a seemingly arbitrary man @vandroid-helsing - Tumblr Blog

The trademark is mysterious and mystic eccentric owner of a little shop of curios tucked away at the end of an alley that never quite seems to be in the same place twice, and which has no cohesive inventory but always seems to have what you’re in need of. ✨

I almost wrote a short story collection about this and then I didn’t

#asks

theme developing re: the “what’s my trademark” question

#asks

withnailrules

Santa Ynez California Hillside by Eyvind Earle, 1969

fforsythiaaa

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

mjfass

New ask game:

Reblog if you want your followers to tell you what your trademark ™️ is. Like, what’s that thing that really identifies you.

themakeupbrush

Linh San

derangedrhythms

Sylvia Plath ‘Feeding blueberries to a Canadian deer’ from: The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume II: 1956–1963

thevaultoftheatomicspaceage

Air houses. Inflatable cupolas made of PVC coated nylon. Andreas Feininger. In LIFE Science Library - Matter by Ralph E. Lapp and the Editors of TIME - LIFE BOOKS, 1963

kidzbopdeathgrips

i just fucked the great pyramid of giza

egyptian government wasn't watching so i made love to it so sensually

memorycycle

deinosuchus wouldve loved a lamb souvlaki

garvallade

one thing you can do for lgbtq people during pride month is going to the "#me" tag on their tumblr profile and spam liking/reblogging their photos 🌈

calciumcryptid

I feel like a lot of people get "All Art is Political" confused with "All Art is made with Political Intentions" which is not the same.

sibyllance

Apparently someone got their car stuck on the light rail tracks at Mt. Baker. For those unfamiliar this is 35 feet up in the air

officialboredom

First test flight of a flying car by Mazda partially a success

#genuinely INSANE that she was able to do this #and she claimed to be following GPS??

wizardjail

i mean, you know, people are entitled to their sexual proclivities. let there be a thousand blossoms bloom, as far as i'm concerned. but i ain't spending any time on it, because in the meantime, every three months, a person's torn to pieces by maenads in thebes