ylph @ ylph @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

The Threnody is definitely his most famous, but he has used that technique in some of his solo compositions for cello as well - example

He's playing Penderecki

Certainly scorn is too strong. I feel like this was a fad that has mostly passed anyway - both due to increased globalization leading to demystification of the "Orient" in general, and Chinese cultural symbols in particular, as well as general trends towards more boldness and self-expression in Western tattoo culture, such as increasing popularity of face tattoos, intentionally "ugly" tattoo aesthetics and much less hesitation tattooing random English words all over the place. Not that I am necessarily a fan of that either, but I feel like it's at least some progress, not hiding the meanings behind some "exotic" Chinese characters, and just embracing what you want to say directly.

If you wouldn't get something tattooed in English because it seems a bit cringe, well it will still be cringe in Chinese - possibly more if you mess it up. And if you do like Chinese culture, characters or calligraphy - at least try to get something that does it some justice and maybe has at least some cultural relevance beyond just "some words, but in Chinese"

Compare the OP with some actual Chinese artists doing Chinese calligraphy tattoos - for example in Hong Kong or Taiwan (some of the photos are a bit NSFW, so be warned)

There is a bit of difference between "Chinese calligraphy" and "write me a list of words in plain Chinese characters"

I have no problem with people tattooing whatever they want on themselves btw - but it's true that from the perspective of someone who can read Chinese, these tattoos (like in the OP) are not "beautiful Chinese characters" or "calligraphy" - they do come across as mostly just confusing lists of strangely formatted and crudely written random words.

It's more like this

Sure, but tattoos in sans serif fonts are still super common, and honestly, it makes little difference, the one in OP is still basic as fuck - call it Times New Roman instead of Arial. It reads like plain text to a Chinese reader, not some kind of calligraphy - what you call "stylized" is actually just the default original textbook stroke style of the standard script. The sans serif version with monowidth lines is actually more of a modern stylized form of that.

日語 happens to mean Japanese Language, in both written Chinese and Japanese.

Same for 日本人 (Japanese Person)

It might look artistic to you, but to a Chinese reader this example looks basic and dull, so they just see the meaning of the words much the same as the "WATER" on the left. There just isn't any real aesthetic or artistic value here, in the context of Chinese writing.

It kind of goes both ways though, back in the day there was a fad in Asia too of people wearing clothes with random English words on them, because there those looked exotic and cool, even though to Westerners it looked a bit dumb.

There are different Chinese fonts (in print/computer context) and also different Chinese historical scripts, each with different styles of writing, and finally a very diverse variety of calligraphy styles.

The idea of what is considered "old", "fancy" and "fancy old" doesn't necessarily map the same way as it does in Latin/Western writing in general, the cultural and historical sensibility and connotations are often quite different, although in most broad sense, you could find some style analogues to achieve a similar vibe, but it would be quite context dependent.

To me it looks done by hand, the inconsistencies in character sizes and stroke widths wouldn't be seen in an actual font. The 独 also looks very hand drawn, the vertical strokes on 無 as well. It's very "textbook" calligraphy, done by someone who knows the strokes and has some practice, but dull and with no personality, and still a degree of insecurity and inconsistency in the strokes, so perhaps a late beginner to intermediate level student of calligraphy. Not necessarily by the tattoo artist either, it could have been tattooed from a template written on paper.

So many Chinese character tattoos are done in the Chinese equivalent of boring Arial 10 font though, that's part of the point. The one in the photo is at least hand written, but by someone with poor aesthetic sense, it still looks dull and ugly.

Expat is short for expatriate, not ex-patriot. Both expatriate and patriot do come from the same Latin root (patria, fatherland) via French.

But yes, expatriate means someone who lives outside (ex) of their fatherland (patria) - can be used for both immigrant or emigrant, depending on context.

There are lots of black bears around Lake Arrowhead where they staged this.

Pretty sure she is on a petrol one - there is a fuel tank above the front wheel, and you can see the fuel line going into the throttle body above the single piston engine. You can also see the exhaust and muffler below and behind the piston.

Also looking into it more, I don't think the Autoped was ever offered with an electric motor. Apparently the confusion comes from the fact that the company was bought out by the battery manufacturer Eveready, and sold as Eveready Autoped. Eveready modified the Autoped by adding a battery and ignition coil, replacing the original magneto system, but propulsion was always by means of a petrol engine.

I don't think the one in the photo has the battery and coil however - the coil can be seen here in front of the gas tank, but is missing in the OP photo.

Fast film (you can see how grainy it is when you zoom in a little) and shooting in full bright sun = you can shoot very short exposure and freeze motion. There were already cameras in the 1930s with mechanical shutters that could do 1/500th and even 1/1000th of a second exposure, which is plenty fast for this type of shot.

The lens looks pretty fast too - depth of field is very shallow, although part of that is also due to possible use of medium or large format - faster lens (lower f stop) and larger film both allow more light capture, and therefore faster exposure as well, but at the cost of less depth of field.

Edit: here is a good print of the full frame - looks like ~1.50 ratio, so probably 35mm film (not medium or large format) - I can't find a lot of information about what cameras Max Alpert used in the 30s, although he did use a 35mm Leica on at least some photos from that era. A Leica III could do 1/1000 in 1935 for example. The early Soviet cameras from the 1930s were also basically direct copies of Leicas. The frame also looks a bit underexposed, which could be due to pushing the exposure for more speed.

I think those might actually be frosted glass cups.

Here is the best copy I could find, and the flared edges do not look like plastic cups - also the shiny inside and matte outside looks more like glass frosted on the outside.

PP was not in commercial use until 1957 (not sure when it was first used for cups), PET disposable cups weren't a thing until the 70s. Disposable cups in the 50s would have been wax paper.

They wore masks, had negative pressure ventilation suits on

I hope those were positive pressure suits, positive pressure helps to keep dust out of the suit. Negative pressure ventilation is used to help sick people breathe easier, like the iron lung for example.

Not true, I am a naturalized US citizen, and don't have a middle name - it was never an issue and I was never asked to come up with one. My son was born in the US and also doesn't have a middle name.

Once you finish it, it's actually really fun watching other people's playthroughs as well - getting to relive some of the moments vicariously through other people's eyes is almost as much fun as experiencing them yourself the first time.

It's also quite amazing just how different each playthrough can be, since the game is so non-linear, people take some crazy paths to get to the end ! It can be frustrating as well when someone just can't see what is in front of their face though :)

There are also so many subtle elements scattered around that most people miss on their first playthrough, and watching someone else play it really made me appreciate many of the details I missed on my own playthrough and even make connections I didn't before, and understand aspects of the story that I didn't fully get the first time.

The word average is often used to mean mean, however it can be used less specifically - median is a type of average as well.

From Merriam-Webster definition of average:

1a) a single value (such as a mean, mode, or median) that summarizes or represents the general significance of a set of unequal values

Also, things like testosterone levels in a population usually follow a normal distribution, where both mean and median are the same, so the distinction is often meaningless for practical purposes