Your Backup Hobby

Six months of sobriety is a pretty big thing under normal circumstances.

But these six months is really doing it on hard mode. Congratulations, man.

In an earlier post I mentioned I taught myself how to screenprint, I'm now trying to integrate collage and painting with my screenprinting process. Ever since I was a kid I had an artistic sensibility but never quite found my style. With my acting work being heavily curtailed by Covid, I started working on what I call Stoic Study posters for myself. I was inspired by the screenprinter punk/rock poster designer Jim Madison, who I really admire. He makes awesome black and white photocopy collages for his weekly Bible study classes. He finds a passage and composites a collage around the subject matter. I'm an atheist and having had a copy of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations floating around, I decided to follow suit.

I recently found an 18"x20" wooden panel, in an alley. I was drawn to its faded, paint-chipped textures, and exposed wood look, but decided not to drag more junk to my place. I hit a upon concept and a week later went back and brought it home.

This is the first non-textually based work I have ever attempted. I have never felt more excited, in my life, than I have about working on this series of prints.

Andi Lennon wrote:
Oh and my other new hobby is sobriety. Six months now. Who'dve thunk it?

Congratulations Andi!

Dr. Mabuse wrote: In an earlier post I mentioned I taught myself how to screenprint, I'm now trying to integrate collage and painting with my screenprinting process. Ever since I was a kid I had an artistic sensibility but never quite found my style. With my acting work being heavily curtailed by Covid, I started working on what I call Stoic Study posters for myself. I was inspired by the screenprinter punk/rock poster designer Jim Madison, who I really admire. He makes awesome black and white photocopy collages for his weekly Bible study classes. He finds a passage and composites a collage around the subject matter. I'm an atheist and having had a copy of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations floating around, I decided to follow suit.

I recently found an 18"x20" wooden panel, in an alley. I was drawn to its faded, paint-chipped textures, and exposed wood look, but decided not to drag more junk to my place. I hit a upon concept and a week later went back and brought it home.

This is the first non-textually based work I have ever attempted. I have never felt more excited, in my life, than I have about working on this series of prints.

That sounds awesome man. Screen printing is such a cool medium. Forces one to really think about negative space and pare an image down to its iconic essentials. It's also awesome for making t shirts and patches with like fists and skulls and shit on them

PS -glad to see you here again, thought you'd disappeared (hadn't seen you on FB for awhile either). Glad to hear it's cos you're busy doing something cool.

Not Sure wrote: Six months of sobriety is a pretty big thing under normal circumstances.

But these six months is really doing it on hard mode. Congratulations, man.

Actually , counterintuitively I think it's been something of a boon. Thanks to lockdown there's been very few gigs and parties - so whilst that still sucks, it does mean I've been in a lot less cramped rooms full of sweaty punks and full-tilt music. There's just less reasons to get shitfaced at home with my beautiful partner hahaha. I fucking miss it though-not gonna lie.

The biggest challenge when I quit anything - smokes, drink was being out. (And waiting for the bus, with the smokes). But it is absolutely possible!

Andi Lennon wrote:
That sounds awesome man. Screen printing is such a cool medium. Forces one to really think about negative space and pare an image down to its iconic essentials. It's also awesome for making t shirts and patches with like fists and skulls and shit on them

PS -glad to see you here again, thought you'd disappeared (hadn't seen you on FB for awhile either). Glad to hear it's cos you're busy doing something cool.

Yeah, I killed that FB profile. Anti-BLM sentiments, anti-science etc. became too much for this guy. I'm slowly winding down my online presence in general. Hope you and your partner are thriving during these fucked up times.

I'm gardening. It's time to rotate to "winter" crops here ins Southern California, so I went to get some starts for sage, parsley, thyme (fuck rosemary), catnip, as well as garlic and onion bulbs. I'll need to get some beets going too, but it's a little early for those as yet. I am going to grow some cauliflower too, but brassicas tend to get overwhelmed by pests here. Cauliflower is the "tightest," so the hope is the aphids don't wreck the actual edible part before we can pick it. I'll be planting some peas too, to climb the trellis. I let my tomatoes go to see and the hornworms showed up. A good 4" long, some of these pigs, lord. We put one in a bucket and kept it fed and happy and dug up the pupa after it disappeared. We'll see if the moth pops out or if it goes to diapause—it's getting cold out there. I'd have it inside but got the oh-hell-no from the spouse on that front.

I've been reading, but I'm never not reading. But I did read The Baroque Cycle again. Ask me anything about Neal Stephenson's 2700-page alternate history of 17th/18th-century Europe.

I'm on a news blackout for mental health, and this makes me go back to science/math stuff. Trying to work my way through phase transitions/renormalization groups, which I never really got in college. I found some better texts and lecture notes and it might work this time.

