I’ve begun sketching in preparation for site-specific work I will be creating for the ornately Victorian Castle Key Lounge; to be completed and hung during the Fall 2010.

These sketches (collage with some embellishments) have become the images for this year’s crop of holiday winter cards.

If you want one send me your mailing address (which of course I will not share).  Each is one-of-a-kind. (If I’ve sent you holiday images in the past, don’t assume you are already getting one — I lost ALL of my addresses when my harddrive imploded last month.  So be sure to drop me a line.   Thanks!)

Why a man and woman? Why the man first? Why is the woman pretty, and the man looks like a pedophile?

Don’t read into it too much, but these were indeed inspired by the Rorschach test images.

Just another filler post.

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Nous avions déjà abordé le primat du visuel dans des articles consacrés aux tests de Rorschach et aux cupcakes il y a quelques semaines. Cette observation s’applique plus que jamais à la nourriture. Souvenons-nous des nombreuses frustrations naissantes du décalage entre l’image du contenu d’un produit et sa réalité…

Les fruits ou les plats sont toujours superbes sur les packagings et lorsque l’on ouvre la boîte, c’est la déception.

Il en va de même pour certains restaurants qui misent gros sur l’apparence des plats proposés. Même tactique pour les livres de recettes de cuisine où la présentation de la nourriture à destination des enfants.

Rendre la nourriture jolie, c’est s’assurer qu’elle sera plus facilement appréciée mais aussi montrer (patte blanche) ce que le restaurant va faire ingurgiter à ses clients.

Ce n’est d’ailleurs pas un hasard si la majorité des restaurants étrangers (japonais, chinois, indiens, africains…) utilisent plus fréquemment des menus illustrés, dans la mesure où ils s’adressent à des personnes qui ne connaissent pas a priori tous les ingrédients des recettes (sans parler du désir de transparence consécutif aux multiples accusations portées à l’encontre de la restauration asiatique, pour ne citer qu’elle).

L’application Foodspotting vise justement à résoudre ce double problème :

• Mon menu sera-t-il visuellement ragoûtant?
• Comment être sûr de ce que je vais manger?

En proposant un guide de restaurant qui ne se base pas sur les appréciations (ô combien subjectives) des membres de la communauté mais uniquement sur une image du plat. Après tout, si le critère gustatif compte, le visuel devrait aussi entrer en compte non?

Cette petite vidéo vous en dira plus :

Source : Adaptive path

The cover of Alan Moore's Watchmen

Watchmen was written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Watchmen was originally a mini-series published under DC Comics, it spanned one year with twelve issues and was collected into a graphic novel around 2005. It was the winner of the Hugo Award and was the only graphic novel on Time Magazine’s list of the top 100 English novels.

Watchmen has been widely received as the most celebrated graphic novel of all time. Many times director’s had tried to adapt the book to film, and in 2009 in some ways Zack Snyder (director of 300) succeeded.Many fans did not like the film very much, personally I thought it was a pretty faithful adaption, click here to read my review of the film.

The story follows that of six would-be heroes who decide to take the law into their own hands after the Minute Men were disbanded sometime in 1940. The characters consist of Silk Spectre II, Nite Owl II, Dr. Manhattan, The Comedian, Ozymandias, and Rorschach. After the Comedian is killed Rorschach begins investigating his death, he comes up with the theory that there is a “mask killer”. He then proceeds to inform all of the retired heroes of the Comedian’s death and his mask killer theory. The heroes must then overcome their differences and band together to stop World War III.

Next, the characters of Watchmen:

The Silk Spectre II

Laurie Juspeczyk aka Silk Spectre II is the daughter of the original Silk Spectre, her mother forced into the role of a masked adventurer (masked is sort of false as she doesn’t actually have one but what are you gonna do?). She is Dr, Manhattan’s girl friend, however, she leaves him in the third chapter.

Nite Owl II

Dan Dreiberg aka Nite Owl II took the role of Nite Owl when one of the old heroes in the Minute Men retired. He later retires after the passing of the Keene Act. In the ’60’s he and Rorschach worked together as partners.

Rorschach

Walter Kovacs aka Rorschach decided to become a masked adventurer after a rough childhood in which he saw the true horror of the world. After a kidnap case in the ’60’s he went insane and began killing criminals instead of catching them and leaving them to the police. He became a wanted man after the passing of the Keene Act. In some ways he is the main character, because he is the one who tells the story.

