Juneau

Inktober is only a few days away, so I thought I’d post some recipes for making your own ink at home.  I mostly make tea/coffee inks, but I’m listing other recipes as well.

A couple of things to note!  Gum Arabic is used to help pigments soak/stain the surface you’re painting.  It comes in liquid or powdered form.  You can find it in art supplies stores, but the cheapest method is to get bulk bottles sold to photographers (it’s usually a better quality too, so bonus!).  If the gum arabic is especially dark and cloudy, that means it has gone bad.  It is toxic, so try not to suck on any brush used with it. 

here i am…wearing my sexy founding father’s skirt. isn’t it horrible?

“Never really had a reason too.”

“Dude, you’ve had a shitty life.”

I trained the neural network to generate superhero names, based on the list from this site.  I thought the database was going to be way too small, but the network proved me wrong.

I’m training a neural network to generate recipes based on a database of about 30,000 examples, and although the network has managed to produce identifiable recipes, and even sometimes sort sweet from savory, it hasn’t actually managed to produce any good ones. Only a very few of them are technically doable. Three typical examples:

Citran Barbecued Mube game, ethnic       —-CAKE—- 1 pkg cornstarch 34 oz ginger 1  white sage 2 large red potatoes, peeled 1  magazine bread; chunks 1 cup shredded corn peas 4 cup liquid ice cream Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove the casserole from the refrigerator and heat soup for 20 min. Serve with nuts, chopped caczooled and serve with the rice and oatmeal. From: Fial Hosselr                        Date: 24 Jul 96

Grilled Snailsed Butter crockpot, vegetables, crockpot, rubbing holiday, meats 2 lb shrimp; cut in ½ cubes 6  cloves, minced 2 teaspoon apple juice ¼ cup mushrooms 1 lb tomatoes, nuts.   plastic 1  Strawberries 2 each pinto beans; sliced 1  plum tomatoes, (no carri-fater) 1 pkg unknown yogurt fillets, thawed Pour noodles and cauliflower through a wider measure just on high speed until stiff. Flavor radicchio mixture with the wine and continue simmering until mixture is desired doneness. Reserve side of bowl mixture. Chill until circle is reamy inricating. Serve on ranged removable pieces.

Smushed.I’s Bried, Heritame Sprigs cakes, pies, pastries, extract 2  eggs 4 tablespoon water 1 cup dried butters and firmly beaten 20  eggs 4 oz fresh chopped nuts (approximately 10 minutes) 2 tablespoon grated zucchini 20 oz almonds, rough 1 cup seasoned baking powder

Sift milk in crockpot. Turn dough.

Add egg powdered sugar and whipped toppings. Serve immediately.

I’ve been training a neural network (based on this open-source neural network framework from Andrej Karpathy) to generate cookbook recipes. The results are … rarely delicious.

Some sample recipe titles:

Onion-Orange Brownies Shredded Cheese Bananas Monk Blebberra’s Crusted Carrots Crockery Mist Tamarind Bustard Beans Choices Together Clam Lanting Banana Washed Hen Pan Oven Meat Chest Soup Terofelbork Berry Lerning Keef Pudding Cheese Frinds Sauce-Lavy’s Mustard Cookies Snup Fruit: Bright Grilled Evaporated Milk All-Foag-Day Cream Masty Bacon Philips Chicken With Upright Cheesecrumbs Chocolate Spinach Prunes

See that guy up there looking at you like you’re the crown ruler of all fuck ups? See how super white he is? Well, that ruggedly handsome devil is me.

Yup…I’m white. If I was Adam in the Biblical tale of Adam and Ave, God wouldn’t have made me out of dust/dirt. He would have made me out of Cool Whip and vanilla beans. That’s just how white I am.So, that puts an end to the whole “reverse racism” thing, doesn’t it? I’m a white man making fun of white people. You just got M. Night Shyamalan’d up in this bitch.

Also, racism doesn’t work that way. If a person of colour tells us we look like mayonnaise or that we’re weird as fuck because we don’t use wash cloths, that’s not racism. There’s no built in oppression there. That’s just commentary. Being mocked isn’t being held down. It isn’t being systematically deemed “lesser” by an entire group of people over years and years and years. It’s not based on anything. For racism to work (for want of a better term) there has to be that oppression. That’s why white people are so good at being racist.Also, white people being called out as racists isn’t racist. A person of colour saying “White people ruined hip hop” or “White people always steal pieces of our culture” isn’t racist. It’s the other way around. Iggy Azalea is racist. White people trying to pass durags off as high fashion is racist.

Angel and I finally got together to do a writing night. Sitting at Artmosphere, we were talking and talking and definitely not writing, when a curious creature distracted us.

