Category: Creativity

Knowledge Is Disempowerment.

It can be anyway.

Years back I got the idea that it would be cool to play with “constructed languages.” I read the Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder and banged out a couple silly fragments of languages, and then I joined the CONLANG-L mailing list, and I started buying and devouring the sorts of academic linguistics books you can find at Border’s or Barnes & Noble’s. (I had been interested in linguistics anyway due to my obsession with the linguistics/philosophy/cognitive science of people like George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Mark Turner, Ronald Langacker, and company).

I learned more and more but it was never enough. I formed strong opinions on different theories, much stronger opinions than I had any right to hold (as is my wont). But the more I learned, the less I did. I tried to actually make stuff up but I couldn’t anymore. All I had was this big head full of knowledge.

Be careful when you get into a new field of creative endeavor and decide you have to learn all the tricks of the trade, especially if you’re a book-knowledge addict like me. Knowledge is, after all, only the knowledge that other people have gained through direct investigation and experience. Doing the same investigation and having the same experiences, you might have come up with different knowledge. Learning from books is just learning what other people have said about things they have seen and experienced. Be careful not to worship it. Be careful not to overdose on it. It’s a map, not the territory, as they say.

I thought of this recently because I’ve been reading Lore Sjöberg lately and he had a piece which begins, “There’s something to be said for ignorant enthusiasm…” which shows he’s gone through some shadow of the same thing and that’s one reason why we haven’t seen any new Bandwidth Theater cartoons for like a year — he actually tried to learn how to animate “right” — that is, “right” according to the OTHER people in the industry who do it, instead of “right” meaning whatever works for him in the real world — and he’s finding that it’s making it hard for him to actually do anything.

So learn the “right” way to do things at your peril. You may actually be better off ignorant and enthusiastic.

Framing & Gaming

I’m working on a roleplaying game, called Odyssey. Trying to get the rules together, get things clear, and I just realized a big old hole in what I’m doing — I don’t have any rules for “scene framing.”

I realized this cause of this post — the comments thereof — where Emily offhand mentions how important Scene Framing is. I’m like, huh. Haven’t thought about it.

I dink around on the forge a little, google search on “forge” and “scene framing” — and I find this glossary page with links to some wicked fine Forge posts about it — especially this post by Paul “My Life With Master” Czege.

And it’s starting to fall together.

Taking “He-Man” WAYYY Too Seriously

From ConceptArt.org, a series of sketches and paintings for a redesign of the He-Man characters.

I was too old when it came on to ever think of He-Man as anything but completely cheeseball. I still was young enough to watch it, but I wasn’t young enough to even begin to suspend disbelief.

Apparently some people who are now good artists were young enough to suspend disbelief, and grew up wanting to make He-Man grow up with them.

This is really cool stuff (some of it not safe for work) but it just seems so wrong to give the Brom treatment to that cheesy little kids’ cartoon. It reminds me of the “American McGee’s Strawberry Shortcake” comic that got the Penny Arcade guys in such trouble.

Via Uncle Bear

Egads, I’m Still on SITO.

Back in 1995 or 1996 or something, I joined an online art community called SITO. (Originally OTIS, but the Otis Art College sent them a nastygram and so they changed it.) I forgot about them for a very long time. A year or so I recovered my password. There was only one piece by me left there. There used to be a half dozen, made on a pirated copy of an ancient version of Fractal Design Painter on my 486. Maybe there was some kind of a purge. Anyway, I just posted another and might post more there. who knows.

Egads. The trippy flash gridcosm viewer, with over 2000 levels of art, in the making since 1997, is NOT to be missed.

Practical Applications of the Philosopher’s stone. For drunks.

Oh My God It Burns! » Practical Applications of the Philosopher’s stone. For drunks.

Tested this today. It works. Did a blind taste test for my wife. She happened to select the “before” vodka first. She made a horrible face. (She isn’t a giant fan of vodka to begin with…) I said, “You’re praying that’s the ‘before’ one, aren’t you?'” Then she tasted the “after” and agreed it was extremely, extremely smooth in comparison. (The “before” was Rikaloff vodka from Monumental Distilling Co. in Maryland, and seems likely to be comparable to the “Vladimir” used in the experiment. It was about the same price: under $12 for 1.75 liters; strong wood alcohol-like smell and a brutal aftertaste in the “before” state.)

I don’t have any Ketel One to do a taste test against, but the process does produce extremely smooth, potable vodka.

Now I’ve got her hooked on the idea of using the resultant smooth vodka to create tasty infusions, perhaps to give as presents to friends at the annual “friends of Rick from college” post-Christmas party.