back in 2019, i called a fellow millennial's mortgage, on an apartment complex that he'd recently bought, 'DEBT,' and he looked at me like i was the stupidest person in the whole world, and then one beat later, he looked at me as if he could punch me in my face, lol.

Free your mind of the idea of deserving,

of the idea of earning,

and you will begin to be able to think.

—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed [as quoted on page 361]

DEBT: THE FIRST 5,000 YEARS
by David Graeber
[332 Gr]

this book is a library loaner
so this is what i do [combined w/below pic] when i need to take a lot of notes
but the book is not mine to mark up
*yawn*

of all the things that i love about the bodybuddy/lifemate, the single, greatest one (the one that just gets me so hot) is his big brain, and his big brain loves to read; it reads a lot and fast. i would consider him to be a better reader than i, in both speed and comprehension, and so, when he picks out his books on our jaunts to the library, i oftentimes end up reading one of the books that he chooses, cause, as i'm explaining, rn, his big brain is so attractive.

anyway, this book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber, is a the bodybuddy/lifemate pick and a highly-recommended read, especially if you're a woman. 

i was also introduced to two words with which i was pastly unfamiliar: dragooning [p 314] and prestidigitation [p 343], and they'll be presented below with their respective usage.

also, this is a book about debt over the course of a somewhat knowable human history, and the book works chronologically from past to present, so read the page numbers to understand the lateness or newness of the actual timeline of human history from which the quote was pulled.

also, keep in mind that this is a book of history, which means that a lot of these quotes are from someone who has written something, but since i cannot transcribe the entire book, here (as much as i wish i could), the quotes are completely out of context, and the context is an anthropological study of human societies not an economics theory from economists who largely do not understand human history.  

[begin quotes]

The definitive anthropological work on barter,

by Caroline Humphrey, of Cambridge,

could not be more definitive in its conclusions:

"No example of a barter economy, pure and simple,

has ever been described,

let alone the emergence from it of money; 

all available ethnography suggests that there never has been such a thing." 

p 29

L. Frank Baum's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900,

is often held to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan,

who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform—

vowing to replace the gold standard

with a bimetallic system

that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold.

As with the Greenbackers,

one of the main constituencies for the movement was debtors:

particularly, Midwestern farm families such as Dorothy's,

who had been facing a massive wave of foreclosures during the severe recession of the 1890s.

According to the Populist reading,

the Wicked Witches of the East and West represent the East and West Coast bankers ...

the Scarecrow represented the farmers

(who didn't have the brains to avoid the debt trap),

the Tin Woodsman was the industrial proletariat

(who didn't have the heart to act in solidarity with the farmers),

the Cowardly Lion represented the political class

(who didn't' have the courage to intervene).

The yellow brick road, silver slippers, emerald city, and hapless Wizard

presumably speak for themselves.

"Oz" is of course the standard abbreviation for "ounce." 

pp 52-53

[in-book quote]

"Up in our country we are human!" said the hunter.

"And since we are human we help each other.

We don't like to hear anybody say thanks for that.

What I get today you may get tomorrow.

Up here we say that by gifts one makes slaves and by whips one makes dogs."

[new para]

The last line is something of an anthropological classic,

and similar statements about the refusal to calculate credits and debits

can be found throughout the anthropological literature on egalitarian hunting societies.

p 79

[in-book quote]

Always owe somebody something,

then he will be forever praying God to grant you a good, long and blessed life.

Fearing to lose what you owe him,

he will always be saying good things about you in every sort of company;

he will be constantly acquiring new lenders for you,

so that you can borrow to pay him back,

filling his ditch with other men's spoil. 

p 125

The only appropriate payment for the gift of a woman is the gift of another woman;

in the meantime, all one can do is acknowledge the outstanding debt.

...

Only a human could ever be considered equivalent to another human.

All the more so since, in the case of marriage,

we are speaking of something even more valuable than one human life:

we are speaking of a human life that also has the capacity to generate new lives.

[emphasis mine]

...

Money, then, begins, as Rospabe ́ himself puts it, "as a substitute for life."

One might call it the recognition of a life-debt. 

p 132 & 133

This is the profound truth of the blood-feud.

No one can ever really forgive the man who killed his brother because every brother is unique.

Nothing could substitute—

not even some other man given the same name and status as your brother,

or a concubine who will bear a son who will be named after your brother,

or a ghost-wife who will bear a child pledged to some day avenge his death.

[new para]

In a human economy, each person is unique, and of incomparable value,

because each is a nexus [emphasis mine] of relations with others.

