This first card was challenging. Back on the 13^th, when I first set down my intentions for this project, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do. I spent the next ten days reading things, assimilating concepts, arguing with myself, and cutting up magazines with the thought of doing a “real” art project using physical materials.

Even when I sat down and admitted to myself that I was not going to find what I wanted in the piles of magazines to create something meaningful, nor would my drawing fulfill my vision, I encountered uncertainty and hesitance. What was the most important thing I could say or depict on this card? Did the image mean the most, or would words be the order of the day?

Ultimately I ended up with something that I feel as though I’m happy with. There is still a lot to learn about this card, and I may revisit and revise it as I understand more about the intimacies of meaning contained within this set of gnostic guideposts.

Click the image to download the full size PDF version of this card. Note: It is a 1.9mb file!

Tarot and Qabalah: A Two-Fold Guidebook

At first glance, scholars of the Tarot and its relationship with the Qabalah may rush to correct my association here. In the Golden Dawn’s depiction of the Sephiroth[img], The Hanged Man corresponds to the path leading between Geburah and Hod. I am using the reformed Tree as outlined by Donald Tyson in the essay The Gate of Daath1. In this essay he outlines changes to the positioning and numbering of the paths based on the idea that Yesod is the only realistic path into the tree from Malkuth2, as well as establishing the need for paths connecting Binah-Chesed and Chokmah-Geburah3. (He has not published the diagram for this tree on his site, nor did I find another image elsewhere. Out of respect for the publisher’s request at the beginning of the book, I will not reproduce this diagram here unless I am given permission.) This corrects the Tree for the notion that the moon (Yesod) has always been the gateway to higher planes of consciousness, as well as creating the “x marks the spot” location for Daath on the upper portion of the Tree, similar to the positioning of Tiphareth below. Although this may realistically change many of the associations, I am currently running under the assumption that since The Hanged Man maintains position as corresponding with Path 23, that the tables provided by 7774 still hold true.

Getting to the card itself, I opted here for a two panel system, very much in line with the iconic layout provided by long-running CCG, Magic: The Gathering5. Looking again at their layout, I can already see areas in which I can improve the structure of my cards to convey more information more cleanly, but results of these thoughts will be explored another time.

The top panel is an image which I feel befits the original artistic depiction of the card. The caption provided by the artist is equally fitting and moving.

I can wait…
… says the little voice.
I close my eyes, try falling asleep, try not seeing him, his pesky presence. Try not hearing his never-ending questions.
Who says I have to answer EVERY question? Who says it has to be NOW? And why me? I am falling behind, at best of times feeling like I am about to catch up. But most of my time – I am just repaying old debts.
The spotlight dims and darkness descends. Precious sleep.
But should I wake up, without omission, here he is! Ta-dah!!!!! The little powerful voice and his army of questions.
“Not now”, I say.
“I can wait” he says, from his timeless space.

From the original flickr photo page.

This story unknowingly ties perfectly into the concepts fueling The Hanged Man, regardless of which side of the Tree you are exploring. It is characterized by Ordeal, by rite of passage and confrontation of that which would rip asunder our assumptions. On the back side of the tree, this would mean blindly surrendering to ignorance. On the front side, it is a willful sacrifice of old beliefs, resulting in enlightenment. Tiphareth is sort of a mid-way point in the tree, still exalted in its own right, but by no means the end of the journey. This route (on the front side) bypasses Tiphareth entirely, though I would argue that its enlightening end results are brimming with Tipharethic energies. Likewise on the night side of the Tree, The Hanged Man catapults himself headlong into the Abyss, bypassing any attempt for reform or redemption that is offered by Daath’s position at the center of the criss-crossing paths that makeup the middle of the upper tree.

Characters Fitting This Card

Here I outline a few characters – fictional, mythological, and otherwise – whose stories have examples of the transitional energy of The Hanged Man. It’s a fairly small and obvious collection. I’d love to come up with a few more examples of both the day and night sides of the tree.

1. Cecil (Final Fantasy 4)
• Although he was victorious in many ways as a Dark Knight, he couldn’t fulfill his quest until he learned to be merciful and accept the ways of the Paladin. This is a very overt example of ordeal leading into redemption, and enlightenment.6
2. Odin
• In return for hanging upon Yggdrasil for nine nights, Odin received the knowledge of runes7. A clear example of the concepts at work in The Hanged Man.
3. Jesus Christ
• Directly noted in the correspondence tables of 777, Jesus is possibly the quintessential archetype for sacrifice resulting in ascension to higher power.
4. Any Death-Rebirth Deity
• As argued here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-death-rebirth_deity, citing Jung’s claim that death and rebirth are archetypal processes. A theory supported by other researchers of myth.
5. Ikari Shinji (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
• Rife with gnostic symbolism and modern angst, Evangelion can and will burst your mind at the seams with all the concepts it tries to throw at you. At the end, Ikari Shinji is submitted to sacrifice and is reborn in a strange new world. I submit that his case would be a good example of the Qlippothic journey into dark supernal Binah, as his was always a path of despair and denial.