Ozymandias

Adrian Veidt aka Ozymandias was a man who believed in Utopia and world peace, and believes these things lie in the future. He retired from adventuring two years before the Keene Act was passed, and cashed on his alter ego making all sorts of merchandise and becoming an aristocrat.

Dr. Manhattan

Jon Osterman aka Dr. Manhattan was killed in an accident in an intrinsic field machine, he was torn apart then made a new body with all sorts of abilities, he is one of two heroes still in employ with the government.

The Comedian

Edward Blake aka The Comedian “He was practically a nazi” and a very lonely man. Heis practically insane like Rorschach. The Comedian is more of a soldier than a super hero. He participated in the Vietnam war with Dr. Manhattan.

The art of Watchmen is beautiful, Dave Gibbons does a wonderful job, and John Higgins uses are beautiful especially when they are used to show distance of an object. And the design for the costumes is the most important part to me because the costumes of most of the heroes are colorful which is surprising considering how grim the book is.

Overall, Watchmen is an excellent and thought provoking book and should be purchased by anyone who either likes comics or likes literature in general.

http://www.sheepish.org

Todos já devemos ter passado pelo menos mais do que uma vez pelo teste Rorschach… O teste foi criado pelo alemão Hermann Rorschach em 1921.

O teste permite (supostamente) avaliar pacientes psiquiátricos e avaliar a história de vida do analisado. Com efeito, é possível que duas pessoas apresentem o mesmo resultado no teste, mas que tenham personalidades radicalmente diferentes, pelo que o psicólogo terá necessariamente que interpretar os resultados cruzando-os com a história pessoal do paciente.

Datam de 1857, as primeiras utilizações de manchas de tinta simétricas pelo médico alemão Justin Kerner. Mais tarde, outros fizeram o mesmo. Mas só com Rorschach é que os testes deste tipo revelaram alguma eficácia. O médico começou por usar centenas de borrões de tinta nos pacientes do hospital psiquiátrico onde trabalhava e nos seus colegas médicos e enfermeiros. Comparando os resultados, pode produzir resultados padrão, reutilizáveis em novos pacientes que são ainda hoje a base teórica e prática destes testes. Foi nesta época, que o médico selecionou 15 imagens, de entre estas centenas, porque eram neles que as diferenças entre doentes e sãos eram mais visíveis. Em 1918, o teste recebeu a designação de “Teste Psicodiagnóstico”.

Os seus críticos têm-lhe apontado a subjetividade da interpretação que depende excessivamente do julgamento do terapeuta. O teste é considerado como “projetivo”, porque deverá expor a personalidade do paciente, através da interpretação proposta. As manchas não têm um significado “certo” e na sua seleção deve à flexibilidade de interpretação como um factor fundamental.

Na interpretação, o terapeuta não deve nunca referir o borrão de tinta, devendo decorrer como se o profissional estivesse a analisar um sonho.

Na interpretação propriamente dita, se o paciente focar a sua leitura apenas numa pequena parte do borrão isso indica uma “personalidade obsessiva”, se descortinar figuras metade humanas, metade animais, isso indicará esquizofrenia, pelo menos segundo alguns psiquiatras, não havendo contudo absoluta concordância quanto a estas leituras… Em suma, não devemos considerar que este teste tem um valor absoluto, ou dogmático. As duas interpretações acima exemplificadas são relativamente aceites na comunidade cientifica, mas não não sinais certos (e isolados) de esquizofrenia ou de obsessão, dependem de um quadro mais geral e devem sempre seguir o principio de que os Testes de Roschard são sobretudo guias de interpretação, uma espécie de “sonhar acordado”, executado na presença do terapeuta e logo, possibilitando-lhe um alto grau de observação, impossível de igualar nas experiências oníricas convencionais.

Fontes:
http://brazil.skepdic.com/rorschach.html
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/newsresearch/publications/journals/sa1_2.pdf

Sometime awhile back and somewhere in blog comments at Planet Preterist, I noted the observation of how scripture has a Rorschach quality (which no one that I am aware of responded to).
From my current reading I have, interestingly, ran across an essay by an atheist that tackles the moral argument and mentions:

Far from being a truly independent guide to moral conduct, the Bible is more like a Rorschach test: which passages people choose to emphasize reflects as much as it shapes their moral character and interests.

– Elizabeth Anderson (from If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?) Quote taken from Book Review: The Portable Atheist

Now notice a couple striking parallels from scripture:
1. 1 Corinthians 13:12
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.“
2. James 1:23
“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.“
===============

And on TV Sunday, November 15, 2009 –

All the homes are built with nothing but reeds. “Without reeds, you can’t have this way of life. Reeds are the skeleton of these people’s lives,” Alwash said.

