/pt/ – Petrarchan

I've been putting together a very small (<40 pages probably) collection of writing I've made over the last year. Once I hit ten pieces I'll consider it done, though I don't know if I'll do any meaningful editing besides cleaning up punctuation (e.g., proper em dashes, curly quotes) as all of the pieces were intended more as exercises, even if some of them I like quite a bit. So far intend to keep the order chronological. Pic related are two I've posted here before (I think the second was in the last incarnation of this thread). The piece I've got titled Short-Term Memory is probably my least favourite/effective of the current bunch, and it makes me wonder if I shouldn't be more selective in what I include or consider more serious edits. There's a line in it that is nearly repeated in something I wrote more recently, which makes me think there was still something essential in it I was trying to get at. The second piece is the second appearance of the highway-lake scene in the stories I'll include, and that repetition isn't something I dislike. There was an old magazine I found that came in a similar skinny format, which I liked very much. Considering I've got this typeset on letter-sized pages the font now is pretty big but not bad, and I might mess with the margins to add some more whitespace. All the pieces are between 2-4 pages so far, so I've got room to adjust. Not sure how I'll go about printing it, but will probably try to make a few basic copies out of printer paper and staples. The title of Short-Term Memory came retroactively and is a riff on the title of a James Tate piece (Long-Term Memory, though I couldn't say it had direct influence on the piece otherwise). Not sure I'll keep the title. The titling was also based on a collection of James Tate poems.

And here's a sketch I made based on a guy's Bionicle MOC over on 4chan.

>>8495

And here's a sketch I made based on a guy's Bionicle MOC over on 4chan.

That's a nice interpretation of the figure. As a kid I lamented how the official animated media and games would hold very steadfast to the forms of the actual plastic pieces instead of giving leeway to more creative interpretation. I also like that you didn't include the weapons in the drawing, IMO the tackiest part of the MOC. My ex viscerally hated Bionicle and would always go on these boomer-esque rants about how they subvert the Lego idea by being less modular and allowing for less freedom in expression. I don't disagree with him over the overall trajectory of the company and it's fellatio of franchises, especially in recent years, but every time I see a Bionicle now it reminds me of him.

>>8494

I've been putting together a very small (<40 pages probably) collection of writing I've made over the last year. Once I hit ten pieces I'll consider it done, though I don't know if I'll do any meaningful editing besides cleaning up punctuation (e.g., proper em dashes, curly quotes) as all of the pieces were intended more as exercises, even if some of them I like quite a bit. So far intend to keep the order chronological. Pic related are two I've posted here before (I think the second was in the last incarnation of this thread). The piece I've got titled Short-Term Memory is probably my least favourite/effective of the current bunch, and it makes me wonder if I shouldn't be more selective in what I include or consider more serious edits. There's a line in it that is nearly repeated in something I wrote more recently, which makes me think there was still something essential in it I was trying to get at. The second piece is the second appearance of the highway-lake scene in the stories I'll include, and that repetition isn't something I dislike. There was an old magazine I found that came in a similar skinny format, which I liked very much. Considering I've got this typeset on letter-sized pages the font now is pretty big but not bad, and I might mess with the margins to add some more whitespace. All the pieces are between 2-4 pages so far, so I've got room to adjust. Not sure how I'll go about printing it, but will probably try to make a few basic copies out of printer paper and staples. The title of Short-Term Memory came retroactively and is a riff on the title of a James Tate piece (Long-Term Memory, though I couldn't say it had direct influence on the piece otherwise). Not sure I'll keep the title. The titling was also based on a collection of James Tate poems.

It looks elegant.

>>8497

>>8495 That's a nice interpretation of the figure. As a kid I lamented how the official animated media and games would hold very steadfast to the forms of the actual plastic pieces instead of giving leeway to more creative interpretation. I also like that you didn't include the weapons in the drawing, IMO the tackiest part of the MOC. My ex viscerally hated Bionicle and would always go on these boomer-esque rants about how they subvert the Lego idea by being less modular and allowing for less freedom in expression. I don't disagree with him over the overall trajectory of the company and it's fellatio of franchises, especially in recent years, but every time I see a Bionicle now it reminds me of him.

>didn't include the weapons Yeah, it's only the main silhouette of his MOC that's interesting (sans the wings). Even still, the MOCs legs are horribly bare, even if it makes the silhouette neat. That's something that got worse quickly with the design language of Bionicles, where they went from high-detail pieces with no modularity to more generic limb pieces, then the dogshit cheap, smooth CCBS shell+skeleton system. As much as I might long for a highly-modular Bionicle-Technic system where limbs and torsos are more buildable, at the scale (and cost) of Bionicles it's hard to imagine. But it does make MOCing more interesting in forcing you to be creative for variety and articulation. Pic related are some MOCs of my own from when I still had my collection.

>>8497

>>8495 That's a nice interpretation of the figure. As a kid I lamented how the official animated media and games would hold very steadfast to the forms of the actual plastic pieces instead of giving leeway to more creative interpretation. I also like that you didn't include the weapons in the drawing, IMO the tackiest part of the MOC. My ex viscerally hated Bionicle and would always go on these boomer-esque rants about how they subvert the Lego idea by being less modular and allowing for less freedom in expression. I don't disagree with him over the overall trajectory of the company and it's fellatio of franchises, especially in recent years, but every time I see a Bionicle now it reminds me of him.

