Art, Power, and the Human Body

Sometimes I come up with titles before I think of what I am going to write in the post. I guess a lot of people start talking before they actually have a thought in their mind so maybe that is just the way humans do things. Well anyway here is what I am thinking about.

A lot of famous artists sell paintings for a lot of money. I always wonder about that and if that just makes art something that only special people in the art maker industry understand and that maybe we as regular people don't have a clue about. Then I started thinking about people who make movies. Why are people driven to make movies?

You know the really weird thing about artists is they don't know they are making art at the time, and that those of us that are both making it and taking it in don't know that it is art.

So I went to the White House. As you can see in this picture I wore these really cool wing things on my shoulder and sort of glove like things. I wore these shorts that looked like they were a Jackson Pollack painting. The President was not there at the time but I took a picture behind his photo.

In the United States they came up with the term "White House" because they didn't want to call it the "President's Palace" or something like that because it sounded too exclusive. There are a lot of people who always have an opinion on something and there are a lot of people who know how to make a lot of money on people who have opinions. If you look at television you will either get numb or turn it off. I hope all of my blog readers will turn TV off. It is all about selling you a bunch of *#$@ that you don't need and will never make you happy. In order to sell you that *#$@ they will figure out a way to push your buttons. They will freak you out or play at your mind by thinking all your problems are caused by such and such and then, wham bam zam - a commercial for some stupid thing that enough people will buy that it is worth it for the advertisers to pay for the air time.

Well anyway I have been very stressed out about stuff in RL lately. But I am glad I have the knowledge of an internal space in my head which I can go to. I feel sorry for people who don't have any escape. I guess that is sort of what all that stuff they group into art, music, literature, etc. is. I don't think art making is about making art at all, it is just about breathing and talking and touching people. Maybe I have been thinking too much. Anyway I hope everybody who is reading this is happy, and I don't just mean it because I sounds nice and all that - I really do mean it.

P.S. (can you say "P.S" in a blog?) I forgot to say anything about the human body.

A Conversation With Visitors

I have been busy but there are times when one must simply stop and talk with visitors when they stop by. Two interesting people stopped over. Since they are famous I can't reveal their names so I will have to just refer to them as SP and TheP. When you are on television news a lot it is important to just slow down and take a deep breath and try to get real. Sometimes we see people on TV and make opinions about stuff but I think all those news talk show people just like to push our buttons to make us mad so we will buy a lot of garbage that they are always selling on TV. I don't think they really want to tell us the real news.

I saved the chat from SL so I can bring it to you. Here it is:

[2010/03/25 15:31] Rammy Urriah: Oh Hi SP! What's up? - hope you are well.
[2010/03/25 15:31] SP: Hi Rammy I've just been running around talking about stuff. It is really a lot of fun being in the spot light these days.
[2010/03/25 15:31] Rammy Urriah: I am not so sure I would like to be in the spotlight. I would be scared I would say the wrong thing sometimes and come across mean when I really don't want to be.
[2010/03/25 15:32] SP: Well I can't understand why anyone would think that.
[2010/03/25 15:32] Rammy Urriah: Well I mean all the stuff that all you political people say - I mean don't you ever feel bad about dividing people up?
[2010/03/25 15:32] SP: Rammy you must remember we need to get a message out, we need to be sure get our voice out into the world.
[2010/03/25 15:33] Rammy Urriah: I guess everyone wants to say what is in their mind and all but I think it is good to not do all the talking.
[2010/03/25 15:34] SP: Maybe....
[2010/03/25 15:34] Rammy Urriah: SP - I want to introduce my friend TheP.
[2010/03/25 15:34] SP: Glad to meet you.
[2010/03/25 15:34] TheP: Good to meet you.
[2010/03/25 15:34] SP reads profile of TheP
[2010/03/25 15:34] SP: I see you have been in SL for quite a while.
[2010/03/25 15:35] TheP: Yes but I have not had much time here due to some complaints people have had about some of my groups.
[2010/03/25 15:35] Rammy Urriah: What do you mean?
[2010/03/25 15:36] TheP: Some people in my groups have been accused of stuff that we don't like to talk about.
[2010/03/25 15:36] Rammy Urriah: It must be real hard when you can never talk about certain things
[2010/03/25 15:36] TheP: That is part of our RP in our sim. We are not supposed to think about certain things so it gets bottled up.
[2010/03/25 15:37] Rammy Urriah: I guess if that is the RP you want to do its OK but I know it is really better to just be honest with stuff.
[2010/03/25 15:38] TheP: it is just the way we are in our group. maybe you would be interested in joining.
[2010/03/25 15:39] Rammy Urriah: I think you have a very nice sim but I am not sure I would be right for it. But thank you very much for inviting me.
[2010/03/25 15:40] TheP: ur wc
[2010/03/25 15:40] Rammy Urriah: Yikes it is getting late. I am so glad both of you stopped over. But I must be going.
[2010/03/25 15:40] SP: I am glad we did, it is always good to get off the soapbox from time to time - LOL
[2010/03/25 15:40] TheP: Good to see you again my friend. Please take care and have a pleasant night's sleep.
[2010/03/25 15:40] SP: Nite Rammy.
[2010/03/25 15:40] Rammy Urriah: Good night to both of you. I am glad you are both my friends. I know that you are both nice people but sometimes it is easy to sound mean when you don't to mean to. Good night and thanks for stopping over.

Well dear blog readers it was late so I need to go to bed. You know it is so easy to get worked up about stuff when you watch TV and people say things that make you mad. But I think that just because sometimes people take themselves too seriously doesn't mean we have to too.

