Richard Littler

https://mastodon.social/@Richard_Littler

Writer, graphic artist, creator of Scarfolk (npub1mnm…cewm). "This guy, who apparently saw the future" - Edward Snowden. Neurodivergent (ASD/ADHD).

Banner image: A selection of Scarfolk books & merchandise.
Avatar image: Black & white photo. Me: bald, bearded, bespectacled, and seemingly unaware of the enormous arachnid with the face of a malevolent baby, and the plague doctor, behind me.

Website: https://www.richardlittler.com
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/richardlittler.bsky.social
Scarfolk blog: https://scarfolk.blogspot.com

Public Key

npub1gus0dgwlll5a947jc5ywseknjk09873lewewuq8xvmjsdja76jxqvpmkgh

NIP-05 Address

richard_littler_at_mastodon.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsywg8k580ll6wj6lfv2z8gvmfet8jnlgluhvhwqrnxdegxewldfrqhx2hap

Author Public Key

npub1gus0dgwlll5a947jc5ywseknjk09873lewewuq8xvmjsdja76jxqvpmkgh

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Last Notes

2024-09-24 11:28:30

#NowPlaying Debussy playing Debussy. In 1904-13 he agreed to create piano rolls (which can capture live performances). By far the best recording/storage method at the time. Whereas acoustic wax cylinders & shellac 78rpms are flawed/crackly, these are perfect quality. Sample:
https://youtu.be/Yri2JNhyG4k?si=oXvI6PZsj006qk2A
#classical #music #impressionism
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/192/284/105/673/633/original/62404d4e9cd2990a.jpg
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2024-09-20 08:47:17

This is absolutely wretched. It's like throwing a party and only inviting disposable plastic cutlery. It's like desperately needing the approval of your toothbrush and refrigerator. It reeks of dejection and cringing loneliness.
#AI
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/169/006/819/664/986/original/516b78a46bdb9344.jpg

2024-09-20 08:27:55

"Lionsgate hopes that AI can eliminate storyboard artists and VFX crews. The studio says 'fuck humans, fuck art, and fuck the environment; we only want to recycle other people's ideas. We want culture to eat itself until all that's left is a depleted toxic husk enfeebled through inbreeding'"
#AI #fuckai
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/lionsgate-signs-deal-with-ai-company-runway-hopes-that-ai-can-eliminate-storyboard-artists-and-vfx-crews-243035.html

2024-09-19 08:53:32

I'm sorting through production/library music recordings of the 1960s and 70s. Their simple graphic covers really are a lost design art.
#vinyl #graphicdesign #music
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/163/369/673/659/096/original/dceb0e39e30915b5.jpg

2024-09-16 13:34:39

#Amazon has started creating auto-generated #AI reviews. The review for my @npub1mnm…cewm book says that it's "full of fun, fascinating articles for children".
Would that be the book that I designed around cult brainwashing techniques and contains images of dead & disfigured kids?
#scarfolk
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/147/485/021/931/435/original/0d93edbaf422d6ef.jpg

2024-09-16 11:30:32

You know you live in the early 21st C when half the people you know have become leadership/life/management coaches, while the other half are still blissfully deranged & have no need for any kind of coaching.
And everyone else is high on outlandish, clearly debunked conspiracy theories.

2024-09-13 08:49:46

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And I just spotted this...
Fahrenheit 451 (1966) vs Trumpton (1967)
Ha!
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/129/380/232/892/180/original/2cda7c481b3450ad.jpg

2024-09-13 08:46:01

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They even *perfectly* predicted police/army flying packs...
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/129/365/494/284/757/original/c1aac78ebce7a272.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/129/366/175/247/358/original/4aba6ec5860f0104.jpg

2024-09-13 08:42:30

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Talk about foresight.
Wall-mounted, flat-screen TVs...
Interactive 'red button' TV...
Mass surveillance...
Book bans...
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/129/347/098/342/289/original/26fe8fd8fd993556.png
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2024-09-13 08:30:22

