)
10.  The Substance (2024, Coralie Fargeat) 

Violence is the universal language

I’m a fanatic obsessed with every movie Ridley Scott has done since The Counselor (2013), a period which includes his (to me) highly acclaimed RED camera quad. So if you choose to read what follows, disclaimer: I’m stubbornly unqualifiable when it comes to my bias in favor of being a Ridley Scott apologist. I know Gladiator (2024, Ridley Scott) sucks (in some ways). But I will rave about it as a masterpiece nonetheless. (And I’m intentionally dropping the II because the new Gladiator is a cash grab for a younger generation of ticket buyers that you know has no qualms replacing its predecessor in the arena in cold blood.) The best form of revenge is to be nothing like the one who inflicted you is talking about this movie.
     Like Michael Bay, a Ridley Scott movie is fodder to be torn apart yet maintains a unique visual/pacing that’s impossible to mistake for anyone else. David Scarpa’s script is late Scott—the equivalent of thrash metal, all muscle all the time. Paul Mescal is less of a star presence as we might have taken Russell Crowe for, and that’s all for the better. Gladiator starts off with a coastal invasion and then delivers a steady adrenaline drip of gladiatorial blood matches up until the house lights come on. So detracting critical reviews are all the more welcome; Gladiator enjoys taking a beating more than Scorsese’s LaMotta. 
     The characters in Gladiator are shallow, and cynically underdrawn because here, it’s more efficient and what the crowds really want. Women don’t belong here. Mescal’s wife is expendable in the opening scene—who could miss the feeling as soon as she appears she’s going to be slaughtered? Same with Connie Nielsen: she’s ruthlessly employed as a concession to the studio as a callback to the source who’s sacrificially executed in front of the large crowd (both diegetic and non). Pedro Pascal’s a pussy, which makes him the antagonist. The plural protagonist in Gladiator is actually Mescal and Denzel, who despite their ideologies, earn hero status by mowing down bodies for entertainment and prey on the subjugation to power of the masses. The gates of hell are open night and day.
 
Gladiator indicts the audience’s tastes and politics more harshly than Joker: Folie á Deux and just about as accurately as Idiocracy. Ridley Scott has posited the twins’ status of aristocracy as code for all the few hundred million dollar budgeted movies being made nowadays: young, spoiled, fickle, entertainment-addicted, amoral, falsely appointed polarizing tastemakers. One can easily imagine how many hits Barbarian Bites Dog Monkey would get on youtiktaktube. Their Rome rotting is why ours is, tentpoles and review aggregators. But what fun right? 
     Denzel should have been the victor. He had the political acumen Mescal didn’t. That would have been real life. But to gain their hearts and minds ($$), we all know the studio has to instead deliver a vengeful climax. And I still can’t stop laughing when I think of the final shot. When Mescal asks his father what to do and we get that music cue and the gag me with a stick schmaltzy hand through the wheat field it’s the biggest fuck you to the audience no effort to the point of hilarious that makes me so happy about how unabashedly cynical this thing is. I can’t wait to see this again. 
 
11/18/2024 AMC Phipps Plaza 14
Atlanta, GA

We cannot break the law we can only break ourselves of the law

Okay, first of all the thing about Juror #2 (2024, Clint Eastwood) is it’s got this they-don’t-make-‘em-like-this-anymore quality going for it. It’s the cinematic equivalent of comfort food. It didn’t take long for me to get into it, and once I did, I was relaxed, in no hurry for it to end, under its fuzzy calming lull.

