Crow-Cat: Producer of Hapless Weblogs, Extraordinaire

Friday, April 20, 2001
Little piece of wisdom: The world could go to hell in five seconds flat, but my grilled cheese still wouldn't cook any faster.
Listening to: Great Big Sea and The Chieftains (Drunken Sailor and Lukey Lukey.)

I've gotten into the habit of jotting down thoughts the moment they enter my (AAAAAHHHHHHH hot tomato sauce hot hot ow it burns it burns it burrrrrrnnnns) mind. Probably not very good as far as mental organisation goes, but it's a habit, so sue me. My present thoughts are somewhere along the lines of art critique. It's probably from reading Charla Trotman's little idle essayettes, one of which was about artistic honesty.

Yes. I am an artist. I do art. I sell it. Sometimes I let my scanner vomit all over it in order to post it up on my personal site, Snag Studios. My name is not yet down in any expensive, verbose art books, but if that is a requirement for being an artist, then there are remarkably few of them on this earth (Alive, anyway).

Now, being an artist, one would expect me to grumble a bit over any art critique I get, then follow it. Most artists do that, and I, after all, am a rational person.

But the truth is, I hate, hate, hate being given art criticism. Well, most art criticism. Art criticism, to my mind, comes in three seperate categories: Art criticism from people who're better than me, who've got valid ideas on how I could improve my art, and who present in a polite fashion; well-meaning ignorants who actually have no artistic talent but who are used to artists who'll take their laymen's comments with a smile; and the other ones, the nit-pickers, the vapid, fatuous, or downright offensive creeps who do nothing but point out the various mistakes that every artist makes. The latter two are the ones I usually get.

And I really, really hate them.

For the second type, the ignorants, I must admit that they're generally pretty innocent. However, well-meaning as they may be, it does not put them in a position to critique my work, since they have no talent to speak of of their own. Draw for four years, weep and snarl over your inherent artistic pathos, dig your fingernails into drawing pads and chew on your pencils until they fall apart. Then maybe we'll talk.

The third category always make good chewy toys, except that, in my experience, a chewy toy should damn well know when it's been torn to shreds and had its unprocessed cotton innards pulled out and scattered across the back yard. It never seems to occur to these brainless products of relentless inbreeding that I am the artist. I created that piece of horse pucky you're sneering at. You have no right to criticise it because there isn't a single mistake that you've rootled out that I didn't find first. I'm an artist. It's my prerogative to tear my work to shreds and weep over it, not yours. Even if you were Robert bloody Bateman, I wouldn't take this crap from you. You've got nothing constructive to say. Why don't you leave me alone and go play with the politicians.

Ahhhhh, that felt much better.

Friday, April 20, 2001
Listening to: Great Big Sea's Nothing Out of Nothing
Little piece of wisdom: The Amazons used to cut off, pinch out, or cauterise their right breast.

There are a lot of things in this world that I hate, despise, deride, or all three. Given that today was a day of blooming stupidity, I shall list a few that weren't written down before (or maybe I'll just be more specific):

• "Less is more" armour and cast-iron brassières. Very attractive, until your utterly unprotected midriff gets skewered and you have to end your life drowning in a pile of your own entrails.
  
• Deliberate nonconformism. Why do they bother with the whole spending-art-class-making-inverted-crucifixes and teeshirts-with-crude-slogans-written-in-red thing, anyway? Why don't they just run around naked with "NOTICE ME!!!!" painted on their torsos in chicken blood? It's so much more straightforward and so much less hassle.
• Anything vaguely in the genre of Xena: Warrior Princess or Hercules: the Legendary Journeys. Those shows are straight distilled Hollywood-infected crap invented by a group of idiots who don't get out enough, obviously can't read, and are apparently under the impression that they can clutter their productions with heinous historical inaccuracies and call it poetic licence. Give me a break.
  
• Most of the "fantasy" genre. It may have been chockfull of interesting characters and new ideas at one point, but now the norm is a land with nonsense names, a circle of White Magicians against some unnameable source of Evil, and a haphazard band of heroic figures thrown together by chance and including a Warrior[tm], a Warrior-Woman[tm], a Mischief-Maker[tm] and a Bard[tm].
  
• Elves. I just hate elves. They're only marginally less irritating than bold warrior women in skimpy, impractical armour.
  
