Jon Batiste, Chad Smith & Bill Laswell: Black Arc

Posted on March 9, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

One listen.

This was easy to start. Great. I started slowing down. Not great. Spent a good bit of time trying to catch up, but I wasn’t actively thinking too much, so I’m not too fussed.

A bit of imagery came through here and there which I also think is good. I feel like I was moving toward some sort of balance between imagery and instrument description. Maybe I was; maybe I wasn’t. I’m happy with how it turned out.

Jon Batiste, Chad Smith & Bill Laswell’s “Black Arc” is from The Process.

I hope you enjoy.

—

A brief silence before sound comes in. Something grows and bass plays a waking melody. A cool melody. Percussion arrives and now the bass plays something that seems to march along that beat, but it marches joyously.

When the other sounds come in, the melody shifts. Something smooth, rolling, almost. Progressing. More joyous, in a sense, or at least more strident. The keys wail and shout, and move with energy, and it’s all massive even though it’s small.

The bass and percussion on their own, continuing in rises and falls, breathing, marching steady. Other sounds return, layering, filling a space. Creating a gathering of sorts. And then it peels back once more, though a little less, and it’s this cooled scene. A cooled moment as everything progresses toward where it must.

And then something familiar, with smoothed out, gliding sounds. Gliding and walking smoothly. Floating in the air before the keys take off and expand whilst remaining small. Flying fast, moving with care, moving with elegance.

On and on the sounds continue. On and on and finding spots and spaces of change and transition, and looking forward staring off into something. Finding calm at the end of the day, finding calm in a grand, vast space, and finding it at home and sitting down as the sounds stop and the song ends.

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Jon Batiste, Chad Smith & Bill Laswell: B2

Posted on March 9, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

One listen.

I’m now working to clear as much of these songs I’ve queued to write about as I can. Could probably get it all done in a few days, if not one day, but I also value my getting other things done. But there will be quite a few of these coming.

Anyway, I queued this up a while ago, and I guess my urge to get moving has helped me get into the right mode to start on this. Early on I realised how my writing was going and I tried to stick firmly with it. I was hoping to touch more on a sense of the human condition, but that wasn’t coming forward, which is fine.

Jon Batiste, Chad Smith & Bill Laswell’s “B2” is from The Process.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Sound hums calm and prepares, and the keys come in, descending in waves. Descending in drama. They rise as they descend. They ascend. They play in cascades and fall, fall and keep falling. And other sound stirs, soft, comforting. Relational, almost.

The keys break up and play a new melody. They play carefully and play with space, and they seem to be looking to go further up. To ascend further. And they do when they start descending, and as they do they start distorting. Fraying. Underneath the cascade another melody plays, continuing on from that brief space.

Almost looking forward, looking through it all, looking through the cascade… something builds and it keeps on building, but it doesn’t become a build in the sound, so to speak. The sounds aren’t growing thicker, more encompassing.

The melody changes once more… almost. It feels like a reflection, and it seems to have shrunk. There’s a questioning in it; there’s concern, but there’s still a rising. Rising higher and higher, and having less to reach that top point before cascading once more, before finding a point to rest at the song’s end.

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Five Frames

Posted on March 8, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

These images represent some of the last year, which, if you’ve been reading Stupidity Hole for at least that long, you’d know has been a real intense emotional roller coaster. I think that shows in these five images, though they don’t cover the whole period. But what you’ve got here are themes of self, identity, longing, impression, emptiness… those things. There’s also stuff like an external search for internal understanding and reason through scene. A lot of things.

Also relief.

This is my submission into the three hundred-and-eighty-seventh Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Your Journey in 5-10 Images“.

This one was tough. I saw what was coming forward in the first images, and the

The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:

Tina

Patti

Ann-Christine aka Leya

John Steiner

Sofia Alves

Anne Sandler

Egídio

Ritva

Beth

This one is curated by Leya. The next one is curated by Anne.

I recommend joining the community and participating in the challenges. They’re pretty straightforward, allow room for interpretation, and provide a good way to think about photography in general. If not, however, then at the very least you should check out what others submit to the challenges.