>As a kid I lamented how the official animated media and games would hold very steadfast to the forms of the actual plastic pieces I'm split on that, where I think a more serious sci-fi interpretation of the sets/world means you have to depart from the toy forms, but then makes certain very charming elements of them less obvious, like their modularity. The original Toa building themselves on the beach isn't something that makes a lot of sense when you start thinking too hard about how they're built and how they function. Pic related is an in-house(?) comic by Bo Torstensen for what was then known as Voodoo Island (I think) but soon after became Bionicle. There was a lot more emphasis on their construction, and I find it very whimsical and charming. >less modular and allowing for less freedom in expression I can see that especially in the early sets, though they made up for it a bit with gear mechanisms and such, which quickly vanished. Later sets also suffered from being too barebones individually, but Lego has always benefited from collecting many sets and making new things. That said, even with all six Toa sets of one of the later years, there's nothing particularly novel you can build out of those pieces. And Lego rarely if ever released real parts packs for Bionicle. It's a shame for sure.

>>8498

>>8494 It looks elegant.

Thanks. I'd worked on some projects in the past that were comparatively very visually busy and haphazard, and I wanted to move away from that without giving up on making it distinct. For instance I'm normally skeptical of double-spacing paragraphs instead of using linebreaks in print, but it's nice to lean into the use of negative space.

I made a compilation of a bunch of writing from /lit/. Learned some typesetting software (Scribus) in the process of making it, and I feel the selecting and editing made me a much more involved reader. Of the authors I was in contact with, it seemed to mean a lot to some of them, which in turn meant a lot to me considering one of my main aims was to elevate the writing in it. There's plenty I'd do differently a second time around, style-wise and in terms of the process, but I'm pleased to have done it. One of the authors posted about it here a while after it released, and it was really cool to stumble across discussion of it totally independent of myself. A /lit/ poster I've befriended IRL was also recently trying to get me to print copies and peddle them locally, and borrowed my copy to read through, so that's been encouraging in spite of the fact that I've mostly laid the project to rest (besides the occasional shilling on /lit/). I also had to send a couple copies to Edward Burtynsky for contractual reasons (licensed his photo Breezewood), which was kind of cool.

>>8869

I made a compilation of a bunch of writing from /lit/. Learned some typesetting software (Scribus) in the process of making it, and I feel the selecting and editing made me a much more involved reader. Of the authors I was in contact with, it seemed to mean a lot to some of them, which in turn meant a lot to me considering one of my main aims was to elevate the writing in it. There's plenty I'd do differently a second time around, style-wise and in terms of the process, but I'm pleased to have done it. One of the authors posted about it here a while after it released, and it was really cool to stumble across discussion of it totally independent of myself. A /lit/ poster I've befriended IRL was also recently trying to get me to print copies and peddle them locally, and borrowed my copy to read through, so that's been encouraging in spite of the fact that I've mostly laid the project to rest (besides the occasional shilling on /lit/). I also had to send a couple copies to Edward Burtynsky for contractual reasons (licensed his photo Breezewood), which was kind of cool.

Making magazines is the best. It really feels like gathering a bouquet.

>>8870

>>8869 Making magazines is the best. It really feels like gathering a bouquet.

I like the bouquet analogy. What kind of stuff have you worked on?

Ventoux lol, made with Scribus. And other stuff for work. It's both a small consecration for every contributor, and a mirror you tend to the community showing off "this is what we can do". It really is a great object to make. That's mainly why zines survive I think.

>>8873

Ventoux lol, made with Scribus. And other stuff for work. It's both a small consecration for every contributor, and a mirror you tend to the community showing off "this is what we can do". It really is a great object to make. That's mainly why zines survive I think.

How'd you find/go about the selection and editing process? Was there much that was changed between submission and publication? Did you have many clear criteria for selection? I was going to say selecting from "live" submissions must be pretty different from compiling from old ones, but probably not (though most of the best-of pieces were selected publicly or by consensus), and the editing would depend on how much you want to do and whether the authors care to give input. >That's mainly why zines survive I think. Survive in that they're archived? or survive in that they persist? For the latter, since they exist outside of a monetary interest, that decouples them from relying on making money, but they're inherently niche. >It's both a small consecration for every contributor, and a mirror you tend to the community showing off "this is what we can do". It really is a great object to make. I agree. When I look at the mainline issues of &amp or older /lit/ magazines, the most valuable thing about them seems to be representing the group that made them. Getting people to take part is tricky, but the end product says something about the group regardless of the quality. I almost feel the best-of was antithetical to that for pruning away so much and cost it character, but I also put a lot of thought into keeping it representative (others were involved in the selection process too), even if the emphasis was on uplifting the good works. You might find this article on the /lit/ wiki interesting: lit (dot) trainroll (dot) xyz/wiki/Collaborative_Works

>>8874

>>8873 How'd you find/go about the selection and editing process? Was there much that was changed between submission and publication? Did you have many clear criteria for selection? I was going to say selecting from "live" submissions must be pretty different from compiling from old ones, but probably not (though most of the best-of pieces were selected publicly or by consensus), and the editing would depend on how much you want to do and whether the authors care to give input. >That's mainly why zines survive I think. Survive in that they're archived? or survive in that they persist? For the latter, since they exist outside of a monetary interest, that decouples them from relying on making money, but they're inherently niche. >It's both a small consecration for every contributor, and a mirror you tend to the community showing off "this is what we can do". It really is a great object to make. I agree. When I look at the mainline issues of &amp or older /lit/ magazines, the most valuable thing about them seems to be representing the group that made them. Getting people to take part is tricky, but the end product says something about the group regardless of the quality. I almost feel the best-of was antithetical to that for pruning away so much and cost it character, but I also put a lot of thought into keeping it representative (others were involved in the selection process too), even if the emphasis was on uplifting the good works. You might find this article on the /lit/ wiki interesting: lit (dot) trainroll (dot) xyz/wiki/Collaborative_Works

I only did the layout. Petrarchan's admin made the selection. >but they're inherently niche Indeed, they are by design. A small group produces something and by doing so, exists. It's truly performative. >You might find this article on the /lit/ wiki interesting: Thanks!