Illiberal Arts

Have I ever mentioned how much I like animation? Especially animated feature films? Cos I do. Or, at least, I thought I did. Then I visited the Silver K Gallery in Armadale.

Where preconceptions die.

Don't get me wrong, the exhibit at the Silver K, which is an animation gallery, was lovely- but the amount of money that some people were willing to pay for cells of animation makes me realise that what I thought was a passion is, in fact, a mere passing fancy. 

Take for example this piece:

I feel this serves to obfuscate how dull some parts of both Sleeping Beauty and Fantasia are. Also, in case the staff of the silver K somehow find this blog, I did not take this picture, but found it on google.

You cannot imagine how much the colour pops in the original. It is just captivating. I stared for several minutes. Did I stare enough to be willing to pay $955? No, sir. No I did not.

But some one did. Cos that piece had been sold just this morning for that exact amount. The curator told me this with evident pity for me for having just missed out on this absolute steal in his voice and I lamented appropriately while inside I was reeling.

This was the essential problem I had with the Silver K gallery, which was otherwise a very pleasant viewing experience: they were obviously geared towards selling the pictures in their care, while I just wanted to observe them and  then leave (and possibly print out some flimsy, but cheap, paper copies later on), as I do at most galleries. I cannot afford art. This is why I have cut up comic books on my walls. Even though there was a concession price to enter the gallery, they evidently did not want student patrons. 

However, the art of Disney is so characterful that there was a lot to be got out of just looking at individual stills, and the concept art was fascinating: I wasn't allowed to take photos, but let's just say Ursula looked a lot different in the beginning. 

Anyway, if future generations of Melbourne Exchange students are reading this, I recommend the Silver K gallery to you: but maybe try dressing up like you're rich so they don't keep asking where you heard about them (they advertise on TV for heaven's sake.)

I look like I'm on a stamp

Courtesy of Smeargle, a dignified picture of me (for once):

Look at my cold, lifeless eyes.

I may well use this as my profile pic on dating sites: I'd tap that.

Walking thru sunshine

I just had a most glorious walk to uni. The sun was out, the air was fresh and my music was playing. I walked through grass, through suburb, even through the Melbourne Museum (which I still need to check out).
I saw weird trees,

Happy tree, bridal tree, puppet tree...bicurious stump?

awesome graffiti

The new bad wolf?

and a hot guy sunbathing shirtless.

Sorry, Patten.

I even got to talk to Will, who I've not seen for a long time! We made merry, and I got to wish him a belated happy birthday (he's a virgo, you know.) I got to experience parts of the city I hadn't explored yet and remind myself I'm still a complete newcomer here.
If I had any niggles, it would just be that it took me TWO AND A HALF HOURS. 
I don't know how. I travel this route every day; I don't know what went wrong, but evidently something did, cos as pleasant as all this was, I would most certainly not do it again. Ugh.

Ironically, this song just came up on my youtube playlist:

Good song. Funny coincidence. Still not worth the walk.

A thousand words

Just a quick note to say some of you (like, two out of four) might have noticed that my profile pic has changed twice in the last day. The first change was to the infamous Rowden White sign, seen here:

Ladies.

Whilst I do adore this sign and all it represents, I cannot claim to have had any part in its production; I took the photo (cue swoons), yes, but the central joke is not mine. And so I felt bad flaunting it (this is also why I changed from my original pic, which I also adore, but which was made by the lovely Rosie Curtis). The new pic was not drawn by me, but is a picture of me, sketched by Darryl (who you may remember from my initial rec room 2 post- I don't think he's shown up since). You can see a larger version here:

A commemorative, non-olympiad stamp.

I feel it's ok to display this because while I didn't create it, I was the muse and thus contributed to its creation.

This note ended up not being that quick.