Judi Dench and Lunch Boxes

I can hardly wait for the new movie called Ikea staring Judi Dench. Franz was even talking about it. I like her a lot and I hope she reads this and hope she doesn't think some of her fans have a few screws loose despite being a bit eccentric.

Well on to a story. Once in an American school there was a boy who came from Germany. His mother made him sardine sandwiches with butter on pumpernickel bread neatly wrapped in aluminum foil. The other kids thought it was interesting but they did not think it was necessarily a bad thing and they did not make fun of him or anything like that - they just thought it was interesting. They had a lot of trashy food that their mothers bought because it was advertised on TV. And because it was on TV it must have been what the kids wanted because all reality is TV after all.

All the kids had lunch boxes and when you opened them up they smelled like sour milk and metal. They had been impregnated by the foul oder of rotting food as it traveled from kitchen to school lunch room and back again.

But now to the point of the story. But before we get to the point let me tell you an idea I had. I was going to make lunch boxes to sell on second life. They would be blank and you just put a picture of what ever you wanted on them. They would have little handles and all that stuff.

But now back to the point of the story. All of the kids had chosen lunch boxes to represent who they thought they were. Some kids liked real stuff like westerns and real people TV shows. Some liked cartoons. But the most important feature of any lunch box is to have the picture go all the way around. That means when you look at the side of the box the picture would be of something and the same picture would wrap around until it came to where you started, but there was NO end - the picture was just a continuous picture. You could go around and around and around forever. But that is not the point to this story.

The real point is that the lunch boxes were avatars.

Laughing is a Funny Thing

I wonder why people laugh. I mean it is really strange that we start making weird vocal sounds and blowing wind through our vocal chords in a "ha ha ha" sort of sound. Why do we do this? I mean why is stuff funny?

Sometimes I say "hehe" or "LOL" but it is sort of an odd thing. I still don't know why I laugh. But I do know one thing and that is that it is a good feeling and it must be something that we need to do. It feels good and sort of is like a victory cheer, like we kill an evil demon or something. I guess it must be like vitamins.

Well I guess I don't have a lot to say tonight. I took a picture of my friend Andy and me looking at the sunset. It sort of has a nice cosmic look to it.

Well I hope that everyone reading this is doing well. I know things get weird but just remember that you all know a place deep in your mind that you can draw a lot of value from. At least that's what I think. Just remember the feeling from stopping and having a laugh for some reason. I am not a totally happy person all the time, if I was I may be too bizarre to be a human, but anyway, well, I am just rambling now.

In the United States people say "What's the bottom line?" which is from accounting. That means what is the total after all the good has been added in and the bad after being subtracted out. So the bottom line is just to laugh and you will always draw something from somewhere.

Razor Blades, Q-tips, and the Meaning of Happiness

When you are dreaming your brain just keeps jumping around from thing to thing and when you wake up in the morning sometimes you say to yourself "What a weird dream!". But my theory is that this is just how brains work and we might as well get used to it. In fact sometimes it is funny the stuff brains come up with. Sometimes when I look at stuff in SL I think about dreams.

OK now for a story. Once there was an Army base in the United States where soldiers trained. This was quite a while ago and it was at a time when people were at war. They had a place where the soldiers could shave, but in those days the razor blades were flat blades and they could cut you very easily. They were safety razors but you still had to be careful because they were not that "safe". So the Army base put a slot in the wall where the soldiers threw their old razor blades away. No one ever knew where the razor blades went, they just went into a slot never to be seen again. This was because people did not want to get cut on old razor blades.

Then one day people came to tear down the old building. When they opened the wall a load of old razor blades from 50 years came falling out. So all the razor blades did NOT just disappear after all.

Once there was an old house that somebody moved into. The person decided to open an old closed up fireplace. Suddenly a zillion Q-tips fell out. The people who lived there before had cleaned out their ears for many years and had just thrown the Q-tips into the closed fireplace. But then again Q-tips is a brand name. Just like Kleenex and Band-Aids. But people use those brand names as though they are generic names. Isn't that odd?

OK now the history of Q-tips and how it relates to the razor blades. The Q-tip was invented by a Sargent in the Army named Marcus Hearit. He was a cannon shooter. A cannon shooter is a person who puts a cannon ball into a cannon ball and fires. They used to be very important in warfare 200 years ago. He got the idea for the Q-tip from the thing you stick into the cannon to push the ball down. He said "Man that sure looks like a good idea for something to use to clean your ears, so I think I will invent it". And the rest is history.

Then the great grandson of Marcus Hearit was in the Army and stationed at a place where the razor blades were thrown into the wall. That is how the two stories relate.

And now for the public service portion of this post. It is important to place a public service message into all artwork including a mindless rambling post because art must have a purpose. The message is to not stick a Q-tip directly into your ear because you may hurt your eardrum. You should not look directly into the sun during a solar eclipse either, but one time I saw a solar eclipse and I looked up but just real real real quickly.

Well I am not sure how this relates to happiness (title of post) but I wanted to be sure to let people know that just because a person tells off-the-wall stories, and perhaps they may be a bit eccentric at times, they are very happy people who see a lot of good in the world.

OK now for how these stories relate to SL. As we live in a virtual world we leave razor blades and Q-tips behind the walls. Will someone find them someday?

Second Lives

Sometimes I find people who say things that trip me out:

link to PBS show on virtual worlds

Hello World

I am so busy that I can't even write stuff. But I just wanted to tell all my friends that even though I haven't posted for a while I am still here. I hope I don' have a nervous break down or anything - but I don't think I will. Life sometimes is like weather, it can get bad for a while but then clears up.

And now a cosmic energy wave of good wishes to all. (don't laugh - a cosmic energy wave will do good things for you and now that you have read it - it will magically go to you and before you know it you will feel it)