...

The Lele example gave us a hint:

to make a human being an object of exchange,

one woman equivalent for another, for example,

requires first of all ripping her from her context;

that is, tearing her away from that web of relations

that makes her the unique conflux of relations that she is,

and thus,

into a generic value capable of being added and subtracted and used as a means to measure debt.

This requires a certain violence.

p 158 & 159

First-year Roman law students, for instance,

were made to memorize the following definition:

slavery

is an institution according to the law of nations

whereby one person falls under the property rights of another,

contrary to nature.

p 167

We might say, then, that money introduced a democratization of desire.

Insofar as everyone wanted money, everyone, high and low, was pursuing the same promiscuous substance. 

But even more:

increasingly, they did not just want money.

They needed it.

This was a profound change.

In the Homeric world, as in most human economies,

we hear almost no discussion of those things considered necessary to human life

(food, shelter, clothing)

because it is simply assumed that everybody has them.

A man with no possessions could, at the very least, become a retainer in some rich man's household.

Even slaves had enough to eat. 

p 190

Rulers are like shepherds.

We like to think of them as benevolently tending their flocks,

but what do shepherds ultimately do with sheep?

They kill and eat them,

or sell the meat for money.

...

It's only the existence of money, Socrates suggests,

that allows us to imagine that words like "power" and "interest" refer to universal realities

that can be pursued in their own right,

let alone that all pursuits are really ultimately the pursuit of power, advantage, or self-interest.

The question, he said, is how to ensure that those who hold political office

will do so not for gain,

but rather for honor.

p 196

As for dominium, the word is derived from dominus, meaning "master" or "slave-owner,"

but ultimately from domus, meaning "house" or "household."

It's of course related to the English term "domestic,"

which even now can be used either to mean "pertaining to private life"

or to refer to a servant who cleans the house.

Domus overlaps somewhat in meaning with familia, "family"—

but, as proponents of "family values" might be interested to know,

familia itself ultimately derives from the word famulus, meaning "slave."

A family was originally all those people under the domestic authority of a paterfamilias,

and that authority was, in early Roman law at least,

conceived as absolute.

A man did not have total power over his wife,

since she was still to some degree under the protection of her own father,

but his children, slaves and other dependents were his to do with as he wanted—

at least in early Roman law, he was perfectly free to whip, torture, or sell them.

A father could even execute his children, provided he found them to have committed capital crimes.

With his slaves, he didn't even need that excuse.

pp 200-201

We are so used to the idea of "having" rights—

that rights are something one can possess—

that we rarely think about what this might actually mean.

In fact (as Medieval jurists were well aware), one man's right is simply another's obligation.

My right to free speech is others' obligation not to punish me for speaking;

my right to a trial by jury of my peers is the responsibility of others to maintain a system of jury duty.

p 205

This is why I developed the concept of human economies:

ones in which what is considered really important about human beings

is the fact that they are each a unique nexus of relations with others—

therefore, that no one could ever be considered an exact equivalent to anything or anyone else.

In a human economy,

money is not a way of buying or trading human beings,

but a way of expressing just how much one cannot do so. 

p 208

As many an African proverb emphasizes:

a proper king has no relatives either, or at least,

he acts as if he does not.

In other words,

king and slave are mirror images,

in that unlike normal human beings who are defined by their commitments to others,

they are defined only by relations of power.

They are as close to perfectly isolated, alienated beings as one can possibly become. 

p 209

 

Mo Di, the founder of Mohism, took that first approach.

He turned the concept of li, profit, into something more like "social utility,"

and then he attempted to demonstrate that war itself is, by definition, an unprofitable activity.

p 241

How do you compare two things with no common qualities? 

His [Ghazali's] conclusion: 

it can only be done by comparing both to a third thing with no qualities at all. 

...

From this it also follows that lending money at interest must be illegitimate,

since it means using money as an end in itself: 

"Money is not created to earn money." 

In fact, he says, 

"in relation to other goods, dirhams and dinars are like prepositions in a sentence," 

words that, as the grammarians inform us, are used to give meaning to other words, 

but can only do so because they have no meaning in themselves. 

Money is thus a unit of measure that provides a means of assessing the value of goods, 

but also one that operates as such only if it stays in constant motion. 

To enter into monetary transactions in order to obtain even more money, ... would be, 

according to Ghazali, 

the equivalent of kidnapping the postman. 

p 281

When Aristotle argued that coins are merely social conventions, 

the term he used was symbolon—

from which our own word "symbol" is derived. 

