Nagel Versus...well, Not Nagel

In a previous post I mentioned that I did a "Nagel" version of an image I had previously done in a more conventional style. This is it, a copy of the cover of an issue of "Esquire" magazine featuring Britney Spears, sans trousers. I'm not entirely pleased with how it turned out, but I'm not displeased either. Maybe my ambivalence stems from how well the first version I did of this image turned out...

...which leads me to this one, the original, more detailed version. I think this one is vastly superior, but I guess it's really a matter of comparing apples and oranges. Still, I guess you can prefer apples to oranges, or vice versa, and I guess that in this case, I prefer this style. Live and learn, I guess, which has been rather the point of this whole experiment...

Who are you calling a Caribbean Jerk?

It occurred to me as I set the chicken to marinade the name of what I’m making for dinner, Caribbean Jerk Chicken, consists entirely of insults.
Okay, so maybe “Caribbean” isn’t really an insult, but even so, fully two thirds of the name consists of insults.
The fact that I was thinking about this probably establishes pretty unequivocally that my mind is a strange place.
This is definitely the case: my mind IS a strange place, and I would speculate that it’s not at all like the Caribbean, or any other choice vacation spot.
Then again, while I do sometimes have brainstorms, my mind has never been known to have a hurricane, either.
In any case, the point is that my mind isn’t even a particularly nice place to visit, and yet I have to live there.
And I really do live there, possibly to a greater extent than most people, though not being other people, or being telepathic, there’s no way to say for sure, but my own experience, based on observation and what people have told me about themselves, indicates that most people don’t live as much of their lives internally to the extent that I do.
I suppose you could call me introverted, inwardly focused, or even self-centered (though honestly, I think that we all need to center ourselves around our “selves,” so it’s not necessarily a bad thing).
Narcissistic probably wouldn’t fit, since while I do tend to focus most of my attention on myself I’m not actually enthralled or enamored with what I’m seeing.
I suppose my inward focus stems largely from my solitude, as I have spent, and continue to spend, a good portion of my life alone.
All of my siblings are at least five years older than I am, and even my mother has often said that, while she realized intellectually that I was one of them, she’s always thought of me as being her “second family,” as if I were somehow separate from the others.
I don’t know that this opinion contributed to me being isolated from them, though I would say that I don’t think it did.
And honestly, it’s not that I was completely cut off from my brothers and sisters, it’s just that the difference in age made interaction sort of difficult at times.
The difference in age also meant that even before I started high school I was the only one left at home.
Being a weirdo left me isolated from my peers as a kid, and on into high school (for the most part).
Even when I was married I spent a great deal of my time alone, thanks to differing work and class schedules.
While at work I got along with most of the people I worked with, but that was pretty much the extent to which I socialized, as by that time I had gotten fairly accustomed to being alone.
Further, I had developed a pretty strong dislike of any sort of social interaction beyond the absolute bare minimum (like while at work, for example), and in general, I didn’t (and still don’t, though I’ve gotten a little better) like people.
Again, this stemmed from being habituated to being on my own, but also from my grade school experiences in which, being a weirdo and therefore an easy target, I learned that people are horrible, mean-spirited, and can’t be trusted.
Ah, the joys of childhood trauma…
In any case, as a married adult attending college full-time, I still managed to be extraordinarily solitary.
My wife, to a certain extent, helped keep me isolated, as she was willing to step in whenever possible and handle any human interaction for me. She would make phone calls, place orders for me at fast food restaurants, and so forth, allowing me to become even more isolated (and weird).
It was actually during this period that I first conceived of the “Jon Alarm.”
I was standing in the hallway before class, waiting for the students of the preceding class to exit the classroom. I leaned up against the wall to wait, and while I did that, some other student came and leaned against the wall next to me.
RIGHT next to me, even though he had an entire wall to choose from.
As he did this, it occurred to me that it would be very amusing if I had something like a car alarm that would go off, declaring, “STEP AWAY FROM THE JON! YOU ARE TOO CLOSE!”
But alas, my dream never came to fruition, and to this day I frequently suffer from invasions into my personal space, though in fairness my definition of “personal space” tends to be a bit broader than most (For example, wherever you are as you read this, you’re currently in my personal space. You’re in Cleveland? Too close. Estonia? Back up a little. The outer rim of the solar system? Give me some breathing room, dammit…).
When my marriage ended, I was well and truly alone, though without the benefit of having someone to handle human interaction for me, so that took considerable adjustment.
Beyond that, though, it was an entirely different kind of solitude.
Essentially, it was unbroken solitude. I couldn’t sit there alone with the understanding that at some point she was going to get off work and come walking through the door.
No, I was going to go to sleep alone, wake up alone, go grocery shopping alone, eat dinner alone…
At the time, circumstances were such that the handful of friends I had were largely unavailable, and my inadequate social skills effectively prevented me from making any new friends.
Upon reflection, it’s no wonder that in order to develop any sort of social life I had to make liberal use of alcohol as both a social lubricant and a reason to socialize in the first place.
It’s also no wonder that eventually I had to stop making use of alcohol…
And now I find myself alone even more than ever. I do engage in the occasional social interaction with friends from work, but at this stage in life, that usually involves a specific activity. When you get into your 30s you don’t spend a lot of time just “hanging out.”
So, as I spend all of this time with no one to talk to, it’s hardly surprising that I spend the majority of it knocking around inside the old gray matter.
