CxD #84

Last (free?) issue; Hazardous Journey; Meditation Redux; Women at their Most Honest

1. This might be the most famous ad of all time. Where do you sign up? If you’re interested in the CxD newsletter, down below, because we’re moving to a subscription model. Here’s the not-so-fine print:

   There’s a lot of ways for me to spend my time, and wasting it is not high on my list of priorities. I need to know, more precisely than ever, just how many people find non-imaginary value in this CxD newsletter. One way I will discover this “value proposition” is by asking people to pay for the newsletter. But not a lot.

   My thinking is that if you pay for the annual subscription, each weekly issue is less than a dollar. If you go the monthly $5 route, each issue comes out to just a bit over a dollar. But either way, it’s realistically not a lot of money––I’ve paid more for donuts in a day than the cost of this newsletter for the year. Therefore, if someone doesn’t think CxD is worth a dollar, they don’t really think it’s that valuable and they could easily live without missing a thing. And if enough people feel that a dollar/issue is too much, then there’s my answer: I should dedicate my time trying to do the good that is in front of me in another form.
   
   But if I get enough subscriptions, then that’s another answer and request: to keep reading, writing, and translating–– Character by Design–– so that we feel less alone on this path Flint Sparks calls waking up and growing up.

   If you do decide to subscribe, I can promise the following:
   

   • More mind maps of useful books

   • More original pontifications

   • More workshops (offered at a discount to subscribers)

   • Resurrection of the CxD bookclub for subscribers only

   • Zero smoke up your ass

   • First dibs on the upcoming CxD podcast

   • Eternal gratitude for your generosity

   • One day a man called while I was out and left this message: “You got the whole thing wrong from start to finish. Luckily, there’s still time to correct the situation, but you must act fast. See me at your earliest convenience. And please tell no one of this. Much besides your life depends on it.” I thought nothing of it at the time. ~John Ashbery
     

     So, please consider subscribing.
     

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   2. Like eating your vegetables, meditation is good for you. Blah, blah, blah. But consider these alternative perspectives on why you should really get your ass on a quiet cushion:

   • I meditate because evolution gave me a big brain, but it didn't come with an instruction manual.

   • I meditate because life is too short and sitting slows it down.

   • I meditate because life is too long and I need an occasional break.

   • I meditate because it's such a relief to spend time ignoring myself.

   • I meditate because I'm building myself a bigger and better perspective, and occasionally I need to add a new window.

   —Wes Nisker (With props to Kim Mosely )

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   Lisa Hanawalt, the creator of “Tuca & Bertie,” and her horse, Juniper. Source

   
   3. Character Design 101: Know thyself fully and do not hide from your shadows which are the parts that have the most to teach you. Yeah, the stuff you’d rather not admit are the bits that have the most character-juice in them. What I enjoy most about Lisa Hanawalt’s drawings and t.v. characters on BoJack Horseman is the raw truth-telling on display, warts and pimples and obnoxious mannerisms. But also a tenderness toward all those parts as a way to get to know them more deeply instead of immediately self-parading yourself down into the shame dungeon.

   

   “Cartoons typically use anthropomorphism to project human characteristics onto animals — to make them seem more like us. But Hanawalt’s creations often achieve the opposite effect. They reveal how beastly humans can be. This is particularly revelatory when it comes to female characters. The animalism of Hanawalt’s work helps reveal parts of women we rarely see onscreen — the strangest, horniest, hungriest parts. In her western graphic novel “Coyote Doggirl,” her lavender-furred protagonist pauses her quest to find her beloved horse in order to stuff her face with tree fruit until her eyes bug out and her stomach hurts. Whether that impulse originates from the coyote part of her, the dog part or the girl part is unclear.”

This intriguing New York Times article delves deeply into Lisa’s social anxiety and how she’s transformed her relationship to it:

“Now Hanawalt comes to meetings armed with coping mechanisms: a tub of stress-reducing slime, a little fan that makes a soothing whirring sound, and the fruits of therapy. A few years ago, her therapist encouraged her to personify her anxiety, so she named it Kyle and styled it as a man-spreading bro in Adidas slides who barges into her brain. He is an oddly disarming presence: an oblivious doofus who doesn’t know any better. Now when anxiety knocks, she can roll her eyes and say, ‘Oh, it’s just Kyle.’

When she got the chance to make her own show, “it was very important to me to show that women are gross,” she said. In one episode, animated sex bugs crawl from Tuca’s crotch and take over a supermarket; in another, Bertie furtively masturbates in the work bathroom. Often, the show subverts expectations for female characters just by following their animal instincts: Tuca fries up her own eggs as a snack.”

So out of anxiety, art and a more grounded life, grounded in truth. Source

You can watch Bojack Horseman and Tuca & Bertie on Netflix.

Questions? Answers? Send an email to cxd@characterbydesign.org