Quote from: PhantomCatClock on September 28, 2025, 09:44:21 PMoh anyway it sucks because mine doesn't even fucking rotate. It'll have times where, when I'm watching it, I can see the little logo spin around and it gets a nice little combo going, then inevitably stops and flatspots anyway with its worse, messy lead. no instructions or tips on/in the packaging that i missed the first time. the end.

I'm rotating your lead in my mind. Your little flaked lead worms are orbiting like a galaxy

Quote from: Slurpee on September 19, 2025, 11:58:47 PMI learned there was controversy over changing sonic the hedgehog's arm color from beige to blue and now both versions look horribly wrong to me

wtf

Quote from: PhantomCatClock on September 03, 2025, 05:29:05 PMthe ass is always wiener on the other side

Just admiring this.

But could its clever cutesy charm be appropriated as transphobic kitsch??? Sorry, it must be sealed and buried until society is fixed, and you with it.

working on a kitschy amusement park guide

Iconic comes to mind, first of all. Transformative, ambitious, witty, self-aware.

The experience is deepened, not marred, by a few spicier descriptors: gauche, violent, transgressive, and perhaps even appropriative?

It's a marriage of "high" and "low" art, which elevates the latter and washes away pretension from the former. Whether by accident or intention, it's a perfect bridge between aesthetic sensibilities.

It's "of a time," but what isn't? I think it will still have charm and beauty on offer to any future witnesses willing to unearth this piece of artistic history.

But, I should answer the most fundamental, simple question about the piece: "Is it funny?"


Well, it's not, y'know, "ha-ha" funny. Did I laugh? Yes, but I can't say that it was in direct response to the artist's entreatment. My laughter stemmed from my own perverse enjoyment of the grotesque. I responded not to the joke itself, but instead to the contemplation of the strange and probably unconscious sensibilities of the the creator. I won't spell those out - they're presumptive, of course, not anything I'd sincerely ascribe to an artist; just the output of my own continually-running engine of self-amusement.

Honestly, I think I'm just too old to answer the question - I don't think the humor is *for* me. And I refuse to put myself in the headspace of a younger viewer - I think that would be futile, if not downright illegal.

Well, even if I can't directly connect with the humor, I would think well of anyone who did. I'm irony-poisoned as much as anyone who has an attitude of disdain toward the internet content they nonetheless incessantly consume. This artistic work has a purity to it, even in its gleeful upending of classical aesthetic principle. It's innocently irreverent.

Is it a personal favorite? No. But I've been happy to spend time with it, and I feel it merits artistic contemplation.

So whether or not you've seen it, I'd recommend checking out "The Rabbit of Seville."









You know, rewatching it, the hair tonic scene isn't really notable, but when I was a kid, the imagery of Elmer's bald head getting squished by Bugs was profoundly hypnotic. If I had to guess by memory alone, I'd have supposed it was at least half a minute of intense tonic rubbing.

Why did that rendering of deformed flesh hit me so hard? These things are supposed to turn into kinks in mature, healthy adults, but I still only feel mute fascination. Elmer is so *squishy*.

Man that feels like such a fundamental distinction that I'm shocked to only be learning it now.

Quote from: PhantomCatClock on April 27, 2025, 08:27:31 AMthey need artery blood not muscle blood

one has your blood type information and antibodies and dna and stuff, the other is just lubricant



this is basic stuff they teach it to you on the first day at the temple of athena i thought you went to college to get more knowledge

Quote from: zl on February 25, 2025, 06:56:13 AMCHAPTER 1

Simon ate his sandwiches two bites at a time. He would take a bite, then another, and only then start to chew.

Kinda fucked up, right? Anyway, I just thought people might want to know.

THE END

Author's note:
During preparatory research for this piece, a slice of bread was so firmly plastered to the roof of my mouth that its extraction inadvertently trained away my gag reflex. So, hello, boys

CHAPTER 1

Simon ate his sandwiches two bites at a time. He would take a bite, then another, and only then start to chew.

Kinda fucked up, right? Anyway, I just thought people might want to know.

THE END

Quote from: Slurpee on November 06, 2024, 04:59:09 PMlike that, do you ever feel like that?

kind of

There's a lot going on, and I want it to connect into a coherent story, something that could give a clear idea of what comes next. But I can't tie it all together.

