Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1327: Doing Nothing, Should be Doing Something

Posted on December 15, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

I’m sitting here doing nothing so I figure I should be doing something and so I might as well write this as that is more than doing nothing. I have a bit of time before work; I should sink my teeth into trying to be productive. However, most of this morning I’ve been going to the toilet and returning to my desk and so now I am attempting to get something in before I go to the toilet once more as I’d prefer to do something more than I’d prefer to do nothing.

Now I’m trying to work out what to do and I know that writing this is indeed doing something and so that counts, but I want to have something a bit more substantial than “I’m writing”. What am I writing? Where am I going with this? What is there to say that I am yet to say? I do not know, for I am lazy.

Well, I guess that pouts me into a bit of a conundrum, though not really, but entirely really, but we’ll see what comes forward in all this writing and going about expressing things in a clumsy way. We’ll see if it truly is all worth it, even though it is as, even if it is not something that is worth reading, it could still be worth writing. Whether it is worth sharing, however, is another story entirely and not one I’m prepared to explore at this present juncture in time.

I can confirm that it is most certainly an egotistical endeavour, however, and that is something that I want to ignore and often do, but it is something to keep in mind, I think, as it’s often easy to ignore and pretend is not the case.

Of course in saying that it’s not necessarily about bolstering one’s ego, though maybe it is, but it’s the act of choosing to release a piece of work into the public that is the egotistical part, as, in a sense, when someone does this they are saying that the work is worthwhile of the public’s interest. However, it also needs to be said that this is a far more nuanced discussion than I could ever properly get into (unless that changes in the future) and so I’m sure there is quite a lot that, in the brief amount of words on the subject that I’ve used here, could quite easily be challenged and explored further, and maybe I should.

Maybe I should dig further into that so I can better articulate what it is that I’m saying. Maybe that’s a good idea and it’s something that I should try to embrace more often. Learning helps us be better communicators (sometimes) and it also helps us develop and further ideas, so maybe I should.

There are things to consider and now that I’m doing something I’m doing something. However, now all of this must stop as I need to leave the computer and do some other things.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:50:80

Written this morning and then only getting up now. The joys of work.

I think some of this is good and a lot of it is bad. The flow is rough and that brings everything down.

Written at home.

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Hand on Table

Posted on December 14, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Another long exposure of one of my hands, but with less motion this time.
I feel that this gives an odd view of my hand, but it’s still an honest view, in a sense.
When I look at my hands I feel they look weathered and worn in a sense, but they still hold a youthfulness, or at least an implication of youthfulness.

This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. Participating is pretty straightforward and something I recommend. If you do, then include the tag “monochrome-madness” in your post. If not participating, then at the least check out Leanne’s photography as well as what other people submit.

I hope you enjoy.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1326: Nonsense Writing

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

There’s a lengthy thing that I want to write about photography but right now I’m gonna hold off as I don’t quite have the time, nor the brain power to do so. The reason why is that I’ve spent the last two days processing a lot of photos and it’s work that needed to be done and work that I was quite happy to do, but I’m also glad is over now as it was a lot of work and there do be a lot of learning that I need to learn.

So now I’m here and I’m banging away on this keyboard and I’m racing a time and it’s already well ahead of me, though maybe it isn’t. I should probably stop looking at it as that’s a bad idea. It doesn’t help with the writing and it makes me write more about the time which, whilst shows that I’m not too stuck on one bit of thought and trying to untangle it, is still not good as its taking me away from something and forcibly leading me to something else.

Now I have to wonder as to how often a thought is being forcibly led by itself, or by some external thing that I am not aware of at the time, even if I am tricking myself into believing that I am aware as there is the possibility that I am aware and trying to deceive myself, and that is something that needs to be considered.

Ah, what’s all this thinking about this stuff doing for me anyway? There’s no real point in worrying about it and I need to get moving soon anyway, so perhaps I should worry about getting to the end of this and then beginning that and taking on what I can where I can however  I can.

This implies that there may actually be a plan.

Well, it doesn’t, but let us pretend that it does. That way I can keep on pretending that all of this creates some sort of great work that cannot be criticised and in all of that I can get on with the and you know how the rest goes.

