why do we remember movies?

is entertainment media really just a frivolous way to pass the time? or can it be more?

Transformers

as someone born in the latter half of the 20th century, i grew up with TV and movies. i watched a few cartoon series (yes, Transformers was one of them).

well, more than watched them. i remember memorizing whole episodes so i could relate them to my dad when he got home from work — the dialogue as close to word-for-word as i could get it. speaking of my dad, i’m a second generation Trekkie because of him. i’m probably a lover of sci-fi because of him, too.

(thanks, dad!)

my interest in storytelling, story making and even things like memorizing dialogue was either a reflection of my creative passions or perhaps my environment shaped them a bit. whatever the case, certain scenes have become ingrained in my consciousness and stayed with me over the years.

why do movies have such impact?

have you ever wondered why movies, or even books, have such impact on our lives? i believe it is of great significance and deserves more than a passing thought.

especially for anyone in creative endeavors.

why do i remember a Japanese hobo cooking a stolen egg for a little boy every time i make an omelette? it’s Tampopo’s fault.

every time i hear the word “inconceivable”, why do i hear a wiry swordsman’s Spanish accent: “you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means.” because of The Princess Bride, of course!

okay, so they’re great movies to me. but not everyone would agree. everyone has different life-impacting movies.

is it because they’re funny? well, they are, but Tampopo is serious, too. so that’s not the only factor.

personally, i believe it’s because the human brain is such an amazing and faithful machine: it takes what it sees and hears and incorporates it as a memory. a slightly less-intense memory than something that happened to us directly, but still a memory.

a vicarious experience is an experience nonetheless,

and it shapes us just as living shapes us. especially if our living isn’t especially exciting on its own. we walk out of a theater triumphant, angry, depressed or inspired to greatness.

shared experiences

even more powerful are shared experiences. the movies and one-liners that i remember the best are ones i shared with others. my friends and i would quote favorite scenes from the Princess Bride back and forth, until we got distracted or laughed ourselves silly. there’s hardly a line in the movie i cannot complete.

*sniff*
“iocane powder. i’d bet my life on it.”

i mean, seriously, i’m still laughing, just typing the line above. now there was a character you were invited to despise, no question. he was begging for it, and didn’t even know it.

i’d dissect everything i watched in great detail afterwards from a writer’s perspective. talking it over with friends just cemented it all in my mind. especially the ones i watched again and again. heh!

there are many, many whole books i’ve read out loud to friends and family. the LOTR series, multiple times. the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold (i simply cannot recommend these enough or run out of good things to say about this author! the woman is not a multi-award winner for nothing!).

sharing the experience with others makes an amazing collective consciousness effect. everyone catches different angles on a story. hearing their viewpoint fills in holes in your own observations and brings epiphanies even after the movie or book is long over.

and after all,
when you love something,
who doesn’t want to share it
and talk to others who share your passion?

thus we have fandom.
a topic for another time.

the garden

there is a concept that is quickly becoming central to my philosophy of life.

my heart is a patch of soil.
it could be a garden.

my life grows out of the soil of my heart, using the seeds i plant in it. the soil is as moist and rich or as dry and sterile as i make it. everything i create is, more or less, coming out of my very innermost being. but what is in me?

> a gatorade commercial comes to mind…
successful marketing, right there:
is it in you? <

what am i experiencing every moment of my day? what passes in front of my eyes? how is it being connected to everything that has come before?

is my garden thick and overgrown, cluttered and choked?
or is it well-tended,
rich in nutrients and things that will make for yummy fruit?

what we watch becomes a part of us.
what we read becomes a part of us.
what we experience becomes a part of us.

