Yeah, what happens on the mountain, stays on the mountain. I just watched 4 seasons of this so you don't have to.
Imagine a "reality" "adventure" "prospecting" show that was created expressly created for the Weather Network and you'd have this. Exactly this. "DRAMA", meaning the scripted overreaction to predictable weather - "SURPRISE" - and the escalating weather conditions over 4 seasons - from rain and lightning in episode one to "ThunderSnow!!" (I'm not making this up, I swear, and I didn't Photoshop the screen-capture above...), to Tornadoes. (Cut to Stock Footage of Tornado), Escalating threats of VIOLENCE with Claim-Jumpers (by episode 2 characters are carrying GUNS), the "Love Interest" (last husband died, one year later she finds new one, they get tattoos, happy, by season 4 he's disappeared and unmentioned in favor of a cute female California miner), people painfully reciting obviously scripted lines, obviously scripted rockfalls, dramatizations, reenactments, boring, incorrect and occasionally outlandish "factoids", "Experts" a'la Antiques Roadshow or Storage Wars, over-valued finds, families, people of every level of competence and success...
Fuck I'm glad it's over. I mean, for every 21 or 43 minute episode I could maybe get 2 or 3 minutes of good, new information. The rest, all complete and utter bollocks...
But I can imagine for the Weather Network this is perfect filler, and it's proven surprisingly popular, people rooting for their favorite miner to get ridiculously rich, praying for the Christian family (that prays together before mining), they're living the American Dream after all, Seniors trapped in their houses by adverse weather buying every scripted, edited and preposterous minute as fact..."he's still down with his injured finger....wasn't able to make it up to the claim...", the show's still finding it's formula, mixing up the characters, as TV goes, reality or otherwise, it's bollocks...but a lot like prospecting, in that, in all the bullshit and drama, irrelevant and inaccurate factoids, occasionally there's a bit of good information you might be able to use...never very much, and youtube has far better resources, but it's over now and I can move on...
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An intriguing short documentary about a living outsider artist, who draws imaginary maps and cities according to random rules he's laid out upon a deck of cards. Curious.
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Now in the past whenever I wanted to paint I'd run down to the art store and spend $20, $30 a tube and $30 to a hundred dollars on canvas, another couple hundred dollars on brushes and I'd be set. I had read all the books on the properties of materials, the fugitive colors, pigments, qualities of the various mediums, and was perfectly prepared to create a masterpiece.
...In all respects, of course, excepting for talent. and while it was certain the quality of materials would ensure my masterpiece survived it was also certain that by the time I was done I'd just lavished an awful lot of money on something that most definitely was not a masterpiece. My talent was clearly not equal to my vision...
Now, the rediscovery of disposable paints, a dollar a bottle, every color imaginable with names like "flesh tint", "expresso" and "blue", I find that for hundreds of dollars less I can create perfectly shitty paintings bound for the garbage, a hundred paintings for a fraction of the price I was formerly wont to spend.
I have entirely legitimate reservations about the quality of materials, the permanence of the colors, but given how seldom it is I'm pleased with my efforts this seems the perfect way to acquire the skills, an abundance of bad paintings made for the same price I once would have spent on a single bad one. And, presumably, I'll be getting better along the way, learning to mix and harmonize colors, at two or three dollars per painting it's cheaper than a course or degree at ACAD and allows for infinite experimentation. Now only to find the time...
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Read More Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/16/arts/he-was-crazy-like-genius-for-henry-darger-everything-began-ended-with-little.html?pagewanted=all
An interesting video, if it's your thing check out Emery Blagdon & Marwencol,
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