Symbolon was originally the Greek word for "tally"—

an object broken in half to mark a contract or agreement, or marked and broken to record a debt. 

So our word "symbol"

traces back originally to objects broken to record debt contracts of one sort or another. 

This is striking enough. 

What's really remarkable though, is that the contemporary Chinese word for "symbol," 

fu, or fu hao, 

has almost exactly the same origin. 

p 298

While we are used to assuming 

that the Mexican population was devastated simply as an effect of newly introduced European diseases, 

contemporary observers felt that the dragooning of the newly conquered natives 

to work in the mines was at least equally responsible. 

p 314

The story of the origins of capitalism, then, 

is not the story of the gradual destruction of traditional communities 

by the impersonal power of the market. 

It is, rather, 

the story of how an economy of credit was converted into an economy of interest; 

of the gradual transformation of moral networks by the intrusion of the impersonal—

and often vindictive—

power of the state. 

p 332

The criminalization of debt, then, was the criminalization of the very basis of human society. 

It cannot be overemphasized that in a small community, 

everyone normally was both lender and borrower. 

p 334

The reader will recall 

that the Bank of England was created 

when a consortium of forty London and Edinburgh merchants—

mostly already creditors to the crown—

offered King William III a £1.2 million loan to help finance his war against France. 

In doing so, 

they also convinced him to allow them to return to form a corporation 

with a monopoly on the issuance of banknotes—

which were, in effect, promissory notes for the money the kind now owed them. 

This was the first independent national central bank, 

and it became the clearinghouse for debts owed between smaller banks; 

the notes soon developed into the first European national paper currency. 

pp 339-340

In Goethe's Faust (1808), 

he actually has his hero ... pay a visit to the Holy Roman Emperor. 

The Emperor is sinking under the weight of endless debts 

that he has piled up paying for the extravagant pleasure of his court. 

Faust and his assistant, Mephistopheles, 

convince him that he can pay off his creditors by creating paper money. 

It's represented as an act of pure prestidigitation. 

p 343

[in-book quote] 

The root of the whole evil was the so called patron or "peonage" system ... 

by which the employee, forced to buy all his supplies at the employer's store, 

is kept hopelessly in debt, 

while by law he is unable to leave his employment until he debt is paid ... 

The peon is thus, as often as not, a de facto slave; 

and since in remoter regions of the vast continent there is no effective government, 

he is wholly at the mercy of his master.

p 349

It is the secret scandal of capitalism that at no point has it been organized primarily around free labor. 

The conquest of the Americas began with mass enslavement, 

then gradually settled into various forms of debt peonage, African slavery, and "indentured service"—

that is, the use of contract labor, workers who had received cash in advance 

and were thus bound for five-, seven-, or ten-year terms to pay it back.

p 350

Marxists have questioned whether wage labor is ultimately free in any sense 

(since someone with nothing to sell but his or her body 

cannot in any sense be considered a genuinely free agent), 

but they still tend to assume that free wager labor is the basis of capitalism. 

Our dominant image of the origins of capitalism 

continues to be the English workingman toiling in the factories of the industrial revolution, 

and it is assumed this image can be traced forward to Silicon Valley, 

with a straight line in between. 

All those millions of slaves and serfs and coolies and debt peons disappear, 

or if we must speak of them, we write them off as temporary bumps along the road. 

... 

In most of medieval northern Europe, 

wage labor had been mainly a lifestyle phenomenon.

p 351

Speaking as someone brought up in that sort of working-class family, ... 

I can attest to the degree that, 

for those who spend most of their waking hours working at someone else's orders, 

the ability to pull out a wallet full of banknotes 

that are unconditionally one's own 

can be a compelling form of freedom.

pp 354-355

On August 15, 1971, 

United States President Richard Nixon 

announced that foreign-held U.S. dollars 

would no longer be convertible into gold—

thus stripping away the last vestige of the international gold standard. 

p 361

For instance, while technically, 

the Fed cannot lend money directly to the government by buying Treasury Bonds, 

everyone knows that doing so indirectly is one of its primary reasons for being. 

And insofar as the government issues T-bonds, 

it actually is, in one sense, printing money; 

circulating debt tokens that—

as one apparently paradoxical effect of Nixon's floating the dollar—

have now themselves come to replace gold as the world's reserve currency; 

that is, as the ultimate store of value in the world, 

yielding the United States enormous economic advantages. 

