#Art belongs to Clown Illustrations

[juliesbestfriend]

Welcome Home's residents!! Howdy Pillar, Barnaby B Beagle, Frank Frankly, Julie Joyful, Sally Starlet, Poppy Partridge, Eddie Dear, Wally Darling and Home.

I do not own these all of these belong to the Your Neighborhood! | ClownIllustrations website!!

#Welcome Home's residents! #Welcome Home #Welcome Home puppet arg #Welcome Home puppet #Wally Darling #Howdy Pillar #Barnaby b Beagle #Frank Frankly #Julie Joyful #Sally Starlet #Poppy Partridge #eddie Dear #Home #Art belongs to Clown Illustrations

[that-damn-fouth-chaosemerald]

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐖𝐇 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐚𝐲 "𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐛𝐨𝐲" 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦?

See my other Welcome Home work here!

×A/N×

Hey!! Yes, I know, I have some few inbox that I should answer, and don't worry, I will, just let me do a quick post here- -w-

So I'm back with the promised WH headcanons! And I hope you will like them :D

(And yes, it has a short plot now. I did it. I wrote it. ✨

×❢ About my work ❢×

Fluff fluff, all is fluff! No pronouns used for the reader, but good boy/girl mentioned, even if it's expected, there's no smut. Although Howdy is a bit teasing, but it's not r rated so •-•

Fandom: Welcome Home horror project by Clown

Character(s): Wally Darling, Howdy Pillar, Barnaby B. Beagle, Frank Frankly, Eddie Dear, The Reader|You| (Y/N) |Neighbour

Ship(s): The Characters / The Reader|You| (Y/N) |Neighbour

Form: Headcanons

𝑺𝒐𝒏𝒈: LoveGame by Lady Gaga

('cause that is next on my playlist •_•)

“Let's play a lovegame, play a lovegame

Do you want love or do you want fame?

Are you in the game?”

(All illustration belongs to Clown!)

Wally Darling

It was quiet in his house, even Home didn't let out a single crack until this moment. There was just one problem. You haven't seen your dearest puppet oh so long ago. The plan was that you two will have a cuddle time together, but he was nowhere. 

You got up from the couch and carefully looked around in the house. You cautiously called out his name, but no one responded. 

You walked around in the house a little bit, hoping to find him. 

He had his own painting room where he could make his own fantasy alive with the brush. 

You walked closer carefully, not to scare him. Even so, he could actually clearly hear you sneaking up behind him, but he was more focused on the picture. 

You peaked through his shoulders to see what he was up to. 

Oh. My. Gosh. Your heart skipped a beat. He was painting a picture of you. How cute! Wally was a very talented artist and you were very amazed in this moment. He always did such a great job. 

"This looks so great, Wally! You are such a good boy!" you said quietly, while you gently placed your head on his shoulder. 

• it comes off to him like compliment

• and it's from you

• his sweetest neighbour

• of course, he is happy! ♡

• "Thank you, Neighbour!"

• he smiles at you happily, hoping that you like his work

• "Do you like it, Neighbour?" 

• omg ofc you like it! How could you not?! 

• He is so happy about the compliment and about that you're liking his work. 

• he just stares at you happily with open mouth, listening your cheerful voice while you commenting of him and his art

Eddie Dear 

Eddie came home and you could tell, he was clearly exhausted. Poor boy, running back and forth all day, and do this job all alone, it must be tiring. 

He got down next to you, just quietly lied down on his back and put his head on your lap. 

"Hey." you said softly, curling his hair gently with your fingers. 

"Hey, love!" he looked at you with his tired eyes, but his lips still curled up into a kind smile. 

You were resting quietly in the warm room, just hearing each other's calm breathing was enough relaxing. 

"It must be hard for you to do this job all alone, Eddie." you said quietly, no to destroy this calm moment that you have been in for awhile. "You're such a good boy!" you chuckled. 

• he slowly opens his eyes, looks straight up at you

• look, idk if they can blush, but now he does it okay? 

• like his face is completely red

• he always gets so flushed when you complimenting him

• he's so flattered 

• and so damn cute ♡

• he's speechless, he can't think of what he could say

• so he just simply says

• "Oh... Erm... Thanks, (Y/N)!" 

• he will definitely give a kiss to your hands in return

• Your compliments mean too much for him ♡

(a.n: btw I love Edddie, he is such a sweetheart 🥺 ♡

He is definitely my favourite character beside Barnaby! ★) 

Barnaby. B. Beagle

 He knew that work is tiring for you and you had a long day. He wanted to do something pleasant for you. He couldn't cook, it was too difficult for him and he didn't wanna blow up the kitchen with his tryings. So instead of cooking, he cleaned out. It was not as perfect like you would did it, but it was acceptable. He was already finished when you were standing in front of the red and blue colored door. It was easy to recognize it. It had similar colors as Barnaby and it was the biggest door in the neighbourhood. 

He opened the door with a happiest smile on his face. He was clearly missing you. He let you in and you immediately took a seat on the comfy couch. 

Just a few minutes after you had some chance to look around. The house wasn't perfectly clean, like you could still something in the conner, but it was enough to make you feel happy and greatful about Barnaby. 

"What a good boy!"

• omg i can imagine how his tail starts wagging

• I mean he's like a dog, but different, but still a dog, so what did you expect?

• he definitely loves it when you call him a good boy

• he just listens your soft and lovely voice while you caressing and rubbing his fluffy head

• he especially likes rubs behind his big ears

• will rest his head on your lap and just melt in and let you to pet and praise him

• probably will bite you carefully in an affection way

• or slobber on you occasionally

• he wants you to say it more times, so he'll try to make you proud as often as he can

• he absolutely loves it ♡

"Thank you, Barnaby!" 

Frank Frankly

You wanted to see your partner's reaction too much to lose this idea. You leaned forward in the chair to get a better look at Frank, then you called him. 

"You are such a good boy, Frank!" 

• he looks up at you strangely and confused

• you can't help, but giggle a little bit cause the frustration

• "Well... Thank you, (Y/N)..." 

• then he goes back to his job

• probably he has to do something with those colorful bugs what are around him

• seems like he found a better company than you :") 

• you stood up and got over to him, tried not to hurt his garden and the bugs

• "But seriously, hon, I do think that you're doing an amazing job!" you said it softly as you hugged him from behind.

"Thank you, Darling." he smiles at you adorably

• he still adores you dw ♡

• but he definitely likes dear, hon, love or even darling more :D

• (btw I think it would make him uncomfortable- not sure, but I feel like- lol)

Howdy Pillar

You rested your arm on the counter as Howdy checked your items. You watched his movements. Slowly tracing your eyes from his face down to his hands, paying attention to details as well.

"Y'know, you do so much work in this place, Howdy. Like a good boy." You added jokingly the last sentence, didn't think of it too much, though.

He stopped moving for and looked up on you. You look directly in his eyes, getting red of embarassment.

"I mean-" You looked away sheepishly. "Not like that, just... You're doing such a good job here, y'know? It must be hard to keep this place alright by yourself." you chuckled awkardly, trying to change the awkard mood that you accidently did.

Howdy was still looking at you, but he didn't seem nervous or weird out about this. He just stared at you and then suddenly his lips curled into a kind, but a teasing smile.

"Yeah, it is." he answered.

He already put in a bag the last item you have bought of him, then he gently gave the bag to you with his third hand.

"You wanna drink a quick Dark Roast with me? Or if you prefer it more, you can have orange juice, or tea." he leaned closer to you on the counter.

"Sure." you said.

He walked away from the counter as one of his hands started to lead you beside him.

He glanced at you with a smile and said

"You still have to pay, though. Don't think that I'll forgot."

• omg-

• i don't think he'll mind it y'know

• but he prefers call you a good pet/boy/girl

• he may get teasy about it

• beside that, he will treat it as a compliment (cause he really deserves it)

• call him often, he won't mind

• just please don't call him like that in public :>

• he's cool with it :D

#wh #welcome home #welcome home puppet show #welcome home arg #welcome home fanart #wally darling #wally darling x reader #barnaby b beagle #barnaby b beagle x reader #eddie dear #eddie dear x reader #frank frankly #frank frankly x reader #howdy pillar #howdy pillar x reader #wh x reader #welcome home x reader

[triflesandparsnips]

While I was busy writing one response, I realized this belonged in a whole separate post, so--

Y'all know we've got three separate illustrations of Blackbeard in the first season of OFMD, right?

You can see the tldr helpfully demonstrated in this three-panel remix comic from @asofterflag:

Figure 1. The three separate illustrations of Blackbeard seen so far, in chronological order from left to right. Also some text about sexy pirates.

Getting into the nitty-gritty: the first image is an extant depiction of Blackbeard with minimal editing (and is the one in Stede's book when he's talking to Frenchie):

Figures 2 and 3. Left: Blackbeard, as pictured by Benjamin Cole in the second edition of Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates. Or so Wikipedia tells me. (Also, lol: six guns and a sword.) Right: Blackbeard, as shown opposite "Captain Kidd" in episode 3.

For reasons that I will expand on momentarily, I should also point out the following:

The background of the original image depicts three ships.

It moves too quickly to really clock, but we can be sure that at least one of the three ships is also depicted in the image that appears in the show-- you can see the mast touching Blackbeard's left sleeve, which is identically depicted in the original.

Keep this in mind.

The second image (what Stede shows Ed when they meet) is also based off an extant depiction of Blackbeard -- particularly in terms of the leg stance, trousers, bandolier, multiple weapons, smoking beard -- but there's been some hefty editing to get closer to what our Ed looks like:

Figures 4 and 5. Left: Blackbeard, as pictured by Joseph Nicholls in 1726/1736 in A General History of the Lives and Adventures of the Most Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street-Robbers. (Six or maybe seven guns. And a sword. And. A big stick.) Right: Blackbeard, as handed to Ed Teach in episode 4. (I count eight guns, plus a dagger, a sword, and Ed's bare right arm.)

Once again, I would like to point out the following:

The background of the original image only depicts one ship...

And the edited image, besides changing Blackbeard's appearance, has two.

So: Three. Two...

Again, keep this in mind.

But then we get to the third image. The one that Izzy rips out of a book and shoves at Ed, and that Ed then uses as a reference to fully embody his sad vampire clown image.

The third image? That fucker is completely original, and also very much our Ed.

Figure 6. Oh dang. Full Blackbeard. Fingerless gloves (hm), no guns, no knife -- just a sword and a skull.

And let me point out:

Only one ship now.

And. A lighthouse.

(This is Ed. Not the Kraken.)

But those ships, huh? Three. Two. One--

OH HEY remember how I said to keep some stuff in mind from earlier? YEAH.

So that first image of Blackbeard! The one with the matching ships in both it and the show version!

Let's go look at it more fully! In close up!

Figure 7. Oh hey look! Guess what's on fucking fire. Looks awfully familiar, where have I seen--

Figure 8. OH YEAH. IN THE PICTURE ABOVE STEDE'S BED. ONE OF ONLY TWO PIECES OF GODDAMN ART LEFT IN STEDE'S CABIN AFTER THE KRAKEN HAD IT PURGED.

YUP

JUST A SHIP

(ON FIRE)

AND A GOD DAMN LIGHTHOUSE.

#three #two #one #BOOM #our flag means death #definitely not a game #ofmd season 2 #possible spoilers #rampant speculation #ofmd season 1 #art shenanigans #PATTERN MONKEY BACKBRAIN FODDER #enrichment in my enclosure

[faerieboyfields]

Making Big Wally!

Embarking on a fun project - trying to make an accurately sized Wally art doll!

Some folks on tiktok asked to see the pictures in better detail so here they are. You’re welcome to use these as blueprints for your own HOWEVER

If you use it pls credit me/tag me in your posts! These blueprints and the subsequent patterns I’m making take time! Also, I just want to see what y’all are up to haha

Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES can you sell either the pattern or the finished project. This is against Clown’s wishes in terms of selling Welcome Home merch and my own in terms of selling my patterns.

Other than that, hope you enjoy following this weird ass adventure I’m going on 😆

WALLY CHARACTER & DESIGN BELONGS TO CLOWN ILLUSTRATIONS & WELCOME HOME.

#welcome home #welcome home arg #welcome home wally #wally darling #welcome home fanart #art doll

[sillyboxxyei]

HOWDY PILLAR YIPPEE!!!

Such a silly guy :P character belongs to Clown Illustrations !!!1!!?!?1

I like to imagine that he is a moth caterpillar so he is fluffy and his antennae are poofy. I ALSO WANTED TO GIVE HIM SHORT SLEEVES BC I CAN (also laziness on drawing fabric lol) (do not repost my art elsewhere ty!)

#clownillustrations #clown shaped coffin #howdy pillar #welcomehomepuppetshow #welcome home fanart

[jedivoodoochile]

‘Batman: Digital Justice’ - The Computer Generated Vigilante: In April 1990, Pepe Morino Casaras wrote and illustrated the out of universe one shot tale “Batman: Digital Justice”. This particular issue used computer technology instead of traditional drawing to bring to life this futuristic Batman story. Inspired by the early 90s design trends, color palette, and observations about what the 21st century virtually has in store for not just our real world but the Batman’s Universe.