     As courtroom drama, the genre blends well with its plot. The prosecuting attorney says something to the jurors early on like, “nobody wants to be here. That’s what makes you such ideal candidates.” Being stuck in the theater for 2 hours is very conducive to taking an active interest in this jury room. I’d forgotten what a joy it is to watch a movie that is so familiar you aren’t doing the exhaustive work in something like a say, Oppenheimer. But that isn’t to say the plot isn’t well executed, because it feeds you just enough to grow increasingly intrigued. 
     The dialogue in Juror #2 is mischievously adorned with so many double meanings you have to acknowledge it as pointing to the duality of justice. And yeah, sometimes it’s heavy handed, like when the defense attorney is in a 50/50 pointing right at Juror #2 talking about finding the guilty man who did this. But I love it. It’s my ham this Thanksgiving. 
     The theme of Juror #2 is morally complex. And it's constantly embodied by its characters; mainly the 2 couples. You’re indicted as being complicit when you ask yourself what you think of character moral dilemmas like “when you let her walk away alone in the rain at night is that how you treat someone you love?” I see 2 sides, and I don’t know. The midpoint for me is when Zoey Deutch hears “Old Quarry Rd.” That’s the point of no return. And like, what about all the awesome overt symbolism names like the accused SYTHE (as in grim reaper), prosecutor FAITH (as in believe in her to do what’s right), and JUSTIN (not quite justice but close enough). 
 
In closing, you’re with Justin because Nicholas Hoult has to be as nice and as good as he looks. And you see him struggle to do what he knows in his heart is right. And you want him and Zoey Deutch to be happy; until he makes his decision; and you realize it was never possible. When the credits roll it hits you that most people decide what justice is in their own minds, and the chills up your spine are because in reality the life or death verdicts are in the outcome of a bunch of random ordinary people who on any given day will probably succumb to their own prejudices.
 
11/18/2024 AMC Parkway Pointe 15
Atlanta, GA

Once upon a time 50 years ago

According to Sarris’ paradigm of American auteur cinema, let’s say Nutcrackers (2024, David Gordon Green) is of the Far Side of Paradise order. One way to approach its ingeniously structured design is by recognizing its theme, which has something to do with following your heart. 
     The theme of Nutcrackers manifests itself as a symbiotic redemption plot. This is foreshadowed with the line of dialogue JUSTICE (Homer Janson) first recriminates UNCLE MIKE (Ben Stiller) with by the denunciation “You’re incapable of loving anyone.” So, if Mike’s arc is to realize his bigshot real estate values aren’t what are most valuable in life, then Justice’s is something like gaining the courage and self-esteem to get out of his own way with first love MIA (Maren Heisler), and overcoming his insecurities about performing ballet related to what the other kids will think of him and losing his mother.
     I would argue this is Green’s most personal film to date. And his most tearjerker. Nutcrackers, thematically, is also something of a trojan horse in the scrappy orphan genre. Because like say, Addie Pray, the orphan typically is emotionally out of reach and violently defensive because of the justification that too many adults have relinquished or avoided custody of them; if nobody wants me then I don’t want nobody. But the KICKLIGHTER BOYS had amazing parents. Parents who wouldn’t send them to school because that’s where “they teach you how to be like everyone else.” And the clincher in Nutcrackers is that at the end (because of Mike) the boys and all of us are shown that if you had parents who loved you, then even after they’re gone, their love will always stay with you. And it’s the catharsis of that magical profound depiction of love that sets this movie apart. And it doesn’t hurt that in return the boys show Mike how it's okay to not try so hard to be (materialistic?) what he thinks would make him successful in the eyes of everyone else. 
 
In most movies, the second act is the longest and most integral to engaging the audience with its plot; but Nutcrackers’ second act is the shortest. The first act is like Uncle Buck or Home Alone in the way there’s this big two-story house full of kids (and in this case farm animals) where if you’re a kid, you wish you could live. And I never want to leave this house. If Act I is Uncle Mike superficially trying to be a good uncle and figure out how find these kids a home, then Act II is going about it. But it’s here where at the Wilmington Estate we also get to meet Mia. When Justice and Mia are together you feel exactly what it was like to fall in love for the first time. The warmly lit singles of them up at the top of the staircase are tender, romantic, pure innocent melt your shell of cynicism holiday hearth. 
     It’s great how you just get a hint of ROSE (Edi Patterson) at Wilmington’s because you know it's imminent she’s gonna sleigh. You remember how dark Green can be though when Rose makes that yogurt threat. Anyways, so yeah, Act III is the ballet performance and yes, that’s what you wanna wait for. That’s why the pacing of this movie never wavers. Worth mentioning all I’ll say is the biggest pathos Mike moment for me is that simple utterance of the web page “that I made.” Oh man I’m gonna cry again. 
 
