phantomridefilmvideo - Tumblr blog

[phantomridefilmvideo]

Paul Cézanne wrote to a friend, “On this matter I must tell you that the numerous studies to which I devoted myself having produced only negative results, and dreading criticism that is only too justified, I have resolved to work in silence, until the day when I should feel capable of defending theoretically the results of my endeavors.”

Things began to turn around in 1895, at the age of 56. By the time he was 60, his paintings had started selling. Soon he was famous, revered. What drove the man through all those decades of setbacks and obscurity? One biographer attributed it to his “inquiétude”—his drive, restlessness, anxiety. He just kept pushing himself to get better.

from You Might Be A Late Bloomer by David Brooks

[phantomridefilmvideo]

Lewis H. Lapham (1935-2024)

[phantomridefilmvideo]

Burt Glinn Novelist Françoise Sagan and Her Cat, Brahms 1958

“A Strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sorrow. The idea of sorrow has always appealed to me but now I am almost ashamed of its complete egoism. I have known boredom, regret, and occasionally remorse, but never sorrow. Today it envelops me like a silken web, enervating and soft, and sets me apart from everybody else.” Françoise Sagan, "Bonjour tristesse" 1954

[phantomridefilmvideo]

As the psychotherapist David Maloney explains it’s vital to be able to “reach a point in the day when you feel finished.” When you end the day feeling like there’s vastly more you ought to have done, you’re telling your nervous system it can’t take a break; and you’re reinforcing an idea of your work as an oppressive and insatiable force. What would it mean to be done for the day? Asking this question daily is a training in patience, because when you start getting serious about what you can reasonably expect from yourself, it’ll be painful how short the list is.

Something in all this evokes the religious tradition of the Sabbath, in which you put down tools not because the work is finished, but just because it’s Friday night or Sunday morning, and so it’s time to stop anyway. It helps you stop ceaselessly chasing the imaginary future point at which everything will have been handled, so that life can really begin. It’s a reminder that life has already really begun: that this it. And it permits you to sit back and receive life for an hour or two – to enjoy it confident in the knowledge that you did what you could today, and that when tomorrow rolls around, you’ll do what you can then, too.

- Oliver Burkman

[phantomridefilmvideo]

“…ceremonies are the way we remember to remember”

- from Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer

[phantomridefilmvideo]

“Contradiction.

The crux of the issue has always been about the contradiction.

The, uh, Occidental side of me sees contradiction

as something to overcome,

but the Oriental side as something to endure.

(guests murmur)

Hence, the Oriental side of me

is never afraid to accept contradiction

when faced by an unexpected turn of events and say…

“I expected this.”

But the Occidental side says, “What? Why did this happen?”

and immediately begins to analyze.

(quiet laughter)

The Oriental me…

feels…

comfortable in a crowd…

(murmurs)

but the Occidental me is always ready to take the stage.

I think in two frames of mind:

“Either/or” to the Occidental me

and “both/and” to the Oriental me.

So, accordingly, half of me values independence

while the other half appreciates interdependence.”

- The Sympathizer, episode 2, based on the novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen

[phantomridefilmvideo]

"Suddenly another voice spoke, low and melodious, its very sound an enchantment. Those who listened unwarily to that voice could seldom report the words that they heard; and if they did, they wondered, for little power remained in them. Mostly they remembered only that it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire awoke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves. When others spoke they seemed harsh and uncouth by contrast; and if they gainsaid the voice, anger was kindled in the hearts of those under the spell. For some the spell lasted only while the voice spoke to them, and when it spoke to another they smiled, as men do who see through a juggler's trick while others gape at it. For many the sound of the voice alone was enough to hold them enthralled; but for those whom it conquered the spell endured when they were far away, and ever they heard that soft voice whispering and urging them. But none were unmoved; none rejected its pleas and its commands without an effort of mind and will, so long as its master had control of it."

