The dark side of happiness

'How would you feel about life if death was your older sister?'
Neil Gaiman's Sandman Series - mythical.

Thursday night and I know it's dull to become addicted to a television show, but I had to watch the first episode of the third season of House. I love House and his endless quest for meaning through medicine.

I also know that I will not go out on Thursdays until the season ends.

On my travels at TED's blog, I drift across Theo Jansen, a kinetic sculptor who lends wooden creatures to the air. These sculptures, powered by the wind, are like nothing I've ever seen, and how he dared to dream of the idea, I couldn't help but wonder, the Carrie in my mind thought. Just moments before I chopped off her little finger. Ok, that was only in my mind, but it didn't make it any less fulfilling.

You have to see it to appreciate it (the sculpture, not me hacking off the digits of poorly constructed characters from overly expensive American soap operas, silly), so I've provided you with a YouTube clip. That's the kind of girl I am.

I find these sculptures fascinating and beautiful, and yet eerie, almost terrifying. They turn my mind towards some kind of dreamscape, although this may not be entirely due to the sculptures. As I've stumbled into a dead end with the graphic novel, Promethea, by Alan Moore, I've started on Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, which is equally as compelling, frightening and brilliant as Jansen's wind sculptures.

Theo Jansen's wind creatures remind me of Neil Gaiman's film, Mirrormask - available at the ever-inspiring Central Library - which also creates for the viewer an eerie and irresistible world. I think because Theo Jansen seems to place a lot of his creations on the shore of the sea is another reason why they remind me of something fantastic, as if they could be on any world, any planet, a parallel Universe, maybe.

I bet wind-creatures wouldn't have split the atom.

And of course, I couldn't let a post go by without a mention of my newfound obsession, happiness. I had a long discussion with Glenn the other night about anger, and how I've been trying to work out some of mine.

"I suppose," he said, "I'm with the whole Jung thing. You have to accept that you have a dark side. Not suppress it, or work through it, but truly accept that it's a part of you."

It's funny, because I'd been reading a lot in Promethea about that.

Another interpipe cultural offering, this time from the LyingMotherfucker site - sorry, that is what it's called. This interpretation of Milne really, really, really made my dark side laugh.