The Near-Death of Decent Content

This article is a premature obituary of decent artistic content… in every aspect of our lives…

Decent Content in Entertainment and Art Forms

Early 21st century – 2020 (and ongoing/down-falling)

We have arrived at a crucial point in our mundane timeline when real and engaging content started slipping out of our existence at an ever accelerating pace… replaced by uninteresting shenanigans of the modern, content-less society.

Good content does not pay anymore…
Content does not pay anymore…
It has lost all its value…

Here’s why:

Leonardo created “La Giaconda (The Mona Lisa)” in a period from 1503 to 1517…it’s still the most visited attraction ever in one of the biggest museums in the world…

Circa 1500, Michelangelo carved out “David” giving life to a 5-meter (17 ft.), 6+ tons of marble… which still stands the test of time with all its glory…

And let’s not forget about other works of art created before the 21st century like “La Guernica” by Picasso or “The Scream” by Edward Munch… those were the times when art became alive…

In 2019… we had a browned-out banana taped onto a wall sold for $120000… The proud buyer and current owner defended the masterpiece as “… the unicorn of the art world…” Not only that he could have created a better piece with a fresh banana costing him less than a dollar, what would he do when the banana decomposes completely? Replacing the banana at regular intervals would certainly kill the originality of the fruity masterpiece…no?

The sad thing is that renaissance art masterpieces or any good art is truly appreciated only by a handful of people… the others most likely swarm museums just to take selfies with the art, and to make their social media followers/friends jealous.

This is the death of art…

Now, let’s have a quick look at the demise of writing… mainly script writing for contemporary Hollywood blockbusters…

Imagine a time 150 years + in the future when the only technological breakthrough seems to be modernized tanning beds capable of curing every disease while the world seems to have stuck in the 90s technology otherwise…

Or… a group of scientists land on a hostile alien world and one of them decides to pat a viper-like hissing monster with affection… and no… he wasn’t mind-controlled. How did he ever become a man of science anyway? Everything’s possible on big screen!

Or… a thin, feather weight ex-special forces operative lady takes on multiple trained assassins three times her size in hand-to-hand combat with a gaping gunshot wound in her leg.

Or… two science-enthusiast buddies invent a time machine and choose to travel 17 years into the past to allegedly stop a world-wide catastrophic event which started 25 years ago.

There are tons of examples of poor writing like the ones above in nearly all recent movies. Here’s the funny thing… all the titles exemplified previously have IMDb ratings of 6 and above. As people who gave high ratings are highly affectionate towards an actor or two in the production, no matter how bad the script is or how horribly the character is portrayed. Can you guess the titles of these three blockbusters (the last one is a series and not so popular like others)?

Music hasn’t been doing great either…

We tend to listen to the latest crap not because of musical or lyrical quality, but just because it blocks the ear-assassinating everyday clamor which is only a tad worse than what we pay for…

Right? Or… why would we just keep listening to band of mismatched instruments out-of-beat with lyrics like:

“Now you get to watch her leave out the window
Guess why they call it window pane…”

(I know I am going to be roasted by Eminem fans… but the word play on “pane” and “pain” is unbearable.)

Or…

“Are we humans?
Or are we dancer?”

(Or are you just untalented musicians with bad grammar?)

Lastly, check your favorite social media for good content… or just some content… I bet you’ll find none other than Instagram posts showing floor tiles with the tip of the big toe of the artist penetrating the shot from a corner with the message: “Good morning y’all!” Thousands of likes guaranteed…

Or…

A tweet from a celebrity saying:

“Today is Saturday, tomorrow will be Sunday and then Monday.”

It must have been very informative, enlightening and inspiring indeed as it got tens of thousands of likes and nearly three thousand retweets shortly.

Or…

A young, good-looking youtuber making thousands of dollars monthly by blabbering about her dull daily routine.

So, what can be done to revive decent content? Is it too late?

Not yet. But it’s getting to a point of no return.

Just try not to appreciate horrible content because someone with good looks created it. The more we appreciate bad content, the more they will be encouraged to create even worse content. Support true artists for their art and good content (not because they are cool/famous/good-looking) as they need some boost to be even better.

Mixology 101

Sometimes writing does not have a purpose other than to entertain only the author himself. The piece below falls exactly under that category. Read it if you wish… but don’t expect a moral, life lessons, or whatever you expect from the stream of consciousness of a not-so-sane writer…

Welcome to the world of mixing up! The true essence of life and the world we live in!!!

Let’s start with basic emotions like joy and despair…

… and see how it goes by mixing the two and experiencing something totally overwhelming:

A standard smile involves 13 different facial muscles affecting the mouth, the lips, the cheeks, the nose and the eyes working together. Crying is a different case as each person’s style of shedding tears is distinctive so it can be a number of muscles ranging from 12 to 20 throughout your body (including a set of muscles in the abdomen and yes, I am making the number up). Now, think about crying out of joy. You may never need to go to a gym ever to work on your abdomen if you’re over-emotional.

Differences create art whether it’s painting,, music or some culinary magic:

Colours are not as meaningful on a virgin canvas when used solo. Masterpieces are created with a maelstrom of brush strokes involving a rainbow of colours. Well, even rainbows have much more than a single hue.

