the haunt of fashion

Here’s one of my more “developed” ideas from the jareddriskill sketchbook.

One day when I had an idle moment, I had the brilliant idea to blend two of my favorite 1950’s pop culture references ( Dior’s ”New Look” fashion and EC comics ”New Trend”) together. The result is this: a mock up cover of “The Haunt of Fashion” the fictional EC “New Trend” comic about fashion design! I think it would sold like hotcakes!

Come to think about it, romance comics were HUGE back in the 1950’s but I can’t believe that the comic book companies of the era never experimented, as far as I know, with the most logical spin off of that genre: fashion. (With the possible slight exception of the 1960’s marvel comic, “Millie the Model.”)

Here’s a close up of the bottom half of this sketch book idea so that you can make out more of the details and read the poorly hand lettered thought bubbles. (If you don’t get the “Good Lord (choke)…” reference, you obviously have never read an EC comic!)

I did toy with the idea of writing and drawing an 8 page EC style story ( along with their stylistic “O Henry” twist story ending) to go along with this “Haunt of Fashion” idea, but my free time is way too short as it is. However, I just might surprise you, my faithful reading several, one day with such an monstrosity. So be forewarned!

As usual, there are at least 15 fundamental artistic errors in this drawing (with the exception of the lettering, which I already know that I suck at.) Can YOU find them all?

jareddriskill

running mate

I don’t know why I am on a political kick lately, it’s SO unlike me.

So.. John McCain chose the govenor of Alaska to be his running mate and the media is all over this “historic” choice. Two thoughts instantly come to mind about Sarah Palin being his running mate.

1. What’s so historic about a female vice presidental candidate? Does anyone even remember Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale’s running mate back in 1984? I mean, sure, she did pretty much fell off the face of the earth the day she filmed that Pepsi commercial with her daughter circa 1985-86, but i think she would have something to say about Sarah Palin stealign all her thunder.

2. Yes, the moment Sarah Palin’s was officallly announced as McCain’s running mate, I just knew that there would be hundreds of people rushing to be the first to photo shop her headshot on some random photo of a naked body and posting it on the internet in order receive the inevitable flood of internet traffic from those who type “Sarah Palin naked’ in their search engines.

jareddriskill

film history #b

Lots of technical issues tonight in film history class ranging from the wrong software on the school computer which prevented us from watching the Edison film company clip of Annie Oakley to the professor bringing the wrong DVD to class has kept us from watching the sequel of Georges Melies’ “Trip to the Moon” to having the projector room being locked that prevent us from watching an old Nickelodeon short film called “Rescued From An Eagles Nest.” My favorite technical foul up was the fact that our professor was so eager to let the class out early in order to watch Obama’s acceptance speech from the Democratic National Convention which meant that we did not see “Musketeers of Pig Alley” by D.W Griffith as stated on the syllabus.

We did see, however, the Griffith short film called “A Corner In Wheat.” Which was a populist piece of propaganda about a stock speculator “The Wheat King” (no doubt a republican) who corners the wheat market, which causes inflation prices on wheat which in turn causes people to have food riots because the price of bread is just too high for their meager incomes. And the farmer who grows the wheat? He somehow gets screwed by the rich republican fat cat too. (My, how things never change.)

I was going to criticize D.W. Griffith for making the common populist mistake of portraying “the common man” to be genuinely helpless and the rich fat cats as “heartless revelers.” What most peopel fail to understand is that if the shoe was on the other foot, the suddenly rich ex common man will do his best to screw over the suddenly common ex-rich man. It’s just human nature to fuck over someone else in order to live comfortably.

As I was saying, I was going to criticize Griffith for his populist stereotyping, but he did hit a “realistic” nail on the head at the end of the film. The republican heartless fat cat Wheat King meets his ironic death in a wheat elevator and then guess what? No, the price of wheat did not go down and the people rejoiced as you assume would happen. But the realistic ending is this: the common man is still screwed in the end with high wheat prices! No only that, they are worse off than they were at the beginning of the film.This ending brings a hearty laugh and a tear of joy to the evil republican that resides in us all. (At least I know it did to me when I saw it.)