Final Thoughts

There is so much to learn here. I barely scratched the surface of the correspondences, especially the intense association with water and watery deities and concepts. Lotuses, nymphs, and the lord Poseidon all by the wayside while I figure out what it all means. The animal associations present their own puzzle: what do eagles, snakes, scorpions, beetles, lobsters, and wolves have to do with The Hanged Man?

What will the next card be? I have no idea. I will not draw another card until after this is published and another day dawns. When will it be published here? Again, it depends on the card and candidly on my life in general. Until then, I invite comment and question!

Resources:
1. Tyson, Donald The Gate of Daath, Howlings (Scarlet Imprint, 2008) 133.
2. Ibid, 129-130
3. Ibid, 131
4. Crowley, Aleister, 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico Mysticae (courtesy hermetic.com, PDF)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_the_Gathering for general history & images or the Getting Started Guide on Wizards of the Coast’s site for a full breakdown of how a card is constructed.
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_IV#cite_note-14 or FF IV original (Japanese) & English script: Mt.Ordeals
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil#H.C3.A1vam.C3.A1l

Supplementary Resources:
http://www.servantsofthelight.org/QBL/Paths/23_mem.html An HTML table rendering of all the data of line 23 of 777.

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The premise behind this project is very simple:

1. Choose a Tarot card (only shuffling for the first draw).
2. Dissect the visuals on the card and write down their most basic symbolic elements (from opinion/personal preference).
3. Look up details of that Tarot card from tarot books, 777 and other cross-cultural references.
4. Create a visual and/or written interpretation of the card.

The idea is part research project, part art project, part image-meme-in-the-making if stripped down to its most base elements (pick card, recreate card the way you see it).1

The deck I am using for my base of operations is The Robin Wood Tarot deck, put out by Llewellen publishers in 2002.2

Candidly, the Robin Wood is not my favorite deck in terms of art; I’d bite my own mother if it would get me a copy of the Yoshitaka Amano deck, but I adore his rich, Art Nouveau inspired work and that makes me rather biased. The Amano deck would actually be a poor choice for this endeavor, as the number cards within the suits are apparently expressed with a simple display of the number of each thing (cups, swords, etc), rather than full, symbolically significant art.3 The Robin Wood deck, on the other hand, is a much more suitable deck, inspired by the perennial Rider-Waite Deck published in 19104, although perhaps slightly more “modern” in its sensibilities.

I am currently at work on my first card, which I shall reveal if you ask me about it when I’m ready with a finished assessment and/or artistic recreation. Initially, I sought to impose strict deadlines for this work, yet I grossly underestimated the amount of information that has been layered into these cards over the centuries! Just working with only the base symbolism in the card could keep me very busy. Each card has a unique personality to be expressed through careful consideration of my reactions to it and available materials for creative reconstruction. This doesn’t even scratch the surface of the myriad readings to choose from in just the books I have available, especially since broad descriptions are given to help these cards display meaning when read in the intended context of a specific goal as well as their relation with other cards in a spread. Intentionally working with one card at a time means a lot of winnowing to get to the germ of the matter.

Furthermore, there are other unique challenges: Tarot interacts rather directly with several other systems of magick and philosophy, making the cross-referencing quite an in-depth affair. My extremely limited knowledge of Western Esoteric systems will prove to be my biggest stumbling block. This has been made clear while researching the first card for the series in 7775, Crowley’s seminal work providing rich tables of correspondences between systems of symbols used in different magick disciplines.

Though I will endeavor to research each card fully and provide serious thought and commentary to this effort, I do want to keep moving forward. What this means is that each article, each visual working (likely to be magazine-centric collage as I’ve a lot of material to work with) should likely be considered a work in progress, no matter how complete it may seem at the time of release. There’s likely to be more personal revelations and hand-written notes that simply don’t make it into this journal. These things may surface later as part of a larger effort to commit this project to print. Hail Eris!

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“There’s an implied obligation of those (myself included) who own these nuggets of history to share them, not squirrel them away in some dusty shoebox only to risk oblivion via flood, fire, or neglect.”- Gary

The Adolph Sutro’s Victorian Cliff House sat upon a cliff in San Fransisco over looking The Sutro Baths for only a 11 years before it tragically caught fire and burnt down in 1907.

However this beautiful Victorian dream home is being preserved by images alone by a man known only to me as “gary“.

His website has done a wonderful job chronicling and preserving the house in all its 19th century glory. From tintypes and post cards to a very cool virtualization of the house using the huge library of photographs, CAD, and the archived blueprints! (which are on the way to my architect as we speak)

It sort of blows my mind frankly. Being able to take a tour through a house that burnt down over over 100 years ago on a coast that is nearly 2,000 miles away. Isn’t the internet great? :D

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Preface: If you’re following me on Twitter, you may have seen my non-stop barrage of updates relating to a trip I am currently still on, a trip to Portland Oregon for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. What follows are a few selected tweets (in chronological order), and my hand-written journal entries. Each will be delineated clearly, for now. As the week rolls by it may devolve a bit. I just don’t want this experience to pass by like the MoCCa convention trip earlier this year, which was amazing and full of photos and quotes that has to this day not made it into a final record.

