539. A Most Fundamental Biologically Incorrect Cartoon::: "Frantic Squirrel Helps Stuck Bird Get Out of Cage"

Caption I included on Picasaweb: It's just a few days away from my first ever Comic-con, and I had to switch my mental processes from music to cartoons. I asked myself what are the fundamental images I need to draw such that a Comic-Con alternative adult comic audience will better understand my Biologically Incorrect cartoons? Ever since I went through Self-Standardization (Victoria's SI units for cartooning consist of fine-point black sharpies, a simple black-white-gray color scheme, and white xerox paper), I realized that I needed to re-draw certain images that were unforunately constructed in pencil or other form of pen. Not only do publishers want originality and audience comprehension, but they also want consistency and standardization from the author. So, I'm going back to my fundamental images that I live by my absurd life, and re-drawing them to near-"human perfection." One image I keep going back to is "Frantic Squirrel Helps Stuck Bird Get Out of Cage." More on the Biologically Incorrect Blog 539!

I decided that if I were my own country and had a designated flag, the little green square with ths squirrel and the bird in a cage would be on the flag. It summarizes my existentially absurd pursuits of life of trying to simultaneously occupy two spaces: being stuck in the box, and always trying to escape and jump outside of the box, always trying to avoid the belljar of repetition and slipping into an hourglass of novelty and growth. This "Squirrel and Bird in a Cage" image has received much attention from my past blogs... Blog 253 (the origins and history of the bird-in-a-cage idea, Dr. Miriam Polne-Fuller, Dr. James Reichman, LAP Records, Robyn T., QR Cover, Advisor Oran), Blog 317 (images I gave to my UCSB advisor as a present), Blog 329 (Biologically Incorrect and Ecology of Scale Images derived from the Elephant-Oak-Tree Story), and Blog 489 (elaborated and darkened images of the Bird in the Cage for the Biologically Incorrect PR page... dead end page!). Not only that, I decided to experiment with a Zazzle Page (http://www.zazzle.com/stokastika) and Deviant Art Page (http://stokastika.deviantart.com) using these image-logos as the first two items of display on each page.... Heck, it's a start! Since I have discussed this bird-in-a-cage so much before, it is questionable to expand this discourse! As others would say, "Get Over It!"

Such is finding passion in the Absurd life of the Absurdist Existential Environmentalist. So I was trying to be an environmentalist and then I realized how impractically absurd it is to be an "environmentalist" and so now I am a Human-Environmentalist Existential Absurdist, or something like that. I try to send out meaningful messages, but then I come to realize how meaningful messages have become overall impractical to materialized... and so I fail... because I'm always a bird stuck in a cage, and I'm always that squirrel trying to get the poor bird out of the cage. And so it goes. And so on (Slaughterhouse 5). The sad thing is that I bet corporations will love me because I try to send some kind of quasi-preachy environmental message and then I self acknowledge my failure to practice what I preach, and that it's all modestly impossible anyway... so there you go... my absurd values align very well with corporate environmentalism... at least on the surface... ha ha! I hope no one reads this blog, down this far....

It's funny, I even remember back in the fall of 2006 that I imagined that my first music CD cover would have the squirrel and the bird in a cage, and that it would be neon-green so that it would stick out of the pile of dull-colored CD jewel cases that are more so covered with poofy blong hair and elaborate make-up rather than some existential structure or image that could possibly have meaning to the core of existence (like Jack Johnson's cover "To the Sea" or something like that. And now? FINALLY! I did what I sought out to do, back in 2006. Yippee! Slowly, very slowly, things are off the to-do list... ideas get off the to-do list to some final-like form. I'm glad Comic-Con is coming because it certainly motivates me to reconsider my roots and fundamentals of how to advertise and represent my cartoons!

I have been living a good summer. Chris Lods was right. I argued with him over a burrito at Freebirds last school year that everything we do today is built upon history, but Chris made a point that we have no obligation to history and that every day is a new day for new opportunities and to break the habits and burdens of history. Janelle Monae tells me to be a thrival, break all bad habits of history, whether family history or collective history. Even in this modality, the present is built upon the past... but why should the past ever be a heavy weight? I'm embracing this modality this summer... and let whatever positive trickles of history blossom in my mind to its novel and fullest creative potential... Trickle... then EXPLODE! Thanks Chris. I guess I'm kind of being Zen Buddhist right now, eh?

521. Emerging Collection of Photography "Biologically Incorrect's Photographic Compilation of Crazy Signs"

Caption: Emerging Collection of Photography "Biologically Incorrect's Photographic Compilation of Crazy Signs"
Emerging Photography "Biologically Incorrect's Collection of Crazy Signs." Sometimes I go buy that epic indie signage (or grafiti?) that I wished were distributed on national billboards... The least I can do is place them on this here blog. Sigh.... (This collection used to be on my StokastikaPortfolio Picasaweb album, but then came to realize how in appropriate the location was).

489. Graphic Design / Logos for Biologically Incorrect PR http://www.biologicallyincorrect.com

Wow, wow, WOW! You know what?!! This is very, very big news. I am just starting a new website entitled Biologically Incorrect PR at http://www.biologicallyincorrect.com. I was meditating over the quarter on how I needed two different websites, one website devoted to Quantity, which is this blog http://www.biologicallyincorrect.org. It's awesome for staying up-to-date, but many jewels and gems of my work can be quickly buried and difficult to find. So now, it's all about establishing a website that features The Best of the Best.... the Quality of La Victoria Salsa or Vickle the Pickle or Vic or Stokastika or whatever.... And that is what it is... http://www.biologicallyincorrect.com! And FINALLY, during Christmas Break, I have FREE TIME, and I am able to pursue my dreams with *somewhat* minimal interruption.... Well yes, my family has been pretty big time-suckers the last few days... but that is legitimate. My aunt and cousin asked me yesterday, "When do you go back to school?" And I answered non-chalantly, "It doesn't matter. I get more work done during Christmas Break than during the quarter." And my cousin commented, "Gee, that's sad." WELL, IT'S TRUE! As I told Dr. Freudenberg the first time I entered his office, "THE QUARTER SYSTEM IS ONE LONG DISTRACTION FROM TRAIN OF THOUGHT!" True, true, true.... So here I am, during Christmas Break, working my xss off... oh, but it's fun!