What the hell else am I going to do?
And as the saying goes, no matter where you go, there you are.
It’s not as though my brain can be shut off, and even if I find myself totally engrossed in some activity, which almost never happens, I’m capable of multi-tasking, so it’s not like there’s any way to escape from my thoughts.
So I think about things like ‘Caribbean Jerk Chicken” as a potential insult to throw at the next obnoxious coward from the Bahamas that I encounter, though, as mentioned, such an encounter is unlikely to happen.
Still, as mentioned, my social skills have improved somewhat over the years.
Hell, I actually worked in Public Relations at one point, so that should say something (despite the fact that I did eventually get fired...).
I haven’t learned to like people any better. In fact, working in phone tech support for over a year made me like people even less, and I still think that they’re horrible, mean-spirited, and not to be trusted, but I’ve picked up some coping skills somewhere along the line, so I can deal with them a little better (though the ideal approach is just to avoid them as much as possible).
Anyway, after mentioning Jessica Alba’s willingness to play a stripper, and her unwillingness to get naked while doing so, I was thinking a lot about the grand tradition of actresses playing strippers and porn stars who never actually get naked.
Like Vivica Fox in “Independence Day.” She spends about five seconds on stage, fully-clothed, and then walks off to the dressing room.
Or Elisha Cuthbert in “The Girl Next Door,” in which she plays a porn star whose scenes are apparently always filmed at such an angle that none of her naughty bits are ever exposed.
Say what you will about how horrible “Showgirls” and “Strip Tease” were (and they really were), but at least the strippers in those movies actually took their clothes off.
I’ve seen a lot of strippers in my time, and I’ve never known any of them to stay fully-clothed for extended periods of time while performing. I would have to say it’s pretty likely that they wouldn’t keep their jobs long if they did, or at the very least they wouldn’t make much money.
In fact, it’s pretty much central to the profession, and indeed, the name, of stripping that strippers get undressed, so I find it odd that in Hollywood strippers typically wear more clothing than many Islamic women. Maybe the people who make the wardrobe decisions for strippers in movies are the same people who design exotic, science-fiction-y graphical interfaces for computer applications and operating systems…
Ah well, in any case, I can’t complain too much. After all, there are other problems with Jessica Alba’s role in “Sin City,” with her inability to act possibly being the least of them.
Like the fact that, despite her efforts to make herself appear to be your average blonde American girl, Jessica Alba is very clearly Hispanic, and as such, isn’t really the ideal choice to play a girl named Nancy Callahan.
But whatever; in “Fantastic Four” she will playing the non-Hispanic Sue Storm, opposite a COMPLETELY non-Hispanic actor portraying her brother Johnny.
I wonder if they’ll even bother trying to explain the disparity in the siblings’ ethnicities, or if we’ll just be meant to except it in the fashion that we accept that whole “Rainbow Coalition” family featured in those Verizon ads. If you haven’t seen the ads, they’re just sort of odd. Dad is a white guy, Mom’s Hispanic, the son is also Hispanic (and has this urban, street hood accent that doesn’t really fit in his suburban surroundings), the daughter is white, and the baby is black.
I’m not sure what accounts for the decision to feature such a family other than an attempt to be rabidly PC, but it just leads you to wonder what’s going on. Did they adopt one or more of the kids? Did mom have an affair or two? Is one or more of the kids from a previous marriage? You just don’t know, and the speculation that a lack of answers results in draws you away from the actual message of the ad.
I guess it’s supposed to reflect the diversity of America, and the changing face of the American family, but the whole thing just rings false (Pun intended. What do you mean you don’t get the pun? It’s Verizon. Verizon is a phone company. So, “rings” is a pun, and…oh, forget it!).
Anyway, perhaps in the filmed world of “Fantastic Four,” the Storm family is similarly diverse. Still, at one point they were considering Christina Milian for the role of Sue Storm, which, with a white actor playing Johnny, would have raised even more questions…
But back to Jessica Alba in “Sin City.”
Ethnicity aside, she just doesn’t have the right look for the role of Nancy (or for Sue Storm, for that matter), and seeing clips of her wearing an outfit almost identical to the one Nancy wore in about 90% of her appearances in various tales of Basin City (the actual name of the titular city) drives home the point.
Especially considering that the outfit that Nancy wore in the comics was limited to just the chaps, cowboy hat, boots and lasso…
Okay, dammit, I’ll admit it: I’m pissed that Jessica Alba won’t be showing her tits!
I mean, come on, so many actresses refuse to do “gratuitous nudity,” but will agree to it if it’s integral to the role. If she had that attitude, we’d be seeing the twins. After all, she’s playing a stripper. How much more integral to the role can nudity get?
*Sigh* Oh well.
So it’s Thursday again, which means that the work week is once again upon me.
I didn’t accomplish much this week other than a few Nagel pictures that I’m only somewhat pleased with.
Except for the Jessica Simpson picture. I really like that one, and have actually been working on another one, though I probably won’t finish that one tonight.
Next week is kind of iffy in the accomplishment department, as I’m most likely going to be getting a copy of Doom 3 this weekend.
I’m normally not too big on video games, but the original Doom was one that managed to draw me in, so it seems pretty likely that this time around I’ll be doomed once more.
I first played the limited play, shareware version of Doom ten years ago on my first computer (Which was, for the curious among you, a 33 MHz 486 with a whopping 4 MB of RAM and a 170 MB hard drive).
I got a full copy of the game in late 1995, which turned out to be excellent timing, as it was right after my marriage ended, so I had a lot aggression to let out…
Anyway, given the vast improvements in technology, both on the part of the game developers and in terms of my computer, I’m sure that the incredibly rendered graphics and intensely violent gameplay will pull me in, causing me to cast aside all other activities.
Maybe it’ll even pull me out of my own head for a little while…

