I've been way too flippin' busy lately. TOO BUSY. I've had to sneak my creative acts into tiny niches and moments. Just a bunch of LIFE happens, and I try to make art a big part of that, and I think I do a good job of getting SOMETHING done, even when I have almost no free time... Am I making beautiful masterpieces?? No... I'm making STUFF, which is exciting... (For me... Do other people like it??? Maybe! Perhaps they get a laugh, and that's good enough!)
ARTZ & WRITING... Let's go...
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6 Mar. 2023
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"Strange Dream" by Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
[Digital painting over older digital drawing created with a free app on my phone.] They drifted by in bunches as a bizarre greenish creature stared at him through an open window. He stopped for a milkshake and onion rings on the way home (though he was craving a banana split, which he despised), and he was never seen during daylight hours again... ---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
P.S. - WINTER DEPRESSION BE DAMNED! We (all of the me-type beings in I) shall combat the UNHAPPINESS of it all with colors and weirdness! (It is my calling!) Let us create 23 editions of this piece and release them for a mere 0.13 #tezos each! Love is a floating banana, after all...
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1F94smAkoLSgNT7PLaxYj7Ba1SKqXfGjsY/180
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[Posted to Typed.art]:
"DAY 79
Watching a video on A.I. assisted music creation... Shazbot! It's an interesting time to be around. I came from the era of rock (my aunt and uncle listened to stuff like KISS, The Who, Rush, Frampton, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack,) and I lived through New Wave, Hair Metal, Rave, Hip Hop, Grunge, then LimeWire, Napster, Kazaa, MP3.com, MySpace, and the total collapse of the traditional music environments. (Radio died, MTV went reality t.v., record stores closed, the rollerskating rinks went away, and all of the fun clubs either shut their doors or switched to dull, repetitive shit....)
Personally, I'm a digger. I love looking for those weird little singles or unsigned performers sharing their work on Bandcamp... I also flip through the records at second-hand stores and vintage shops. But what I don't know, what I don't have any notion of, is how folks FIND new music (or old music that they've never heard) in the MODERN AGE. Is it all just sheer luck? Is it mostly from movie and television soundtracks? How do YOU find music, or is that something people even bother with anymore? (Now that everything is available thru STREAMING SERVICES, do people even COLLECT music anymore???) Somebody share your process, please. I would love to find some new, interesting tunes, and I fear that I keep looking in the same places, suggesting that I might be missing a ton of great entertainment...
There ya go... Type at you again tomorrow!
---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)"
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7 Mar. 2023
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"Hey (6 Mar. 2023)" by RFY (HF)
[Crayon on textured, blue, glitter paper! (This is some thick paper!)] Icon is gender neutral! (It's none of your business what equipment they were born with.) All you need to know is that they are fully GLITTER-GLAM! ---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
https://nftshowroom.com/gallery/richardfyates_back-to-primitivity_hey-6-mar-2023-by-rfy-hf
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"Binary System" by Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
[Ballpoint pen on notebook page with digital embellishments and color removal.] In some sense, zero and one are both equal and opposite. The system is rudimentary, but it can be used by a clever machine for a variety of interesting processes. But is the default 0 or 1? Which is the "NATURAL STATE?" If it's not natural, what is it??? ---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1F94smAkoLSgNT7PLaxYj7Ba1SKqXfGjsY/181
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Time to share more ARTZ that I have collected over the last... Okay, let me be honest. I am MONTHS behind in sharing the art that I've collected!!! Please forgive, oh lovely ARTISTS, for your work is like a MILKSHAKE (to a guy whose doctor says he has to cut out milkshakes or suffer the dire consequences! Thankfully, ARTZ don't cause medical horrors!!!
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"SPAMART SPAM ART ART SPAM" by SPAMART PARTY
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1WAS45txYVocqd95eEQ3u2YajqK98vVpjx/1
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"LSD" by mfarinato
https://nftshowroom.com/gallery/mfarinato_hip-hop_lsd
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"SPAM POSTCARDS" by SPAMART PARTY
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1HLK3bgVLPiNgbNXCB4pSuN9WRxqR7mXLy/0
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"penny for your thoughts" by letsaskspirit
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"[Untitled] 9124" by WhyNotSneeze
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"#190123A" by Christian Bok
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1VGHQmD85HV9mmzejQQRhx5gZLaiRYRjpk/475
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"#SPAMART and #BADVIBESONLY comic - B&W Version" by SPAMART PARTY
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1WAS45txYVocqd95eEQ3u2YajqK98vVpjx/4
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"Ghost #23" by Ghost in the Head
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1A1Ci8UrWKC9LHucE1cpmv84jgq9MbsSxf/23
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"WcDo Acquires All Seed Patents After WW3" by Stellabelle
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1LFRuHush76gpumcmRi51KWXKg8rgwfpJW/6
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That didn't really even make a dent in my recently collected works... I'm going to have to KICK IT UP A NOTCH if I'm ever going to catch up! (PREY FOR ME, FOLKS!!!)