Tweets

• 2:30am 09-28-09 – leaving for the airport – adventure start! lvl 1 bus trip
• the led 1s above me seem to stare like the eyes of some large, shifty beast, or fireflies frozen in time, forever calling out a 1 note plea.
• I feel about in the dark, which is blindingly punctuated by electric light, and can find no familiar shapes, puzzled by this urge, I settle.
• I recall the coffee, given to me gratis by a kind but unhappy young man working @ the mcd’s, I do not so much drink as huff this kind nectar
• first leg of the journey eclipsed, a girl outside has a box labeled “fresh seafood”… oh my Editor’s Note: I have no idea what became of this “fresh seafood” container.
• with the lights on as we pause to collect passengers, I note my place: seat #23 :) so far so good – hail eris!
• it suddenly dawns on me that if I had any brains I would have turned on tweet import into rknet during this trip – someone please archive?
• dozed for a moment, woke up to some horrid coughing sound & saw a SWARM OF BEES over the aisle which faded into nothing as my eyes adjusted. Editor’s Note: This is 100% true and was 100% TERRIFYING.
• promised myself i’d save sleep for the plane, yet I nearly dozed thru the 2nd checkpoint, dreams intense &fitful Editor’s Note: And I think some of them involved *shudder* furries.
• the nymphs of sleep continue to tempt me with their lush, velvet arms as hypothermic sleep must entice the arctic’s soon-to-be-lost souls!
• the end of lvl1 I avoided: snoring (I hope), leg cramps, & battery overuse. next lvl2: airport ho!
• waiting in line to check bags, kiosk fail, but the girl behind the counter is cute and chipper. :)
• woman in front of me has a lesportsac carryon, posh! Editor’s Note: I think it may have even been a highly coveted TokiDoki black bag. *swoon*
• baggage check success! now waiting for tsa to open up, c’mon sleepyheads, shake a leg, this stuff’s heavy!
• got thru tsa with minimal fuss. @meatbag sacrificed a cute dr bronner soap bottle to the 3oz only gods. oh well, no great loss. lvl 2.5 get! Editor’s note: I probably shouldn’t have called it as level 2 and a half. This was barely scratching the surface of the trip. :/
• http://ping.fm/p/I8pmq – this waiting area is PIMP. nice comfy chairs, usb (g1 used power leech! it’s not very effective)& reg power jacks
• well, we were gonna board but I guess they gotta get the gremlin piss off the wing or something Editor’s Note: One of the bathrooms was apparently leaking some kinda water.
• one plane down, sitting in chi-town on the next waiting to be hurtled thru the sky at terrifying speeds which defy the earth’s very spin! :D
• destination: portland, oregon :) finally, to the west coast! not a first for the well-travelled @meatbag though
• this is the nicest damn airport I have ever seen
• lvl2.75 complete! flying & bag claim all done – now waiting to collect @malpertuis & establish home base!
• on lvl2.75: encountered wild tacos! devoured easily but left with burn.
• Zomg I think it’s gonna be @malpertuis tiem soooooon
• http://ping.fm/p/4XV4H – we got to the hotel, complete with bear & obelisk Editor’s Note: Though I neglected to say so, I think This is officially the END of level 2.

Not part of the travel portion of the adventure, but absolutely part of adventure as a whole: http://ping.fm/p/t05uG – inspired by the interview w @jamesurbaniak & jackson publick, they’re right, it IS awful

Notebook content

I admit that I did something that could mark me as some kind of trend whore and got a moleskein journal. I wanted something without spiral binding, and unlined pages. The moleskein gave me that, and the bookmark, elastic closure, and a back pocket. It was worth it.

Page 1

Hurtling above the land & clouds at pilot-only-knows what manner of height & speed, I am inclined to make a few observations, though they may be trite and obvious to all but the most obstinately non-observant. The upper surface of a large bank of fluffy, white clouds possessed the same manner of undulating sea surface I had noted as we banked out over the Atlantic to gain speed (presumably). In short, it was a captivating case of “As above, so below”. The second thing which really grabbed me as I owlishly stared out of the smallish window to my left (would that make it port side?) was the curious juxtaposition of man-made grids of landscape, versus the chaotic winding of rivers and their surrounding forest. Of course the more urbanized areas do tend to wind and twist – the loops and whorls that give fingerprint to a living community. Not even an expert palmist, I suspect, could read the fats of these places by such unassuming lines. I think, perhaps, the swaths of red/brown, and of glittery cars clustered around big buildings paint a clearer picture of what humanity is doing to/for itself. Certainly moreso than any other aforementioned qualities of landscape.

Page 2

My good pen exploded and I smeared the ink from my fingers onto the page. I took this opportunity to try to base some drawings off it. I did a pretty nice sketch of an eye and ruined it by trying to ink it with one of my felt tip pens.

Page 3

This page intentionally left blank.