#NowPlaying Not sure why but I always listen to Bernard Herrmann's score for Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 at this time of year.
#soundtrack
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/129/304/514/510/486/original/a1fd991184e70623.jpg

2024-09-04 08:46:29

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2024-09-04 08:45:34

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2024-09-04 08:44:38

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2024-09-04 08:43:50

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2024-09-04 08:43:03

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2024-09-04 08:42:17

🧵 I don't consider myself a photographer, although I've snapped a fair few pictures in my time. I don't share them very often so I thought I'd post a thread here.
#photography
https://www.richardlittler.com/news
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/078/386/520/927/428/original/a85600c876c7dc66.jpg

2024-08-31 09:53:23

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Man sets fire to building, punches two people, steals a car, all the while shouting that he loves kittens.
Man: "You get arrested nowadays just for saying you like kittens."

2024-08-31 09:53:00

Musk again claiming that free speech is under attack. The usual distortion of liberal values. Plus it's a straw man argument. X hasn't been charged with 'exercising free speech', it's been charged with refusing to name a legal representative and, under EU law, deceiving its users, failing transparency requirements, and is being investigated for disseminating disinformation & *illegal* hate speech...
#twitter #X #ElonFuckingMusk
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/056/011/455/352/893/original/fb9841b5e72b175e.jpg

2024-08-26 11:06:51

Present/past historians: "We sometimes have to make educated guesses about a past culture due to the scarcity of surviving data, much of which is incomplete or broken."
Future historians: "We sometimes have to make educated guesses about the 21st century due to the sheer excess of data, much of which is corrupted by disinformation, misinformation, & manipulation."

2024-08-18 12:08:10

Social media engagement comparison:
I posted the same tweet, at the same time, on...
TWITTER/X (with 32k followers):
22 RTs; 120 Likes; 6 comments
MASTODON: (with 14k followers):
260 RTs; 373 Likes; 30 comments
BLUESKY: (with 4k followers):
61 RTs; 6QTs; 389 Likes; 21 comments

2024-08-17 17:46:31

65 years old (released on this day in 1959). One of the finest albums ever committed to recording tape. Some kind of inexplicable sorcery took place in this session, that even the players hadn't planned or expected. Lightning in a bottle, etc.
#jazz #milesdavis
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/978/608/075/502/260/original/3762d9d23f4ab26f.jpg

2024-08-16 10:12:34

Just realised I haven't left the flat in over a week.
I just don't notice these things.

2024-08-14 12:31:14

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Yes, Masto seems the safer option, although BSky's imitation of Masto's decentralised format might hold off some of the nonsense that befell Twitter

2024-08-14 10:22:57

Just noticed my Twit-X account has haemorrhaged another 300-400 followers in the past few days. This is in addition to a further 1000 or so in the past few months. Another exodus underway?

2024-08-12 20:09:51

I appear to be living on Bespin this evening...
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/950/860/336/624/934/original/c19b24d70e809839.jpg
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2024-08-11 08:56:50

The BBIC have called it...
#ElonMusk #twitter #X
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/942/550/985/832/816/original/440bd815aaf5b08b.jpg

2024-08-05 14:03:07

Mashup: Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow (1565) versus Rick Guidice's space colony painting for NASA's Ames Research Center (1975).
It's meant as a satire of some description, which I can't put into words right now because I have a migraine.
#art
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/909/783/404/209/906/original/846cb3582f80da3c.jpg

2024-08-04 19:47:25

The evening sky. And now I understand why J.M.W. Turner liked visiting the Swiss lakes to paint.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/905/474/480/791/125/original/0472a205737d1e4e.jpg

2024-07-31 11:32:09

How do these cretins live with their cognitive dissonance? 'We won the war'/'I'm doing Nazi salutes'; 'Respect the police'/'attack the police'; 'Respect working people'/'trash this working neighbourhood'; 'I demand the MSM tells the truth'/'I'll believe anything from an unverified source'; 'No unelected people in positions of power'/'Respect the royals'. In the US: 'Heed the word of Jesus'/'Vote for a felonious sexual predator who vows to contradict all that Jesus said'
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/30/far-right-attack-police-outside-southport-mosque-after-knife-killings

