Batfort

Style reveals substance

Tag: politics (page 2 of 4)

Creative Achievement in the wild

Now that I’ve started turning (some of) my thoughts toward creative achievement, I’m seeing awesome confirmation-bias examples of people talking about it. Because I’m interested, I’m going to document what I notice and see if anything interesting shakes out.

Not all of these mention creative “achievement” per se, but I’m going for the spirit of the thing rather than the letter. The last thing I want to be is some stuffy academic who has to use the exact right words.

Japanese Chefs

Simon and Martina, everyone’s favorite kawaii food battle Youtube channel, has been upping their game with visits to higher-end restaurants in Japan. This one, Gion Roiro, is a French-Japanese fusion concept, using techniques from France with (only) local Japanese ingredients.

Simon: I feel like if you come to Japan and you only try traditional food you’re missing out on so much artistry and creative energy that Japanese chefs have–that would be like going to America and saying “I only want burgers.” That wouldn’t be fair. There are so many amazing chefs here who are trying new things.

I like the idea of creative energy, of that ebb and flow, of how energy can build with a group of people to unimaginable heights. “Where are you going to spend your creative energy for the day?” Like the people who wear the exact same outfit every day so they can spend their decision-making power on other things, like creative achievement. (I’ll put Steve Jobs in this category.)

Democrat to Deplorable

Jack Murphy was doxxed recently, but he also published a book. From the sounds of it, it’s a pretty good book, at that. (I haven’t read it yet.)

I would imagine that few things compare because it is so difficult, and especially difficult to do well. I’ve shitposted my way to accomplishment a few times, but I wouldn’t consider that real accomplishment. Not in the same way that I would consider someone who took enough care with his self-published book to get a fantastic cover designed accomplished.

That was a ridiculous sentence but I’m leaving it in.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Everyone’s favorite love-him-or-hate-him one-man motivation squad takes a creative approach to business.

I think my game is very reversed from everybody else’s, creatively. ALL of you is number one. “The market.” I only care about you motherfuckers–as a collective–so I’m just putting out. It’s a creative strategic framework that I have that’s absolutely fucking right.

I love applying the idea of creativity to domains other than artistry. For some reason, it still feels like crossing a boundary–like creativity only “belongs” in the arts. That complete BS, but it feels true.

Sometimes at my day job I pull out phrases like “creative problem solving” and people look at me like I’ve invented some crazy amazing new idea. It’s just problem solving, people. All problem solving is creative.

Image of the Week: Meme Parade

Debunked or not, this magazine cover will hover around our minds for quite some time.

Today I compiled a bunch of my favorite meme variants. The best of these are yet to come, I’m sure.

PS. It’s my 400th post today!

Melania doesn’t care, do u?

I’m coming to love Melania more and more.

She obviously doesn’t care for the spotlight as much as Trump does (#introvert), but when she’s in it, she kills it. Especially on the style front.

There hasn’t been this much controversy about what Melania wore since the media was obsessed with the fact that she wore stilettos (which she always wears) on a flight to Houston.

(That was only last August, in case you lost track. The Houston floods seem like a few years ago, at least.)

Most of the time she lets the clothes do the talking on their own, but this is not the first time she’s used words on clothes to explicitly state her message. In Houston, she wore a FLOTUS cap. I guess sometimes you really just need to let the message hit home.

I wonder who her stylist is, and how much fun they have planning these outfits.

The people we usually talk about online who use clothes to tell a story are actors and actresses, out to promote their latest movie. Stylish people of all walks of life also imbue some of that storytelling into what they wear.

I certainly do, in my own outfits, but it’s a language that only people who know me well would understand.

Melania has figured out how to go from the personal, internal narrative of style (“this dress makes me feel confident so I’ll wear to make a presentation at work”) to an social, external narrative of style (“this jacket tells the media to f##k off, so I’ll wear it while boarding the plane so they’ll be forced to stare at it”).

