006. ( video. )

[magnitudes]

( Ah, it’s a heartwarming holiday scene, viewers. Sarissa, lounging on a couch, somehow inexplicably still with severe tank top tanlines despite a) it being winter and b) her wearing a tank top, which surely should theoretically make the tanlines less apparent. Not today, apparently. It reads “Sorry for the thing I said when I was hungry,” but perhaps “Sorry for what I’m about to say now I’m drunk” would be more fitting. She’s got a neon curly straw sticking out of a bottle of bourbon, and a cocktail umbrella tucked behind her ear, and appears to be wearing tropical board shorts. It’s just that kind of day. Or night. Whatever.

Sitting next to her is Pablo, who is wearing a striped cardigan, black shorts, and fiddling with his bangs and a straightening iron until he notices that Sarissa is recording. He frees his hair and sets the iron aside, picking up instead his own drink of choice (non-alcoholic; it's a capri-sun pouch) so he can more easily listen. )

Okay, but like. Okay, no, sorry, but if you think about any of the stuff that all of us across all our bloody worlds have gotta have in common, it’s art, yeah? Like— creativity. Art and poems and music, the expression of everything that makes us who we are given some kinda solid shape. Whether its colours or melodies or whatever form we gotta grab and twist about, it’s expressions of the world and how we understand it, right? It’s a way to know that we’re not going out of our bloody minds, because there’s thing element that we can understand and connect with, and it links us to other people. It’s why people got all fired up about the Spice Girls, a while back.

( That isn’t actually what happened, Sarissa, but sure. Go with that. ) And Pablo here, he’s an artist. Makes the world make sense with colours. Everything is colours and— and texture. It’s stories all layered up and up, kind of like people. We’re all hundreds of thousands of stories all layered together and then laid out.

What? Oh, uh...

( Pablo seems to not know what to say about that, given his silence, though if he feels put on the spot it doesn't show on his face. He starts to shake his head, but then instead opts to say: )

Right. Well you know, I don't know if it even has to exactly make sense, if like... we can still look at it and feel something, because either somehow we do understand it, on the level of like... uh... ( He gestures circularly over his head, glancing in Sarissa's direction for a moment but then upward. How to say it? ) You know, intuitively, even if we don't know why, or what anything really means. Or we don't understand but try to, or-- sometimes people don't want to. It all depends. But, uh-- yeah, it's still a little bit of everything and everyone we've ever known, too. Like stories.

( He stops talking and looks back over at Sarissa. )

Or a jigsaw puzzle. Or, uh— there’s this art, in Japan? Kint— ah, shit. Kintsuko...roi? It’s um, it’s like the to do with change and journeys and things gathering more meaning. I guess. I mean technically it’s about repairing broken stuff with gold lacquer, but it’s like an extra layer? Like a new addition to the story. Somethings not less perfect for being broken, and it doesn’t lose something. It gains it? I don’t know, make that a metaphor, if you wanna. People and art fit together. ( She grins, a bit ridiculously. ) And if they don’t, we can glue ‘em together with gold lacquer. It could get very Klimpt. Or Kahlo.

( Sarissa frowns, then, as she delicately sips her bourbon. ) Does anyone else do that? Like finding ways to express the way they understand things more tangibly? Like an enigma machine for your thoughts?

Comments

Video;

[pummelgranite]

That sorta sounds like what all art's for, innit it? A way to communicate something that can't be expressed any other way.

permavideo.

[magnitudes]

( Sarissa shrugs, a loose, uncontrolled seeming motion. )

Yeah. I mean— in theory. But some people just think it's a decoration. Or like... a photograph. Like a record of something that was. Portraits and stuff, like they could just be a picture of a person. But they capture a particular element of a person, right? Like... you could make anyone into anything, depending how you see them.

( And a crooked smile. ) Or to make sure you don't get your head lopped off, I guess.

[pummelgranite]

[ What was that last one? ]


'scuse me?

VIDEO.

[aojona]

[ Pablo feels hesitant to say anything else on the subject given that it's not his drunk post and he doesn't consider himself any kind of authority, but-- well, he's involved anyway. And it's interesting to hear what people say. ]

That's what I think too, at least that's all I've ever really known it to be. You know, more language than um, like... passion. [ He pauses, then adds: ] Even though there's usually still some passion involved.

Re: VIDEO.

[pummelgranite]

[ Sure, there's not a lot of topics she likes to waste air on, but this is one of them. ]

If you weren't passionate about it, wouldn't be worth putting the work in to create it.

[slightlyoffchilt]

And what if we have that common denominator for a reason? What if it is us -- if we are the art?

[magnitudes]

Good Sir Doctor. ( She grins, even if it is not the happy, easy grin he has seen before. Almost, but—
She's not quite right at anything, lately. )

Maybe. Do you think every single person out there counts as art? Would it mean every image ever committed to paper is art, too? Am I using excessive hyperbole? Is the Pope a Catholic?

[slightlyoffchilt]

[He furrowed his brow, catching that unfamiliar grin.]

Do I personally think that? No, no -- I would consider some people to be art. [Always the elitist.] Some are artists, some are art, and some are audience.

[aojona]

[ Pablo leans forward, head tilted in curiosity. ]

What do you mean? [ Not argumentative, just interested: ] Because people aren't only a reflection of something?

[slightlyoffchilt]

People, I would argue, are more often the catalysts.

video

[notsheepish]

...what?

[Somebody had to be the first to ask, right?]

Permavideo

[magnitudes]

( Oh, look. Look who it is. "White knight so amazing better at being there for Sarissa's family than Sarissa"-girl. Sarissa's dislike of Ruby is probably hideously unfair; on the other hand, "fair" is rarely part of the equation, is it? )

Oh, g'day Ruby. Not an art enthusiast, I take it? Not a way you try to help map out the world? Make it make sense?

[notsheepish]

[Excuse you. She is no white knight! Just... friends with a few of them.]

Yeah, maybe not. Since I think a lot of that just kinda flew over my head.

private video;

[coppelganger]

Hey, since she's occupied, you wanna come over later?

private video

[notsheepish]

Hi to you too.

[She laughs quietly.]

I could probably be convinced. What did you have in mind?

VIDEO.

[aojona]

[ It's questionable as to if he can help translate any part of that in a clearer way, but he is at least sober, so... maybe? Is this why he's really here? Who knows. ]

Sorry. Which part?

[notsheepish]

Man, I don't even know where to start. I think I took an art class in high school, but that might have just been a dream.

text;

[coppelganger]

wow.

[ Because, really, what do you say to that? It's just like listening to Cosima when she goes off on a science tangent, only worse, because it's an art tangent, and she doesn't even have Felix around to explain and/or judge with her.

Then, she shoots of a private text to Sarissa: ]

hey, back off a bit, yeah?

permatext, private, etc etc.

[magnitudes]

( hang on, her reply takes a while because 1. art rants and 2. she is so, so drunk. )

do you have art opinions i have offended

[coppelganger]

you know exactly what i'm talking about

VIDEO. / before threadjack

[aojona]

[ "Wow" just about sums it up, yeah. He's not sure what to say either, but he's good at... neutrality. Ish. ]

Yeah, I um, didn't actually know she liked art so much. She seems to know a lot.

[coppelganger]

yeah, she does that a lot.

voice | and so it begins

[hardedged]

What. The. Fuck.

VIDEO.

[aojona]

Hi. [ An appropriate response, clearly. ] Uh. Is something wrong?

[ How about: so many things. ]

permavoice.

[magnitudes]

Jessica. ( She sounds delighted. ) Hi.