Several times I've been asked about why I use the profile picture that I have and/or what my name refers to. The answer is multifaceted, and it's a bit more of an ordeal to answer than "I think x character is cool" or whatever the explanation is that most people have for their profile picture, so this is my longwinded essay about the why of it all.
The profile picture:
It's a drawing of an alien called Lam. It was drawn by the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley, and it was first published in 1919. According to Crowley, Lam is a Tibetan word for way or path, and it has connections to Buddhism. I don't care about that. Crowley, who was probably high out of his mind at the time, claimed to have seen this critter when he drew it.
What interests me about this image is how similar it looks to the stereotypical grey alien before that became a pop culture sensation. The only real difference being the much smaller and more human-like eyes, as opposed to the big black orbs. In fact, aliens were born out of the occult—notably through theosophy—before any normal person claimed to see one. Theosophists placed a special value upon various planets in the solar system, and many of them would claim to commune with aliens. Quite a number of these fake totally real encounters had the subject referring to the "alien" as an "aryan" or some other very human-like description. There were some more "exotic" alien descriptions that didn't resemble humans too much in some cases.
Anyway, the "sightings," eventually would solidify into the grey aliens we so often hear about today. If you dig into commentary from alien fanatics online, you can find speculation about other alien races, and alleged sightings do vary to some degree, though. What fascinated me about Lam is that it constitutes a kind of "missing link" between the "aryan" aliens and the grey aliens. My interest in alien/UFO history is part of why I chose to use this image.
My name:
Gsarthotegga is pronounced as sar | thought | tay | ga, I guess—whatever, who cares? The name comes from the author Clark Ashton Smith, who was part of Lovecraft's circle of friends, and while he penned many poems and also would draw and paint, he was mostly know for sci-fi, fantasy, and horror short stories that he submitted to pulp magazines. Gsarthotegga is also known as Vulthoom (please, ignore the garbage artwork on this page). The story Vulthoom can be read here. Vulthoom is presented as a deity or god, but it's also very clearly a space alien.
The name and profile picture in unison:
Okay, if you've looked at many profile pictures on here, then I don't need to tell you that most of them are of high school girls from anime. Then you have a few people who have black and white pictures of Stalin or whatever...
I have controversial views on anime (and everything else, to be honest) that often clash with other MALists, and I don't ever try to tone these opposing views down or carefully choose shows where I'll have a positive reaction. Don't care, and I gladly invite these Animefan Crybaby responses I so often receive. I've embraced that "alienation" by choosing an image and name that both correspond to fictitious aliens. I wanted a long, unwieldy, even enigmatic name. One that users might not remember or will be left to wonder about the origin of, but it stands out like a sore thumb when they see it. The picture synergizes with the name well, while also being kind of creepy and funny at the same time. It's also very memorable on a website that has a predictable pattern when it comes to profile pictures.
Perhaps it's counter-productive to choose a profile picture and name that was partially intended to mystify, but then to demystify the pair by explaining away everything, yet most people won't read this in the first place, and now I'll have something to point to when asked, instead of having to type up an answer every time.
Those lumps aren't gonna make themselves, Pudding!
It eases a bit in the coming eps but it's just as bad. The serious edginess is kinda there but they have a genre shift next ep onwards, it's more comedy-ish XD It has one decent ep with anal toys and dragons, i guess, no spoilers though.
I dislike the everybody put your hands up parts XD the charas look autistic in the normal show as well, the music just makes them that much worse to still be annoyed with them above and beyond the show haha
Yeah, the movie felt a bit like that. I remember the joke coming out of nowhere too. It's not like that scene near the end of Satantango where the two characters are trying to rewrite the letter full of curse words just for proper bourocracy, which was already building on the themes of the mismanagement of attention to the town or between the people. You can watch Elephant Sitting Still in YT with english subs by the way if you are interested
I reached the second opening of One Piece. You weren't lying when you said Oda was inspired by Treasure Island, but what I didn't know was that the animators for the opening where inspired by the Treasure Island anime XD
By the way, what a disappointment for a second opening, it's mostly clipshows. The first one was almost always doing background animation and crazy camera movements
yea most likely it will be a task of making a potion, fighting monsters or finding your way out of a labyrinth kinda exam. But they most likely going to measure mana levels and strength of magic blasts etc
I'll ask them about it. I also don't hear from them since I returned from the event where I found someone to edit the book and told them, beginning of this month I guess.