[new para] 

Meanwhile, the U.S. debt remains, as it has been since 1790, a war debt: 

the United States continues to spend more on its military 

than do all other nations on earth put together ...

p 365

The U.S. military, unlike any other, 

maintains a doctrine of global power projection: 

that it should have the ability, 

through roughly 800 overseas military bases, 

to intervene with deadly force absolutely anywhere on the planet.

... 

Again, we are talking about symbolic power.

p 366

How much did Hussein's decision to buck the dollar 

really weigh into the U.S. decision to depose him?

p 368

If history holds true, 

an age of virtual money 

should mean a movement away from war, empire-building, slavery and debt peonage 

(waged or otherwise), 

and toward the creation of some sort of overarching institutions, 

global in scale, 

to protect debtors. 

What we have seen so far is the opposite.

p 368

"debt imperialism"

p 369

It is no coincidence that the new phase of American debt imperialism 

has also been accompanied by the rise of the evangelical right, who—

in defiance of almost all previously existing Christian theology—

have enthusiastically embraced the doctrine of "supply-side economics," 

that creating money and effectively giving it to the rich 

is the most Biblically appropriate way to bring about national prosperity. 

p 377

Even if we are at the beginning of the turn of a very long historical cycle, 

it's still largely up to us to determine how it's going to turn out.

p 383

As I pointed out in the very beginning: 

the difference between owing someone a favor and owing someone a debt 

is that the amount of a debt can be precisely calculated. 

Calculation demands equivalence. 

p 386

This in turn leads to that great embarrassing fact 

that haunts all attempts to represent the market as the highest form of human freedom: 

that historically, impersonal, commercial markets originate in theft.

p 386

What could possibly be more presumptuous, or more ridiculous, 

than to think it would be possible to negotiate with the grounds of one's existence?

p 387

For me, this is exactly what's so pernicious about the morality of debt: 

the way that financial imperatives constantly try to reduce us all, 

despite ourselves, 

to the equivalent of pillagers, 

eyeing the world simply for what can be turned into money—

and then tell us that it's only those who are willing to see the world as pillagers 

who deserve access to the resources required to pursue anything in life other than money. 

It introduces moral perversions on almost every level.

p 390

[end quotes]

선 &her Studio

we finally did the final rearrange
*weeps*
this Studio, my studio, has turned out even better than i'd imagined
&it is the greatest studio space i have ever had
so naturally
we had more hurdles to hurdle
emotionally speaking
*ugh*
it
literally
never ends
but then
i realized that
that's what we want
right?
for it
life
to not-end
&so
a little perspective shift goes a long way

this is exactly what this tabletop
&this studio in general
looks like
i have not cleaned up or made it "photo ready," etc.
*barf*
well
i guess i lied a little
cause i put a shirt on for those mirror selfies
lol
but the socks
i already had them on
^..^

i have not done a lick of sewing yet
in this space
&i'm just sitting in it
cause it's all a struggle
the bad
obviously
but also the good?
what the fuck.
on an unrelated note
the Time Tide is crawling i tell ya
painstakingly crawling
why?
it was flying by so fast
&now
it's not.
why, Ladybug, why?!?

[added 03aug26 0312]
ive gotta friend here waiting for her fourth grandbaby
so i thought that i'd christen my (the bodybuddy/lifemate&my, our) studio
by making the first few pieces of cloth for her grandbaby
*weeps*
i am making twenty pieces
(outlined above)
out of  4 yds x 2.5 yds of cotton muslin
cause in that book Debt by David Graeber
he writes about the way that various human cultures
partake in gift giving traditions
&one of the traditions that is mentioned
is the giving of twenty pieces of cloth when a baby is born
*heart-eyes*
the father must go out and collect twenty pieces of cloth
&present it to the woman who birthed his child
&the tradition hailed from a culture that made cloth
&exported its cloth
(this all might need to be in the present tense
cause imnota great reader)
&i thought that it's also a very fitting type of gift for me to give
as well
as a person who works with textiles

so, i've been wanting to say something about a thing that's been happening on this site, my blog, tkscmdotcom, but it's a tough thing to say, cause my mere sharing of it will sprout all sorts of assumptions about why i said the thing, but i'm at a place where i gotta say the thing, even before i have made something of it, cause, typically, i'd wait until i've made something of it to write about it, and i don't know exactly why i'm gonna leap before looking, but here we go ... i have a substantial viewership in Iran (we have theories about russians using iranian hardware, etc., but Russia, the country, is also represented in my countries of viewership); Iran is consistently one of the Top 5 countries out of which i receive views. i know, almost immediately, when we've dropped bombs. Iran drops out of my stats map, immediately. my goal with this blog has always been to speak to a globeaux audience, and now, i have no idea what speaking to a globeaux audience even means.