• Incompetent gardiners. I got this one from the guy who came around last year and dug up my valerian, thinking it was a weed. WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM, YOU FREAK? And you call yourself a gardiner! Hah!
  
• Satanism. It doesn't bother me much (hell, anything that pisses off your various zealot Christian sects is okay with me), but I resent the fact that it made the Christian view of the older Celtic religion even worse by incorporating some of its symbols. (Of course, that was partly the Christians' fault for being stupid and self-centred enough to see a deliberate take-off on their religion and a far, far older practice and think them synonymous.) It also seems a bit ridiculous to me, given that it's nothing but a thumbing of the nose at Christianity.
  
• The Taliban, the religious movement/military group that has most of Afghanistan in thrall. I can generally sit back and watch human suffering with desensitised cheer, but the senseless destruction of those Buddhas damn near made me weep. Who are they to think they know the mind of their God? Who are they to destroy monuments that have endured thousands of years of the harsh desert wind only to be blown to shards by some moron with a pocketful of explosives and a misplaced sense of religious duty?

  In short, humanity is damn stupid.

  Mm, that felt good. Anyway, it was rather odd today so see Mr Twohig (English teacher) suddenly display a burst of national pride. He really did. Allow me to explain:

  We started off the class with a discussion about the grade reconfiguration (Twohig managed to weasel out of giving his own opinion, as per usual), and somehow we drifted into a discussion about stereotypes and how they inevitably become racism. Mr Twohig gave the example of the University of Notre Dame's football team, known as the "Fighting Irish", one of the many stereotypes of Irish people being that they like to fight (well ... we do ... at least I do). Naturally, I opened my mouth and added another stereotype, that being that we're supposedly all drunkards (I hate the taste of alcohol. I really do), and wouldn't you know it, he turned about and bit my head off. My my, Mr Twohig actually does have a soft spot! I wouldn't have known it. Of course, this train of thought only appeared later when I was done saying "OI! I'm Irish, too, okay?" and similar. (You'd think he'd be able to tell, given my last name. Doyle. Duh-huh-huh.)

  Yeah. Fun day all right. I'm glad it's the weekend.
  

  Thursday, April 19, 2001
  Listening to: Gladiator music. (mmmmmm, manly carnage.)
  Little piece of wisdom: What is all this business with buttocks? I'm more of a manly chest type myself

  Pinched the "listening to: ___" idea from Kit. She's a dear. Thanks, Kit-kit!

  My present school is largely considered to be the best in our district. We have a reasonable number of students, a goodly selection of interesting courses, and very few psychologically troubled maniacs toting firearms. (We do have lockdown drills and CAPP, but that's beside the point.)

  So why, I ask, is the school board planning to -excuse my Klatchian - BLOODY IT ALL UP?

  Let me explain.

  Most of the Victoria school district has a rather eccentric school-configuration: Elementary school goes from kindergarten to grade seven; junior high includes grades eight through ten; and senior high finishes off with grades eleven and twelve. This way, none of our schools (particularly the senior highs) are too overpopulated, we don't have to spend too long in one place, and the programs can be tailored for one narrow age group. (A few fringe districts have middle schools, though, but they don't count.)

  So what do the idiots want to do? Reconfigure the whole shebang! They want to extend senior years to grade nine and upwards, eliminate junior highs, and put middle schools in their place, from grade six to eight. The latter doesn't bother me, since it doesn't affect me and all, but Jesus H. Christ, haven't the silly buggers taken a look at the senior highs that do exist under this configuration? They're bloody hellholes! Oak Bay High is notorious for being a sinkhole of drugs and violence, and that's just one of them! (And it's in a rich, snobby neighbourhood, too.)

  Good Gods, and their excuse is that it'll give students more time to be comfortable in their new environment. Bull! Victoria High is just barely below dangerous population levels as it is. Do we really want to see the place overrun with two hundred grade nine brats so that the teachers' attention will be stretched between them and us? Do we really want to see our special career prep and alternative programs canned so that there'll be enough room to teach the little horrors?

  Naturally, no one thought to ask US.

  Ye Goddess, I'm glad I'll be out of that place in a year. Otherwise I'd actually care enough to protest publicly. But as it is, I'll stick to ranting here. Yes I will.