DON’T MISS THIS: what we create and others ingest… becomes a part of them.

we become a part of them.
because what we create is a part of us.

doesn’t that trip you out?
it boggles.

from artsy mood blog to packing a PUNCH

some thoughts behind the blog; a bit dated, but perhaps still of interest

okay, so i started this blog in a very artsy artistic mood. you know that time of the creative cycle when emotions are roiling around inside and you just have to CREATE, EXPRESS, REACH OUT to the world in some way. when you’re feeling like the solitary artist high on the mountain (or deep in the dungeon) and you cry out, just wanting to know if there’s anybody out there…

all well and good. good for art, anyway. good for poetry, or for writing in one of those sweet leather diary journals you can get at Borders bookstores.

not necessarily good for blogging.

new year, new thoughts

over the turn of the year, as 2007 breathed its last and before 2008 really picked up its little head and started crawling forward, i took a class of sorts in the business of blogging. i learned a lot about what people expect, what factors into blog success, and a lot of technical stuff about WordPress and plug-ins and such.

on the one hand, i was horrified at the mundanity of it all. did you know? people are lured by the same old triggers all the time. post titles like “6 Surefire Tips for…” and “The Nasty Little Secret that…” are bringing the clicks again and again. it seems so manipulative! and yet, i see myself clicking on them, too, if it’s a topic of interest. there’s just no arguing with what works, i guess. *sigh*

i’ve always bucked the norm, fought the system, wanted to be different, unique and in all ways different from the “average”. it’s a disturbing thing to hear that my best chance of success — even in creative endeavors — may involve a certain amount of “going with the flow”.

well, i’m not convinced about that, yet. we’ll see.

a little sensationalism is fine, if it’s still true to the content. heh. but if you see me use a title that promises more than i give in a post, please call me on it. help me stay on the creative straight and narrow.

to “i” or not to “i”, that is the question

meanwhile, i’ve decided to stick with the lower case titles, sentence starts and even most pronouns for now. there’s something i emotionally relate to when i write this way, and i hope it reaches you the same way. it’s about humility and relational acceptance, the need to connect, and an openness to others’ opinions and styles.

however… sometimes it makes the sentences run together, and slows down the reading… so i may have to abandon it if enough readers say it’s a problem. in the end, i’m here to sally forth creatively and take you all with me, so if using lower case “i” and starting sentences with lower case letters is keeping you from reading — LET ME KNOW.

i’m sure i can adjust.

just because i love you.

heh.

play-doh for creative breakthrough

Who knew? Play-doh is a great tool for creative adults!

(not me in the pic, but apparently, i’m not the only one…)

it really is the simple things in life, isn’t it?

i’m working on the design for the main templeasylum.org website, and part of that is developing the logo and icons.

logo development.
the great mystery.
only the great masters can do it.

NOT.

it only seems that way. now, it may be true that not everyone can develop truly great logo designs. but after finding some solid logo creators online who shared their development sketches and their process, i discovered

(once again)

that there’s not as much difference between me and the “great masters” as i thought. that’s not me being arrogant. just learning again that it isn’t so much my native talent or the quality of my ideas that makes the difference between me and those who are doing well in creative business.

it’s about who’s got the play-doh®!
er, just kidding.

success isn’t in the play-doh.
it’s in continued practice, hard work, experience, persistence, networking, and all that jazz.

however i made a fun discovery this week!

sketching with play-doh frees my brain (and hands) from certain limitations.

limitations of marking, erasing, re-drawing.
of 2-dimensionality.
of too-long-traveled ruts of thinking.

you have all the benefits of being able to move existing shapes around (as if on their very own layers in a design program!) to play with overlapping, negative spacial fun, stretching and squooshing (er, resizing, that is). delight!

it works especially well for logo design (as opposed to manga page layout) because good logos are simple. and consist of hopefully-clever visual puns incorporating just one or two letters.

so, hey.
play-doh is cheap.
next time you want to brainstorm logo creation, whip out the little plastic canister of hands-on creative inspiration.

and meanwhile, check out these top-notch logo-related sites:

i was especially inspired by seeing the development sketches behind airey’s personal logo and smashLAB’s sinkit logo.

seeing the sketches (and how similar they are to mine) was what really convinced me that logo greatness might yet be within my reach. ^_^

slow motion doom

Yeah. I dropped my coffee.