The house of reeds is called a “mudhif.” Alwash wanted one as a meeting hall for his project, and we were there to watch the construction. It is made of nothing but reeds bound by reeds.

The arches are planted in the ground and pulled into shape. Then woven mats cover the top. Alwash’s mudhif is 15 feet tall and 70 feet long. It is where we did our interview and where one of the village elders came to entertain us, singing traditional songs.

Looking at 5,000-year-old carvings, it is easy to see close similarities of the structures then and the mudhifs of today.

Near the marshes, the Sumerians erected a temple at the city of Ur, known as a ziggurat. The Sumerians thought the marshes were so important they wrote a story about them.

The story goes that the gods grew angry at man, so they sent a deluge to cover the Earth. One of the gods thought that was a terrible idea, so he warned one man to build a boat and save all the animals.

The people of this region came up with that story hundreds of years before the Old Testament gave us Noah. (emphasis added)

(page 3 of transcript for the segment — Iraq’s Marshlands: Resurrecting Eden – 60 Minutes – CBS )
An intriguing footnote in a remarkable story of revival after severe devastation by tyranny

Yep. I watched it. All three hours and thirty-five minutes of it. And despite adding nearly an hour of extra footage, including the ‘comic within the comic’ “The Black Freighter”, the problems with Watchmen remain.

Based on the overrated fanboy funnybook by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen is based in an alternate America, between the 1930’s and early 1980’s, where ordinary (and not so ordinary) people dress up as hood ornaments to fight crime. Years after being outlawed, these crime fighters come together again to unravel a mystery surrounding the murder of one of their own.

Known as Minutemen, there’s Night Owl (Patrick Wilson), a pudgy technogeek with a serious case of erectile dysfunction;  Silk Spectre (Malin Åkerman) who has daddy issues and seems to find sucking on a battery arousing;  Rorschach (Jackie Earl Haley), a deeply disturbed bloodnut and quite literally a dirty son of a whore;  Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), an effeminate billionaire and ‘the smartest man in the world’;  The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who generally speaking, just isn’t a very nice guy;  and Doctor Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a blue skinned nudist with a penchant for hiding his dong just out of frame (or behind a budgie smuggler). These characters come together to crap on about quasi-philosophical garbage and to slow-mo fight their way through a poorly constructed conspiracy mystery.

There is such a thing as ‘too faithful’, and after “300” and “Watchmen”, director Zack Snyder has proven that he is about as imaginative as Rain Man counting cards. By spewing each frame onto the screen, he has essentially made a moving version of the funnybook. Snyder has revered the source material so much that he has lost sight of the fact that what works on the page, doesn’t always work on screen.

Snyder has made a number of severe miscalculations; the music in particular is annoying and obvious. “Ride of the Valkyries” for a Vietnam scene? “Hallelujah” for a love scene?  That’s just lazy.  And a truly bizarre and baffling use of “99 Luftballoons” which comes completely out of nowhere and lasts about 19 seconds before fading out. It’s like Snyder had it written into his contract that he must include the song in the movie.

Also annoying is the aforementioned over-use of slow-mo, and the constant movement of the camera. It seems as if Snyder was conscious of the restrictions he placed on himself by being so faithful to recreating every frame as it was in the comic that he attempted to breath life into the film by moving the camera in every single shot. In a static scene of dialogue or exposition he is constantly doing a slow push in. It’s annoying.

The performances as a whole are fine. Jackie Earl Haley is particularly good as Rorschach, but he benefits from having the most interesting character and the best lines.  Ozymandias looks less like ‘the smartest man in the world’ and more like he should be dancing on the Kylie float in the Gay Mardi Gras Parade.  He also has a staggering amount of superhuman ability for an ordinary human being.  The bullet thing is particularly ridiculous.

Snyder hasn’t interpreted the funnybooks for the movies. Sure, he’s made a substantial change to the end, which was the correct decision. The squid in the comic is stupid, but it kind of works. At the very least, it’s easier to accept. If Snyder were to have featured a giant squid attacking New York in the movie it would’ve been laughed off the screen. So he had the foresight to change that, but has mistakenly kept infantile joke shots like the flame spurt.

Jarv's favourite moment in film history.

The best part of the film is the Doctor Manhattan origin.  It’s the one section that successfully translated from funnybook to screen.  And it’s good to see Crudup without the CG dong and the weird lightbulb eyes.