I hope you enjoy.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 246: A More Relaxed Day

Posted on March 8, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

I need to start writing something now as I’ve wasted the day and I don’t want it to be a total waste. Therefore, if I start writing now, I’ll write something and there will have been some productivity in the day.

I want to write about a Kate Bush song but I’m not going to do that now. It won’t be “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” as there’s probably been enough said about that song at this stage. Not much else can be said about it, though I’m sure plenty can. Therefore, it is not what I am going to write about. I’ll write about other things, instead. And I’ll write about the Kate Bush song that I want to write about at another time when I’m feeling more in the mood for it.

This coming week I need to start knuckling down and clearing everything. Everything to where it should be, everything getting prepared for the end. There’s not much time left and I haven’t spent enough time getting everything ready. It’s gonna be an intense week. It won’t be as intense as other weeks I’ve lived, but it will be intense. A lot of writing. A lot of writing being prepared. A lot of other things and the spinning around and panicking as I do that quite well. If I panic enough, then perhaps I will panic as hard as a good panic can be. And I’m sure that everyone already knows that I do like to panic hard. Though I don’t, but you know.

Today has been a slow day and I’m glad that I’m getting to doing things now. Just wish I started earlier. Could be worse, though. I’ve watched the rain come and fall on everything, albeit not at the time I had hoped. I had hoped for all the rain to fall in the morning. I wanted to head into the city and take photos.

I was hoping for an empty city, and it would’ve been great. Just being there, experiencing the weather. Experience a sense of emptiness. Perhaps a feeling of an area being abandoned. At the very least, an area not feeling like it usually does. Still, today hasn’t been a total loss.

Being inside, experiencing cool weather has been greatly, deeply pleasant. I have to admit that much to myself. Watching the trees bend in the wind has been wonderful. It’s changing shape and form, and I’ve been fortunate enough to experience it all on a day like today. But what else can I say about it all?

This space that I’m currently in feels very still. It feels quiet and at peace, and it feels pleasant, too. It’s just a nice day. A slow day. A day with rain falling when the rain decided to fall. A day where expectations are discarded. Lowered. Thrown away. This is good.

I worry about time slipping away all the time. Or rather, I worry about it a lot of the time. Still, I’ve only really begin to live my life over the past couple of years. Sure, I’ve lived, but I’m really living now. I can take it easy here and there. I should take it less easy than I do, but today is okay. Today I’m not beating myself up over not getting enough done as I’m still doing things, and perhaps this is something that we all need to consider more often. Perhaps we need to consider more often how much we do and do not let ourselves get away with, and how often we should allow ourselves to get away with things.

This is not that important a thing, really, bit I think it’s something worth thinking about here and there. Realistically we so often coast through life without a care or worry, and that’s great. It’s great right now. It’ll be great tomorrow. However, I need to let myself be comfortable with relaxing more often. I know that I’m not, so today, being comfortable with the idea is great. Being fine with it. Letting myself off the hook, so to speak.

The rain is falling again, and it’s pleasant. It reminds me of times looking out a window and onto a street. I can’t see the street around here from where I am currently sitting, and that’s also good, I think.

Once more I find myself thinking about Glebe. I remember times when it would rain heavily, and that rain smell would rise. Supposedly it’s not a good smell to be around, but it’s still pleasant. I’d stand at the front door sometimes and I’d watch the rain fall. It would pelt down in thick sheets, hammering away at the asphalt. It would violently strike the ground, but it was so peaceful. So calming.

I’d see the water follow the gutter as it moved away from where I could see it, and I’d watch it for a while sometimes, too. And eventually the rain would pass, and it would pass gradually. It would pass smoothly, and there’d be a stronger sense of peace and calm, and it was just nice to watch.

I do miss that, but this rain is also nice. I can see less where I am currently sitting, but I still get to see the rain fall. I can see it fall on to roof tiles and through trees. If I open the door and stand on the stairs, I can see it fall onto my plants as it helps keep them alive. I get a sense of stillness from this as much as I got a sense of stillness from Glebe, though it’s all in motion. Everything is.

The world keeps turning and all this keeps happening, and I wonder how many more days of rain I have left to experience. How many more do I have that I can still appreciate. So I’m glad I’m not being hard on myself for having a slower, more relaxed day, because this is nice.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 14:32:05

Decent enough speed.