I started working on the logos about a week ago, up in Santa Barbara. I had been recuperating from a week-long adrenaline rush in order to write a STAGE script for UCSB's STAGE competition. I was skipping a lot of steps, and so I had to back-track and figure out where I was.... Like the basics... NEW WEBSITE!

Below is the blurb I wrote alongside the Stokastika Picasaweb Album above:
The more I realized that no one in the world was going to lift a finger for me, the more I decided to lift a finger for myself. Over the course of Fall Quarter 2009, I came to realize that "The Mountain's Last Flower" (novella) was the first time I was "doing something right," in concern of expressing my inner universe and acquiring compatibility within the outer universe, the outer universe being more specifically the venues of media, ranging from book publishing to film production to the *gxd forbid* self deprecating promotion of public relations. Hence PR stands for (1) press (2) productions (3) public relations (my father added "press release" to the list). You truly have to be a multi-media-package-deal storyteller in order to survive... and this is my first attempt to performing this experiment "right." And "right things" of "great quality over quantity" deserve brand-spanking new websites, such as http://www.biologicallyincorrect.com (quality) over http://www.biologicallyincorrect.org (quantity, daily-weekly blogging).

Designs for Biologically Incorrect PR. Bird in a Cage. Vic's graphic design style has settled to: (1) median (2) daub (3) liquify (4) doubling (5) invert (6) gaussian blur (7) posterize/poster edges (with my thin-point sharpie). It's relieving to know that my "style" and "techniques" are stabilizing and becoming quite consistent... in a non-boring way.... Crafting the designs must have taken about a day... with some additional modifications... the "R" in "PR" was a little bit thick in some of the designs, so I had to modify a slough of images contingent upon that "R." I have come to realize that doing art is MEDITATIVE by default... my brain has be clear of clutter, clear of words, clear of stress and deadlines in order to go into MEDITATIVE TRANCE MODE. Doing art is SOOO easy for my brain.... Whereas writing does take some major brainpower (though ironically, one word is a couple of kilobites in a word doc and one image is a few megabites... strange....) I can work on a film for 3 days straight with 6 hours of sleep totall, but if I write for 6 hours straight, I by DEFAULT need 8 hours of sleep... strange....

It may seem that I am being "redundant," but I strongly feel that the "Squirrel Tries to Get Bird Out of the Cage" is THEEE theme of my life, so transferring the image to Biologically Incorrect PR is a no brainer. I have a few other images that I feel strongly represent who I am, but can be misinterpreted as extremely "enviro" and "new agey" and honestly I don't want to be affiliated with those stereotypes.... At the end of the day, I want to be known as a great storyteller and a die-hard thinker. That-is-all!

474. I've Been in a Poetic Mood as of October 30, 2009::: Biologically Incorrect "The Poem" and "Intellectual Luxury"

I don't exactly know how which internal artistic hat switches on or off or back on. I have been wearing my poetry hat the last couple of days (and my cartoon hat as well). On my drive up to Riverside from San Diego, I started thinking about several "holes" in my internal library of poetry. Where have I left off?

(1) A "Creeping Development" poem, dealing with encroachment, more so in urban sprawl. Blog 429 is as far as I have gotten. I have some voice recordings for a song (back in Fall of 2007).

(2) An official "Biologically Incorrect" poem, as to which I have made a few voice recording attempts, but they have been buried and presently inaccessible. Perhaps because I was never satisfied with the lyrics what I created. They ended up being pop-rap songs, for sure. Besides, the "Biologically Incorrect" Principle already embodies the never-ending-blogging-story-of-Victoria's-existentialesque-whatevernesses. So, to encapsulate the Biologically Incorrect into a single poem would be somewhat difficult. Okay, one second, let me try. Biologically Incorrect is pun off of "politically incorrect," and basically after my mind has been "biologically calibrated" to the lifestyles of other organisms and their environments, suddenly the absurdity of human behavior and human society's started to shine through my overly associative, comparative, creative mind... and frighteningly... very clearly. For example, I think I can relate better to squirrels than most other humans (hence the White Stripes song). So, basically the goal is to figure out the meaning of human existence by flipping the notion of "being human" upside-down and inside-out through biological and geological comparatives, which allows us once again to RE-EVALUATE what it means to be human. Or, in other words, re-inspecting human behavior from an alien's eyes, or a squirrel's, or a tree's, or some parasite, doesn't matter. In short, Biologically Incorrect is the internal re-inspection of human behavior relative to the environment through the lens of the natural sciences (or other organisms or non-human systems). So, in essence, if we want to effectively address "environmental problems," I think humans as a collective need a serious inner pep talk to re-figure out what it means to be a human, and a responsible citizen of this planet Earth.

Or, we can go back to the blog summary blurb itself: "Exploring the discrepancy or mismatch between biological reality and the reality created by human society." Oh. Simple as that. I already have my elevator pitch. I forgot. The quarter system unfortunately places my mind in short-term memory mode.

Okay, so the hardest part is STARTING a poem.... So here's four lines, a START: at least it' something. I need to get something out. Get my juices chugging along! Pathetic start, but whatever.

This human society’s

Biologically Incorrect.

Can we re-route our tragedies

Through realms of introspect?

Okay, four lines! I'm doing GREAT! Ya sure. Whenever I talk doom-and-gloom, I don't want to sound PREACHY, so I transform statements into QUESTIONS and let people think whatever they desire.

(3) A third poem that has been lingering for a long time in my brain is called "Intellectual Luxury." I vividly remember designing this poem/song when I was off the 101 freeway near by that "fake island" created by Arco? or some oil company (where the freeway becomes a two-laned road). I was driving toward UC Santa Barbara on a cloudy, overcast day in February in which I was just about to apply to Bren for graduate school. Tough, very lonely times, I tell ya. I also remember creating a VERY CATCHY TUNE and it drives me crazy that I can't find it. I additionally remember calling my father, telling him about the poem, and he thought that the idea that held the poem together was excellent. Now it's a matter of finding it and further elaborating this half-xss poem ditty my mind played with on my ride up to Riverside from San Diego so I could sit in Mike Davis' landscapes and writing course.

