Hey. Heres something you may not know about me I am fucking obsessed with pens and inks and over the course of the past year have been building up a decent fountain pen collection. Here's a showcase of what came in the mail this month (the pouch is from Daiso and the xxxl zipper pull doubles as a phone stand!)
NotesLike most months, i spent most of it working diligently at a job I enjoy, this month even more so because I opted out of a trip to Taiwan and Japan to stay behind and keep up with my moneys. I was treated to several facetime calls from overseas stationery shops where I got to do some remote shopping. I got my BOOX ereader back when I thought I was going to be taking a pair of 14 hour flights, but its served me well regardless. One of my favorite online activities is going fucko on z-lib and downloading as many interesting books as I can. The one thing I can't stand is a boring cover, or none at all, and I'll often make my own to pretty up my digital shelves. Many had to be redone to remind me of what the books is actually about*, with the requirement of remaining legible at 125px-ish. Here's some I made:
My Version | Original | Description |
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Jacques Derrida writes "The Madness of the Day is a story whose title runs wild and drives the reader mad, la folie du jour, the madness of today, which leads to the madness that comes from the day, is born of it, as well as the madness of the day itself, itself mad." Blanchot was a contemporary of Derrida and their prose often published together |
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big book of aphorisms from western philosophy's angriest mustache |
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Novel about being a wife, mother, and artist who wakes up one day to the fact that the idyllic life she sold herself on is bullshit. When she married him, she thought her and her husband wanted the same things, a creative life filled with joy and children. But it’s not long until Jane finds herself subsumed by John’s ambitions and ego; in short, she becomes a wife. |
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A story about a woman obsessed with her glamorous neighbor living in the brownstone next door. Recommended in reading books about obsession |
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Essay by C. Thi Nguyen recommended by CJtheX, Canadian freak and video essayist savant. |
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Perspectives on Digital Humanism, or, The Internet is Dead! Long Live the Internet! |
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"Twisting the politics of representation around the representation of politics, these essays uncover a rich trove of information in the formal shifts and aberrant distortions of accelerated capitalism, of the art system as a vast mine of labor extraction and passionate commitment, of occupation and internship, of structural and literal violence, enchantment and fun, of hysterical, uncontrollable flight through the wreckage of postcolonial and modernist discourses and their unanticipated openings." Whatever that means. |
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A collection of essays that explore the concept of decay in various sociopolitical contexts. The book delves into the mechanisms, conditions, and temporalities of decay, providing readers with a nuanced and rigorous understanding of the topic. |
As far as what I actually read.. I finished The Vegetarian by Han Kang, which was weird, fucked up and the ending was abrupt. I liked it. but it was weird. Found it on this list of 10 Kafkaesque Novels to Mess with Your Mind while searching for the book cover of another novel. Granted the article title is a little corny, but what's cornier is the author of the article self inserts her own book on the list. That being said there's a few good titles and most of the lists I've found in the Literature section of her site are perfectly fine, like 10 Transgressive Books by Weird Women where she is notably absent. Is she not weird or her book not transgressive?
Between chapters of the Vegetarian I read the real book version of Baby Blue by Bim Erikkson which was a delightful lesbian romp about fighting fascists in a sci fi future set in Sweden.
Read another graphic novel during the last days of April that I had heard a lot of good things about, Grant Morisson's Nameless. Psychedelic gore core, Event Horizon meets Inception with an Irish accent. Loved it. I'd put it next to Hard-Boiled (or just below).
monthly miscellanyPs. Here's a pic of Molly pretending to be the same size as Chola.
MEGALINK.DUMP #024 - cultura global
This month in color:
Huge breakthrough on
pigments and how they
behave. Considering
developing my abandoned
watercolor site into a
blog for material notes.
