Imageless

Fun, fun, fun.

On this date, I began working on a new essay. I uploaded a picture and guess what? No image appeared. I went looking through my site and, again, no images. Or, rather, some images are there, some are not. Some vanish then return. All are these I used Blogger's picture system to place here

After hitting my e-mail sites in case this is my fault and I had received a warning of some sort, I click where the image should be and get this message:

You are not authorized to view this page

You might not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials you supplied.

If you believe you should be able to view this directory or page, please try to contact the Web site by using any e-mail address or phone number that may be listed on the photos1.blogger.com home page.

You can click Search to look for information on the Internet.

HTTP Error 403 - Forbidden Internet Explorer

Very good. I'm getting somewhere. Though I don't know why I'm forbidden.

I try contacting the website as per instructed. I'm not mad or anything (I'm still not, for that matter). I just want to a.) alert the site masters to the problem and b.) find out what happened.

I go to a page with this message:

This server speaks in pictures.

That's it. No other information.

So I'm now learning Rebus in the hopes of getting this mess straightened out. I'll let you know how it turns out...

The Hell...?! (I) - Bizarre Crossovers into the Final Frontier

I've been bothering Brother Eric with a series of weird comics, anime and the like I've discovered on the web. As I, on occasion, find myself at a lost for words, I figure I would start a running series of mini-essays about these things. Get a bit of a backlog, maybe, and have something in reserves so I can keep a daily scheduale. (Let's all laugh at Cullen's foolish notions. Laugh I said!)

To get us started, and to prepare you all for what may follow in furure, I give you this scene: a moment of melee between the X-man Wolverine and the Vulcan Science Officer Mr. Spock:

I lifted this actual, honest to God image from the site Dave's Long Box, which covers a wide variety of comics. The comic in particular is called Star Trek/X-men, and I have never seen anything quite like it. The art work Dave shows looks like it was cut and pasted from two different sources. I thought it was a joke at first, before doing a bit of research. See, this particular book spawned a sequel (!), which spawned another sequel(!!), this time a Star Trek: Next Generation novel (!!!) called Planet X.

The curious can follow the links and see what each story is about. Me, I'm terrified beyond the possiblity of rational thought. I'm going to hide somewhere... somewhere safe...

The included image comes from Star Trek/X-men.

It is in no way the work of Cullen M. M. Waters

Y is Tired/X is Dead

Vampires are dead. Nothing more can be said about them.

Elves are tired. Do not stir them from the fields they know.

Dragons are tired. Let their leathery wings flap no longer.

Every so often when reading about the various Fantastic, I stumble across a "Y is Tired/X is Dead" remark. Some writer or critic thinks an aspect of the genres or an entire genre has been over done and needs to be put out of its misery or at the very least given a nice long holiday. I didn't think much for this type of attitude the first time I came across it, and the years since has worn it done to a severe irritation.

In the first place, as a rule of thumb the person making the "Y is Tired/X is Dead" is either:

1. A writer who has written in a genre for so long that he/she has burnt out on the subject, or
2. Someone who has never particularly liked Y or X in the first place.

Neither one is particularly objective gauge for such matters. Of course, if someone was happy or enthused about the subject, they wouldn't be saying it in the first place.

Secondly, all it takes to revitalize a subject matter is someone with enough talent and/or a new angle on things. Take Vampires, for instance. Towards the end of Fifties the monster had been sucked dry, becoming more or less a joke. Along comes Hammer Studios with the notion that they could make a good product with a serious script, more gore and more sexuality. Lo the Vampire revitalizes.

By the seventies came around, the vein looked tapped once more. Then Salem's Lot and Interview With a Vampire were published and the Undead rose once more to plague the living. And so on, through out the decades.

Hell, this cycle stretches back beyond the fifties into the 1800's. Dracula should be proud.

Finally, the notion that any concept can been mined completely is daft beyond words. Take the Elf. For the sake of argument, let's say that since Tolkien and Lord of the Rings there have been a thousand stories concerning Elves. They may all be clichéd romps in green tights, they might be in depth dissertation into the nature of the Fae. It doesn't matter.