It feels like the best of times, in some ways, in some circles. Like there's this collective revelation about the ways we've been bound by definitions written by violence. There's been a dissection of misogyny, of hierarchy, of power, of abuse, and it's not just recognizing these things, but it's actually made a shift, revealed a way out. A population of people who want to shed a legacy of cruelty, and to instead love and support each other. And an idea to make a better world not through combat, but mutual uplifting. And it's happening, in some pockets, in some relationships, in some people.

It feels new, at least in some of the language, in the specificity, in the precise examination of how the world is and how it came to be like this. I'm arguing against a part of me that's like, "Well, you know who else has argued for liberation through love? Friend, I have an old book and good news." But it's not just love I'm talking about. It's an understanding of hate, of generational currents of pain, and of recognizing the man-made origins of concepts that were called "natural."

I mean specifically, when I'm reading about radical anthropology or socialism or police abolition or restorative justice, I see this vanguard movement of societal improvement, a vision for a better world, grounded in the world we're in now, with actual steps that can be taken, not requiring a war, not confined to idle fantasy. And it's not like every part of it needs to be understood - there's an underlying message of communal welfare; that by helping others we help ourselves, and that by giving freedoms we become more free. People are living it; people are doing that work.

Which is encouraging, but it's also just a small part of what's going on. A small part that isn't in the driver's seat. The car is speeding in the wrong direction, it's accelerating in the wrong directions, and it's unclear whether all the good work in the world is even able to slow down the rate of acceleration.

I get messed up, thinking about species extinction. Species that are made on a geologic timescale. We're losing thousands a year. What could possibly be worth that? The existence of a species on earth is beyond valuation, it's the treasure of a world we've found no equal to in the observed universe. There's something so grotesquely, catastrophically wrong with the world order that humanity has created. And the sheer momentum of it has snowballed into something beyond our capacity to repair. And the reward for all that damage, in the richest country on earth, is a population that feels bitter and harried and forced to make it on their own. Why should we help others, when nobody is helping us? A culture that thinks the best kind of person must be someone who requires no help from anyone.

When I think about entrenched individualism and the machinery of modern life, of the all the ACs switching on in a heat wave, burning energy to shield ourselves from all the energy we've already burnt, I feel like I've got to turn away from that broad view, from problems I can't begin to face. But when I take a narrow view of my own life, I remember that there's something else happening, something I'm ignoring.

I, by necessity, have felt a need to judge my value by my small contributions - if I can help a friend feel better, if I can be kind to a stranger, if I can make something that people enjoy or find meaningful, if I can be there for people I love. But a part of me feels guilty for considering that sufficient. "Leaving the world a slightly better place." I don't think I have it in me to do more, but it still feels self-serving to be satisfied with making a few people feel better on a sinking ship.

Existentially, we're all just passing through, we'll all be leaving. Our time alive is our time alive, and our experiences of each moment are the raw material of life. Improving those moments, for someone... isn't that the point of the large-scale work, anyway? The quality of those moments for a great many people? Maybe we can even extend that consideration to the experiences of the other animal awarenesses on Earth. My cat, for example - isn't it worth something to give her good moments during her brief time alive? Is it really so bad if I'm only helping a handful of moments for a handful of people?

But there's the suffering, and there's the cruelty of looking away from it, a reproachful thought juts in. I can't rest comfortably in any self-evaluation, I chastise and chase myself from perspective to perspective. Is that what good people do? Or just ineffectual people?

What can I do when I'm jarringly reminded of massive momentum of suffering in the world, as it spreads through people and crashes into the Earth? I guess I did get a little too comfortable after all, for it to feel so shocking.

I'm gonna be crass and link to the Kickstarter for the game I'm making.

I wish I could make these things for free, so sharing it wouldn't feel extractive. I'm proud to be still drawing and making weird stuff, and it feels like an extension of the Clock Crew years, but it's hard to feel a sense of comradery when ducats are involved.

But there it is! Don't feel obliged!

Quote from: FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK on October 26, 2024, 07:07:42 PM10/10 handmonster would summon for a halloween party

Quote from: PhantomCatClock on October 26, 2024, 08:33:50 PMMan, that is so cool and makes me realize that this is the worst possible time to experiment with hands.

don martin could only have happened at one point in history: the past

Quote from: Slurpee on October 27, 2024, 01:51:38 PMthat rules

Quote from: RobClock on October 27, 2024, 06:07:39 PMRad

Thank you

look at this



I'm proud of the grabby hands

count me in

Has anyone read Babbitt? The 1920s satire of self-aggrandizing republican business boys? It's so good.

