The Week

So I handed in all the 11 illustrations to Wiley the other day and they've asked for one extra one.
I got it done quickly and sent it to them and from the email I got back, it sounds like they may want some detail taken out for the authors and designers.
It's actually hard work having to put less detail than usual into my drawings. A real effort to reign it in.

But we'll see when they've had a look at it.

Aside from that, there's another couple of prospective jobs on the horizon and I'm currently cold-emailing as many companies as I think I might get a bit of interest from.

I'm off to Ireland stilt-walking for a week in about an hour! Should be fun!

Greetings!

Hello all!

This is my first blog post here.
It's been a busy week this week, what with working at the hospital, DJing Vudu and Subside, working the Area 51 Offices and finishing off the mascot for Rebelicious Magazine (http://rebeliciousmagazine.tumblr.com/)!

But she's done and she's here: http://curtisallen.co.uk/rebelicious.html and the client seems most happy with her.

In talks at the moment with a couple of other prospective buyers - one about illustrating a motivational book, the other about illustrating a childrens book of stories so we'll see what comes of them and I'm currently in the middle of doing an email blast to lots of companies, just to let them know little old me is here, ready and willing.

So yeah! Busy week!

Curt

Sheenism

I'm trying to figure out what it is about Charlie Sheen's recent behaviour that makes me warm to him instead of denounce him as an utter cock.

I think it largely stems from the fact that he is at the top of his game. His game is comedy acting and love his work or hate it, he was the highest paid working tv actor when this whole furore emerged. The weird quirky outbursts seem to be the domain of washed up has-beens. Sheen's wasn't. He was quantifiably the top of his game. And while this smacks of psychological issue ridden, drug fuelled egomania, Sheen disregards this possibility and announces himself, in current pop-lingo, to be simply having a great time. He is epically winning. He is on a massive salary, massively popular and massively desired and he makes no bones about this and flaunts it. And I think this appeals to us all in a little way. <BR />Hedonism with the consequences, maybe through a fluke of media, and maybe through his own unapologeticness, downplayed. He may have had access to his kids restricted and been in trouble with the law, but by sheer force of arrogance, he denies that he's having a bad time. And the media picks up on those soundbites and he comes off smelling of roses. <BR /><BR />The Hoff was filmed by his daughter paralytically failing to eat a hamburger. Sheen was never filmed in the lows that must surely have occurred. Sheen WAS caught scaring the bejesus out of a porn star he was partying with. But it was porn star he was partying with and this appealed to the wish-fulfilment fantasies of enough media savvy males, including journalists and internet memeists that he was a champion big-hitter not a woman-scarer.

It's the who he was with, and the paradigm shift of being on top not washed up and THEN saying "I'm fucking famous and sucessful. Instead of doing my thing and being shamefaced, I'm going to put it to you that instead of being a fuckup, I'm your wish-fulfilment." And having it stick because he did it now, rather than waiting until he WAS a has been. 
I think I simply like the fact that he is unashamedly having a great time. And while that time may be judged by us to be hazardous or unstable, he simply doesn't acknowledge this and leaves us unable to judge, as we have never been as publically successful as he.

Sheenism

I'm trying to figure out what it is about Charlie Sheen's recent behaviour that makes me warm to him instead of denounce him as an utter cock.

I think it largely stems from the fact that he is at the top of his game. His game is comedy acting and love his work or hate it, he was the highest paid working tv actor when this whole furore emerged. The weird quirky outbursts seem to be the domain of washed up has-beens. Sheen's wasn't. He was quantifiably the top of his game. And while this smacks of psychological issue ridden, drug fuelled egomania, Sheen disregards this possibility and announces himself, in current pop-lingo, to be simply having a great time. He is epically winning. He is on a massive salary, massively popular and massively desired and he makes no bones about this and flaunts it. And I think this appeals to us all in a little way.
Hedonism with the consequences, maybe through a fluke of media, and maybe through his own unapologeticness, downplayed. He may have had access to his kids restricted and been in trouble with the law, but by sheer force of arrogance, he denies that he's having a bad time. And the media picks up on those soundbites and he comes off smelling of roses.