Now let's take the same time period and count the number of stories focused on plain old Humanity. On second thought, let's not. The number's bound to be higher, isn't it? Elves are confined pretty much to Fantasy while Humans, they are everywhere. Crack a book spine and you no doubt will see one or two of the blighters roaming about.

The same point can be made again with Vampires, with Dragons, with whatever monster, race, or creature you can think of in the genre of your choice. The stories about Humanity out way them all, and not once, not once have I read or heard anyone suggesting writers stop writing about Humanity. If other wells can run dry, surely this has. We should be writing about bunnies by now, or the sex-life of golf balls.

The "Y is tired/X is dead" remark is the enemy creativity. Should other avenues outside Elves, Vampires, and the like be used? Of course. But don't shackle others over something you personally don't want to read more about.

Manic Wednesday

Wednesday is a busy day at best, but today was a bit more so. SO no post for today. (With one minute left in the day, no duh, right?)

Tomorrow might be as bad, but I think I'll get something up. I think it will be called "X is Dead." But who knows? This is Whim City, USA.

Be seeing you.

So as There is No Confusion Later...

The Cullen Waters who posts at Cullen's Blog is in no way the Cullen Waters who posts here at Welltun Cares Presents. It is just a fantastic coincidence.

One that I was unaware I was waiting my whole life for, but a coincidence nonetheless.

Bloody Vikings (III) - Charlie Brown's Got an E-mail... Or Ten

If there is an opportunity to make money, the spammer will take it. Especially if said spammer is a spambot. Everything is at risk from high profile message boards to low frequency places like... Well, like Welltun Cares Presents.

It still surprises me that it happened, which is, I know, naive. I read recently that sixty percent of the blogs on Blogger are dedicated to spam. Sixty percent. Who knows how many spam sites are out there busily peddling their nonsense?

Like most everything, it's funnier taking note of other people's spam woes than dealing with the crap yourself. One day alone I received nearly ten spamessages for a single entry, which is, for this place, like a thousand or so. Do you know what it's like for a sad, lonely man to find out he's popular, only to learn that's just random trash?

It hurts. Sniffle.

Still, being who I am, I took some perverse pleasure in the attention. SO, for the remainder of this essay, I would like to talk about some of my favorite spam. Talk, as in poke fun at mercilessly.

(Well, as near to poking merciless fun as I can get...)

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This blog is awesome! If you get a chance you may want to visit this Free Software Downloads [link removed] site, it's pretty awesome too!

This is pretty much the typical spam message I received. First the complement meant to bowl me over (not good, not great, but awesome!) then the pitch. Never mind that what was being pitched never seemed to match what the site was about, or even what was being said.

This key clue I finally learned: if the poster thinks the site was "awesome" they generally don't post as Anonymous.

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Hospitals Increasingly Using RFID, Says StudyAlthough costs, network coverage, and privacy issues are a concern, hospitals are increasingly turning to RFID technology for use in various applications, according to a new study from Spyglass Consulting Group ...

Hey, you have a great blog here!

I have a homemade guinea pig cages [link removed] site. It pretty much covers homemade guinea pig cages related stuff.

Here's another typical one. A little more personalized ("I checked out your site, check out mine!"). I've come close to falling for this one myself, actually. I halfway expect Anonymous to write "Well screw you! I thought you'd like it!"

Except, of course I have no idea why anyone coming to this site would think I had an interest in guinea pig cages.

Oh, and the complete incongruous first paragraph which isn't connected to anything I posted or even the main thrust of the comment. That might have also been a small hint.

I mean, can anyone explain why that first paragraph is even there? To fool someone into thinking someone other than Onknee Spambot?

Honestly.

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And now, to conclude this look at spam, my all-time favorite. The one I keep reading, keep shaking my head in disbelief at. The one. The only. The Should Probably.

I like your blog. Very nice! I should probably bookmark it for later.

Should probably? What does that mean? What sort of burning hoops do I need to leap through to get you to bookmark me? As obviously liking the site isn't good enough? Do I need to eat swords? Do a little dance? Make a little love? Get down tonight?

Build guinea pig cages?

What?

TELL ME WHAT MUST I DO TO PLEASE YOU?!

I NEED TO KNOW!!

I NEEEED TO!!

Cause I'm just dying to know. Really. I'm on bated breath and everything.

Oh wait. I've got word verification up and you can't respond.