Page 4

It took about 12 hours to cross the country, no mean feat, but it’s amazing this future we live in.
Trendspot: patterned tights w/ flat boots
Saw my first ever, proper, junkies hanging about the rite aid. Editor’s Note: That Rite Aid was the most intimidating, WEIRD shopping establishment. So many strange items behind chiming plastic half doors, everyone was in an absolute rush. Disinterested cop standing near the doors, and junkies milling about both in and outside the doors, with the most lost and tragic air I have possibly ever seen in a human being. It frightened me and broke my heart simultaneously. My journal entry item was too cursory and unfair to the actual experience.
Crossing the Rockies was amazing, though perhaps more amazing were the ranges of mountains that preceded them.
So many hills, valleys, ravines, rivers. Amazing. There was a large brush fire, too. Not sure where we were when we saw it.
Looks like some of the bars round here permit smoking. This does not bode well for my lungs.
The air here is chill but clear & pleasant.
There is, potentially, so much to do, I simply don’t know where to begin.
I’m looking forward to the film fest.
It promises to be greatness for sure.
Meeting more Ectomites is also a thrill in waiting though I fear Eliza’s exacting tongue… ah well. Editor’s Note: It’s so difficult to meet people you admire, and of all the Ecto-gods, she is the one I want to avoid looking like a douchebag in front of the very most. Introspectively, I can’t help but wonder if my lack of female interaction growing up has made me incapable of interacting normally with other females now as an adult.

Page 5

While listening to WFMU, enjoying the hell out of hearing Jackson Publick and James Urbaniak of The Venture Brothers (which I absolutely ADORE), they were discussing comics, and the topic of political cartoons came up. They likened the modern political cartoon to something as crass and stupid as a guy wearing a shirt that says “taxes” and a guy with a bat that says “healthcare”. In a fit of “I should draw more because that’s the only way to get better”, I busted out the blue pencil and the non-smeary pen and set to creating this masterpiece of AWFUL. I shared it via Twitter/ping.fm: http://ping.fm/p/t05uG.

The text reads:
Guy in taxes shirt: “What’s that whistling noise?”
Guy with bat: MINE
Caption below: HE WON’T KNOW WHAT HIT HIM

Sidetext: Political cartoons are terrible (Then a note regarding the inspiration as noted above.)

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Author’s Note: Some editing may apply to the article below. This article was originally 2 hours worth of unedited vitriol, inspired by the inordinate amount of time it takes me to remove spammers from my follower list on Twitter. (I block because I care about the health of the network.) I would like to state for the record that I am ~not~ a consultant and my field of employ does not position me as a social media anything. I am fully employed at a .com company that is none of your business because my opinions here are completely my own and in no way reflect those of my employers past, present or future, as is the case with all my articles.

Listen. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “oh god, another contrarian anti-internet jerk who just doesn’t get it”, right? Well, here’s the problem, assuming there is anything to “get” in the first place, I feel as though I do get it. So let me explain to you in no uncertain terms why I feel that you have to be very picky about how you approach the broad spectrum of things on the internet that have fallen under the somewhat dubious umbrella of “social media” – what follows applies mostly if you are a company or work for a company which wishes to employ this miracle tool to win friends and influence shoppers. Those of you who are largely concerned with keeping up with your friends and picking up some new novel on Amazon are exempt from this lecture and may go on about your business.

Someone, somewhere, right now may have just friended you or followed you or emailed you or called you with the intent to sell their services to you as an expert in social media. It may not have even been a real person, it may have been someone’s automated robot, spitting out update after update linking back to their blog or company website. This person may have been trying to convince you of one of the following things:

• You NEED to be a part of social media in order to make it in business.
• You NEED to be a part of social media to make it on the internet.
• You NEED to have dozens of automated accounts, linking to affiliate programs, so you never have to work another day in your life.
• You NEED the services of a “qualified social media expert” (really? what are the qualifications for that?) just like them to make this happen, because you, poor soul that you are, don’t get it.
• You NEED to have “conversations” with your customers, every last damn one of them, and you can somehow find all of your customers through the internet regardless of your business model or demographic.
• You NEED to be light and human and approachable on this wild, wooly internet, or your customer base will think you’re just a mean old corporate giant and won’t trust you anymore.
• You NEED to make sure that you do your campaigning virally from now on, and harness the power of the crowd.

If you are hearing any or all of the above statements, I want you to take a deep breath, take a good long look at this person telling you these things, and realize that you may be dealing with a blithering asshole, a liar, or an asshole liar. This individual may be feeding you a complete line of bullshit in order to help themselves to your money. This individual may also be intelligent, well-rounded, and respectful of you and your business. It is a VERY difficult line of judgement, and I urge individuals and businesses out to make a name for themselves (on the internet or otherwise) to tread carefully when it comes to the internet, since without self-education and experience it is very easy to get taken in by an enthusiastic pitchman who just wants you to “embrace the new media”.

Lest you think I’m just out to start trouble…

There are many ways in which acknowledging popular social media outlets could benefit a business, and just as many if not more ways that it can harm a business. It shouldn’t be a question of if your company will be participating in the various activities available on the internet, but when, how, and most importantly why.

In an extreme negative example, let us take the “Domino’s YouTube incident” into consideration for a moment. A couple of young employees of a particular Domino’s store took it upon themselves to film themselves playing with food that was intended to be delivered to a customer in a way that was clearly pretty unsanitary or at the very least against guidelines. They posted said video to YouTube, a content delivery service which allows anyone with an account to upload video files to share with as few or as many people as the account holder wishes. Due to the fact that this incident was rather outrageous, the link to that video spread a lot further than those two employees’ friends, and wound up being a huge embarrassment to the entire franchise. This in turn resulted in the President of Domino’s himself recording a response and distributing it through YouTube also. The original, incriminating videos were the kind of mildly gross, slightly shocking, pure-amusement dreck that tends to go popular, and unfortunately none of the major news outlets who covered the story back when it first occurred managed to get the number of views the video managed to receive prior to the suspension of “whiteair2″, the original account the videos were posted on.

