Go Fast, Do Magic
Magic works, but only if it works. Know what I mean? And car drawings.
I Promise Not To Talk About This Too Much
Because as soon as other people start talking about their favorite sports my brain usually turns off, far be it from me to assume that other people want to hear about me talking about sports that I love.
However, the only sport that I love, F1 racing*, has its first GP of the 2024 season next weekend. The first thing that I love about the sport is the cars. The fastest racing vehicles in the world** and they tend to be pretty cool looking, and that means they get drawed by me. At least the old as hell ones, for now.
Remember what I said about iconification last week? Yeah, I’m playing around with drawing these old 1920’s numbers. There are TONS of photos of them, many of them are still around in museums and the like. Fabulous stuff! So I’m just getting into this but throughout the season I’m going to be drawing a lot of cars and I’m very, very pleased with that.
It’s one thing to look at pictures of these cars, another to see them in person (some incredible things to see at the National Automobile Museum in Reno) but another, wholly different experience to draw them. It’s always a strangely intimate process to draw a subject, and with machines I love the added puzzle aspect of considering how things really work as you trace the contours, identify the different metal plates, realize that cars in the 1920’s had their hoods strapped down with leather belts, and just overall getting a feeling for the car. I can draw a ‘20s Duesenberg without looking a reference after doing those little drawings. Cool!
Anyways, I love drawing cars and watching them go vroom fast so look out. I regret not having more to show you, but I just haven’t had enough time lately! Fingers crossed for more next week.
Huh, The Magic
A little over a week ago a friend explained to me, in verbose and vivid detail, the differences between sorcery, wizardry, and witchcraft. He also ventured well into alchemy and its ancient Roman traditions. Not in a fantasy DnD sense, but how they are supposed to be practiced here on this spinning rock by our fellow humans. I asked.
It’s all pretty interesting to me because I’m fascinated by systems, and most religions, churches, cults, magical practices, and the rest worth their salt have ones that make sense. I view these just like I do machine designs in art, or a monster in a horror movie: when you take a critical look at it, it doesn’t matter how fantastical is is, as long as it makes sense for it to work by the rules that govern it. If it doesn’t do that, it’s broken. It doesn’t even work if you use your imagination.
I’m not a crystal-eating spellcaster by any means, but I am very certain that there are things that affect and influence our minds that we don’t understand. Like our minds, for instance. For some reason, faith healing seems to work sometimes. A pretty hard-line atheist, me, is telling you this, so at the very least, the situation is weird.
Hell, people have been doing it for at least 10,000 years, I guess I can come up with a magic system that’ll help me with my everydays. So I will! I will also write about it later, when it congeals into something more substantial. For now all I know is that I’m pasting meaning onto some bracelets I made last year.
I guess it’s kind of alchemic, because it’s just based on stones, metals, and wood, materials you can use to make jewelry. Bracelets for me, easy. Charms for books and stuff, too. I’m sure this will sound a little like crystal stuff, but I’m making it all up in a way that makes sense to me. So in that way, it’s very personal!
It’s based on the colors and materials the beads are made out of.
L: This one is mixed between stone, wood, and metal. Colorless metals are power conductors, while stones are raw direction, and wood is introspective, reflective. Red is passion and anger, so in this one the effect would be to fire up my passion to do something wild and at the same time remain mindful of the purpose of my actions.
C: Now this one, gray stone and copper. Simple, I love it. Copper is a conductor, like colorless metal, but it’s focused on building. Gray is stubborn, dedicated, principled, unwavering. This piece is all about getting work done!
R: One of my few all-wood bracelets. I made an anklet similar to this, but I guess I got too wild on the 4th of July because it broke. This is simple reflection, mindfulness. It was not intentional, but perfect, that this one looks a little like Buddhist prayer beads or a Catholic rosary!
I’ll probably name them when I get deeper into it. See how fun this is??
More than the wearing of the bracelets, but the ritual of selecting and putting them on. It’s an action that I can graft meaning onto, a this is the type of day I’m going to have sort of ritual. Unlike picking your outfit, it’s not something that you have to do, so it probably won’t be sloppy, because you’re looking at your magical bracelets and asking yourself in a thundering basso, “What manner of arcane power shall I imbue myself with today?“
I guess my perspective is that these things work not particularly because they are drawing upon a sea of magic in the universe or something, but that you can experience these weird charms and have their meaning installed in your brain gives them power by association. The ritual and belief gives it meaning, it comes from the user.
Where have I heard that before… Everywhere?
*I’m pretty sure I would love F2 if I actually sat down and watched it, given its less refined resemblance to Mario Kart, but I have to admit that the luxury of the bazillions of dollars spent on broadcast tech specifically for F1 is working its magic on me. Just the sheer number of on-board cameras they have going at any moment is mind boggling. Anyways.
**correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the Brit Royal Airforce’s Thrust SSC still holds the land speed record at 1,228 km/h (763 mph). Check out that Y2K era anthropological dig site, I’m pretty sure I didn’t get a virus from it.
Did you like it? Want more in your inbox? Consider subscribing! Or not!