It’s a fight against a computer virus dubbed The Joker who is creating mayhem through weaponizing lethal tech and overriding computers to do its bidding. GCPD’s James Gordon II, the grandson to Commissioner James Gordon, is on the case with no luck shutting down the computer virus. As Gordon II goes through his grandfather old belongings, he finds a note and a batsuit from Bruce Wayne, the man behind the urban legend of the Batman years ago. In order to stop The Joker, Gordon II dons the cape and cowl and becomes the new Dark Knight of Gotham. This return worries the corrupt members of the GCPD, resulting in both the corrupt and the mayor of Gotham City named Madame X teaming up with Joker to help him control the entire digital grid. As Batman adopts allies for his cause, from performer Gata aka Catwoman to surfer Bobby Chang aka Robin, the trio lovate the original Batcave with not only has an Alfred Pennyworth droid but also the Batcomp.

Learning that the original Clown Prince of Crime created the virus years ago, Batcomp activates the Batsuit and gives the new Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder new arsenal (to Bruce’s past instructions) in order to go after Madame X and the corrupt PD. The fight leads to the digital realm where Batman, Robin, and Batcomp combat Madame X (and Catwoman who double crosses the Batman) who take away Batman’s memory on the digital grid. However, the Alfred Droid comes through to help the Dynamic Duo (as in regular continuity), by inputting Batman’s memories within the digital database. Batman is able to defeat both Madame X and the Joker virus. The end has James Gordon II deciding to keep the Batman mantle and find a way to find a good balance between their universe and the digital world.

‘Batman: Digital Justice’ at the time was a state of the art project that brought the classic Batman lore into a futuristic setting that captivated 90s audiences.🦇📚

#batman

[universo-tosi]

"Mime" Day 20, inktober 2021. A mime from Phineas & Ferb series

Buy me a coffee ^^

#mime #mimecore #phineas and ferb #vintage animation #vintage #inktober #inktober 2021 #black and white aesthetic #illustration #black and white #fan art #sad clown #sadcore #summer belongs to you #inktoberchallenge #cityscape #city lights #mime time

[nizynskis]

*puts on glasses and clown nose disguise* what's the difference between deco and nouveau

YIPPIII charlie I am so glad you asked!! i owe you!!!! they’re often confused as the same thing they r not I pinky promise:-) but they r both art movements yep yep. mainly I think of paintings/illustrations and architecture as the most obvious examples but I’m sure it goes deeper than that HEHE

art nouveau I would tentatively say really began in the 1880s and was for the most part gone by the 1920s. art deco is younger and lasted for a shorter time it showed up near the end of the 1910s and was gone by the end of the 1930s. some people like to say it came into being as a response to art nouveau but I think that simplifies it a little bit don’t you...

I am not very learned I can’t explain this very well but basically nouveau: swirl nature loop pastel and deco: hard line bold ‘exotic’. Nouveau looks like how the fairies of pixie hollow live and deco looks like a kind of sexy bank. its very geometric. it’s not just the shapes that changed deco brought in a whole new color palette of like cobalt blue and bright yellow my Lord..

much as it makes me choke to say it alphonse mucha is a go-to example of art nouveau some others I like better are kay nielsen, aubrey beardsley and gerda wegener. georges barbier, georges lepape, tamara de lempicka and erte are some art deco names I love! barbier worked with both nouveau and deco I’ve never seen it with my own eyes but I get the feeling he’s the subject of bitter debate over which category he belongs to. I think he’s just a special boy

these r all painters/illustrators because I’m awful and don’t know anything about architecture...however if u want to see jewelry/sculpture in transition through this time period I can’t rec rene lalique highly enough most of his work falls into nouveau but later ones like Victoire are some of the best examples of deco you’re gonna get all hail mr innovator. This is such an ugly post btw I don’t know how to write in paragraphs this was one single block until I realized that would kill you. Thank you for coming sorry this is so badly written I am failing my high school English class rn.

#asks

[knight-queen]

Lunatic Parade Subaru Sakamaki– (Chapter 4)

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3]

Place: Hotel • Mortstein,Guest room / ホテル•モーントシュタイン客室 

Yui: (I feel like tiredness is still left on my body but...I must refresh myself.)

(Umm...Subaru kun is…)

Subaru: nh...nnn…

Yui: (He’s still sleeping…)

Subaru kun, good morning.

...Time to get up already!

Subaru: ……

Yui: (Oh no, he’s not in the mood to get up…)

Subaru ku一

Subaru: Nnh...whatta disgusting pillow…

Yui: Eh…!?

*Holds her*

Yui: (...kh…!)

(He’s misunderstanding me by thinking that I’m his pillow or something…!)

Subaru: Nnnh…

(On the first day, he was the one to say “Do not cross over on his bed-part…!”, but now he’s…!)

Subaru: ……

Yui: (What shall I do?)

→  Selection

Forcibly rub / 無理矢起理こす 

Let him just sleep quietly / そっと寝かせておく(+Correct)

Yui: (But…)

(He was more exhausted than I was, so it should be okay to let him sleep a little bit more.)

(...Aight, it’s decided.)

Subaru: Zzz….

Yui: (Fufu...looks like he’s having a peaceful time while sleeping.)

(May it’s good that he didn’t wake up….!)

*After a moment*

Subaru: Nng…?

*Fades to CG*

Subaru: ……

Yui: (H- he woke up…?)

Subaru: …...Yui?

Yui: Eh...Err...good morning…

Subaru: ...kh!

Wha...What are you doing here!?

This was my bed-part! Do ye’ think it’s alright to enter my bed-side like this!?

Yui: (He’s saying the same thing he said on the 1st day…)

Yo- you’re wrong…! When I was about to wake you up, then you did this while sleeping…!

Subaru: HAAH!? ME!?

kh...I see.

Yui: (Uuh...this situation is embarrassing…)

A- anyways! You have to wake up already!

Subaru: Tch...I have to huh. I’m gonna wake up…

*CG Fades*

Yui: (Last day of the parade…)

(If we complete the orders of the antique art-dealer, we can properly apologize to Earl Walter afterwards…)

(I must get back my heart from him…!)

Place: Aizen Stahl, Antique Art Store / アイゼン シュタール古美術商店 

Yui: Hello, good morning!

Antique Art Dealer: Ooh, you two! I have been waiting. How’s your condition?

Yui: We’re already fine. Thank you for carrying us all the way up to the hotel yesterday.

Antique Art Dealer: Nope, don’t worry about that.

Subaru: If so, then don’t leave such notes which reach my nerves.

Yui: Wai- Subaru kun…!

Subaru: Hmph. And...What’s the last task?

We aren’t gonn’ have a leisure time today after all.

Antique Art Dealer: That’s right. Well then, I shall present today’s mission for you.

I want two of you to search…

My pet.

Yui: Ehh…!?

Subaru: Your pet!?

Antique Art Dealer: Mhm. When I took my pet to the Saint Honore Park today, it escaped away.

Yui: Escaped away...Err, by the way, what kind of pet…?

Antique Art Dealer: A parrot.

Subaru: Haah!? Is there any idiot to ever exist who’ll take a parrot outside!?

Antique Art Dealer: You can see, right in front of you.

Subaru: Don’t ye’ talk back!

Yui: Th- there, there...we’ve got no other options since it ran away…

Let’s go searching?

Subaru: Aah...right…

Yui: (Parrot huuuh...I hope we can find that out without any troubles…)

Place: サントノレパーク通り/ Saint Honoré Park, Street

Yui: (We’ve come here but…)

...It’s unbelievably crowded compared to the first day…

Subaru: ...Haah...earsore…

Yui: If there’s so many people, then we can’t ask around one by one.

Where should we get started…

???: Oh my? Could it be you two are…

Yui: (Hm…?)

Clown A: Yeah, looks like so! We’ve also met before!

Yui: Ah…!

Subaru: You are…!

Yui: (He’s the Mr Clown that we had met on the first day…!)

Clown A: Seems like you are being in trouble in this amusement park this time too~

Oh, plus did you find the head-mask?

Yui: Ah, yes! Thank you for helping us that time!

Clown A: Don’t mention it. By the way, are you trying to find something today as well?

Subaru: Yeah...we’re searching a parrot around.

Clown A: Parrot? ...Could it be that belongs to the person who was screaming today saying his pet escaped away?

Subaru: That’s right. We must gotta find out that old guy’s parrot.

Yui: Have you seen it somewhere?

Clown A: Umm...I’ve seen that today, but I don’t know where it is now…

Yui: I get you…

Clown A: Ah, that’s right! What if we distribute everyone a notice-poster?

Subaru: Poster?

Clown A: Exactly! Since there are so many visitors here today and,

If we pass out posters about this everyone, then you may find that pet out quickly.

Of course, we will support you in delivering those posters.

Yui: No kidding!?

Clown A: Sure thing! We also have a debt of gratitude for your show-performance.

Yui: What should we do? Subaru kun

Subaru: It can't be any help just by asking four or five. If it’s the case then I’ll agree on passing out posters or whatever it takes.

Yui: Aight, let’s start making posters right away!

*After a while*

Yui: (It’ll be better if it has an illustration which is easier to understand and helpful to find out.)

(Drawing a parrot is difficult but...I can count on the photo that they’ve shown us a while ago…)

Subaru: ………

Yui: ...Alright, it’s done!

I’ve drawn it this way, how’s it!?

(I’m thinking it looks good even someone like me has drawn it…)

Subaru: ……

...Isn’t that a crumbled cake?

Yui: Eeeh!? You’re wrong, it’s a parrot!?

Subaru: ...My bad, but whatever it’s looking like, it doesn’t look like a parrot…

Yui: N- no way…

Subaru: Parrot...hm...I also don’t know that much though…

*he starts drawing*

Subaru: ...Shouldn’t it...pretty much look like this?

Yui: Wah...cool…! It’s a parrot…!

You’re unexpectedly good at painting!

Subaru: Surprisingly you say, but it’s needless. By the way...you’re awfully unskilled.

Yui: Uuh…

(I can’t say anything back about it…)

...Anyway, I think we should now scatter so many copies of it.

Clown A: Leave it to me!

I’m gonna distribute in the middle of this park, soI bet you can get some kind of information!

Yui: W- we’re looking forward to that!

(I hope we’ll get a little bit of information by doing it…)

*After a while*

Clown A: Heyy!

Subaru: What’s up?

Clown A: Looks like we’ve come up to know something at once! That pet it possibly in the street over there!

Yui: (Looks like it was effective to make posters!)

Let’s go there!

Place: サントノレパーク通り/ Saint Honoré Park, Street

Subaru: Fuck, where did that damn parrot go!?

Yui: ーAh! Look, Subaru kun! It’s on the roof of the attraction box office!!

Subaru: Tch...this guy playing stupid with us arround…!

Yui: (...It has reached such a place like in the roof huuh…)

*parrot screeches*

Yui: What now, if we just wait here then it’s gonna fly away…!

Subaru: ...I’m gonna fly there and get that.

Yui: Eh!? You can’t! That parrot is pretty big plus...

Subaru: If I take a lot of time just climbing on the roof, it’s gonna run away.

Yui: But…

Subaru: Just be quiet and wait ‘re.

….gh…

*Footsteps*

Yui: (Hm…? Ah, the child is…!)

Subaru kun, waitー

*Screen shakes*

Subaru: ...kh, haa?

Vampire Children C: Ah...I’m so sorrー

Ah...my ice-cream is…

Yui: (It fell off when he collided…?)

Subaru: Oi! Look front while walking! It’s dangerous!

Yui: Su- Subaru kun, calm down…

Err...are you okay?

Vampire Children C: Uuh...my ice-cream...it fell…*crying*

Yui: (He’s crying…!? Oh no!?)

Subaru: Tch...stop it…

Anyway, I am gonna get the parrー

*Parrot flies away*

Subaru: Oii!! Wait up!!

Yui: (It escaped…)

Subaru: Of shit...I was very close…

Vampire Children C: Uuuh….uuuh…

Subaru: ...che.

Yui: (I’m Subaru kun is very angry?)

I- I am sure...this child didn’t get bumped onto you willinー

Subaru: Yeah...I’m aware of that.

Oi, brat.

Vampire Children C: ….Big brother, I’m so sorry...it was my fault…

Subaru: That doesn’t matter now. Above that...you dropped your ice cream huh.

Vampire Children C: Y- yes…

Subaru: ...Which shop is selling it? I’m gonna buy you a new one in exchange.

Yui: Subaru kun…!

Subaru: Even though it’s just an ice-cream to me...but to this brat, maybe it’s something more than that.

Yui: (I see...so that’s why…)

Vampire Children C: Thank you, Oniichan, Oneechan!

|| Oniichan means big brother and Oneechan means big sister in Japanese.

The shop is right over there! I’ll lead you the way.

Monologue  

After this, the boy take us to the shop but一

We were too late, so the ice-creams were already sold out.

This child who was tearing up Subaru kun bought him a pudding from a different shop. For that, somehow he stopped crying.

For a moment, I thought what bad could come up, but the boy returned to his parents while waving his hand to us putting on a smiling face at last 一

End of Monologue

Yui: At the end, that boy was having a happy face right….!

