Art and I have a long awaited heart-to-heart

I've never been an "Art Person", per se.  And especially not a high-minded modern art kinda guy.  You see, Modern Art and I have an agreement:  if I stay away from Art, art agrees to stop keeping me awake at night with horrible doubts about my sanity and the nature of humanity.  Because who needs that?  Not me. 

Dammit, Marcel Duchamp, We had a deal!

I didn't come to this conclusion lightly.  Exit through the Gift Shop helped a lot.  So did the fact that Jackson Pollack exists, and that guy who made a cross out of pee.  If that is art, then I really, really have better things to do. 

However, I recently learned about the basics of aesthetic theory, and the different ways in which people can appreciate art and the principle which make things pleasing to the eye.  Now this is where my life and art begin to intersect.  See, I've made no secret of the fact that I absolutely love webcomics.  I fritter away hours sifting through the archives of amazingly animated, fantastically creative comics like Sam Logan's Sam and Fuzzy, Kate Beaton's Hark a Vagrant!, Evan Dahm's Order of Tales, Jeffery Rowland's Wigu and Overcompensating, Scott Kurtz's PvP, Penny Arcade, Kris Straub's Starslip, and Dresden Codak's Bad Science.

I know that sounds like a lot, but to be honest that's probably not even half of them. My god, I've just outed myself as a massive nerd.  It was bound to happen, I guess.  But the point is, these are all beautiful.  In order for me to follow a webcomic, I have to be sure of the artist's chops.  Now I can recognize and verbalize what I like about each comic, each style:  I can understand the use of continuity and composition in each frame.  I'm no critic, but I'm no longer illiterate to the art that actually goes into something I love and enjoy everyday. 

You may have hurt me in the past, Art, but I'm willing to to make this work if you are.  C'mere, ya big lug!

But not You, Jackson Pollack!  You make painting like baby.

Gender Stereotyping in Ads

After watching Killing Us Softly, a short talk on how advertising dehumanizes and objectifies women, I've become hypersensitive towards ads.  I can't watch an ad without trying to decipher the villainous intent behind any sort of ad.  I mean, they have a point, I know, but at the same time I think a lot of the more subtle stuff was a little too read into.

Obviously a Beer commercial, right?  What do you mean you don't see it?