First of all the slang of the times was superb.

Quote from: Ted, Babbit's 17-year-old son, rebutting his elder sisterTed observed that her friends were "a scream of a bunch-stuck-up gabby four-flushers."

Does 'four-flusher' refer to someone with pipe-challenging evacuations? I like to think so.

The sarcastic capitalization of insincere High Concepts also gets me.

Quote[Babbit claimed to possess] a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you were a High-class Realtor and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker, and a fly-by-night. These virtues awakened Confidence, and enabled you to handle Bigger Propositions. But they didn't imply you were to be impractical and refuse to take twice the value of a house if a buyer was such an idiot that he didn't jew you down on the asking-price.

Historic Trumpiness.

QuoteAs always he noted that the California Building across the way was three stories lower, therefore three stories less beautiful, than his own Reeves building.

I have multiple times encountered such sick burns of masculinity that I've whispered, "daaamn."

QuoteThe men leaned back on their heels, put their hands in their trousers-pockets, and proclaimed their views with the booming profundity of a prosperous male repeating a thoroughly hackneyed statement about a matter of which he knows nothing whatever.

QuoteHe coaxed her with booming sounds, with affable smiles, like a popular preacher blessing an Easter congregation, like a humorous lecturer completing his stint of eloquence, like all perpetrators of masculine wiles.

QuoteWhich of them said which has never been determined, and does not matter, since they all had the same ideas and expressed them always with the same ponderous and brassy assurance.

Sometimes the prose is beautiful.

QuoteOutside the car window was a glaze of darkness stippled with the gold of infrequent mysterious lights.

And sometimes it's gotten real laughs out of me.

QuoteHe enjoyed being sick in February; he was delighted by their consternation that he, the rock, should give way.

He had eaten a questionable clam.

Quote from: Sir Gerald Duke, English ambassador, after sharing a whiskey with BabbittI shall tell the fellows in Nottingham your ideas about Visions and Real Guys.

It's good, fellas.

dread pirate brownstache

Quote from: Slurpee on March 06, 2024, 03:24:36 AMalways have these cabeça grande plans for setting up a special evening of game for my friends that I never end up actually carrying out

there's a ttrpg that uses a jenga set instead of dice, like, every time you take an action that involves any kind of risk, you have to take a jenga block out and put it on top, and if the tower falls you fail and probably die or something I don't remember the specifics
and I was like 30% of the way through setting up this whole ass custom scenario loosely based on Saw 2 (the one where a bunch of strangers wake up in a house with a slow-acting poison gas and they're supposed to go through a bunch of saw traps to find hypodermic needles with the cure)
I had an old tape recorder and a bunch of little mini-cassette tapes I found in the ancient warrens of the local Rite-Aid and I was mapping out this whole like web of character and plot

then I guess I just wandered away to do god knows what else

Oh hey cool I'm friends with the author of that RPG! I've never had a chance to play it though. He loves a metaphorical mini-game.

Quote from: PhantomCatClock on January 27, 2024, 08:27:58 AMclock crew confessional,
  you know who you are,
i'm sorry i called you a buffoon

apologize accepted, smeghead

Quote from: Slurpee on January 05, 2024, 09:03:41 PM

Quote from: zl on January 05, 2024, 07:57:39 AMI'm still mourning the loss of art that I only had hosted at myfrogbag. Which, in retrospect, should have been very easy to see coming, but still.

I was just thinking about your old choose-your-own-adventure threads

probably gone?

Aww it makes me sad. I barely remember those, I would have loved to revisit them. Looks like they were lost in an ancient hard drive failure, though. Maybe I have some really old burned CD backup somewhere.

The only thing I found was some Borund, whatever that is:

Quote from: PhantomCatClock on January 04, 2024, 09:41:24 PMi honestly never used icq and the only chat i would trust is one i'm running myself and nobody else should trust that

I'm still mourning the loss of art that I only had hosted at myfrogbag. Which, in retrospect, should have been very easy to see coming, but still.