Real vs. Fantasy

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Could it be that surreal art is more real than attempts at realism?

I have a deep respect for any artist who can make a landscape, or a portrait, look like the original view, but the longer I live, the more it seems to me that surrealism is more accurate.

For example, go inside any building, even a modern one that’s been built with high-tech equipment and methods and see if every corner in that building is perfectly angled. Most of the buildings I visit don’t have any such perfection. Perfect angles and perfect circles seem to be out of our grasp. Tile work drifts as it gets laid. Wood gets warped after being cut. Metal gets bent in the process of installation.

A perfect picture might not be something we can make either. Just about any artist will say they are their own worst critic. They can take the compliments they receive from others, and accept the compliments, but they’ll have a list of things they notice that are wrong with their art. Show an artist something they created and they’ll be able to pick out the flaws instantly. An objective eye can say the art is beautiful, even though the one who created it is dissatisfied.

Even nature though, can make beautiful mistakes. Our realities our immersed in the unreal. A rose is one of many things in nature that is pleasing to the eye, but not necessarily symmetrical. And a tattoo of a rose? Don’t even get me started on that. And how about a photo of a tattooed rose? Ha! Three degrees of separation there, and we still recognize the intended form. Whether or not any of it is appealing is up to the person looking.

That’s a digression of sorts. This isn’t about appealing versus non-appealing. It’s about real versus fantasy. I’m of the opinion that the more fantastic a realistic piece gets, the more it mimics the actual world.

People’s faces are another thing. If you painted someone symmetrically, with all sides of their face proportional, and all the attachments of that face the same size, the picture would only be a representation. People have different sizes of ears, different sizes of nostrils, different landscapes of brow and cheek and chin on either side of their face—on the same face. Even their skulls have asymmetrical sides, so why not the flesh that covers it? And people get more uneven the older they get. They lose teeth. They lose hair. They gain hair in odd places. They get blemishes and scars and moles and pimples. There are so many things that change a face, we might even say that the changes are surreal. The end from the beginning certainly is. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying through their false teeth.

Hemp vs. Marijuana

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Let me start by saying I don’t feel like what I’m about to write is political. It has more of a healthy-lifestyle-choice vibe for me. I just want to voice my opinion on hemp and marijuana. Hemp has a variety of uses. You can make clothing out of hemp. You can make paper out of hemp. You can make fuel out of hemp. You can make FOOD out of hemp. Hemp has an excellent balance of proteins and fiber to make it one of the most beneficial grains. Marijuana, on the other hand, (it’s a different variety of the cannabis plant, by the way), is a sad misused plant. Some people want to smoke it. Sad. I’ve watched otherwise healthy people turn into THC addicts and turn into low-energy, mindless zombies. Have you ever seen a stoner get up and run? I haven’t. I don’t think they can. Chronic smokers of weed have low motivation, low willpower, and low intellect. They’re sad lumps of giggling flesh who crave pork rinds, candy, and soda. Isn’t it ironic that they don’t crave hemp to eat? If they wanted something healthy, that would be remarkable, but they want to eat junk food; further proof that smoking pot rots your brain. If marijuana is to be used medicinally, then it can be regulated by doctors and pharmacies—not vape shops. People who vape-o-mist cherry blossoms and essence of tube socks around their heads don’t have many brain cells at their command anyway, so we shouldn’t encourage them to lose more. Not only that, but the lack of hygiene these vapor users exhibit will only be degraded with the use of skunk-weed. It’s called skunk-weed because it smells of skunk, especially when burned. Combine that with human funk and get skunk-funk, an odor so offensive it could be militarized and used by SWAT teams in case they run out of tear gas. Oh yeah, did I mention hemp is good for food?

An Option Apart from Fireworks

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It did occur to me when I wrote that last ‘barchive about American Culture and funeral fireworks, that I haven’t ever written about a company called The Great American Pyramid.

Here’s an interesting concept. The company will mix your ashes, or your remains, into a 3 foot by 3 foot block of concrete, and add your block to an actual pyramid. The pyramid is expected to be larger than those in Egypt, and won’t be reserved for Pharaohs, but for whoever wants to be in it!

