I Was A Lapis Lazuli Pigment Lump In A Past Life

As a former music teacher, I can also say that "learn the fundamentals first" is the death knell for a vast percentage of beginners, especially adult learners.

I've run into this with drawing several times, where some well-meaning artist has lectured me on needing to study anatomy properly or not use shortcuts like CSP brushes. And oh, believe me, I know. I know exactly how to learn an artistic discipline in a structured way. I just...don't want to!

The thing is, I'm not aiming to be a professional artist. I want to draw my gay little anime guys. I would undoubtedly improve at art much faster if I approached every gay little anime guy drawing as a study exercise. But I would also have quit drawing a decade ago if I couldn't just let myself enjoy drawing imperfect fucked-up little guys with whatever shortcuts I needed to body myself across the finish line.

With my adult piano students, my approach was always "What's your goal?" If their goal was to learn exactly one Elton John songbook to play at parties, then...that's what we did. We'd put tape on the keys to label the notes, and just fuckin go for it. Learning exactly one Elton John songbook is a good and noble musical goal, full stop.

Some of my students needed and enjoyed a more structured approach to learning; if they wanted to be able to play classical music, then yes, scales were going to have to enter the equation at some point. And yet others would learn the Elton John songbook, catch their white whale, and realize they wanted to explore more of the ocean. The scales were still there for them to learn!

Often the choice isn't between "learn art well" and "learn art imperfectly" - the choice is between "learn art imperfectly" and "don't do art at all." To which I say, learn imperfectly! Or, what the hell, don't 'learn' art. Just do, and enjoy the doing of it.

towards the end, I was reminded from one of those lil excerpts bardugo puts in before most chapters that Lethe scholars have theorized that many forms of the afterlife exist all at once, and therefore, many versions of hell probably do as well. Here's to hoping that we get to explore that a lot more in DB soon, bc HB was sort of a letdown in that aspect particularly. (honestly I don't remember much from HB bc it's been a few years since I read it but maybe they go into it a bit more than I can recall atm.)

NH mentions convergent rivers, broken rivers, and bodies of water so much, and yet we never see alex by a lake or anything until she cleanses her hellie-self after murdering len + crew back near Ground Zero in LA, a bustling place brimming with personality, versus New Haven, which NH characters are constantly describing as dead-and-undead. "This town." y'know, the one that was deliberately built between 2 rivers? does HB address this? It's next on the reread list obvi, but the brief mention of the broken rivers in LA that alex symbolically bathes in to cleanse herself of the death scene she's part of is very important to me and you better believe i'll be looking out for some sort of discussion surrounding river cities during my HB reread or DB.

is it relevant to the christian concept of baptism and rebirth? yes. do I think it's a fair critique to say that that symbolism oversaturates plenty of fantasy literature already? of course. am I going to eat it up every time, considering alex's literal rebirth after consensually dying in order to meet the bridegroom in NH via the drowning ritual that takes her to the Egyptian afterlife, and especially considering my own complicated relationship to the christian faith and its practices? you betcha.

Late 2nd-century statue of Glycon (a briefly influential snake cult within the Roman Empire)

King Arthur 👑