The Morellian Method

New Website!

Thu, 07 Nov 2013 23:23:28 -0500

This is most likely the last thing I’ll ever post here. I’ve finally finished my official artist website and blog, and that’s where I’ll be moving to. Come have a look. Read some stories.

http://www.davidhuntington.net

New Digital Art: The Whiteness of the Whale

Tue, 30 Jul 2013 05:13:19 -0400

You’ll need to use a device with some kind of cursor rather than a touchscreen for it to work:

http://storytronic.com/whiteness/

This piece is inspired by a chapter of Moby Dick called “The Whiteness of the Whale.” Throughout the chapter the narrator, Ishmael, explores how white is simultaneously a color of purity and horror. Ishmael’s explanations of whiteness are themselves created out of the whiteness, and thus, through their inadequacy, saturated with a fear of the ineffable.

“Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright.” - p180, Moby Dick

Stop Rewarding Violence in America

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:33:32 -0400

I am as disappointed as everyone else when it comes to congress’s recent failure to pass a universally favored, painstakingly bipartisan bill on background checks. This is a sign of the times. A moment of shame for a system growing more corrupt by the day. Americans didn’t have a say in this fight. Lobbyists did.

But that’s not the only thing bothering me about this issue.

The rhetoric in support of gun control is exploitative and false. Popularized by the liberal media is the idea that gun tragedies like Newtown can be fixed by gun control. How? By stopping the mentally ill from buying guns? The mother of the Newtown shooter bought the gun he used. Not him. Stop criminals from buying guns? Legislation won’t stop straw purchases or black market sales. If someone wants a gun in this country they can get it. Anyone who wants to hurt other people can do so. It’s not hard. Like it or not, the internet has a limitless supply of recipes for homemade explosives. Even if guns are harder to get, the killers won’t be stopped.

So who are the killers? How do we stop them?

Setting criminal violence aside, the issue of the day, concerning the tragedies in Tucson and Newtown and others, is the violence of extreme outliers, the designated mentally disturbed.

The individuals behind these tragedies do not represent the average person. Their logic is not the logic of the popular consciousness. They are extreme cases, the inevitable byproduct of a large population. There will always be outliers. There are geniuses and there are madmen in this world, and everything in between. Every dream has been, is being, and will be dreamed, and to each other sometimes our dreams look more like nightmares.

In other words, there will be killers. There will always be killers.

But right now there are more killers, worse killers, than is natural, not because it’s easier to get guns–that hasn’t changed in a while–but because the popular media is obsessed with killing.

Because politicians and pundits find it necessary to mention the unfortunate deed of one sick individual over and over again. Because the media publishes the name and picture of tragic shooters and their families, tells the story of their lives and attempts tirelessly to speculate on the state of their minds. The only other citizens who get such treatment are celebrities, but we shy from the term because we’re afraid what that implies.

The truth of publication and popularization is that, in this world, it is a good thing. To a sad and lonely mind, it is a reward to be on TV, to be recognized for perhaps the first time in a life, to be mentioned by the president of the United States. It is a smaller deviation from the popular logic than you may think to decide national fame is worth killing for.

People, why are we experiencing more acts of violence in this country? It’s not because of guns, I can tell you that.

It’s because we reward them.

Metamodernity

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:53:26 -0400

This article just reaffirmed all of the conclusions I have come to about the contemporary arts.

In the debate as to the identity of the post-postmodern, Vermuelen and Akker propose the concept of the metamodern, using the idea of metaxy to describe a state in between modernity and postmodernity that creates something wholly new through the balancing of two poles, it “negotiates between a yearning for universal truths and relativism, between a desire for sense and a doubt about the sense of it all, between hope and melancholy, sincerity and irony, knowingness and naivety, construction and deconstruction.”

Our generation is defined by “informed naivety,” “pragmatic idealism,” and “modern fanaticism.” It is an acknowledgement of the irony of postmodernism, but also filled with modern enthusiasm. In other words it is about the desire for universal truth despite the knowledge of its impossibility, and the acceptance of faith as the best tool to pursue what we truly want.

