The Naked Listener

32⁰C/90⁰F, cloudy with some rain patches WHY do homeless people prefer money rather than food as a gift? Their preference comes from the nasty reality of people’s general behaviour towards the homeless. Most people don’t realise this, but homeless people accepting food gifts often find out to their disgust and personal safety that the donors do some heartless and obscene things like spitting on…

28⁰C/83⁰F, cloudy with some rain patches This ain’t a post on astronomy. Is this is even real? The better question should be, how do we know if YOU are even real? We know it’s real because we can see more or less the same thing nearly every night almost anywhere. For centuries. We know it’s real because the bigger the telescope used and the further away from light pollution we are, the more…

Local time 20h00, 16.8⁰C/62.2⁰F, cloudy On þam ġeare of ure sweartan gerecenunge twēġen þūsend and fīf and twēntiġ… (Old English, a.k.a. Anglo-Saxon, for “In the year of our dark reckoning, two thousand twenty-five…”) Happy New Fear … sorry, I meant New YEAR, peep’l. I promise to be less negligent in posting for 2025 (MMXXV, or duo milia et viginti quinque). © The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 01…

Local time 01h34, 29⁰C/84⁰F, rain patches Hᴇᴀᴠᴇɴꜱ! I don’t know how many times I put those formulaic questions to job applicants at my company. Frankly, no need to ‘fry’ (overwork) your responses to them. You just need to be tight and focused when describing your stuff. Don’t drone on. Tell us something about yourself This is really a test to see if you’re a “waffler.” It’s also to see if…

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary WINDSOR 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022 Image via 4chan. (B22001)

WE’VE all seen this at some point in our lives:—

6 ÷ 2 ( 1 + 2) = ?

We all know it’s bait meant to start an online argument, especially to pit Americans with the rest of the world.

The ‘trick’ is that it’s banking on the average American’s poor numeracy and poor understanding of arithmetic and mathematical notation.

THE WRONG IMMEDIATE ACTION

The immediate action is to clarify…

Special Feature: Art and hypercapitalism

SPECIAL FEATURE FINALE ONCE in a blue moon, I get to witness how thinking too much causes problems.

Exhibit refused: “Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp (signing as R. Mutt), 1917. Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz. (via Wikipedia)

How do artists cope with living in a society of plutocratic hypercapitalism?

What I mean by that is, once you realise you have no power over anything whatsoever and you are mean…

Special Aside: NEET’s Guide to Working As An Artist

SPECIAL REPORT: ASIDE Warning:— Contains language that may be NSFW (Naff Sarcasm For Wankers).

HERE is a quick guide to making it when you are working as a full-time artist:—

Sleep — If you follow this guide, you’ll only need about three hours of sleep every two days. Getting rid of sleep is one of the most important things you can do if you really, sincerely want to be an artist. If you take a…

Special Feature: Art school redpill

SPECIAL QUARTERLY FEATURE 2 ONLY very few art schools are worth the bread in the sense of actually teaching you how to draw, paint, sculpt and whatnot. Your art school is probably shite, particularly if it isn’t in a First World country, and then some even there.

Watts Atelier and CalArts, for example, are in the category of greats.

Most art schools will just teach you useless shit like philosophy…

Special Feature: Is art school even worth it?

SPECIAL QUARTERLY FEATURE 1 Unless you can’t force yourself into a schedule, then yes, art school is worth it.

Squirming and wriggling to decide

Whether art school — indeed any kind of university-level ‘school’ — is worth it or not is you must answer two ultra-important questions:—

What am I going to do after it?

Where is my money coming from for those 3 to 5 years?

In other words, it’s a very…

Born after your old movies

CULTURAL MILIEU WHY do we pretend old movies are good? Indeed, why even watch movies that were made before you were born?

Because they are?

Please, watch Vertigo (1958) then come back with your renewed opinion.

How bad do you like bad to get?

Jane Russell as Rio McDonald in ‘The Outlaw’ (1941/43/46).

Universally acclaimed masterpieces of all time:—

1927 — Metropolis 1927 — Sunrise: A Song of Two…

Mediaeval weasels and modern wonks

BIOL(LOL)OGY HOW different is a person from mediaeval times from a regular modern person?

What are the physical and intellectual differences? Would a normal modern person be considered ‘smart’ then?

You tell me. But here’s what I can tell you.

—♦—

THE OVERBITE

Post-mediaeval vs. mediaeval skulls

(via Beauty in the Bones)

The conventional wisdom

The first physical difference that comes immediately…

ARCHITECTURE & SOCIETY

Above: Typical British council housing at Alexandra Road Estate in Camden, London. Photo by Steve Cadman.

What’s the French equivalent of British council estates?

They have them around Paris for all the immigrants. What are they called?

Above: Cité radieuse de Marseille by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

In French, they are most usually called HLM(aash ell’emm) — short…

The problem with the world…

17:35h local, 33⁰C, hum. 95%, rain with sunny spells THE MAIN PROBLEM with the world is The World has problems created by problematic people still behaving like a problem child who keeps saying “Not A Problem” to everything —which is even worse than saying “Not my problem.”

“Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to…

A crash course on spotting the genius, but not by IQ score. By implication, we can spot who isn’t highly intelligent.

BESIDES IQ test scores, there are other non-IQ identifiers of ‘genius.’

Decades of studies in education and psychology have identified many signs and habits commonly found in tested and known geniuses and the highly intelligent.

The word ‘genius’ has existed in English since 1350–1400.

I’m writing all this straight from memoryfrom my uni days 30+ years ago, plus the experience of growing up in a…

17:36 local time, 33⁰C (91⁰F), hum. 65%

THESE are imported Japanese rice cracker savoury snacks pronounced « BAY’ee-kah » (be ika 米菓 or べいか : ‘rice cracker’).Vital statistics:—

Comes in tear-off strips of four packets

Regular price is HK$12 (US$1.50 or €1.2) a strip at my local Daiso (the famous Dollar Store in some countries)

Each packet 11 grammes, or ⅓rd of an ounce

8 to 10 blobs per packet

E…

I’ve lost the source for this:—

¹美しいもので醜い価値を見いだす人は、魅力的でなければ腐敗しています。 ²美しいもので素晴らしい価値を見いだす人々は育てられます。 ³美しいものだけが美しさを意味するものです。 ⁴それはすべてそうです。 ⁵そのようなものは、道徳的または不道徳な本ですか? ⁶本はよく書かれているか、あまり書かれていない。 ⁷それだけです。

¹Utsukushī mono o minikui kachikan o misete iru hito wa, mirikiteki ni narereba fuhai shite imasu. ²Utsukushī mono wa saikōchi o mite iru hito wa sodate raremasu. ³Utsukushī mono mo utsukushī to iu koto…