rollertrain

365.194 by Jodi Green

[part of her daily 365 photo project. good stuff there.]

Raymi climbing out of a lake by Phil Ogynist

[also: raymi lauren’s blog is a veteran web gem. girl takes documentation to levels you can neither duplicate nor imagine.]

Oscar Wilde: The author in his own words by iri5

[oh, the time that went into this. love it. the hair highlights are especially grand.]

- Haven’t mastered the art of working retail and making art. 

- You have. You’re good. 

- The increasingly worrisome lack of art-making is partially due to the wide and vast spectrum of my fellow employees at what shall hereforth be referred to as the Sex Shoppe (the copywriting skills died at sexyland). 

- Also, juggling day shifts with 3rd shifts takes some acclimation. Still haven’t figured out how people can come home after a late shift and retire to bed within one or six hours. Stupid birds. 

- I started a new encaustic painting today. That felt great. 

- As much as I love dopamine, it makes a shitty brain-focus neurotransmitter.

- My name is Libby, and I am a multifaceted binge addict. (thanks, jami.) Total shocker, aye? 

- Do you give a shit about reading blaag posts about addiction? Feels very 80’s All-A-Non, though I’m prepared to overshare. 

- There’s a guy who manages one of the Sex Shoppes, and - - 

- Oh, wait. I should mention that the Sex Shoppe has two retail locations in Durham. Sometimes I work at both. The other one shall hereforth be referred to as the CL&CL Sex Shoppe (Couples, Lesbians and Convenient Location).

- Apologies that my flexible straightness doesn’t really care about politically corrected gender/whatever acronyms. I am a nice dude, though. 

- Anyway, the guy who (honestly) manages the Sex Shoppe is amazing. Working with him is like working at my fantasy Craigslist Themepark. This is not a verbatim dialogue:

Me: So I hear you’re vastly overeducated.

Him: [loud smile]

Me: What, social work?

Him: Yes. Though I’ve done more of that in this store than anywhere else.

- He is correct. My cold, cold heart is already 2% defrosted.

- I’m trying to figure out how to blaag about this job - which is actual-work-friendlier than Sexyland, but also a large lesson in various forms of common sense - without violating the boundaries of the company, its staff and our customers. 

[aside: posting crap about art-making is awful for your traffic stats. folks who pretend they don’t care are lying and crying along with the rest of us from blogger 2004.]

- Oh my god. The customers. Whatever stereotypes you might have in your head would be destroyed in about five minutes. I fucking love that shit. 

- Bear with me, here. We all need each other, us lonely motherfuckers. I’ll figure out how to make art, work this job, blog about it and go back to [updated art skool advice towards the bottom] at some soon point. 

- I used to never bruise. 

- Stupid twitter. 

from jonnodotcom: HAPPY PRIDE!!!1!

[via Vile Bodies]

[also, hahahaaaaaaaaaaadumbassaaaaa.]

ILARIA ELIZABETH by Kate Kretz et al. 

[speechless.]

The Autopsy of Michael Jackson (2005) by Dana Shutz

[via Hrag Vartanian]

Reason #9,817 Why Trying to Protect Images of Visual Art is Foolish 

Got a comment on flickrrr today from a woman named Kim Ward who maintains an interesting blog called Face Me. She writes about being deaf and relying on lip reading in order to communicate with people who can and cannot hear:

“I was born with perfect hearing, then lost most of it slowly over time… I picked up lip reading (speech reading) naturally as my hearing went, and began wearing hearing aids in my early twenties. Many people think lip reading is an easy skill to master. It’s not.”

She found my Fat Lips painting and used part of it as the header image on her blog. If I had my flickr pictures set to “MY LAWYERS WILL SUE YOU IF YOU STEAL MY IMAGES,” or if I ruined my (admittedly crap) photos with lame watermarks, then I wouldn’t know shit about lip reading. Thanks, Kim, for using my work to suit your own purposes, and thanks for letting me know. All that painting does now is hang on our living room wall.

I get why some visual artists create flashed-out sites that force folks like me to resort to begging for jpegs via email or using the trusty Grab tool. But trying to prevent non-commercial sharing on the web is stupid. All it gets you is less traffic and more stealing. 

What do you think about visual artists who try their damndest to prevent image sharing? 

[p.s. kim is also on the twit and flickr.]

“I am in wonder at the human body and the vast multitude of ways it has to eject unpleasantness.  I did not know my hair could scream!  Or that my urethra could cry! So I figure I pretty much have seen the new Transformers film.” - Heart on a Stick

[image via brian mccarty]