apprenticesofdeweyhigh

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

What I like so much about this collage (made with materials from the film "Amanda", see my post from January) is that in Amandas expression, her eyes, there is so much pain. But at the same moment also resistance to it and a movement forward. The horse on the left is an object of desire (and somehow I have now to think about "Control" and "objects of power"), captured in a dream-like sequence. I think it symbolizes the wishes Amanda has, which are in the film to be independent and grown up, living her own life or the life she wants, respectively.

But growing up and living a life is difficult, so Amanda struggles and fights. Both aspects of the film are somehow in this collage, and I love the simplicity of it. The simple cut allowed by the "centrality" the cameraman uses, the contrast and still the fit and transition (somehow the horses back fits so much to the nose/mouth part, as almost an extension and it is not even on purpose).

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

March

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

Small thoughts in March

I visited yesterday the concert of a friend, a very small one (concert and friend). She was in Denmark for two years and returned now, and having witnessed both loss as well as the (spatial) separation of ways I just thought that one of the most beautiful things in life is to be able to see somebody again. And to be allowed to (really really really) like someone.

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

American Psycho x Reality

Okay, we continue on the American Psycho-rail 😎 I recently read an article from Justine Musk, Elon Musks first wife, which was well written and in some parts remembered me on the type of woman described in Bret Easton Ellis famous novel - or more precise: The wish or stereotype in a certain bracket ("league") which is superficial and leads to woman being reduced to the superficiality which they are expected to present. Which is great literature as literature is not simply an evolved language but a successfull attempt to get closer to truth. This is what stunned me when reading her article - which by the way was not angry in any way but written from a mature, reflecting perspective acknowleding that being a business man in the business world is not the best premise to be a loving husband "founding" a family.

PS.: Did you note the increase in "blondness" from blonde to blonder to platinum?

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

I love this! I was inspired by the video "This Company Isn’t Going to Grow Itself: Productivity Synthwave for the Hustle" which starts with the great song "Elevation" from Standley Gurvich.

Parallel to this currently a new generation of graphics cards is released and run short by NVIDIA. Maybe the production needs to still be maximised and simply runs on, maybe they want to control the market by slow release (you can always produce more but hardly take out already released graphics cards) or want a slow release in case of technical issues (some were indeed given) - or a combination. Anyways, the flagship reaches currently prices of five grand on the market, more than double the suggested retail price.

That's why the Wolf of Wall Street has to take over - because making the deal is indeed making a deal (a friend of mine has several websites open and even then you might be too slow x.x ).

Ahhh, I love it 🤩 Which is maybe a little masochisitic? Because true fans pay a price 😭 But NVIDIA has us one hook...thrashing around like a fish 🐟 Small note afterwards: I think the reason I love it is both the non-sense as well as the ridicoulousness it reveals, both with a view to the absurd prices and the market-mechanism for the graphics cards as well as with a view to brokerage. Besides...I'M HYPED 🤩🤩🤩

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

Some thoughts about the liberation of love and sex

A friend recently send me a video from Slavoj Žižek where he evolves the thesis that love in the meaning of Eros, of passion, erotic love is perceived as a "catastrophy" by claiming the in love falling totally. However, in the following I am a bit lost and I think he would need more (speaking) time to evolve his hypothesis without gaps - still there are many interesting new ideas branching. A big issue is that he starts to talk about sex and opens up a new topic but missing the connection and partly mixes it up - talking about love and then sex, which might be on purpose but in my opinion couldn't hold. For whoever interested there is a much upranked comment currently in second place giving a summary of what he might have wanted to say.

So, I cannot comment fully on Slavojs hypotheses but that's also not the aim of this spontaneous text. It's about a passage from Philipp Roths "The human stain", a very strong scene which I remembered as in it Coleman Silk questions the separation of love and sex. This is in particular strong as love was and is often perceived separated from sex or if connected love comes first, then the sex (maybe even solely after marriage) with the ultimate substitution of sex by "making love". Opposite to this, Coleman Silks thesis puts sex in the first place - not ultimatively as it is still formulated as a question but more is not necessary. It is enough to open up a space, it has not to be the ultimate solely truth. And I like this as in the end we are biologic species put under a biologic regimen, a regimen of the body, a regimen of what we are. Therefore, there is nothing to put on top, no thought out of which love or sexual behaviour is formed. It is reverse formed by our bodies and the bodies are formed by evolution. An important aspect of this is the transfer of genetic information to the next generation, the survial of the species. Sexual desire and sexual thoughts are a realm formed by this force, and they are a forcefull realm.

However, this doesn't speak against sex as "making love", a layer on top of it beyond a simple transfer of information (is it simple? Actually, I think it is not - to transfer genetic information is without anything prior given something quite complex). Sex and any kind of physical contact can be used to exchange emotions and feelings between each other, strengthening the bonding.

