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🤟

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Hopefully this isn’t too niche within a niche given how specific the reference is… but I had to get it out of my head so I can grocery shop in peace.

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Now this is a #twothings I would never have expected…

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This is the random profile picture Lego gave me when I created an account. I don’t know whether to keep it because it’s bizarre and hilarious or change to something more “normal”/personal.

The longer story:

My wife gave me a Lego Super Mario set for Xmas. It’s interactive as it connects to your smart device via Bluetooth using one of the battery-operated figures of the main Marioverse characters (I got Mario, but there’s also Luigi, Peach, etc.).

They each have a sensor on the bottom as well as a screen for the eyes (a bit creepy when it's off) and a screen in the torso. Both screens change based on context, which is determined by the sensor and what I assume is an accelerometer or gyro inside the figure (for jumping, etc.).

In the box with the figure are an expected assortment of bricks and pieces, mostly in Mario brand colors, which are used to construct a "level" from several brick-built modules. The "special sauce" is a few flat, smooth, 2x2 plates printed with barcodes. These are read by the sensor on the figure as you progress through the level you've just designed.

As long as you start with the [START] barcode and end with the [END] barcode, the level is completely up to the user to design. It’s a process that is actually a lot more involved and time consuming than I thought it would be. It’s an interesting bit of tech, sure, but more importantly it’s a really fun way to combine multiple disciplines and interests while building and playing with Lego blocks.

What's nice is that the Lego Super Mario app tracks your playtime, and afterwards lets you archive your levels, including a photo and the stats associated with it. If you're feeling confident in your design, you can also share the levels with the community built in to the app.

What amused me the most is that, before today, I would have never expected to have to wait for an update to install before I could fully build/play with a Lego set.

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Not enough cowbell

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Algorithms are weird: just got this sponsored ad on Amazon after a search for something Lego related…

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Thanks crunchy natural peanut butter, that’s very reassuring…

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Insert joke here about a steampunk Ray Palmer aka DC/CW’s “The Atom” (or would it be more period appropriate to call him “The Monad”?) that I have neither the desire nor knowledge, let alone time to come up with myself.

Patented on March 21, 1828, R.R. Palmer’s Machine for Washing Clothes & Churning Butter. 

Hopefully not at the same time. 

Record Group 241: Records of the Patent and Trademark Office

Series: Restored Patent Drawings

Image description: A box, curved up at both ends, held off the ground by a wooden framework so it can swing. There is a lattice inside the box. Presumably the box gets swung back and forth to agitate the laundry. Or cream. 

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Maybe it’s me, but this doesn’t come off how they probably intended it to…

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Our Chloe, aka HRH Lady Ackington of Durham, looking elegant and regal as always

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A post shared by Tim Swezy (@crosshatching)

As a cat dad, I’m woefully behind in my cat tax payments as our little Luna approaches 9 month birthday. It’s hard to believe how much she’s grown and how smart she’s become in such a short amount of time! The first photo is of her now, with the rest going back in time to when she was born.

She’s going in for her spay Monday so of course her human mom and I are a bit nervous but we know it’s for the best and she’ll be happier in the long run.

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Our boy was not happy that I gave his freshly killed grasshopper a proper ecumenical insectoid burial… . . . . . #ivanpiglet #catsofinstagram #orangetabby #marmaladecat #mightyhunter https://www.instagram.com/p/CApu9MHDo-X/?igshid=xrr6w8qbf250

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Rather than attempt to something as structured or demanding as a drawing a day, which I would and did already fail at, this year I’m going to try to increase my publicly shared output by just posting artwork as I finish it.

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Thoughts on Tales From the Loop

While I was already a big fan of Simon Stålenhag’s paintings, the prospect of an anthology like show gave me pause. All too often, especially when translating artworks from one medium/domain to another, there’s a tendency to make literal and concrete what was just a hint or metaphor in the original; questions are answered but unartfully so or are at best too rigidly defined.

TL;DR: if Ingmar Bergman had created the SyFy show Eureka, the result would be something almost but not quite entirely unlike Tales From the Loop.

. . .

I’m happy to say that this wasn’t the case with Tales from the Loop, Amazon’s new anthology cum 8 hour movie cum miniseries. The figurative hands of the emotional feel of the paintings grasped tightly with those of the uniquely detailed sci-fi worldbuilding creates an exquisite construction, assembled like fine clockwork but set behind a darkly clouded glass. We know there’s more going than a superficial observance would reveal, but we simultaneously aren’t allowed to see it while being given the very distinct impression that to really see the man behind the curtain would be to rob the work of its sense of wonder and mystery.

It’s another positive that while some questions are answered, many more are not, including those that the typical canonically oriented skiffy production would seem to require in order to be “good”. As someone who went to art school ultimately with the pretense of wanting to be an illustrator, I understand too well the desire to fully flesh out one’s creations, dotting every “i” and crossing every “t” so that nothing is left for ambiguity where the viewer can participate in the work by filling details in on their own, privately. It’s nice to watch a production of this scale and scope while not having every detail, both little and big ones, explicitly laid out for me on a slab in the analytical portions of my brain.

Then there’s the Swedish/Scandinavian-ness of it all: its slow, deliberate pace, the washed out palette of a land with a midnight sun (though taking place in Ohio by way of Canada), and the complex emotional interiors of the often melancholic main characters. These are all qualities found in the original paintings, but it’s an amazing example of craftsmanship that the people working on this series were able to pull it off.

While not a time travel story per de, issues around time, memories, and change are all present. The result is one of the clearest depictions I’ve seen of the shared space of concepts which orbit around nostalgia but that are not found in the English language:

- lacrimae rerun (Latin)

- mono no aware (Japanese)

- saudade (Portuguese/Spanish)

- sehnsucht (German)

- ubi sunt (Latin)

- weltsherz (German)

All are centered around ideas of memory and nostalgia but differ in their specific relationship to the human experience, its objects and subjects. That this crosshatched space is where the show establishes itself is what makes it so enjoyable to me, a cool breeze on a mild autumn day, where there’s just a hint of the winter to come.

This is also what makes the show difficult if not unwatchable for some folks, much like the works of Ingmar Bergman, himself a Swede. There’s very little physical action in the genre filmic sense, but a great amount of emotional conflicts, both internal and external to the characters. Nothing is really resolved at the end and there isn’t really a traditional story structure to speak of but for me that is an asset. At a time when most mass culture SF seeks to define things to a microscopic detail and sometimes seem more concerned with debating the vagaries of canonicity and casting choices, Tales From the Loop gives us the time to contemplate it, privately filling in the details for ourselves and leaving the door open for many further explorations of this world the creators have made.

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I’m often a bit obsessed with a drawing’s quality of line, specifically its expressiveness shown through variations in thick and thin passages and strokes. Sometimes, though, I like to go with a monoline, and lately thicker ones, to see how much expression can be drawn just from the placement and movement of the drawing implement.

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Rather than commit to something as structured or demanding as a drawing a day, which I would and did already fail at, this year I’m going to try to increase my publicly shared output by just posting artwork as I finish it.

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Sun Dog Afternoon https://www.instagram.com/p/B5ohe9ZgjUt/?igshid=102wuzpti0bk7