Some would argue that if Domino’s had been proactive in their approach to social media in particular, this may not have been “as bad” or may not have happened at all. Yes and no, would be my response to that claim. Would it have been worthwhile for Domino’s to monitor for the presence of its company name on the internet, and be prepared to respond should anything negative start to gain ground? Absolutely, because as demonstrated here, things can occur which get people to talking with one another, and eventually things like this can leave the walled gardens from which they sprung. Everything I’ve heard about public relations suggests that good PR has legs and will generate positive influence that may bring in future customers. Bad PR, however, seems to have a hangar full of high speed jets which can result in misconceptions, smug disdain, and complaints that spread faster and linger for much longer.

Yet this monitoring is by no means exclusive to “social media” outlets such as YouTube or Twitter, and likewise, no amount of canned responses thrown up on YouTube, nor Twitter accounts/posts to mitigate the seemingly endless stream of whiny, self-righteous haters, can stop this sort of thing or even improve the company’s standing with either the internet using people they are supposedly reaching out to or more importantly the greater public. The extremely scripted response from the Domino’s President clocks in (as of today) at 731,695 views, according to the official posting of the video, which is downright pathetic given the amount of mass media attention this story received. However, reposts may also carry views which aren’t counted in this number. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the articles I have read only give passing nods to Domino’s response to the matter, and focus more on the shock-and-awe blitz that the original videos seem to have stirred up to begin with.

What this story has to teach is:

• Not being aware of how you and your company can be portrayed in the public by average citizens using an easily accessible set of tools can be disastrous.
• Trying to mitigate a terrible PR situation by poorly using the tools that seem to have been the “cause” of the problem does not automatically win you the love of those same detractors. Handling the situation quickly and professionally might, if you’re lucky.

Note: A commenter brought up a good point RE: my recap of the Domino’s situation and I clarified my thoughts in a follow-up comment. Scroll down and read if you’re interested. Thank you, Liz, for the opportunity to clarify those points.

So what about my business?

What this has to do with you, and the slick individual who thinks it would be a good idea to sign your company up for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and all these other “popular” sites, is very simple. It starts by asking yourself a very simple question: “Does my company have something tangible to gain by actively interacting with its customer base through one of these outlets?”

These days, the answer to the second question is almost guaranteed to be a partial yes, unless you’re doing something like making custom wagon parts for the Amish, then maybe not so much. Yet before you invest all your money in a fast-talking internet “guru” (which is a word to watch out for, by the way, since most of these would-be rinpoche have dubbed themselves gurus), hire 6 more people just to re-tweet press releases for you, and figure out how to talk about your product on the YouTube even if no one cares, there are a couple more questions you might want to ask yourself, your staff, and your magical social media consultant:

• Why should I be proactively seeking criticism and input from a relatively small portion of my customer base using services like Facebook and Twitter when I can dedicate more resources to a more balanced approach that entails monitoring a larger portion of the internet INCLUDING those sites to create a good cycle of reactive implementation of better features and services?
• Does my company have the ability to put someone, or several people, in “the line of fire” to respond almost instantaneously to any situation that is made aware to the public, knowing that these people must be given the freedom to respond in a largely unscripted manner if they are to be at all effective in coming across as genuine?
• Does my company – or my consultant – understand the difference between marketing, public relations, and reputation management?
  • Does my company – or consultant – understand that these initiatives are related, but are still different and will require different disciplines, approaches, and sometimes people to be successful?
• Does my company know when to draw the line and handle a situation through dealing with the traditional media outlets, understanding that for every customer on the internet, there are several more who will not have access to those broadcasts from us?
• Is my company interested in self-promotion and press releases, or direct customer relations and expanding customer service contact methods?
• What kind of things are being said about my product or service on the internet?
  • What kinds of things are being said about my competitors’ products or services?
  • What kind of things are being said about directly related or easily confused products or services?
  • What kind of things are being said about my entire niche or section of business?
  • What kind of things are being said specifically by people in my demographic for any one or all of these things?
• (And of course the pre-work to all of that previous short list of questions, in case that didn’t scare you enough:) Does my company have demographic information about our business model, niche, or industry as well as a basic understanding of the terms and topics related to that, and an ability to dedicate resources to that research before, during and after any phase of a long-term customer facing campaign on the internet?

