Monday, January 27, 2014

Planet Baggage

New York Times magazine needs help with their Photoshop so I volunteered.


There is a galaxy of scandals depending on how nit-picky you are about it. Listing them means grading them by importance and grading a politicians scandals by importance makes one look and sound like a ruminating drunk, a political crackpot.

That works in reverse too. Mention one scintilla of support for political dynastically-minded family and at this point you self-identify as malevolent political crackpot. 

52 comments:

virgil xenophon said...

Great work, Chip!

virgil xenophon said...

And a nice, sadly all-too-true observation, as well..

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

That is so true.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

We are having a debate as to whether Hilary will be a planet or stay as planetoid.

At this point all the "qualifiers" say she is a candidate for planethood.

Last time, another 'space body' came out of no-where and knock her off contention.

Meade said...

Don't disrespect Hillary.

AllenS said...

Chip, do whatever in the hell you want.

chickelit said...

LOL

Good one, chip!

deborah said...

lol excellent.

edutcher said...

Oh, you can give her more moons that that, Chip.

(A moon for Hillary; now there's a thought...)

deborah said...

You could add, '3 AM phone call' and 'what difference does it make now?'

virgil xenophon said...

Add: "I can't be responsible for every under-capitalized entrepreneur in America" (When told mandates of Hillarycare would drive many out of business, leaving workers with not only no ins but no jobs as well..)

deborah said...

lol...Chelsea cluster.

Trooper York said...

You are a very talented man. I wish Instapundit would highlight some of your posts.

Amartel said...

Wrong planet.

AllenS said...

Another one to add would be:

"Look out! Sniper fire!"

chickelit said...

Trooper York said...
You are a very talented man. I wish Instapundit would highlight some of your posts.

Yes, but too much attention may lead to too much scrutiny and IRS reprisal. Just look what's happening to George Zimmerman and his art. OTOH, I think that money has to be involved.

Chip Ahoy said...

The scandals are added one-at-a-time. They can take six to eight frames to fade in and out or more. Or they can pop in and out with less.

I aligned them with the text that is already there in the background.

But after completion, I realized I could have placed them in their own cosmic stream. That would have been better and I could have kept right on going, getting smaller and smaller in nit-picky scandal until a full-on cosmic stream is completed and it would be so compacted that it'd take several loops of the gif to read them all, if you cared to.

I always think my next one will be better but by then the idea is burned out.

deborah said...

Allen, I did think of that one, but I feel mean about it. I truly believe she had a false memory.

deborah said...

Chip what do you mean, placed them in their own cosmic stream?

Do you mean like comet entering the screen then exiting?

Meade said...

I'm ready for Hillary.

Aren't you?

Chip Ahoy said...

Deb, a pulsating flashing stream of scandals through the cosmos. I was just now looking at this and can make it appear like solar wind, the planet casting a shadow toward the viewer, the planetary bands darkened on the viewer's side to show the planet's shadow, while the stream follows the lines of the solar wind that cast the shadow. The face on the planet darkens when fully shown and brightest when compressed at the edges.

The thing is, there is so much scandal-material. I had a whole list that other people assembled, so several lists. Interesting what people left off of their scandal-list, what they do not feel is important. And how much on the lists is actually not her's but her association. And ton's of little shit like White House souvenirs upon leaving, and switching typewriter keys for prank at taxpayer expense. Stolen documents form library of congress. Files showing up on a prosecutors desk one year after they're asked for. Tons of stuff in Arkansas. The women, the women, the women, a stream of names.

The list in a text document is copied by command+c and pasted directly into photoshop, the typeface already chosen, or changed style and size on the spot for all the rest. Every sentence is copy/pasted not laboriously typed.

[That is my way for here as well. Copy/paste into another document. Select the whole thing and turn off format. The computer goes, "What? Turn off formatting? Insane people do that. Are you sure?"

While still selected, copy again and paste directly anywhere else, Blogger, Photoshop, anywhere, and nothing is there to mess you up. ]

The file was 1.5m, very large, too large, but for some reason it saved in gif to something like 325kb. Text works well with gif.

deborah said...