Subaru: Aah...with this, finally it got settled.

Yui: Yes. Thanks for working hard.

Subaru: Well...time to go back for the main task. We’ve lost so much time for sure but 一

*Parrot screeches*

Yui: Eh...that sound of a bird…! It means…!

*Flies*

Yui: Kyaa…!

(Now, it just flies though in front of us!?)

Subaru: That bastard...found it…! This time I ain’t let ‘em escape for sure!

Place: Gardening Shop / 園芸店 

Yui: Haah….kh...haah…

(We had to run quite a bit...this place...a granening shop…?)

*Parrot screeches*

Subaru: Tch...where is it planning to go…!

Place: Garnering Shop, Glasshouse/ 園芸店 温室

Yui: (It’s taking us in such kind of places…)

(Ah...it has stopped on this tree…!)

Subaru kun, it’s the right chance, yes?

Subaru: 一Hold it. Don’t go now.

Yui: Eh...but why…?

Subaru: The tree where the parrot standing is...the Devil’s Tree.

Yui: Devil’s Tree…?

Subaru: This is a tree which reacts to a small stimulus and aimlessly attacks the ones who will go nearby it...

Once you get entwined with it’s branches, it won’t be easy to escape away from it.

Yui: Such a tree is…

Subaru: Yeah...that’s why the only way is to secretly go near it and wait for the perfect chance…

Do ye’ even try to make noises that much.

Yui: Yes…

(I’ll do my best…)

Subaru: ...Aight, just a bit一

Clown A: Oooi~! You two!

Yui: Eh?

Subaru: Aah!?

Clown A: That’s good! I’ve been searching for you!

Subaru: Oi, ye’ dummy! Be quiet!

Clown A: Eh? What do you just say?

Subaru: I said...SHUT UP!!

*Slightly hit the tree*

Yui: Ah, Subaru kun, if you do so, then the tree will…!

Subaru: Ah, oh no…!

*The tree starts attacking*

Yui: Kyaaa!?

(The branch is...wrapped around my body…!)

Subaru: Che…! Let go!!

*Punch*

Yui: Oh no, if you do so then, again…!

*Screen shakes*

Subaru: Uwaa!?

Yui: Kyaaaa!?

*After a while*

Place: Diamante Fountain / ディアマンテ泉

Subaru: Haah...oh shit, we had to face something terrible…

Yui: Yes...you’re right…

(In the conclusion, when一)

(We couldn’t move at all, then we were somehow saved…)

Clown A: I’m sorry...I thought to give you the information about the parrot right away and…

Subaru: Even if so, there was a Devil Tree out there

You knew that, no!?

Yui: W- well, well...but he didn’t have any bad-intention and also…

If Mr. Clown wouldn’t help us then I don’t know what bad could happen…

Subaru: Tch…

...It’s fine. Chasing after that parrot comes first over anything now.

Yui: (Exactly...Before a while, the parrot escaped away when we couldn’t move ourselves for that tree…)

Clown A: If it runs away even if you chase after that then,

What about luring out that parrot instead?

Yui: Luring…? Even if you say that, but how 一

Subaru: No, wait. There’s a way I guess.

Yui: Eh…?

Subaru: You see, that Old-Uncle mentioned before. The tarts which is selling out in the Tart • Tatan. Tarts are it’s favorite dish.

Yui: So, if we lure the parrot using tarts…

Subaru: ...We’ll be able to catch that for sure.

Clown A: Tart • Tatan is nearby this place, however一

Subaru: Near? Then we’re on our way.

Yui: Yes…!

(Let’s do our best so it’ll go smoothly…!)

*They walks away*

Clown A: ...However, tarts may have gotten sold out since today’s the last day of the Parade, I wanted to say.

I hope everything’s gonna be okay…

Place:Tart Tatan,Glimmer Street Shops /タルト• タタングリンマーストリート店

Yui: ...kh…!

Subaru: Aah? What’s up with this crowding…!

Yui: An- anyway, let’s ask the people whether this shop’s selling out tarts or not.

Err, excuse me! We want to take-out some well-known tarts from this shop…

Tart • Tatan Clerk: My sincere apologies. We’ve served too many customers today so,

So the tarts which were for take-out have already sold out…

Yui: So- sold out…!?

Subaru: Then, it’s okay even if we don’t take-out that. We can get the tarts by using the reserving-food method.

Yui: Oh, that’s right. Sorry for that, then we’re gonna reserve tarts for 2 person一

Tart • Tatan Clerk: Actually...the reservation is not available since the customers have already filled that over…

Subaru: What!?

Yui: S-such…!

(We had come this far but…)

Subaru: ...At the end, the only way is to chase after that huh…?

Yui: As you see, it’s the only way I think…?

???: Ah! Oniichan! Oneechan!

Yui: Eh, this voice…

Ah, look Subaru kun! The child who’s waving his hand to us is….

Subaru: Ah? ...It’s the kid from the before.

Yui: (Ne-nevertheless, the food that’s decorated like a mountain on their table is...Tart…!)

Vampire Child C: What are you doing here?

Yui: Umm…

Subaru: Honestly, I don’t wanna ask for the tart to a kid but...we got no other choices…

Yui: Looks like...so…

(I don’t know if he can give us one or two tarts but...let’s try it by asking him…)

Well, you see…

*After the conversation*

Yui: ...that’s what happened.

Vampire Children C: That parrot, it’s the bird that I saw while I collided with Oniichan?

Subaru: Yup, that one.

Vampire Children C: I see. Then I’ll ofcourse give you! It will do, right?

Father: You two were the ones who gave my son pudding, huh.

I am sorry that earlier my child has burdened you with unreasonable things. If this tart will come out handy then take as much as you want.

Yui: Eh, really!?

Father: Ofcourse. You were the one who took care of my child earlier.

Mother: Yeah, we’re really grateful for that.

Yui: Thank you so much!

Subaru: No kidding…?

Your kindness has come out as a huge help…

Yui: Y-yeah….?

(It makes me happy that he said it but…)

(But we don’t have time for that.)

Yui: Then, let’s use this tart and lure out the parrot!

Thank you so much!

Vampire Children C: Mhm, do your best!

Place: Onyx Tower, Inside Hall / オーニュクスタワー内部ホール

Yui: Phew...is it okay to arrange these like this?

Subaru: Yeah...all we can do now is to just wait.

Yui: (I spread it here, from where the smell should get spread the most but…)

(I really hope it’ll come, please…!)

*Wind blows + parrot comes*

Subaru: ….Hm?

Yui: Ah!

(It comes…!)

*parrot(s) screech*

...here, they go!?

(For some reason, so many of them have come!?)

Subaru: Oi, oi, what’s going on!? Where did they come from!

*Parrot(s) screech*

Yui: (Wah...they all have started to eat these all at once…)

Subaru, what can we do!? I am not that sure which one of them is the parrot that we’ve been searching…

Subaru: Me neither! By the way, the fastest way will be to get the Old-Uncle for conforming.

Which’s why...we gotta catch all of ‘em right now…!

*After a moment*

Yui: Haah...hah...kh…haah…

Subaru: ....kh...with this...we’re done catching each of them…?

Yui: Pr- probably…

(We’ve caught all of them when they’ve gone crazy eating the tarts but…)

(But I’m tired beyond my imagination…)

Subaru: ...Haah...now, we gotta call out that old-uncle for confirming in one of these一

Antique Art Dealer: 一Oh my, oh my...you have caught unexpected number of them.

Subaru: kh...you…!

Antique Art Dealer: Yeaah, I’ve come here to visit when I heard that so many parrots are gathered on the top of the tower…

I didn't think you’d catch so many of them.

Subaru: I think yer’ parrot in one of them! Check out!

Antique Art Dealer: Mhm, I will.

Subaru: ……

Yui: ……

(God please…! I hope his parrot is one of these…!)

Antique Art Dealer: ...Yup! This one!

*Parrot screeches*

Yui: Eh...It means…

Antique Art Dealer: Yeah, your mission is complete!

Subaru: OH YAAAAY!!

Yui: (That’s great…! Finally we’re done with these…!)

Subaru: Oi, you’re satisfied now I guess. Then hurry up and handover the things that ya’ promised us.

Antique Art Dealer: Ofcourse, I am aware of that.

Look, I’ve brought those with me.

Yui: (Ah...that’s right...it’s not over yet.)

(We have to go to the place where Earl Walter is.)

Subaru: Finally we’ve got to the starting point…

Yui: (Subaru kun had to face so many difficult things till now, yet…)

(He’s still dealing with these …)

Yui: Umm...Subaru kun, I am sorry...you’re having so much trouble for me…

Subaru: Ah? What are you saying such things, don’t worry.

It was originally my fault starting with and…

...I am gonna go to meet Earl Walter. You wait here.

Yui: Eh...But…

Subaru: I’ll...hurry up and get back your heart at once.

Who can be silent to a guy who’s doing whatever he wants to with any kind of people around.

Yui: Subaru kun…

Subaru: Ah...which is why...you should just be silent and listen to what I say. *blushing*

Yui: Yes…

But, I can’t make you feel hurt all by yourself.

That’s why I also want to go and apologize with you.

Subaru: ...Tch, do as you wish.

Antique Art Dealer: ...Hehehe. You don’t have to go there.

Subaru: Ah? What? What’s so funny?

*BG blurred to white*

Subaru: ...kh…!?

Yui: Wh- what!?

(Smoke is getting filled here…! I can’t see the front…!)

Antique Art Dealer?: ...You two did well.

Yui: (Eh...this voice…)

Subaru: ...kh, this bastard is, Walter!?

Earl Walter: Kukuku...Hahaha…!

*BG is back*

Yui: (Ah...the smoke disappeared一)

*Clothing sound*

Earl Walter: ...Is it the first time to see me in this appearance?

Yui: You are...Earl Walter…?

Earl Walter: Certainly. I have been observing your actions very closely.

Subaru: Closely you say...you mean by distinguishing yourself to an old-man!?

What was that...it means we’ve been rushing around for abiding your orders all these times…

Earl Walter: I think that I was a little bit mean with you. However, you were the one to break the goods of my castle to begin with.

This is why I wanted you to feel grief by doing these tasks.

Subaru: ...Hmph.

Earl Walter: ...Then, we shall move onto the main issue. Yui Komori, I’m talking about your heart.

Yui: ...Yes.

Earl Walter: The fact that you’re the one and only person who’s worthy to possess this treasure,

I have gotten the proof of this claim clearly with my own eyes.

...Therefore, I shall give your heart back.

*Heart’s pounding*

Yui: ...kh…

*Screen’s white for an instant*

Yui: (...kh...for a moment, I felt something strange in my body…)

(My heart is...back…?)

Subaru: ...Oi, you alright?

Yui: I- I think so…?

Subaru: ...ngh…

*Subaru gets closer + loses her dress*

Subaru: Kyaa…!?

Subaru: ...I’m gonna confirm it. ….nnnh...mnn…!

Yui: ...eek…!

(His fangs are…)

Subaru: ...Haah...mnn…!

...Haah...the taste is the same as always…

(Eh...it means…!)

Earl Walter: Heh...told you right? “I’ll give her heart back.”

Yui: ...Thank you very much!

(I’m relieved now…!)

Earl Walter: From here on, walk on your life by being worthy of having this heart.

Yui: Yes…!

Subaru: We'd know it even if you wouldn’t say!

Earl Walter: ...Fufu, good.

Well then...the finale of the parade is coming soon…

Enjoy that till the end upto your heart's content.

With this, I am going to take my leave.

Earl Walter: Kukuku...Hahaha!

*Sound*

Yui: (Ah...he disappeared…)

Subaru: Jeez, what was wrong with that guy…

Yui: Yes...he’s a very mysterious person.

(But…)

(I feel like he has taught us a very important lesson.)

The END of Chapter O 4 一

#subaru sakamaki #diabolik lovers #lunatic parade #lunatic parade subaru sakamaki chapter 4 #diabolik lovers translations

[artemis-entreri]

[[ This post contains Part 3 of my review/analysis of the Forgotten Realms/Drizzt novel, Boundless, by R. A. Salvatore. As such, the entirety of this post’s content is OOC. ]]

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Generations: Book 2 | Legend of Drizzt #35 (#32 if not counting The Sellswords)

Publisher: Harper Collins (September 10, 2019)

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Additional Information: Artwork for the cover of Boundless and used above is originally done by Aleks Melnik. This post CONTAINS SPOILERS. Furthermore, this discussion concerns topics that I am very passionate about, and as such, at times I do use strong language. Read and expand the cut at your own discretion.

