“We could say that every age has its own postmodern (…) I believe that every age reaches moments of crisis like those described by Nietzsche in the second of the ‘Untimely Considerations’, on the harmfulness of the study of History. The sense that the past is restricting, smothering, blackmailing us.“

- Umberto Eco

Most self-help and inspirational speeches suck, period.

However, once in a lifetime, someone tells you something that actually is great advice, and you don’t really notice until much later. A few years ago, I’ve read some things about being a professional artist, at a blog named Gaping Void. Hugh MacLeod’s advice struck me with awe, and over the years, I noticed that he was actually very very right about most of them. Some of his one-liners got stuck inside my brain and I’ll think of them over and over again, always at the light of a new situation. It’s been working for me, and I hope it will help you all too.

If you like them, be sure to buy his book and sign up to his mailing list.

1. Ignore everybody.
4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
7. Keep your day job.
10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
11. Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
14. Dying young is overrated.
15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
16. The world is changing.
17. Merit can be bought. Passion can’t.
19. Sing in your own voice.
20. The choice of media is irrelevant.
22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
23. Worrying about “Commercial vs. Artistic” is a complete waste of time.
26. Write from the heart.
27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.
30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.
31. Remain frugal.
32. Allow your work to age with you.
34. Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.
35. Savor obscurity while it lasts.
36. Start blogging.

Editor Daniel Werneck expresses this feeling aptly in his end of the book essay which is a nice concise history of the pulps, past, present and future. It is Werneck’s love the genre that propelled him to create his own homage to those long ago mags. (…) Still my favorite is easily Werneck’s own Automatic Lives which tells the story of DVL-54, worker robot who makes guitars. One day he is informed that the government is transferring him to a factory that produces machine guns. Following DVL-54 as he comes to grip with this change and his bizarre sadness at losing his old job is a very poignant drama that was skillfully handled. This writer had much to offer.

Hey, not bad for my first review, uh? Now if only I could find the time to finish writing the saga of DVL-64… there’s so much more after this short story! You won’t believe it!

Click here for the complete review.

When I was a kid, learning how to read, I used to be bothered by that little voice inside my head that read the text with me. Every time I’d read something, I would imagine the text inside of my head, as if someone was reading it aloud to me. Over time I learned to deal with this little voice, and eventually changed the way it worked inside my head, to the point where I could slightly manipulate it to make it sound more like a man, or a woman, or a monster, depending of the character I was seeing in a comic book. Almost like I was dubbing the comics.

Turns out that many people do that, and many people don’t. I asked about this on Twitter and had a massive (for my standards) response: 7 people told me their views on this, and I was thrilled to learn they had various different opinions on this:

Some people dubbed the comics just like I use to do:

I imagine voices, and even do the voices when I read aloud. — @antonolsen

“HULK SMASH!!” can only be read out loud and at the top of one’s lungs. — @whuddafugger

Depends… But usually I’ll imagine distinct voices (these are, of course, different from the usual voices I hear in my head) — @stephen_kane

Some people said it depends on the specific comic. The most compelling the character is, the stronger is its individual voice inside their head:

When I read comics I imagine a character’s voice once I form an opinion of the character. — @lynnertic

Whether my brain assigns a proper voice depends on how ‘real’/engaging the characters are to me, I think. Good question. — @violet_towers

Weird! I think I never thought of that before. I think I’ve read a few times thinking on each character’s voice, and other times, in a neutral way, unconsciously. — @leoziz

And some people simply don’t do this, they just read the text automatically, not converting it into imaginary sound:

I think I don’t do neither one of those things. I face comics mostly like a book. I follow the synesthesia. — @renmero

I don’t imagine any voices. I simply register the written information without attributing any voices. Not even my own. — @nix

Isn’t it weird how each person has a completely different way of reading comics, or reading in general? What causes those differences? Do they have anything to do with the reader’s personality, or is it a cultural thing?

Questions left unanswered… for now!…

Last week I had to work, for 4 days, on a local event at the university where I teach. It was an exposition of all the university’s courses, so 17-year-old kids could visit and learn more about the professions they are willing to embrace after they leave high school.

Our stand was crowded all the time, with dozens of kids willing to watch our animated films and check out the stop motion puppets, flip books and animation light tables. They were also thrilled to experiment our two interactive installations. One of them had some dandelions projected on the wall, and you could blow a device to make they fly away. The other was an orange screen with two looped animations I created using salt and a scanner. By moving 4 special stones over the table, you could change some parameters on the videos: position, size, opacity, etc.

Two young girls spent a few minutes playing around with it, enjoying it immensely. However, suddenly, one of them stopped, and asked: “But… what is the objective of this? What’s the point?”