If your “social media expert” or “guru” or just plain old consultant cannot help you address any one of the above questions, then they are not doing you a service, but a very distinct disservice. The internet is a fairly complex emotional and social landscape, but so is a television viewing audience, a base of radio listeners, and the readership of a magazine or newspaper. The key factor here is that you are always dealing with answering the question of “How does my business interact with the public?” If you let yourself get blinded by cheap tactics under the guise of “better SEO” or “getting with the times” or some kind of misguided free love approach to business on the internet that you have no plans of actually embracing, then you are going to be about as effective on a site like Twitter as a man wearing a sandwich board in the subway screaming about the end times and handing out leaflets to everyone who dares get within five feet of him. Sure, being in the subway is great exposure, and he’s yelling so everyone can hear him, he’s definitely getting to a lot of people, and he’s delivering his leaflets of content to really spread the word around. The trouble is, they all thing he’s annoying, insane, or both, and they’re probably right. It’s a terrible way to do business either out on the street or through channels like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

Summary:

• Think before you act.
• Never abandon or detract from your bottom line for what could be a trend, or go against your core business model.
• Do not cave to the pressure to be on Twitter simply because you’re paying someone to tell you that it’s a good idea. And fire that guy who can’t give you at least one good reason why it is genuinely good for your business.
• Be aware that the internet can impact your PR, but handle the situation according to what is right for your business, not according to the media used for delivery. (Would you run a counter local Fox news investigation if a local Fox news investigation caused you a PR flap? Probably not.)

Thanks, and happy interneting!

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So after chesh gave me the what’s-what on the fate of the Cubecraft site I mentioned in the previous pants-wettingly excited post about finding a papercraft Dr. Venture, I poked around and discovered a papercraft model that I thought would not only be of interest to me, but would be precisely my speed: slow and simple.

As a (late to the party) fan of Portal, the Weighted Companion Cube model seemed like an obvious choice. I only have access to a black and white printer, so I wanted to start with something that did not require any complex re-coloring on my part. That way, if or when I made massive mistakes in the cutting or folding phases, I wouldn’t really lose much in the way of time-consuming coloring work.

So, without further ado, my first papercraft (and cubecraft) model (and walkthrough)!

1. I clicked the download link for the Weighted Compaion Cube image from cubeecraft.com, which opened up a large JPG version of the model.


the page to get the file

2. Next I hit print to update my printer settings. [File > Print > Options tab]


Printer settings dialogue box

3. • I set the paper type to “Letter” or 8.5×11 for standard paper size, set the orientation from “portrait” to “landscape” and set all the page margins to .25 inches.
   • Optionally, you can uncheck the headers and footers as I have done here. I would recommend it to avoid any meta info from printing over the design.
   • Note of Caution! For Ubuntu’s print settings, I had to set the following options: UNCHECK Fit to width. Set Scale print to 60%. My Windows-based printer settings were already configured to fit the image, so all I had to change was “Portrait” to “Landscape”. If you have the ability to print preview, I recommend doing so to avoid wasting paper!
4. Next step was arguably the most challenging of all, cutting it out.
   • I used a retractable razor blade (box cutter) and my pointed tip, super sharp scissors I got years ago for Home Ec (and they’re still really sharp!). See these for something similar: Fiskars Razor Edged Scissors 8
   • I set the sheet on a solid surface that I wasn’t afraid of scratching up and cut the white slits on wide tabs A-G. If you prefer, you can cut the tiny gaps underneath the the smaller tabs A-G. I just used my scissors to carefully cut along the edge on each side, then pulled gently to remove the paper from in between.
   • Cutting around the rest is easy, just follow the outline and take your time! All-in-all it took me maybe a half hour to 45 minutes of slow, careful cutting to follow along the edge and get into those couple of tight corners around tabs A, B, E, and F. I went slower partly because my scissors are so sharp, it would have been easy for me to slip and cut right through the image!
5. Once I had it all printed out and cut out, the fun part – the coloring – started! A few notes on techniques I used to manually color my cube:
   
   

   all cut out and tarted up!

   • To outline the heart, I used Uniball Vision Elite pens, specifically, the dark magenta/pink one from my pack. I don’t think that link QUITE matches what I’ve got, but I left one pack at work and the other is Frith-only-knows-where in the house. But I digress.
   • To fill in the heart, and the lines radiating from the center circle, I used Sharpie Liquid Highlighters, which I never have enough reason to use, although they are pretty awesome and last for-freaking-ever. Plus the fine edge on the highlighter was perfect for filling in the narrow lines in one short stroke with no mistakes.
   • To darken the “inset” areas, the circular area outside the heart circle and little nitches between the edge pieces, I just used a regular pencil. I tried to fill in each quarter with quick up and down strokes in one direction, slightly rushed so the spacing would provide a bit of a brushed metal look from the little gaps of lighter grey between pencil strokes.
   • To fill in the edge pieces, I used a silver Sharpie. A word of caution on this, you should scribble on a blank sheet (or the unused portion of the printout) to make sure it’s a writing with a shiny silver color. If it’s dull or dark, it needs to either be stored tip side down for a while, or written with until the metallic color starts showing. Otherwise, you’ll end up with an inconsistant finish, or have to double up on your coloring (like I did), which will lose some of the subtle shading effects that show through from the printing with one light pass. Use smooth, even, overlapping strokes, as the gaps and edges will be VERY obvious with this method.
6. To fold it, I started with the cube edges. Then the insert slot tabs, then the other tabs.
7. The order in which I inserted the tabs: A, B, E, F, C, G, & D.

Finally, the finished cube!

shiny!