Visually, the defining motif for me is the 4 boys running through a field together. And there’s this amazing scene early on where the boys have this bonfire at night to scatter their parents’ ashes, and there’s this in-camera phaser effect where the glowing flames seem to stretch vertically. It says something words can’t. And there’s a pan over to um I think Arlo frame right close on him and we share in something you wouldn't have thought possible for a movie to be able to.
 
During and after my viewing of Nutcrackers there are so many jokes I been trying to quote. Instead of an exhaustive inventory of them, I’ll limit it to some of JUNIOR’S (Uly) creative imagination’s best crop. What does he say at the Nativity? “…and that was the first time the baby Jesus knew what ice cream tasted like. And Creamy’s only present was a tombstone.” That’s my kind of comedy. And when Mike is reading Junior’s composition book, the line about a bunch of people went to a party at Ronald Reagan’s house and Junior says “why not?” with such truly enthusiastic wonder it’s infectious; that timing is art. The set-up and non-sequitur payoff is all over Nutcrackers, and what Green is a master at getting through improvisation. 
     It’s like when Rose is mentioning how if Mike were to ever want to visit the boys and she could provide lodging accommodations, “I have a foldout couch… in my bedroom.” Maybe I shouldn’t say it’s so much a non-sequitur punchline as much as it’s a sophisticatedly clever unexpected one. (And the pullout couch zinger kinda goes back to an Eastbound and Down joke that uses a deceptively innocent into more overt type pick-up line to similar effect.) 
 
In closing, Nutcrackers shows us how to wreak havoc if it’s fun. And reminds us how to love. Justice loves to dance. Junior loves to write. To love to be able to be yourself, pursue your creative passion, and find people that mean something to you prove to be what we leave celebrating after the film’s over. So, it’s only incidentally a holiday movie (shh don’t tell anyone). It’s not life-affirming, it’s the poetry of look at all life can be, and has been the whole time right in front of us. 
 
11/16/2024 The Murphy Theatre
Wilmington, OH

Luftwaffe is life

Bombs drop. You think you can send your child away so he’ll be safe, but that isn’t really a viable alternative, is it? Death and destruction are all around us. Some help the victims. Some plunder from them. Something drives us to find something to hold on to: home, a loved one, memories. And these fragments are existence. 
     Blitz (2024, Steve McQueen) is exquisite. The abstract golden inferno fight. The black and white daisies. The before and after hot jazz mausoleum. The plume silhouettes of pillow stuffing. The devastating deep bass counterpoint to the string stabbing cacophony soundscapes. McQueen is the only artist working in film. His one word title is like those early Warhol conceptual pieces, Sleep, Eat, Empire. And when the kid wanders through the Empire Arcade and sees how grotesque it can be for art to depict skewed racial prejudices towards black people no words are needed. 
     It seems maybe Steve McQueen is now showing he can combine his later conventional narrative aims with his early abstract phase. What is the white noise? Is it static? Is it the Luftwaffe? Is it daisies? It’s a shimmering blanket of shapes. 
 
11/09/2024 Tara Theatre
Atlanta, GA

Prostitution is the most sincere form of love

The guy gets sex and the girl gets money. If that sounds cynical, it’s only because you’re thinking about it. Because the whole thrust of Anora (2024, Sean Baker) up until the conflict feels so much like the real thing; therefore it is. I’m surprised I don’t know any men who’ve married their favorite sex worker in real life.
     The only flaw for me is wondering why if the kid’s parents are so strict, how is he able to draw such exorbitant sums of money anytime he wants? But easily best movie of the year nonetheless.

11/04/2024 AMC Phipps Plaza 14

Atlanta, GA

Substance abuse and mental illness are both sexy and dangerous...

…if you’re hot.

