#bachlor

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun is the queer bachelor rom-com of your dreams. Dev Deshpande is a successful producer on Ever After, a show that manufactures love fit for reality tv. Even getting over the end of a six-year-long relationship with another producer on the show cannot stop him from crafting the perfect love story. They will need the best in the biz if they are going to sell tech superstar, Charlie Winshaw, to the public after his recent PR catastrophe. Charlie is awkward and shy with an 8-pack fueled by anxious situps. Not a natural reality tv star. But, if he wants a job in tech, he needs a complete rebranding, and this show is all he has. As Dev coaches Charlie through the season, their natural friendship eases into something truly extraordinary. Unfortunately, they are currently working for a heteronormative powerhouse that cannot be stopped by unscripted love behind the scenes. Or can it?

Let me get this out of the way. The book delivers on the promise of a Rom-Com. Everyone has a different sense of humor, but I was laughing aloud in public. The internal and character dialogue is uniquely witty and fun with a good mix of physical comedy thrown in to boot. To do so in a book that also tackles complex sexuality, race, harmful workplace dynamics, and the representation of mental health on and off-screen was pleasantly surprising.

Part of the book's success is due to our wonderful leads. Dev is good at his job because of his high emotional intelligence and likability. He is still dealing with a difficult breakup while coming to terms with what he wants from his future and how he wants to handle his depression moving forward. I thought it was nice to see the representation of a character with depression who didn't have a great traumatic past. While those stories are also valuable, experiences like Dev's are important too. Dev could empathize with Charlie and have patience for his anxiety. Taking pauses during filming, allowing Charlie to stop and recalibrate, and talking through what he wants and how those wants change help to build their early relationship. Charlie is a wonderful aspec character who is getting over losing a position at a company based on his technical work. I was delighted to come across a character discovering his place on the asexual spectrum. It helps that Charlie is an adorable tech nerd with a rough childhood who just wants a quiet night in and a puzzle. 

Now, the female contestants, show staff, and friends in the novel are all gems. Cochrun has done a great job characterizing people with specific descriptors, gestures, and turns of phrases. I felt like I understood people's relationships and attitudes immediately. The book could have struggled drawing my interest to the female contestants in a storyline where none of the women will end up with our prince. Instead, I was totally committed to seeing the cast work through dates, trials, and unfortunate side conversations. The show draws you in, the cast is fun to read about, and the staff has interesting off-screen dynamics that pull it all together. 

1/100 days of productivity | [ 01.01.19 ] “Happy_New_Year’’

Ramen, the breakfast of champions.

(I approve of your actions)

Really?

my bachelor graduation piece

my installation was in a big empty room, so approaching it from the rest if the exhibition this is all you could see off it

wether you went left of right upon entering was entirely up to you. Based on the people i watched interact with the installation, it was pretty much a 50/50 split, off course not considering the people that knew walking into the installation was allowed an jumped right in 

this was the view you got when you decided to go left first

as you can see the amount of string i’ve suspended made it impossible to see through to the other side, and this was the thinnest point in the installation 

for visual interest i included a few spots that were focused on one color

the idea was that you’d be walking through the multi colored strings and suddenly find yourself in a red, blue or purple spot. the red spot ended up being visible from the outside as well. 

here we have a view from above, this was not visible to the public but i quite enjoy this view as well, maybe an inspiration for a next work? 

at the back for the room, against the wooden wall, i included an empty space. this was not visible form the outside. when you came upon it you could experience being surrounded by strings, nothing else visible to you, and at the same time be physically separate from them 

as you can see the space around the clearing was also a yellow space, a sunny clearing.....

the clearing was placed underneath a ceiling window, adding to the openness of the space. 

i must confess the clearing was one of my favourite bits of the installation, sitting there on the floor, hidden from the outside, felt very peaceful 

this is the backside of the installation, the point furthest from the entrance. i’m not sure how many people ended up back here, some of the ones that mostly walked around definitely walked back there too, but what about he people that walked through the installation? did they look at this side? 

if you went right from the door rather than left this was your view, string all the way to the wall...

here you can see quire well how i shaped the installation. i build it entirely in square pieces before removing some strings again to make the shape a fluid on

looking back after walking right this is what you saw