ephwhyell volume 0.3 | WEEK ONE, Done!

these are all of the thread price-points found at walmart
here in honolulu
there are other varieties of thread found at each of these price points
(except the glow, i think)
&these are the ones i bought, cause they interested me

[from top to bottom]
all purpose $0.87/100 yds
tapestry $1.74/100 yds
stretchy $1.76/100 yds
metallic $2.13/100 yds
glow-in-the-dark $2.62/100 yds

got myself all set up on Day One

in my temporary little sewing corner

cause the bodybuddy/lifemate is going to setup his computer &sound studio in here

but we've been waiting for him to get a new computer

cause the one he has, rn, is so fucking loud

&he finally got a new computer

so he's finally gonna move into this little corner nook i set up so nicely

&then i will move all of my sewing stuff into the living room where The Table is already all set up

&i will officially commandeer the entire living room as my sewing studio!

[and below]

i crocheted up some fabric weights!

i bought two bags of the little gold decorative glass stones

&i used some old yarn i've had since i made some stuff for some cojobbers

so i'll eventually have six fabric weights.

we "snorkeled from/to work" on two different occasions
by snorkeling one late afternoon after we finished our work
&then first thing in the morning on another day
as our morning "walk to work"
&of course
we still have to walk out to the beach
so it's a double-whammy
lol

[leftover meatloaf sandwich &a lembas bread recipe from a friend]

ephwhyell volume 0.3

The Sewing Book by Alison Smith

WEEK ONE | 20-26 Jul 2026
pp 88-91
Fifteen (15) Exercises

&read Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
[check, read six chapters]

all of the stitches went alright

i'd never seen the arrowhead stitch before (&it needs a lot of work, lol)

the thread chain baste isn't quite making sense to me

cause i'm sure there's a trick to the loopty-loop

but i'm not seeing it

*weeps*

i can accomplish it, sort of

but it's not correct, i know it

&the slip baste is beyond me

(the written instruction is confusing my mediocre sewing mind)

other than that

all the stitches were familiar to me

but i never really knew the vocabulary

so i will be continuing to work on all of these stitches

even as i continue on through the more complex exercises in this book

&i'm still in First Position
[working demi plié in all positions
&grand in first and second
&tendus only in first]
cause the knee does not feel strong
at all
&i can see in my ballet barre videos
that my left hip is not quite turning out enough
to keep my knee directly over my toes when i plié
&when i tried to do a little center work
my knee did something that i've never felt before
&it didn't hurt
&my knee didn't hurt after it happened
so i kept on going
just much gentler &at the barre, not center
&then my calf cramped during this barre "center"
but i pushed through
&it went away as soon as i came down from the relevé that caused it
&then when i did a tendu a la seconde
my foot cramped
&i kept the foot pointed, suffering through it
but then it subsided as soon as i brought my foot back to first
so something definitely went down in my knee
*sigh*
but again, no pain 
nevertheless
i iced it and rested it and babied it the rest of the day
*ugh*
today
the knee feels like i worked it
but no pain!
i'll prolly make sure i walk and stretch at some point today
&then i'll ice it and rest it some more
*weeps*

&below is the video wherein all this cramping happened
&look
you can't even tell
*hair flip*
 

 

some thoughts on some screen-related stuff &whatever

On Why Nolan's The Odyssey Lacks A Lot [I already went to town on uTube posts, lol]

The Dawn of Money, an anthropological move away from the inability and unwillingness to value a human life with anything other than another human life (which is still not an equivalent restoration of the loss of a human life during these historic times of human society) toward the ability to value a human life with anything of equal value, including money. One can know nothing, for sure, when it comes to The Dawn of Money.

The Trojan Horse is not the mechanism through which a war was won.

The Trojan Horse itself is the metaphor for the infiltration of money throughout Homeric Greece.

The Trojan Horse hiding Odysseus, the embodiment of money, currency.

Money itself, the ultimate Trojan Horse. 

In Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber (I'm only halfway through at this point), he describes the various ways in which ancient human societies organized themselves and utilized "stuff" and "gifts" in relationships between people who are neighbors and people who are strangers, etc. Graeber also describes the way that these ancient societies approached the idea of gifts and transactions. The whole book is an exploration on money and human society. Why do humans use money? When did money become everything? Where was money invented? What was it invented for? In short, Graeber, in talking about Debt, must talk about the origins of money, and he presents a lot of theories from various "intellectuals" who study humans as a culture. And it was within one of the sections of this book wherein he speaks about Homeric Greece and the way that the people of this time were living, and so, it has become apparent to me that, perhaps, Homer's Epic is about the arrival of money in this part of the world.