Contents:

Introduction

I. Positives    I.1 Pure Positives    I.2 Muddled Positives

II. Mediocre Writing Style    II.1 Bad Descriptions    II.2 Salvatorisms    II.3 Laborious “Action”

III. Poor Characterization (you are here)    III.1 “Maestro”    III.2 Lieutenant    III.3 Barbarian    III.4 “Hero”    III.5 Mother

IV. World Breaks    IV.1 Blinders Against the Greater World    IV.2 Befuddlement of Earth and Toril    IV.3 Self-Inconsistency    IV.4 Dungeon Amateur    IV.5 Utter Nonsense

V. Ego Stroking    V.1 The Ineffable Companions of the Hall    V.2 Me, Myself, and I

VI. Problematic Themes    VI.1 No Homo    VI.2 Disrespect of Women    VI.3 Social-normalization    VI.4 Eugenics

VII. What’s Next   VII.1 Drizzt Ascends to Godhood   VII.2 Profane Redemption   VII.3 Passing the Torch   VII.4 Don’t Notice Me Senpai

Poor Characterization

Boundless sees an overall regression from Timeless in terms of quality of characterization. It almost feels as though Salvatore is saying, "I don't have room for character development because Boundless is such a non-stop action novel". Most of the page space is taken up by the many unfolding events, with opponents one after another that Zaknafein has to duel in the past and a full on war fought on at least three separate fronts in the present. However, even putting aside the fact that so many of those pages could've been truncated and space dedicated to character progression, instead, what we find in Boundless is shallow, self-inconsistent, lazy, and really, just mediocre. I'm not sure what effect Salvatore was trying to achieve through the cursory and flat overviews he gives to all of the characters in his Dramatis Personae section that precedes the body of the novel. Descriptions like the one for Briza Do'Urden, which reads, "Malice's eldest daughter. Huge and formidable" makes me wonder if Salvatore was going for humor. Yet, there isn't anything funny about the rest of the characterizations, except in an ironic sense in how bad they are, as though they were the words of someone trying to explain the characters to a not very bright child. I suppose it's an appropriate precedent, given how the "fleshed out" characterizations go in the novel.

"Maestro"

As suggested by Boundless' cover art, there's a lot of Jarlaxle in the book. Sadly, this manifests as a sort of butchering of Jarlaxle's capability and characterization in both the past and present timelines of the novel. Overall, Jarlaxle is very flat-footed, constantly doing the proverbial rocking back on his heels and falling on his butt. A character rocking back on their heels is one of Salvatore's favorite descriptors, and while, ironically, that phrase doesn't appear in Boundless, Salvatore does an excellent job of showing that Jarlaxle does it a great deal. This would be great in terms of showing instead of telling, except that, unfortunately, it happens when Jarlaxle's supposed to be doing something clever or there's some great revelation that manages to escape his masterfully strategic mind. I'd often joked that Salvatore isn't smart enough to write a character who's supposed to be as smart as Jarlaxle is, and this is very much evident in Boundless, except there's nothing funny about it. It's really just disappointing to see a character who is actually a nonconformist dragged down and forced to conform to Drizzt. Jarlaxle is also becoming more like Drizzt in the sense that he acts very differently from how he's supposed to be, all while we are being told over and over how he is truly, for real, pinky swear that certain way. In Drizzt's case, it is a judgmental, sanctimonious, pretentious, self-aggrandizing and presumptuous twat hailed to be the shining hero of goodness and virtue. And now, sadly, in Jarlaxle's case, a dopey, shortsighted, reckless, inattentive and not very bright clown wrapped in the cloak of one whose flair is matched only by his genius. 

As he is presented in Boundless, Jarlaxle would've been wholly consumed by the perils of Menzoberranzan almost immediately. The Jarlaxle in the past timeline should be closer to how he was in the Legacy of the Drow trilogy, but he's been tempered to beyond how he is in The Sellswords trilogy. He's even more tame than how he appears in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, where he features as a genteel, at worst mischievous, sort of villain. Jarlaxle has become closer to Drizzt than even Zaknafein, with Zaknafein being more brutal. The Jarlaxle of the past is nearly identical to the Jarlaxle of the present, as though he were transcribed across the hundreds of years. I don't understand the reason that Salvatore did this. The current version of Jarlaxle is unpalatable enough, with all of the "intrigue" and the being for himself stance as nothing but empty posturing. It makes no sense that Jarlaxle would be that way in the past, for supposedly, experiencing the personality-altering phenomenon that is Drizzt Do'Urden hadn't even happened then. 

That said, let's look at some details. First, Boundless introduces an activity that Jarlaxle and Zaknafein enjoyed together, "cavern jumping", which is what we call free running or parkour in our world. They first partake of this activity in a super inspired and uniquely-named chapter entitled "Running Free". I was sarcastic just now, but I'm absolutely not sarcastic when I say this: parkour is dangerous. Even in our world, experienced traceurs can and do get hurt, and they don't normally run in an environment where many individuals stand to benefit if a fatal accident befalls them. Despite Jarlaxle saying that the risk is what makes the activity fun, this seems like a weak justification injected by a paranoid narrator who's aware that they're recounting a very unlikely event. For, the reality is, it's already dangerous that Jarlaxle and Zaknafein perform risky acrobatic maneuvers in one of the deadliest cities of Faerûn, they're doing it without any of their magical equipment. The very fact that Jarlaxle engages in this activity is reckless, and what makes it even more unlikely is the lack of assurances that are put in place to minimize potential "accidents". Zaknafein and Jarlaxle's cavern-jumping escapades aren't at all like when they pillaged Barrison Del'Armgo's armory. Although both are adrenaline-seeking activities, the latter was a controlled simulation that Jarlaxle had engineered and pulled strings to achieve. Jarlaxle might be a daredevil and an excitement-seeker, but he's not stupid, and he's supposed to be prudent, else everything that he's worked for would be for naught. He takes risks but we've been told that they're calculated ones, ones in which he's already figured out and examined every possible outcome. There's nothing calculated about cavern-jumping, and the only aspect that's even approaching consistent is their route. Even then, "consistent" can hardly be applied, for the two are constantly one-upping each other, pushing one another to quicker paces and more daring maneuvers. There aren't even Bregan D'aerthe scouts watching every turn, keeping an eye out for any parties of ill intention that might target the two high profile male drow. Heck, Jarlaxle isn't even aware of who's watching them, and he should both know and care, especially since Zaknafein is big enough of a target that many individuals wouldn't care about implicating Jarlaxle while attempting to "cavern-jump" Zaknafein. In fact, we even see in the same chapter one such interested party, and given that so much of the book is about people wanting to kill Zaknafein, I feel like the whole free running thing was just an excuse for Salvatore to show off his action scenes, except that there isn't anything to show off there. Simply showing off to this degree puts both of them at a disadvantage given how cutthroat and scheme-based drow society is supposed to be. Shouldn't Jarlaxle be worried about illustrating how flexible and agile he is, and doesn't Zaknafein want opponents to underestimate him?

Far from being circumspect, Jarlaxle doesn't seem to think at all. Even obvious things that would've occurred to a novice strategist escapes the one indirectly dubbed as "maestro". Following the fight between Zaknafein and Duvon Tr'arach, a holder of a century-long grudge against the weapons master who destroyed his house and humiliated him in combat, Jarlaxle is surprised to find that the drow whom he thought were ambushers were actually reinforcements brought by Zaknafein. This is not evocative of a streetwise genius maestro super spy. Of course Zaknafein would bring back-up, he knows the way of his society and knows how many want him dead. It would have been more reasonable for Jarlaxle to be surprised if Zaknafein hadn't brought anyone from his house with him. Salvatore has Jarlaxle thinking Zaknafein clever, but what should've happened is that Jarlaxle should have known about Zaknafein's backup in the first place, and have had agents monitoring them the whole time instead of embarrassing himself with his lack of foresight. Even better would have been if he feigned being surprised and impressed while we see Jarlaxle's agents melt back into the shadows without them alerting Zaknafein's assistants.

Jarlaxle being blindsided by the relationship between Zaknafein and Dab'nay, while more reasonable than the previous example, nonetheless doesn't belong to the same drow  who, during the Crenshinibon era, knew immediately that his two lieutenants were conspiring together against him. It's true that Jarlaxle is younger and less experienced during the flashback scenes of Boundless, but there's already a rapport between him and the members of his band, a trust that would not have built up solely based on individuals sharing the same plight. Jarlaxle's followers are fiercely loyal to him, and not solely because of his charisma. Jarlaxle shows these second-class citizens of his society something they've never known before, that someone is interested in who they are. He wins their favor because all they've known previously is that their worth is measured by their bloodline, their aptitude in combat and their aptitude in the bedroom. Even if Jarlaxle's intellect wasn't enough to allow him to foresee Dab'nay and Zaknafein hooking up as a possibility, his personal knowledge of Dab'nay should've suggested the probability to him. There's another poor characterization in that if Zaknafein's hatred of priestesses was as absolute and blinding as we've been told that it is, the only dagger he'd have plunged into Dab'nay wouldn't have been the one that's permanently attached to him. However, the relationship between Dab'nay and Zaknafein being what it's forced to be, surely, Jarlaxle would've known Zaknafein well enough to at least suspect the possibility. 

Although Jarlaxle is only literally stated to have "for once, seemed at a loss for words", his demonstrated lack of cleverness fails to back this up. Even in the scenario in which that is explicitly written, it's uncharacteristic of Jarlaxle to not know what to say. The passage reads:

So, from this we are to believe that the genius Jarlaxle can't produce an answer to that simple statement, when even I can think of a number of things to say on the fly: that Jarlaxle's not just any drow, that there are varying levels of trust that should be adjusted based on the circumstance, that there's such a thing as "trust but verify", that, fundamentally, the drow word for "trust" isn't as black and white as what Zaknafein is demanding. Jarlaxle's int score is a staggering 20, and he should easily come up with everything I've come up with just now and many many more answers that I can't even begin to think of with my far less staggering intellect. Things like these are just downright embarrassingly inept portrayals of Jarlaxle's alleged brilliance.

In the current timeline, Jarlaxle is even more dull, which I suppose is appropriate given the nerfing of who he was in the past. In addition to being just as flat-footed and shortsighted as his past incarnation in Boundless, Jarlaxle draws some really inaccurate conclusions. For instance, "Jarlaxle knew, of course, that Bruenor was more friend to Drizzt than Zaknafein had ever been, and indeed, more father to Drizzt than Zaknafein had ever been." Really? He knows, of course and indeed, this totally untrue assessment, does he? The first might be true, for Zaknafein wasn't present in Drizzt's life for nearly as much as Bruenor was, and even while he was there, the interactions between him and his son was restricted. But when did Bruenor risk his life on numerous occasions to simply ensure that Drizzt's moral compass and free will were not tainted? When did Bruenor sacrifice himself so that Drizzt might live? Bruenor was never even in a position to entreaty an assailant to take him instead of Drizzt. Perhaps if Salvatore defines father figures as aloof and distant presences in one's life who give tough love but never direct validation, then certainly Bruenor has been more of a father to Drizzt than Zaknafein was. However, the reality is that Bruenor never protected Drizzt the way that Zaknafein did and never guided Drizzt the way Zaknafein did. The only way that it would make sense for that assessment to belong to Jarlaxle is if Jarlaxle's own understanding of parent and child relationships is so incomplete that he doesn't know better, or if he's as stupid as he is shown to be in Boundless. The first possibility is most likely true from a personal angle for Jarlaxle, but Jarlaxle has lived long enough on the surface, mingling with enough surface folk to know, especially with what should be his level of perceptiveness, what it means to be a good father. He would need to have a good understanding of those kinds of dynamics, because they contain weaknesses that can be exploited. So, really, the only thing that would make all of this consistent is the latter possibility, which sadly, is where everything is trending anyway.

I'm not very emotionally invested in Jarlaxle, though I prefer him to most of the rest of the somewhat bland characters we see in Boundless. So when this many things make someone like me unhappy about Jarlaxle's characterization, I'd hate to see what someone who feels towards him like I feel towards Artemis Entreri will take away from Boundless. I'm sure that I'm missing a lot of irksome things, but the ones that I've pointed out are what stood out to me, and I'll end the discussion of Jarlaxle with one final example. In both Timeless and Boundless, Jarlaxle has this strange and decidedly non-Menzoberranzanyr perspective regarding "married couples" of drow. The usage of "husband" and "wife" in these books is extremely weird, because as we know from all D&D and Forgotten Realms source material, including Salvatore's own books, that there is no formality in Lolthite drow relationships. Females take males at their pleasure, abandoning them as whimsically as they pick them up, and being a Patron of a house means nothing. What's even more strange is that Zaknafein isn't even the Patron of House Do'Urden, Rizzen still holds that title while Zaknafein and Malice are sexually active together, yet since Timeless, Zaknafein has been referred to as Malice's husband. Furthermore, while, as far as we know, Jarlaxle has never slept with the partners of people that he likes, it was always more of a strategic decision rather than a moral one. For instance, he found Calihye and Dahlia unstable, thus not cuckolding Entreri and Drizzt, and the closest he'd come to showing interest to a "taken" partner was with Catti-brie, but even then, morals aren't what prevent him from pursuing her. Yet, steeped in the degenerate society of Menzoberranzan, Jarlaxle prefers not to have sexual contact with Malice because Zaknafein is his friend. Where did this belief come from? It certainly doesn't exist in drow culture, males are sex objects for the females, perhaps sometimes rising to the rank of favored toy, nothing more. In a society like that, the toy doesn't have delusions of possession. Jarlaxle is one of the few, if not only, male drow in Menzoberranzan who even has a choice, who can even say no to a female without being killed horribly. I get that Salvatore is trying to show that Jarlaxle is honorable towards his friendship with Zaknafein, but he doesn't have to break the character in addition to his own world-building, as well as that of other creatives', to do so. There are so many ways to do it, but I suppose those are less obvious and require more thinking.

