Weiche, Satan

Finished this painting after what must have been almost a year. I had a looong break in between because I continually did some research on the topic (child abuse) and that dragged me down, so I didn't want to work on it anymore. Also because the topic is important to me, therefore I wanted the picture to be good and I invested more time in it than usually. Now I call it finished/abandoned, although there are several points I'm not happy with. Can't improve them with my current skills, so I need to improve my skills (with more sketches and paintings).



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Here's something for the "Fantasy readers worship Satan" faction (who are probably not reading this blog):

While this is a topic that I'm not researching, it might have been my topic if my first noe had been rejected and I'm still moving on its borders (in an unplanned sort of way). I may be wrong, but my reading so far suggests otherwise. It seems that Fantasy was initially not written to fulfill all our devilish desires, to oppose the Pope and the Church and to lead unsuspecting children to black masses, so they try cursing each other with wands. Quite the contrary.
Tolkien may be the godfather of Fantasy, but the genre started earlier - that is, in my thesis period, the Victorian age. And it began with writers William Morris and George MacDonald, who were devoutly Christian (isn't that a surprise?). How did this happen? My semi-proved theory says that the Enlightenment caused people to become rational on the one hand, but on the other hand a group of people formed a counter-movement to rationality and fully delved into Victorian sentimentality. With the Enlightenment, people brutally found out that man is fallible and imperfect and that their Eden-esque ideal does not and cannot exist. Imagine how crushed they were. So the crushed people tried to hold up their ideal and their moral standards by writing books of morality. Either realistic novels in which the protagonist is some kind of emotional and social uber-human who is - despite what science had shown - perfect, or Fantasy novels that bring the protagonist into a different world (-> "Otherworld Fantasy"), which resembles Eden, where he/she experiences stuff that improves him/her morally and from whence he/she returns as an improved human being to spread the love.
(Sort of like going out to do a sport that challenges you physically and mentally and returning as a better person.)
So, there you go, book-burners! The original idea of Fantasy was not to make people worship Satan, but to turn them into good Christians. I'll just sit here and cringe for a bit as this insight fully fills my mind.

Harry Potter 7

New Scientist has an article saying that obesity is possibly (socially) contagious. It sounds ridiculous at first, but when you read the article and think about it, it makes sense. I guess it ranges in the same category as peer pressure/soft power. We proclaim our individuality, but simultaneously became more of the same.

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Finished reading HP7 (so rejoice, this will be the last HP posting for a long while). Overall, I enjoyed it. The first two thirds could have been more interesting. You notice that J.K. Rowling is not used to deviating from the usual Hogwarts school year structure. It was nice that quite a few characters died (could have even been more - I was hoping Harry would die). The last third was absolutely wonderful; very capturing (although I didn't need the heaven-scene and the epilogue). I loved Snape's memories. The book is a good ending to a good series. And, as always, I'm happy to finish off a series so I can start something new.

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Couple of sketches from the Irish Pub and FNM. It's amazing how you notice that many different people sit in the same position a lot.

Harry Potter 5

There's a nice article on organic farming over at New Scientist.

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I watched HP5 a couple of days ago. It was nice - dark and moody. The essentials of the book were in it (as far as I could remember), but - of course - a lot was cut, so the film really could have been longer. Despite the 140 minutes it seemed quite short and a little too fast-paced. I don't think cutting Daniel Ratcliffe's hair was a good decision aesthetically and Sirius again looked too elegant and handsome. I'm also not sure if people who haven't read the book understand all that is going on in the film (Tonks' red hair wasn't explained at all, also pretty much her whole appearance; same with Kreacher). Still, as someone who has read the book and who watched the film for a nice visual reminiscence of a known story, it was good and enjoyable. The film has some very amiable characters who partly don't get enough screen time (Tonks, for instance). And some who do get their due screen time - I was looking forward to every appearance of Luna Lovegood and I still love Katie Leung's (Cho Cang) accent. All in all recommendable, even if you don't know the book.
Hm, I do wonder if it's common for British girls to yell "cute" and "awww" whenever a teenage character appears and does something "cute" (I admit, Ron had a nice hero-scene when he defended Harry, but it's nothing that I find culturally justifyable to go vocal about).