The moral of “A Corner Of Wheat?” Fuck being poor, that shit is for suckas! Or… get rich or die trying.

Next week on the syllabus: German Expressionism and “The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari!”

jareddriskill

dreamlog #51

I dreamt that there was a house for sale  in middle in a clearing in a forest that was shaped like a perfect cube. Inside the house there were numerous inexplicable space/time anomalies such as some hall ways stretched out over the infinite and some were only 2 feet long and a kitchen window that looked out to the year 1837. I just had to buy this house even though I’m hardly in the financal position to buy one because of school.

I talked to the owners of the house anyways because I was curious to see what they were selling it for. I was shocked when they told me that they only wanted $135,000 for it. I instantly thought to myself “that really IS a good price for a house with several space/time anomalies.”

jareddriskill

random item tuesdays

1. The good thing about the working out your two week notice is that, well shit, the lack of stress that you feel on the job. As you know, no matter what happens, it won’t matter (at least to you) after your notice is finally up.

Ah, if only the job was this stress free when I was still a regular ass employee. Who knows? I might’ve stayed in this thing for the very long haul…. Yeah right!

2. I met my replacement today at my soon to be ex-job and I must say I feel torn about it. On one hand, I feel good that my replacement is of a, ah, lesser intelligence than I am and deep down, that makes me feel like that I will be difficult for my employer to replace and that I was indispensable member of the team.

But, on the other hand… my boss hired a total fucking moron to fill my soon to be vacant position! Which makes me feel that A: I was working way below my potential for the better part of a decade and B: by hiring this winner in the game of life is my soon to be ex-boss way of telling me that I should just go fuck myself.

3. Wow. Did my Governor, Tim Kaine, just tell the media that the state of Delaware borders our fine state of Virginia ( the very same state that Tim Kaine is the Governor of?) Jesus, what a moron!

jareddriskill

thank god it’s Biden

Not that I care because I’m the most apolitical person you will ever meet, but I’m so glad that Obama did not choose Virginia Governor, Tim Kaine, to be his running mate. How Tim Kaine ever thought he was in the running for the position is beyond my understanding because he a total fuck up at running the state of Virginia (and before that, the city of Richmond.)

One of the things that got me the most was that TIm Kaine acted like some sort of political big shot, giving out his opinion (whether you wanted to hear it or not) on everything under the sun to anyone who would listen when he was in the contention. Please, he should’ve spent that time and hot air trying to fix the state budget, which is like a billion dollars in debt.

The second thing that gets me is that when Kaine was the mayor of Richmond he had alot of problems working with (or not working with as the case used to be) the majority African American city council which cause alot of racial strife in the city during his reign as mayor. (I think that this bit of history is what actually ruined his chances of being VP in the eyes of the Obama campaign.)

Kaine looks like he has quite a temper on him too, I can just see him kicking furniture around in the governors mansion (which is several blocks from where I live) in my minds eye when he was informed that he wasn’t going to get the position screaming “god damn it” and “fuck that Obama” interchangeably at the top of his lungs. In fact, when the wind blows just right, I can almost hear the cussing and the tables and chairs being smashed to bits as I write…

jareddriskill

mexican robot

Let’s take another peek in my almost long forgotten sketchbook. This one is entitled “Mexican robot.” The idea for this sketch came to me as I was driving past an gaudily decorated Mexican restaurant on the road one day and the idea that a old time-y robot wearing a poncho and a sombrero seemed like “the thing” I just “had” to draw.

As you can see, the character “Vince Noir” from the Mighty Boosh is correct, it is impossible to be sad while wearing a poncho. Who knows, maybe this old time-y robot had entered the same gaudily decorated Mexican restaurant that I had passed and won himself a free fried ice cream because he lied and said it was his birthday. Yum, fried ice cream.