2024-07-30 06:54:49

Researching 'best #jazz albums of the 1980s' I saw that Reddit featured #AI answers, so I looked out of curiosity. It listed 10 albums. All were released in the 1950s/60s. It even said 'The 1959 album Kind of Blue was one of the best 1980s jazz albums.' We're at the severe head trauma phase of AI.

2024-07-04 11:02:46

"You yell Lib Dems, everybody says, 'Huh? What?' You yell Tories, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July. But as you see it's a beautiful day, the polling stations are open and people are having a wonderful time."
#election2024 #election
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/727/878/546/666/864/original/bab5271aa02b94ba.jpg

2024-07-04 10:36:26

Government should function quietly and effectively in the background like white goods. But for the past few years it has been like your fridge-freezer noisily demanding attention every 5 mins, switching off for hours at a time, fiddling its definition of 'cold', and eating your food then blaming the washing machine.
#election2024 #election

2024-06-28 08:15:19

Trump/Biden. Yes, of course, even dogshit would be a better president than Trump, but I can't think of a more fitting analogy for the pitiable decline of the West, maybe even the species, than two privileged (and, in one case, also childishly entitled) white antediluvian males, at least one of whom is suffering the palpable effects of dementia, bickering over derisory paranoid delusions while the world collapses around them. Even the collapse of Rome can't have been this needlessly moronic.

2024-06-25 12:39:37

I popped over to LinkedIn, so you don't have to.
Yes, it's still like a scientology convention.

2024-06-25 08:52:43

It's amazing that whenever you see a Tesla, much less an actual Cybertruck, on the road, you automatically think, 'haha, what a sad wanker.' It's like spotting a middle-aged man with an ill-fitting toupee, spray tan, and shirt open to the navel so that you can admire his hairy chest and medallion.

2024-06-21 09:47:07

I've been saying it since at least 2016. Having seen two people go through Alzheimer's/dementia, I've observed Trump displaying the same symptoms for years. And the only people who can't (or won't) see it are the blindly devotional.
https://newrepublic.com/post/182908/video-trump-cognitive-decline-memory-issues

2024-06-18 15:52:55

"We interrupt [insert anything interesting that isn't sport] to bring you live footage from the Men's Wibbleball finals, followed by highlights of the Men's Wibbleball finals..."
Are there *any* countries/societies on earth that don't slobber feverishly at the groin of sport?
If there are, can I get a passport?
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/638/380/363/776/055/original/35ed2c00095fb278.jpg

2024-06-12 07:29:32

A typical #ADHD tale...
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/602/464/595/330/267/original/a4c4171792c17938.jpg

2024-06-11 15:29:17

With the UK #elections coming up, politicians are in full spin (lie) mode. Consequently, misinformation, and its evil twin, disinformation, are rife online.
To save me having to point out each and every time an untrue claim is made, I've created my own lttle response graphic.
"You are wrong again. Check the facts.
#illustration
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/598/627/468/016/987/original/75defa9aff516d77.jpg

2024-06-10 07:32:19

Them: "Hi, how are you today?"
Me: "Fine."*
*Easier to say 'fine' than 'I feel like I'm living in a time in which mass psychosis is ravaging at least half the population; like I'm a passenger in a car being driven at 120mph toward a cliff edge by an unhinged driver who has never driven before but, in his derangement, a) believes he's Cowboy Jesus riding a tamed dinosaur, and b) has convinced other demented passengers of this, and they are now willing to shred and eat anyone who opposes him.'

2024-06-09 13:16:30

If humans were the result of intelligent design, we'd be able to detach our arms when we go to bed. They just get in the way. It's like sharing the bed with two insomniac geese.