In recent months, I have pondered withdrawing from Facebook, which is the only social media that I use regularly. The intense polarization of everything along political lines has degraded the quality of what I see in my social media feed. It's not so much that I get into arguments with my Facebook friends, even the ones who have a different political orientation. The real problem is that some the Facebooks friends that I do agree with on most issues get into nasty arguments with their other Facebook friends/relatives/strangers, and that can spill onto my Facebook feed. But Facebook is inherently important to me because it is a low-maintenance way to stay in touch with a wide range of friends and family, especially since so many of them live elsewhere. The trick is to force myself to not jump into these disagreements and let them pass me by. There is always going to be somebody wrong on the internet, but it isn't my job to debate them. Today, I patiently explained to someone how a publication can endorse a candidate and still publish an op-ed piece that advocates for a different candidate. They ignored my explanation and clung to a narrative that supported their misunderstanding, and I was able to let it go.

Shellhead wrote: In recent months, I have pondered withdrawing from Facebook, which is the only social media that I use regularly. The intense polarization of everything along political lines has degraded the quality of what I see in my social media feed. It's not so much that I get into arguments with my Facebook friends, even the ones who have a different political orientation. The real problem is that some the Facebooks friends that I do agree with on most issues get into nasty arguments with their other Facebook friends/relatives/strangers, and that can spill onto my Facebook feed. But Facebook is inherently important to me because it is a low-maintenance way to stay in touch with a wide range of friends and family, especially since so many of them live elsewhere. The trick is to force myself to not jump into these disagreements and let them pass me by. There is always going to be somebody wrong on the internet, but it isn't my job to debate them. Today, I patiently explained to someone how a publication can endorse a candidate and still publish an op-ed piece that advocates for a different candidate. They ignored my explanation and clung to a narrative that supported their misunderstanding, and I was able to let it go.

I had to get off of Facebook. The political arguments were just too aggravating.

As far as a second hobby, I'm lucky I have a pond big enough to hold fish, and fishing's all I've done for a summer hobby, besides reading, playing games, and watching too much TV. A lot of the bass are good size (14-16"), and there's one in there that I want to catch that would be big enough for a Fish Ohio pin (20" or larger). Most of them have been on a Texas rig worm, with a few on other lures, a couple on a worm and a bobber when I was fishing for bluegill, and one big one on an already-caught bluegill.

Now that fall is here, I'll probably take up painting minis again. I've got a bunch of stuff that could stand painting.

ubarose wrote: Was talking with my Mom about Facebook on Friday. She has almost 2000 friends, and I asked her how she manages it. She said, "Mute, mute, mute."

I have 171 Facebook friends, and only two are on mute. One is on mute because he loves to re-post conspiracy theory memes. The other is on mute because she likes to re-post news items about animal abuse. We both care about animals, but I can only handle a limited number of sad stories about animals per week.

I've muted many people on my 'friend' list and it ends up that much of my FB feed are posts from groups that I have joined for miniatures, wargames, and Fluevog selling/buying.

My in-laws spent the last week and a half with us, so I put them to work. With my father-in-law’s help I now have a three-bin compost made of pallets, a garden of six filled 4x8 raised beds, a 60 m long mountain bike trail for the boys and sod on a particularly ugly patch of our yard. I still need to amend the garden soil and it’s much too late too start anything this year, but I am excited for vegetables next year. Succession planting, short plants south of tall plants and pickling recipes are all in mind.

Shellhead wrote: In recent months, I have pondered withdrawing from Facebook, which is the only social media that I use regularly. The intense polarization of everything along political lines has degraded the quality of what I see in my social media feed. It's not so much that I get into arguments with my Facebook friends, even the ones who have a different political orientation. The real problem is that some the Facebooks friends that I do agree with on most issues get into nasty arguments with their other Facebook friends/relatives/strangers, and that can spill onto my Facebook feed. But Facebook is inherently important to me because it is a low-maintenance way to stay in touch with a wide range of friends and family, especially since so many of them live elsewhere. The trick is to force myself to not jump into these disagreements and let them pass me by. There is always going to be somebody wrong on the internet, but it isn't my job to debate them. Today, I patiently explained to someone how a publication can endorse a candidate and still publish an op-ed piece that advocates for a different candidate. They ignored my explanation and clung to a narrative that supported their misunderstanding, and I was able to let it go.

Facebook is a cesspool.

I've had a joke for the last year or so -- We haven't discovered civilization on other planets because they don't survive 100 years past their invention of the Internet.

As for the thread topic -- wood splittin' season is back. I have about four cords still to do, and the tree guys are coming out this coming week. It's gonna rot before I burn it.