The Wild You, Part Two: Ghosts

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:32:00 -0400

Check Out Part Two of my new original radio series The Wild You!

Tune in this Saturday at 6:00 to hear the third installment. (Streaming in the top right corner)

The Wild You:

For two years Jay has forgotten his self and his past, hitching across the country. But when an ill-tempered train conductor breaks his leg, he’s forced to recuperate in a desert trailer park named Starport. While he struggles to hold his wild self at bay, Jay rediscovers music, friendship, and love. But is it enough to stop him from destroying himself and Starport with him? Written and directed by David Seamans. Music by Dustin Lowman. Recorded live with the Middlebury Radio Theater of Thrills and Suspense. Part two of four. 54 minutes.

Luz (bone)

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:11:54 -0500

Luz (Hebrew: ‘לוז’) is the name of a small bone in the human body, at the top of the spinal column (the seventh cervical vertebra) or at the base of the spinal column (the coccyx), according to different traditions. Muslims and Jews believe that this is the bone from which the body will be rebuilt at the time of resurrection, and share the belief that this bone does not decay.^{[citation needed]}Arabic books refer to this bone as “'ajbu adh-dhanab” –(عَجْبُ الذَّنَب).

There is an aggadah (legend) in the midrash that the Roman Emperor Hadrian asked how man would be revived in the world to come, and Rabbi Joshua Ben Hananiah replied that it would be “From Luz, in the back-bone.” “Prove this to me,” said Hadrian. Then the Rabbi took Luz, a small bone of the spine, and immersed it in water, but it was not softened; he put it into the fire, but it was not consumed; he put it into a mill, but it could not be pounded; he placed it upon an anvil and struck it with a hammer, but the anvil split and the hammer was broken. (Ecclesiastes Rabbah xii / Genesis Rabbah xviii).

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wild You, Part One: Locomotion

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:23:09 -0500

Check Out Part One of my new original radio series The Wild You!

Tune in this Saturday at 6:00 to hear the second installment. (Streaming in the top right corner)

The Wild You:

For two years Jay has forgotten his self and his past, hitching across the country. But when an ill-tempered train conductor breaks his leg, he’s forced to recuperate in a desert trailer park named Starport. While he struggles to hold his wild self at bay, Jay rediscovers music, friendship, and love. But is it enough to stop him from destroying himself and Starport with him? Written and directed by David Seamans. Music by Dustin Lowman. Recorded live with the Middlebury Radio Theater of Thrills and Suspense. Part one of four.

A few weeks ago I made this film as a part of the Sleepless in...

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 12:13:37 -0500

A few weeks ago I made this film as a part of the Sleepless in Burlington 48 hour filmmaking competition. My role on Middlebury College’s five-person team was writer. After a full day of discussion about what we wanted the film to be I sat in a hotel lobby from the hours of 10pm to 6am and wrote this. The next day we filmed like devils and started post production at midnight. Hope you enjoy it.

(imagine this song with the intensity dial tuned to Poseidic...

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 15:56:00 -0400

(imagine this song with the intensity dial tuned to Poseidic Rage)

Kevin Devine’s got duende.

That night at the Bowery Ballroom Buried Beds opens first with a big, tight sound. Too tight, in my opinion. Too clean. But afterwards the packed house boils with alcohol, yelling, yipping. The Bowery, a cherished New York joint, is almost more bar than venue. Earlier, after I filed inside, I found myself in a grungy, red-lit lounge, a peninsula bar stretching easily twenty feet into the room with a small, rose-curtained stage. After some intense doubt, I explored my way a little further to the real theater. And indeed, it is a ballroom—only more like a ballroom on a sunken ship. I like it. There’s yet another bar, smaller this time, at the back of the room, and above that a wrapping balcony (another bar up there? probably). The bar and balcony divide the room into two sections, the people there for the music, and the people there for the scene. There’s this little psychological shift that happens when people stand on a balcony in the back of a room getting drunk. The performer’s circle of attention only shimmers as far as their toes, and the freedom of it just tickles them. Then Kevin finishes tuning and takes the mic.

