Spider Time
The new Hot Apollo symbol. Shirts and other merchandise will be made to order with choice of colours.
Spiders, man. Listen. This is my main problem. Actually, it’s definitely not my main problem. Its place on the list can be found somewhere, though. It’s not the clearest list. List of spider problems.
Anyway.
When one walks into a room, one can take certain precautions to find any potential arthropod presence in the room. Scan the walls. Ceilings. Cast gazes on all surfaces. If this reveals nothing, the room is probably safe.
This is not the case for spiders. Nefarious? Indeed. They are not content to exist obviously. They are not limited to solid surfaces. They are not even consistently visible. We’ve met the little guys with the translucent bodies. A spider is wont to hang imperceptibly in the middle of a room at orifice height without any warning for anyone who chooses to walk in on legs that are not excessively numerous.
Constant vigilance.
Do you understand? I’m no intermittent sentry. It’s always spider time. I even have special clocks for it. In my mind. I don’t even need to check them anymore. It’s like that feeling one gets when one looks at one’s watch and thinks, “Hey! It’s the exact time that I guessed!” I always have that feeling with spider time.
Because it’s always spider time.
And I know that. Always.
Spider time!
Jaymes Buckman
Bonus Question!
Best time? Good times.
I'm Ridiculously Bad at Weather
This is not fashion. It is a boring grey dress. The only thing that could conceivably be more boring would be the show that could be stopped by this ruffly rag.
Do you ever feel that you were only able to get through something because you didn’t know that it was coming? I was quite happy when I started work on Tuesday, but I quickly came to realise that the entire shift would involve harsh weather. It wasn’t ridiculously cold, but the wind was maddening, and the rain just wouldn’t commit. I was shivering for the duration. “Make up your mind, rain!” “I haven’t decided . . .” So. The infuriatingly indecisive nature of that day’s clouds was a significant part of my afternoon.
I was told that the next day was going to be equally awful. My initial ignorance of Tuesday’s weather seemed to be the only thing that allowed me to survive; its inertia carried me through.
Petty dread did not seem to be a solid substitute.
But Wednesday actually happened to be relatively warm.
Good times!
Jaymes Buckman
Bonus Question!
Best rain? The warm summer stuff.
Art Show
"Divine Bull" by Nicole Lowden. It would look even better if you could see a version that wasn't taken from a phone.
I went to my friend’s art show on Friday. I didn’t stay for a very long time because I had an urgent subway Twister appointment. The other reason was the fact that it was an art show. I’m terrible at those things. It was some thesis project? Maybe. I don’t really know. There was some amazing stuff, and I am thankful for the fact that things I hate are not made by my artist friends. The fact that one of my friend’s pieces happened to be my absolute favourite is essentially just a bonus at this point.
That would be "Divine Bull".
Anyway. I did say that there was some amazing stuff, but it constituted a minuscule portion of an art show that wasn’t actually big. This is probably something that everyone already knows about art shows. I’ve been to enough. This is one of the reasons for which I’m not going to dwell on that part. I’ll just say that the most egregious offence was committed by the individual who decided to paint a noose. A noose on a black background would be pretty boring, but it’s the kind of thing I expect. Honestly, one could almost excuse the theoretical first monochrome painting by emphasising the nebulous originality of the artist, but it can’t really go anywhere after that. I still don’t know why I saw a series of three in the Museum of Modern Art. I’m vaguely disturbed by the fact that it’s an entire genre.
I’m really distracting myself with my opinions on art. I know that I shouldn’t do this because art’s subjective, but I currently feel that this is leading toward something. Perhaps it seems disingenuous to delete what delivers me to my point? I’m going to go with that for the moment.
So.
This guy painted a white noose on a black background. But then he successfully duplicated the same noose on three other black backgrounds. He actually put in the effort to paint each one individually. I am impressed by the technical skill with which he reproduced his chosen image. I readily admit that. He even managed to paint that same white noose on a blank white canvas. A total of five nooses. Five identical nooses.
Now. Here is the most interesting thing about the piece. In fairness, I suppose that it shouldn’t be hard for something to be the most interesting thing about this particular piece, but that’s not the point. One of my friends happened to know this guy, and his primary criticism was based around the fact that the artist had entered the class with this idea. Though he didn’t care for the finished product, he was most displeased by the fact that the artist had not allowed anything from the entire semester in this art class to influence his project. By my friend’s reckoning, this defeats the purpose of an art school project. If that’s true, I believe that art school defeats the purpose of art.
There is precisely one matter in which I support the noose painter. If an artist has an idea, he should endeavour to bring it to fruition at any cost. He has no obligation to dilute his vision for anyone else. If he’s a bad artist, the product won’t be appreciably improved by external influence. If he’s a good artist, it will probably be awesome. I took creative writing courses in high school because I had a choice between those and math. I can’t sit through math class, but those courses were still awful. There seem to be two main schools of thought that are espoused by the majority of art teachers. Well. The majority of art teachers who actually care enough to espouse any thought. One of these points to the work of the masters and asks you to imitate it. The other says, “Don’t even think about trying to be like these guys because you’ll never be as good as they are.” I’m fairly sure that the majority of the old masters would not have been improved by art school. Their diversity is only one thing that points to the truth of this. Artists are fully capable of choosing their own styles without need for imitation or modesty. Some of my best friends are in art school. They have my full love and respect, but I still don’t get the concept. Generally, bad artists can’t be stopped, and good artists can’t be created.
Jaymes Buckman
Bonus Question!
"Where and when do your knees buckle?" I am fortunate to have wonderful knees that support me unconditionally.
Dark Ages
I think that my main problem with excessive political correctness is its rapid obsolescence. Obviously, I have others. But the dominant one has to be its clear futility. People go to all of this trouble to make new and neutral designations for anyone who is slightly different to avoid the dubiously offensive nature of older terms, but the new ones invariably come to be used in the same old ways. “Idiot” and “moron” are fully acceptable insults against people who exhibit unpleasant behaviour, but everyone protests when the term “retard” is used in that fashion. Why? Because it is considered to be a purely clinical term that cannot be lightly brought into the vernacular. But modern psychology generally eschews it in favour of less negatively charged language. No one seems to object to the common use of “idiot” and “moron”, though both were once used in psychology to describe certain levels of mental disability. “Retard” seems to be taking a similar path. I seem to recall some popular British radio station that actually defended its host’s use of the word “gay” in reference to an unpopular heterosexual by stating that the host’s informal usage only referred to idiotic behaviour without any judgement of sexuality. I don’t even know what kind of person would prefer to be called a “little person” instead of a “midget”.
Yes. Alright. Fine. Technically, use of the term “Orient” could imply that the lands of powerful old white men are the natural centre of the world by placing Asia in the east. Unfortunately, powerful old white men need to have some system of navigation too, and any coherent geographical system must account for the relations between spaces. Any navigator would naturally see everything in relation to his own position. The world is round. Nothing is objectively east. Nothing is objectively west. People just use “Orient” because it describes a place that is east of their home. It doesn’t imply superiority. Some of its historical users might have believed in their own superiority, but the term doesn’t inherently carry any of that. On a vaguely related note, I occasionally use the term “Dark Ages” because it sounds nice. I know that some people did fantastic things in those times, but I’m not going to let the imaginary feelings of ancient corpses come before euphony. They know that I love them.
Jaymes Buckman
Bonus Question!
Best fictional slur? "Filthy xeno scum!"