Photo by Chris Campbell

(Mine was a to-go cup, but you get the idea…)

!!! sploosh !!!!!

“Aaaaaahhhhhhh…. NOOOoooooo!”

I wouldn’t say this is “one of those days”,
but that moment was surely
“one of those moments”.

There are few smells in the world better than quality roasted coffee beans. in fact, the smell is so good that the brewed coffee itself rarely lives up to the olfactory ecstasy that precedes it.

>closes eyes and breathes deeply of remembered bean bliss<

Ahhh, yes! Coffee! Many people cling to coffee for its stimulation. They consider themselves totally dependent on the substance for waking up, being creative, staying awake, etc, etc.

But I object, your honor! I object to the idea of being dependent on some natural physical substance to bring my body and mind to a state of heightened energy or awareness. It bothers me to think that some mindless, non-sentient chemical might hold such power over me.

Heh-heh.
Funny to think of it that way.
Especially since I choose dependence on a more intangible source, something I can’t even see or touch.

I can sense him sometimes, though.
And that means a lot to me.

Somehow I don’t mind waiting on a sentient spirit for ideas, even if he’s invisible. It’s a totally different thing. And there’s an excitement of the dance, the interchange and exchange of thought and idea from something other than myself, and someone with ideas far outside my own range of experience.

Oh, but that’s not what I was going to write about!

I was talking about my coffee.
Coffee lovingly roasted at the local coffeehouse. Flavored to perfection.

And splattered in one slip of the hand all over my refrigerator, groceries and floor.

>sigh<

I can still see it, like at the peak of a movie action scene when the whole thing slows down and you see the awful moment when the treasure falls from the hero’s hand, plummeting to the depths below.

The paper to-go cup.
Plummeting.
Hitting the floor with enough force to pop the lid completely off.
And then the (quite artistically) splattered
dark chocolate brown liquid
all over the ketchup bottle.
The salad dressing.
The fridge door.
The glass over the veggie drawer.
The kitchen linoleum.

I snatched up the cup, hoping to save something. And all that was left was one swallow.

And some rich, dark sludge.

>yum! licks lips<

The world sped back up again, and I stared at the mocha dripping into a pool, slowly spreading across the floor.

>considers licking the coffee off the floor on hands and knees<

>rejects the idea with a sigh<

Ah, well. Say la vee.

I didn’t need it anyway.

simple swirls brushes

free download of my photoshop brushes

yet another example of the subtleties and individuality of art.

i needed some simple swirls for an image this week. i’ve seen plenty of gorgeous swirl brushes for illustrator and/or photoshop in my web browsing this year.

“no prob,” i thought. “i’ll just use one of those.”

so i download a bunch of promising .abr files. a week or two ago, i posted about a few of the best brush artists i found in my search.

they’re lovely.
i install them.
and then, well…
after all that work (including researching the usage terms for each so i wouldn’t violate copyrights)…

they’re just not it.

for reasons unique to my artistic path, they just didn’t fit. *le sigh* (as a dear batty friend of mine sometimes says)

after all that, i had to make my own swirls. and (i feel silly admitting this) it was easier than i thought, went quicker than i guessed, and (of course) was exactly what i needed for that moment. go figure.

i suppose i might go straight to making my own the next time around.

besides, then i can offer more goodies to you when you visit! here’s a cute swirly fish i made in illustrator with the vector version of the brushes:

swirly vector fish

and here’s what the swirls look like by themselves:
simple vector swirls

they are high-res (2500px) brushes, and i included a smaller res version (~500px) for each brush in the photoshop library. just in case you’re like me and work a lot on the web with lower-res graphics.

go ahead!
download and freely use these,
per the terms of use ONLY, please:


Creative Commons License

This work by Thea Miller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.TempleAsylum.com/terms.html.