The bottom with the credits and the date of completion

For all my talk about papercraft, this was the first real papercraft I’ve done outside of paper chains, origami cups, and the occasional botched snowflake. This was a lot of fun and I may start doing a lot more of these. If assembly tips and papercraft modification ideas are something you’re interested in, let me know and there may be more posts like these in the future.

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Hi friends!
First of all, I’d like to thank whoever came across and ordered a tee shirt from the RKNet Printfection store.

I figured I’d share the store location, if any of you are interested in picking up a shirt (in varying flavors): RKNet Super Emporium. The prices are a dollar over cost, giving RKNet a one dollar profit for every item sold. I set it up, but candidly I’m not a huge fan of the print quality I got from Printfection.

I’d like to ask RKNet friends and fans the following: What printing services would you recommend for tee shirts, posters, and other such quality goods?

I’m not inclined to use either cafepress or zazzle, so those options are out.

In an ideal universe I’d do this stuff myself, but I haven’t gotten around to undergoing some of the silkscreening endeavors I took so much interest in. If anybody has any stories of at home printing they’d like to share, please do!

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When you’re stuck inside because the weather has gone from bad to worse, or when you’re looking for a cheap project for gift giving or just good old fashioned time consumption that actually isn’t looking at pictures of cats with captions, papercraft is great.

“Papercraft” is exactly what it sounds like: crafts made with paper. This includes things like origami, card making, and making paper models. Making paper snowflakes or chains of paper people? That’s papercraft. All those red and green chains made by gluing strips of construction paper into links? That’s papercraft too. Those little fingertip fortune readers? Yup, that too. Of course, those are all rather old hat, but that’s ok because the internet is here to help.

• It almost goes without saying that CRAFT and MAKE magazines are chock full of great ideas for any kind of crafting project, and paper is no exception.
• Fans of video games will be pleased to note that there are several resources for making paper models of all your favorite characters. Nintendo Papercraft is a blog dedicated to Nintendo-themed paper projects.
• Papercraft Museum has a pretty massive database of video game, anime, and film related projects in an easy to navigate archive, complete with downloadable patterns. They’ve also got beginner and advanced tutorials and a forum.
• 4chan’s /po/ board has a variety of papercraft (and origami specific, thus the o in /po/) projects, some of which are totally original. (I saw one there of DOG from HalfLife2 that totally blew my mind!) For any who aren’t familiar, 4chan is comes with an +18 plus disclaimer, because they do not restrict the content posted to the site. If you’re looking for projects with your kids, keep that in mind before you visit here.

So the resources for the projects are out there, but of course to build these things, you’ll need supplies. Below I’ve linked to a bunch of tools at Amazon (each under $20) that can help you get started. Things like small scissors for those tricky little corner cuts, a self-healing cutting mat, some regular and some paint markers, and an inexpensive (but really nice looking) set of x-acto knives. Having a few specialty tools will really help if you want to get into some of the more intricate projects, but nothing beats a regular pair of scissors, a (black and white or color) printer, paper, and glue if you just want to get started on something fun.

Paper itself is also a consideration! I strongly recommend recycling as much as possible, reusing all those misprint sheets with one or two lines on either end and so on. You can even recycle more heavily printed-on paper if you use paint or bold markers to color your creation after you’ve printed out the outline. If you’re interested in going tree-free with your paper projects, there are some vendors out there who can hook you up.

Card making and scrapbooking are a branch of crafting/papercrafting that are growing in popularity, and in a world full of boring pre-printed cards, nothing is nicer than getting a hand made original. There are positively TONS of resources available for card making tips, ideas and equipment, so I won’t bother getting into it here. However, I would encourage everyone to try to get creative with the things they have before going out and buying expensive card making supplies or equipment as some places may advertise. Old photo albums (especially if you usually get double prints), scraps of craft supplies, small junk drawer items, unused stickers, old magazines and things like that are perfect for a small project like a card. A co-worker of mine recently saved the heavy clear plastic backing from some big rolls of contact paper for card making and the results were really neat.

If you’re still not sure how to get started, PaperKraft has this handy papercraft for beginners video, embedded here for your enjoyment.

Happy crafting, everyone!

Bonus papercraft eyecandy! WebUrbanist just pulled together a great list of 15 really astounding artists who do all their work in, you guessed it, paper. Check it out!

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(Yes, hunted to death by ignorant white men.)

One of our affiliates, TorsoPants, is regrettably no longer going to be with us. On December 23rd (Hail Eris) they will close their </html> forever. They are the most openly absurdist tee shirt-ery this side of Fnord. It’s worth a look, especially since these coming days will be your last opportunity to clothe yourself in the finest of absurd concepts and pithy sayings.

I’d especially like to see everyone who deserves it get this shirt:

It's true Ted, you really do.

I can think of no better way to silently declare your positive outlook on the day or any given situation you encounter:

Awesome-awesome, or awesome-I-just-wet-myself-with-fear-awesome?

And if reading Questionable Content has taught me anything, it’s that non-sequitur, single word tee shirts fucking rule:

You know I could go for breakfast now that your chest mentioned it.

