Affinities
The best present I got for my birthday was The Public Domain Review's book, Affinities. The description reads 'Published to celebrate 10 years of The Public Domain Review, this very special book of images gathers over 500 prints, paintings, illustrations, sketches, photographs, doodles, and everything in between, exploring connections across more than two millennia of visual culture'. Every single page is something inspiring, cool and strange. It feels like a curated collection of everything I'd find interesting but don't yet know exist. The way its formatted reminds me of the Aby Warburg Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, where images were placed alongside each other based on aesthetics and themes rather than histories, geographies, cultures or movements. Every page feels like an active puzzle where you can't help but force a conversation between its contents. I always make sure to read through it with a notebook by my side. Some of my favourite pages include one that compares 18th century scientific illustrations of the orbit of planets around the sun to a German 20th century article on the movements of various wasp species around their nest. Another compares a 16th century water colour of a floating fern to illustrations of anthropomorphised vegetation from a 15th century Italian manuscript. The whole book is really cool and really fun and I'm really grateful to have gotten it.
Framed
I forget most days but when I do remember, I've been checking out Framed, a browser game that gives you five chances to guess the name of a film based on several obscure screenshots. Like Wordle, you get one a day and it refreshes every twenty four hours. Its fun.
The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel
Came across this video on 'The Demon Doodles of 1565. Demonology is nearly always interesting and these designs are specifically really cool and creative. They remind me of some of the creatures and characters from Hieronymus Bosch's paintings and also some of the original Alice In Wonderland Illustrations. A few days after I watched this video, my Affinities book arrived and surprisingly, several of these Demon Doodles appeared inside. they were placed opposite some illustrations from Fortunio Liceti's De Monstris, which I also really loved. We watched Fantastic Planet (1973) recently too and so with this little pool of inspiration, I made a note to be more creative with character, monster and creature design. I have also taken doodling more abstract and strange creatures in the corners of my notebook.
Syrian Cassette Archives
Came across this online archive of Syrian cassette tapes. A really cool project that aims to 'preserve, share and research sounds and stories from Syria’s cassette era (1970s-2000s). They also post interviews with musicians, distributors and producers on their twitter, as well as the occasional article exploring specific movements or artists. Some of the recordings sound like nothing I've heard before so its been really cool to flick through them and discover whole new genres of music. I've listened to quite a few of the archived tapes so far, but I think this one by Nisreen Dyoub is my favourite.
Little Nemo
Currently working on one page or one strip short comics and I've picked up a few reference points over this last week or so. I've been reading the Spider-Man newspaper strips from the late seventies and picked up several annuals of the Dandy and Beano for inspiration too, as well as several of Al Columbia's short stories. I've also been reading through Winsor Mccay's original Little Nemo in Slumberland comic strips and enjoyed them a lot. I love the framing of each story both textually and visually and the stories feel genuinely wholesome and cute. The art is beautiful and reminds me of Moebius in some areas, particularly the colouring and there's so much texture to each surface within the dream world. I love the conceit of Nemo being repeatedly called into Slumberland by the king and each time failing to arrive at the palace because of a new danger or non-sequitur that gets in his way, forcing him to wake up and get told off by his parents. Its really creative and fun and I've enjoyed every adventure so far. It made me realise that story and plot are less important in short comics than action, world or character, something I've been trying to employ in recent attempts at writing for the medium.
Elden Ring
Really been enjoying Elden Ring lately. I've had trouble in the past getting into FromSoftware's Soulsborne games but after recently playing through and loving Nioh 2, I fancied trying something similar. Its the closest game to Breath of the Wild in terms of game philosophy and freedom that I've played, and employs a similar 'curiosity as a mechanic' mentality. You're constantly rewarded for experimentation, exploring strangely shaped lakes and constructs you find on the the map, dropping from ledges and castle walls to discover new pathways, and for combining different abilities, spells and armaments in order to see what results you get against different enemy types. The game is still difficult but it feels like you have more time to breathe, practice and observe before you're forced to face big challenges. The stealth mechanic helped to better pace the early game when I was still finding my feet, and although I've pretty much abandoned that strategy now, the sneaking around helped me through some of the more difficult areas when I was just starting out. It prevented the game from ever feeling frustrating, even when I was struggling early on. The open world also means that whenever I get stuck in a particular area I can explore some other place and come back when I'm a few levels higher. It never felt like grinding either as the areas you explore are basically their own adventure, with rich lore, interesting battles and rewarding loot which made all progression feel natural. The storytelling feels somewhat less elusive in this game that it did in the other Soulsborne games, although it still mostly contextual and hidden, only really unfurling itself through subtle hints in NPC dialogue and through item descriptions. I'm really enjoying the specific way the world's lore is revealing itself though. Each tomb, castle, shack and abandoned village have their own story vignette that, although standalone, do tie into the over all narrative and only through exploration do these stories start to add up and point towards a bigger picture. Its really interesting and has me thinking how I might write a fantasy inspired collection of vignettes in the style of my own Histories of Man and The Moon. Playing the game has also got me reading Berserk again which I am also glad for.
Playlist
This weeks playlist is an audience-less live set by .clipping performed in January 2021, during lockdown.
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