If so, Homer's Epic is an epic about economics, a loss of what was, traditionally, a thing directly attached to a person, their honor, has now become a thing detached from the person. There's now the man and the value of that man, and the value of that man has nothing to do with his honor. The value of a man is the value of his stuff (this is not about women at this time, but Graeber speaks heavily about women, which is why I'm writing so heavily about his book). Odysseus is not a man. Odysseus is the metaphor of money itself, the thing hidden inside the horse that tricks the people of the coast into this new enslavement to money. Odysseus, as money, is the terrible thing wrecking havoc on the shores, the "sea people" who come and ruin everything about their way of life, their honor-based way of life.

Odysseus has no honor; he's the terrible thing; he's money. The trick of the "gift" (which is a whole other issue of human relations, cause the bastardization of the gift by making it a trick is not the original sin against "Zeus' Law," imho) is that this is how money was presented to people, because that's how money or currency, according to Graeber, enters village-style honor-based life ... The State. According to Graeber, currency (or money) or coin-based currency is easy to distribute throughout a kingdom. All a king has to do is give coins to their armies and then declare a tax of one coin from each subject at the end of the year. Boom, market.

Now a king has literally sprung forth money and a market (and none of this, oddly enough, has anything to do with debt), out of thin air, on a promise that if the villagers give someone in the military something of theirs or something of use in exchange for this coin, the king will accept this coin as the required tax by said villager at the end of the year. Now, as a villager, you know this is a new reality, and so, instead of saving grain, you're hoarding coins. And once humans had a money-based value, what do you think happens next?

If money ain't the definition of getting nothing for something, I don't know what is. Thus, the Trojan Horse is not about military strategy. It is an account, in metaphor, about the loss of honor-based living through the infiltration of money, Odysseus, and because, years later, after all his crew are lost, Odysseus finally arrives home, only to deliver another Trojan Horse, himself, the "gift" of money, and then off he goes, not there to suffer the consequences, just like a good little capitalist (although, we're not there yet, historically speaking). What a missed opportunity for some original story telling, no? Oh, no wait, this is Nolan. He does not do original storytelling, at least not well, not since his first, best film. What a disappointing director he's panned out to be *weeps*

Craft vs. Craftsmanship

When someone participates in "arts and crafts" type craft there is little to no need to know the technical or "correct" way to do things. It's a hobby, essentially. Therefore, it's unnecessary for this type of person to do the extensive work of craftsmanship. This person is enjoying the making of a thing the way they like. There's nobody but them, so there's nobody to communicate with about the things they're creating.

When, however, someone decides to participate as a craftsman in a craft, it is absolutely necessary that one learns the technical or "correct" way of doing things. This methodology has nothing to do with supremacy or elitism or whatever other buzz-words are being utilized to explain inequality, etc. Not that technique has never been used to create supremacy and elitism, it has, but the point of learning technique is for the magical thing we call communication. 

Technique is just a fancy word for vocabulary. When you go to school, for anything, what you're learning is vocabulary. You're learning how to "speak the language" of this that or the other. And so, when your goal is to become a master practitioner of something, a craftsman (&please don't harp on me about "craftswoman;" i have zero qualms with being referred to as a craftsman, despite my vagina), then one ought to have enough respect to learn the language of your craft so that you may then communicate, well, with others who practice your craft. 

If a certain technique has a term, but you call it, "you know, the wiggly one," that's so rude. Now you're putting the work on me to learn your "quirky terms" (aka you're making me as ignorant as you, and you're wasting my time) instead of you taking the time to learn a term that we can all reference when working together. Cachai?

Five-Star Cast, sure, but Three-Star Production, at best.

 

There's some new trend happening with the way that television is being produced, I can tell. I, obviously, have zero insight on the way that the entertainment industry works or operates, cause who cares, but I am a curious person, so I always try to at least understand the way things work, especially if that thing is something I consume.

For instance, I do, in fact, watch B-Movies from time to time. Since I am curious about how films (movie, television, documentaries, whatever) are made, I enjoy lower-budget productions, because you can see the seams, cause the people who are working these crews are not the best that money can buy, you know? It's not that these productions are bad; it's that these productions are cheap. 

And so, this is what I'm seeing. I am seeing an entertainment landscape that is off-setting the cost of production through cheaper production crews, while still spending the money on the "talent." And it's creating a weird juxtaposition within the final product. 