I wasn’t expecting this to veer off into remembering rain, but I’m glad it did. I’m glad that this progressed unexpectedly. It feels more natural to me.

Written at home.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1570: Rambling about the Job Hunt

Posted on March 7, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Oh, what a hot and horrible day it is today, but I feel fine. I feel good. Am in a rather great amount of pain, but I still feel good.

I feel alright.

The last few days have been odd. Weird. Strange. All of those things. They’ve seen a lot of intensity, but today is not an intense day. Well, it is, but it could be worse.

A few days ago I had confirmation that I was getting another work contract. Elsewhere in the university, as is the way with these things. It was a significant relief, and I think about all that time I spent where I was incredibly downbeat and despairing, especially whilst at work, and I feel I could have been better, but everything was just so overwhelming. Everything was just too much. And then that news came in and I was relieved. Of course I still need the contract before I can definitively say that everything is good to go, but it’s happy days ahead.

The contract is, once more, not a permanent one. However, it does carry me for a good while so… yeah.

So that news came and then I had an awful sleep. Had a good sleep since, but still. Need more rest. I’m also in quite a lot of pain right now. I should be rest but I’m not as there are things that I want to take care of. Things that I want to get out of the way and writing is one of them, so that is what I am doing now. And I’m already running out of things to say. Surprising.

I’m in pain and I’m not resting, and I don’t want to let it hold me back so I’m trying to not let it. But I will rest. One day.

So I’m still quite happy. I’m still rejoicing, though I certainly have calmed down a lot. But these are good days. There are good, happy days ahead, and I’m here, relaxing. Trying to not get too excited. Technically it’s not official until the contract is signed, after all. But happy days.

The whole process of hunting for work is a stressful one, and perhaps far too stressful than it should be. So much work goes into hunting and there’s so much time spent on doing it. I think about how you hear about people looking for months and getting no bites, and it seems like it’s a constant arms race to get a foot in the door. People are always hiring and people are always applying and it continues on and on, and for what?

Of course there are plenty of reasons why people get rejected, but so much of societal function relies on hating work, and there’s so much promise of opportunity. Of course success is not guaranteed, but it is what is fed, and maybe we need to spend a lot of time rethinking these things. I got lucky this time around. Plenty of people don’t.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:10:50

Slow. Took a bit of time due to the pain, but got there.

A lot of struggling early on and I think that comes through quite a lot.

Written at home.

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Inflated Horse

Posted on March 6, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Here’s a horse. Inflated. As part of this shopping mall’s (shopping centre?) celebrating the year of the horse, which is this year.

I hope you enjoy.

 

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1569: The Weather is Strange

Posted on March 5, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

This weather is strange. It is odd. It is creating a lot of pressure. The pressure it creates is in the form of temperature, and let me tell you, that temperature is… something.

Think I’m ending this space at just the right time.

So anyway, it’s more odd weather. Gloomy weather over a gloomy day. Spread thick, spreading across, and I’m still on the job hunt. More job rejections. More cycling through applications. All of that fun stuff and it never seems to end, so I just keep looking. I keep on searching and hoping I avoid unemployment. Hoping I dodge it once more. Incredibly tiring stuff, but you keep going. Or rather, I keep going in this instance, but you keep going. You just have to keep on pushing on and trying your best, and so do I. But it is tiring. Stressful, draining, tiring and it just keeps on going.

This is not something I want to contend with right now. It is something I have to contend with, however, so I keep on going. I keep ploughing through.

Nearly twelve months since the cessation of a long-term relationship, and one I’m glad to be free of, but it’s all lining up well.  The last day of this contract is the anniversary. I do find it funny, in that way that timing can be, and that’s at least a bit of reprieve in a concrete pressure cooker.

So everything feels like its pressing more and more and I’ve a little smile among it all. Tough times, rough times. Will see what happens. Always will see what happens. Don’t want to be writing this stuff when there’s not much time left, but you know how these things go. But I’d rather be bringing the joy. When the idea of what lies ahead is so shortened; when there’s little that can be seen beyond the next week because of what is going on, though, makes things difficult to be joyous. But you try. Or rather, I try. We all try, and we keep on trying. Not much choice.

