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cimoreneI enjoy a bombardment of images, and 
Tumblr is great for that purpose, and also because it's a nice way to organize the zillions of images I collect into a collage. (Esp. this widget that lets you view the entire thing as a giant image mosaic! Mine.)
I've always found images one of the most effective ways of soothing stress when I'm feeling anxious and my stream of consciousness is going round in circles, wearing holes in the mental rug: that's why I took four semesters of art classes in a row (that's 1/4 of the day in the block system, where each class period is 98 minutes long) my jr and sr years of high school. It's probably a big part of how I managed to not have a nervous breakdown through the graduate-school-like (or so my parents - PhD/paleontology and MA/art ed - claim: I haven't been to grad school myself) torrent of busywork that was the International Baccalaureate program.
(Speaking of higher education, my baby sis just got accepted to the rather selective arts program - 80 freshman spots - at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, where my parents met in the science fiction club. I still regret not doing the same thing 10 years later!)
Anyway, back to the image stream: the last few days of joyously flitting through the wilds of Tumblr, following blogs and saving images of hot women, gorgeous natural vistas and flowers, exquisite tea things, kickass interior design, and awesome shoes - it's made me think about the alleged short attention span of our generation, and the post-modern media-age of internet bombardment and hyperreality (see Jean Baudrillard). Tumblr encourages a link-surfing mindset, esp. through blogs which post miscellaneous items linked by theme ("red objects day", "Eva Green day") and blogs which post one thing only (fuckyeahladygaga, imteamkstew, fuckyeahprettyplaces, flowersinbloom, fuckyeahilovetea). It's caused me, personally, to manifest the visual train of thought explicitly by following up, say, a snapshot of the Star Warz burlesque from the LA Times with a screencap of The Empire Strikes Back, and a piece of Alice in Wonderland fanart with a series of pictures of antique teacups; or someone else to follow a series of Zoe Saldaña with a series of Nichelle Nichols.
My dreams the last few nights have featured Tumblr-surfing too, which is even funnier. The last time my dreams were taken over by daytime activity was when I was involved in the mindlessly repetitive task of sacking groceries one summer, and I dreamed a peaceful stream of groceries that I fitted into bags like a game of Tetris almost every night.
Tumblr is great for that purpose, and also because it's a nice way to organize the zillions of images I collect into a collage. (Esp. this widget that lets you view the entire thing as a giant image mosaic! Mine.) I've always found images one of the most effective ways of soothing stress when I'm feeling anxious and my stream of consciousness is going round in circles, wearing holes in the mental rug: that's why I took four semesters of art classes in a row (that's 1/4 of the day in the block system, where each class period is 98 minutes long) my jr and sr years of high school. It's probably a big part of how I managed to not have a nervous breakdown through the graduate-school-like (or so my parents - PhD/paleontology and MA/art ed - claim: I haven't been to grad school myself) torrent of busywork that was the International Baccalaureate program.
(Speaking of higher education, my baby sis just got accepted to the rather selective arts program - 80 freshman spots - at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, where my parents met in the science fiction club. I still regret not doing the same thing 10 years later!)
Anyway, back to the image stream: the last few days of joyously flitting through the wilds of Tumblr, following blogs and saving images of hot women, gorgeous natural vistas and flowers, exquisite tea things, kickass interior design, and awesome shoes - it's made me think about the alleged short attention span of our generation, and the post-modern media-age of internet bombardment and hyperreality (see Jean Baudrillard). Tumblr encourages a link-surfing mindset, esp. through blogs which post miscellaneous items linked by theme ("red objects day", "Eva Green day") and blogs which post one thing only (fuckyeahladygaga, imteamkstew, fuckyeahprettyplaces, flowersinbloom, fuckyeahilovetea). It's caused me, personally, to manifest the visual train of thought explicitly by following up, say, a snapshot of the Star Warz burlesque from the LA Times with a screencap of The Empire Strikes Back, and a piece of Alice in Wonderland fanart with a series of pictures of antique teacups; or someone else to follow a series of Zoe Saldaña with a series of Nichelle Nichols.
My dreams the last few nights have featured Tumblr-surfing too, which is even funnier. The last time my dreams were taken over by daytime activity was when I was involved in the mindlessly repetitive task of sacking groceries one summer, and I dreamed a peaceful stream of groceries that I fitted into bags like a game of Tetris almost every night.
(no subject)
Date: 23 Mar 2010 07:40 pm (UTC)Plus Tumblr is another one of those sites that time out too frequently at this end. Damn you, crappy ISP! >:(
(no subject)
Date: 24 Mar 2010 01:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 24 Mar 2010 07:04 am (UTC)