Category Archives: My Work

My Work, Writing

My New Weapons For NaNoWriMo

Quick blog post. Doing the NaNoWriMo thing again, going to crash and burn most likely, but there is one thing that has helped me in the two weeks prior to it.

The first is my main addiction which is of course Tumblr. The scene is…interesting at times, especially because I really feel out of place from it a lot of the time. And that’s what keeps me coming back – looking into a petri dish of social commentary, fandom and assorted nonsense that’s intriguing to me. So, that’s where I’m getting my inspiration from.

Second has to do with the thing I started two weeks ago. I’ve been working for a client that has me working at breakneck speeds for writing articles. At first I didn’t really think I could write a 500+ word  article in under 1-2 hours but apparently I can? and I’m getting faster – I wrote one under 40 minutes in sheer panic of the deadline yesterday.

So, that means, under concentration, I can hit the 1667-a-day pace for the 50,000 goal this month in about….6 hours. But, because the closest thing to research I’m using is riffing off Tumblr, it really won’t take that long.

I wrote 400 words when I woke up this morning, actually. From 4 Tumblr posts, completely dismantled to fit the narrative. All in…what, half an hour? This might work, maybe.

Expect updates. Happy writing.

 

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Art, Links, Music, My Work, Photos

Weekly Tumblr Dump – 5/3/2014

Via my friend Harmony, This is “Swoon”, a song from the Soul Visions album. It is a collaboration made by The Human Experience and Rising Appalachia. Buy the album here.

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And then there’s Kieron Gillen’s post on Sister of Mercy’s “Alice”, for his upcoming The Wicked & The Divine:

We’re all monsters, at least for a few seconds at a time. I don’t believe you if you’re saying otherwise. Everyone I’ve ever met have failed that particular test of being inhumanly humanistic. Especially you. Yes, you.

There’s music about how you wish you are. There’s music how you wish you aren’t. There’s music which looks the world in the eye and tells it exactly who you are, and asks if they want to make something of it.

I remember Warren Ellis reading the script for Aaron Sorkin’s pilot episode for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and saying something to the effect of having the urge to quit writing. I’m still trying to get my shit off the ground and This motherfucker drops a post that questions my goddamn skills.

AND I DON’T EVEN LIKE SISTERS OF MERCY. Just…fucking…ahhh.

Anyway, onward.

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I’m still bummed I didn’t get to meet Molly Crabapple at her talk with Warren Ellis in early April. She’s a great artist and this is a prime example of it.

From her Talking Points Memo article “Istanbul: Before the Tear Gas”:

Used to battling cops at games, football fans formed Gezi’s frontlines. Now, the police are so afraid they plead with protestors to please disperse. “Children of whores,” the fans chant back. It’s a sweet change from the last few years of New York demonstrations, where cops often forced demonstrators into pens, beat them, and arrested them like cattle. Next to hundreds of football fans spoiling for a fight, I finally feel safe from the police.

I dive to the front. Amidst the A.C.A.B. (All Cops Are Bastards) scarves and E-ticket fuck no graffiti spray-painted on the sidewalks, a masked boy holds up a flare. It burns neon. From Galatasaray gates, fans have hung a banner emblazoned with the words “There is no description for our love.” Flyers fluttered like ten thousand birds.

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This is from a Harbor Magazine photo shoot with model Dino Busch holding fancy owls in impeccable suits.

Source: http://evenghostandhorse.tumblr.com/

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I saw Massive Attack at the Warfield in San Francisco in 2010, and I remember seeing this during their performance. United Visual Artists took care of the lighting design of the Massive Attack shows, and they put up a lot of digital protests playing the back while they performed. There were some that I can recall, like the rising digital number of money spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the phrase ” WHAT THE FUCK, ARIZONA?” in digital typeface in regards to the recently enacted SB 1070 law.

Source: http://inf0lepsy.tumblr.com

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Links, My Work

Weekly Tumblr Dump 4/18/14

Source: http://fkaraboa.tumblr.com/

Cien años de soledad  is one of my favorite books from the magic realism style he created. While I don’t think it’s apparent, my writing DNA has a considerable amount of Gabo in it. Que descanses en paz.

