LINK DUMP #O11 - a 1970s Japanese Horror Technicolor classic,
I too like it raw, the rest of your life, and a tool for identifying artificially generated content.
Jan. 12, '023
Twenty-TwentyThree &Me
Oh wow, 2O23. Its going great right? It is, isn't it? Well for me it is. You know, I used to think people that didnt experience depression lacked emotional complexity. That their inner world and aspirations were so damn boring that they didnt have the material to construct the traps that snap shut and drag down the best and brightest. I am SO GRATEFUL to now know how
fucking stupid that was. Look, I know a lot of people on neocities are young, so let me help some of you out: "Only interesting people are sad" is some dumb edgelord shit and on top of that hella boring people are sad too, and usually they can't shut up about it.
Anyway, (what was that?) it's twenny twenny three and ive already finished two books, both in the past 48 hours. One took a few weeks to get to the end, and the other took the better part of last night. The first one, which I can't recommend enough, was recommended to me by way of this video (below) on bridging the gap between alien cultures. Rather than giving us aliens, the author uses animals that are already on this planet - spiders. Children of Time is so good, and despite it's size, really easy to read. It manages to span thousands of years without becoming a tedious history like Dune (sorry, Dune). The chapters flip between the development of the spiders and what's left of the human race after AI, climate change and nuclear winter combine to triple suplex the planet. If you like science fiction shit at all, then this book is for you. Its full of the kind of mind benders that make scifi so special, the newly bridged concepts that linger far after you watch a film, like that scene in interstellar where an hour on the high gravity planet turned into 16 years for the crew member they left behind, or how time curls back on itself in Arrival; this book gives a new way to think about perception and communication that is quite lovely, and a genuine feat considering it's the author's first scifi novel.
TOOLTIP: Always remember to change the url in youtube embeds to 'www.youtube-nocookie.com' to make them load faster and remove trackers
Fever Dream I could recommend to maybe two, or three people. Recommending a book at all these days is crazy, but if youre someone who doesnt really feel like reading most of the time, then, while it is a super fast read, it might just leave you with a kind of headache. It's good, it's weird, but it's really like an episode of the Alfred Hitchcock show in that its more rewarding if youre in the right mood to take it in. The story is fucked up and translated from Spanish. One of the glowing reviews on the cover said it feels like its own genre, and I agree. Actually forget what i said about Alfred Hitchcock Presents, this book is really Twin Peaks, an uncomfortable and prolonged mystery that doesn't give you anything remotely familiar to solve it with. and while i like it (and twin peaks) i completely get why someone wouldnt.
Ok. that's all for now. I was really struggling to find books that could hold my attention last year, so I am glad to have found these two so soon. I hope everyone is doing their best and giving in to the spirit of a new year starting and not listening to chickpea souffle takes like "don't feel pressured to start something new just because its the new year, be kind to yourself". fuck that, you should do something you can be proud of as soon as possible. you will like it when things feel good, i promise.
Pretty sweet selection of illustrators pumped into the latest issue of The Baffler, a magazine I'll pick up every now and then. The last issue I got featured a fun article on republican art and an analysis of the Bachelor. The illustrations above pair with an investigation of evangelical foster mom instagram influencers and anti-abortion campaign tactics (the issue's theme is Family). Ive tried reading both of the corresponding articles but... it seems in the years since I last flipped through The Baffler, things have taken a sharper turn towards making monsters out of conservatives, in a way that i find distasteful. For example in the one about the foster parent bloggers, one of them has a parent group that she self-describes as a "a group of vets sharing war stories" which the author immediately chastises as "a metaphor that equates temporarily caring for children who have been removed from their families -a trauma in itself- with being enlisted in bloody armed conflict." caaaaalm the fuck down. them posting the kids, and trying to recruit them into their religion is ick enough. we really dont need this i-live -on-twitter way of 'so what youre really saying'-ing everything.
sorry, im here to highlight the illustrations, but im not sure if i necessarily endorse the issue they live in yet. and theres a lot more gems therein. it had me thinking though of how when the illustration an article comes with is good enough, i will actually read an article that i would have been completely disinterested in otherwise.
Heres another kick ass illustration from the same issue of Dazed I mentioned awhile back (which i 1000% endorse). I MEAN how can you not want to read whatever this toast portrait comes with??? my eyes get wider when i say its soo good. This all had me thinking. if I had my own magazine, which illustrators i would want to jizz-jazz it up jizz jazz Below are the first ones that came to me, feel free to click through their links and see if you agree.