Blurb for Picasaweb: To go along with my poem... "Biologically Incorrect" T-Shirt/ Logo / Design ::: Establishing a Level of Consistency. After the evening / night of October 30, 2009 (my first encounter with the Green Hornet Production), I went on a "spree" of graphic design (besides this whole poetry mind-frame I'm in). After creating a series of designs, I have come to realize how I am attracted to certain combinations of "buttons" on Photoshop... which is of course rendering a consistency of design (the consistency is not just in my own hand-writing!). Here is the assemblage of buttons: (1) first I use my hand, sharpie, and paper to write/draw my idea (2) I scan it in using my portable Canon Lide 100 scanner (3) the image is cleaned up specks, ship-shaped for proportions, contrasted, "cleaned up" essentially (4) then I tend to gravitate toward these buttons (a) Liquify, for space-filling adjustments (b) Median Basic (c) Gaussian Blur (d) Gaussian Blur Inversion, has a light snowy look (e) Posterize / Poster Edges (f) Plastic Wrap (g) Paint Daubs (sometimes, if I want to thin down the thickness of lettering) (h) Outlines (under Stylize). One thing I do say, with the creation of "layering" in Photoshop, I think all artist's lives are MUCH, MUCH EASIER. Even the construction of art has become a cakewalk! Sigh.

Jules gave me some preliminary critiques: my "Ls" look like "Fs," but overall people should know how "Ls" look like in cursive.... I was a little intimidated by Jules' critique because I was in the process of MAKING these designs. In short you don't critique someone's artwork when in the process of making it, simply because the artist is in a state of "open heart surgery," especially the artist's emotions. Let the artist do the best possible piece and then have it critiqued... and THEN... back to the drawing board!

The PDF for the preliminary Intellectual Luxury poem/chant can be found here: http://sites.google.com/site/stokastika2/intellectualluxuryPOEMCHANT.pdf.

The basic premise of "intellectual luxury" is that there are two forms of wealth: physical wealth and intellectual wealth. For the standards United States, I do not hold much "physical wealth," but for the standards and given the "global dominance hierarchy," I have quite a bit of physical wealth, but a lot of this wealth is by DEFAULT--I was born in the United States and not Africa. Simple as that. Though I do not have physical wealth and ownership of much of anything, I do attempt to attain "mental wealth," or knowledge of how the world works. In a certain way I feel that Earth Scientists are "the most intellectually wealthy" of anyone, simply because they have such an immense comprehension and appreciation of scale. The issue is, in order to gain "mental wealth," one must have several visceral strings of existence stabilized. For example, I have clean air, clean water, good food, a roof over my head, happy roommates, etcetera... basically the bottom rung of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. So, if I have all these needs met, then I may have 12 hours free every single day to think about anything I whatever the hxll please. And so, having my basic needs met and some free time to think is an "intellectual luxury." So... as I am a concerned citizen of planet Earth, I started to think about the environment, more specifically human relationships to the environment, far beyond my own immediate vicinity in space and time. I found out several other academics think the same things as I do in the buffer zone of academia, and I have found most of their esoteric theories to be non-real-world-esoteric-bullshxt-that-have-close-to-any-real-world-applicability. Pathetic. And then these people want to impose their ideas and technologies on other societies and other people, thinking "their lives need to be changed" because we are the "haves" and they are the "have-nots." First of all, I think there is a certain level of arrogance in this type of imposing, imperialist mentality, especially to play the "have" and "have-not" game. As Shannon realized when she went to Africa, many people are struggling to meet basic needs (water, food, shelter) but they are communal, soulful people, full of hope and positive attitudes. These individuals may not have computers or cell phone, but they are able to derive their livelihoods from their immediate surroundings without any intermediary humans. They still live off the land. So, in America, Shannon states that most people who have all their resources are more negative and depressed in their thinking. Once the physical needs are met, then we venture into the realm of "mental disorder." Welcome to America. The concept of choice and having "career choices" is an American construct and is non-existent in Africa and other countries. The question "What do you wanna be when you grow up?" is absurd. What else? Find food and water and have some kids and tend a farm. What else is there to do? HA! The most disturbing aspect of all of this is that this less-technologically-ridden live-off-the-land lifestyle is considered "third world" or the "have-nots" when we are the "haves." If a disaster happened in America, most people would be incapacitated because they are obligate on other people's goods and services whereas in Africa people are more self-resourceful with their immediate resources. People may live longer in America, but what kind of quality of life is this? What's the quote? "It's not about how many years you live, but it's about how you live your years."

So when an academic gripes about "How are we going to get all these people to CARE about the environment?" I think there is a level of hidden arrogance in the question. Everyone cares about the environment; it just matters at what scale. If people don't have their basic needs met, they are focused on their immediate environment; if people get past this stage, they can start thinking and acting at broader scales. So, don't expect people to "care" about what you care about, especially when they don't have the capacity to even survive at a fundamental level (please see "Six Billion Ways to View a Moderate Cube of Space" poem in the CHESS Book of Poetry).

So, in short, "Intellectual Luxury" is about:

(1). the concept of having "extra time to think about things." Welcome to academia! It's all about intellectual luxury! Intellectual entertainment!

(2). people not having the capacity to care about an academic's "sense of the environment" if their basic needs are not met.

(3). despite the physical struggle of having basic needs met, there is a level of soulfulness and positive community in "third world peoples" living off the land as opposed to depression/anxiety and "mental disorders" found in "first world" countries.

(4) why are their constructs of "haves" and "have-nots"? "Wealthy first worlds" (drowning in too many resources) and "impoverished third worlds" (not enough resources) (noble savages, film "The Gods Must Be Crazy"). Why is there such a construct of a POWER GAME? A GLOBAL DOMINANCE HIERARCHY? When ultimately a "first world" and a "third world" simply have ALTERNATIVE WAYS AND MEANS (SCALE/PACE) OF LIVING/EXISTING? WHY IS ONE WAY CONSIDERED GOOD/RIGHT AND ANOTHER WAY CONSIDERED BAD/WRONG (OR BETTER THAN THE OTHER?) WOULD YOU RATHER BE IMPOVERISHED IN RESOURCES OR IMPOVERISHED IN THE SOUL? AMERICANS ARE IMPOVERISHED IN THE SOUL DROWNING IN THEIR RESOURCES THEY NEVER EVEN MADE OR UNDERSTAND WHERE THEY COME FROM. OTHER COUNTRIES MAY STRUGGLE WITH RESOURCES BUT ARE RICH IN THEIR SOULS AND THEIR EXPERIENCES AND THEIR STORIES. HARDSHIPS BRING PROFOUND INTERNAL WEALTH.

