OK guys, I've been a very busy lady this week, and my energy levels are close to zero, so this week's post is gonna be pretty brief. In fact, its just gonna consist of a couple of links to some rather interesting things. Why am I bothering to type out something that you're about to realize anyway?
First up, an oldie but a goodie, the highly entertaining and thought provoking David Wong's take on Dunbar's number, What is the Monkeysphere? This is an essay I first read a few years back on Wong's old site pointlesswasteoftime.com, and its something that if you haven't read it before, you owe it to yourself to check out. It will do wonders for elucidating your understanding of the twisted and sickening convoluted mess that is social relationships.
Take a good look at the little girl sucking her finger in this picture. How old would you say this girl was. In toddlerhood, right?
Wrong. This photo was taken on her 12th birthday. That's right folks, this little finger sucking medical mystery is not at all a toddler in the conventional sense. Her name is Brooke Greenberg, and she was born in Baltimore, Maryland on January 8th, 1993. So yep, she turned 16 this year. The other people in the photo are left to right sisters Caitlin, Emily, mother Melanie and sister Carly. Caitlin is 19 these days, Emily 22, and Carly 13.
At age 16, wee Brooke is 2-and-a-half feet tall and weighs only 16 pounds. She doesn't speak, and her brain is that of an infant of around 6 months to a year in age. She is however very aware of herself and her surroundings, and has managed to develop a means of getting about the house, as the following video clip from 2005 shows.
As you can see, Brooke has not had an easy time of it. In her In her first six years Brooke went through a series of medical emergencies from which she recovered, often without explanation. She has survived surgery for seven perforated stomach ulcers. She suffered a brain seizure followed by what was diagnosed as a stroke that weeks later left no apparent damage.
At age 4 or 5 (some of my reference sources say 4 and some say 5, so I'm not 100% certain what age), she developed a mass in her brain and fell into a coma that caused her to sleep for 14 days. This was diagnosed by doctors as being caused by a brain tumor and the Greenbergs prepared for her death, but then she stunned the family by waking up, having suffered no ill effects and with the tumor having completely disappeared. That's some pretty hefty resilience huh? But in spite of this, because of her medically fragile nature the state of Maryland has provided two nurses to take care of Brooke 16 hours a day. It takes her many hours to eat each day, by means of a feeding tube inserted in her stomach.
So why is she like this? Well, nobody really knows for sure, but doctors believe she has developed a mutation of the gene that controls aging and development. Brooke’s aging and development genes have in effect been "turned off". Greenberg's doctors have termed her condition Syndrome X, which is a name that along with sounding suitably "mad sciencey" is very reminiscent of the chemical that made the Powerpuff Girls so uhh.. "powerpuffy". She's the only person in the world who has this condition. Her bones are that of a 10-year-old, her teeth are 6-years-old, her brain stopped developing at a very young age, and the only things that have continued to grow on her from age 4 onwards are her hair and nails. This however, does not account for her seemingly superhuman ability to combat the various medical emergencies that have in the past threatened to snuff her truly unique little self out.
She's some kind of.. super psuedobaby O_O
And she may just outlive us all. Mwooohahahahaaa!! Okay, so technically the title of this post is in fact a bit of a misnomer. But "The girl who stopped physically developing at age 4 and looks and acts a few years younger" is a pretty fucking cumbersome title*. I for one am pleased that Brooke is in spite of all this lucky enough to have such a loving family that obviously cares very much for her, and a safe home environment where she can be herself without any outside hassles.
Because my word, 16 years worth of nappy rash and changing diapers must surely be a bit of a trial.
♌♍ Chloé
*(Other rejected titles include Brooke Greenberg: Child Trapped In Time, You Can Stick Peter Pan Up Your Ass: Its Brooke Greenberg! and Brooke Greenberg: The Überbaby.)