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Dani Motora
Starting with an artist right here on neocities, Dani Motora has a wobbledy muscular style that you can watch evolve, along with her talent, across time via her online archives. Her illustrations are stark and memorable, and its rare to catch an artist that has a distinct style, but still clearly developing into their final form. |  |
| Runnerup:
fakehauswives
nasty airbrush style, with sexy clowns
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Danny Ische Knoblauch
aka okniceok
Its so hard to pick just one illustration, since their overall body of work works together to support each piece on its own. Look at me saying body of work and piece. Ha! This one may not be the best exemplar but i just love how they went after a meticulous rendering of that deep fried cronch. Anyway I dont know how yall see it, but all the symmetry, the translating of different textures from collage into graphite, the choices that speak to their overall taste, make okniceok an artist's artist in that if you know how to draw you appreciate what a pain in the butt this would be to execute, while still looking extremely simple. Even if this is tracing I dont care.
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| Runnerup:
withpencilinhand
another graphite godsend, but way more pornographic and rough.
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| Jess MacCormack
An experimental AI artist that doesnt suck? Sign me up. This was another tough one to settle on a solitary pic, a lot of body parts emerging from soup and bad simpsons to wade through, but it's really what generative art ought to be, working with the AI instead of leaning on it, to ferret out the randomness that an intentional hand might ruin or waste too much time on.
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| Runnerup:
sentientmuppetfactory
another generative ai artist, making uncomfortable abominations that sit nicely within a faux 35mm cinematic world
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| jules garcia
my superskilled pick for portraitist, just hella good at drawing. This drawing is called "Complicated TV Dads"
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| Runnerup:
annabell ayala-rodriguez
another artist's artist i'd suppose, this girl's luxuriously rich watercolor portraits sing like oils.
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| Jiayi Li
this is who i would go to if i wanted a killer accessories editorial, everrything they do is glistening, erotic and usually, fruit-related. (and i know im right on this one, because they already have done brill work with loewe fragrances, which i didnt realize until revisiting their IG for this list)
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| Runnerup:
good.morning.my.dear.friend
Ok, hear me out.. this is bonkers Chinese mememaker was recommended to me due to holdover datapoint from living in taiwan for a few years and I have no idea what any of their memes are trying to convey, but throwing accessories into this weird oriental anti-style would be kinda sick.
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Paolo Puck
aka fluff.faun
pastel and sculptural, with two p's or four f's in their name, depending on who you ask. physical sculpture serving as illustration is always a good move. plus, they make a lot of creepy dogs.
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| Runnerup:
daisy collingridge
these two artists live together in my mind, for obvious reasons, and while she might be the better of the two, the first is just a bit more illustrative, and if we are being accurate in this fantasy, i dont think she would take my calls.
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CORNY AFTERWORD:
As you might have inferred, the majority of these artists were revealed to me on instagram. I think we are told too often these days that social media will either rot your mind, make you feel bad about your body, or pulverize your psyche. people drop off their accounts and return with announcements about mental health housekeeping. Ive never suffered from this so I can't relate, but I just want to say, enjoy other people's talents. If you come across someone seven years younger than you with ten times the output, hype them up and tell them how magical they are! if you see art or talent and it makes you feel bad about yourself, i think you might be using art wrong. You must know that people aren't sharing their creations online to make other people feel bad about themselves. idk. I know what im saying probably wont help, but it might make sense. If youre reading this, and youre a maker of things, and feel like youre surrounded by other people doing more and better, try to reframe it as having tremendous access to inspiration that are all tracks being laid for your train to roll on. alright, that's the best i can come up with, and its not that good of a metaphor, but fuck it, i tried. Happy Holidays.
TWO SHORT INDIE COMICS I THINK ABOUT ALL THE TIME
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Abstraction by Shintaro Kago is a bit of a dream comic for me, pushing the boundaries of form is enough for me to love it on its own, but that the content is grotesque and superbly drawn just makes it that much better. theres not a lot i dont like from kago, with the only exception of his fondness for cats. This story doesn't feel like a story so much as indecipherable notes written in the dark after waking up from a dream.
!) Love's Savage Fury by Mark Newgarden is an extremely short, lingering story found in Newgarden's fantastic collection of work, We All Die Alone. After thinking about this comic for years, and finally sourcing it online I was a bit dismayed to discover that it really sings in the printed form, where your eye is forced to move through each panel; there's something about the screen that shoves each entire page in all at once as a single image, breaking the effect of "reading". However, since most people aren't likely to come across this book irl (please, buy it if you can!), it still felt worthwhile to archive it online. It's hard to imagine something so sentimental coming from the artist that made The Garbage Pail Kids
For more absolutely free fantastic electronic literature
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LINK.DUMP #010 - Radical Graphical Design Rabbithole, Jejune Institute vs MeowWolf, & dying virtual platforms preserved by cyber socialists