Back to the Holy Fool artz!
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"Zinger (X)" by Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
[Felt pen and crayon on orange construction paper with digital embellishments and color tweaking.] Low effort doodle nonsense! It's simple and silly, but that's what it's SUPPOSED to be! ---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1F94smAkoLSgNT7PLaxYj7Ba1SKqXfGjsY/182
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"Automatic Poetry Ghost" by Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
[Ultra fine point Sharpie, ballpoint pen, crayon, and felt pen with a tiny, little glitter sticker, AND digital embellishments, color, and drawing.] The ghost spewed forth bizarre, rambling, free-style poetry, more powerful than any exorcist! This ghost seemed unstoppable! The end!!! (Wasn't that a wonderful story?) ---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1F94smAkoLSgNT7PLaxYj7Ba1SKqXfGjsY/183
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[Posted to Typed.art]:
"DAY 80
SOMETHING. I'm writing words. These are words. If you can see them, they may hold some meaning for you. (They might not.) But, still, it's SOMETHING. Is some THING better than no THING? It's the kind of question that some people will never ask. How did I become the type of person who asks questions (especially questions that other folks wouldn't ask?) That story would be SOMETHING. (I can't remember it, though, so it is not a THING anymore...) I could just make SOMETHING up. (That's sort of what I'm doing right now.) There is or was or had been without the ever after being how we had the what of the SOMETHING... At least twice.
That's how we do it in the NORTH. (Wait... If "NORTH" is in all caps, and "SOMETHING" is in all caps, does that mean "NORTH" is "SOMETHING?" Or is this a false flag operation??? So many questions...) Day after day. With fuzz and SOMETHING sugary (meaning I'm supposed to avoid it.)
Let's go team! Rah! Rah! Rah! SOMETHING. Words. These words mean SOMETHING...or they don't. I'll decide later. (Then probably forget!)
LATER!
-------------Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)"
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8 Mar. 2023
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"Half of Forever" by Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
[Felt pen and ultra fine point Sharpie on reclaimed cardboard with digital embellishment and color tweaking.] Time and space are linked, equated, essentially THE SAME (in a mathematical sense.) But what about the ENTITIES that live in time and space? Are THEY also the same? (How could the universe be X but the creatures that come from X not be X?) Maybe we'll find out, someday... ---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1F94smAkoLSgNT7PLaxYj7Ba1SKqXfGjsY/184
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[Posted to Typed.art]:
"DAY 81
Most of the good books on writing say the same thing: SHOW, DON'T TELL. So let me tell you what I have planned... (I'm a rebel.)
It occurs to me that I have a PLATFORM here that is not unlike some of my older blogs where I used to tell stories. Lately, most of my stories have appeared only as descriptions to some of the ARTZ that I've shared on various platforms (primarily Objkt.com). With this in mind, I'm contemplating using this platform as something like a weird publishing outlet. ("Weird" because of what I'm planning to write, not because Typed.art is strange... A typing-only blockchain forum is only mildly odd, not full on bizarre.) I have even started coming up with characters and situations for the next phase of this experiment. We'll see how it goes. (As long as I'm having fun, I'll keep going! This is DAY 81 of THIS weird project, and I'm still going. Let's see if adding this twist ruins it for me!)
Later!
---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)"
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9 Mar. 2023
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[Posted to Typed.art]:
"In REAL LIFE, stories never start at the beginning, and the end either comes too early or far, far too late - but this isn't real life. This is LITERATURE. Slick words for clever readers, so that they can feel good about themselves for "GETTING IT," (even when there's nothing there to GET!)
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Old Smokey heard the train long before he saw it. He held his dirty, gloved fingers over the small fire he'd chucked together to help fight off the frost bite, and could have sworn it sounded like an old coal runner. He'd played around the docks as a kid back in the 1950s, watching the last of the BIG TIMBER being tossed off of train cars and loaded onto the BIG BOATS, back in the "good old days," before Life had its way with him. He knew a train when he heard one.
Smokey considered getting up and poking his head around the crumbling wall of the depot to see if someone was chugging along the tracks in some antique, but he figured it was just his hearing finally giving out on him. (It was bound to happen, eventually!) As the sound got louder and the rumble under the milkcrate that passed as his bench started to make his seat buck like a mechanical bull, he realized that it was actually happening.
And as his lungs emptied of all air, a coal black engine sliced into view, steam-breaks spewing a thick, grey fog around the depot, and the screech of the metal slowing the train caused his teeth to ache. He stood and backed into a shadowy corner of the depot overhang. He didn't want to watch, but his body had gone rigid.