Lieutenant

The poor characterizations extend beyond what's done to Jarlaxle. The number of times that an inconsistency arises between what a character is supposed to be/know and how they perceive things or act is staggering. In the past, there is Arathis Hune, Jarlaxle's first and only lieutenant for a long time, and presumably, one of his most trusted friends. Arathis and Jarlaxle should understand each other quite well, so the fact that Arathis didn't foresee that Jarlaxle would assist Zaknafein during Zaknafein's rigged duel with Duvon Tr'arach is unlikely. Arathis might've had an ace in the form of psionic assistance in swaying the match, but unless he is a total fool, he wouldn't think that Jarlaxle wasn't aware of his dalliances, especially with potential allies as powerful as Oblodrans. Furthermore, Jarlaxle's fondness of Zaknafein is enough of a thorn in Arathis' side that Arathis would've certainly anticipated Jarlaxle intervening on behalf of Zaknafein, even if Arathis didn't specifically guess that Jarlaxle would do so by means of lending Zaknafein his eyepatch. Even if Jarlaxle had never explicitly told Arathis about the functionality of his eyepatch, Arathis, who would've certainly witnessed Jarlaxle constantly escaping the various mind-manipulating magics of the priestesses of Lolth, should've been able to deduce that Jarlaxle has a magical item that protects him against such intrusions. Arathis might not be a master genius like Jarlaxle, but he is a drow, who are supposed to be masters of intrigue in their own right as being able to survive in Menzoberranzan requires such of them. Moreover, he is a capable enough drow that Jarlaxle chose him to be at his side, rather than tending the bar at the Oozing Myconid. Yet, Arathis doesn't foresee any of what he should've known immediately, nor did he have a backup plan, which to a drow is something that one possesses as certainly as keen eyesight.

Barbarian

In the present timeline, Wulfgar suffers from the same treatment given Arathis, which is really saying something since Wulfgar's characterization has been all over the place even before his rebirth. Nonetheless, two things that Wulfgar is supposed to be, are one, a good guy if not a hero, and two, not dumb, if not intelligent. Yet, Wulfgar's portrayal in Boundless shows him as possessing none of these positive traits. For the first trait, it wouldn't be the first time that a member of the Companions of the Hall thought or performed something dishonorable. In Hero, this manifests as Regis and Wulfgar literally kicking people who were already down. In Boundless, Wulfgar is surprisingly nonchalant about the possibility of Kimmuriel committing casual murder, even hoping for it: 

The only thing that Calico Grimm is guilty of, that we're shown anyway, is being boisterous and foolish, which is hardly grounds deserving of death, unless it was early Artemis Entreri doing the adjudication. But this isn't early Artemis Entreri, or even current Artemis Entreri harboring such thoughts, it's Wulfgar, a returned hero. Calico Grimm might be obnoxious, but he's still a comrade in arms whose ship Wulfgar boarded. Even if it were the case that Calico Grimm is actually a pirate, one of the ne'er-do-wells that gives Luskan its shady reputation, it doesn't change the fact that they are on the same side. After all, the Companions of the Hall are supposed to stand for noble self sacrificing values like not randomly murdering people that are even temporarily on the same side as them. 

Not only is Wulfgar's moral compass unaligned with how it's supposed to be, apparently, the damage that he'd done to his brain during his The Spine of the World alcoholism managed to stay with him through the reincarnation. That, or Drizzt and his supposedly tight-knit group of friends aren't as close as they're made out to be. During Wulfgar's duel with the demon-possessed captain of the fleet besieging Luskan, Kimmuriel imbues Wulfgar with a psionic shield that absorbs all damage and releases it all at once at the absorber's will. It's the same mechanic that's been used countless times in the past, including but not limited to saving  newborn Jarlaxle from Matron Baenre's sacrificial dagger, preventing Calihye's blade from piercing an otherwise defenseless Entreri's heart, and, of course, allowing Drizzt to strike down Demogorgon with one hit. That last scenario is pretty monumental, and the kind of thing that Drizzt would've told his friends every detail of, for even if he didn't volunteer, surely they and others would've pried and pried about how he defeated Demogorgon. Yet, Wulfgar has no idea what's happening when his opponent's blows fail to scratch him. It's just mind-boggling that he doesn't make the connection, especially since psionicists are rare enough already in the Realms, even more so in Salvatore's corner of the Realms; Kimmuriel is literally the only psionicist that the Companions of the Hall know. Wulfgar's failure to put one and one together really leads me to wonder if the whole purpose of making him so obtuse is to perform yet more tedious review and Drizzt-flattering.

"Hero"

Most painful to me, of course, is Artemis Entreri, who only appears a bit more in Boundless than he does in Timeless, but what's done to him in Boundless is pretty bad. Entreri's characterization kicks off on the wrong foot from his entry in the Dramatis Personae section, which reads:

For the umpteenth time, Entreri would not have a concept of "friend", especially how it is presented in the Drizzt books. It's an oversimplification and kills the nuance of a character who would still have significant psychological scars and trust issues, even if he were truly and completely over his childhood traumas, which in itself is highly unlikely. I can forgive this bad summary of Entreri, but I can't overlook how, quite frankly, melodramatic, he's presented to be in Boundless. While the assassin seems to talk the talk, calling Regis a fool and ridiculing him for his naiveté, he definitely no longer walks the walk. The aura of intimidation that's so integral to his character no longer feels present. Entreri is quick to reassure Regis about the safety of Donnola, something that even his tempered down self seems unlikely to do. Regis and Entreri have history, and not all or even most of it was pleasant. It's as though Salvatore forgot that Regis found a helpless and broken Entreri dangling precariously from a branch, and rather than finishing him off quickly as would be the honorable thing to do, Regis stole Entreri's most prized possession, then cut him loose so that his final moments would be spent in fear and helplessness. One as fiercely protective of his own free will as is Entreri would not forget that so easily, and even if he doesn't actively hate the Companions of the Hall anymore, just as it makes sense that Regis is uncomfortable about the stub of his pinky that Entreri had inflicted on him in his previous life, Entreri should've let the little rat squirm before perhaps mentioning off the cuff that all the citizens of Bleeding Vines survived.

The worst thing done to Entreri in Boundless, however, is worse than the physical trials and travails that befall him. Given that the situation that ensnares him is that he's trapped in an unbreakable cocoon being stung on every mentionable (and unmentionable) part of his body by vicious demonic wasps, more and more I feel that it'd be best for Entreri if Salvatore just killed him off before ruining him more. While Entreri's plight is pretty dire, still, it doesn't seem like enough for him to launch into Drizzt journal entries' level of melodrama. Entreri has high levels of pain tolerance, as we've seen countless times in the past with him losing none of his agility or fighting prowess even after taking a blade through the ribs. Furthermore, the amount of psychological punishment he's endured far outweighs what he's gone through physically, such that he shouldn't resort to wishing for death right away, or cursing everyone, including himself, so quickly. I can maybe accept that he'd do so after a couple of tendays, but we only see him in the cocoon for a few days during Boundless. Furthermore, the impression given by how the pain is described in Boundless is significantly less than the pain that Herzgo Alegni inflicted upon Entreri by striking a tuning fork against Charon's Claw. It's more likely that someone of Entreri's discipline and willpower would've found some way to put his mind above the constant pain to focus on figuring out how to get out, if not simply detaching himself from the sensation. Instead, right from the get-go, the first soliloquy we see from him in the cocoon is:

In addition to being too weak, Entreri's portrayed as being too dependent. As a person who's lived twice as long as he should have and endured much more than his fair share of torment, one who is used to depending on no one save for himself, how quickly Entreri cries out for Dahlia, how quickly he wishes for death to be spared the pain, just doesn't fit. Instead it simply completes Salvatore's neutering process, now not only is Entreri a good guy, but he is no longer even a disciplined warrior. Salvatore's handling of Artemis Entreri is akin to what I'd said about Salvatore being not intelligent enough to write someone as brilliant as Jarlaxle. It's clear that Salvatore doesn't have enough understanding of trauma and physical pain thresholds to do justice to Entreri. 

Mother

Another poor characterization in Boundless has to do with Dahlia, who seems to have completely forgotten about Effron. Effron doesn't make an appearance, or is even so much as mentioned, despite some portion of the novel dedicated to the Hosttower of the Arcane, where he currently resides. While I can buy that Effron isn't significant enough for Gromph to even think of him when declaring the position the Hosttower will take, he is, or at least should be, important enough to Dahlia for her to at least think of him. The relationship between Dahlia and Effron might have started off at a badly, but throughout the entirety of the Neverwinter Saga, Dahlia is tormented by guilt over her son. Seeing what she believed to be the remains of Effron broke Dahlia's mind and will, causing the normally fiery and irrepressible elf to docilely accept being dragged away for further torture. Seeing that Effron was safe and being reunited him would've granted Dahlia closure, but closure doesn't mean that she wouldn't want to see him and be near him. We've seen that Dahlia tends to be very clingy to those she cares about, so it seems unlikely that she'd accept living in a different city from Effron. Given what Dahlia's like, she should be torn between her love for Entreri and her love for Effron, especially as the two male characters don't much care for each other and most certainly wouldn't want to live together, which Dahlia would likely prefer so that she can be close to both. It should be a cause for tension, not Dahlia simply following Entreri around like a pet, not that Entreri would've allowed that anyway. For all of his dislike of Effron and his brusqueness with the general populace, Entreri has shown himself to be extremely devoted to the women that he's loved. Just as he looked for Calihye after she tried to kill him and accepted her back into his life years later, Entreri would've made certain that Dahlia wouldn't be miserable choosing him over her son. 

#ooc #Boundless #Forgotten Realms #legend of drizzt #Jarlaxle #Jarlaxle Baenre #Drizzt #Drizzt Do'Urden #Artemis Entreri #drow #Zaknafein Do'Urden #Briza Do'Urden #Legacy of the Drow #The Sellswords #Menzoberranzan #Wulfgar son of Beornegar #Arathis Hune #Kimmuriel Oblodra #Regis #The Spine of the World #parkour #Duvon Tr'arach #Dabnay Tr'arach #Bregan D'aerthe #Crenshinibon #Waterdeep: Dragon Heist #Bruenor Battlehammer #Bonnie Charlee #Calico Grimm #Companions of the Hall

[arieso226]

Humor vs. Religion

 There are paradoxes between such serious topics, as nothing is supposed to be considered funny when we’re talking about religion, but as we progress throughout the modern 21st century, humor and comic strips have been presently active and tolerated, at most. ‘’[1]The normative view is that religion is a serious and profound human concern, deserving respect and generating awe. This normative prescription does not deny that many people, including clergy, display a certain sense of humor about religion. However, treating religious matters with too much frivolity or making religious jokes verging on profanation may lead to rebuke. This form of comedy—printed cartoons from the comic pages of newspapers—provides insights into the intersection of humor and religion. We also attempt to develop some generalizations about the role of religious messages and symbols in cartoons.’’ The discourse of the ‘sacred’ has become the talk of the past two centuries, with many stereotypes coming from it.

For instance, the Simpsons’ character, evangelical Ned Flanders, is a popular icon and stereotype for ‘overzealous religious men/women’. ‘’[2]The Simpsons’ portrayal of religion in America has been used to illustrate everything from the revelation of God’s grace (Dark 2002) to religion’s failure in the face of science (Delaney 2008). While each commentator takes their own particular stance on The Simpson’s depiction of religion, there is frequently a conflation between The Simpsons’ satire and reality. That is, The Simpsons’ depictions of religion matter because they are treated not as frivolous cartoon humor, but as satires which criticize competing moral and civic perspectives of religion’s relevance in the United States.’’

  Religious themes take an interesting turn in comedy, as every good joke starts with the truth as it helps some people cope with life. ‘’[3]Humor is a form of self-expression. The jokes we tell and laugh loudest at giving clues to our central preoccupations, needs, and frustrations. It is, therefore, possible to use humor preferences as an indirect means of assessing personality (Eysenck and Wilson, 1976). If jokes are split into three very broad categories—sexual, aggressive, and nonsensical—people who permissive and high in libido (especially men) laugh most at the sexual jokes, people who are overly aggressive (as measured by hostility questionnaires) are most amused by aggressive humor, while controlled, conventional, or ‘respectable’ people go for the relatively harmless nonsense jokes. The fact that humor functions as a form of ‘release’ has been demonstrated by studies in which the motivational state of the subject is made angry by deliberately cussed behavior on the part of the experimenter’s accomplices, this will selectively enhance the environment of hostile humor.’’

   Of course, some critics don’t exactly like humor, or feel that it has any real basis on religious matter. ‘’[4]Religion, for the most part, has not been kind to humor. The early rabbis condemned jesting and laughter as did the church fathers. Rabbi Akiva said, ‘Jesting and levity accustom a person to lewdness.’ Saint John Chrysostom asked, ‘Christ is crucified and doest thou laugh?’ Those fixated on the world-to-come have little sympathy for the distractions of the world in which we live. In this respect, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint is no different from any other. Salvation is a serious business and the institutions, offices, and practices that ensure salvation merit reverence—not ridicule. But a church is not simply a bundle of beliefs and ritual practices. It is organized for and by people, and those people, whether they like it or not, must work out their salvation in this world. Thus, as examples in this article demonstrate, a bishop, who is supposed to be a wise and effective leader, an inspiration to his ward, can be a fool or philanderer.’’