(5). why "first world" countries feel so compelled to impose their world views on "third world countries" like, for example, the ARROGANT concept of a "one-laptop-per-child" program (which has its own side effects)? (Look what technology has done to America! Alienation! People interact so much with technology now that hardly anyone does face-to-face connectivity anymore! It's destroying the beauty of direct interaction with others!).

For more information on "Intellectual Luxury," please visit Blogs 418 (an essay on the Devaluation of Reality) and 359 (the Intellectual Luxury of the Environmental Defense Center Party).

Afterthought: I am currently in Goleta and I actually modified "Intellectual Luxury" two or three times when I was on the road. I added a few lines to create more continuity of thinking and experience. I have come to learn that prose and poetry feed off of each other. I was realizing missing elements in the poetic logic through writing prose about the motive for the poem. Anyhow, I should just lay this concept to rest and work on it a little bit later.

413. Biologically Incorrect Banner Formation (Back in February of 2009)

FINAL CAPTION ON PICASAWEB:
It was the "sacred week" before the AAAS science conference in February of 2009. The metabolism of my mind was at about 120 miles per hour [It was tripping all over itself in the fourth dimension of biological speed]. It was one of those moments where I felt like I had five days left to live and was wondering how to spend it. Instead of directly working on research, I decided to vamp up the veneer of my blog and first-encounter-human- social-transaction component of conferences. First on the list was reconstructing my once hideous Blogger-devised "Biologically Incorrect Banner--" which was white, arial font overlaid with a cropped pale-yellow sunflower image... to what is now... below [ABOVE]. It took me six hours to make this collaged banner, and I remember staying up very late, crashing at my office at Bren to engage in this project. My reward was to take time to show the banner to Larry Zims, UCSB's Media Arts Technology (MAT) biologist-website design guru at a random Java Jones late-night chat. [He seemed impressed--his first comment was that creating the banner must have taken a LONG time! He would be the one to know... and appreciate!]

343. Journey Through Vertebrate Consciousness: Artistic Variations (Rather than Genetic Variations) of Representative Specimens

Comparative Osteology Lab. Survey of Vertebrates. From fish to frogs to crocs to chickens to wabbits to a pecuiliar organism called a human, who is actually taking pix of all these critters!Black and white version of above, since I have a tendency toward displaying all possible outcomes of Artistic Variation, rather than Genetic Variation.Some General Goals for the Osteology Lab: How to Frame your Perception. In part a Journey through Vertebrate Consciousness, err... journey through Vertebrate Brainsacs.

PDF File for Comparative Osteology Lab Self-Guided Tour: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/osteologylabguide.pdf.



Artistic Variation of Select Specimens for Comparative Vertebrate Osteology Lab. Vic's Largest-Longest Picasaweb Slideshow Yet!


Picasaweb Portfolio of Best, Most Intriguing, and Most Pertinent Images for Comparative Osteology.

Some blurbs that Vic wrote while Engaged in Osteology Lab:

**PLEASE RIGHT CLICK EACH IMAGE TO DETERMINE THE NAME OF EACH SPECIMEN! Last Monday was perhaps the best Vertebrate Lab I ever had (conceptually and comparatively)! Predictably, this lab was held through Dr. Sam Sweet's Evolutionary Vertebrate Morphology Course (EEMB 108). Essentially, Dr. Sweet (Dr. Conceptual) organized a survey of vertebrate skeletons, from fishes to humans, all in one room! It was a very cathartic experience to stay in lab for a long time, taking pictures of these organisms, observing the morphological variation of an underlying common body plan (as well as realizing how biologically inaccurate I had been cartooning them the last few years!). I also couldn't help observing shifts in relative "brain case" size. Aren't all these living organisms--despite their differences--­experiencing some form of continuity of mental experiences? We're all "alive," right? And we must be sensing some similar underlying drivers of Existence, right?

**Perfect Lab for the Week of Halloween... plus some Rabbit Skinning too on Wednesday. We Considered creating a quilt out of the rabbit skins as a Halloween costume. That would have most certainly won a costume award!

**I suppose this is my attempt to make really uninteresting pictures look really good. The lab was not condusive to photography: there were objects in the backdrop (like electrical outlets and peg boards) and dim lighting. So I tried my best with what I had. Photoshop is like Butterfly Metamorphosis for Images that come from Nondescript Caterpillars!

**I have met an individual who is "no longer interested in placing anything on the internet" simply because "someone else has already done it before." So for example, I would not photoshop nor place any images of the Osteology Lab on the internet simply because "people have done it before." Just because someone else has already done it doesn't mean that you as an individual have the unique capacity to re-interpret a similar experience. If I do not engage in this process, I will have not "internalized" my own personal experience with universal principles. The experience is ultimately externalized and dictated by the perception of other individuals. So hxll with that poor mentality. I will assume that the Internet is an Illusion, and I will not let the activities of other people discourage me from my own internal desires and pursuits!

**I know this is just a total ASIDE, but I have to say that I found out that the circulatory system in organisms (via observation in developmental biology) is not genetically regulated but is a self-assembly system. Holy Bajeesus! What does it all MEAN?! I wrote a poem called "Carved and Harnessed" and it explores similarity of network formations in geologic and biological systems. The poem starts out "The land is carved by water. I guess water carved me as well. I see the rhythmic fluid flows, channels branch, turbulent swells). It's all self-assembled in the end? Oh my.... More philosophical meditations to delve into.... Self assembly? Following what principles of physics and fluid mechanics?