Last one for now

And this is it for the Nagel pics for right now. In case you can't tell, it's another Nagel Britney Spears.

Not bad

This one I kind of like, even though it doesn't really look like the person who was in the source image (Jessica Alba). Still, it reminds me of an actual Nagel image, as I seem to recall there being one with someone in an outfit like this.

Meh

Here's another Nagel Katie Holmes I did. Meh. It's okay, but nothing spectacular.

Something to look forward to

I think I’ve probably mentioned this before, but if I haven’t, at this stage in my life I find that I have very little to look forward to.
Typically, in the course of a week, the one thing I do have to look forward to is a new episode of Dead Like Me on Sunday night.
Of course, that won’t always be there (the season ends in October), so after DLM bows out for the year, it would seem that the only thing I’d have to look forward to is the start of DLM’s third season (and, with only slightly less enthusiasm, the release of Season Two on DVD).
There are a couple of other TV shows that I enjoy that will be starting their new seasons, but there’s nothing that comes even close to engendering the kind of enthusiasm in me that DLM does.
So, presumably, after October, it will be a long stretch of nothing until next summer.
However, there is one other thing in life that I have to look forward to.
No, it’s not romance, financial success, or spiritual enlightenment.
It’s a movie coming out in the spring of 2005.
Specifically, it’s a movie called “Sin City.”
“Sin City” is based on a series of graphic novels (which is just a fancy word for comic books) written and illustrated by a guy by the name of Frank Miller.
I won’t bother trying to explain his stature in the comic industry, but suffice to say that Miller is something of a living legend.
His work can only be described as revolutionary, and he almost single-handedly changed the face of the industry.
And that was just with his work on mainstream titles.
After working on characters like Batman, Daredevil, Wolverine, and the Punisher, Frank went over into the world of independent and creator-owned comics and began working his “Sin City” stories.
Miller works as both artist and writer. His artistic style is…distinctive. It can best be described as “over the top,” but in general it suits he writing style, which is gritty, blackly humorous, and usually intensely violent.
It’s worth noting that his work is not for everyone.
In any case, with “Sin City,” Miller really outdid himself on all points, creating an artistic style consisting largely of high-contrast black and white (with the occasional splash of color used to tremendous effect) that, despite the sharp edges separating the two, somehow creates the illusion of shades of gray, and indeed, an entire spectrum of color.
His use of negative space is nothing short of extraordinary.
As for the stories themselves, they draw heavily from the “noir” style of hard-nosed detective stories, and are filled to overflowing with bullets, babes, and bad guys.
Every woman in Sin City is a femme fatale in her own right, and every guy is so tough as to put Dirty Harry to shame.
One cliché that does get a little skewed, though, is that of the “hooker with a heart of gold.” In “Sin City,” your average hooker has a heart of iron, and she’s likely to accessorize with an AK-47 and a katana…
I really don’t know how else to explain “Sin City” without actually relating some of the stories, and since the stories have already been very ably told, I won’t attempt to re-tell them here.
By the way, it should be abundantly clear that these comics are definitely NOT for kids.
In any case, I’ve read the majority of “Sin City” stories, such as “A Dame to Kill For,” “The Babe Wore Red,” and “The Big Fat Kill,” and, obviously, enjoyed them all thoroughly.
Ordinarily, the fact that I enjoyed them so much would make me reluctant to want to see a movie based on them, given that the movie would inevitably fail miserably to live up to the source material.
Of course, ordinarily movies like this are made by people who have no investment in the source material and who have only a peripheral interest in bringing the source material to life (the primary interest, of course, is just to make money).