  In mythology, many characters, including gods, use humor or ‘charm’, which makes the story much more interesting to the reader and the audience. It spins the story along; comedy is a great form of expression, especially when it is used day by day, especially in what is seen in a ‘serious’ society or used for serious topics. ‘’[5]The Nez Perce tribe are a tribe of Indians who in pre-White days inhabited parts of southeastern Washington, northeastern Oregon, and northern Idaho south of the Coeur d’Alene county. At present most of the members of the tribe live in Idaho in Nez Perce, Lewis, Clearwater, and Idaho counties. I [author] have classified the humor in the Nez Perce myth body into six different categories: (1) the humor of the pompous or stupid individual who comes to grief; (2) the trick, including transformations and practical jokes, (3) the obscene, (4) other incorrect or eccentric social behavior, (5) humor following from a lack of knowledge, real or pretended, and (6) sarcasm or irony. In general, humor or language, which Gladys Reichard distinguished from the humor of the situation in the Coeur d’Alene mythology, tends to fall in the fourth category. Humor is undoubtedly the deepest and most vivid element in this mythology.’’ Many mythologies have tricksters, who are basically the president of the humor club, or what people or other characters call, ‘up to mischief’. Not only do they prolong the story, but they also change the society, as it could always be better. Coyote, belonging to the myths seen above, ‘‘has a sufficient compound of vainglory, stupidity, sexuality, and gluttony within his character to make his downfall a humorous element in a story without his actually indulging in any character somewhat like a clown in a circus whose very appearance brings laughter even before he has done anything to merit such a response. This humorous quality which is inherent in Coyote’s character that may well account for his appearance in a large number of stories in which he plays only a minor function. He adds a spice of humor and interest to the story simply by his presence.’’

Humor themes may change because the originally ridiculed objects/behaviors have changed to reflect dominant values and hence are no longer defined as deviant. On the other hand, thematic change may reflect a change in the values themselves; what was once defined as deviant now represents the accepted status quo. In conclusion, religion and humor, once two separate topics created by humanity but were called paradoxes, the ‘sacred and serious’ and the ‘profane and humorous (mischief) are now seen together, hand in hand. Each subject, like science, religion, art, math, all have stereotypes, and we could either dwell on those failures or laugh and learn from them.

[timespakistan]

Fire in the soil | Art & Culture | thenews.com.pk Untitled 1. Like Robert Louise Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, fire is both virtuous and wicked, helpful and harmful. It burns some to death, but also preserves living beings in harsh conditions. This duplicity, like two sides of every coin, is mentioned in myths, represented in arts, and experienced in real life. Fire is significant in many religions and rituals, too. In the three Abrahamic faiths, fire embodies evil and imbibes holy; i.e., demons consist of fire, and angels are made of light (an attribute of fire). In traditional miniature painting, angels are portrayed with wings of noor (light), while flames of fire erupt from demons’ tongues. All that can be observed in the illustrations of Shahnameh, the tenth-century Persian epic by Ferdowsi. In miniatures, made to accompany this poem, winged figures and monsters often appear in picture plain. Khadim Ali, heir to this tradition – of illustrating a text in miniature painting, and familiar with Persian language and poetry – has been incorporating symbols derived from Shahnameh in his work. Artists, like Ali, who have learnt traditional miniature painting, particularly at the National College of Arts, Lahore, start their training by copying examples of historic paintings. This segment of formal instruction inculcates a post-modernistic approach in their later works, as they are inclined to assimilate old forms, past imagery and forgotten techniques. However, Khadim Ali has opted for something big and beyond a pictorial adjustment. Being part of the persecuted Hazara community (both in Afghanistan and Pakistan), he identifies strands of ethnic/sectarian hatred, and addressees it in a language related to historical accounts and contemporary realities. His solo exhibition, What Now My Friend?, curated by Salima Hashmi at Aicon Gallery, New York (December 17–January 23) denotes the perpetual saga of strife between the oppressors and the oppressed. Employing the metaphor of Rustom and Sohrab from the illustrations of Shahnameh Ali narrates the current political, racial and religious contradictions. In the exhibition, his large-scale tapestries portray the presence of power and map the conflict between countries, besides describing the latest calamities, such as Covid-19. As Ali draws inspiration from a historic text (Book of Kings), the format of his large-scale tapestry What Now My Friend? (786×243 cm) reminds one of a small page of the Persian text. The change of size, from a manageable sheet of paper, to a piece of fabric installed on a gallery wall and coming down to floor, conveys the shifts/and possibilities of miniature painting. Here, a reader is not holding a book-page, but is directed/dominated by the enlarged image. The story unfolding in traditional miniature revolves around the heroic protagonist, Rostam and his fights; but Khadim Ali translates initial content to match the contemporary crisis. In the tapestry, the past and the present blend strangely (actually they hardly mix). Inside the picture you come across medieval warriors on horseback, advancing in a mountainous landscape, to confront modern-day soldiers in fatigues and with their guns behind the sandbag barriers. At places army-men ride on stallions (of historic miniature paintings), or tents of Persian entourage are covered in the pattern of the US flag. The tale, like the Chines script, is told from top to bottom, including figures from our surroundings stalled next to their ancient ancestors, while some “people are burning American and European flags outside the court of Baysunghur Mirza in Herat”. The complexity of political situation of Khadim Ali’s native land (his family, belonging to the Hazara minority, fled Afghanistan “to escape Taliban persecution”) is apparent through how Ali composes a snakes and ladders game (It Was Not Like This Ever) in the context of Afghan politics. Past breathes into present in other tapestries, too. In This Is How It Was, Khadim Ali constructs a binary scenario between good and evil in the background of the pandemic. Fearsome spiky spheres on entangled threads are held by a many headed (clown) character wearing an English suit. Two angels are clasping oxygen cylinders, along with stuff to combat Covid-19 (disinfectant sprays, bottles of hand sanitisers, tissue paper rolls and medicines) spread under them. The orange backdrop of the entire image and intertwined whitish lines (like necklaces carrying beads of Covid-19) suggest the turmoil that all of us have faced in the solitude of our soul. The outer oppression is also rendered in his other tapestries. Like in Tell Us, You Tell Us, a winged figure is holding two bearded heads of archaic soldiers spitting fire from their mouths, above the Taliban fighters raising arms amid poppy flowers. Next to them there are a number of protestors in jeans and T-shirts, and one of them is putting the American flag to flames. The complexity of political situation of Khadim Ali’s native land (his family, belonging to the Hazara minority, fled Afghanistan “to escape Taliban persecution”) is apparent through how Ali composes a snakes and ladders game (It Was Not Like This Ever) in the context of Afghan politics. Flags of countries (interested, involved, abhorred) occupy the border of the board game. The chequered area is laid with the face of Osama Bin Laden, an aeroplane (alluding to 9/11), a US military man in helmet, hands casting votes as well as offering banknotes, and the hammer of law. You also notice a demon, an octopus like creature, a roaring lion, and chess pieces – and flames at the lower parts of the frame. The work communicates the current political content with all usable references and symbols. And that is the problem because a viewer feels that the artist is employing a vocabulary not only too direct, but almost flowing to the brim. Like a recipe of delicious dish, you get all ingredients – to savour your views on the Al Qaeda and Taliban, the US invasion, international interference, and the feeble state of political and social structures in the newly-restored Republic of Afghanistan. Here one must check one’s habit of interacting with art; because a message that is remote, indirect, layered and diffused may appeal to the sensibility of a person, who is detached – artistically and emotionally. He/she prefers a hint, a clue, a suggestion, because it empowers him/her to decode the narrative and to become its master. In the conventional art of miniature painting, details of a court, an expedition, a hunt, an intimate space were depicted. However, today when we see them, we forgo the immediate content and find something else to connect within these miniatures. In the same lieu, one looks at Ali’s tapestries, and while appreciating their ‘message’, still looks for some hidden meaning. Khadim Ali, however, has created a number of digital drawings, in which demons and fire-emitting figures are drawn next to layers of intestine like forms. Similar monsters and sections of human organs are surrounded by Buddha statues. Probably, this is a reference to the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddha in 2001. In these works, though executed mechanically, one cherishes a painterly quality. A label not about putting amount of colour on a surface, but an attempt to embellish reality under a load of artistic material/technique/excellence. These digital pieces are kosher for the art audience, but one feels that the tapestries from the Aicon exhibition are as complex and problematic as the issues Khadim Ali is negotiating with in his art. What is happening or is about to take place in Afghanistan, can be measured in his work, because it is a war between locals and invaders; between the pious and infidels; and between the past and the present. It is a war without a winner. The writer is an art critic based in Lahore https://timespakistan.com/fire-in-the-soil-art-culture-thenews-com-pk/9088/

[timaxxo]

Day 20 Floating Thread

OPS! Someone missed an "H" welp I already made the pic so deal with it X'D

Let's flowt with my cute little clown Penny! ;DD Penny belongs to TiMaxXO Illustration by TiMaxXO

Full Resolution: https://www.deviantart.com/timaxxo/art/Day-20-Floating-Thread-818314723 

@inktober @jakeparker ______________⇜⊰◈⊱⇝________________

#TiMaxXO #OCCITY #OC #art #digitalart #illustration #inktober #inktober2019 #day20 #clown #balloons

[jshi43]

#Week 4 Reading response

* Joohee Park aka Stickymonger

To be honest, I don’t know what to say or feel about these works. It’s complicated but not really in a good way. The first thing is, all these works are in such a Japanese, if not Asian, anime style. Personally I’m a fan of those stuff(and I might spend too much time watching them), so I’ll never be possible to turn this style down. I’m also familiar with this seemingly cute but decadent anime-manga illustrations(I actually don’t know how to put it into English as it might now even be an aspect which needs a specific word for classify. Just follow some Japanese young digital artists on twitter and there’s a whole world of them. Some of them are, in fact, extremely well done. 

I also understand the anime style difficult in America. My former chair of illustration department once said that he’s OK with the anime style as long as they are well behaved- that’s almost like saying gay people are normal as long as they don’t go out on the street. As a result, I don’t want to criticize them, even for those awkward ones that are made by Americans who just saw one or two Japanese animation(No offense! I just really don’t know how should I put that). 

However, it is one thing to put them on tumblr as fan art, and there’s another thing to put them in a gallery and act like they are serious. It’s not about the style, form or whatever you call them. They are pretty, and I would like to use this word. They made me think of the decoration sculptures in Europe; inside city scenes such as in the fountains or on the old walls they look great; but they are yet to be moved into museums.I’m not saying that one is prior than the other; they are the same to me. 

Coming back to Stickymonger’s work it’s also the same; inside of seen them in a gallery as smaller pieces, I think they work best when they are in huge sizes and are placed into the city.

* Taezoo Park

Compared to the first one, Taezoo Park’s work gain the advantage of presenting in the format of sculpture. Dimensions are a huge issue when it comes to the digital parts; personally I think 3D features are stronger than 2D features, even if they are shown as the same flat images on websites.

I think the photos on the website is part of the issue. The color and design shows a light-weighted feeling; it’s nice when there are many things going on in one piece. However that can also be the issue; some of them do look like home_design or room_porn or something similar on Instagram… I don’t know if it is intentional or not. I really want to be in some photos; The light and atmosphere look great that I can feel the serenity as I always want to have them in my life.

They also made me think of Tatsuo Miyajima’s works. At the first glimpse they shared some similar features, such as machine parts and so on. However, Taezoo Park’s work is still not there. Similar in form, but different in thoughts. Overall I like them and the ways they are present, and I would like to check them out in person.

* Daniel Rozin

There’s some nostalgia feeling about it, and it’s not fake nostalgia- just look at the date and year. The presentation video also helped that- viewers were dressed in 1999 style. 1999 is always a special year- that composition in characters, what happened around this year, and that leap in human’s way of counting dates in computer systems.

For the work itself, apart from the authentic nostalgia feeling, it stood somehow avantgarde considering the real year it was made. There’s something extremely silent and peaceful of looking at photos and videos that belongs to the past; it might take some extra effort to connect with the piece, of something that once existed. What's more important, time will make all the things forgivable. So overall I like this piece best among all three of them, but I’m what I really liked- because it is no more the same situation? Because it is more distant?

Because in the end the format is a bit funky. Look at those shiny things. It definitely got passion in them; but not that well-planned.  I think that a good work will never be an emotional work, not on the surface to be at least. Emotion and passion share some characteristics with mental illness. How can you tell the difference between a circus clown and a performance artist? Or does the difference really matters?

[hoodedhalcandran-archive]

Your new nickname is magazine. Your hat looks like burnt maccoroni. Can I eat your crown???