**My sister, Jenny, and I had a tissy one time when we were both undergrads at UCSB. Back in 2001 or so. My sister proclaimed she loved frogs because she loved frogs and they were cute. And then I challenged her and asked if she knew about their phylogeny and ecological tendencies (which I had acquired in a Terrestrial Vertebrates course). She spewed all over me and said that you don't have to know everything about an organism in order to love it. Such is the interaction between Knowledge and Emotions.

**I never considered this lab to be a Graveyard--err Boneyard Exercises, more so an Artist's Delight, a Biologist's Intrigue, and a Vertebrate Paleontologist's Paradise!

**I continuously refer to Scott Chatenever because he is an artist / ceramicist who studies artistic design. He also has chickens in his back yard.

**These photographs provided emotional attachment to the material Dr. Sam Sweet has been chronically discussing in class. Besides, I really need to review lecture notes. Ack!
**It was a superb meditation--largely visual--less so on verbage. I felt absolutely horrible for keeping Chris (session leader) in class for much longer. I printed out some photographs for him. It's the least I can do.
**Most my meditations are visual mental maps jigsaw puzzles. The words seem to trail afterwards. After all, scientists make up names just to masseuse their egoes and weed out the ingroup versus outgroup of their specialized disciplines. So it goes the theory of Ed Lowry, med student gone grad student.
**I couldn't help to think about how we didn't have any mastadont skulls in class. Well, given the technical difficulties of their size... in addition to the notion that megafauna aren't around too much anymore... and all we have are the scrap tiny organisms left to study since all the remaining megafauna are mass-produced within the agriculture/farming machine (e.g. cows).
**Consciousnes started with those danged tunicates... somatic and visceral... all in the name of locomotion. You go, you tunicates!
**I was thinking about designing a fictitious organism that had an endoskeleton and exoskeleton all at the same time, and then I saw turtles, which are kinda sorta like that. And armadillos, which its skin took form of armored plates. My dad mentioned on the phone, "Armadillos are like biological military tanks." And I responded in return, "Ya, they're like Micro Hummers."

**I guess I did the Michel Gondry lego kinda thing. Putting boxes around "organic math proofs" and "fractal-like" structures. I still have my far-off dream of meeting Michel Gondry. Sigh.
**I suppose through my angles of photography, I am anthropormophizing these organisms, but what the hxll, why not.... I am a human and I am destined to anthropomorphize....
**I was asking questions when taking pictures, what would it be like to stare square into the eyes and face of each one of these organisms? Like how I used to take pix of Cat Kat (my aunt's and uncle's cat who was mawled by a coyote this summer).
**It's funny to think, since time A (Fall 2002) and time B (Fall 2008), I have drawn cartoons of fish, salamanders, gekkos, snakes, turtles, T rexes, mice, rabbits, squirrels (lots of squirrels!), bats, cats, dogs, whales... and suddenly, entering in this room full of skeletons of these organisms, my fragmented life of scattered experiences was encapsulated within three hours of photographic immersion. I feel much more mentally consolidated. And also more respectful of morphology the next time I go drawing these cute little cartoons. I will always draw them Allometrically Incorrect: big bulgy eyes and rounded, fluffy bodies (the Evolutionary Brainwashing Factor of Cuteness)--just for the sake of the cuteness factor--but at least I will have a Morphologically Correct reference point of these images with Osteology Lab. Such is the synergism between creativity and reality.

I am leaving this lab feeling like I have visually mastered the material--to some degree of resolution never achieved before, and I feel like I have a visual, conceptual ground plan for delving into Dr. Sam Sweet's lectures--with all this inspirational stimulus!

329. Evolution of the Biologically Incorrect and Ecology of Scale Logos

Picasaweb Slideshow of Elements and the Evolution of Layers of the Logo.

One of the best logos emerged from the exercise.
One of the best logos emerged from the exercise.
One of the best logos emerged from the exercise.
One of the best logos emerged from the exercise.
One of the best logos emerged from the exercise.

One of the best logos emerged from the exercise.

This weekend I performed a solo meditation at the downtown Kinkos (amen for being 24 hours) and finally cranked out some working logos for my pursuits in this blog and graduate school in general--"Ecology of Scale" and "Biologically Incorrect."

Thanks for a long stretch of time, I added multiple layers of information to this logo. Ranging from 10-20 layers, as if I were composing a full-blown classical music or jazz piece. Given that stretch of space and time, the question is WHY did I design the logos the way that I did. I myself pre-meditated a good deal of the logo (found scratch drawings lying all over my room, actually), but I am sure there is chance hapinstance elements within the logo that just happened to "look good" at the time, and discovered this aesthetic strictly by accident. I was just speaking to Dr. Suarez last night (EEMB Department UCSB) in concern of the proximate and ultimate causes of the design of organisms, just like there are proximate and ultimate causes in the spatial-temporal design of art. I think the main accidental discovery from the images above is the "gray bar" behind the primary font of the logo. I still think there can be some edits made. Oh well. Next round!

First of all, I made the logo because I am becoming (marginally) Institutionally Incorporated at UCSB--not just ANY university, JUST UCSB (plus Oran gave me the nickname of "scale girl," the pressure is truly on)--and I have to design some beautiful piece of conceptual art that embodies who I exactly am and what I exactly intend to do at that point in space and time. Visual artwork (and music) radiates more conceptualism and emotional drive than just pure words in 8-point Garamond font. I already created three primary logos and images, which I gave to Oran (1) The Box (Squirrel Trying to Get the Bird Out of the Cage) (2) Existence in Context (the girl portrayed in Van Gogh or Da Vinci context of Planet Earth) (3) and the Biomathematika Sunflower. So, let's expand this set of logos here.

Geeze, since this is my Ph.D. topic, I started to realize I could talk about these logos FOREVER. So, I better refrain and pace myself here and just etch out some reasons for the included elements within the picture.

(1). The two quizzical ants on different parts and scales of a branching network. These two curious little ants are in quest of the big picture. Based on my writing with The Elephant and the Oak Tree, these two creatures are both very confused about their identities and their perceptions of Reality. They are trying to figure out whether they are on an elephant or an oak tree.

