Goodbye, Life

That was a short visit. Hope to see you again in a couple of weeks.

As you might have noticed, this and the last posting lacked the picture/painting I had intended to post with every blog entry. Alas, I still have no camera, and the cam on my phone stopped working as well, so I can't take photos of the stuff I produced in the last couple of weeks. But since I'm probably going to disappear again for a few weeks, there won't be that many postings without pictures. Quid pro quo. Or something like that.

Watched Watchmen. Then read the comic (which, surprisingly, was available in our University library; I love my English department for its open-mindedness). I liked the film. It was intriguing, partly confusing and left certain stuff open (which is neither good nor bad). Upon reading the comic, I figured the confusing stuff mostly came from the changes that had taken place for no conceivable reason. The film seems to push the vigilantes into harsher good/bad-directions, while the comic leaves them pretty much in the middle-field. The comic also and unsurprisingly explains their behaviours better. It's nice to have such well thought-out and complex personalities in the superhero genre.
I guess Heroes tries to follow that direction a bit, since its characters are quite grey, as well, but that might just be due to a general lack of a well thought-out concept, resulting in a change of character-direction in order to surprise the viewer again by putting the character into the other party. (Yes, Heroes is slowly starting to bore me.)

What does not bore me, but rather gets better bit by bit, is Joss Whedon's new show, Dollhouse. While I'm not too fond of Faith's, err, Eliza Dushku's acting, I like the direction of the show and hope it gets beyond the damsel-in-distress stage.
I miss Joss' humour. It's what made Firefly brilliant.
Still, lots of potential in the show.

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In Linz eröffnete vor einigen Wochen die Tolouse-Lautrec Ausstellung in der Landesgalerie - eine sehr empfehlenswerte Ausstellung mit vielen beeindruckenden Bildern des Malers der Pariser Bordellszene. Mich beeindruckten vor allem die verschiedenen Stilrichtungen, in denen die Gemälde angefertigt wurden, und natürlich begeisterten mich am meisten die Bilder, in denen deutlich der Einfluss der japanischen Malerei zu sehen war. Hat mich auch etwas überrascht zu sehen, dass der japanische Einfluss damals schon so groß war. Und weil das so toll ist, geht's demnächst in die Sensai-Ausstellung in Salzburg.

Hello, Life

Well, life has me back. For a while. The question is whether this is a good or bad thing, considering that life's a bitch and all.

But, disappointingly, there are only a few links to post. The rest will follow (soon, as my former Arindal colleagues would have said).

To begin with, I have a nice video on guerilla gardening.

On the other side of a mirror, there's a shocking article on the consequences workers making antique style jeans face. The cynical part of me thought "How handy. With stuff like that, you can both make fashion and kill people."
Then it came to me that this thought isn't so ironic after all. Fashion and death are actually closely linked together - sweatshops, ridiculous beauty ideals, pesticides in the cotton plantations, etc.
Sad world.

For something more positive:
Very exciting deviation about digital comics. I love the interactive-ness and it feels so much more alive than traditional comics.

And to finish off, two in German.

Ich bin ja nicht so der Fan von Raps, Der hier hat's mir allerdings angetan.

Nachdem im deutschene Raum die Petition zum Grundeinkommen so gut durchgegangen ist, hier ein Film über's Grundeinkommen. Sehr interessant und informativ.

XXI The World

Style inspired heavily by James Jean. Theme inspired heavily by my bi-monthly visits at the hospital :)

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Seit Ende letzten Jahres gibt es im ehemaligen Central-Kino den Ruhepol, zum bewussten Austreten aus der lärmüberlasteten Welt, zum Auszeit-Nehmen und zum Erleben der Stille. Nachdem ich es lange vor hatte, konnte ich der Örtlichkeit nun auch einen Besuch abstatten, und ich muss sagen: Ich bin beeindruckt. Das Innendesign ist atemberaubend; schlicht, puristisch und "grundlegend". Man fühlt sich wie in einer anderen Welt. Im Zentrum liegt man in einem der ehemaligen Kinosäle und schaut auf Holzplatten, wo einst die Leinwand war - eine Ironie, die mich begeistert. Der Ruhepol ist für Linz eine große Bereicherung, und als ich ihn verließ, fühlte ich in mir schon Bedauern, wissend, dass er im November wieder geschlossen wird.

Not a triumph, but a try

There were so many possible titles for this blog entry -
"Two pages on why I'm not a comics creator"
"Fabrizio Eva in a nutshell"
"Slaughtering globalisation theories"

Ah well. I guess it is better to have a bad start somewhere than to not start at all.

From March 6-8 there's a comics festival in Linz. There'll also be a 24-hour-comic project. I'm very tempted to participate, despite my lack of comic creation abilities and despite it being the weekend before I have my diploma exam. It probably is loads of fun.

You're valuable (and so is everybody else)

Back in October Neil Gaiman made a 9-city tour, reading a chapter of his latest novel, The Graveyard Book in each city. The book has been, afaik, in the bestselling lists ever since it was published - justifiably so, I believe. It took a long time, but over many nights in a half-dozing state I listened to the whole tour and enjoyed it greatly. It is very recommendable. You can find the videos here.

There is also another recommendable video for today, a short film named Validation. It's awesome. I love it. It sincerely moved me to tears.

And to end the linkage: I also stumbled over a nice blog with some interesting kendo articles.

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Some costume designs. Costume designs are fun (although I'll probably never sew them, unfortunately):