The most enjoyable part of Watchmen, as in the comic, is “The Black Freighter”. A brutal tale of one mans descent into madness, the animated sequences in this Ultimate Cut are very effective and make for a welcome respite from the film itself.

The biggest problem with Watchmen, is that I just don’t think that the story’s relates to 2009.  The original comic is a somewhat effective commentary of a particular time and state of the world.  Now that the Cold War’s over, Nixons a distant memory, Vietnam’s old news and Viagra’s been invented, it feels irrelevant.

Watchmen did have potential, but it’s been kicking around for so many years that it’s time has passed and the list of those who DIDN’T direct or star in it, what could’ve been, is more interesting than that finished product.

Organizes Characters By The Dungeons & Dragons Organization System

This chart shows the moral alignments of nine pop culture chararacters using the Dungeons & Dragons alignment system. Rorschach as Chaotic Good? I think that Chaotic Neutral is more likely. And Neutral Good for John Locke at best.

Top row, left to right: John Locke of Lost, Dwight from Sin City, Rorschach of Watchmen.
Middle row: Indiana Jones, Niko Bellic of Grand Theft Auto 4, Tyler Durden of Fight Club.
Bottom row: Darth Vader, Anton Chigurh of No Country for Old Men, and the Joker.

via John Farrier >> Neatorama

Extra Sources:

Popped Culture

Explanation of Alignment System

I just had some fun (it really was slightly fun). Funny thing? I had to give an alternate answer for every single question, save one. I really AM highly abby-normal. ~grin~

Example:
I see two dancing bears, don’t you?

Want another?

Hmm, ok, it’s Frankenstein with a lightning rod on his head, lol.

~~~

Here are my results:

~~~

Sickness Quotient: 69%
Hmmm, your Sickness Quotient of 69% is a little worriesome.

Detailed Diagnosis:

Interpersonal Insights:

You think everyone is out to get you, and you’re absolutely right. It’s because you’re an awful person without any redeeming qualities. You have a positive attitude towards nearly everything, which is incredibly stupid and very annoying to those around you.

Job Performance & Attitude:

Rather than do a one-time job that takes ten minutes, you’d work for 5 years to automate it. You frequently mention terms like “core competencies” and “paradigm shifts” while at work. Stop acting like such a tool.

Personality Insight:

Your personal motto is “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” You must not have been saying this for very long.

——————————————————————————–

Thank you for taking the Online Inkblot Test. Graphs of your individualized performance are shown below. If you believe your test results to be in error, you may perform a retest by pressing the “Retabulate” button below. To retake the entire test, press the “Retake Test” button.

CP versus Superego Index:

X, Y, and Z Plots (denormalized):

~~~

Be afraid … be very afraid. Mwahhahahaha.

~~~

Have some fun today – Take The Online Rorschach Test!

And now, I’m going to try to write something. ~shiver~

~She was drawing Angels~

Well this is not much news but I went trick ‘n treatin’ last Saturday as Rorschach! Well as it may seems, there’s not much pics from that night to share with you all. But, these will do. Hopefully by next year I can dress up as Rorschach again and have more pics too. But for now, these are what I have from that night.

View the slideshow by clicking here.

If you want to know how my night went, it was really dang awesome. And being Rorschach for that whole night was such an amazing experience too (*phew* I was sweating like a pig in that costume! No kidding!). And doing the voice while saying “Trick or Treat!” was pretty sweet too. But I felt kind of bad for scaring the little kids, without trying to! But over all, it was fun hanging out with my friends and I hope I can do the same next year when I move. So that’s about it from me, later!

Sincerely,
Dylan C. Bargas

Halloween was legit people. People came prepared with amazing costumes bought and made.  We pre gamed wit Barack, and chatted up Bert minus Ernie. Allan even stopped by with Carlos to kick it. I wasn’t even able to take pictures of the actual party we went to, was having too good of a time but…I do have the costumes….enjoy

everybody eventually met up at Allan and Red Riding Hoods place

Charlie Brown made a special appearance

as did Bert

Mars Blackmon and Barack kicked it

It was another awesome gathering for friends which is what it is all about. HAPPY HALLOWEEN !!!!!!! Sparce Approves!

One of the workshops we did in uni. I really liked the outcome hence why I’m uploading it.

Mein alter Kumpel Rorschach kam heute auf ein Bierchen rum.

Tomorrow’s finally the big day. Halloween here at last. Always one of my favorite holidays, dressing up and pretending to be someone/something else.