Today I'm writing about a short film that was released in 2005, which has been lurking about on a couple of my hard drives these last two and a half years. So its been out awhile, and chances are you've already seen it, or at least heard of it, but for those who haven't here's a brief rundown. Jasper Morello and the Lost Airship is the first film in the Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello series, and as its the only film of the series to be released thus far I'll be concentrating on that for this journal post.
A few things about the film: • The film is set in a world not dissimilar in style and societal preciosity to that of Victorian England, although this world has many elements of steampunk archetypes, such as steam powered computers and iron airships. Y'know, lots of cogs n stuff. Steampunk! • The cast and the vast majority of the foregrounds are animated in a two dimensional silhouette style, similar to that of Indonesian Wayang shadow puppet theatre. • It was directed and conceptualized by Australian director and animator Anthony Lucas, and scripted by Mark Shirrefs. • After it had been written, the film took around a year and a half to make. • The film employs a number of different animation techniques to achieve its look, with characters drawn on paper, cut out and scanned into Photoshop, where they could then be manipulated digitally. 3d models were used to create the airships, and CG was used to create the sky and atmospheric effects.
All in all, the design, style and innovative methods and techniques used in the construction of the film are a great mix of the old and the new. Because its a fairly short film I'm not going to get into the plot too much, as I don't wish to spoil anything for those of you who haven't seen it. But I will point out that the majority of the film takes place in the sky, as the titular hero of the film is employed as the navigator of an airship that sets out on a voyage to place signal beacons for a new trade route. This mission however, soon diverges into something decidedly more sinister. Its a film I am really rather fond of, and I look forward to the release of the next film in the series. I'm going to shut up now and leave it up to you to have a watch of it if you have a spare 26 minutes. 1° can make a world of difference to the course of a navigator's life.
That's one cool critter huh? The official Jasper Morello website can be found here. ☠ Chloé
Hopetails. "WTF are Hopetails?" you may be asking yourself, though probably not in acronym form. Hence the handy picture I have provided to go with this block of text. But why call them Hopetails? Well, my dear wee friend Hope Avelina, someone who is quite well known for wearing her hair in bunches, recently had the notion that "pigtails" is a rather ungainly name for said bunches, so decided to rename them "Hopetails". Personally, I think that's a way better name than pigtails. Pigtails doesn't even make any sense. At least Hopetails are named after someone who actually wears the hairstyle. And I'm not the only one who thinks changing the name from pigtails to Hopetails is a mighty fine idea. The Hopetails revolution has begun people, and is gaining momentum at a sprightly rate. Below are a series of examples of people's growing support for the movement.
First up is a strip & a picture by Christopher J. Paulsen, featuring characters from his comic Precocious:
The Below The Fold Collective has also lent its support to the movement, with Hopetails themed pictures from 3 of its members. First up, here's a picture from KayLoveMeow, featuring Kris & Max, characters from her webcomic Art School Sub Rosa:
And here's a lovely sepia-toned pic from Hopeless artist/co-writer Tom Brown:
And one from Maxwell Vex. Having this picture posted in this journal isn't breaking down any fourth walls at all:
I thought it would be a good idea to collate these various divergent examples (or, examples that I am so far aware of at least) in this journal, as I am quite a fan of the hairstyle myself as you may have noticed. What can you do to lend your support? Well, merely referring to the hairstyle as Hopetails instead of pigtails will suffice. If you get any strange looks from your friends for doing so, just point them in the direction of this journal post. Or kick them in the crotch. Doing so will help make the world a slightly better place I'm sure. And with that, I shall leave the final bit of this journal entry to the lady herself.
Randomitronica — what's it all about then, eh?
One of the largest cogs of The Vortex Machines, Randomitronica ran from May 8th 2009 until July 15th 2010, and was written in the "voice" of Chloé Kovac, one of the main characters in Maxwell Vex's Agents of the Endtimes webcomic (which can be found here).
Randomitronica contains a bunch of opinions, reviews, interviews, general musings on various topics that Chloé found of interest, and probably more than a handful of now-defunct hyperlinks.
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