Commence one of the weirdest concert experiences of my life. Kevin, in a grunge venue, opening for a punkish post-hardcore band, is playing acoustic poetry for a liquored up, drugged out audience that both simultaneously fucking loves the guy and wouldn’t care if he choked on their bullshit and died. The guy is from Brooklyn, went to Fordham, came to modest fame playing bars around the city, and everyone in the room but me knows his complex, meandering ballads by heart. But Kevin has this fascinating musical style where he goes off mic for certain lyrics, making his songs raw and physical. Problem is, when the whole room sings along, that just doesn’t work. So Kevin, while singing, is giving the audience the snake eye, shaking his head, No. But do you think these kids care? Three songs deep he gets pithy: I really appreciate it guys. I really do. Thank you so much. But we’re not at a Black Sabbath concert (laughter). Like fuckin’ Bonnarroo (more laughs). He starts singing again, and of course, the chorus doesn’t stop and neither does the mid-song heckling (wooo! yeeeeah!).

Kevin continues to make everyone feel awkward by throwing out these snarky, mean-tipped quips. How drunk are you guys? He asks rhetorically. SO FUCKIN TRASHED is balcony-asshole’s response. I can tell Kevin just wants to get out of there. He is cooked. I’m feeling kind of bad for him, but I’m also kind of embarrassed at how poorly he’s dealing. I mean, he even asks the people in the front how how they’re doing, You look a little bored, he says. He’s alienating his attentive audience now? Not cool (girl in front of me responds she’s really tired. tired? totally get you, he says). He starts playing—stops—You done? You done? Okay, cool, I’ll just, you know, play my song now.

Finally Kevin has one more piece, You’ve been a great audience (riiiight), mewithoutYou will take the stage next. This song’s called Brother’s Blood. I like this song. I like the lyrics from the start:

My Brothers Blood
Boils in My arms
Balls my fingers into fists
It bubbles blisters burns my palms
It floods with fury fights and fits

Audience has gained no more respect, but I’m ignoring them, I’m into it, and Kevin’s into it too, bowing into his guitar strums, leaning with his vocals, eyes shut, he’s a little angry, I realize, and then he takes his hands off the guitar completely, steps to the back corner of the stage, curls over so he’s facing the floor, and screams out the next verse and the room goes dead. My jaw drops. His body and throat are twisting with the fire and every tinder of rage he felt for the audience that night torrents into his words.

It’s my brother’s blood
And my dirty lungs
And my crooked mouth
On my swollen tongue
On my fathers gun
In each strangers face
Across the blue bird Sky
And each hand I shake night after night
Each chuckled prayer
Such sweet relief
Fist full of hair
It’s my brother’s back
It’s my father’s arms
Every twisted fact
In my sorry heart

I vaguely hear the Thank You, and he’s gone.

The Ganzfeld Effect

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 20:33:39 -0400

The Ganzfeld effect (from German for “complete field”) is a phenomenon of visual perception caused by staring at an undifferentiated and uniform field of color. The effect is described as the loss of vision as the brain cuts off the unchanging signal from the eyes. The result is “seeing black”^[1] - apparent blindness.

In the 1930s, research by psychologist Wolfgang Metzger established that when subjects gazed into a featureless field of vision they consistently hallucinated and their electroencephalograms changed.

The Ganzfeld effect is the result of the brain amplifying neural noise in order to look for the missing visual signals. The noise is interpreted in the higher visual cortex, and gives rise to hallucinations. This is similar to dream production because of the brain’s state of sensory deprivation during sleep.