And there is another layer in Roths text. There is the abolition of a "natural order" of things to happen or a "natural connection" of love and sex. There is first sex. But then - opposite to a theory of sex being separated from love, which is hold through the book in form of the affair between Faunia Farley and Coleman Silk for quite a long time, in fact still hold up by Faunia within that same scene (with the ambiguity that she knows that he falls in love by this pointing towards her maybe also wanting it somehow) - there is love. By Faunia dancing, reviving a memory of another girl in Coleman, a girl called Steena which used to dance for him after he picked her up and an affair evolved also imprinted with a strong personal bonding (and in fact, this can be read in parallel too as Coleman thriving, "feeling young" again, this thesis being enforced by Faunias characterisation of him as being a "schoolboy"), another dimension of this character is introduced, who is mainly perceived as a sexual one, a woman having something in her making her different within the sexual dimension, and Coleman is the first one seeing it:

"He's never seen me dance like this, he's never heard me talk like this. Been so long since I talked like this, I'd have thought I'd forgotten how. So very long in hiding. Nobody's heard me talk like this.

The hawks and the crows sometimes in the woods, but otherwise no one. This is not the usual way I entertain men. This is the most reckless I have ever been. Imagine."

There are so many dimensions in this text, which makes it beyond a fine language to great literature. In example, there is the dimension of Faunia as a tragic and strong figure, the dimension of the trauma being sexually abused as a child. Many layers making this essay to long. But I want to shortly pick this up, as it shows the perspective of being sexualised as a woman besides the destructives elements of sexuality: Faunia evolves into a woman and evolving into a woman is simply evolving into fuckability, a "pussy on legs" (which is not a quote but a figure, or a changed figure of "a body surrounding a pussy", which is now a quote in fact). And Coleman sees something else. He sees a woman dancing, a woman teaching him - the professor, a woman with a lot of life in her, so "easy" to fall in love with.

And this is what they do: After the affair, against all attempts of Faunia against love, maybe even against emotion themselves, perhaps enforced or founded in her traumas of abuse and loss, Faunia will fall in love too. Coleman wants her to stay for breakfast but she drives out, drives to a raven on a mountain in a hut where animals are kept, a raven she likes to talk to. She escapes the offer and tries to find back to herself, to order her thoughts. But then she drives back, drives to Coleman - oppossing Slavojs passion for "love as betrayal" based on John le Carrés "A perfect spy". Love doesn't has to be betrayed but to be embraced (still, love might require betrayal in other situations - or betrayal of Faunias values she tried to keep up until almost the end like the value of never falling in love or her view on love).

Faunia is a very strong character, surviving rape, abuse and life itself including the death of her children what she even might could have prevented if not having sex with a man that time. She also escapes her husband, a vietnam veteran, who violently abuses her and in the end kills her and Coleman by letting the car of them drift off the highway.

Which I write in the end as he is the opposite of Faunia - his trauma eats him alive and he never surpasses it. He turns away from life while Faunia survives and tries to live somehow letting things get the past - not in a easy way but with all the hardship connected with it. Still, with finding love again returning to an even easier or somehow easier form of living. Her former husband Lester instead doesn't have this strength and furthermore doesn't have the strength to let others live. He puts himself in his own centre, puts himself in the centre of the world justified by his trauma becoming a dark hole.

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

And another ^.^

Actually, I'm not even on the graphics-card-hype but a friend is and he dragged me into it <3 So I listened today to "Heavenly" from Cigarettes After Sex and had to lay it under a video of the most expensive card.

Some art thoughts to it? Actually not, I found it just funny to put a love song under it. But if we are already into overinterpretation...if we consider love as an act of personal bonding, a biologic force to enfore devotion to another individual this love could be extended. Currently, there is no pressure towards technology but if there would be biological evolution towards it could indeed happen and independent of that a change in social behaviour can already occur now. Maybe we will admire devices, or robots will admire devices in a much stronger way than simply hyping the next graphics card generation. In addition, devices might evolve - already today AI-avatars exist and in particular a GPU could have its own. Considering people already now love AI-avatars, why not love a GPU?

As long as it can run Crysis.

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

Patrick Bateman relies on the RTX5090 for Sigma-Performance.

AI used solely for voice creation.

Audio-Transcript: "It was really embarassing last night at Pastels with McDermott talking non-stop about his graphics card, on the table half-empty glasses of Bellini, my plate with the monkfish half-finished as well, and while thinking about ordering a J&B on the rocks I couldn't stop wanting to crush my glas to be able to smash the sharp ends into McDermotts face just to stop all this horrible hogwash as he obviously was not aware of the new generation offering up to 32 gigabytes of VRAM and over 21000 cores embraced by a wonderful reticent, classy cover consisting of black and silver almost shimmering elements."