It’s a heavy morning and it’ll be a heavy day. Just more routine, more going through the motions of applying and applying and more applying. More sending out letters and going “Yeah, I can do the job quite well, will you give me an interview?”, and making alterations to everything so as to somehow make myself more appealing.

At the very least it’s getting a little lighter outside, so maybe that’s a sign. Maybe that means I’m going to win the lottery or something. I hope it does. I could then get my place and then write forever, and relax. I could relax and sleep and take it easy, and that’d be awesome. That’d be the best. I could get the place I want to get, put a friend up for a while and then disappear. Really think about things. Think about life.

But that’s a dream, and I still need work.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 09:16:94

I slowed down a lot at the end. Tried to think about how to end this and it wasn’t coming to me.

Bit of a miserable writing. Don’t want to be but it’s what’s coming forward.

Written at home.

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Reference Photo, Late 2025

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

This is a reference photo that I took to get across a pose I wanted someone to hold. It was as close an approximation I could get to the idea I had in mind, which I’ve spoken about before but I’m feeling too lazy to go digging right now to link it here. Essentially the idea didn’t work in without editing beyond processing, which is something I don’t like to do. As such, this is as close to it as I could get.

There wasn’t anything in particular that I was looking to convey with the idea. I was looking more at form than anything else, so par of the course. I do think I was looking at an idea of fragility and trying to be guarded about it. A defensiveness.

This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. Margaret of From Pyrenees to Penines hosts the next one one, and she has chosen the theme of “Walls”.

This challenge is open to all, and I recommend joining in. If want to, check out more information about it here, and include the tag “monochrome-madness” when you share your photo. If you’d prefer not to join in, then at the least check out Leanne’s photography, and what other people submit.

I hope you enjoy.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1568: Music Playing

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Another day sitting outside of the work building. Another day waiting for it to open so I can get in, and someone behind me is playing some of the worst music one can play at this hour of the morning. It’s great.

It’s not great.

I could sit anywhere else where there is seating available. I could sit on the stairs if I so wished. However, I chose here and here is where I am choosing to remain whilst I churn out a bunch of words in a particular order to and so on and so forth.

Getting closer to the end and I’m wondering if there is anything of value that I have put out. Anything of value that goes beyond the personal. I wonder. I think. I question my decisions.

I could go for another coffee, really. No money for it… for now. Perhaps later.

This music that’s playing is pretty ho-hum, really. Maybe not the worst music. Just boring. Dull. Lacking shape, lacking anything that it could genuinely offer. Sleepy music. I could go for something a bit more dangerous. Not something that is dangerous, mind you; just something that’s a bit more dangerous. Something that’ll actually say something beyond “I wanna shag you”, of which this music is.

Sitting here, thinking to myself. Looking at lights that look like reflections, though they aren’t. They just look that way. Reminds me of looking out of an office window and seeing the lights reflected back. All in lines, all spaced. All a pattern that appears interesting from some angles and menacing and foreboding from others.

This chair is cold and I’m appreciating that fact. It’s not a hot morning, but it’s nice to have a cold chair this morning. It sort of keeps the music at bay, which keeps on going. It keeps on going incessantly, trying to destroy my ears. It puts me to sleep, but there are some nice bits, and it’s kind of fun, too. And sometimes a bit of fun is a nice thing to have in a life.

Well, maybe fun is a nice thing to have most of the time. Probably is.

I’m suddenly reminded of walking through a housing estate from my way home from primary school. I’d wonder what was in the houses. I’d wonder about the place. It wasn’t always there, and then it was. It was this thing that just appeared and I’d walk through it occasionally, and it was interesting to me as a kid. Probably because it was somewhere new to walk through and explore and see. I’d think about the places and I’d think about how walking through it saved time, though it probably didn’t.

That housing estate was more interesting to me as a kid than this music is to me now, but this music is fun. Enjoyable, even. I could enjoy it at a gig and I could jump up and down to it. I should try and find out who it is.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:24:28

Around finishing this bit of writing the music that I was getting into stopped, and now the people playing it are onto something else. Oh well.

Written at work.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 245: Silly and Serious Writing

Posted on March 3, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Here we are. The day is the afternoon or the evening. I think it’s the afternoon. I can’t tell with time anymore.

