Hey, neat! Thank you! It's an "imagination engine" - the original mod @Arotrios kbin.social wrote a detailed description here.
I never really fully got my head around it but it seems to be a combination of art, poetry, music, cinema, mythology, etc and a lot of the posts in it bounce off other posts in it.
Today I discovered the work of Miyu Kojima, a Japanese artist who makes beautifully detailed miniature dioramas of rooms in which people have died lonely deaths, a phenomenon called kodokushi....
Can't help quoting the "hmmm!" from this piece today. This is a track off Gil Scott Heron's first album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (though, it was actually recorded in an Atlantic Records studio with a small live audience)....
One remarkable ancient artefact, a Babylonian world map from the Sixth Century BCE, marks the beginning of this obsession. The map, inscribed on a clay tablet, shows how ancient people imagined the quadrants of the earth: it describes lands of serpents, dragons, and scorpion-men, the far northern regions “where the sun is...
The Psychedelic Furs recorded this strangely mesmerizing live version of Love My Way at Perkins Palace in Pasadena, US in 1983, for a tv music programme. It has a slower tempo than the album version from Forever Now (1982), yet the timing is very even and Richard Butler is pitch perfect....
@Arotrios seems to be on a break, so for the time being, "I am Torgo - I take care of the place while the Master is away". Widely regarded as a strong contender for the worst feature film of all time, Manos: The Hands of Fate is a film about a family who take a wrong turn and end up in the sinister domain of the Master, his...
The world is full of museums that don’t exist fully in three dimensions – museums described in words or drawn on paper; museum catalogues; museums on the web. There are also many museums that are the creation of artists, novelists and poets, and so have a strong thread of imagination running through them. The latter cast an...
The original appeared on the 1972 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. The 1990 tour was the last time Bowie performed this song, and it has a poignant energy. See also the live performance in 1973, where Bowie announced this was the last song they would ever do (retiring the Ziggy character)....
Alice (Neco z Alensky) was Czech surrealist animator Jan Švankmajer's first full-length feature film, and combines stop-motion animation with live action. In some ways it's a very loose adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland but in another sense it's very faithful, as it allows us to experience anew the initial...
No one will believe this, but that's ok. We'll couch it in a what if to make it easier to digest.
What if, when you brought your creative will to bear, the energy that drove you to create was bound in your creation? A piece of your soul woven into reality. What would that look like from the other side of veil?
What if I spoke to someone from the other side last night, and they said that these creations are alive? That they ripple like firefish on the surface of an obsidian pond, the poetry swimming with the music, slipping through art and magick in fractal schools of imagination, the brilliance of math waltzing with philosophy, storytelling a prophecy of infinite possibility.
What if they sang that the Akashic record is a living ecosystem of imagination when seen from the in-between? And that the most curious thing is that even as we create it, it creates us - our dreams brush it as we drift in sleep, our desire is born within it, and we ourselves are the result of the creative spark in our parents eyes (or thighs, as it may be)....?
And what if this is why the fractal elves (themselves woven of this weave) laugh at us when we cross the boundary - just as we laugh at NPCs and characters like Deadpool who break the 4th wall?
In my long experience working with artists across all media, one of the things that I've found the most rewarding is discovering their inspirations, which often lead to new creative ideas of my own....
Seeing as all the other gods get to tell their stories on the @13thFloor, here's the Adventures of Me, as told
by Sam Snake, Chief Elijah Yellowhead, Alder York, David Simcoe and Annie King
Strong cast today - TL;DR: Today is a good day to do good.
Here's our breakdown:
Present: 10S
Challenge: Priestess Reversed
Past: Queen of Swords Reversed
Future: Page of Cups
Above:6S
Below: Knight of Coins
Advice: Devil Reversed
External Influences: Knight of Wands
Hopes and Fears: 2W Reversed
Outcome: Strength
Starting with the 10 of swords, that's a card of the final triumph of battle, as well as it's cost. It's challenged by a reversed Priestess, rejecting spirit in favor of conspiracies and manipulation. In the past, the Queen of Swords (remember her from yesterday?) is still drunken and reversed, but the Page of Cups is upright, and leading us into a future of new loves and infatuations.
Above, the six of swords looks towards the recovery from battle, helping the wounded, and looking towards a new view of the world. Below, the Knight of Pentacles and Coins is saving for a rainy day, building basis of new inventions (the two cards can be very positive together, especially for those you help).
To make things weird, however, the Devil is drunk, upside down, and sitting in the Advice spot. I'm gonna let readers interpret that as they may, but in my view this is advice about how to deal with the Devil rather than a suggestion that we listen to him whilst intoxicated.