I think that Jennifer Garner is a really smart white lady. I don't know it for a fact, but I know it's true. I lump her in with other white ladies like Kathryn Bigelow, Reese Witherspoon and who's that one, I always forget her name, Elizabeth Banks. There are others, but I don't want to try to make a comprehensive list, cause I'll inevitably forget someone really important, so I'm merely showing you the ball park. The problem, for me, is that I can see the seams in her production. The exciting thing for me, is that I can see the seams in her production. And again, this is not about trying to shed this in a "bad" or "good" framework. This is simply an observation, along with one "bad" thing that I simply don't like, cause I'm a human person with feelings. 

The seams are apparent, cause the lighting seems to be all-natural, all the time. I cannot imagine that the indoor scenes are all as-is-lighting, but it is set up to make it seem as if it is, which is the first weird thing. In B-Movies, the lighting is the number one giveaway. If you have a tight budget, lighting is expensive. So, that was the first thing I noticed. Natural light (or the attempt to seem like only natural light is being used even when maybe a bounce-board or two are used) is everywhere. Like I said, it seems like the entire show was shot in it. Nevertheless, the lighting was good. It was obvious that it was natural, but it wasn't bad lighting by any means, but it seemed off, almost cheap, when considering the premier cast. 

And then, the general framing of each shot. It's all so boring, cause it's all so textbook. Oh, using the thirds, making sure there's enough depth, all the shots are shot from very straight-forward angles; there's no personality behind the camera. Again, none of these shots are "bad." It's all just very technical. 

But set against the acting of the cast these sorts of seams don't matter, except when they pull you out of a moment, and this is where I can see the logic behind, what I have to assume is, Garner's whole approach to film-making. She's cut cost in the production, cause if you hire really great actors, the actors themselves ought to be able to act well enough to gloss over any of the seams that might take you out of any given moment. She bet big on this idea. And it looks like she was right. 

The other thing I thought was that in this new-age of entertainment as things shift, are threatened, and new ideas are being invented, as we speak, it's an almost backwards system of creation. My guess is that Garner knew which streaming platform she'd stream on before they even started production. Peacock is not HBO, and HBO is not Disney, etc., etc., etc. Each streamer hits a price-point. Each price-point, I'm sure, correlates with certain demographics. If you understand the demographic reach of the platform upon which you will stream, you are now making such pointed content that you can even calibrate the level of production (aka its cost), as long as you still have actors who can pull off the scene.

So, for whom was this show produced? It wasn't me, that's for sure. They're too old for me to be their target audience. I'm not white, like the main character. I'm not a career professional like all her friends. I definitely don't summer. And as an asian, the one character with whom I may identify is the "other woman," like so fucking annoying to make the asian character the sex role. But whatever. I already know the way that white women view asian women, and if the story somehow is actually a story about women who are there for each other, then great, but an asian was still cast as the sex object who stole away some white man from some white woman. So, forgiveness or not, the perpetuation of the hot threatening asian woman is alive and well. But I mean, Gemma Chan is the reason why I even gave the show a chance, lol, cause FACE!

By Contrast but yet, with the exact same ick.

I loved me some Rooster with the same, obvious caveat that I hate the, again, but this time only asian-passing, white-man stealing whore *vomits* Why? White women are this threatened? I mean, I probably stole my white man from some white woman, from her pov, lol, but seriously? Get over it.

Rooster, I know for a fact, was a show written for me as their target audience. As a failed writer, this show is my porn, absolutely *one-hundred* It's nearly perfect in every way (minus the asian-passing whore character). Steve Carell is the world's leading actor to play asshole characters, because we are all so confident that he is not an asshole. At least, we all still believe that he's not-an asshole, whether this is the truth, we will probably never know until he does something crazy. Anyway, Carell plays the character that all us failed writers can hate. He's just some guy, who wrote some stupid stories and is incredibly popular for it. He's the embodiment of what every "serious writer" hates ... mediocrity. Not only that, he's being given opportunities off of this mediocrity, because he's popular. 

Aside from the plot of the show, the show, itself, is produced really well. It's an HBO show *hair flip* The camera work has a personality. Why is the depth so shallow? Why is it so dark and gloomy? It's a comedy, but it's gotta bit of dark humor to it, cause the premise is incredibly dark (and heavy to those who care), but the script is comedy, and the cinematography reflects this.

Deep vignette, an underlying darkness, the premise is heavy.

Shallow depth of field, this is commentary on life today; we can only see one thing in focus at a time.