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Started as a sketch to get into the flow, thus the boring content:
Loosely inspired by George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind

Back to Camelot

The fair in Linz was nice. Huge masses of people, which got annoying around midday, but in the evening there were fewer people, the heat cooled down and we had a good time. There was some very good stuff at the fair. Some of my favourite merchants (Windalf, for example) and nice, skilled artists. Frank und Frey did an awesome fireshow with eight people and Discordia, as ever, showed a highly motivated swordfight, which resulted in one of the fighters injuring his knee. The fair was just a bit weak on the music side, which is a shame, since that's my favourite part.

Photos:


Going to the fair in the morning, posing with our mead horns.



This was a fairly young group from Linz. They were nice (although it was obvious they were still inexperienced) and tried to involve the kids, which was good, as the fair was aimed at families.



Angus der Barde, who was the most entertaining musician at the fair (of the two that played). And he was nice enough to keep playing a bit when the artist who was scheduled after him could not come.



Aaaand the jester. He was awesome. At the fairs, the good jesters can be as good as the music (for me), and sometimes even better. He was definitely a good one. Poor him could not speak German and tried to communicate in English with the children (who had no idea what he wanted). Very sweet guy.

Kendo and BBC

Since I have holidays now there's not University Kendo training. So my brother and me contacted the Kendo society in Linz and asked if we could train with them. On Tuesday was our first day.
It needs to be said that the Kendo I do in Salzburg is more free, less perfectionist and less aimed at tournaments, while my brother's society in Graz and the one in Linz (especially the one in Linz) go all the way for tournaments. So I now next to nothing about all the formalities, what the single kata are called, what a big men and a small men is, etc. And, sure enough, this hit me right at the beginning when everybody got into a circle and we did exercises with everybody counting to ten ... in Japanese. Imagine you're standing around with, oh, say twelve people and all of them count perfectly in Japanese, even your own brother (hmpf, what a betrayal). In the end I sort of whinced my numbers and hoped it would be over soon. Oh the shame. I need to learn Japanese till next week.
Apart from that, it was great. The different level of the group in Linz gives me a wonderful chance to improve a lot and to learn massively. Especially because, and this is what I like most about it, every advanced kendoka gives helpful instructions to the novices during the exercises (so in my case, everybody else tells me what I am doing wrong, haha!). I'd probably be scared and intimidated to death if the people weren't so friendly. Well, I'm looking forward to learning and improving. Everybody is a novice of anything at some point of their life.

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I also seem to have a British Films - phase. I liked Plots with a View from the first time I saw it, then saw Calendar Girls some time last week and watched several of the BBC evening shows the last two days. Granted, most of them I don't find great and kept watching them purely for their accents. I liked Liar though. It's an interesting show, the audience seems involved and I love the parts where the people throw in colloquial English. I also saw Little Britain, which seems to have a fanship among some students of English in Austria. Not sure what to think of it. Some is funny, some is gross, some I just don't understand. Nod and accept, I guess.


So, on Saturday we have the medieval fair (yay!) and in two weeks Alex is visiting me (I'm noticing a peculiar tendancy in my life involving guys who are willing to drive 8-10h to see me ... hmmmm). Ah, yes: Also, one of my paintings is featured in the Ascheherold 6, which is a magazine providing adventures and other materials for the free RPG Darkage. I'm not too familiar with the RPG (although it sounds interesting and fun, from what I've read), but there's also an artist's portrait (of me) in the Ascheherold, and also a part about life, battle and fashion in the Middleages, so it's worth checking out.
(Err. That is, if you speak German. Otherwise you can just look at the pictures