“The Little Engine That Could is an illustrated children’s book that became widely known in the United States after publication in 1930 by Platt & Munk. The story is used to teach children the value of optimism and hard work. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association named the book one of its “Teachers’ Top 100 Books for Children”

BACKGROUND

The story’s signature phrases such as “I think I can” first occurred in print in a 1902 article in a Swedish journal. An early published version of the story, “Story of the Engine That Thought It Could”, appeared in the New-York Tribune on April 8, 1906, as part of a sermon by the Rev. Charles S. Wing.

A brief version of the tale appeared under the title Thinking One Can in 1906, in Wellspring for Young People, a Sunday school publication. This version reappeared in a 1910 book, Foundation Stones of Success.

Another version was published under the name “The Pony Engine” in the Kindergarten Review in 1910, written by Mary C. Jacobs. A different version with the same title appeared in a magazine for children in 1916 under the name of Mabel C. Bragg, a teacher, but she “took no credit for originating the story”.

The story first appeared in print with the title The Little Engine That Could in 1920, collected in one volume of My Book House, a set of books sold in the U.S. by door-to-door salespersons. The Book House version began, “Once there was a Train-of-Cars; she was flying across the country with a load of Christmas toys for the children who lived on the other side of the mountain.” The story was labeled  “As told by Olive Beaupré Miller”; the first edition gave credit to Bragg, but subsequent editions did not as Miller subsequently concluded that “the story belonged to the realm of folk literature”. Miller was the founding editor and publisher of The Book House for Children, a company based in Chicago.

The best known incarnation of the story The Little Engine That Could was written by “Watty Piper”, a pen name of Arnold Munk, who was the owner of the publishing firm Platt & Munk. Arnold Munk was born in Hungary, and as a child, moved with his family to the United States, settling in Chicago. Later he moved to New York. Platt & Munk’s offices were at 200 Fifth Avenue until 1957 when Arnold Munk died. Arnold Munk used the name Watty Piper as both an author of children’s books and as the editor of many of the books that Platt & Munk published. He personally hired Lois Lenski to illustrate the book. This retelling of the tale The Pony Engine appeared in 1930, with a title page that stated: “Retold by Watty Piper from The Pony Engine by Mabel C. Bragg’s copyrighted by George H. Doran and Co.”

In 1954, Platt & Munk published another version of The Little Engine That Could, with slightly revised language and new, more colorful illustrations by George and Doris Hauman. Although there had been many previous editions of this classic story, “It was the work of George and Doris Hauman that earned The Little Engine the title of being worthy to sit on the same shelf as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” A 1976 rework featured art by Ruth Sanderson received a lot of attention at the time of its release, in part because the art reflected “the stereotypes of masculine strength and feminine weakness in vogue when it was written”.

PLOT

In the tale, a long train must be pulled over a high mountain. Larger engines, treated anthropomorphically, are asked to pull the train; for various reasons they refuse. The request is sent to a small engine, who agrees to try. The engine succeeds in pulling the train over the mountain while repeating its motto: “I-think-I-can”.

The story of the little engine has been told and retold many times. The underlying theme is the same — a stranded train is unable to find an engine willing to take it on over difficult terrain to its destination. Only the little blue engine is willing to try and, while repeating the mantra “I think I can, I think I can”, overcomes a seemingly impossible task.

An early version goes as follows:

A little railroad engine was employed about a station yard for such work as it was built for, pulling a few cars on and off the switches. One morning it was waiting for the next call when a long train of freight-cars asked a large engine in the roundhouse to take it over the hill. “I can’t; that is too much a pull for me”, said the great engine built for hard work. Then the train asked another engine, and another, only to hear excuses and be refused. In desperation, the train asked the little switch engine to draw it up the grade and down on the other side. “I think I can”, puffed the little locomotive, and put itself in front of the great heavy train. As it went on the little engine kept bravely puffing faster and faster, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”As it neared the top of the grade, which had so discouraged the larger engines, it went more slowly. However, it still kept saying, “I—think—I—can, I—think—I—can.” It reached the top by drawing on bravery and then went on down the grade, congratulating itself by saying, “I thought I could, I thought I could.”

VERSIONS

Later versions would revamp the story to have a more specific appeal for children – the stranded train is recast as a train of good food and anthropomorphic toys for the children across the mountain, thus in saving the train the little engine seems to be working for the benefit of the child reader, making the successful deed all the more triumphant.

In these versions another character appeared and remained a key part of the story hereafter – the clown ringleader of the toys who attempts to find help with several locomotives but is rebuffed. The number of engines in the story also eventually became standard across the tellings: The happy locomotive on the toy train who breaks down and cannot go on, the pompous passenger engine who considers himself too grand for the task, the powerful freight engine who views himself as too important, and the elderly engine who lacks either the strength or determination to help the toys. The little blue engine always appears last and, although perhaps reluctant (some editions have the engine clarify her role as a switcher not suited for road-work), always rises to the occasion and saves the day for the children over the mountain.

Each engine is defined by its appearance or function and is not given a name or personality beyond its role on the railroad. It is only in the 1991 film adaption that the engines’ personalities are expanded on, including the granting of names: Farnsworth (the express engine), Pete (the freight engine), Georgia (the friendly engine of the toy train), Jebediah (the elderly engine) and Tillie, the titular “little engine that could”. The clown was also named “Rollo” and a sixth engine character, Doc, appeared briefly to recover the broken-down Georgia and thus tie up the hanging story-thread of what happened to the failed engine of the toy train, which all other versions leave unaddressed.

FILMS

The tale with its easy-to-grasp moral has become a classic children’s story and was adapted in November 1991 as a 30-minute animated film produced in Wales and co-financed in Wales and the United States. The film named the famous little engine Tillie and expanded the narrative into a larger story of self-discovery.

In March 2011, the story was adapted as a 3-D film named The Little Engine That Could, produced by Universal Studios and featuring the voices of Whoopi Goldberg, Jamie Lee Curtis, Alyson Stoner, and Corbin Bleu.

“LITTLE ENGINE” TOYS AND RAIL TOURS

A full-size replica of the Little Engine That Could makes an annual circuit around the United States. Arranged through Rail Events, Inc., a number of tourist and museum railroad operations host the “I Think I Can” Rail Tour. The replica was constructed in 2005 by the Strasburg Rail Road in southeast Pennsylvania. Strasburg also constructed the Thomas The Tank Engine replicas that tour the United States.

American toy company Whittle Shortline produces wooden toy trains of The Little Engine That Could as a domestic alternative to Thomas the Tank Engine. Maxim Enterprise held the license prior to 2006.

IN POPULAR CULTURE

In the 1941 Disney movie Dumbo, when Casey Jr. the circus train puffs up a hill, he chants, “I think I can!” and “I thought I could!” when going down the hill.

International champion vintage motorcycle racer Todd Henning’s motto was “I think I can!” and he named his racing team I Think I Can Racing after the book.

This book was chosen by “Jumpstart Read for the Record” to be read worldwide to tens of thousands of children on August 24, 2006.[7]

Shel Silverstein wrote the poem “The Little Blue Engine”, which referenced this story.

West End and Broadway musical Starlight Express was loosely based on the book.

The original logo for Elton John’s record label The Rocket Record Company was based on the book.

One of the Vagina Monologues is called “The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could”.

The chorus of C'mon ‘N’ Ride It by the Quad City DJ’s repeats “I think I can!” as a rhythmic part to sound like a train.

A song on The Pillows Fool on the Planet album is called “I think I can”, and the chorus is a repeat of “I think I can!”.

NBA player Kyle Lowry is nicknamed “The Little Engine That Could” by Toronto Raptors play-by-play announcer Matt Devlin.

In episode 1 of season 3 of the TV series Married… with Children titled “He Thought He Could”, Al Bundy has to return a copy of the book that he borrowed in 1957.

A Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson, published October 18, 1993, shows the little engine sitting broken on the sidewalk, panhandling with a sign reading “I thought I could, I thought I could …”.

SEE ALSO

Thomas the Tank Engine

….Vi didn’t know how to answer this one so I, here loving boyfriend @Ravioko, did so for her.

#out of cape #inquiry #crack

[micaramel]

Artists: Leonor Antunes, Noah Barker, Sadie Benning, François Curlet, Stéphane Dafflon, Brice Dellsperger, Guy de Cointet, Trisha Donnelly, Eliza Douglas, Claire Fontaine, Jef Geys, Liam Gillick, Joseph Grigely, Guyton\Walker, Carsten Höller, Michel Houellebecq, Dorothy Iannone, Aaron Flint Jamison, Pierre Joseph, Ben Kinmont, Adriana Lara, Pierre Le Tan , Ingrid Luche, Mïrka Lugosi, Monica Majoli, M/M (Paris), Sarah Morris, Mrzyk & Moriceau, Jean Painlevé, Philippe Parreno, Bruno Pelassy, Rob Pruitt, Sarah Pucci, Torbjørn Rødland, Allen Ruppersberg, Bruno Serralongue, Shimabuku, Lily van der Stokker, Sturtevant, Jean-Luc Verna

Venue: Air de Paris

Exhibition Title: More

Date: October 20 – December 14, 2019

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Air de Paris, Paris. Photos by Marc Domage.

Press Release:

To mark the opening of the new Air de Paris in Romainville we’re delighted to be presenting the choral exhibition More: 40 artists on four floors and the chance for a stroll through all the gallery’s spaces, from cellar to attic, from reserves to roof terrace.

Running over a three months time, this exhibition will see the achievement of the interior design of the gallery, a project led by Sébastien Truchot – PCA STREAM

We’ll also be welcoming Linda Grabe and her wine webzine Le Volatile, le roman du vin.

For some 30 years now Air de Paris has cultivated a fondness for the peripheral. The move to Romainville shows us pursuing this notion in a restating of Liam Gillick’s maxim «Just More/More Just».

GROUND FLOOR

We’ve opted to have you enter Air de Paris via the office. You’ll be welcomed by the gallery team. And get to see how things work. Two works by Liam Gillick are already visible from outside the gallery, on display like the paintings you see in the more classical venues – on Rue de Seine, for example. These digital prints were part of the artist’s works posted in the streets during his participation in the 2013 White Nights in Paris.

We see the double slogan «Just More/More Just» as heralding a new era of trying to be more equitable, more ecological and more just in our dealings. Liam Gillick, Just More! 2013/More Just!, 2013

On your left as you come in is a Project by Pierre Joseph dating from his first solo exhibition at Air de Paris, in 1992, when we were in Nice. We were unequivocally neighbours of the church of Saint Rita; the parish priest had given us a statue of the saint, which had been set in a niche over the gallery door and blessed the day the first exhibition opened in 1990. Pierre Joseph’s Projects imbued contemporary art with the imaginative spirit of the video games and role play still in their infancy. Pierre Joseph, Projet, 1992

A big bouquet of long-stemmed flowers: Jean-Luc Verna’s Vase Misère is a self-portrait – the artist’s face with his hands forcing a smile and giving him the look of a clown. The Joker? Jean-Luc Verna, Vase Misère #3, 2013

Serve yourself from the rack: Claire Fontaine postcards, iconic images wittily tweaked with verbal modifications: L.G.B.T.Q. replaces Marcel Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q, which, according to Freud, triggered the question of Mona Lisa’s gender. Claire Fontaine, Untitled (Postcard rack / L.G.B.T.Q / L.G.B.T.Q. shaved), 2017

Set against a red wall, a Sturtevant video demands your attention: Hello! We live together at Disney World and all around us is the image pornography churned out by the big entertainment corporations. Sturtevant, HELLO !, 2006

Our office tables are an artwork by Aaron Flint Jamison for Éditathon Art + Féminisme 2016. Produced by Lafayette Anticipations – Galeries Lafayette Foundation as part of the worldwide Art+Feminism campaign, and orchestrated by Kvardek du and Flora Katz. The artist has activated a new message on the LED scrollers.Aaron Flint Jamison, , 2016

Hanging on the pillar, a portrait of Clément by Michel Houellebecq. Michel Houellebecq, Pelage d’hiver

Cats – never far from the dog!? Mrzyk & Moriceau, Sans titre, 2014

Early in the 1960s Sturtevant reprised graphic artist George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, after Öyvind Fahlström: two artists from our pantheon; two stalwarts for the price of one. Sturtevant, Krazy Kat, 1986

Beneath the windows, a large red lily. In another conceptual overlay Pierre Joseph does photographs that repeat the prints and drawings of Pierre Joseph Redouté. Pierre Joseph, #pierrejosephredouté, Lys hybride (rouge), 2017

Now it’s upstairs to the exhibition floors or down to the basement (our storage area) to view a work you’ve requested here in the office.

THE BASEMENT

A mysterious photograph by Trisha Donnelly. What to say about it? A snowdrift, a garage door, an image that can be hung every which way – an image that has no sense. Trisha Donnelly, Robert, 2001

1ST FLOOR

The 1st floor is an exhibition space whose unusual windows put us at a far remove from the classical white cube. It’s time to be thinking about different ways of presenting painting, and it’s fun. Maybe the kind of running structure used for election posters in the street? Or a return to the hanging rail?

So here you are at last in a real exhibition space.