2024-06-08 10:02:35

I see Russell Brand has tapped into that inexplicable and absurd demographic that comprises fervent American Christians who will bend over backwards to endorse convicted fraudsters, perjurers, sexual predators, and felons of all creeds, whose actions are all explicitly denounced in their holy book.

2024-06-02 20:16:11

New drawing. A cinema I frequently
visited as a child. It's pictured here as I remember it, circa December 1977/January 1978. It has long since been demolished.
If you'd like to read a little more about the cinema, here's a link:
https://www.richardlittler.com/post/altrincham-hippodrome-studio-1-cannon
#altrincham #cinema #architecture
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/548/858/704/202/416/original/a7ce0f9241a7be30.jpg

2024-05-23 19:54:38

I've been hunting for this specific typeface/font/lettering for ages, but can never find it. It was used for cinema light box/marquees in the UK in the 1960s-1980s. It's close to some of the usual suspects (Gill Sans, Human521, Futura, DIN, Century, etc ), but no cigar. Any ideas?
#typography #fonts
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/492/150/585/214/817/original/46ba4df4d5022d28.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/492/151/167/247/468/original/3d74801386010670.jpg
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2024-05-22 08:13:45

I still find it utterly absurd that #sport is a mandatory part of all news broadcasts. For someone with zero interest in sport, it has sounded like this to me for 50+ years: "Those were the main news headlines... Now, rodent news: Manchester Zoo has loaned Señor Fluffi, a Spanish gerbil, from Zoo Aquarium de Madrid for £20 million. They have also expressed interest in acquiring a squirrel..."

2024-05-10 09:14:44

Jack Dorsey is furious that #Bluesky has attracted "very very common" people. He also doesn't like the idea of moderation tools facilitating the banning of racists.
All these tech billionaires are like a version of the movie Big, in which a pre-adolescent boy wakes up in the body of an aging Howard Hughes. Or Colonel Kurtz. Or a sardine.
#JackDorsey
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/416/001/338/422/659/original/b4195a72c94e29c8.jpg

2024-05-02 12:35:07

"Mike, my beloved husband of 40 years died two weeks ago and I used #AI to write his eulogy. I inputted a few biographical details, which were then transformed into a lengthy, heartfelt tribute. I had no idea, however, that he'd also been an electrical device for amplifying sound. He'd kept that to himself. A humble man. I'm so proud."

2024-04-30 18:44:27

It's #internationaljazzday!
Here are some #jazz facts: According to research, jazz improves your verbal ability, focus, memory and mood. It also increases productivity & boosts creativity because it activates theta brain waves. It also promotes relaxation by increasing alpha waves. It has even been found to lessen depression symptoms. Jazz musicians improvising with other musicians show robust activation in the same brain areas traditionally associated with spoken language.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/361/588/952/488/718/original/547b2ce8191c995c.jpg

2024-04-26 12:01:20

It's #AlienDay. Here are my photos of the bar that H R Giger designed. It jars enormously with its location - a little, picturesque Swiss village.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/337/404/998/840/089/original/d0da661a80018f63.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/337/405/327/492/802/original/b39168b1cd393560.jpg
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2024-04-25 12:03:07

Me: "I'm starting work on a simple story idea. Shouldn't require any research..."
3 weeks later
Me: "I'm researching ontology/epistemology, astronomy, politics, mass sociogenic disorders, psychology, etc. I understand <1% of it and I can't write the story because I don't possess all human knowledge"

2022-04-27 06:21:39

"Imagine being held captive in a town forever locked in the 1970s...
If you can't imagine it, just think what it would be like..."
Discovering Scarfolk, The Scarfolk Annual 197X, The Scarfolk Map, and other artefacts now available from Hive, Amazon, Waterstones, Herb Lester Assoc., Saatchi Gallery, Blackwells, & others.
https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/p/scarfolk-gift-shop.html
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/108/202/588/247/595/348/original/59b76a1f40c7951a.jpg