Ded Kittans
I’m trying to be quite brave. I’m trying to write a post without pressing the spell-check button.
I can see how technology has made me lazy – it brings the world to my door, negating the need for these legs to do much more than propel my chair to swivel whilst I’m waiting for things to load or install. It corrects my mistakes and reminds my now feeble memory when it is time to do things.
And I quite like this laziness.
But there’s one thing that I can’t abide becoming – a lazy artist.
And by that I don’t mean being too lazy to pick up a brush, or to colour in between the lines, I actually mean being lazy, mentally.
For instance… I could spend my time thinking about how to approach subjects people haven’t broached before and how to render them, artistically. Or I could lean on an old topic that has plenty of media popularity.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t create art about the environment, or racism or homophobia… these things need looking into… but you should only ever do it in response to your own experiences. Don’t jump in there just because it’s easy. And for god’s sake don’t preach unless you’re as close to prefect as you demand.
Don’t slap the panda…
That’s right, slapping the panda – it’s a euphemism for the needless adoption of art to press home a point everyone already knows.
And making that video has helped me realise that my snobbery on correct spelling and grammar has probably been a little misplaced. Everyone knows that there is a right and a wrong way to write certain things, they don’t need me banging on about it… and even when I do, it’s not going to change anything. Instead, I’m going to make sure that I spend that energy keeping a check on my own writing.
So was the typo deliberately placed for comedic effect, or just karma being a bitch?
Shall we say comedic effect?
You are referring to the substitution of “prefect” for “perfect,” I presume? I couldn’t find any other typos. (A spellchecker wouldn’t have caught that one anyway.)
.-= Erika Hammerschmidt´s last blog ..Abby and Norma #594 =-.
May I add, damn fine error spotting there, both of you.
*Adam panics realising that people actually read the words and don’t just look at the pictures*
Perfect/prefect is what I was looking at, yes.
Not sure why, but typos, grammatical errors and general mistakes tend to stand out quite prominently for me. I can’t just read over the top of something wrong, even when it’s obvious what it’s supposed to be – it interrupts that little internal reading voice (even if I’m skim-reading quickly and not internally “saying” what I’m reading it still breaks my flow).
Good for proof-reading I guess. Not so good for anything… y’know, really useful. Also means that any typos I make tend to annoy me more than anyone else (in IM conversations mainly, when I hit enter before my brain’s quite caught up with checking that what my fingers tapped out matches what I meant to write).
You’re an IM self-corrector aren’t you?
I don’t always notice them when I’m reading but when I make a mistake typing the part of my brain that operates the fingers always lets me know. It doesn’t speak to the other parts of my brain but it sends me a signal.
Also clearly none of you has ever slapped a panda because IT IS SO FUN. They do get mad though.
.-= The Great Joe Bivins´s last blog ..HAIC: The Lost Story =-.
Just let your reading metacognition work its magic. That’s what keeps the rest of us from finding annoying typos.
Perfect /prefect is the most frustrating kind of typo: it’s a real word, but it’s not the one you wanted. In a way, it’s both correct and incorrect. So the kitten is both dead and alive… kind of a Schroedinger situation…
.-= Erika Hammerschmidt´s last blog ..Abby and Norma #599 =-.
I don’t think slapping a panda is a good idea, they can tear an arm off. Panda’s are like koalas, they are both cute and cuddly looking and incredibly dangerous.
Co-incidently, on the science forum I am a member on, I just started a thread to question the spelling standards on the forum.
.-= Ben´s last blog ..Still Life by Window =-.
“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t create art about the environment, or racism or homophobia… these things need looking into… but you should only ever do it in response to your own experiences.”
Adam, dude, how do you define ‘your own expreience’? I have experienced homophobia (you know my clothing habits) and I have experienced racism – not to me, but by other people I was with against others. All of these things impact on us and to express our disgust through art is good.
And even if we / I have not experienced a certain thing (racism, homophobia, etc) we can still say fuck you about it. Otherwise we lose our compassion. We only need sympathy, not experience.
I realise I am picking up on only a small point in your text above – no bad shit intended.
In other news, fingers crossed, I might have an exhibition to show the love come take me book in… finally.
I have had a bottle. All in in love. As always, Sean.
You raise a really valid point, old bean… but the things you mention ARE your own experiences… and I have the luxury of knowing that you think very deeply about your work and what it means. You don’t just co-opt something you see in the newspaper because you feel it’s something you SHOULD be making art about.
(Sorry, italics are not working today for some reason… I guess they have checked out for the holidays)
I suppose I can make it clearer – there are some artists out there who are, creatively, bankrupt. That is to say that rather than think they just follow trends without questioning or even exploring them… or they are being hypocritical. I’ve seen work that is supposed to highlight racism, for example, but just comes across as intrinsically racist because the artist doesn’t obviously know what they are talking about.
No bad shit taken
Oooh, exhibition?
Thank you government, thank you so much. I really like that you are taking the initiative and blocking half the fucking internet so that I might not look at child porn. It’s a brilliant idea and has really reminded me of why I didn’t vote for you.
I am impressed by your detective skills and the fact that you realised that paedo’s trade their wares thru regular, easily controllable, traceable and preventable methods and formats.
You know, I can see that once this filter is in place, no more kiddies will be abused, raped or molested, because that is how fucking good your filter is. It is will go into family homes and stop the abuse where it happens.
I thought we had an agency that did that, but apparently they don’t need more funds or resources. Which is good, because when this filter is in place, we can abolish any child safety agencies.
I’m really happy that Australia is following in the footstep of such forward and free nations as China, Iran, Korea, etc.
.-= Ben´s last blog ..Still Life by Window =-.
I’ve heard that the filter also cures cancer, stops global warming and makes rabid dogs less likely to bite people… marvellous things, these simple solutions to complex problems.
Although by entering the word ‘children’ in my comments, you’ve just blacklisted this site.
Going to a public high school, it’s shocking the kind of racist and sexist remarks i hear in the average day, i can never quite tell whether the people saying it are just trying to be funny or not.
I’m endlessly annoyed by all the little double-standards based on gender, but I’m not sure where i can draw the line between biology and behavior enforced by culture, especially when it’s a bunch of girls telling you to stop “acting like a boy.”
the phrase “slapping the panda” has already been adopted into usage in our house, apparently AP art classes are full of it, but not quite as much as i expected.
Depending on the audience and the purpose of the document, spelling mistakes can sometimes be cool, funny, punny, and thought-provoking.
Every thyme yoo go a weigh, yoo take a peace of ming with yoo. Then again, I was purposefully re-interpreting a song lyric.
Poor to mediocre implementation of and appreciation for good grammar tends to make ming scowl. Ending a sentence with a preposition, specifically “of,” “for,” “at,” and “to,” really makes ming cringe.
“Where are you at?”
Why not just say, “Where are you?”
.-= sitting pugs´s last blog ..NFL News: Chris Henry precarious =-.