Of course, the media then tries their best to make it about the children at the boarder and not themselves, but deflection and obfuscation is what the media does best these days.

Conservatives are so often concerned with doing things right that they don’t realize that there are effective ways to be wrong. Same goes with clothing. They’re more concerned with looking “well-dressed” than with stating an effective message with style.

Roger Stone doesn’t fall into that trap. Neither do Trump or Melania or Milo. Peter Duke understands it.

Part of this is because conservatives aren’t as into the dress-up-and-take-pictures scene. But I think part of it is also because conservatives think that aesthetics don’t matter. Only principles.

This is simply not true. Aesthetics–edifice, artifice, surface–are the way in which we encounter the world every single day. We tell our kids stories about the wolf in sheep’s clothing, so that they can be aware of the fact that appearances don’t always match motives.

And yet, Trump can’t be president because he doesn’t look presidential.

 


This is a topic I’d like to explore more. I’d love to know what you think–what would you want to read about?

Image of the Week: Showdown

It’s obvious, right? More like image of the year.


Perfectly poised, yet crackling with energy.

Full of personality, yet timeless.

It looks art directed. Maybe it was.

Regardless, this photo speaks.

Image of the week: It’s bad

There are 2 types of people in the world….

 

It’s funny, this image stood out to me today in spite of the fact that it had very little to do with my own experience of reality this week. Most of my time was spent travelling and visiting old friends. But sometimes touching base with people you haven’t seen in a while allows you to see the drift that has occurred between two viewpoints.

I have drifted ever rightward over the years, and friends of mine have listed left. Or even stayed the same. But it’s easier to see after some time away, like how you need to put a piece of writing out of your mind for a while to get the most out of self-editing.

And honestly, as “alarming” as this graphic seems to be at first – is it really such a bad thing? Pew seems to be conflating Democrat with liberal and Republican with conservative. It would make sense that, as it becomes clear that Democrat and Republican are really two sides of the same coin, that actual true differences might appear between the left and the right (instead of a pile of bi-factional globalist mush).

On the other hand, maybe we can’t get along after all.

Image of the Week: Everything is appalling edition

I am appalled. I will continue being appalled. This week has reveled some truly horrific behavior. You’d think by now I would understand that most of the time humans are fallen, cowardly, and stupid.

Despite this meme’s insistence on conflating the “alt-rieich” branch of the alt-right with the rest of us (that’s okay, pretty much everyone does), it’s pretty ding dang dong correct.

I lost interest in that faction of the alt-right when most of its podcast hosts blithely declared that they would be democrats if we lived in an all-white society. Basically they wanted to live in pre-migration Sweden. Let’s ignore the fact that the people in pre-migration Sweden were the ones who let in the migrants.

Many of these same people insist on reacting like emotional teenage girls when they’re criticized by anyone on the actual right.

And then, of course, the alt-right’s favorite candidate for congress doxxed one of the most influential meme figures of the Great Meme Wars (RIP Ricky Vaughn).

It’s weeks like these that we’re reminded that there’s left and fake-right in the mainstream of every movement. Just like the democrats and republicans are really two different flavors of the same ruling party, you got your communists and your neo-nazi flavors of the “new right.”

And then there are the rest of us who actually believe in individual liberty, and with it, responsibility.

Most people don’t understand this. It’s why (I believe) that the voting franchise was so limited at first.

There is a very small minority of people who care about doing things right. The rest just go through the motions.

Image of the week: Constitutional crisis edition

It is known that the left can’t meme.

But it is extra funny when a meme hits home so hard that the left is actively doing damage control.

It’s photoshop, people. We all know that.

Another thing we all know is that no matter what you claim, you would repeal the 2nd Amendment if you could.

So this image tells the truth, even though it’s just a meme.

Player ME has entered the game

In my old job, I worked for the boss.

Wait, let me back up. Of course I worked for my boss.