The Hoff was filmed by his daughter paralytically failing to eat a hamburger. Sheen was never filmed in the lows that must surely have occurred. Sheen WAS caught scaring the bejesus out of a porn star he was partying with. But it was porn star he was partying with and this appealed to the wish-fulfilment fantasies of enough media savvy males, including journalists and internet memeists that he was a champion big-hitter not a woman-scarer.

It's the who he was with, and the paradigm shift of being on top not washed up and THEN saying "I'm fucking famous and sucessful. Instead of doing my thing and being shamefaced, I'm going to put it to you that instead of being a fuckup, I'm your wish-fulfilment." And having it stick because he did it now, rather than waiting until he WAS a has been.
I think I simply like the fact that he is unashamedly having a great time. And while that time may be judged by us to be hazardous or unstable, he simply doesn't acknowledge this and leaves us unable to judge, as we have never been as publically successful as he.

Arrogance Amongst Sports Fans?

Recently, on Facebook, I have seen a lot of interactions that follow these sorts of lines between a person and their Blues fan mate:

Friend 1: "Congratulations on the Blues win at Wembley"
Friend 2: "Thanks. I think we played a good game and we deserved the win"

As someone who doesn't have any real interest in following team sports, I cannot quite see how fans enter into the intrinsic arrogance of this interaction.
Sure, I know that team sports such as football carry certain promoted ideals of solidarity and unity etc and that fan support means a lot, but surely the language of this interaction carries with it the fan implicitly taking credit for the accomplishment of 11 or so total strangers.
The nearest applicable thing I can think of to relate it to me involves Jackie Chan. Now, pretty much anyone who knows me more than in passing will know that I'm a big Chan fan. Have been for years. Probably always will be. I know more about his past than is probably healthy to know about an utter stranger. I check his website every so often and see what he's been up to and what he's currently doing. I debate his movies and the techniques therein with other ardent fans. I know he's had highs and lows in his career and while he's had some great cinematic moments, he's made some absolute turkeys of films! Particularly recently. And I've been waiting for him to pull something good out of the bag again. Arguably, the metaphor is so far sound.
Now if, just supposing, if he had just made an awesome film that was making big waves in China, taking some awards there, and was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, I would never expect anyone to come up to me and say "Congratulations on the Oscar nomination". It seems preposterous to me. What have I done to be congratulated on? If they did, I wouldn't deign to reply with "Thanks. We put a lot of work into that film and we deserved the nomination".
Why?
Because aside from being a fan the film was created for, I had NOTHING to do with the crafting of that film. Certainly not enough to be congratulated on and to use the language "Thanks" and "we" as if I had personal involvement.

Genuine question: How is it not arrogant and utterly absurd to say "we played well" instead of "they played well"?

Space Exploration

So what does everyone think of it? Months ago I had a Facebook status questioning its worth. Unfortunately FB statii are not searchable and I can't be bothered trawling through yonks worth of statii to find it.
So... A program on the other night where James May got ridiculously excited about Space Exploration reminded me of it.

What IS its value?
All of this is framed by the fact I think exploration for exploration's sake is worthwhile. Surely, or you and I would be ignorant about a lot of the planet we live on.

But on the other side, there is still some of this planet to be explored, particularly its deep oceans. New species of life are being found in all sorts of envronments to this day. Surely tat is more relevant than anything in space?

On the other side again, we didn't know that we would find little of use in space until we went there. Rocks and dust.
We now know what the composition of the moon and Jupiter is. Great! Is it useful to us? I can't see how other than to make us sure we probably don't want to live there.
I'm not the best informed but it seems most of what has been useful from space exploration has been peripheral such as the invention of pens that write in zero gravity. Much better than the Russian's solutions of pencils. Though who knows - if they had developed Zero G pens, they may be a world superpower right now.
Also, discoveries in the area of particle physics that is useful up to a point, then very theoretical and not so useful... but potentially useful. Maybe. Or just interesting. Is knowledge for knowledge's sake valid? Or only if it's applicable practically?
The exploration of space has cost billions! Those billions could be spent right here on helping Earth's citizens much more directly. The obvious ones are things like finding cures for cancer, more efficient fuels or more efficient ways of using existing ones, ending poverty etc... but any number of causes could be helped by turning this wodge of funding directly on helping people. I'm not naive enough to think it WOULD be, but it COULD be. Then again, til we look, we don't know that the cure for cancer, a remarkably effiecient and eco-friendly fuel and end to poverty won't be found on Neptune or beyond... but what are the chances? Maybe the answer to all these three lies in the particle physics, providing the proof of the God Particle doesn't implode Earth in th process.
The push to explore has led to developments in propulsion and heat-proofing and other things all useful on Earth. But the difference from the days of the great explorers exploring Earth seems to be that we are now developing these technologies solely to go and explore against all odds, rather than the technology developing naturally from a necessity to travel for survival and then getting curious. We are now spending vast amounts on overcoming ridiculous odds. We are sending people to places where they would naturally asphyxiate, burn, freeze, and explode simultaneously and instantly. Do we need to? Or are there more worthwhile endeavours?