Both things, he will send words and said he can also make something based on my music. He wrote some very avant-garde science fiction and did excelent records, kinda like The Fall, he wrote lyrics and the performance, music was made by some backing band following instrunctions or not. But I really love big part of the music, love the atmosphere in this one and his second record also have some electronic experiment and weird shit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRxTF7lH4T0
Yeah, Wirtschaftswunder!
I know, me too, I'm probably reccomending Mami Chan for the fourth time haha.. but I feel bad for her, I feel like she was underrated.
No, haven't watch Mahoromatic. I'm having a laugh so easy with anime synopsis lately. I mean, the basic cliche ones are already super nonsense if you put them beside any western shonen-equivalent thing.
Actually Frieren behaving like that is out of character, from episode 1-9 she is stoic and then all of a sudden she starts making sexual jokes and stuff lol. It's probbaly just for comedy relief.
It would make more sense if Fern behaved exactly like Frieren because she is her teacher and mother who spent over 9 years with each her. But then this brings up the whole timeskip thing again lol, we dont know if Fern interacted much with Frieren at all but as far as we're concerned, Fern was a bit different as a child but turned out exactly like Frieren personality wise.
I think Fern and Stark's interactions were somewhat funny and it's nothing crazy like silly faces, over reacting or chibi characters.
Frieren and Fern's interactions with those jokes are not that funny because it feels like they are just trying to "insert jokes" here but the bed scene with Frieren waking up late is in character I think. The other scene that was kinda funny was the elf exercising in the cabin and Frieren walked him calling him a pervert lol
OK, I'm sending the version I have here to the guy who'll edit it just for him to take a look and know what kind of material he will be working with. I'll contact Lorenzo this weekend, I'll be free for doing it. Another busy month but I'm finally finishing all tasks and goals for the year, except for Manga Zombie that got delayed for good, quality reasons. I also played live in Rio with some classic avant-garde composer/writer here, and met one of my favorite brazilian writers, which I'll probably write some music for his new adapted stories into poetry. Released three albums in a row and just about to finally release that one with ex-Kraftwerk/Neu! member. I barely heard music some of these weeks. But I'm catching up with your new links now, that neue deutsche welle group you sent first, I never heard of and is solid crazy stuff! Thanks for that.
The shootist is a nice one. It doesn't aim for the ambitions of Unforgiven but it also doesn't throw all its themes away at the last second. Don Siegel is the director and he was Eastwood's "teacher" of sorts, he was inspired by him to direct his own movies so all came round to it. Say, when I go live alone would you like to stream watch that one sometime? I don't know a good computer program to do synchronized streaming with other people, maybe Discord works for that but I used it for two seconds before
Hu Bo did only that one movie then commited suicide. It's an interesting one with its characters, though I feel he hadn't quite grasped how to portray the theme of growing lack of humanity with the mastery of Tarr. It's extremely unrelenting in its cynic nature while Tarr would throw out a couple of comedic moments in there to remind you it's a satire after everything, and the movie becomes very optimistic at the last thirty minutes (out of 4 hours) which felt a bit forced when I watched it. The way it uses music can feel a lot like an amateur indie project at times, which is why it's such a shame he wasn't able to direct anything after this
Bela Tarr said Turin Horse would be his last one, and after his successor, Hu Bo, killed himself after making An Elephant Sitting Still, I think he may have even less of an incentive to make another movie :(
Honkytonk Man and Perfect World are my favourite from him, though Bridges of Madison is up there. I give Unforgiven the same score as you do (the scene where the sheriff talks about the bandit with two "pistols" is a classic, I'm sure you remember it XD) but the ending left me a bit confused as to what Eastwood was trying to say. You spent the whole movie portraying your character as a now pacifist and how he never resorts to violence because of his marriage then you make a classic satisfactory revenge shooting to make the viewer feel catharsis, instead of either a) portray the final shootout as a tragic reminder his lack of violence resulted in his friend's death or b) have Eastwood follow pacifism until the end then deconstruct and analyze the ideals his wife had implanted on him. I prefer The Shootist with John Wayne as an actor's final goodbye to western than Unforgiven
All Comments (3478) Comments
I dislike the everybody put your hands up parts XD the charas look autistic in the normal show as well, the music just makes them that much worse to still be annoyed with them above and beyond the show haha
Yeah, the movie felt a bit like that. I remember the joke coming out of nowhere too. It's not like that scene near the end of Satantango where the two characters are trying to rewrite the letter full of curse words just for proper bourocracy, which was already building on the themes of the mismanagement of attention to the town or between the people. You can watch Elephant Sitting Still in YT with english subs by the way if you are interested
I reached the second opening of One Piece. You weren't lying when you said Oda was inspired by Treasure Island, but what I didn't know was that the animators for the opening where inspired by the Treasure Island anime XD
0:52
https://youtu.be/D3g0khCibvo?si=B2L3Uhxuglg4XKL1
0:42
https://youtu.be/ckHFQM3twoI?si=COWAqzVZndbk2z9r
By the way, what a disappointment for a second opening, it's mostly clipshows. The first one was almost always doing background animation and crazy camera movements
yea most likely it will be a task of making a potion, fighting monsters or finding your way out of a labyrinth kinda exam. But they most likely going to measure mana levels and strength of magic blasts etc
Yes more jokes, tournament arcs and battle shounen fight scenes.