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

[phantomridefilmvideo]

“We’re human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it! We can admit that we’re killers, but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes… knowing that we’re not going to kill today.” - A Taste of Armageddon

[phantomridefilmvideo]

“I have despaired, and will despair, for every time I have come close to existing exactly as I have so long wanted “

- Elizabeth Barber, The Case Against Children, Harper’s, March 2024

[phantomridefilmvideo]

MONK But you-- you’re not fed up with it? Black people in poverty, black people rapping, black people as slaves, black people murdered by the police, whole soaring narratives about black folks in dire circumstances who still manage to maintain their dignity before they die-- I mean, I’m not saying these things aren’t real, but we’re also more than this. And it’s like so many writers like you can’t envision us without some white boot on our necks. SINTARA Do you get angry at Bret Easton Ellis or Charles Bukowski for writing about the downtrodden? Or is your ire strictly reserved for black women? MONK Nobody reads Bukowski thinking his is the definitive white experience. But people -- white people -- read your book and confine us to it. They think that we’re all like that. SINTARA Then it sounds like your issue is with white people, Monk, not me.

American Fiction, Written for the Screen by Cord Jefferson, Based upon the novel 'Erasure' by Percival Everett

[phantomridefilmvideo]

“…mass trauma […] exists in cities, perpetuated by the media whenever something deadly happens. It trains people to feel that things are falling apart. When they see someone sleeping on the street or using illegal drugs, they remember the violent crime they just saw on the local news and think it will happen to them tomorrow. In this way, people are taught to believe that violence is happening on a regular basis everywhere around them - even in weathly communities where it is exceedingly rare.”

- Ras Baraka, mayor of Newark, Harper’s Magazine, April 2024

[phantomridefilmvideo]

“As I stood breathless and expectant, there swept up to me a sense of poignancy…suspense… The pain of lost things… The maddening need to seek out that once awesome and momentous place.”

- H.P. Lovecraft from The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadith

[phantomridefilmvideo]

Here’s a thing I’ve had around in my head for a while!

Okay, so I’m pretty sure that by now everyone at least is aware of Steampunk, with it’s completely awesome Victorian sci-fi aesthetic. But what I want to see is Solarpunk – a plausible near-future sci-fi genre, which I like to imagine as based on updated Art Nouveau, Victorian, and Edwardian aesthetics, combined with a green and renewable energy movement to create a world in which children grow up being taught about building electronic tech as well as food gardening and other skills, and people have come back around to appreciating artisans and craftspeople, from stonemasons and smithies, to dress makers and jewelers, and everyone in between. A balance of sustainable energy-powered tech, environmental cities, and wicked cool aesthetics. 

A lot of people seem to share a vision of futuristic tech and architecture that looks a lot like an ipod – smooth and geometrical and white. Which imo is a little boring and sterile, which is why I picked out an Art Nouveau aesthetic for this.

With energy costs at a low, I like to imagine people being more inclined to focus their expendable income on the arts!

Aesthetically my vision of solarpunk is very similar to steampunk, but with electronic technology, and an Art Nouveau veneer.

So here are some buzz words~

Natural colors! Art Nouveau! Handcrafted wares! Tailors and dressmakers! Streetcars! Airships! Stained glass window solar panels!!! Education in tech and food growing! Less corporate capitalism, and more small businesses! Solar rooftops and roadways! Communal greenhouses on top of apartments! Electric cars with old-fashioned looks! No-cars-allowed walkways lined with independent shops! Renewable energy-powered Art Nouveau-styled tech life!

Can you imagine how pretty it would be to have stained glass windows everywhere that are actually solar panels? The tech is already headed in that direction!  Or how about wide-brim hats, or parasols that are topped with discreet solar panel tech incorporated into the design, with ports you can stick your phone charger in to?

(((Character art by me; click the cityscape pieces to see artist names)))

[phantomridefilmvideo]

“That we cannot be each other, that we cannot be what we consume, that we cannot be the whole world and can never ascend high enough to see all of it at once - all this is a source of disappointment, even torment, to anyone ravenous for life.”

- Becca Rothfeld from All Things Are Too Small

[phantomridefilmvideo]

“Art is a daughter of freedom, responding not to the demands of matter, but to the necessity in our minds.”

- Friedrich Schiller

[phantomridefilmvideo]

“…man produces even when he is free from physical need and only truly produces in freedom therefrom. An animal produces only itself, whilst man reproduces the whole of nature. An animal’s product belongs immediately to its physical body, whilst man freely confronts his product. An animal forms only in accordance with the standard and the need of the species to which it belongs, whilst man knows how to produce in accordance with the standard of every species, and knows how to apply everywhere the inherent standard to the object. Man therefore also forms objects in accordance with the laws of beauty.”

- Karl Marx

[phantomridefilmvideo]

Breezes