Nevermind.

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Postscript: Shortly after posting this, I went onto my old Excite account to do a bit of cleaning. I should let the thing die, I know, but it's one of the last connection to my High School I have and for some reason I'm loathe to severe it (and, funnily enough, loathed to change my e-mail listing to my current service.)

I find in the Spam section of my mail box a runner up to Should Probably. It's subject was on pharmaceuticals drugs. It's sender? "Doctor". Just that. Doctor.

Puh-lease.

Perception: The Mock Poster Lesson

The problem started with plain old fashioned procrastination. I'll do the post later, I'll do the post after I do this post. Which is the problem with writing essays based on whim.

Then came the case of the stubborns. An area of my essay had already been covered and covered well. Yet I was going to have my say on it. It didn't matter that what I was going to say was going to cover the same ground. I was going to do it. I had to do it.

Which is why this post is so very late.

Rather than cover said ground again, I would like to talk about perception and the duty of the Artist on that regard. This would have been the second part of the original essay, had I ever reached it.

The very first mock poster I did, the If You Must Fear Something... (referred to from here out as Fear) linked at left. It is the best of the bunch and the truest to what I was trying for: it looks like an ad for either a movie or a book. There are other considerations commented on elsewhere, but that's the truest one for me. It does it's job.

Unfortunately it doesn't do it that well.

I'm going to quote a portion of Beckoning Chasm's essay to begin illustrating it's problem (and I hope there's no problem with this, as I not only see where he's coming from but think it's an excellent interpretation of the image):

The image sparks a series of questions, such as, what is going on? Is the green hand a menace, a friend, or a warning voice? Does the young girl know about the hand? Would a green hand, here in this world, be considered "normal" or not? Are we in Kansas still, or elsewhere? What happens next?

Chasm made a similar comment while discussing one of the other posters, and when I read it, my jaw dropped. I went back, looked at the picture, read my little bit, and saw.

The duty of the artist, be the artist an illustrator, a writer, a painter, or what have you, is to present the work in such a way that it can be understood. Sometimes the work is to be enjoyed by a select few, sometimes by the masses. Sometimes the meaning the artist intends is crystal clear, sometimes it's ambiguous. So on and so forth.

The most important thing any artist must consider is that if the work has a meaning, there must be enough information there for the audience to make the interpretation or interpretations that the artist intends. (Wotta unwieldy sentence! Curse the day "he" stopped being the generic, catch-all pronoun!)

If the information is not there, it's not the audience's fault for coming to a "wrong" conclusion. It is a failure to communicate, and as it is the artist speaking to the audience, it is the artist who is "wrong".

Assuming blame needs to be placed, of course. Is it more important that the work is enjoyed or that it is "understood"?

Philosophy aside, in the case of Fear, I left out key information with the picture. A part of the problem is that it started out as a picture for me and not the world at large, but that could have been corrected in the accompanying text.

No, the real problem was that I knew what it all meant, to a degree. I suspected who the green hand was, but I knew who the hand was reaching for. This was my main protagonist, who I have been thinking about and refining for five years. I've drawn so many pictures in the process... In fact, too many. To the point where I'm assuming facts not in evidence.

To illustrate, here's the same character (drawn a year or so ago) in a better lit setting:

You could imagine my surprise when I found this young man being called a young girl. But that's just it. Looking back at Fear, it's all as clear as glass. The long hair. The slit sleeve shirt I insist on giving him (which looks so much like a blouse). The foggy setting, in which no perspective is given to height. The picture is very much a young girl about to encounter the supernatural as it is a young man.

It is an absolutely fascinating failure to communicate. I wish half my failures were as good as that. Most, however, are not.

For instance, when I was but a wee young boy, I drew a picture of Jaws the Shark attacking Mighty Godzilla. I showed this masterpiece to my father and asked him who would win in the coming melee.

"The shark," Dad said, to my amazement. When I expressed my disbelief that a mere shark could defeat the King of the Monster, he pointed out just how I had positioned Jaws. And I had to agree, if in rueful embarrassment, that he was right. If Godzilla didn't move quick, he'd become a eunuch.

I wonder how many times I'll need to learn this particular lesson in order to retain it...

The images used in this essay are all Cullen M. M. Waters' work