The Ganzfeld effect has been reported since ancient times. The adepts of Pythagoras retreated to pitch black caves to receive wisdom through their visions^[2], known as the prisoner’s cinema. Miners trapped by accidents in mines frequently reported hallucinations, visions and seeing ghosts when they were in the pitch dark for days. Arctic explorers seeing nothing but featureless landscape of white snow for a long time also reported hallucinations and an altered state of mind.

The effect is a component of a Ganzfeld experiment, a technique used in the field of parapsychology.

The artist James Turrell (partly inspired by clear blue skies) has created many such “Ganzfelds” throughout his oeuvre.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"You wastefully leave lights on in your home or hotel room when you aren’t there, not to prove that..."

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 18:05:00 -0400

“You wastefully leave lights on in your home or hotel room when you aren’t there, not to prove that you exist, but because the margin of surplus itself feels like life, feels in some curious way like being alive.”

- James Wood (How Fiction Works)

"In college you forget the satisfaction of reading books not for mental exercise, not for pleasure,..."

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 22:40:00 -0400

“In college you forget the satisfaction of reading books not for mental exercise, not for pleasure, but solely to search for that truth about ourselves that waits always on the next page.”

When Detective Morelli can’t solve the case of his...

Fri, 18 May 2012 10:58:51 -0400

When Detective Morelli can’t solve the case of his mysterious new client the very meaning of his life falls beneath the magnifying glass. A film by David Huntington.

Eadweard Muybridge, 1872, proved that all hooves do leave the...

Wed, 16 May 2012 15:15:34 -0400

Eadweard Muybridge, 1872, proved that all hooves do leave the ground during a gallop

I dedicate this to all those secret stairwell drummers out there...

Fri, 04 May 2012 16:32:52 -0400

I dedicate this to all those secret stairwell drummers out there (I can’t be the only one?).

Video

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:23:05 -0400

Check out this beautiful animation I worked on! It’s...

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 09:14:37 -0500

Check out this beautiful animation I worked on! It’s gorgeous, trust me, well worth your time. This is the product of an amazing month long production class I took at Middlebury. It’s written by Dana Yeaton and scored by Anais Mitchell and Michael Chorney.

How John Green Won the Internet...And Tens of Thousands of Screaming Fans

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 23:21:30 -0500

How John Green Won the Internet...And Tens of Thousands of Screaming Fans:

fishingboatproceeds:

abbigshmail:

Anna Minard, you are an honorary Nerdfighter.

This is a very thorough and well-researched story not just about TFiOS, but about our video projects and my other books. I also think Minard’s analysis of my skittishness around autobiographical fiction is very well argued. It made me think differently about my responsibilities as a novelist. Anyway, really cool article!

Check out the website I built!

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:04:16 -0500

I just finished designing a website for my grandmother’s quilting shop. Take a look and please tell me what you think!

The Quiltery Online

Daytripper Almost Goes There

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:01:00 -0500

Just read Daytripper by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá and am basking in its beauty and ambition. The trade paperback is a must-read comic. Being gifted the book at Christmas I didn’t know what to expect. It took at least the first three chapters to convince me, but this is a damn good novel. Not great, but pit-in-your-stomach-fire-in-your-heart good.

I can’t stress enough how much I appreciate graphic novels written and drawn with ambition comparable to that found in the best of prose novels. It’s not that classic literature can’t come out of comics, it’s just that it hasn’t been written or discovered yet. And Daytripper almost gets there. Almost.

They overdo the narration throughout the book, which is normally a huge turnoff for me, but being well written I was willing to look past it. Still, I can’t help but feel this would have been a much better novel were more of the images left to speak for themselves, the reader allowed to hunt for the truth of the image on their own. Certainly the art holds up to it.

Also, in several instances character motivation seems more driven by cliché and author’s intention than by truth. The nephew at the end of the first chapter in particular. (This really bothers me. There are so many moments of good writing that proves they can do better. What were you thinking, Moon and Bá!?)

Regardless, I enjoyed this novel immensely and give it a top recommendation.

If you read it, let me know what you think in the comments.