The train slowed, screamed a metalic trill, and stopped. A lone figure in a long black coat, a wide brimmed hat, and carrying a single, slim suitcase, stepped out of a folding doorway and onto the cracked cement floor. The train huffed and began to crawl forward as the man in the black coat moved, long legged, across the depot, which was still mostly covered by the rotting, moss-brown, shingled roof. The figure seemed to notice the fire burning in the metal canister, and then moved a featureless shadow of a face towards Smokey, who was shaking in the darkened corner.
Smokey could have sworn he saw two white eyes - more like sparks from a welder's torch than windows into anything conceivably like a soul - that looked directly at him as the figure walked past, and he HEARD (as opposed to saw) an uncountable number of sharp, boney teeth clicking in the night-black jaws beneath the hat. At that point, Smokey lost consciousness, and the engine picked up speed. Given the fact that this particular train line had been closed for nearly a decade, it seems only appropriate that the train melted like smoke as it sped away into the night.
---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
P.S. - This is DAY 82 of my 'forced writing project.'"
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"Toddler Flash" by Richard F. Yates (HF) & Felicity Echo Hanson (TT)
[Photograph taken with my phone then run through the mosh-machine and animated as a gif in a free app on my phone!] My co-conspirator and fellow artist, Felicity, showing off her "carnival lights" powers! ---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool) & Felicity Echo Hanson (Toddler Terror)
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1F94smAkoLSgNT7PLaxYj7Ba1SKqXfGjsY/185
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"Beast in Sox" by Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
[Digital drawing created in a no-longer-supported, free app on my phone!] This little creature was friends with Adam and Dirk, and it also likes to wear white sox! ---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1F94smAkoLSgNT7PLaxYj7Ba1SKqXfGjsY/186
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10 Mar. 2023
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[Posted to Typed.art]:
"DAY 83
Yesterday, I attempted actual FICTION. It wasn't a long piece (because my ability to concentrate has been eroded by meds and anxiety and noise), but I'm happy with the result... Will I CONTINUE that story? Maybe. Maybe not. I'm a fan of fragments. In that spirit, here are some notes that I've been writing to myself on pieces of cardboard and scraps of paper. (When I write, I look for a sliver or tiny ember of an idea, regardless of how ROUGH [or nonsensical] the raw material that the idea comes from might appear. This is a PROCESS experiment. See what you think.)
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---Capt. Puff (grizzled) [sketch of a cyclops with a beard and a sailor's cap at the bottom of the scrap.]
---Headline: Bodies Found in Woods Just North of Henpeck. - From THE HENPECK DAILY OBSERVER - 9 Mar. '23
---Pasternac Von Entwhistle...
---We don't believe in superheroes. We only believe in EVIL...
---pop arts
---Sky jellies - DANGEROUS - (Do not eat...) Electrical in nature.
---Gangs roam with rageful impunity throughout the city... Who can stop them??
---Empty beehive. Deflated casket. Languid, heartfelt tooth-marks all across her cold pink forehead. Lock-tight tuna can...
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Will any of these idea-sketches become a story or an element of a future story??? I don't know. (Writing is a spontaneous, subconscious thing for me.) Sometimes, writing is just getting sounds out of my head and onto a chunk of paper so I can see how they FEEL. (Mixed metaphor, but appropriate.) Sound and sight and conceptualization all have to work together (for most people) when they read, thus, if I'm going to create something that other folks might enjoy reading, it all needs to click together like the gears of a clock. However, that doesn't mean that every element needs to go into every story. I start VERY messy. I like to turn off the critic when I'm brainstorming and just go with it... The beginning is a time for experimenting...
Maybe I need to go back to DAY 1 and read EVERYTHING that I've written so far to see what I can re-integrate into future pieces... (For that matter, I have [no exaggeration] THOUSANDS of online posts going all the way back to 2003/2004 that I could look at for more ideas.) (Ideas can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed or transferred...or am I remembering that wrong?)
Whatever... LATER!
---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)"
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"The Basics (Found Text)" by Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
[Found fortune cookie fortune, photographed with my phone (on the restaurant table), and then colored digitally.] Should one take advice from a random piece of paper that they found inside of some FOOD??? ---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)
P.S. - Probably. If a cookie isn't going to give you good advice, WHAT WILL???
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1F94smAkoLSgNT7PLaxYj7Ba1SKqXfGjsY/187
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11 Mar. 2023
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[Posted to my Tweeterz page this morning]:
"Is it SPRING? Time to thaw??? (Art in the backyard with Blondie blaring... Yep... Not bad...)"
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That's enough for this post, right? Yeah... Yeah it is...
---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)