Personally, I think that’s a brilliant idea. Cemeteries are getting more crowded, and what better way to go than up! (And this way, you won’t just go up in smoke.)

Anyway, that’s enough from me. Check out their website and learn more here:

The Great American Pyramid

American Culture

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American culture is one of perpetual acceleration. It’s a culture of addition. It’s a culture of hyperbole and one-upmanship.

When an American gets heartburn from eating too much, he doesn’t stop consuming things, he adds to it by popping a couple of antacid tablets.

When making a sandwich, an American doesn’t stop with the lettuce or the tomato, he adds bacon, turkey, avocado, and don’t forget the chips!

When an American company takes over another company, they don’t simplify the processes, they try to make them more grandiose, more immane. The products become bloated. The services more exaggerated. The branding more colorful. The logo more arabesque. That last one is kind of funny, isn’t it? Are the Arabs the same way? Did they invent the exaggeration of detail?

When an American takes you to court, he never sues for just one thing. On top of litigation he tries to pile his offense taken, and his physical injury, and his post traumatic stress disorder, and don’t forget how you squashed his loaf of bread, bruised his apples, and crushed his chips.

Injury of commodity. That’s definitely an American concept. Even American oranges are offended. But the good thing here is that oranges can’t litigate. They can only be entered as evidence.

Speaking of evidence, as an item of evidence to prove my point: fireworks. We all know that fireworks were invented in China, but Americans have taken fireworks to the extreme. Fireworks, in America, are shot off during holidays, county fairs—and now during funerals.

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Not only is there a “Fireworks Package” at funeral homes, but you can also add your cremated ashes to the fireworks. I am really not making this up. Forget the urn and the mausoleum. Your remains will not be consigned to one place on earth, but many. I guess the rationalization there is, “What better way to scatter yourself on the wind? Shoot yourself into the stratosphere and get lost. Add yourself to the sky in a puff of smoke and some momentary sparks.”

This brings to mind a lot of different questions. Will these firework funerals be held at night? Will they be scheduled for the summer months? The cremation can happen immediately after death, but the show might have some restrictions. If it’s too windy, if the grass is too dry, if there’s a pouring rain and the fuse can’t seem to be lit, if the pyrotechnic expert has religious issues about shooting off remains, then the funeral fireworks might have to be postponed.

There are endless jokes to go along with this. If uncle Bert was a smoker in life… If he was a firefighter… If he was a pyrotechnic expert… If he was on the bomb squad… He sure knew his stuff, and proved it on his way out of this world.

It all started in America.

Images from Adjectives

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Everywhere and pervasive, images are what accompany this barchive and many others.

We have images of ourselves.

We have images of media personalities.

Words create images in our heads. Especially when laced with adjectives. You can change the idea around with the adjective. You can change the feeling with the adjective. You can change whether people are enchanted or repulsed by your offerings…with the adjective. For instance, a simple sentence: A sphere in my hand. Let’s watch the changes.

A powerful sphere in my hand.

A crude sphere in my hand.

A tempestuous sphere in my hand.

A stolen sphere in my hand.

A redolent sphere in my hand.

More changes:

A sphere in my dying hand.

A sphere in my aged hand.

A sphere in my assistant’s hand.

A sphere in my beautiful assistant’s hand.

A sphere of destruction in my enemy’s uncaring hand.

My love of words is right here in these examples. You can help people see exactly what you’re talking about by shifting your choice of description. An adjective goes a long way toward conveying that meaning you were trying so desperately to find. And aren’t definitions how we all realize we have things in common? Even if you didn’t know that redolent meant scented, once you find out the meaning then you can sense why a writer would use the word redolent rather than scented. Or why you yourself might use one word instead of the other.

Maybe a scented sphere would be a more appealing picture. If you wanted the reader to hear the alliteration, then you would write: scented sphere. If you wanted the reader to be wary of the sphere, then you might do better to use the word redolent. Is it a pleasant scent? What kind of scent is this sphere giving off? What kind of scent could a sphere have? Dynamic? Sulfurous? Sweaty? Animalistic? Powerful? How does power enter your nostrils? Is power redolent, or scented? How about rain? Does rain give you that sense of redolence, or that sense of a scent? What if you were tracking someone? Would you be on their scent, or would you follow their redolent path?