(2). One ant is carrying a piece of equipment, more so a lens. This represents TECHNOLOGICAL-DEPENDENCE of COLLECTIVE PERCEPTION: how scientists are attempting to investigate multiple scales of reality through the medium of externalized tools (not incorporated or evolved from their bodies). It is of question as to what scientists would truly know if you stripped these tools from their collections. Perhaps they would be limited to perceiving certain narrow layers and scales of reality. Another huge problem is that scientists have become OBLIGATELY attached to technology in their thought processes and conclusions rather than FACULTATIVELY attached, aka TECHNOLOGICAL CRUTCHING. So, essentially, machines have taken over the power of human reasoning and the ability for the humans to connect the dots with their own brains, aka Common Sense for individual and collective survival.

(3). There are three boxes, each drawn at different scales. I saw this pattern of arrangement of boxes on the front cover of an Ecology textbook, perhaps from MIT Press. My father showed it to me sometime, and somehow it stuck in my head. (I talked to James, the science writer for Bren, a couple weeks back about how my brain works: my right brain is a sponge: it picks up elements from its surroundings without any necessary prompt or any motivation--e.g. grades--and then I combine these elements, tweak them, and form new products. I have been aware of this intrinsic process of my brain, ever since I stook up an art teacher in a GATE art class. Here is another case in point--sponging up "the boxes" and dumping them into my logo).

(4). The branching patterns transcending the boxes reflect my own "fractal" neurological processes of scale-based reasoning. I feel that the process of "natural selection" whether its organisms or ideas, leads to systems with patterns, chipped off with elements of uniqueness. I think that scientific construct of branching trees doesn't necessarily equate to patterns of our environment, but more so reflects our own fractal-like perception of our environment. We use branching networks as an organizing tool for organizing Reality. In this case, I overlaid branching networks (let's just say they are branches of an oak tree) because I am trying to investigate patterns of logic in scientific and scholarly thought across different scales in space and time--in concern of human-environmental problems. I also ask many scientists, "How can you navel gaze into your own specialized little niche (have a warped log-log view of Reality) if you have lost sight of the big picture?" Ultimately, some scientists have lost relative context of their own reductionist research.

(5). And finally, I added a subset of the Biomathematika sunflower as an unknown treacherous landscape for the two little creatures, yet this landscape is beautiful, due to the fractal properties of the arrangement of [seeds]?

(6). The sixth layer is, of course, my own handwriting "Biologically Incorrect," "Ecology of Scale," and "Scale in Biological and Human-Environmental Systems." The word continues to propagate that I am a "living font." Should sell my hand-writing to the successor of Bill Gates. Will be an interesting business venture! Right. Back up funds for graduate school. I am sure!

268. Biologically Incorrect Cartoon: Principles of Language Framing and Optimal Management

Biologically Incorrect Cartoon. Principles of Language Framing. Optimal Management.
Biologically Incorrect Cartoon. Principles of Language Framing. Optimal Management. Inverted colors.

This is the first cartoon Tariel and I co-manufactured. it came out of a conversation. I prompted it with my "save-the-planet-optimal-management." And he added his three-pence, which ended up worth it's weight in gold. This cartoon is epic (and hopefully epically cute, a lady I met who is a creator of Vision Quest stated that we need "new, non-traditional heroes" like cute little university scientists into optimal management: Terra and Buz) and will be a centralized piece for a continued construction of Question Reality stage script tentatively called, "A Biologically Incorrect Guide on How to Manipulate Humans: On the Principles of Multi-factored-multi-scaled Management, from Fetuses to Individuals to the Conduct of a Global System." Pretty long, but we can always chop off the subtitles. From disjunct micromanagement to coordinated macromanagement. *Sigh.*

I know I am not ready to write this essay. It will be two-fold since human leaf cutter ants have two-fold flows of energy: resources-products and communication. Management of resources and management of communication systems. Terra and Buz' little leaf cutter ant colony farm. Tons of fun in concern of a very SERIOUS issue. *Sigh.* The script I have to write before the Manipulating Humans script is "An Ecology of Size: How to Rebuild Life on Earth and Human-Environmental Systems with some Legoes." Shxt. So much to do. I am glad I am writing this because it's framing my mind to write The Elephant and the Oak Tree, which is URGENTLY top priority.

So, in my Biologically Incorrect Guide to Manipulating Humans... after Terra and Buz confidently display their business cards with sketchy credentials, they both start to retaliate and question themselves, "How can I manage the Earth, when I can barely even manage my own brain?" Terra remains in distress. And Buz tries to cheer Terra up, "If Bush Monkey can do it, then so can you! And so can I!" Terra sniffles.

Terra and Buz are worried about individual and collective human-environmental metabolism (aka "global heartbeat"), from mental management, to neurophysiological management, to ecological metabolism, to technogical metabolism, to overall global metabolism. In the book Cosmic Evolution that Tariel let me borrow, Dr. Eric Chaisson, an interdisicplinary physicist created a universal "energy flow metric" called "Theta-sub-M," which I think is the flow of energy per unit of mass per unit of time. Which is essentially "metabolic rate." I wonder whether Dr. Chaisson knows Dr. West in the Santa Fe Institute, who is partly spearheading research in Universal Scaling Laws in Biology/Ecology/Evolution. Totally aligned research. Amazing. I still get this childish thrill from connecting the dots.

It's all like integrative, secularized Eastern philosophical reasoning tools--medicine, feng shuy--used to re-organize fragmented Western knowledge. What a kick.

Terra and Buz further struggle with their ideas of optimal global management. "It's not like I have an ego complex." Buz teases her that she has an "organizational complex" and that she is the Chaos Police. If Terra "the bowerbird" perceives anything in her bower of the globe as disorganized, then she goes around cleaning and and organizing things. Otherwise Terra gets depressed and feels like she is a bowerbird stuck in a dirty cage. Playing chess and organizing systems--like fragmented, disorganized bureaucracies--is a fairly productive activity. Well, it's better than popping psychiatric pills!

Terra calls her chess-playing and lego-building of human-environmental systems as "practical imagination." Even better. "Practical science fiction." These activities must be perceived as practical science fiction simply because how can the dreams and tinker-toying and lego-playing of a little girl and boy with no inherited wealth or powers change the structure and processes of an inert, global society? Consider it Harry Potter adventures with a practical edge. Eh? It's fun to reconstruct in the human mind. But just wishful thinking in implementation.