Neat. Well, I didn't really understand, BUT it was great idea!

Hope to see your new solar wind if you go ahead with it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

There is a galaxy of scandals depending on how nit-picky you are about it.

Knowing you, I'm sure you'll spend every one of your monetarily thankless moments coming up with as many nits to pick at. I hope that it, and all the Pink Floyd acid-sequence iconography going along with it, helps you.

It must take a lot of talent to come up with imagery as bizarre as the paranoia and pervasive blameworthiness accompanying it. Goodness knows such childish propaganda doesn't pay as well as we're led to assume it might have one day.

Good luck to you, Chip.

chickelit said...

Are you Chip stalker, Ritmo?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I'm a Chip Implorer of Deciphering for the non-politically obsessed. Whatever Hillary's faults, his rage-y abstractions of them make the artist depicting them look so much worse. That's what happened in the nineties. You have to leave Billary alone to make them showcase themselves as their own worst enemies. The subtlest take-downs are the most effective of such slick charlatans as they. All this oppositional rage is so weird that it always backfires. The people will pick slick over sour every time. It's just so.

Put it to you this way: Whatever bone one might have to pick with Christianity or any Christian institution, Andres Serrano didn't make it any easier to whittle at.

Chip Ahoy said...

"knowing you" How presumptuous.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I presume to get a good idea of where you're coming from in having read your many inchoate manifestoes over the years. Or do you prefer to think of the ideas you've printed as intentionally unclear? Would that really be more flattering?

chickelit said...

R&B: Come on, you make Chip sound like the Unibomber.

chickelit said...

You went after his cylinder work too. Is there something about Platonic solids that bugs you?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Serrano and Kaczynski are two very different sorts. Chip ain't violent - from what I can tell, he's just using art to put across a political/cultural message in a questionably effective way.

The other comparison you mention definitely wasn't one that I was making.

chickelit said...

I should have said Euclidean solids anyways. Plato had many facets but those two shapes weren't his.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Not particularly. I got some really cool/cute Wooden books on Archimedean solids, actually. You can make the math artistic and the artistic mathematical; for some reason though I just hate when sloppy, coded gifs illustrate how to do that electronically. But I thought the Mathematica programs the math profs loved when that was cutting edge in the early nineties was cool. I just like to see the context if it's going to be simplified. Like, use it in a Powerpoint or Word doc or something, I guess.

I must say, that must have been a much less strident objection I'd have made. Or perhaps I was just taking revenge for a previous slight! ;-)

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I think you'd like the Wooden Books series, CL. Especially if you've got some grade-school kids or relatives who could use a holiday or birthday gift.

chickelit said...

Chip often hits the mark. Many times, it's his timing. Don't you think it's nice to have someone putting up something unique here that's not just words words words?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I tried sending some on to my nearly three-year old nephew, before becoming a bit less naive about age appropriateness. After that I got him some actual toys (planes, boats, etc.) and actual children's' stories (i.e. a thin, softcover oversize Paddington book), but I still intend on getting him some knowledge learning stuff like those books when he's about five or so…

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Art's fine. Sometimes I even find a unique thing that he's trying to get at in his style. And he does try to be humorous in a coyote-gets-smashed-by-the-anvil-under-the-roadrunner way. It's just sometimes it's too blatantly message-oriented. There's nothing wrong with that, per se. But if you're already trying to appreciate the art, or the message, it's best to hone one or the other. Of course, those partial to both the art and the message in a certain work will see it differently.

As I said, maybe it will help what he obviously, and very strongly, wants to happen politically. But I doubt it. It's like a political cartoon. Or any other political entertainment. For instance, you guys hate Bill Maher. I think he's hilarious and relevant and insightful, but I accept that you hate the way he combines message with entertainment.