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

Just some thoughts

I just read a very powerful post from Laura Makabresku on Instagram where she quoted a friend called Zbyszek and I will quote her now fully to not leave too much aside: "I arrived, and we sat together in front of his house. We drank coffee with milk and ate Oreo cookies that Zbyszek had bought just for my visit. They lay beautifully arranged on a small decorative plate, melting in the sun. We talked about his depression and about Jesus. He told me that at a certain point in life, one must let go of all ideas about God, even the most beautiful ones. For an artist, this is a particularly painful experience. “Only this remains: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” And so we traced the sign of the cross on our bodies several times, together, repeating the words and gestures more and more slowly, as if we were only now learning them. Zbyszek said, “You see? That’s all you need. Remember.” I will remember. For everything as simple as the cross: Amen." I was so stuck with the sentence of leaving God behind, any idea of it - maybe as this is equal to leaving the inherently most strong one behind as God is equal to the whole universe itself and even more, beyond by the ability to create it being either inherent if not in a state of "before".

At least to a certain extend I think it is inherent to art itself to leave anything behind, any idea or framed vision to be able to create again from emptiness. Which is not absolutely true, depending on the perspective, but emphasizing maybe not the duty but at least the possibility of art to first creation itself and second, connected to this creation, the ability to find new insights, new pictures or words or any abstract "language" closer to what within a limited perception is truth.

Partially true as art is not creating from itself but building up. As well as truth is a term discussable as well and inherent to above paragraph everything is partial (and being needed to left behind, to be thought again). However, I thought of one story I wrote where someone describes the ocean questioning the perception it has usually and by questioning it, how she does it, she finds new words which I think come closer to the sea than already used descriptions, which - even if they are true - are not as close as I think is possible.

And someday, there is maybe even a better sentence or paragraph or single word. There is always something beyond. Sometimes or maybe even always we never get to this point but sometimes we do and at least I myself am startled then because it even happens with sentences I perceived to be "complete" and "final".

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

A cinemagic new year to everyone ✨

Collage based on pictures of the film "Amanda", written and directed by Carolina Cavalli. It is maybe the best film I watched 2024 based on my very subjective opinion – because I love it when there is a film which shows you one strong picture after another until you can't believe it anymore that something like this exists, thinking it must end any moment to be real and turn into a less good film because it is too stunning but it doesn't and stays strong until the end ❤️

Besides the amazing cinematography by Lorenzo Levrini it has such a well written story introducing very strong characters played by Benedetta Porcaroli and Galatea Bellugi with such a strong personality including the struggle they have with life, a very fine humour and a precious perspective on friendship.

And thanks to the rest of the film-crew and everyone involved for making this happen and ARTE for showing it 😊

It took me a while to create this collage, because there were many parts in form of walls to be filled but this was always conflicting with the perspective gained by them, the centrality, the kind of pressure from both sides towards the end of the hallway or within the new interpretation the opening into the rave field enlightened by an artificial sun. Furthermore, every picture has its own strength and "overloading" it by cutting it or pasting more pictures inside, a technique inherent to the collage, would take something away. So it was a balance of addition and substraction. In example, the most right picture with the doors would allow nicely to put something into the doors but this would subduct the magic of the open doors, the wideness of the rooms, the picture-inherent concept of changing perspectives and directions leaving things open. Finally, I still ended up using ten pictures in total, which is quite much I think.

I love the concept of open doors leading into new rooms, of mirrors and translucent dreams. In particular, I used transparency quite often. Mostly, I love the "shadow" on the wall with the protagonist running – not only because of the shadow-concept but also of the cinematic one because it is like a film projected on a screen.

As the collage shows a person going somewhere I thought it might be a nice new-year-post :-) So I hope all of you are going into a new year which at least in some moments contains a little bit of magic <3

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

Being sigma-prepared for christmas 🗿

Audio-Transcript: "Of course I already bought all presents in time, I even did two weeks ago delegating it to my secretary as I had two meetings that day as well as to bring back the video tapes I lent, and when Van Patten mentioned he invested almost ten grand into this years christmas I couldn't stopp laughing for almost five minutes while McDermott and suprisingly Price too didn`t even seem to realise how ridiculous it was."

I like how the ridiculousness can be interpreted in two ways - Bateman being unable to understand the superficial lifestyle he himself adapted to or within this adaption questioning the "low" amount of money as they always compete for status and wealth.