I was puzzled and didn’t know what to say. A strictly academic answer was all I had to offer to the poor girl: “It is just a sandbox, we use it to test these code lines”. She only seemed mildly satisfied.

Later I got bored and started walking around the nearby stands. I entered the Visual Arts stand and engaged in conversation with Juliana, the professor in charge during the afternoons. She said it was funny to answer all the pre-conceived questions the students were bringing in. Many of them had questionnaires that were handed to them by their high school teachers.

One of the questions were: “what is the importance of your course to our society?” We laughed and joked around the question, but eventually we became serious and started thinking of an actual answer we could give to the kids. Many of them wanted really bad to become visual artists, but didn’t know what to tell their parents at home. Brazil is a poor country, with a very complicated cultural and artistic scene, and it was hard to explain why should they become artists instead of dentists or computer programmers.

After some debate, we eventually came up with a brutally honest and very short answer: art exists to prevent people from killing themselves.

We didn’t have the guts to actually tell that to the kids.

Maybe next year.

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

www.miauk.com www.neetrecordings.com

Director : Romain Gavras
Director of Photography : André Chemetoff
Producer : Mourad Belkeddar
Production company : www.elnino.tv
Executive Production : Gaetan Rousseau / Paradoxal
Special thanks to Lana & Melissa from The Director’s Bureau

Tired of being exploited by credit card companies and banks, a man forges his own death like a spy he saw in a movie. He then starts living without linking his name to anything. He doesn’t have a movie rental account, he can’t buy anything from the internet, and so on. His new life brings some funny and some sad situations. A romantic interest might be involved.

Idea for a dialogue scene, probably a short theatre play. A conversation between two men. One is 30 years old, the other is 50. The older man is the father of the youngest, who left home when the youngest was about 15 years old. The older man started living alone in a large house, and had a party-hard lifestyle after braking the marriage. The son had problems accepting this behavior. The man tells the son that, after a few years of having his house open for young people and parties, a young girl died of a cocaine overdose inside the toilet. There was a police investigation but the man was eventually found not-guilty of her death. He says that he can’t live in the house anymore, because every time he wants to pee, he sees the dead girl sitting on the toilet, her nose bleeding. He tells his son that his party days are over and he is selling the house. They say goodbye, and the young man says he will call his father, both knowing it is a lie.

Esse é um dos meus poemas favoritos. Pensei que fosse famoso, mas procurando no Google tive muita dificuldade em encontrar. Acho que ele revela uma verdade brutal que não devemos nunca esquecer. Enquanto vivermos em sociedade, estaremos eternamente sendo rotulados e classificados, quase sempre injustamente. Além disso, é impossível agradar a todos. Não importa o que você faça, vai estar sempre errado para alguém.

Reprovações Portuguezas

Gregório de Matos

Se sois homem valoroso,
Dizem que sois temerário,
Se valente, – espadachim,
E atrevido se esforçado.

Se resoluto, – arrogante,
Se pacífico, sois fraco,
Se precatado, – medroso,
E se não o sois, – confiado.

Se usais justiça, um Herodes,
Se favorável, sois brando,
Se condenais, sois injusto,
Se absolveis, estais peitado.

Se vos dão sois um covarde,
E se dais sois desumano,
Se vos rendeis, sois traidor,
Se rendeis, – afortunado.

Se sois plebeu, sois humilde,
Soberbo, se sois fidalgo,
Se sois segundo sois pobre,
E tolo se sois morgado.

Se brioso, tendes fumos,
E se não, sois homem baixo,
Se sois sério, descortês,
Se cortês, afidalgado.

Se defendeis, sois amigo,
Se não o fazeis, sois contrário,
Se sois amigo, suspeito,
Se não o sois, – afeiçoado.

Se obrais mal, sois ignorante,
Se bem obrais, foi acaso,
Se não servis, sois isento,
E se servis, sois criado.

Se virtuosos, fingido,
E hipócrita, se beato,
Se zeloso, – impertinente,
E se não, sois um pastrano.

Se não compondes, sois néscio,
Se escreveis, sois censurado,
Se fazeis versos, sois louco,
E se não o fazeis, sois parvo.

Se corado, figadal,
Descorado, se sois alvo,
Se grande nariz, judeu,
Se trigueiro, sois mulato,

Se honesto sois, não sois homem,
Impotente s sois casto,
Se não namorais, fanchono,
Se o fazeis, estragado.

Se andais devagar, – mimoso,
Se depressa, sois cavalo,
Mal encarado, se feio,
Se gentil, – efeminado.

Se falais muito, palreiro,
Se falais pouco, sois tardo,
Se em pé, não tendes assento,
Preguiçoso, se assentado.

E assim não pode viver
Neste Brasil infestado,
Segundo o que vos refiro
Quem não seja reprovado.