Byrappa

“I think a lot about what makes a strong female character. You...

Thu, 23 May 2013 16:29:25 +0100

“I think a lot about what makes a strong female character. You know, movies and TV shows, these things have influence, my own website. So I think the question of “What makes a strong female character?”, often goes misinterpreted. And instead we get these two-dimensional superwomen, who maybe have one quality that’s played up a lot. Like, you know, a Catwoman type, or she plays her sexuality up a lot and it’s seen as power. But they’re not strong characters who happen to be female, they’re completely flat and they’re basically cardboard characters.
The problem with this is that then people expect women to be that easy to understand, and women are mad at themselves for not being that simple. When in actuality, women are complicated. Women are multifaceted. Not because women are crazy, but because people are crazy. And women happen to be people!”

-Tavi Gevinson for TEDTalks [x]

"Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences...."

Wed, 22 May 2013 23:07:53 +0100

““Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences. (Roy Ascott’s phrase.) That solves a lot of problems: we don’t have to argue whether photographs are art, or whether performances are art, or whether Carl Andre’s bricks or Andrew Serranos’s piss or Little Richard’s ‘Long Tall Sally’ are art, because we say, ‘Art is something that happens, a process, not a quality, and all sorts of things can make it happen.’ … [W]hat makes a work of art ‘good’ for you is not something that is already ‘inside’ it, but something that happens inside you — so the value of the work lies in the degree to which it can help you have the kind of experience that you call art.””

- Brian Eno (via jessiethatcher)

I could reblog/post this every day as a constant reminder.

(via notational)

And I’m sticking it up here for people who define the “good” in Make good art in ways that I definitely didn’t intend…

(via neil-gaiman)

liberalsarecool: The GOP hates students, loves their debt...

Wed, 22 May 2013 23:00:33 +0100

liberalsarecool:

The GOP hates students, loves their debt payments.

Just Choose One They Said: I want to be a Jedi companion of the...

Wed, 22 May 2013 21:30:07 +0100

Just Choose One They Said:

I want to be a Jedi companion of the Doctor, regularly travelling at wrap speed through the stargate to play quidditch with the avengers.

Make art. Good or bad, just make art.

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:36:07 +0100

austinkleon:

Neil Gaiman has released a book of his great commencement address, Make Good Art.

When things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician — make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor — make good art. IRS on your trail — make good art. Cat exploded — make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before — make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and that doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: Make good art. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days, too.

I love Gaiman’s message, but I also want to make a plug for something else: when the going gets rough, make bad art, too.

When 9/11 and Katrina hit and she lost a bunch of her close friends, Lynda Barry got really depressed, and all she could do is doodle:

I found myself compelled, like this weird, shameful compulsion to draw cute animals. That was all I could stand to draw. You know, just cry and draw cute animals…dancing dogs with crowns on, you know? And, like, really friendly ducks. But I found this monkey, this meditating monkey, and I found that once - when I drew that monkey, it’s not that it fixed the problem. But it did shift it a little bit, or provide me some kind of relief. And that’s when I started to think, maybe that’s what images do, because I believe in all my - with all my heart they have an absolute biological function…

“Good” can be a stifling word, a word that makes you hesitate and stare at a blank page and second-guess yourself and throw stuff in the trash. What’s important is to get your hands moving and let the images come. Whether it’s good or bad is beside the point. Make art.

"Be of service. You are taking your degree into a society dominated by concentrated poverty and a..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 03:40:24 +0100

“Be of service. You are taking your degree into a society dominated by concentrated poverty and a vulnerable middle class, a society where it is harder to pay for education, harder to find a job, harder to buy a house and harder to hold onto those things even if you manage to get them. You are entering adulthood during a period of mass incarceration and near constant war. There is a lot for you to do. Service is the rent you pay for the space you take up on the earth, and as a relatively privileged American you take up a lot of space. We are the most consuming, polluting, wasteful nation on earth. So your rent is steep. Pay it with service.”

- Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry’s advice to Class of 2013 (via bitchwhoisyou)

"Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 03:36:48 +0100

“Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth. You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.”

- Bill Watterson (via mikekarnell) Via wilwheaton

Sometimes we expect more from others, because we would be...

Wed, 22 May 2013 03:13:19 +0100

Sometimes we expect more from others, because we would be willing to do that much for them.

Photo

Tue, 21 May 2013 21:49:41 +0100

hermione granger as the doctor’s...

Tue, 21 May 2013 20:53:31 +0100

hermione granger as the doctor’s companion

ladyofpolloi:

billiepiperly:

hermione would be a gr9 companion, she’d refer to the TARDIS as being unplottable rather than bigger on the inside, and sometimes she’d scare the doctor because, yeah she’s brilliant and brave and generally looks out for people,but she can also be absolutely cold and vicious, like him. Via mudkipasaurus]

3 words that describe me Via laying-among-the-stars:

Tue, 21 May 2013 20:16:19 +0100

3 words that describe me

Via laying-among-the-stars:

Dark Superhero Grandpa Befriends Darth Vader Via laughingsquid

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:59:28 +0100

Dark Superhero Grandpa Befriends Darth Vader

Via laughingsquid

Cutie….

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:45:49 +0100

Cutie….

Look at things differently

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:20:48 +0100

Look at things differently

"‘When ever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 03:12:51 +0100

“‘When ever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’”

- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (via dreamsequence9)