Currently Reading:
The Vegetarian
by Han Kang
Projects:
Officer Big Mac tee
Leather pen roll
Washi stickers
I’d say the month was robust. Had a creative burst at the top of the hour and cranked out 4 cricut cuts of varying intricacy I’ve uploaded the cut files here (Click here to see them in use.)*
Started a reading style where I round robin between short stories from anthologies and essays I have saved on my BOOX Color Go 7. Samanta Schweblin was a strong standout. She has this way of writing that seems simultaneously for and in spite of the reader. What i mean is, her stories are built so that everything comes together at the very end and everything is tense and terrible til then. Discomfort content. yeah.
Acquired tons of new art supplies and made it a priority to use my old ones. Massive overhaul on my main mega watercolor palette, It was a month of swatching and minimal proper painting. The last thing in my sketchbook is an ode to old internets. hint:
When Hell is full,
the dead will walk the earth
PURE EVIL SINCE 1996
Flush please
* Artist credit for image background: Ying Wu
MEGALINK.DUMP #023 - 3 articles, 3 artists and 3 videos.
_ ____ ___ ____ ____ (_) __ _ _ __ _ _ __ _ _ __ _ _|___ \ / _ \___ \| ___| + | |/ _` | '_ \| | | |/ _` | '__| | | | __) | | | |__) |___ \ | | (_| | | | | |_| | (_| | | | |_| |/ __/| |_| / __/ ___) | * _/ |\__,_|_| |_|\__,_|\__,_|_| \__, |_____|\___/_____|____/ + * . |__/ |___/Blessed to have spent the end of the year and the beginning of the current one, for the first time in many, with my very best friend kiapou, pictured here dancing drunk in our kitchen approximately three and a half lifetimes ago. we spent the first day of the new year sitting on various tables and chairs throughout the county freshly forgetting at each new location that most things were closed due to the holiday and hangovers. She hit the road early the next morning, needing to make it to (place) the next state over before nightfall. i bid her farewell and sent her off with a huge stack of my magazines for her to flip through
* * / + / /+ // + /// // // // + //// ///// * + + //+/ /// + //// state is on fire // /// * // * / / / // * ______///_ /+ //// + / / //// \ // + // /// + / ///// \ //+ /// +///// |--------------| +/// + +: ____________//___//_________ | | / :: :: _/_______________/___________\_ | [+] __ [+] | // : + : | o o // o o | | [+] | | [+] | /// ::: : + :+ | o o o o o | | | o| | +// :+ +:: |/ :: __|___________________________|__ | | | |_ ///___::__::_____|___a few days later, multiple fires would erupt across LA county, leading to this exchange in our family group text. Later that day my brother, his wife, and their cone-headed dog would pile into their Rivian named RiRi and come to shelter ahead of evacuation warnings. ngl it was fun having them in town for a week since usually their stays are limited to dinner or a single overnight at most. A not insignificant amount of time was spent eating ice cream, going to the mall and going to the mall to eat ice cream. The mall happened to have a kiosk selling blind boxes these naked baby figurines 弟妹 collects, kfc mini brands for me and Japanese strawberry ube soft serve for all. We also spent some time at the arcade so jen could play some iteration of DDR and I could prove to myself that the claw machines there were a rip off.
Beyond crafting and painting, I spent a large part of my downtime perfecting my cyber experience, tweaking system settings and downloading increasingly obscure utility apps.
idk some other shit happened but putting the above page together really drained my batteries. there was a fire? i got myself back into painting and so that was cool, nothing big, mostly sketchbook stuff. broke in my hibino (this year's hobonichi alternative), whipped up a little animation i ought not to share, obsessed over that avatar rig i did in december, saw a racoon, caught the planetary procession which was pretty nifty, put together a few non-official Temu lego sets... oh! 新年快樂! bing bong.
_ _________ ________ ((O)) / \ / \ [+] / /~~~~~\ \ / /~~~~\ \ *~* . | | | | | | | | +*+ + | | | | | | | | *.* | | Happy year of the snake!| *. / | | | | | | | | .* // (o o) | | | | | | . / / \__/ \ \___/ / \ \______/ / | \ / \ / ^ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~