The person in focus, is lit brightly, almost hot, sometimes too hot. 

A lot is being said through the decisions being made with the camera. It's an HBO production, there's a higher-standard of quality. HBO has a sort of budget-floor, one imagines, which also, one imagines, maybe makes it more difficult to make more woman-led productions, cause like, I get it, Carell is supposed to embody the mediocre man who fails upwards, essentially, and so, while it's nice to see the real-world of academia portrayed so accurately and satisfyingly resolved, it's still a story about a man. 

Your hands, including the wrists, are the groin of your independence

One week while jobbing at my old job, sometime in March before I quit, I was hanging tags, like I did, and I had this thought, and it was simply about how grateful I am for my hands. And I thought about how much I needed them for my life, not just living it but for my dream.

On Socials | A Medium

If the Medium is the message [Marshall McLuhan], then it is social media, itself, the idea of it, the thing itself, the technology behind it, that is the thing that we need to understand. So what is social media? The why of a thing hardly matters. Doesn't matter why it was created. Why people use it doesn't matter as much as that people use it, and so, when people talk about how "people use social media," what is social media? Is it an app? Is it a place? Is it a community? Okay, great, what is an app? What is a place? What is a community? And so on and so forth.

Fuck you, Marvel

We are strongly considering a seoul-trip for korean-style IMAX (cause whata movie-theater shit-fest is it here, boo) in December for Doomsday. Once I realized that this is what we were discussing, what the fuck? So, now we're thinking a Colorado trip (there's a big-boy imax there, not korean-style, but good enough), cause we've gotta lotta congratulations to deliver, and I have other stuff I need to get up to The Valley, and I have a bestie or two in the Denver-Metro area who need some love. So, ya, but so much is still in the air for us, on a daily basis rn, that it's a bit too premature to make any plans, but at the same time, we are both mutable, lol, nevertheless, we've been such responsible adults *vomits* that spontaneous trips are a thing of our past. Perhaps it's time to circle back around to those young, irresponsible, risk-tolerant, thrill-seeking kiddos who got us here. 

 

week zero + WEEK ONE | Day One

&yes, i am not going to post every, single, fucking day, cause why? i am going to post a post, from here on out, at the completion of a week's worth of work. today, however, is Day One, and i happened to snap exactly two pics of the first day of week zero, so here they are, along with what i accomplished today, along with as little commentary as i can get away with *eyeroll*

ephwhyell volume 0.3

WEEK ONE | 20-26 Jul 2026
pp 88-91
Fifteen (15) Assignments

read Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber

we (the bodybuddy/lifemate&i) effectively job/work [respectively] from/at home these days
(there is an ideal part-time jobbing situation that i am very interested in
but since the bb/lm is jobbing his little butt off
i have a little breathing room wherein i can find a rhythm for this sewing work
*sigh*
once i get into a groove
i'll be looking for something more
i know it
&so
that is when i'll try to get the part-time job that would be ideal for me to job
while i work this sewing work)
&so we "walk to &or from work" every day
by going for a walk
lol
&since i dunno what to do with my old jobbing shirts
ima try out this look
lol
oh!
&i finally wore that newly-altered beachy sun dress out on the town yesterday!

^..^

week zero | day one

WEEK ONE | DAY ONE

got my needles sorted and labelled

was surprised by how many types i already had

will pick up the missing four (4) types at walmart tomorrow morning

am attempting to also sew my entire way through this book exclusively with walmart supplies

[had already purchased the iron and ironing board at target before i decided to try my idea, boooo]

already had a handful of supplies, but the types of supplies i already had are available at walmart

did not set out to do this exclusively with products available at walmart

but if you know me at all

this is all "on brand"

*shrug*

this section is the section of exercises i'll be working on this week
&below
[L] a dear friend of ours sent us these lightsaber chopsticks
and we love them
obviously
but also
i realized today that they'd make good corner pokers
*hehe*
[R] whipped up some "sketchfabric"
(is this a term? if it's not, coined it! *boom*)
cause this week and next week's exercises are all various stitches
so i made four (4) small squares
four (4) small rectangles
one (1) slightly bigger rectangle
&one (1) large square
pieces of sketchfabric to work on my hand-sewing stitches this week
(&machine stitches next week)
all of them have been left "open"
so that i can practice all sorts of stitches on them
but also
i've already seen the "slip stitch/ladder stitch" coming up as an exercise
so now
i can go to town on all of these sketchfabric openings
&work my favorite stitch as much as i please
*-* 

&after a quick Palama Korean Supermarket run
our ballots were in the mail!