As usual, there a at least 17 fundamental artistic errors that I can see in this sketch. Can you find them all?

jareddriskill

film history #A

Long time members of my faithful reading several will recall that last spring I took a post modern film history class in order to A: fulfill an art elective requirement and B: to have a important piece of post modern film history to review each week on this website. It turns out that the class I took last spring was part two of a two part course and… the fact that I needed an extra class to have enough credit hours to be considered as a full time student in the eyes of the financial aid department this semester, I decided, in typical jareddriskill fashion, to take part one of this course after having already successfully completed the second part.  Let’s get this party started!

But some important background infomation first: way back in the halcyon days of 1824, when P.M. Roget developed the flawed theory of “Persistence of Vision” which, in turn, led to such motion image novelties such as the Thaumtrope, Zoetrope and the Praxinascope. It wasn’t until after the invention of the photograph, however, where the first real step towards motion pictures ( aka movies ) took place, as usual with all great innovations, with a simple drunken bar room bet. The bet was this: Leland Stanford won a cool 25,000 smackeroos by proving, with the help of series photography, that there is a moment during a horses’ gallop that all 4 of it’s hooves are all up off the ground.

Somewhere later on, we also find out that Thomas Edison rips off ideas from several innovative Frenchmen to create the first motion picture studio where he made such films as “Seminary Girls” which was the girls gone wild of the 1890’s. ( Let’s not forget the ladies, and some of you fellas out there, with the short film called “Sandow” which featured Sandow, the strong man, showing off his muscles and his centuries ahead of his time porn moustache.)

Films got longer and longer (up to a whopping 10 minutes or so at this point in history) which leads us to the first of our two headlining films of the evening: ” A Trip To the Moon” by Georges Melies, which coincidentally, is considered to be the first science fiction film ever committed unstable nitrate celluloid film stock. (Say that 3 times fast!) The film while providing great entertainment, is also forward thinking enough to foretell the methods employed for space travel later on in the 20th century: travel in a capsule and return to earth by landing said capsule in the ocean.

Everyone has not seen “A Trip To the Moon” but most people have seen clips of it ( especially the part where the space capsule lands right smack dab in the eye of the man in the moon.) And I do believe that The Smashing Pumpkins used the plot and set design for one of their music videos back in the day. Despite the stigma that is the Smashing Pumpkins, “A Trip To The Moon” is also one of the most visually imaginative films ever made. Can you believe this entire film was created in a studio made entirely of glass?

While our first feature was visually imaginative and innovative, our second feature, “The Great Train Robbery” by Edwin Porter, was really fucking dull. But it was more crisply filmed! (Or at least the copy I saw was better preserved than the copy of “A Trip To The Moon” that I saw.) As the title implies, some robbers rob a train in rather boring detail and some less interesting looking “action” sequences takes place. The only interesting thing about the “Great Train Robbery” is the last shot, which is of a cowboy firing his gun right into the lens of the camera.

Don’t worry folks, the reviews will get better and shorter as the semester drags on!

next week in the syllabus: D. W Griffith and the “Musketeers of Pig Alley!” (among others)

jareddriskill

welcome back

oh jesus, I have to brush off the cobwebs off this blog, don’t I?

I just worked 80 hours in the past 5 days or so and I’m beat. I hope my faithful reading several will understand for the lack of posts recently. But the good news is that classes start back up tomorrow so I won’t have to work as much, plus I have just put in my two week notice at my regular full time HVAC job last Monday. I hated to do it because I have worked there for like forever, but with classes and an internship to do this school year, it didn’t make sense for me to show up there only one day a week for the next school year ( the HVAC gig is a m-f 9-5 gig) and then put in my two week notice at the end of the school year because I’m due to graduate next May. So that means my second job will become my primary job. Oh joy.

jareddriskill

sorry

sorry for the lack of posts recently, but classes start next week and I have been slaving away at both of my jobs in one last desparate money grab before school takes over my life again. The good news is that I will be able to write more because I don’t always study when I have freetime….

jareddriskill