I want to know what y'all think?

The Police TASERing of a 10 year old child in Arkansas

Some of you may remember a little while ago, I had a status that asked questions of stories I’d seen in the news.

I’m going to respond in notes as it seems more appropriate.

1.) Is it ever right to TASER a child?

As I understand it, the 10 year old kid in Arkansas has emotional problems and was throwing a tantrum when her mum tried to get her to have a bath. So her mum called the cops. Now maybe I don't realise the full extent of the kid's tantrum, but firstly, it seems the mum should not have called the police. The police are there to enforce the law - not to deal with children throwing strops at bath time. This seems to me to be an abuse of police time. Parenting is the duty of the parent, not the state. Especially if this kid has emotional problems, after 10 years of raising this child, the mother should be better equipped than the uninitiated police to raise, discipline, and control this child.

Secondly, she is a child - emotionally and physically immature. Emotionally, yes she may understand the difference between right and wrong but may not be developed enough to understand full consequences. Depending on what her "emotional problems" are, she may well be even less equipped to realise consequences of her actions or even the difference between right and wrong. I feel she is too young to be subdued by means of an electric shock. It is said she kicked the police officer in the groin. Children kick when they're frustrated. I've seen toddlers kick their parents. It is part of parenting to teach children that this is wrong and an unacceptable way to behave. I believe this should be achieved as non-forcefully as possible. Not being a parent myself, I’m sure this is easier to say than to achieve. I'm not denying a 10 year old has the capacity to do some damage, but as a child I'm sure a fully grown man and woman could suppress this child without electrocuting her. To me, that level of force with a physically and emotionally immature individual who is not fully in possession of a moral code and an understanding of the harm they can do in these circumstances is wrong. From the articles I've read, noone was in serious physical jeopardy.
It seems to me that meeting an emotionally disturbed child’s anger with violence is going to instill the wrong messages and cause further problems down the line.

Tim - You said: "Yes ethical questions reduce to questions of suffering, and if tasering a child has the net result of reducing suffering then it is ok."
And similarly Ike - You said: "kids and tasers. kids are getting stupider and more stupid these days, their parents dont give a fuck, they smoke at the age of 6, rape at the age of 11, if you saw your sister getting raped by a small boy and you had a taser and a video camera, which would you use first? gut instinct, your sister..."

Yes - I see that. I may not have the same reservations about a cop tasering the Jamie Bulger murderers had he happened on them laying the boy on train tracks and it was a snap decision to save Bulger's life. Or a 10 year old committing an act of rape (though even then, if close enough to use the hand-held TASER, a police officer is surely close enough to pull the child away?) But in the instance I refer to, the episode did not seem to warrant it.
These are my thoughts to date based on what I know. I am willing to reconsider in the face of persuasive arguments.

Joe, you said "id say its never right to but at the same time iv seen some kids that its the only way to get through to them, so some times i see it as a valid way of gettin the point accross."

What kids would you say it is the only way to get through to them?

Interestingly, the cop in Arkansas was discharged, not for using his TASER on a child, but for not operating the attached camera as he did so, as per standard procedure. If this reason is just a technicality to sack the guy for TASERing a child, then I think TASERing a child should be the reason he was fired. This issue needs to be examined and a precedent set.

The suffering question is an interesting one though. I had a discussion with Izzy not so long ago along the lines of; if there was an imminent global epidemic that would kill half the world's population in a slow and painful way, would it be right to torture the cure out of the one person who had it but was withholding it during all other means of interrogation? And if it came to it, could you do it personally?