Not so “Sin City.”
Director Robert Rodriquez (“El Mariachi,” “Desperado,” and, I reluctantly admit, “Spy Kids”) is a huge fan of the original books and spent a great deal of time lobbying Frank Miller for the rights.
One of the other people involved in the movie is Quentin Tarantino. I’m not a huge fan of Tarantino, but he is also a rabid fan of “Sin City,” and I have to admit that his particular artistic sensibilities are well-suited to such a project.
Since the movie is actually based on several different “Sin City” stories, it’s actually going to be laid out in a style very similar to that of “Pulp Fiction,” which is to say that it’ll consist of several interconnected, yet separate, stories.
(The movie is based primarily on the first, self-titled “Sin City” story, and the stories “The Big Fat Kill,” and “That Yellow Bastard.”).
Okay, so Rodriquez and Tarantino make me hopeful.
The kicker, though, is that Frank Miller wrote the screenplay, and is making his directorial debut as one of the movie’s co-directors.
Thus, I have something to look forward to before the third season of DLM.
Today I found a trailer for the movie, which adds to my excitement.
It was not, apparently, intended for public viewing, but, like the “special” home movies that celebrities make, it inevitably made its way onto the Internet.
It’s very rough, some of the backgrounds are missing, and they did something that I hope won’t carry over to the finished product (though it won’t be a deal-breaker if it does), but overall, I think it looks amazing.
They did a great job of bringing Miller’s visual style to life.
If I’ve piqued your curiosity at all, go here to check out the trailer:

http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2005/STUVWXYZ/SinCity/trailer.php

Hopefully it hasn’t been taken down yet (these sorts of things have a tendency to disappear).
If you watch the trailer, you’ll be able to see some of the original artwork, as they’ve interspersed it with the action (which is the effect that I actually hope doesn’t make it to the finished product).
FYI: there is some nudity (Mmm…Carla Gugino) in the trailer, along with some adult language, so download at your own risk.
I’m pretty excited about the movie, as I’m sure you can tell, but I’m trying to keep my enthusiasm reined in a little, just in case it does end up sucking.
One of the big topics for discussion among “Sin City” fans is Jessica Alba’s assertion that she DOES NOT appear nude in the movie.
This is annoying, not only because there are lots of us who’d very much like for her to appear nude (in this movie, or anywhere else she pleases, for that matter), but because it’s not exactly true to the character she plays, seeing as how she plays a stripper.
Strippers have been known, on occasion, to take their clothes off, so it is a bit distressing that Alba won’t be fulfilling the role to the fullest.
But it’s only a minor problem as far as I’m concerned.
Anyway, that’s enough rambling about “Sin City” for now.
Of course, there’s not much else going on in my life.
I’ve mostly been toiling away at the “Nagel Experiment,” with mixed results.
I don’t know if my enthusiasm is just waning, but I’ve finished quite a few since yesterday, and I’ve nearly finished even more than that, but so far nothing has really stood out.
Earlier today I did a Nagel-ized version of an image that I drew in a more conventional style around a year ago. I was looking at the original source image today and thought that it was just crying out to get the Nagel treatment, particularly since it was practically a Nagel image already (as much as a photograph can be, anyway).
It may have been crying out to get the treatment, but I’m not sure it’s crying out to be shared with the world. We’ll see, though. I may re-evaluate it (or even re-draw it).
On another topic, I’m not sure that I’m accomplishing what I wanted to accomplish with this blog, but as mentioned, I was never really sure what that was in the first place, so it’s hard to judge.
I guess I’ll just have to keep at it and see if I find some purpose somewhere along the line.
But in any case, I guess that’s all for now. I may post some images later on.