Over the years, I’ve gone from Neo, to Willy Wonka, The Joker, and this year will be Rorschach from the Watchmen. I’m excited for it, but this costume is a bit constricting. There is absolutely no skin showing. Here’s hoping it’s a bit cooler tomorrow night Anyhow, I’m looking forward to the challenge of not being able to see well, and not being able to drink…. we’ll see how long that lasts.

Pictures should be fun

and just for fun …

At first I was going to have Michael Myers in a face-off (ha, ha) against Freddy Krueger, but then I thought, hey! Jason Voorhees wears a mask (actually, I thought “That guy from Friday the 13th wears a mask,” and Google supplied me with the rest) and he also doesn’t kill from some sort of strange dream world where your dreams kill you (and also Johnny Depp! NOOOOOO!!).

(Also, I think there was a movie where Jason and Freddy faced off for some reason, so … wait, what was my logic again?)

Nope, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers are two horrific serial killers who are firmly grounded in reality. Or a reasonable approximation of it. Or a reasonable approximation of a reasonable approximation of reality.

I have never said reasonable approximation so many times before in my life. Don’t the words look kind of funny now, like when you say your name a bunch of times and trip yourself out?

There's nothing sadder than a serial killer in the rain.

Unless it's a serial killer who has trouble using stairs.

Um, anyway, onto the battle of the masked teen-killing guys.

I guess they deserve a physicality entry, since everybody else gets one, but don’t they both wear masks because underneath they’re horrific? Or does Michael Myers even wear a mask? Do I just think it’s a mask because his face looks like a potato sack? Winner: Jason Voorhees, because hockey masks are OK-looking, sure, why not.

Well, he might not be HIDEOUSLY disfigured under that thing. On a related note, a google image search for "Hockey Mask" mostly pulls up Mr. Voorhees' hockey mask. Odd, that.

Murdered the hell out of a bunch of sex-crazed teens? Boy, is this ever a tie. If it wasn’t for sex-crazed teens, who would movie monsters kill? Happily wedded couples? Pshaw! Boring. Scantily-clad teenagers being mutilated to death is waaaay more entertaining.

Satisfyingly killed at the end of each film? Yes and yes. Apparently, each Halloween (except Halloween III, which was stupid and I couldn’t watch it even when I went through my “Halloween phase,” as I like to call it, which was the phase where I rented the first three Halloween movies and watched 2.33 of them) and each Friday the 13th has to have the good guys defeat the baddies. Winner? Tie again.

Death satisfyingly retconned for the sequel? Well, Jason and Michael have both been brought back from the dead repeatedly and with somewhat less than satisfying explanations/results. Winner? Tie.

Errrr, these guys seem pretty evenly matched up. I know, right? This sucks.

The physical embodiment of evil? No one’s denying that Jason Voorhees is evil, unless there’s a Friday the 13th with a psychologist who thinks he’s just misunderstood and then gets killed, but no one ever said he was evil personified, like Michael Myers. People said that about him. A lot. Winner? Michael Myers.

Although Google says this image is the personification of evil, which, yeah, I can get on board with that.

Fought Freddy Krueger once? Wait, that’s no fair. I already mentioned this in the intro. I’ve never even seen a Friday the 13th movie, so, by default, I like Michael Myers better and should be stacking these questions in his favor!! Winner: Jason Voorhees.

Speaking of Freddy Krueger, guess who my hero Rorschach will be playing in an upcoming remake? If you didn't guess "Freddy Krueger," get the hell off my blog.

Better theme music? I don’t know what the Friday the 13th theme sounds like (or if there even is one), and since I’m doing this at work (shhhhh), I can’t pop in the earbuds and take a listen, so Winner? Halloween! Everyone knows the dee-doo-dee-dee-doo theme!

Didn’t have to resort to having his mommy kill people for him? Yeah, was Jason Voorhees even in the first Friday the 13th? It was like the opposite of Psycho or something. Michael Myers, on the other hand, never needed mommy to do any killing for him. Unless he did in one of the sequels I didn’t see, I don’t know. Anyway, until I start watching slasher flicks … winner? Michael Myers!

Now you’re really stacking these questions in Michael Myers’ favor! I know, right?

Overall winner? Michael Myers, for being the monster in the slasher films I actually saw!

Rorschach:

“I heard a joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life is harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world. Doctor says, “Treatment is simple. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. Says, “But doctor… I am Pagliacci.” Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.”

This movie had just the right tone and atmosphere that Watchmen should have. The movie did feel like it might have been a tad too long and I wouldn’t’ have minded it to be trimmed down just a touch. But the movie was very involving, very authentic, and I believe it was a great effort by Snyder and his cast and crew.
9/10