This cartoon is just the beginning on the Principles of Language Framing, and how shifted language can alter the perception of a system.

Key Words: cartoon, biologically incorrect, language framing, optimal management, how to manipulate humans, global heartbeat, cosmic evolution, Dr. Eric Chaisson, theta-sub-m, organizational complex, chaos police, practical imagination, practical science fiction.

218. Biologically Incorrect Principle of Graduate School Survival (Graduate Studentisms): Special Brownies and Grant Deadlines

I found in the kitchen last night a special batch of pot brownies. I couldn't help thinking how this epitomizes one vital ingredient towards graduate school survival. I don't do any pot. But nearly everyone around me gets stoned every once in a while. A friend of mine told me how can pot be bad when you ultimately can get your shxt done when smoking it. Alcohol will usually now allow you to function!

I already get ADHD from consuming sugar and I have coffee chronically. One more element towards Biologically Incorrect the movie!

Walking on the Edge of a Mental Cliff:
Making a Friday Grant Deadlines by 2 Minutes!!!

I've spent my Fridays in much better ways. I stayed up till 2am last night. I accidentally slept in till 830 am because my cell phone died, and so went my alarm. I woke up in a panic, and took till 11 to finish the rough draft. I worked and worked and worked, as if I were puking out
years worth of stale Mexican food from my stomachbrain. And then I printed what I could print, given the compounding time I had. And I zoomed to school 10 miles per hour over the speed limit the whole way through. The signals at intersections were horrendously impeding my desperate 80-mile-per-hour train of thought. I parked illegally, and jumped out of the car, pressed the elevator button five times, until the door opened. My cell phone alarm rang in the elevator around the second floor: I had three minutes left. And before I knew it, I was on the 6th floor, greeted by an elder, amused man at the door. I handed him my grant application, with two minutes to spare from the 5 o'clock deadline. And he asked me with a shrewd smile, "So you must be the last one to slip it in time?" I shrugged, "I guess so." Then I smiled, "And if there is any stunt, daredevil, edge-of-cliff-walking in my life, it probably shall only manifest itself with the mental: grant deadlines with seconds to go!" The man, resuming his grin, scanned through the materials, nodded with approval, and shut the office door behind him. I left the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center with a huge sigh of guilty, unfulfilling relief, declaring myself a hypocrite, for all I did was concoct a document my mental xss about all the things I was going to do, not reflect upon all the things I've done. And that is the dilemma of university funding. People dozing off about what they're going to do... and how much, truly, has anyone really done? But I am my own island of principles. I'm determined to make tangible truths out of floating thoughts. Only time--the cumulative effects of my own chugging daily grinds--will let me know whether my boastful ideals become well-received been-theres and done-thats.

211. The Making of Bumper Sticker, "Stop Modeling Climate! Start Modeling Human Behavior!"

These are some "pre-drawings" in progress. Not all of them, though.

210. Bumper Sticker: Stop Modeling Climate, Start Modeling Human Behavior

I told this to Scott Chatenever (engineer and artist) last night: "If you want to change the environment, stop modeling climate and start modeling human behavior!" And today, those words stuck out like an eyesore. ~#~ again inspired me to do art, so this morning manifested a much-needed bumper sticker for academia. Environmental scientists need to transform their mentality from "denial science" to "interactive science." Becoming players, not intellectual bystanders.

As was most eloquently stated by ~#~, the mission statement of environmental scientists in general: "to save the world... after we collect MORE data."

I'll send this to my dad, ~#~, and Scott. Fun, fun!

215. Biologically Incorrect Cartoon, From Gender Mirrors to Prisms

Biologically Incorrect cartoon, Terra and Buz, from gender mirrors to prisms. Yesterday I saw prisms at Paradise Found, a new age shop in downtown Santa Barbara. It is where ~#~ got his prism in his room. He said I could borrow his, but I want to keep it in his room, for sure. I told him about my experience in the shop. Well, I was stunned. I had never really "consciously" been in a New Age shop before. I remember Seth reminding me how Sedona, Arizona was a total New Age hippi town, but I could only imagine.... ~#~ said that most new age shops all around the country have the same stuff. Hindu trinkets. Buddha zen section. Incense that made your nose go crazy and your head hurt. Everything is overpriced. I said I could say I am 3-5% associated to new age shops. I'm cool with all this spiritual consciousness stuff, but uh... after seeing 200-dollar crystals and some free calendar featuring 8 or 9 gods. I randomly chose Sheeva, apparently some MALE god (looks female, though, make up, earrings, the works) who is some ultimately consciousness god. Uh-huh. I was overwhelmed, but turned off at the same time. I told him about this very cool shop in the gut of a brontosaurus off of Cabazon. He's been there before. Hadleys, maybe. The shop had some new age stuff, but indian stuff, some useful trinkets (like swiss-army knife thingamabobs), but less consciousness stuff. It had more the feel of a gift shop of a natural history museum. But it was in the gut of a fake brontosaurus, right next to a morphologically incorrect T rex dragging his xss on the ground.

I also told ~#~ that I take a few "new age" items, like plasma lamps from Spencers stores and apply them to represent some holistic symbol of the dichotomies of specializations of science and stakeholders in general. The rock crab film has a plasma lamp. The next film (hopefully with lobster) will probably feature a prism.

Prism, see through, open mindedness, all questions at all directions. Find the common stuff in the middle. It's all the same, even though it seems different.

I guess this cartoon represents a joke that ~#~ told me. He introduced himself, "Hi, I'm ~#~, and I'm a human being." I forgot the context of the joke, but ironically that was a very cool thing to say to me. I truly always wanted to meet a human being.... I mean a human being in his or her entirety, unclassified by any arbitrary specialization. That's how I felt when I met a few actors on set for the movie Made of Honor with Patrick Dempsey. I always wanted to meet a holistic human being.... That's what actors are. They are and do everything (except for all the nuts-and-bolts BEHIND the camera).