External influences show the Knight of Wands leading the viewer to become a catalyst of change, joining the positive forces of the 6 of swords and Knight of Coins. Hopes and fears are the 2 of wands reversed, indicating worry about misleading folks in a rush to complete your goals.
But should you persevere, you end up with Strength, upright and powerful, as the Outcome. As I said above, this is a good day to do good.
Today's spread is an interesting one. We've got the Moon above, casting forth creativity and magick, drawing us towards the 8 of pentacles in the future indicating that indulging the Moon's inspiration will lead to a greater mastery of skill. The outcome, however, is the 7 of pentacles reversed, so it's likely to be a gateway into melancholic spaces in reflection.
What led to this? Given that the past (Queen of Swords) degrades into a present of 5 of swords reversed, it indicates that the thrill of that powerful position has led to ego-driven small minded conflicts, challenged by a reversed Page of cups trying to get all dreamy and inspirational.
This is driven by a reversed Tower below, indicating the collapse in the Queen's authority is part of and driving a larger transition. A rather snarky reversed 2 of pentacles suggests a close weighing of the pros and cons of the ego driven actions of that flipped 5 of swords in the present, if one wants to reach the calm of the Hierophant in Hopes and Fears.
All this conflict is driving away external support, indicated by the reversed 5 of cups in external influences.
Overall read? The moon is drawing us up and away from the collapse of the Tower and the Queen of Swords' reign, led by a drunken Page of Cups to find a power deeper than mortal concerns about power and ego (looking for that Hierophant). The Moon won't be denied, even though the path it illuminates is dark, and it leads to a point of self-reflection that may be darker than one would like.
That being said, the 8 of pentacles in the future position indicates the ancillary benefits of this reflection will be substantial. If you're an artist and ready to face your darker side (and the results of your actions in the past), it looks like this may be the right time to do so - the process will have an significant benefit to your skills.
Finally, try to be gentler in your interactions today, especially with fools who seem to be talking out their asses - that's likely the Page of Cups trying to sober up.
Looks like the upside down Sun below us is giving rise to some good outcomes in the minor arcana, with the 8 of Pentacles / Coins Above (goal), 10 of Wands in the future, and 6 of Cups as the outcome. Some Major action with the Lovers in Hopes and Fears, Temperance as the challenge (one I fail waaaaay too often), and as mentioned, an angry drunken reversed Sun below. Other challenges include a reversed Empress in external influences, and the 3 of swords (thankfully) in the past. Luckily we've got the 6 of wands in the present, nice space to be in coming into Monday morning.
However the real weirdness of this spread is the reversed Wheel of Fortune in Advice. This would indicate to me that gremlins are afoot, the table is rigged, and your BG3 game is gonna be plagued with critical fumbles. However, if you know the tables are turned against you, and an angry Empress is looking your way, best to rely on hard work and not fate today, pick up those 10 wands and work towards that 6 of cups, cause with a six pack, everyone gets a toast, and that card loves to make things win / win.
"Burning Man has countercultural roots and, once upon a time, it was a celebration of creativity and a counterpoint to mindless consumerism. Over the past few years, however, it has become massively commodified and started attracting some of the worst people on earth. Nowadays, it is an excuse for influencers and Silicon Valley types to take a bunch of drugs and party in the desert while pretending they are doing something meaningful that elevates the world’s consciousness. Burning Man is supposed to be about “radical self-reliance” and yet a number of attendees appear to be flown in on private jets and shacked up in luxury accommodation with air conditioning. I don’t care how exotic the drugs or how interesting the art is: once people such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk show up to your party, there is no longer anything countercultural about it. You are not rebelling against the man. You are the man."
As someone who watched the Burning Man scene begin, evolve, and become what it is today, it was clear from near 2000 on that it was destined to become a parody of itself.
Plus, as someone who has spent their life working to encourage creativity and preserve it, something about Burning Man always struck me as deeply wrong on a spiritual level. I think of all of the wonderful artworks that could be adorning our streets and walls that are nothing now but ash on the playa and it honestly makes me want to smack my head into the wall. I get the point of sacrifice, of creating art for art's sake, and respect the mythos of the Wicker Man, but shit has gotten too far out of hand.
If you really want to be revolutionary, bring your art back to your neighborhood. Live it every day, not just during summer vacation. Put it out there for free if you want to flip off capitalism, but don't destroy it. That which inspires you to create is holy and a part of your soul, and it's result deserves much better than the flames.
@Ryntastic Sorry for hijacking a month-old comment of yours, but it inspired me to speak out, and I've been holding my tongue about the BM scene for a long time.
What some Lemmy communities that are dead or very low number of new posts that you would like to get more active?