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Source: http://elizabum.tumblr.com

Rod McKuen, from Listen to the Warm, 1967

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Source: http://warrenellis.tumblr.com/

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Via Laughing Squid is a great 8-Bit Cinema of The Fifth Element,  including the taxi chase scene and Zorg ZF-1 test demo.

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St. Vincent at the State Theatre in Minneapolis. Photos by Nate Ryan. Her new album is really good, I recommend “Rattlesnake” and “Prince Johnny”.

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Links, My Work

Weekly Tumblr Dump 4/13/14

This week’s Tumblr dump includes Lovecraft/Bible mashups, demigod genetics, samurai and body wall art, and ladies punching things.

 

Source: http://freelancejake.tumblr.com/

Charlie Stross put together this odd combination of the King James Bible with some H.P. Lovecraft via some bootleg Markov Chain. I’m a big fan of putting original work though processes to make new stuff – I made this poem through a posts on the topic of rules and put it up on my own tumblr ( “We Of Knowing”).

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Source: http://lifemadesimple.tumblr.com/post/82015012077/step-by-step-a-great-way-of-painting-your-own

This is the first the first image of an amazing step-by-step instructional post on making this mural painting on a wall. I don’t know if I’d do this particular one on my wall even though I love Seven Samurai, but the technique is something I’d definitely keep in mind.

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This is an interesting post on simple Punnett squares/hereditary genetics in respects to demigods. Credit goes to Erin:

OK this is kinda weird but I’ve been thinking about if two demigods had a kid, would there be a chance their kid could be immortal, or completely mortal? still a demigod, or more like a fourth of a god?

I mean on the surface, it seems like one of those things where the fractions would just keep dividing, but if you would think about them as alleles and dominant / recessive traits, for this example, lets use Mm (for mortality im clever) and the dominant M would be immortality and recessive m would be mortality. In the case of PJO, mortality would be incompletely dominant, showing signs of both parents (eg. being susceptible to both godly and mortal weapons; able to eat ambrosia, like their godly parent, but also able to eat regular food like their mortal parent). So if you have a god, they are completely immortal, MM, and their completely mortal partner, mm.

Now when you cross the two homozygous people, all the offspring would be Mm, a demigod, that is. Do a Punnett Square if you don’t believe me.

So you have a demigod (Mm) and they can produce offspring with a god (MM), another demigod (Mm), or a mortal (mm). If a demigod has children with a god, theoretically, their children would have 50% immortal, and a 50% chance of being a demigod. If a demigod has children with a mortal, their children theoretically have a 50% chance of being demigods, and a 50% chance of being completely mortal. Finally, if two demigods had children, their theoretical children have a 25% chance of being mortal, and 50% of being immortal, and a 25% chance of being mortal.

That doesn’t even scratch the surface though, I mean, what about mortals who have the power of Sight? Could immortality be a sex-linked trait? Does immortality work differently in demons and monsters, or is it the same? What about nymphs and naiads? Centaurs? Possibilities are endless with genetics guys get excited.

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Source:http://denst.tumblr.com

That’s not Photoshop – an artist painted that on her body. You can see the whole process of the artist putting it onto her via gifs. it’s pretty cool.

 

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Source: http://mma-gifs.tumblr.com/

That is ex-MMA fighter/actress Gina Carano beating the ever-loving crap out of a theoretical jaw. The post has this to say about her:

“Gina can land all 8 blows in a blistering 3 seconds. And how much does this maelstrom combine to generate? An amazing 4,800 pounds of force. That’s like a North Pacific giant octopus pounding you with all 8 of it’s arms. Translation: In 3 seconds, Gina could brake your ribs, give you a concussion, shatter your nose, rupture your spleen, cause internal bleeding, and put you down for the count.”

I think she’s doing a superhero movie now but I hoped she be in one of the DC/Marvel ones and not with Rob Liefeld. Oh well.

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Links, My Work

The Weekly Tumblr Dump – 4/4/14

This week’s Tumblr extravaganza includes new media quotes, LoL cosplay, retro music posters, funny haikus, and Blade.