Smile 2 (2024, Parker Finn) is so innovative because it demolishes the line between whether it’s all in your head or not. This is a narrative where we follow a truly fucked up character into a moral abyss that she can’t help but react to through a never ending series of violent nervous breakdowns. And it’s the most fun I’ve had in a theater this year. 
     Ichi the Killer (2001, Takashi Miike) was the first movie in the crime genre where I thought yeah why have any good guys? Why have anyone whose anywhere even close to morally reasonable? How brilliant to have a crime movie where every single character has evil motives, is in some way insane or deviant, and all desperately and mutually contributing to the destruction of Shinjuku. I tend to like crime and horror movies when the protagonist is flawed and no hero comes along to save the day. When I wanna feel good I can always watch a musical, comedy, family, melodrama, historical epic or pretty much every other genre. (Except yeah I don’t know why I brought that up because while the overall effect is comparable, in Smile 2 her team and mom might not be all that bad I don’t know. And her best friend is clearly good. I am such a sucker for Dylan Gelula—she’s by far the coolest actress around lately.)
     Smile 2 sets up this dichotomy where the savagery of the attacks are either coming from an oppressive force that’s targeting you but no one else can see, or from voices inside your own head; and the best part is, what’s the difference? That’s the motor that keeps this particular model of psychological horror running. 
     On the technical side I gotta say I think that in the prologue and the flashback reveal particularly, when the camera pans an entire 180° that’s gotta be an aesthetic allusion to the arch of a smile. And same when the frame is upside down: by spinning along the z axis 180° to flip the image it’s a similar motif. And I do apologize yes I feel smug like I’m showing off because I noticed this. Also there’s a montage where she turns on all the lights and I wanna say it’s an homage to Army of Darkness (1992, Sam Raimi) Ash building his chainsawhand with same lens, speed, length and duration of zoom, except in this case zooms out instead of in.
     I love how in Smile 2 this protag, even though she has done some really awful things and is spiraling, the narrative never gives her a way out. Nor does it necessarily say she’s wrong for what she’s done or make her atone for any of her transgressions. It just shows everything crushing her under its force. I love a cautionary moral tale with no redemption. And I love this Paramount horror franchise.
 
10/19/2024 AMC Phipps Plaza 14
Atlanta, GA

Hey you wanna see a couple as perfect as you are?

Have you ever encountered one of those people who say, “I love A24?” I suspect if you asked them what an A24 movie is they wouldn’t know. They’d probably say they’re weird, wtf, dark, slow burn, or elevated horror, I don’t know. Ari Aster belongs in the pantheon. Robert Eggers seems to have gained a following. So I guess if we’re talking stuff like Lamb (2021, Valdimar Jóhannsson) and Men (2022, Alex Garland) maybe there’s a distinctive art horror product they’ve amassed (even if they’re outliers are numerous). 
     But I really think the success of A24 is as a luxury brand based mostly on people seeing their trailers with the elaborately ornate company card being foremost and prominently the thing that sticks with audiences. The vibe. I just feel duped because like a sucker I went to go see a movie because I was A24 hyped.

We Live in Time (2024, John Crowley) feels as insufferably bland generic as a commercial for a luxury brand while coming across like a parody of a romantic drama. It’s smug and off-putting because it depicts and is aimed at people who are morally beyond reproach. How do you sell to people who want the perfect life? Target them with portrayals of perfect people so that they can identify with, and give you their money. 
     We Live in Time is also relentlessly obnoxious because it keeps shifting its timeline for no clear reason. And it’s not like I have a problem with jumping around temporally, because Challengers (2024, Luca Guadagnino) is the best movie this year and why does it constantly keep jumping through time? Because it’s a high energy 80s tennis movie and the chronology of its narrative goes back and forth between 2 different sides with the ferocity of a tennis ball serve. 
     And I’ve never seen a movie where someone has cancer and I actually give a shit. As far as tragic goes, it’s a bit low hanging fruit innit? But in this when Florence Pugh’s character has to go through chemo her hair looks like it was buzzed with clippers on like a #3 guard, we don’t even see her scalp. That doesn’t feel very cancery. 
     When you finally find out what the dramatic climax is of this thing it will be clear that in a contrived desperate reach for you to cry over the martyrdom of the bald saint Joan winning a cooking competition it should be tearfully anguished over how beautiful and perfect her life was. Again, seek this out if you want an example of a movie whose main characters are all good, and there are no villains, or flaws in this world they inhabit. I’m sure some people enjoy that kinda thing. 
 
10/19/2024 AMC Phipps Plaza 14
Atlanta, GA