Habits, Goals, and POP.

I find myself picking up strange habits. Most recently, I’ve been inadvertently amping up quirky pronunciations of words. It’s not something I think is funny, and it’s not something I want to do, but it comes out anyways. Was I always annoying? I feel like a buffoon!

I sit in front of my computer, poised to write dialogue for my game, Life on NEPTUNE. (Life on NEPTUNE is now on steam and can be wishlisted!!!) I have ideas for the scene, I understand the characters- yet I find it hard to fully commit. I feel like a buffoon!

As I grow older I grow fonder of my lack of filter on my older projects. There seems to be a tide of forever lifting expectations that is rising over me. I think about how this applies to writing jokes. I shoot many of my jokes in the head because I consider them to be simple and hackish. In my efforts to overengineer a joke, I can barely make any. How do I be a buffoon?

I think these muddled thoughts reflect my current aim as an artist. I desire a chase to simplicity. Something undeniably satisfying. A form that has a smooth and shiny exterior covering some sort of inner nuance. Worries: would the cover be too smooth and shiny for the texture inclined? Is the inner nuance really an aching cavern? Is this some sort of pandering? Is this Pop?

Speaking of Pop:

When you talk about music from iconic artists, there’s usually an album that defines the artist’s entire catalogue. Let’s take Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavillion. Before Merriweather are many albums, most if not all beloved for their more experimental and rough sensibilities. They were popular, but not “included in the soundtrack of Skate 3” popular. Then comes Merriweather Post Pavillion.

It blended the freakier and folk-ier sensibilities of their early albums but mixed it with Pop sensibilities. It was the biggest album of their career. Unfortunately, after Merriweather they fell from their high. What happened? I admittedly have not listened to the followup Centipede Hz so I cannot answer, but something had shifted inside the band. This isn’t the only band to follow this pattern. Why does it seem so hard to stay in this artistic goldilocks zone?

I think a lot of these thoughts and doubts are overanalysis- something that has helped and harmed me in uneven measure. But while I question the fact I have these thoughts, I cannot help but decide to circle around them anyways. I feel like a buffoon!

The larger and probably more interesting thing to think about here is “Pop”, a word that’s incredibly easy to understand but hard to get to the bottom of. I would like to explore my feelings about Pop- specifically my own relation to it as an artistic goal.

I think you can’t really try to make Pop. Pop happens when someone is connected with the NOW, like some sort of eclipse. Pop is a Character, a currently pervasive understanding of the way of life. Pop is a club that people outside of it can even recognize. Pop is culture!

Looping back around for my desire for simplicity- is it really a desire to make Pop? Am I in a position to even make Pop? I wouldn’t describe myself as someone who is connected to the human experience an a massively relatable way. Where does this leave me? Not sure! I do know one thing- If you add another O to Pop, it becomes “Poop“. Please ignore the previous line and do not let it color your opinion of this Blogpost.

I write a lot of blogs on this website that boil down to a list of rhetorical questions- questions that theoretically should lead to thoughts, which become opinions. Instead, they all simmer in a morass. In other words, I’ve been placing mental blocks in the doors of conclusions, and as a result my mind has become quite drafty. The game Life on NEPTUNE teeters in the middle of all of this. I feel that I channel this indecision into something interesting inside of the game about stranding yourself on an island with seemingly no way home. Is making art worth stubbing your life’s toe?

Easily no! I feel like a buffoon!