My pick is /c/albumartporn
Art: Miyu Kojima Creates Miniature Replicas of Lonely Deaths (www.spoon-tamago.com)
Today I discovered the work of Miyu Kojima, a Japanese artist who makes beautifully detailed miniature dioramas of rooms in which people have died lonely deaths, a phenomenon called kodokushi....
Berlinde De Bruyckere: What’s Divine Is Never Simple | Conversation (ocula.com)
Discussion of the work of Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere. I recently saw Arcangelo 1, which is made out of cast wax and animal hides.
Gil Scott-Heron - Whitey On the Moon (Official Audio) (m.youtube.com)
Can't help quoting the "hmmm!" from this piece today. This is a track off Gil Scott Heron's first album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (though, it was actually recorded in an Atlantic Records studio with a small live audience)....
'Twelve Cautionary Tales for Christmas: Premonitions of the Mystical Rebirth of Urbanism' by Gian Piero Frassinelli (www.readingdesign.org)
Glorious hallucinations that are reminiscent of Calvino's Invisible Cities but also of Borges. Here's an extract:...
The timeless allure of ruins (article) (www.bbc.com)
One remarkable ancient artefact, a Babylonian world map from the Sixth Century BCE, marks the beginning of this obsession. The map, inscribed on a clay tablet, shows how ancient people imagined the quadrants of the earth: it describes lands of serpents, dragons, and scorpion-men, the far northern regions “where the sun is...
Psychedelic Furs - Love My Way (Live, Pasadena 1983) (m.youtube.com)
The Psychedelic Furs recorded this strangely mesmerizing live version of Love My Way at Perkins Palace in Pasadena, US in 1983, for a tv music programme. It has a slower tempo than the album version from Forever Now (1982), yet the timing is very even and Richard Butler is pitch perfect....
Phantom Threads: Seven Ways of Looking at the Ghosts of Cinema (www.filmcomment.com)
Really thoughtful piece by Dennis Lim on the relationship between ghosts and cinema. Excerpts:...
Manos: The Hands of Fate (Harold Warren, 1966) (m.youtube.com)
@Arotrios seems to be on a break, so for the time being, "I am Torgo - I take care of the place while the Master is away". Widely regarded as a strong contender for the worst feature film of all time, Manos: The Hands of Fate is a film about a family who take a wrong turn and end up in the sinister domain of the Master, his...
Imaginary museums: What mainstream museums can learn from them? Rachel Morris. (journals.openedition.org)
The world is full of museums that don’t exist fully in three dimensions – museums described in words or drawn on paper; museum catalogues; museums on the web. There are also many museums that are the creation of artists, novelists and poets, and so have a strong thread of imagination running through them. The latter cast an...
Abandon the Old in Tokyo - Yoshihiro Tatsumi (mangatoto.com)
Gritty and heartbreaking, this 1970s collection from the master of gekiga, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, was published in English in 2006....
Rock n Roll Suicide - David Bowie, 1990 (live in Tokyo) (m.youtube.com)
The original appeared on the 1972 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. The 1990 tour was the last time Bowie performed this song, and it has a poignant energy. See also the live performance in 1973, where Bowie announced this was the last song they would ever do (retiring the Ziggy character)....
Alice (Jan Švankmajer, 1988). Original Czech language version with English subtitles, remastered (m.youtube.com)
Alice (Neco z Alensky) was Czech surrealist animator Jan Švankmajer's first full-length feature film, and combines stop-motion animation with live action. In some ways it's a very loose adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland but in another sense it's very faithful, as it allows us to experience anew the initial...
After You've Gone - Django Reinhardt with Stephane Grapelli, 1949 (m.youtube.com)
A late version, in postwar Rome. Earlier versions with Quintette du Hot Club here (includes vocal) and here....
Exile, A Lover's Discourse - Roland Barthes (1977), read by Oskar. (m.youtube.com)
From A Lover's Discourse, trans. Richard Howard (1978). Originally published as Fragments d’un discours amoureux (1977).
Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue - Duke Ellington Orchestra with Paul Gonsalves solo, Newport Festival, 1956. (Assembled footage) (m.youtube.com)
I love swing... but for me it is always eternally leading up to that midsummer midnight moment in 1956 when Paul Gonsalves' tenor sax takes flight....
The American Motel - James Lileks (lileks.com)
Time for a road trip......
What inspires you to be creative?
In my long experience working with artists across all media, one of the things that I've found the most rewarding is discovering their inspirations, which often lead to new creative ideas of my own....
The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (As Beauty) - David Bowie, live 1996 (m.youtube.com)
Outside is a David Bowie concept album written with Brian Eno....