The letter from TorsoPants regarding their closing reads as such:

It is with great sadness that I announce, at the urging of Bilderberg, that I am closing the doors at TorsoPants.com at midnight December 23rd, 2008. I cannot get into complete details, but my higher masters have told me that my mission will be changing over the next few months and this is the first step in a series of movements I will make in my life to fulfill the prophecy that is Sunshine Megatron.

Torsopants.com was a very personal project for me and I am proud of what we accomplished and of the product we brought to the masses. I can only pray that those who remain asleep will wake up by the end of 2009 (the 11 year) , but cannot explain this any further and only wish the best for all of your human race.

So, the 2 new Torsopants this week will be our last new designs and as mentioned above, December 23rd, 2008 will be the final day in the life of our experiment. Feel free to buy something before it’s done.

Love to all that deserve it.
Sunshine

Good luck Sunshine, Gary, Jacob, Mika and Jason – I hope future endeavors bring you much success. (Don’t know who I’m talking about? I dare you to find the answer. It’s there.)

Everybody could stand to have a few more tee shirts. They do make a sensible choice for when exposing yourself isn’t much of an option, and they’re one of the most pleasantly entertaining options for upper body coverage available. Besides, a tee shirt isn’t your only option. They can also print these delightful sweet nothings on hoodies and tank tops too, and they have a variety of styles available in standard tee shirt types, including some American Apparel offerings. And for every style option there’s a variety of base colors, so you aren’t stuck with the white-text-on-a-black-shirt kind of humorwear. Variety is the spice of life, and the spice must flow.

There’s only about 3 weeks left to get your hands on your very own pair of TorsoPants. Think about it, won’t you?

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That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

Something I have learned over the past decade is that every investigative hero requires the correct and proper equipment. One thing they require is a sensible bag to store manuscripts and treasures in. Indiana Jones had his modified gas mask bag. Dean Corso from “The Ninth Gate” had his canvas satchel. Spider Jerusalem had his leather book bag. Currently I use a Megatokyo bag shoulder bag or a Burton snowboarding rucksack depending on what I’m doing. Both have served me well and see many wonderful sights. When I was first exposed to the Mythos I don’t know what my bag was. I would have been at school and just started doing my GCSEs. I believe that I used a cheap nasty messenger bag at the time.

My first exposure to the Cthulhu Mythos was rather appropriately took place outside of a library. Somehow talk drifted to the Necronomicon. A goth kid from the sixth form had bought a copy of it into school. “This is a famous book of occult bad ass,” was how it was described to me. No word or mention of Mr Lovecraft or of the books fictional origins. Sadly for my fifteen year old self a little research soon uncovered the books falseness.

Many people though still think that the Necronomicon is a real book. The copy that the acquaintance in the sixth form had was undoubtedly now a copy of the Simon Necronomicon. But first the fictional history of the book.

First mention of the book appears in the 1921 story “The Hound” (published 1924) as a book written by the “Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred who was mentioned in a story written one year earlier called “The Nameless City”. The Necronomicon itself is mentioned in no less then five of Lovecraft’s Mythos stories. With references made to the tome in “At the Mountains of Madness” and “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” among other stories.

In the 1921 story “The Nameless City” the rhyming couplet by Abdul Alhazred is given at two points in the text. This couplet appears in “The Call of Cthulhu” from 1928, it is identified as a quotation from the Necronomicon. The couplet is the one at the top of the essay. Some description of the text is given in “The Dunwich Horror” with the book being often described as bound in leather and having metal clasps to keep the large book’s pages safe from damage.

The authenticity of the Necronomicon has been in question since the time of Lovecraft with the author often being asked about the book. His answer was always that it was an invention of his own. In a letter to letter to Robert Bloch in July 1933 he clearly writes: “As for the “Necronomicon”—this month’s triple use of such allusions is bringing me in an unusual number of inquiries concerning the real nature & obtainability of Alhazred’s, Eibon’s, & von Junzt’s works. In each case I am frankly confessing the fakery involved.”

But still rumors of the books authenticity persist. These rumors helped by various differing editions of the Necronomicon being published in the years since Lovecrafts death. One of these the Simon Necronomicon mentioned above was released in 1977 by Schlangekraft, Inc. in a limited edition of 666. The book was later released in paperback and has never been out of print since. Unfortunately I’ve never read the Simon Necronomicon. So I can only give a quick digest of the information on Wikipedia. But it might be of interest if anyone wants to read further into the subject after.

The book claims in it’s introduction that it is a translation of the Greek Necronomicon. The content of the book is mostly based on Sumerian mythology with attempts to tie various entities in Mesopotamian mythology to correspondent entities in Lovecraft’s Mythos. Eh, what else is there to say? It’s black magic bullshit with curses and summons written in a mix of English and ancient Sumerian. With warnings all over the book claiming it’s danger. The back cover saying that this book is “the most potent and potentially, the most dangerous Black Book know to the Western world.”

Whatever the truth is and I suspect that the truth is fictional. The Necronomicon has a place in pop culture like no other book. With references to the book appearing in the Evil Dead film series, web comic Megatokyo and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld book “Moving Pictures”.

Will.

Next a journey into the occult underground of The Invisibles and Chaos Magic.

Pages of obvious interest:

The H.P. Lovecraft.com page about the Necronomicon, contains further information about the Necronomicon.

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