An exhibition within an exhibition? Opposite you a painting by Eliza Douglas hung on a pillar reproduces a Josh Smith exhibition view, found on the Internet. Eliza Douglas, Josh Smith, 2018

A search for the centre ground kept in check by violence, disorder and conspiracy: a work by Liam Gillick. A large mirror searching for the three main characters from his book Le Grand Centre de Conférence. We are all characters in search of an author. Liam Gillick, A search for the centre ground kept in check by violence, disorder and conspiracy, 1998

You’ll notice along the way that this exhibition contains many works in the form of chairs, tables, doors and shelves. This is emphatically not a matter of design; these works point up the domestic and professional environments as augmented, highlighted spaces. Their pared-down or, sometimes, exaggerated, Luna Park-like shapes occupy this inaugural presentation like spectres, or punctuate it like clues.

To the right of the mirror Ingrid Luche’s little door suggests a grotesque space, the entrance to a haunted house, or a funfair attraction. Ingrid Luche, Petite Porte, 2012

Mirrors again. In Monica Majoli’s house in Los Angeles the bedroom walls are covered with black mirrors. It’s in this setting that she has photographed several of her lovers, so as to paint their portraits some years later. This lithograph depicts the odd plays of light caused by the reflections in these dark mirrors. Monica Majoli, Black Mirror (Jarrett), 2009-12

Joseph Grigely’s Storage Rack is part of a group of works he calls «leftovers». However, these are not real objects that have been junked, but rather never-made or remade objects, reified extensions of their preceding reality. The transparent resin shelf might have been used for storing paint, but no longer serves any purpose. It belongs to an unknown world, like the elements of a classical still life. Joseph Grigely, Storage Rack, 2012

The design work of Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi (1914–1992) has influenced several works by Leonor Antunes. In this case some of Bo Bardi’s experiments with form and proportion have left their mark on a series of wenge wood screens. These shapes are based on concrete components she had made in 1988 for the Casa do Benim in Salvador de Bahia, in northern Brazil. Leonor Antunes, a secluded and pleasant land in this land i wish to dwell #2, 2014

Marcel Duchamp spoke of a coat hook lying on the floor, «a real coat hanger that I wanted sometime to put on the wall and hang my things on but I never did come to that – so it was on the floor and I would kick it every minute, every time I went out – and I got crazy about it and I said to hell with it, if it wants to stay here and bore me, I’ll nail it down and it will just stay there.» Pierre Joseph has doubled the size of the Trap. Pierre Joseph, Décor, Trébuchet (Marcel Duchamp), 1992/2017

Philippe Parreno was artistic director of the opera Il Tempo del Postino in 2007. There’s a photograph of his performance: he’d hired a ventriloquist, who introduced each artist’s contribution and read a text about the relations between time and the work of art from behind a magnifying glass. In that way he became his own puppet. The photograph, signed by the artist and the ventriloquist, illustrates the question, «Who’s speaking?» Philippe Parreno, Postman Time, 2007

Nearby, the Maison-Oreille (House of Hearing) is a model thought up by Carsten Höller and Philippe Parreno for a listening post where you could spend the night tuned in to ambient sound: nature, aeroplanes, shooting stars, etc. Carsten Höller et Philippe Parreno, Maison-Oreille, 2013

Hung in front of a window to the left, François Curlet’s neon sign could have provided the title for this exhibition. Might not this disposition of artworks proceed from a slight perversion of the conceptual masked by all the different forms? One day an exhibition curator described our programme as «conceptual trash». You could also call it «conceptual art brut». François Curlet, Western, 2005/2006

The crackle of the neon light accentuates the flickering of Ingrid Luche’s fireplace painting, set under a window and maybe suggesting a scene from Clifford D. Simak’s City.Ingrid Luche, Chinoiserie (Feu de cheminée), 2014

In an elegant vitrine ten delicate replicas of mildly hallucinatory double mushrooms are aligned as if in a natural history museum. Carsten Höller, Double Mushroom Vitrine (Tenfold), 2018

The title of Pierre Joseph’s lightbox describes the work perfectly: a reprise, in the musical sense, of a cowboy already twice- famous, thanks first to Marlboro, then to Richard Prince. What the title omits is the work’s melancholy. Pierre Joseph, Décor, Marlboro cow-boy (Richard Prince), 1992/2019

Red, too, is the spring of the neon towards Sadie Benning’s transgender painting/bas-relief. Sadie Benning, X, 2016

Chairs here and there; these have been customised by Rob Pruitt as stop-offs or resting places.

2ND FLOOR

On the 2nd floor we’ve planned a projection room, an exhibition area and a semi-private space behind a revolving door. The interior layout is by Sébastien Truchot of the PCA-Stream office.

A memory warp? The same Josh Smith exhibition view as before – but hey, isn’t it bigger? Eliza Douglas, Josh Smith, 2018

On the outside of the right-angled wall marking out the future projection space is Allen Ruppersberg’s Le Mot Juste. That «just» again, and a horizon line. Seven screenprints for a samurai poem. Allen Ruppersberg, Le Mot Juste and The Circus, 1988

Facing you, yet another door, drawn by Pierre Le-Tan. We pay him our respects here: he left us on 17 September and we miss him.Pierre Le-Tan, Sans titre, 2017

La Chaise Jaune and la Chaise Bleue (The Yellow Chair and the Blue Chair) were part of Guy de Cointet’s set for his performance De Toutes les Couleurs (1982, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid). The chairs and another part of the set disappeared and it was only thanks to the artist’s meticulous archiving – colour ranges, dimensional sketches, performance photographs – that these two multiples, identical to the originals, could be made. Guy de Cointet, Chaise Bleue, Chaise Jaune [De toutes les couleurs, 1982], 2018

The angularity of the backrests of these chairs is also to be be found in two late de Cointet drawings of pared-down Californian desert landscapes. Guy de Cointet, Sans titre, ca. 1980

Adriana Lara’s «wall piece» is an irregularly cut sheet of plaster mounted on stretcher. A deformed section of wall, repainted with the same white as the wall it is affixed to. Adriana Lara, Wall Piece #3, 2015

Rob Pruitt decided one day that as long as pandas were still around, he would paint them. This was his response to the threat to biodiversity in the Capitalocene era.Rob Pruitt, Picnic, 2017

A witty practitioner of Surrealist collage, Pruitt has made tables out of silver-coated tyres set on roller skates. This one is a fruit bowl.Rob Pruitt, Roller Rink Coffee Table II (Fruit Bowl), 2017

Bruno Pelassy was a close friend of Air de Paris who died in 2002. Here we present one of his last works: an unfinished mechanical toy arrayed in feathers and snakeskin. Bruno Pelassy, Sans titre, 2001

Dedicated daily repetition gave rise to the plastic-bedecked objects made by Sarah Pucci, mother of the artist Dorothy Iannone. These intensely committed creations date from the second half of the 20th century and were regularly posted to her daughter, who was then based in Europe. Proofs of motherly love, they gleam with a steroidally idealised, carnivalesque beauty. Sarah Pucci, A Heart That Sees You, 1990s

To the left, under the windows, you can follow the doings of Andy Capp, the English comic-strip character created by Reg Smyth and published in the Daily Mirror since 1957. Double-exposure photography has him trotting his cap-and-ciggie through building sites that are a metaphor for our lives. Torbjørn Rødland, ACV01, ACV06, ACV07, ACV14, ACV17, 2009

M/M (Paris): two talented graphic artists who minted the Komunuma logo. One M has a gifted hand and draws. The other M has a gifted ear and in 1998 composed the techno sound track for Sturtevant’s Ça va aller exhibition. Facing you here is a large, luminously stylised lion. M/M (Paris), Zu Assenheim, 2006

At the far end of the room the place for the future projection screen is currently covered by a billboard-sized image of Santa by the sea. This is, in fact, Shimabuku, who in 1991 collected garbage on this forsaken beach and provided a quick, mind- boggling image for any high-speed train travellers who happened to be looking out the window at the right moment. Father Christmas gathering refuse on a soiled seashore. Speculative ecological poetry. Shimabuku, Noël dans l’hémisphère Sud, 1994/1999

More light! You’ll excuse the shortfall in this room, but the renovations are running behind time and the additional lighting is still on the waiting list. You’re in a work in progress.

A wall of drawings brings together Mathias Augustyniak’s women in 68 colours, Mïrka Lugosi’s triadic women and Dorothy Iannone’s weeping Statues of Liberty (Iannone is currently showing solo at the Centre Pompidou) : Mathias Augustyniak, Woman in 68 colors n°3 ; Woman in 68 colors n°4, 2010 ; Dorothy Iannone, Our Liberties, 2015 ; Mïrka Lugosi, Variations Schlemmer n°1 ; Variations Schlemmer n°2 ; Variations Schlemmer n°3, 2009-2012

Let’s not forget Jean-Luc Verna’s made-up birds : Jean-Luc Verna, Madame Rature, 2019; Jean-Luc Verna, Pank, 2019. Last of all, Sarah Morris’s combination of painting and cinema, with gouache overlaid on original film posters: good old Alain Delon in a samurai face-off with Santa Claus. Sarah Morris, Tiger [Le Samourai], 2017

As you leave, high up on your left, is a spider ready to spring: the work of Jean Painlevé, the great filmmaker and photographer who devoted his life to the depths of the sea. Jean Painlevé, Araignée sauteuse, 1930

You’re drawn through the big revolving door by the sound of Saturday Night Fever blasting out of the little yellow TV set we used for showing Brice Dellsperger’s first films back in the 1990s. Double recall. Brice Dellsperger, Body Double 13, 1999

Above it, a gouache in which we see the artist duplicated and as Angie Dickenson, when he played all the parts from Brian de Palma’s Dressed to Kill (1980) for his Body Double 15. Brice Dellsperger, Angie said « Meet me at the Met (featuring Alex Katz and Tom Palmore), 2019

But hey, I live in France, and here’s an ageless photograph by Michel Houellebecq, a bucolic image brought to Le Bas-Pays, the industrial estate in Romainville. Michel Houellebecq, France #024, nd.

On the way to the kitchen, an unstretched digital canvas by Stéphane Dafflon: Stéphane Dafflon, TL005, 2019. And here you are in a space that will be semi-private: the planned site for the kitchen (we make good risotto at Air de Paris),a room for chatting or relaxing, and a library. A space that’s domestic but not yet domesticated. Under the window on the right a piece of tangy daffiness by Lily van der Stokker says nothing apart from its absurd, caustic Dasein. Lily van der Stokker, Nothing (Dark Pink), 2014

En face, une œuvre joyeusement colorée de Guyton\Walker, une impression numérique recto-verso sur matelas. Guyton\Walker, Stripe_Venice_Paris_Abstractcanvas80_, 2013

«Each of us had more drinks every day than the number of lies told by a labour union during a wildcat strike»: an excerpt – a kind of led-driven ritornello – from In GirumImus Nocte Et Consomimur Igni by Guy Debord (1978). Upcoming psychogeographic driftings through the Paris suburbs. The fridge isn’t part of the work. Noah Barker, Decommissioned Cuba Libre Assembly Line Clock (Debord), 2018.

Two rare paintings by Dutch artist Jef Geys, in which he takes the orientally-inflected patterns of earthenware tiles made by the Gavra company in his beloved Campine (Dutch: De Kempen) and blows them up to a metre square. Jef Geys, Untitled (Gavra series), 1980s, acrylique sur toile, signé au dos.

In Marinetti’s opinion, people think, dream and act according to what they eat and drink. Which is how cooking became an integral part of the Futurist artistic experience. Ben Kinmont’s actions test the resistance of the work of art in contexts not strictly speaking artistic: a dinner, participation in a salon, an ephemeral action. Thus gastronomy, as an artistic but temporary structure, becomes a potent model for testing out art’s limitations.

Kinmont organised his gustatory exhibitions in Montpellier (2002), Amsterdam and New York (2011), and Rome (2015)/ The menus are traditionally printed using lead type. Ben Kinmont, An exhibition in your mouth [Montpellier: Antinomian Press, 2002], 2002 Ben Kinmont, An Exhibition in your Mouth [Amsterdam: Antinomian Press, 2011], 2011 Ben Kinmont, An Exhibition in your Mouth [New York: Antinomian Press, 2011], 2011 Ben Kinmont, An Exhibition in your Mouth [San Francisco: Antinomian Press, 2012], 2012 Ben Kinmont, An Exhibition in your Mouth [Rome: Antinomian Press, 2015], 2015

Bruno Serralongue has been making regular visits to Calais since 2006, bringing back images of the «Jungle», the migrants and the «state shanty town». His work is currently on show at the Centre Pompidou. For lack of supplies the Calais Kitchen, run by English volunteers, had to close for a week in July 2016. A week is a very long time when you’re enduring conditions like these. Bruno Serralongue, Dear Friends, « bidonville d’État » pour migrants, Calais, 07 juillet 2016, 2016

THE ROOF TERRACE THE FUTURE

During the opening week of Komunuma the Frac Ile-de-France presented an installaiton by Michel Blazy (Sculpcure : Orange Bar, 2009)

Soon in a wooden shed – we will name it Delphine – we will display curiosities.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this visit and your meeting with 40 Air de Paris’ artists. Thanks for coming – we look forward to seeing you again.

Link: “More” at Air de Paris

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#micaramel