Here’s a part of Laurie Penny’s on The Feted Future of New Media ( via Kieron Gillen’s tumblr):

Those who have the power right now, in tech but also to some extent in media, see themselves as rejects, weirdos fighting for their place, and there are reasons for that. The emotional patterning laid down in puberty is hard to shake. If you got used to being excluded, being left out, having to fight to survive because you were smart or nerdy or different or all three, that’s a mentality that stays with you. That sort of trauma can be useful later in life – it gives you stamina, drive, a determination to carry your ideas through against the odds, a hunger to prove yourself, fierce dedication to your fellow oddballs and weirdoes, and I could go on. But it is still trauma, and it comes with baggage. Part of which is that long after you’ve stopped being an outsider and instead become a privileged pillar of the new establisment, not only do you fail to notice, but when someone points it out to you, you get angry – you get reaaaally, really frustrated – because being an “outsider” has always been a forming part of your identity, and being told there are people further out than you is hard to handle.

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Source: http://afrofuturistaffair.tumblr.com / http://fantasyofcolor.tumblr.com/

Check out this amazing cosplay of Lucien, a champion from League of Legends. I got excited about seeing a black champion in that game, even though I’m not a particular fan of playing as him. Still, Those guns, man…

 

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Source: http://spmib.tumblr.com

This retro posterization of Outkast is part of a series made by the Ads Libitum tumblr. There is another one of Andre 3000 all Uncle Sam’d out, along with Kanye, Daft Punk, Nirvana, and more.

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Source: http://haikutes.tumblr.com/

I love the humorous poetry posted on Haikutes. They range from sex, relationships, and just random funny-ass stuff.

 

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Source: http://berenzero.tumblr.com/

This is still  my favorite Blade quote, but Kris Kristoferson as Whistler wasn’t no slouch either:

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Links, My Work

The Weekly Tumblr Dump – 3/28/14

Source: http://thevuas.com/

 

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source: http://unexplained-events.com/

From the post:

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is an entomopathogenic (it acts as a parasite and can kill or disable the host) fungus. It is known as the mind controlling fungi and in the 1st picture it can be seen growing out the head of a “zombie” ant in the Brazilian forest. It can control the behavioral patterns of the host it has attached onto. It takes control of an ant so it can move to an ideal location for the fungi to grow and spread its spores, after that it kills the ant.

I’ve always been a fan of this weird-ass organism. I know that it was used in The Last of Us, and I’d like to see it used in more fiction.

 

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This comes from a series of photos taken by Jonathan Hobin. He took children and recreated horrible tragedies (like the Jonestown massacre above). There’s a 9/11 and JonBenet Ramsey one, of course, but I was surprised he made one for the Lady Diana death.

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From an IndieWire interview with Robert Rodriguez about why he created the El Rey Network (via http://peaceloveandafropuffs.tumblr.com/):

When I was doing “Spy Kids,” the Weinsteins asked me — not that they were being jerks at all, they were just wondering — “Why are you making the characters Hispanic? It doesn’t make any sense, isn’t this supposed to be for everybody?” “Well, it’s based on my family.”

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(via http://fitoraemusic.tumblr.com/)

I love the original (probably listened to it hundreds of times when I was in junior high) and this spin on it is really goddamn good. I went on and listened to more of  Banks’ songs, and they are really good. I recommend “Before I Ever Met You”:

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Links, My Work, Writing

The Weekly Tumblr Dump – 3/21/14

Source: http://lumber.tumblr.com/

 

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Source: http://prepaidafrica.tumblr.com/

Sipho Mabona wants to make a life-size origami elephant using a 2,500 sq. ft paper. I’m a big fan of paperfolding so I am excited to see it happen.

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From writer Chuck Palahnuik’s latest essay on writing (from his own Tumblr site). Apparently you have to sign up to the mag that has the full one but this quote is good enough, I think:

“

Whether you’re making music or films or painting pictures… play to the strengths of your medium.

One of the aspects of written narrative I appreciate most is the ambiguity that’s possible and sustainable before the true nature of a fictional situation is confirmed. Like the roadster in The Great Gatsby which is green or yellow, depending on the moment, I love to keep the details of a story in flux. One thing morphs into becoming another, sometimes even a third thing.