Mmmm....Katie Holmes

Here's a Nagel-ized Katie Holmes. I've been playing with simplifying the style even further while still keeping enough detail to make the image recognizable. As far as results go, this one isn't great, but it's not bad. And besides: Katie Holmes. Mmmmm....Katie Holmes

The Beautiful People

So today was only slightly more productive than yesterday, but only because there was stuff I HAD to do.
The “stuff” I had to do was work-related and involved going to my company’s headquarters (I work in a separate facility).
I don’t have much reason to go to headquarters too often, but when I do, it’s always sort of surprising.
See, where I work, there are a lot of people, such as myself, who are involved in the more technical end of things, whereas the people at headquarters handle things like accounting, marketing, business, and so forth.
There’s something of a divide between the kinds of people drawn toward the technical side and those drawn toward the non-technical.
In a nutshell, the place I work is full of geeks, dweebs, and nerds, and all of the “beautiful people” can be found at headquarters.
Meaning no offense to my co-workers, it’s always sort of surprising to see that there are non-geeky, attractive people working for the company.
Of course, when I do go to headquarters, it’s with the understanding that eventually I’ll have to eventually crawl back under the bridge with the rest of the trolls.
The actual meeting that I had to attend was sort of interesting, but also unsettling.
For a variety of reasons, I won’t get into details, but the focus of the meeting was on a part of the company that I used to work in. I only worked there for a year (this was back in Tucson), before I got my current job and moved out here to Northern Virginia, but suffice to say that year was pretty horrendous, and today’s meeting brought back a lot of bad memories.
Still, they did provide lunch, so that was a good thing.
Most of the people attending the meeting didn’t really fall into the “beautiful people” category, with one notable exception.
Actually, though she does fall into that category, she doesn’t work a headquarters. She works where I work, and, in fact, works in my department.
Of course, my department is pretty large, and she doesn’t work in the particular division (for want of a better term) that I work in, so I usually only see her at meetings, like this one.
Not that it matters, since she’s married.
I’ve never spoken to her, so I know that’s she’s married only because of the huge diamond on her finger is hard to miss.
I do enjoy seeing her, though, as I find her enormously attractive.
On the physical level, she falls pretty squarely into the “ideal” category for me (though she’s a bit on the skinny side).
But alas, like pretty much every woman I’ve ever been attracted to, she’s already spoken for.
Anyway, after the meeting I went grocery shopping.
That was about as exciting as it sounds.
Once I got home, I did laundry and cooked dinner (Chicken breasts in lemon sauce).
Beyond that I worked on some more Nagel pictures, some of which I’ll be posting.
And that pretty much brings us up to speed.
I haven’t done any work of the story I was writing, but then I haven’t heard anything about the story I submitted, and I suspect that the rate at which I finish the story will depend on whether or not the first one gets sold.

You had to know it was coming...

So here's my first Nagel Britney. I'm sure there will be more to follow...

New Nagel

Here's a new Nagel experiment. This time it's a Nagel-ized Jessica Simpson. I'm sure a Nagel-ized Britney Spears is just a matter of time, but I haven't done one yet...

Lazy Monday

Well, my weekend is here once more, and I find myself being incredibly (and uncharacteristically, even for me) lazy.
Given the way I’ve lazed my way through the day, it’s fairly amazing that I’m making this much of an entry today.
I got up, after forcing myself to sleep in (I kept waking up, but flatly refused to get up) until nearly ten, had my usual Monday morning conversation with my mother, then sat around for a while.
Eventually I took a shower (though I didn’t shave), got dressed, and drove over to Wal Mart to pick up a few things.
After accomplishing that, I was supposed to come home and figure out what sort of meals I’m going to prepare this week.
Ordinarily, I cook during the week, getting one meal out of whatever I prepare on that particular day, then immediately freezing the remainder. These frozen leftovers then serve as my lunch for the weekend (and, in a pinch, as dinner during the week).
For a few weeks I had a very well-stocked freezer, which led me to be lazy about cooking last week.
The laziness took its toll, though, and I ended up only having enough food in my freezer for two days’ worth of lunch for the weekend.
And of course, now those are gone, so I have to begin the process of restocking.
Yes, life is a constant struggle.
The struggle, though, appears to be getting myself to accomplish the things I need to. Once I got home from Wal Mart, rather than figuring out what’s going to be on the menu, I took a nap.
The menu planning was supposed to be followed by some more Nagel work, a decent post for the blog, and some work on my latest story.
I am at least managing an entry of sorts, but I’m not holding out a lot of hope for the rest…