A single instrument can create good music, and feed your soul, but a band of instruments is a feast, a banquet involving no calories.

A tablespoon of salt is almost never consumed on its own as it’s… hmmm… too salty! But, when it goes into any kind of meal, it brings out the flavour.

Yin Yang! Life is indeed a giant mixture of everything. Try some alchemy in your life.

Everyday Concepts which are Almost Impossible to Explain as a Challenge

The concepts “perspective“, “music“, “flavor“, “home” and “God” do not need to be explained for most of us as we see or experience them multiple times in our daily lives. It’s not rocket science, but how would you describe these concepts to someone that has never felt them or has no reference points that can guide them to understanding the concept. Look at these cases below and have some time to think before continuing to read:

Imagine

meeting a blind person since birth, and he asks you to describe what “perspective” is in “art”.
coming accross someone born deaf, and you are asked to define “music“
chatting with an anosmic person and she wants you to tell her all about “flavor“
being abducted by nomad aliens, who do not have the notion of “home“. How would you persuade them to take you home?
you are a preacher and you somehow time travel to the stone age and meet a bunch of cavemen… Tell them about “God” and preferrably convince them.

Perspective – About two decades ago, we teenagers did not have mobile phones. We were “social” but lacked “media”, so we frequently gathered face-to-face and had these brain teasers as challenges. The first one was “How to describe perspective to a person born blind”. The best way, we agreed upon was to use another sense other than seeing to describe it. As the most developed sense in blindness is “hearing“, we decided to use that to explain the concept.

The Method: Switch on the TV, pick a channel with a weak signal (preferrably one with white noise), volume up, guide the blind person towards the TV, ask them how loud they can hear, take a few steps and repeat the process, go to another room (a distant one) together and ask about the loudness of the sound again, tell them that the closer an object is, the bigger it seems… Just like the “white noise” of the TV set. The closer they are to the sound source, the bigger the object is…

Music – Explaining the concept of music to a deaf person is no different. But, here, we picked another sense (touch) to explain the concept since vision would not work.

The Method: Switch on a music set that is connected to huge amps, tell the deaf person to touch the amp with both hands, play a song with a repeating melody in high volume, sit back and relax as the vibrations will do the trick…

Flavor – Anosmic people cannot smell nor taste flavors, so this one is going to be tricky as this time it’s two senses that are useless. I think it’s best to use “touch” one more time.

The Method: Prepare a table of various food with different flavors, seat the anosmic person, tell them to close their eyes, feed them with one hand, touch them with the other hand in different ways (a gentle caress, patting the head softly, a back rub or a slight slap on the cheek) for each flavor and ask them how it feels. For sweet flavors, do the pleasent touches, for bitter or sour ones, do the not-so-pleasent strokes… For leek, punch them 🙂

The last two concepts; “Home” and “God” are challenges for you to tackle. Think about them for some time, then leave a comment on this post. I’ll reply every comment!

Thanks for reading…

8 Ways of time travel without a decent time machine…

Everyone who knows me knows how I am obsessed with time travel… and those who don’t – will acknowledge it… in time. By reading this little blog post, you will have the secret of time travel without a decent time machine or no machine at all. Proceed with extreme caution as secrets or time itself are not things to meddle with.

Here are the methods:

If you possess an unstable working prototype of a time machine:

Wear appropriate clothes for your desired destination in time, pee until your bladder dries out, step into the machine, sit, set the desired time and pull the lever or hold and press the small red button by the far end of the console. That’s it!
Same steps as described above… you just pee first, then dress up!

If you DO NOT have a time machine:

1. The Musical Method: If you wish to go to the past, select a year and google the top 100 in that year’s billboards. Close your eyes and play each song starting from the bottom to the top of the list. Hum along if you know the songs! If your intention is to travel into the near future, the same method can help! Just gather up all the cutlery in the house, click on your phone’s voice recorder, and start dropping them one by one onto the kitchen floor. When each piece lands, say what you’ve just seen like “A fork fell down” or “I dropped a knife” in an untrained, monotonous tone (These are essential as they will make up the lyrics). When all the cutlery has been dropped, stop the recorder, plug earphones into your phone, close your eyes, start playing the audio and enjoy!

Too bad music isn’t in its golden years anymore and it’s getting worse. Just compare 60’s, 70’s or even 80’s, 90’s music to the hit songs in our present.

2. The Photo Effect: Just open your photo album (printed photos work best) and inspect each photo in full detail. Think about how old you were, where you were and who you were with. Then, focus on the tiny details in the background, are the surroundings the same? or have they changed? As you go down the memory lane, you will realize that you made a slight jump to the past. If you do not have a photo album, or want to time travel to places you’ve never been, enter a desired year into your favorite search engine’s search box, click on “images” and there… you have millions of photos to start with. If you wish to time travel into the future, enter the word “mugshots” into a search engine’s search box and enjoy (They look like selfies, don’t they?)

Now, 9 out of every 10 photos seem to be selfies and most of them do not even include faces as wholes. Mostly, they are close-ups of an eye here and a mouth there!