It’s the afternoon. Should be the evening. It is not.

I am so confused with time right now. Last week I had five weeks left on my work contract. Now I have less than two. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. Where am I? Who am I? What delectables await me over yonder? Is there even a yonder to go over to? I don;’t know anymore. I don’t know anything. I don’t know everything, either. I’m in a state of knowing so much nothing that I don’t know anything.

Where is everyone? How is everyone? Where do I find myself when I am looking square.y in the eyes of the precipice of blissful dilation if the contrapuntal extremities are not being embraced by the dissemination transmissions upon which where those colours known as cerulean and azure blend to form some sort of whimsical testimony generator?

What am I even going on about?

I find that I’m just getting everything out right now, and getting everything out is right on, or right off. It depends on where the perspective of the view lies, and those views are not doing much for my fortifications in the west of… my bedroom, I guess. However, if there are other ways around the forests and the moors of their world, then I am not one who will fight against all of this.

However, I will definitely be doing more writing tomorrow, unless I don’t, in which case I won’t. Considered yourselves warned. Consider yourselves aghast at the amount of crap one person can churn out.

So I don’t know what I am doing right now. I mean, I do know, but I don’t know. Therefore there is a sense of mystery. There is a sense of the unknown. A dense fog rises and covers everything. Detail is smeared and erased, and terrible times await those who refuse to find themselves healthily contained within the solitude in which their attitude reigns supreme.

Okay. Maybe I need to stop writing right now. Maybe I should just rest. I still have a few hours to go, but rest could be good. Rest could be desirable, even. However, I am possessed by a dire temerity and so I must persist, even though it is unwise to do so.

When I think of what I am doing right now, I think I am just trying to get a lot of silliness out of my system. I’m also trying to help myself feel like I haven’t wasted the day. Now I know that I haven’t. I was working, after all. However, I do also feel that I have. I feel that I need to try and do something with it, even if that something is just spewing words onto a digital screen. If I do that, then perhaps there is some meaning in the day that isn’t related to just throwing a bunch of emails out there and throwing a bunch of messages at people.

I can keep writing silly things, but if I do that I might be attacked by some sort of shark of the annoyed variety, for all these words must go somewhere and they certainly aren’t going into the recycling. Perhaps I must ingratiate myself to the sharks. Ingratiate myself to the creatures of the oceans so that they don’t engage in some sort of uprising against my ridiculous quest to do whatever it is that I am doing.

So I guess I should think about things a bit more, really. Try to apply for more jobs. Do all of those things. Hope for the best. Hope that something happens that’ll allow me some sort of rest. A lengthy torpor, maybe. Something that allows me to rest my pharyngeal region, for even though I have not worked on the phones for nearly two years now, it still needs rest.

I think that I’m starting to get a bit excited about things happening. I don’t know if I am,. but I think I am. But I need to write more silliness. I need to find a way to force my windows to work the way they’re intended to, also. They live a fairly sedentary life, and sure that’s all fine and all, but they need to work in a way where they don’t need to be propped open in order to have them open. They are not operating the way they are meant to. This does not please me. I am displeased. I am so displeased that I don’t think I will write more silliness. I think that, instead, I will find the way I need to find that shows me the way to get out of the hay of life and thus onto the moving walkway of success, of which will be done in an order best described as “subsequent”. Once that happens, I’m set. I’m all good. I’ll be where I want to be and there will be someone who will be where they need to be, and that will be me. Success will finally be mine. Finally.

I am so tired of the struggle. I’m tired of the churn of work days, but I can do this. I can write silliness for now, and that interests me right now. It helps take the edge off a bit and it’s helping me cope with the upcoming potential unemployment. I don’t know what comes next. It’s all scary. I still persist, however. There is no point in me not persisting. It won’t solve anything, so I need to keep chugging along, keep on writing, keep on working toward the end of this blog and then suddenly win the lottery so I can finally have some rest.

Then I can spend some time feeding the fish and catching up on reading my books, and that’ll show everyone. That’ll show them who the real boss is.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 13:16:65

Decent speed. Not my finest bit of gibberish, but decent speed.

Written at home.

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