You can decide what is real and what is fiction, but we each found inspiration in a fellow patron, and did a word war. 

The Conceited Shaman - Angel’s version of events 

Chad had spent most of his day at the car lot polishing his sunglasses, taking them off and putting them back on constantly to the eventual annoyance of the other salesmen. He knew they were just jealous though, these sunglasses would have set one of them back three hundred bucks. They’d have set him back that much also if he wasn’t so well-versed in the dark arts. He rolled into the bar after work, setting out his things on a spacious table on the patio. It took him ten minutes to get the sleeves of his light lavender dress shirt rolled in just the right way, adjusting them until they were showing off his guns to perfection. Out of his backpack he took his necessary ingredients, a turtle shell, a collection of pebbles, a perfect, round silver coin, a large snail shell, a tiny golden figurine depicting an Egyptian obelisk and a long, intimidating yellow handled knife. In his backpack, he left the wriggling, furry creature he’d need the lifeblood from to activate his magic. The spell needed a real sacrifice to kindle the conjuration to its own life. It would be no small feat. The mutterings that the other happy hour patrons heard seemed innocuous enough, though strange. He didn’t open his eyes through his chanting, drawing blindly in charcoal across the patio table, a symbol that blurred to the other bar customers’ eyes but that he could have seen perfectly. A chill rose in the air, women with sleeveless dresses chafing their arms to dissipate their goosebumps. An ominous whisper fell through the slight breeze on the patio though no one alive would be able to understand the words. Still without opening his eyes, Chad reached into his backpack to grasp the furry nape of the kitten concealed within. His other hand grasped the yellow-handled knife, dipping the blade below the edge of the bag where his sacrifice was concealed. “Bro!” Pleated khakis and a pink polo shirt preceded the man approaching. Chad released the kitten and the knife, swiftly zipping the opening of his backpack closed again. His muttering stopped, the air resuming its natural warmth. “Sup, bro?” asked the man, spreading his arms in a grandiose affect. “Sup, man?” Chad said, smiling. “What’re you doing here?” “Three dollar Jaeger shots, dude! Gotta decompress from the whole nine to five thing.” The man pointed to the small embroidered spot on his polo that read Jackson Insurance  over the name ‘Travis.’ “I haven’t seen you since all the Kappas got together for Matt’s wedding. You’re working in insurance now?” “Yeah, bro. The money is bangin’. I heard you’re over at the Caddy dealership? That sounds righteous!” Travis held up a hand for a high five, and Chad obliged. Soon, though, Chad’s former fraternity brother’s eyes began to stray over the ephemera that lay over the tabletop. “Dude, whatcha doin?” “Casting a conjuration for an advanced copy of Kanye’s new album. Fuck if I’m waiting til it drops.” “Duuuuude,” said Travis, drawing out the word. “You’ve got a kitten?” Chad nodded. “I’ll help you. Give me the knife." 

The Conceited Shaman - Hilary’s version of events 

It was a dark and stormy night when Chadwick Hamilton Newry sat back and decided he was just fucking done. If memory served, it was a Wednesday, which of freaking course, everything demonic and horrible always went down on a Wednesday. Chad, as he was called, or your friendly neighborhood shaman, simply couldn’t bring himself to give two shits.

But he was under contract, so he had to at least give one shit. The bar on Tallymoor and Broad street was as divey as they come, but had a hint of the magical underworld. Lush greenery adorned the front, and to the passing observer it looked like an overextended herb garden. To any half functioning enchanter, paladin, warlock, or necrofiend, it was a one stop shop for elixir ingredients and a helluva slice of tomato and basil. Chad fucking loved pizza.

It was happy hour, and Chad cringed at the thought. Who in their right mind deemed those hours after self induced mindless labor “Happy”, he couldn’t guess. But he imagined they’d never did a nine to five in a paper pushing office and tried to down double wells happily after such a shit show.

Stopping at a window on the porch, he gazed at his worn face. Not bad for six hundred and eighty two years. Or was it six eighty three? Whatever, it didn’t matter. He actually looked quite good for having a four day hangover and a sprite’s arrow stuck in his shoulder.

Fuck, he thought. He needed a healer to remove that and soon. Sprite’s arrows were always coated in something nefarious. Last time he’d been addicted to bacon for eight months. And delicious breakfast be damned, he never wanted to experience a magical colonoscopy ever again. Fucking sprites. Could’ve been worse. His mentor, the wise Grat de Leicester, had an arrow stop him from ever making right turns. The man went through a lot of left footed shoes.

Chad straightened his hair, wiped some sleep from his eyes and moved outside to the patio of the bar. The cushions at Phomost’s reminded him of stone benches from the flat he’d shared with Merlin back in the 1670s. He settled himself in and gently unzipped his bag. With a delicacy he rarely gave anything, Chad pulled the Pebble of Belize from his bag and set it before him.