3. The Photoshop Dilemma: A very similar method to the one above, but this one requires some photo-shopping skills. Travelling to the past? Find a suitable photo of yourself or have a friend take it on the spot and google for a historical background. Once you find it, just merge the two pictures and presto! You are in a trench in World War II. Going to the future? Find a CGI background using the above method and there you are, picking up alien flowers on Mars!

4. Conundrum of Objects: Find a flea market in your town. Go there preferably on foot. Once you are there, explore each stall in detail, pick up objects, feel their energy. Each object has its own “itstory” (We can’t call it “history”, can we?). Take a deep breath, sniff the air of antiquity. Buy something like an old cassette even if you don’t own a player for it. At least you are in contact with something out of your time. For the future, use your search engine skills to find weird and futuristic object photos. Use a 3D printer, to solidify them.

5. Dream: One of the best ways to travel back or forward in time! Throughout the day, just think about a time and a place and focus on it in your coffee breaks. Your subconscious will get the message. When it’s bedtime, close your eyes and start focusing on what you’ve been focusing on all day. Sleep! When you wake up, you’ll find yourself with pleasant memories (if you can remember your dreams), check the time and discover that you’ve jumped at least a couple of hours forward in time. In some cases, you’ll have -what is seems like- hours of dreaming, but it has only been half-an hour at most. Try lucid dreaming for the best experience…

6. Read: Fortunately, books are abundant nowadays. (Even I, have some free books on the market). If you are a history enthusiast, find a historical novel and get to reading. If you are a sci-fi fan like me, choose an appropriate novel and start reading. In both cases, you’ll be mesmerized into the setting if the book is any good. Relate yourself to any character in the book to maximize the fun!

7. Write: Just like reading, but with a huge advantage! By writing, you create time itself in your stories. You can even find true love in the past or the future, which you have been searching for so long in the present.

8. Watch: Too lazy to read or write? Then, start going through your movie collection. Although stripped off the best parts, most good books are made into films. And strangely enough, this method requires peeing first (as you don’t want an interruption like a bathroom break in the middle of the film), sitting and pressing a button. Anyway, a surround system is a huge plus.

The Evolution of Sound to Rhythm

The sounds of nature have always been so soothing, peaceful whether it’s birds singing in harmony in the morning breeze or wind gushing through a dense forest, shaking each leaf to create a note to our liking. What about the sound of flowing or falling water? It would have been marvelous if it didn’t make you want to pee after a long exposure.

So, do all sounds fill us with joy?

An average adult hears about 712000 different sounds every day, from sounds of speech to sounds of cars honking and not all sounds we hear are pleasant (The figure I provided above is made up to give this article the credibility that some people long for. After all, it’s not a rounded up number, so all such figures are credible enough for some readers to proceed).

The sounds of traffic, a baby crying to an audience of strangers, a dog barking at irregular intervals at a distance or a boss shouting at an employee at regular intervals at a proximity are all enough to fill us with unexplained rage.

But, why?

The answer lies in the familiar rhythm that we are born with: our heartbeats! A silent sound that goes on within us until the end. And the heart is nearly always associated with love thus we love the sound of love.

There are still some things unexplained like the torture method of making one listen to the rhythmic sound of a dripping tap, the ticktocks of a grandfather clock or some forms of youth music.

After all, we are only human.

The mystifying power of letters, sounds and words

What’s your favorite letter in the alphabet?

It may sound like a weird question but I believe everyone has that one favorite letter and people are drawn to it whenever they hear its unique sound that sets off a tingle in the soul.

Mine is the letter “o”. It has always been. I love how it’s articulated more than its round shape and marvelous curve, so it’s not physical attraction obviously. It’s much deeper.

Check out some of my favorite words in English regardless of their meanings: Parasol, Pastoral, Aroma, Slope, Mountain, Mojo, Oyster, Coral and Loo. And have you ever heard a more beautiful preposition than “Over”? They all contain the letter I have always been in love with even though not every combination works out for me. The word “telephone” repels me instead. Perhaps, I have heard it countless times from other people, strangers around me and it doesn’t feel special, unique and not only mine anymore.

I can never explain my attraction towards “o” but here’s a theory; all the words that have great significance for life, have it inside somewhere: Oxygen, Love, Soul, God, Women, People, Booze, Bacon…

And the names “Zoe”, “Monique” and “Olivia” have always drawn me to their owners.

Weird but my first girlfriend ever, who was not that attractive other than being a redhead, was the proud owner of the name “Rosemary”.

Before I finish… I want to mention how I find new music to my taste: I just Google (another sexy word) music, scroll down names of unheard bands and click on the band or the song name that attracts me. You’ll never believe how that will work out for you. If I hadn’t done that I would have never enjoyed “The Mojo Men”, “Voodoo Sex Stuff”, “Coeur de Pirate” and “Katja Vandl”.

The moral of this article?

From now on, pay attention to the people you meet, the new words that you encounter and their names and see who or what you are attracted to, to find your own favorite letter or sound.

Barış Cansevgisi

Author

Tag: music