Tag: Misc

There was a time artists had to mix their own oil paints, creating their pigments by grinding colored minerals together with various oils. These days we have the good fortune to have our paint premade, available in tubes. Because of the thick consistency these industrially produced paints have, artists tend to mix them not only with oils, but often with some kind of solvent as well, in a blend referred to as a medium. The solvent assists with flow and drying, the oil is a binder.

I initially used linseed oil and turpentine when oil painting. I’ve heard turpentine can actually be addictive. I remember how I used to feel when I’d unscrew the lid of the glass jar I stored my medium in; there was something of a subtle thrill in the pinesap smell of it. But I soon switched over to mineral spirits, which I heard were better for health reasons.

I now work in acrylics, water based paints. I had many years of breathing solvents, and after the last time I moved my painting studio back into my house, I decided no more.

Painting in oils is demanding. It’s an incredibly versatile medium, but there is an unforgiving technical process to it was well. If the science isn’t followed, the painting will not survive intact. “Fat over lean,” we used to say in art school. What this means is never put faster drying paint on top of a slower drying, oilier paint layer. The leaner paint will crack as the wet layer underneath continues to dry, destroying the painting.

One of my favorite painters, Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847-March 28, 1917), did not learn this lesson. And we are all the poorer for it.

By all accounts, Ryder was a shy, reclusive figure. He lived alone in legendary squalor;…

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Men actually should be more involved in their kids’ education. But this video isn’t likely to do it.

The whole “real men do x” genre is built around shaming. Shaming can work in cases where there are strong social taboos. But I’ve never seen it work for things like this. It’s just another variation of the “Man up!” rant. 

Also, the video is a little goofy. Sometimes goofy can work, but if a man already feels awkward about the idea of getting involved in the PTA, is this likely to sell? I don’t think it will. There’s nothing aspirational here.

Mainstream attempts to get men to change their behaviors just haven’t worked all that well. No wonder men are instead looking to alternative sources like Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, etc.

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Aaron M. Renn

When I started the Masculinist, the church was a barren wasteland for advice on sexuality. I barely saw anyone else writing constructively about even the most basic issues—things like attraction, the differences between men and women, marriage, divorce.

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Aaron M. Renn

When I started the Masculinist, the church was a barren wasteland for advice on sexuality. I barely saw anyone else writing constructively about even the most basic issues—things like attraction, the differences between men and women, marriage, divorce.

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“I had to learn to do everything because I couldn’t find another kindred soul. Now you see eighty people listed doing the same things I was doing by myself.”

-Ray Harryhausen

Though you might need to be something of a trivia buff to recognize the name, Ray Harryhausen is one of the all-time most influential figures in film. He was been cited as an inspiration to directors Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Tim Burton, and Sam Raimi, among many others. Yet Harryhausen himself never appeared on the screen.

What we saw were the small sculptures Harryhausen brought to life by painstakingly changing their positions and filming them one frame at a time. Run through a film projector, this made what was really a series of still photographs seem to move. This process is called stop motion animation.

Harryhausen’s career spanned 50 years, and included such genre classics as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and the original Clash of the Titans. At least at first, Harryhausen movies were also a cottage industry family business. His mother would sew outfits for his little models, and his father machined the metal armatures used to give the figures both stability and motion.

A New Yorker article written after Harryhausen passed away in 2013 contains some hits and misses regarding the special effects artist.  “Harryhausen and the Expressively Imperfect World” by Adam Gopnik captures something of the mystery of the filmmaker, but is too pat in its Postmodern self-regard.

Gopnik wrote,  “Though who—at least among those who saw her at an impressionable age—can forget the snake woman who emerges, Play-Doh body writhing serpentinely, before the Sultan’s court—and is met by carefully directed gazes of awe and wonder and cries of ‘Allah, be praised!’ on the part of extras who…

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Following up on my three part deep dive into the Dissident Right, I want to highlight some tweets that show their approach to sexual behavior.

Here’s one from a well-known account Twitter called Current American Citizen:

As a practicing Catholic, I tell you this, please, for the sake of your soul, have sex before marriage

— Current American Citizen (@CurrentCitizen) September 20, 2021

Another Twitter user named Med Gold had this to say:

Men must sleep with many women to fully understand their nature. You won’t know how to fix a sink just by reading about it, and you won’t become an expert at fixing sinks by only fixing one.

— ᴍᴇᴅ ɢᴏʟᴅ (@MedGold_) September 15, 2021

This received an endorsement from what I believe is the Telegram account of Bronze Age Pervert.

I’ve had some people argue that there’s more Christian influence in the Dissident Right than I think. And these did get some strong pushback in some quarters.

The key is that the mainstream of Dissident Right thinking, whatever their correct analysis on some issues, is largely not coming from a Christian perspective and holds key beliefs that are simply incompatible with Christianity. So if you read these folks you need to keep that in mind.

PS: @CurrentCitizen is trying to raise money to care for his sick mother. You can find out more at:

Hey, everyone. e-begging again. As some of you know, my mom is very unwell. I used to be her primary caretaker. Now she lives at an assisted living facility but miscellaneous medical expenses still stack up. https://t.co/miIIwyrTgO

— Current American Citizen (@CurrentCitizen) June 16, 2021

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“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.” – Joseph Campbell.

Becoming hyper-fixated on a career is a sure-fire way to misery. Here are a few reasons.

One, most people don’t know their desired career at a young age. We’re too naïve and haven’t developed enough to know what we want. Some people appear to have it all figured out early. This is the exception, not the rule. It takes feedback and adjustments from real-world experience to find what we love.

Two, our interests change with us.

How many people enjoy the same activities at age ten versus age twenty. Few. As we grow, our personalities change. With that, so does the type of work that interests us.

Three, the world is transforming.

We are quickly automating old jobs while creating new, complex ones. Becoming hyper-fixated on one career ignores the potential for new, exciting careers. It also endangers us from our desired job becoming obsolete.

Rather than being dead set on a specific outcome, be open and listen to your feelings and intuition. Adjust your path as your inclinations become clearer.

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Michael Foster and East River Church in Batavia, Ohio recently hosted a conference on Christian localism called County Before Country.

I was honored to speak at it. My presentation started with an overview of my positive, neutral, negative world framework, then proceeded to outline a strategy for owned space. This is in part based on the content from newsletters #13 and #43.

Here’s the video of my talk. If you click over to Youtube and look at the East River Church account, you’ll find the other presentations and speaker panels as well.

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Photos like this are always highly considered and intentional. There’s a lot we can see from it about how they want people to think about their relationship.

Meghan is in front in a posture with lots of “power pose” type elements. Power posing is typically about taking up space. We see she takes up more space in the picture than Harry. Her legs are slightly apart, elbows out, and even her hair parted and combed in a way to take up horizontal space.

Harry is taller than Meghan, but here he is seated to reduce his apparent height such that they are at an equal level.

Harry is also clinging on to her in a sort of “please don’t leave me” pose.

The image conveyed by this picture – and again at this level everything is highly considered and intentional – is that Meghan is the alpha or leader in this relationship and Harry the follower.

This seems to reflect substantial elements of how their relationship actually functions. Harry at least partially quit hunting because Meghan didn’t like it. He separated himself from his family and physically left the UK to follow to Meghan’s preferred locales in Canada and Los Angeles.

To each his (or her own). They can live however they want. It is just interesting to see how they communicate about the nature of their relationship. As high profile celebrities, the way they live will naturally be portrayed as aspirational for others.

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