My classic example comes from the story “Guts.” Whatever is holding the narrator underwater, first it’s a snake, then a sea serpent, then it’s a prolapsed colon, finally it’s a “thick rope of veins and twisted guts.” This gradual evolution from the fantastic to the horribly real is something films have less success depicting. There are good examples. In A Portrait of Jennie Joseph Cotton gradually realizes his girlfriend is dead. A ghost. In Jacob’s Ladder Tim Robbins slowly comes to terms with the fact that he is, himself, dead. But too often the ambiguous thing must be made real in order to be filmed, and that robs it of the power of being debatable, undecidable. So often, once we see the monster, it’s no longer scary.

”

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Source: http://bandgeek7350.tumblr.com/

This made me laugh as a man who’s felt those.

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From Lev Grossman’s post titled ‘Small Batch Writing” (via http://kadrey.tumblr.com/):

I’m always on the lookout for little gaps like that in my schedule: anytime I can get a block of 10 minutes or more, I take it. I write in waiting rooms. I write in cars while other people are driving (this is very boring for them, but I do it anyway). I write while pasta is boiling.
Sometimes when I’m taking care of my kids they fall asleep, or lose consciousness for other reasons. The second they do I’m at my keyboard. Ninja writer strikes! Then I go back to changing diapers.

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My Work

The Weekly Tumblr Dump – 3/14/2014

Here are this week’s Tumblr likes. I need to figure out a way to put up gif sets, but until then, enjoy these, you punks.

Source: http://thatbullshit.tumblr.com/

From the post:

“At the height of his cocaine addiction, David Bowie weighed only 95 pounds, hardly a healthy weight for 5’11”. He later said that he spent most of the mid-Seventies trying to perfect telekinesis and trying to keep Jimmy Page and witches from stealing his soul.”

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Source: http://jeffsmoon.tumblr.com

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Jeff Buckley. Nusrat was a Pakistani singer that had a six-octave voice, and Buckley was a huge fan.  I put up Jeff Buckley’s cover of “Yeh Jo Halka Halak Suroor Hai” a while back –  it  is really goddamn good.

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Source: Laughing Squid

Comparison of shots from The Fantastic Mr. Fox  with other Wes Anderson films.

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Source: mattfraction.com

Comic Writer Matt Fraction’s five-minute story of picking up writer and now-wife Kelly Sue DeConnick from the airport. I think I may use his “Hurrah for fucking adventure!” closer for shit in the future.

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Links, My Work

The Weekly Tumblr Dump – 3/7/2013

I spend a lot more time on my Tumblr blog than this site, but I feel guilty not giving this blog any love (especially now that it is actually jesusgaray.com). That being said, I’m selling out and putting up some of the likes I’ve clicked on this week [NOTE: I will always put the source for any of these posts, as I don’t want to be one of those douchebags who put up art/writing playing it off like it’s mine]:

Source: joshfranfuckthis.tumblr.com

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Source: geek-art.tumblr.com

This a part of  Marko Manev and Matt Ferguson’s art show (check it out here).

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A quote from David Lynch, via mariomayfire:

“I hate slick and pretty things. I prefer mistakes and accidents. Which is why I like things like cuts and bruises – they’re like little flowers. I’ve always said that if you have a name for something, like ‘cut’ or ‘bruise,’ people will automatically be disturbed by it. But when you see the same thing in nature, and you don’t know what it is, it can be very beautiful.”

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Source: http://melovecomics.tumblr.com/

Click on the image and you’ll be able to see close-ups on all the characters. I really like the Hellfire ones.

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Source: http://didyouknowblog.com

 

I’m a big anti-fan of the whole ancient aliens thing, but the utsuro bune urban legend is interesting.

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Source: http://vicenews.tumblr.com 

From the Vice News article:

China’s environmental problems have become such an embarrassment to its leadership that the country suddenly finds itself on a war footing. On Wednesday, Premier Li Keqiang, the second-ranked political leader and head of economic policy, formally declared a “war on pollution” in a speech before the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress. The reform is welcome news, but overdue — and the outlook of the strategy Li outlined is about as clear as the morning sky on your run-of-the-mill, suffocating Beijing day.

Li called for the closure of 50,000 small coal-fired furnaces, the removal of 6 million old, emissions-belching vehicles from the streets, and new guidelines for air quality improvement in seriously affected northern Chinese cities. He described the state of Beijing’s air as “nature’s red-light warning against the model of inefficient and blind development.”

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