And the second thing the cartoon represents is that in terms of male-female relations, I think I am starting to understand... at least one person.... Before, it seemed like a wall with all males, except for my dad. A mirror, you see different sides, but you don't penetrate and see the common stuff in the middle... like a prism... and I'll be dxmmed I sound New Agey. (Written May 22, 2008)

189. Biologically Incorrect Cartoon "Happy Earth Orbit Around the Sun" / Size-Space-Time Relations

206. Biologically Incorrect Cartoon, "Inside Planet NeuroReptilia" May 15, 2008

If you don't get it, all the better. Those who think Triune Brain will understand.

179. Ph.D Dissertation of the Inspirational Julie Ekstrom in Ecosystem-Based Management Along the California Current

Today was indeed a special day! I was able to witness the Ph.D. dissertation defense of Julie Ekstrom, my roommate, who is about to move out of the house (boo hoo) and move on to Stanford! She (and my housemates) has helped me in so many ways, from letting me live in a house with $600 rent+utilities (with my own room) to all things academic. Julie, who's advisor is Dr. Oran Young (also my new advisor!), investigates the human dimensions of environmental change, which ventures into the realm of governance, institutions (rule systems), organizations... and now... environmental media (which I'll be focusing on). Julie has worked on the idea of mismatch / fragmentation between non-human ecosystem structure and human management systems. The beauty of her dissertation (for me at least), is that her frame of reference is ecosystem-based management, in which humans are INCLUDED. They are a part of the system of study. Therefore we must systematically investigate human structures and how they influence and interact with non-human ecological factors. So, I decided to emphasize this theme in the cartoon above, which I drew during her hour-long session of talk + question/answer session. I gave Julie pigtails though she had a ponytail primarily because of the complexities of drawing an aesthetic ponytail on an allometrically distorted cartoon bobblehead human.

The other wonderful component of this dissertation is that Julie tackled a dead-on USEFUL Ph.D. question, and through a series of interviews and "ground-truthing," she tried to adjust her law text-mining tool such that it can be user friendly to people who deal with ocean management and environmental law in general. Then again, Julie also mentioned the notion of discrepancy between "data" and "reality." Her parallel example was analyzing data from low-resolution satellites versus being on the ground to verify what vegetation or structures were present. Her text-mining tool doesn't show ALL pertinent information, but is a superb, conceptual starting point.

Drawing this cartoon was the least I could do for all of Julie's help! It was indeed an intense, serious session between Julie and the audience, and I thought this whole gig needed something light-hearted and environmental-media-ish. I also had two versions of the cartoon, one without marine invertebrates and one with marine invertebrates. After all, her case study was on ocean acidification, which affects the patterns of invertebrate calcification--overall shell formation.

Julie's work has so much potential, I can't wait to see future work blossom.

I decided to give Julie and Dan (fiance!) the original drawing, and I just have nice digital copies on my computer. Dan and Julie's father liked the cartoon, and there was mandate to have the image framed!

172. Biologically Incorrect Cartoons: Non-Traditional Pick-up Lines and Terra the Plasma Lamp

Non-traditional pick-up lines.
Ditto.
Clueless and Curious Terra, as usual.
Ditto.
Terra the Plasma Lamp.

The truth is that these cartoons have been very old ideas in my head and laying around as incomplete scrap paper, but I was INSPIRED (key word as of late) by ~#~ ("Brennie" grad student) last night and the next time I see him I want to show him these cartoons... they were kind of based on our elaborate and extensive conversations. AND... it goes to show a little bit how it feels to meet another plasma lamp and not another wall of silly putty.

112. Biologically Incorrect Cartoon: Vic the Hermit Crab

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/r_rVaFKxUWuRBwnyT4kPiw?authkey=Gv1sRgCLrGqeuss_SV7AE&feat=directlink http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Hpbf6ahnHhTRY3hXRNmaGg?authkey=Gv1sRgCLrGqeuss_SV7AE&feat=directlink I am anticipating that I am going to be cranking out quite a few blogs here. So my goal for each blog is to incorporate one or more pieces of "visual art" and state five inter-related points associated with this piece of art. As to whether I will follow this protocol very well, good luck to me. #1. Above is an impressionistic version of me, Victoria the hermit crab. I am in a state of hiding. I like to hide and pretend to be non-existent to others. So I can focus on maximal observation of the world around me. I like to hide by wearing my infamous oversized brown beanie. #2. Not to scare anyone away, but I have realized through my systematic training in acting and public presentation (over my last year leave of absence, 2006-2007), I have systematically developed Multiple Personality Syndrome. But do not worry! This is on purpose, intentional. Much like how Sacha Baren Cohen systematically developed and "flipped mental switches" or "shifting mental gears" into multiple characters (Ali G, Borat, and Bruno). Otherwise Sacha is a very quiet, benign, introverted character. I will further elaborate in a future blog, but to frankly state my intrinsic personality is introverted, highly observational, and sponge-like. Yet this personality can be very detrimental such that in the past it has led to several implosions and self-inflictions. So, in order to keep up with the inputs and outputs of ideas and actions within Victoria's mind and form, or basically... to find an outlet of self-expression, Victoria systematically trained herself into an extroverted state, which is rarely expressed (usually in front of the camera, regular photography and film, and usually in isolation). Wow, that was a long point. And one more subpoint. I am doing this because many scientists suffer from social and presentational dysfunction, and I just don't want to be another one of those.... That's another blog right there.... #3. Many people hide like I do. The more fashionable thing to do is to wear shades. Sunglasses. Either the regular ones or the now-trendy insect, bug-eyed glasses that people used to wear decades ago. I don't like wearing shades because most of them don't fit around my ears very well. #4. I created this cartoon in the fall of 2005 (upon returning to school from a year leave of absence and thousands of pages of writing), in which I declared that I was tired of hiding in my room and writing. #5. It's rare for me to draw a cartoon I like on the fly--I mean, on the first draft. I usually must go through a rough draft, and then after several erasings and pen-overlays later, a final draft. This was the first draft version, and though it's a bit sloppy, I like it. #6. Bonus point. Victoria analogizes herself to a hermit crab. Indication? Victoria finds a form of self-identification through comparison with other organisms, and not necessarily other humans. That's another blog topic as well. P.S. I am aware that I am switching from first-person to third-person. Well, this is a BLOG. There are NO RULES in blogging. So... I'll also declare my right to be Gramatically Incorrect!