“Hello you,” he crooned.

He pulled out his Moroccans, the antique wizarding glasses he’d pawned off a she-elf in Pakistan. Sliding them over his eyes, he gazed at the Pebble. It glowed the faintest color of pink.

Pushing the Moroccans above his forehead, Chad smiled and turned back to his bag. He grabbed his tortoise shell, his Aureus coin circa 310 AD, or in the magical world, when pagans decided heaven was more important than orgies. It was one of his most prized possessions that he’d won off a Serbian terrorist that had known a few magic tricks. “Tricks,” Chad had told his friend Jonathan later, “can’t reattach your index finger to your hand.”

In addition to the normal things he’d need, Chad asked the barkeep for two sprigs of alastarian honeyleaf, six ounces of ground sageleaf, and a dime bag of mary jane because Azrael knew he’d need it after the meeting he was about to have.

Samantha glared at him after she delivered the goods, and rolled her eyes when Chad said, “Put it on my tab.”

He rolled up his sleeves, probably to the point of being uncomfortable, and started his summoning spell. Fire of marsh, sage of the desert, coin of a spirit murdered. He threw the ingredients into the shell and set it on fire with a flip of his wrist.

“Barnaby Oliver Wentworth,” he whispered and finally flicked the Pebble into the flames. “I summon you.”

The fire turned a neon pink and a man’s face appeared in the flames. He appeared to be quite agitated.

“This better be good, Chadwick, I’m in the middle of something quite literally out of this world.”

“Barnaby! Old fellow, old pal,” Chad smiled and pat the top of the flame. “This will take but a second.”

The man raised a brow and scowled.

Chad continued. “I need to know who crossed over in the warehouse district last night.”

“What? Why?”

“Because,” Chad leaned in and peered around to make sure no one was listening. “There was a sacrifice offered to a pagan god.”

Barnaby stilled and lost his annoyed expression after hearing Chad’s words. “Which god,” he questioned.

Chad tried to feign concern, but in all honesty, he really didn’t care. After battling Zeus himself in 1969, pagan deities just didn’t hold the same power over him.

“Just Eris,” he answered and looked at his watch. “Look, just figured out who it was that crossed over, and get back to me. Preferably by dawn because that’s when I forsee myself finishing my bottle of scotch.”

At the mention of the goddess’ name, Barnaby’s eyes widened. He nodded and said he’d get back to Chad within the hour, then cut off the connection.

Chad sat back and stared at the tortoise shell. Sure, he hadn’t encountered a pagan god in decades, so he might be out of practice. But really? Who would set up shop in freaking Louisiana? The state was ruled by the blood suckers and ironically, the corrupt magical revenue service, which he only seemed to avoid through sheer willpower and concealment spells. If they started taxing his elixir sales he’d never be able to keep his debilitating drinking habits.

He’d found himself a great hole in the world there, with booze and food and great music. After the schism between him and Merlin, and the resulting 1815 Edict of Brussels which barred him from setting foot in Europe for another millenia, Chad supposed he’d nestled himself a comfy little spot he might not want to vacate for a few hundred more years.

And he definitely didn’t need Merlin finding out he was practising shamanism again. Goddesses, fuck that guy.

Enamel Serpent Brooch, ca. 1898-99

René Lalique

Hey, Anon.Happy to try and explain my intentions as best I can. While I’ve gotten a bit of push-back from this cartoon, I still stand by my premise that good artists and good art comes from effort and dedication.

Mind you, had I said that being a good mathematician, plumber or professional athlete takes study, practice and dedication, few people would have gotten upset, since it’s sort of self-evident.

But for whatever reason, suggesting that good art, however technical or interpretive that art might be, requires equal practice and dedication, continues to rub some people the wrong way.

As someone who makes (or tries to make) a living off his art, it’s a thorn in my side that some people refuse to accept that some art has more merit, or is worth more than others. This is a big reason why it’s so hard to make a living in the arts.

If what you suggested was true, there’d be no reason to pay a professional to create your company’s logo, illustrate that book cover, or design the layout of your new home. There’d likewise be no incentive to buy some amazing vase from a ceramicist on etsy when you could just buy a crude pinch pot at your neighbor’s garage sale.

And for sure, lots of people DON’T feel like there’s a reason to. They want the cool stuff, but figure it’s not worth any more than what they’d pay for some garage sale find, since it’s all equal in their mind.

To be clear, if someone wants to casually pursue some creative outlet for the sheer joy of it, I couldn’t be happier for them. It’s a very human thing to want to do and more people should. But let’s not confuse the benefits of personal betterment or expression with what’s actually being produced.