Zombie Apocalypse

My nice new computer gave up the ghost last night- and I've had to bring my old one out of semi-retirement.

It worries me how dependent we are on our technology- and how vulnerable that makes us. I suppose that's what stories of the zombie apocalypse- and other types of apocalypse- are all about- and why they're so popular. They're fictionalising just this anxiety.  What we're doing is asking ourselves how we'd cope if the structures of civilisation were whipped out from under us. Would we turn into resouceful Crusoes- building our world up again from scratch- or dishoused Lears, wandering about and cursing feebly?

Hi-Tech Solution

Computer works again.

Ailz took the battery off, dispersed all the power (whatever that means) and that was all it took.

Basically she just hit it with a hammer.

Something I Learned From The TV Last Night

Lions and tigers think they're well hard and are more than willing to mix it with humankind. Result: Lions and tigers are endangered species.

Leopards, on the other hand, know to melt away into the landscape when human beings show up. Result: leopards are doing very nicely, thank you. 

Abstraction

Abstract art was invented by theosophists.

Af Klint, Kandinsky, Mondriaan- all three of them theosophists.

Art history tends to treat the theosophy as a quirky hobby these people had,  but that's not how it was for them.

Af Klint- who has a claim to be the very first abstract painter-  worked in something like a trance- not knowing what she was doing- but accepting what she was given- "never changing a brushstroke". These were channeled paintings.

I'm interested in all this because I've just started painting abstracts myself. I didn't mean to. It just happened...

The way I see it is there are two ways to go if you want to paint metaphysically- one is towards pre-Raphaelitism, the other is towards abstraction...