{"id":2054,"date":"2024-08-30T14:26:26","date_gmt":"2024-08-30T18:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/?p=2054"},"modified":"2024-08-30T14:26:29","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T18:26:29","slug":"the-strangeness-of-the-living-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/2024\/08\/30\/the-strangeness-of-the-living-present\/","title":{"rendered":"The strangeness of the living present"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tumblr.com\/otusshrine\/760099433126019073\">the Otus Shrine<\/a>, I came across this new illustration by Erol Otus which depicts the guitarist Tom Morello jamming out with monsters not of this Earth. It was commissioned by Morello&#8217;s friend Dan B. Weiss as a gift for Morello&#8217;s 60th-birthday. Appropriately, it distorts my sense of time in a way that feels impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Erol Otus was the artist responsible for many of the drawings in early Dungeons&amp;Dragons books. That art had a big <a href=\"https:\/\/aestheticsforbirds.com\/2014\/08\/14\/100-philosophers-100-artworks-100-words-9\/\">impact on me<\/a> as a developing human. So I was somewhat surprised that Otus was still active and taking badass commissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tom Morello is the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine, among other things. Rage is the kind of powerhouse which feels somehow <em>young<\/em>, so I was surprised to hear that Morello was turning 60.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can&#8217;t find Otus&#8217; exact age on-line, but he is probably not much older. So, although they are roughly the same age, in my head Otus is an elder guardian of the dear past and Morello a fresh champion of the wild future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/morello-in-rlyeh.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"822\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/morello-in-rlyeh.jpg?resize=822%2C1024&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"A pen and ink illustration of the guitarist Tom Morello rocking out in the midst of cthonian monstrosities.\" class=\"wp-image-2053\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/morello-in-rlyeh.jpg?resize=822%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 822w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/morello-in-rlyeh.jpg?resize=241%2C300&amp;ssl=1 241w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/morello-in-rlyeh.jpg?resize=768%2C957&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/morello-in-rlyeh.jpg?w=974&amp;ssl=1 974w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">&#8220;Morello in Rlyeh&#8221;, Erol Otus (2024)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via the Otus Shrine, I came across this new illustration by Erol Otus which depicts the guitarist Tom Morello jamming out with monsters not of this Earth. It was commissioned by Morello&#8217;s friend Dan B. Weiss as a gift for Morello&#8217;s 60th-birthday. Appropriately, it distorts my sense of time in a way that feels impossible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[30,16],"class_list":["post-2054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-et-cetera","tag-art","tag-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7PjAo-x8","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2055,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions\/2055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}