Intransigent, Celerity

Even though, I keep missing days on this project, I'm not going to let it slip by me completely. I have to make sure I do this for at least a year. I need to police myself harder to make sure I better myself in this very important area of my life. Although, lately it's been more about how busy I am and how little attention I can actually pay to the blog.

The good news is that the project I am working on right now is coming along quicker and quicker each day. There is sort of an end in sight. It seems doable at this point. Although, it's starting to give me wrist pains from all the illustrating and mouse-work.

I should be better about updates when it's over. Right now it's eating most of my free time since it is freelance. I will have more updates about it later. Especially in October when the book is due out in stores across America (and possibly the world).

Pastiche

I've spent a lot of my life watching TV and movies. I rewatch things constantly. I start off being entertained, then I become analytical and start breaking down plot moves, character decisions, directing choices, and so forth. What I love about my entertainment needs to be disected and inspected. Think of it as the idiot box version of taking a radio apart to see how it works.

One of the side effects of rewatching so many things is rediscovering your lexicon. A character says some throw-away line that has somehow floated into my subconscious and feel like I've learned some weird truth about myself. My identity comes from the things that entertain me. My speech is informed by robots in space, an incompetant office manager, or men who fight ghosts with lazer beams.

Intellectuals and boring smart people may dictate that I feel ashamed of being inundated with pop culture instead of the proper culture. Certainly, I should be studying poems, novels, or paintings to round myself out as a human being. No one does that. Those that who make the effort to be more highly minded seem only to do it to show off.

Don't get me wrong, I love art and I read sometimes (mostly comic books), but it hasn't been as big of a part of my life as television and movies have been. Sorry, prentetious art people.

Moil, Sapid

I had my 201 graduation show today at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. It was a great pay-off to a long, hard battle of trying to learn to think on your feet. For a while, I was having my doubts about continuing on with my improvisation education. I guess i had hit a wall of some sort. Thankfully, I got my second wind and a lot of great help from a practice group that I absolutely love.

I started to get my bearings and things weren't so heartbreakingly difficult. To me, improv is like any other game. Like in basketball, when you first pick up a ball, you can barely ever make a shot, dribbling is slow-going, and you always get picked last. But, after some helpful tips and constantly doing lay-ups in the driveway, you can feel things getting easier.

Today's show felt great. I feel like I am getting better.

Redound

I'll be back to normal after I finish drawing and designing this book.

For now, though, please put up with my short, pithy, and late entries on the blog.

Thanks,
Adam

Pantheon

New York City is one of those few places that someone can know rather intimately without ever having to go for a visit. It's a place of legend that is the setting for many movies, TV shows, novels, etc. With enough savvy, you could map all these places together in your head. That excited me about moving here. I would be able to walk where my heroes had walked. I could be in the same places as men and women of fame and accomplishment.

But then when you actually get here, you see how normal everything is. Gray's Papaya is just a regular hot dog stand, CBGB's is a dive bar where the punk bands play, and NYU is like any other urban college. They are fundamentally no different than any place else in the country. The only thing that accelerates these places into the pop culture is the vast amount of people in the city. They spread these legends of greatness by word of mouth. Artists use their mediums to spread their love of a certain place to the masses. The best and the brightest come here to compete for attention at these hallowed halls.

It's just the same as it is back home.

Not to say that the city is without it's stunning attractions. The Metropolitan Museum is a massive collection of ancient history, fine art, and culture from all over the world. Central Park is one of the biggest landscaping efforts in the world and is bigger than some cities here in the US. Battery Park City was artificially created to make Manhattan even bigger and even more full of skyscrapers.

Things like that will always amaze me. However, just because something's in New York, that don't mean it's the best in the world.

Turmagant

What does a man run on? What fuels us to keep doing good work? What drives us to promote the general welfare and spread civility?

For me, it's guilt.

There is that commonly shared idea, that pervasive myth, of the Catholic Guilt. I'm here to tell you that it is very real. It's a faith system based on the shame-inducing maxim "Just look at what you've done!" Pretty much everything you do is harmful in some way. Even being born is somehow a sin. And you have to go to church and speak to God or one of his representatives and tell them you are sorry for being such a screw up. You have to actually be sorry or else it doesn't count. Oh, they'll know if you are really sorry or not.

If you don't end up saying you are sorry, then you go to Hell. Forever. You think that's a cool place to go? Google it, then you'll know that it is most cetainly not a fun place to go.

It's a hard thing to deal with rationally as a child, so these ideas of sin and punishment soak into your personality. Youstay alert to make sure you aren't having any fun or doing something that might anger God, one of his representatives, or anyone else that can hurt you with office supplies or sporting goods.

Then you get older and relax and wonder why you didn't have more fun as a child.

(In)Credulous

I guess my vow to keep consistant is not a very solemn one as I have missed yet another day.

What can I say? I am very buy. Big dog's gotta eat.