And yet, even he manages to get loads of conservatives to show up to his show. But still, I accept that ordinary rank-and-file conies like the rest of y'all hate his guts and (I of course assume) what he does.

chickelit said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Christopher Hitchens killed himself on drink and formaldehyde ash. Every time you look to one "leader" to be right on everything you inevitably get something wrong. In any event, there was a point in what I was saying… Sorry if you found it too distracting to understand.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Christopher Hitchens wasn't only momentarily mad with a crowd one night; he was mad with his own lungs for his whole life. Look at what he did to them: Link

Sorry, someone else (not here) just pissed me off and put me in a self-righteous mood. But still, the point stands, no? Check that video out for some real fun.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Sorry! Here's a better, abridged version.

chickelit said...

Did Hitchens die of lung cancer? It must have metastasized. My father (non smoker) died of lung cancer from a metastasized brain tumor.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Sorry to hear that. Lungs are a common site for metastases. Hitchens primary site was the throat - definitely linked to his horrendously compulsive smoking habit as well as (possibly, to a lesser extent) to the amount of drink.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Sorry - it was esophageal. Drink and smoke together increase the risk synergistically.

MamaM said...

The synergisticality of using words previously applied to one on another, to create a moving picture of yellow greenish beneficence spinning in space is nothing short of...Wowie! Starship unloaded! Planet Baggage Transfer Complete!

Can other planet be formed to hold and portray the image of the Synergistic One breathing fire on this chip of clay? One with a morphing head, a dark and light side, and a swirl of gloriously pithy phrases moving into focus like: Many Inchoate Manifestos...Rage-y Abstractions...Many Nits to Pick...Intentionally Unclear... Phrases which were once upon a time flung toward the Ever Evolving Magnificence while he haunted the halls of an A-House in a galaxy far far away?

Really Rhythm and Balls, do you imagine yourself forming and mentoring a replica of your former self with your hectoring? Offering tips from one artist to another? Putting your image on another? Don't you think it's nice to have someone putting up something unique here that's not just words words words words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words over the years until another Urban Legend is formed?

chickelit said...

@MamaM: LOL!

deborah said...

Ritmo's offended from Chip calling him a dumbass.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Basically so, Deb. And then my response at the time was deleted, so it seemed too Althouse-esque to not be offended.

But his food porn blog is very good. I'd probably tell him myself, but he seems to be as shy about compliments as he is sensitive to criticisms. The dude definitely seems to know what he's talking about when it comes to cooking.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Well MamaM, I'm even less offended by pictures than you are by words. Pictures are great… and your point about art being derivative is ironic. As I just commented, Chip's food porn site is awesome not only for its ever-so-slightly creative recipes, but the pictures. They're still-life shots, technically, no manipulation even needed; and I'd say they're as artistic as the digitized stuff.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

And as far as this anti-word prejudice goes, I just note that in a very famous book, one claimed to be beloved by conservatives, there's a phrase that goes like this…

In the beginning there was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

Words to live by. Lol.

chickelit said...

R&B: But you just seem so anti-Chip here and now in this place. I'm scratching my head thinking why someone would be that way ab initio. I don't like where that leads me.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Nah, Deb's right. He called me a "dumbass" for no reason, just to get in a shot, and then deleted my response. I just waited for time to get in some passive-aggressive shots of my own, but they're not all encompassing. I'm over it now. Yes, I prefer if he'd address his complaints (about me or whomever) more directly, but I'll still be honest. I definitely like his cooking blog. His other uses of talent seem to appeal to the partisans on this blog, so it's basically political cartooning. No shame in that - I loved Berke Breathed and other political cartoonists have been much beloved. That's it, in a nutshell. I'm really not obsessed with him, just resent that he wouldn't give me a fair (or at least even response) to what seems like it was a long awaited pot-shot on his part.

I won't let all this nonsense ruin your blog. Don't worry. I'm just explaining and as open to diversions/peace-making as always. I'm not consumed by any of it at all.

MamaM said...

@MamaM: LOL!

Thanks, chickenlittle! I enjoy jests and laughs, and appreciate the power of words and pictures (along with the power of sound!) to deliver an abundance of goodness in keeping with the creation story (Gen1 version and R&B's Word Version 2) where good was the proclaimed result.

Rest assured, Rhythm and Balls, I did not fail to take note of god-like similarities. Please check your perceptions of offence and take only your own coat and hat from the rack as you leave.