But my boss was the one who had the final say, the one that everyone else had to bend around. THE BOSS.

And I knew that my boss backed me up 100%. Within reason, of course, but my boss wouldn’t throw me under the bus.

With this convenient arrangement, I could throw myself into the fray of academic politics without much regard for my safety. I had no political designs myself (although my boss may have), and merely had to position myself and my projects in such a way that I could get the rest of my faculty stakeholders on board.

I didn’t have to worry about myself.

***

In this new job, though, I don’t work for the boss anymore.

My boss is just another face in a long line of middle managers (they don’t call them that in my industry, but that’s what they are).

Maybe he has the ear of certain people, but those people can make whatever decisions they want.

Those people don’t have my back. It remains to be seen if my own boss has my back.

(I’m not going to count on it.)

As I settle into this position and start to take on more responsibility–and talk to new people–it’s becoming clear that the political landscape is a bit more vicious. The pieces are out on the board, and they’ve already drawn blood. (Bit of a mixed metaphor, but it works to describe the slow-moving bloodsport that is academic politics.)

This time, I can’t enjoy my protected little vantage point and focus on getting things done..

This time, I have to play for myself.

The reality of this situation finally hit home this afternoon. I’m no longer a politically neutral entity that operates more or less in tandem with my boss-like entity.

If I am going to be effective, it is imperative that I acquire a reputation and political capital (is that what they’re calling it these days?) on my own. It must be as separate from my boss as I can make it.

Which will be a challenge, since he’s a micromanager.

I now have skin in the game.

The mental breakdown of my generation

Today I learned that a guy I knew in college came out as trans. Or rather, he followed me on Instagram with his–her–new identity.

What a millennial way to find out something like that, right?

The gender-mania that’s going around right now seems to me most often associated with the younger generation, the ones who are young enough to be unduly influenced by adults with agendas. But it’s a meme that spreads insidiously, and even the older generation aren’t immune. My generation certainly isn’t.

It’s not just gender issues. So many people I know struggle with depression, some friends a while back struggled mightily with suicidal thoughts (and prevailed against them), and girls I know are plagued with hormonal imbalances that greatly impact their mental health and menstrual cycle.

I met up with a friend a handful of years ago who was trying out a high-powered neurotransmitter to augment her therapy. She said it made her feel the best she had in years (she had been studying out of the country so I hadn’t seen her face-to-face in a while) but I felt like I was talking to a robot version of my friend. The conversations that we used to have, so fluid and far-ranging, were stilted and small talky. It was like meeting someone completely new.

Maybe that was my fault. Maybe I was the distant one. It’s more than possible.

I’m not perfect and I certainly don’t have perfect mental health.

It’s been an emotionally exhausting couple of years–if you let yourself get overly engaged–with the meme wars and how the spiritual battle that we are fighting breached the surface of the water of reality. (If you have eyes to see. If you don’t, are you just really confused?)

Maybe the confusion explains why so many people I know are succumbing to the darkness, to the insanity.

I don’t understand it. I fight like hell to keep my grip on reality.

And yet I see my friends being pulled under. I don’t know how to help them–how does a person in rightside-up world throw a lifeline to someone in upside-down world?

All my touchstones, my footholds, are repulsive to them. My anchors are their cement shoes. What lifts me up drags them down.

I don’t know how to help them see clearly.

All I am is sad.

Image of the week: Portrait of the President as a bush edition

Is this some sort of elaborate “globalist elite” joke? Are we going to find out next week that Bush and Obama are secretly the same person?

Nah.

It’s art–however absurd–and I want to start exploring more about creative achievement on this blog. Absurdity has been on my mind this week.

It’s a prime example of “one of these things is not like the others,” which was done to great effect during Obama’s campaign for president but that didn’t work out quite so well for him afterward.

And looking at that portrait of JFK, it is absolutely possible to stand out–in a good way–without taking a shit all over history.

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