A nice and peaceful christmas to everyone 😊

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

Actually, I'm so tired of the storyline of an allegedly transgender-aloofness within the upper class leading to a politics forgetting about people who "simply have to do their work and earn enough mouney." I consider it a luxury to live in times, where these issues matter. Earlier in days people couldn't be gay and it was punished by law (in some countries it still is), now people can even identify what they feel like. And yes: that matters. It matters for these people. And for everyone else: You don't have to care. You don't need to like it, understand it, cherish it. No one forces you to do - expect treating these people with the minimum of respect. This is cultural development.

And it is not connected to not caring about economy or other political issues. In fact, many right-winged parties, or to go beyond a classic left/right spectrum (a sound political argument is fine, independent if it's more "conservative" or "liberal", "left" or "right"), radical movements don't care about the working class and low incomes. In example, the tax-policy of republicans, Meloni in Italy or the AfD in Germany governs people who have more money. Taxes are a form of distribution, and lower taxes mean less distribution. If you're poor, you will remain poor or get poorer, if you're rich, you stay rich or get richer - that's the principle of a money-system without a flow between classes. Despite that an economic curling up into a ball is not pushing the economy in any way. Furthermore, it was Trump who tried to cut Obamacare, which helps especially poor people and Meloni who cut income support for people who lost their job. So while in theory they could be separated issues, indeed transgender-issues are connected to economic-issues but positively, in reverse to often used allegations. Quoting Michel Friedman, ressentments against minorities injure the human dignity as it is against humans. So I would add: Defending the rights of people, of transgender, black, hispanic and so on defends the rights of white people too.

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

So groß die Unruhe und das Unglück auch sein mag, es gibt nichts Beruhigenderes als die Worte unsere geliebten Maggus ^.^

PS.: In time of fake-news, this is obviously a meme... PPS.: Apprentices of DeweyHigh is a great blog...I know this one...I read all of it...it's great

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

US-elections again. Can't believe it. It's the third time of Trump against an other candidate, and still it is such a close race. Which leaves me wondering. I can understand having different opinions, but still this amount of votes for Trump with his extreme positions? Even as in the US-system not every vote counts the same by their election system. For me, Trump is an incarnation of an ego-trip, which doesn't care about others. Low-tax-policy, attempts to restrict the health-insurance Obama-Care. Establishing a system with parameters, which governs people with a good starting position to develop even more force. Reverse, being a disadvantage for most people – independent whether being democratic or republican or neither.

Plus his politics against immigrants – such an irony, as "his" America consists purely of a late-generation of immigrants. Why is this possible? More or less, maybe because he promises ease. The easy way, the simple answers, which have to be repeated and repeated as there is no deep truth behind, anything more to say. Make America great again? America is great. And it never was as great as the promise promises – it always had problems with economic downs, racism, poverty, unequal opportunities.

The America people dream of, I doubt it ever existed. It's a promise of a never-happened past. The power of dreams lies in the unrestricted potential of them, the lifted boundaries. Dreams can be close to illusions. But when dreams should become real, they should start from reality, learning from the past to go into a better future. And withstand questioning. Is Trumps dream the dream of the people voting for him? I think it is not. Trump is living his own dream, trying to change the perception of reality. His dream is using the dreams of others, and paradoxically they grow together. The abuser doesn't have to take the right actions. He only needs to control the vision.

Anyway, I wanted to re-post an art piece I did four years ago. Not here, as I don't want to do reposts but on my instagram-channel, where it was not yet. In addition, I thought of doing a collage (which means kind of a double-posting, how...productive?) Yet I didn't have any idea. I also wanted to do it simple, without too big signs, at least some – like pictures of poverty. Instead, I choose a picture of afghanistan, representing a part of Americas younger past, loaded with so many aspects. A picture of wall-street, and of an American Suburb. Unclear in the fog.

PS.: As there is SO much speach of Trump against mexicans, I just want to pronounce that one of the best film-directors, Alejandro González Iñárritu, is mexican, and one of the greatest comedians, Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias, is the son of a mexican mother. So instead building walls, maybe they should build cinemas and stages.

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

Guess I'm getting #literallymeme? Okay, most likely not the first who found this pun, but still Ryan Gosling...somehow...

[apprenticesofdeweyhigh]

I have nothing to add to this poem, but I was asked this month why my blog is named "ApprenticesofDeweyHigh", so du-du-dew SELF-QUOTE-TIME ^.^

"Well...I simply LOVE Ducktales *.* So, of course I attend Dewey High, the most AWESOME and ADVENTUROUS and OVERLY RISKY BUT DON'T WORRY YOU WILL SURIVE AND FIND THE TREASURE-school anyone can DREAM of! Oh, and please pay attention that Louie doesn't SKIP CLASSES while thinking about BUSINESS IDEAS like SELLING IT -.-"