What;s next? Maybe a bath scene next lmaoooo. Nah that will definitely be out of place for the theme of the show so far.
Yea that cloud scene was funny haha
Both things, he will send words and said he can also make something based on my music. He wrote some very avant-garde science fiction and did excelent records, kinda like The Fall, he wrote lyrics and the performance, music was made by some backing band following instrunctions or not. But I really love big part of the music, love the atmosphere in this one and his second record also have some electronic experiment and weird shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRxTF7lH4T0
Yeah, Wirtschaftswunder!
I know, me too, I'm probably reccomending Mami Chan for the fourth time haha.. but I feel bad for her, I feel like she was underrated.
No, haven't watch Mahoromatic. I'm having a laugh so easy with anime synopsis lately. I mean, the basic cliche ones are already super nonsense if you put them beside any western shonen-equivalent thing.
It would make more sense if Fern behaved exactly like Frieren because she is her teacher and mother who spent over 9 years with each her. But then this brings up the whole timeskip thing again lol, we dont know if Fern interacted much with Frieren at all but as far as we're concerned, Fern was a bit different as a child but turned out exactly like Frieren personality wise.
I think Fern and Stark's interactions were somewhat funny and it's nothing crazy like silly faces, over reacting or chibi characters.
Frieren and Fern's interactions with those jokes are not that funny because it feels like they are just trying to "insert jokes" here but the bed scene with Frieren waking up late is in character I think. The other scene that was kinda funny was the elf exercising in the cabin and Frieren walked him calling him a pervert lol
Lol.. for some reason I can't wait to read your review for that XD
Since you're sending toy/children music, ever heard of Mami Chan? She was a dear friend, I used to trade letters with her, I have some here and also CDs.. she passed away years ago. Her music is in between Picky Picnic and that other side project of one of the members, actually more childish, that you even sent me briefly ago and I always forget its name.
Check this record! https://www.discogs.com/pt_BR/release/1704218-Mami-Chan-Otonamop%C3%A9e
This one is also pretty good
https://www.discogs.com/pt_BR/release/5571259-Mami-Chan-Band-No-Mort
I guess she was part of Dragibus once, which is another toy music group with some punk tendencies if I reccal correctly, but also good.
Hu Bo did only that one movie then commited suicide. It's an interesting one with its characters, though I feel he hadn't quite grasped how to portray the theme of growing lack of humanity with the mastery of Tarr. It's extremely unrelenting in its cynic nature while Tarr would throw out a couple of comedic moments in there to remind you it's a satire after everything, and the movie becomes very optimistic at the last thirty minutes (out of 4 hours) which felt a bit forced when I watched it. The way it uses music can feel a lot like an amateur indie project at times, which is why it's such a shame he wasn't able to direct anything after this
https://youtu.be/-g2FyNdj-D0?si=44StkDvy-XK27-BL
Honkytonk Man and Perfect World are my favourite from him, though Bridges of Madison is up there. I give Unforgiven the same score as you do (the scene where the sheriff talks about the bandit with two "pistols" is a classic, I'm sure you remember it XD) but the ending left me a bit confused as to what Eastwood was trying to say. You spent the whole movie portraying your character as a now pacifist and how he never resorts to violence because of his marriage then you make a classic satisfactory revenge shooting to make the viewer feel catharsis, instead of either a) portray the final shootout as a tragic reminder his lack of violence resulted in his friend's death or b) have Eastwood follow pacifism until the end then deconstruct and analyze the ideals his wife had implanted on him. I prefer The Shootist with John Wayne as an actor's final goodbye to western than Unforgiven