So now that I need to get on with the rest of my day I need to think about how I prevent the soil turning into clay and where am I even going with this? What am I saying? At what point do I stop trying to throw things together in order to create some sort of mystifying nonsense and just write in a way that gets across what I am trying to get across? This is nonsense writing and it’s not even fine nonsense writing. I feel as though all I’m doing is banging on the cupboards whilst screaming into a wet paper sock, and that doesn’t help anyone. Therefore I am going to trash this as soon as I can, and good riddance. It is a terrible bit of writing and I will remember this transgression.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:06:67

This started out well, or at least parts of it did, and then I felt the pressure of time and that’s where it came apart. Pressure can be a good thing but I don’t think it was here.

Written at home.

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Narrowing or Widening

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Another recent photo involving long exposure.
My partner is sometimes commissioned to make stuff and due to this she has a lot of fabric. We were stuffing about with getting long exposures of this particular fabric in motion and ended up with the below. I took a few photos as there was something about it that I found appealing.

I hope you enjoy.

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Shoji Meguro: Memories of the City

Posted on December 11, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Two listens for this one and it was a bit of a struggle.
Not enough sleep.

I think this turned out mostly okay. There’s some of an idea of the song here but a lot of this feels like it relies on what I’ve written before in the manner of a crutch. I think that is due to just going for the obvious rather than allowing myself to be a bit more free with what I was writing.

Shoji Meguro’s (目黒 将司) “Memories of the City” is from Persona 3 Original Soundtrack, the soundtrack for Persona 3.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Piano vamps whilst a swirl of sound draws on before pulling away. Piano takes lead whilst something akin to strings continues from the swirl, right there with the keys, filling the space between their despairing moments.

A shift where guitar shimmers and rolls as the keys ring out, and it’s like a pause of hope. It’s a reaching through the sadness and looking toward some sort of hope. Bass, percussion, and another guitar comes in and rises above and moves around the sounds, carrying the heaviness but looking beyond.

Now it’s just the strings and guitar and percussion, and maybe the bass is there too, and they are reflecting on when piano took the lead, and it seems to cover the same ground but it speaks to action; it speaks to taking a stand and some sort of defiance, and resistance and desire to push forward in the face of despair. It’s a slow movement but there is more lifting from the heaviness.

Percussion continues as the sounds return to the first shift and in all the pressure is a moment of stillness; for breathing, for knowing what was and what is now, and the second guitar returns and lifts, and it all fades away as the song ends.

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Fading Sensation

Posted on December 10, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

This was taken soon after this photo. I had some ideas around taking long exposure photos of hands and, whilst this wasn’t something I’d quite thought of doing specifically, it is probably the best result of those photos.

There’s probably a lot you could draw from this. I don’t know if I can, though I do have my own ideas about what this image says, and they are related to abstract representation (I think), contrasts of aesthetic, ideas of comfort in fading memory, and motion.

In photography I’m more often interested in capturing line, form and function, and abstract expression than I am making an overt statement. I understand the importance of directness and that’s something I do capture more often than than I don’t, but, aside from some exceptions, it’s not what I lean toward. Anyway, I think this image is closer to what I want to be doing.

This is my submission into the two hundred-and-seventy-ninth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Magical“.

The reason why I’ve included this one is, in a way it feels magical. Obviously there’s technique and intent to get this photo, but it still has a sense of the magical in terms of process leading to result rather than aesthetic.

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

Week 1 – Tina

Week 2 – Patti

Week 3 – Ann-Christine aka Leya

Week 4 – Amy

Week 5 – John Steiner

Week 6 – Sofia Alves

Week 7 – Anne Sandler

Week 8 – Donna

Week 9 – Guest host

This one is curated by Leya. Tina curates the next one.

I recommend participating in the challenges as they provide a fun way to interpret theme. If not participating, then at least you should still check out what others of the Lens-Artists community are submitting.

I hope you enjoy.

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Nobuo Uematsu: Lifestream

Posted on December 9, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

One listen and I feel it was an easy write, but I also struggled in that I didn’t bring enough forward. I think I was trying to stick too close what happens with Final Fantasy VII’s plot plot when the song plays and that had a negative impact.

Nobuo Uematsu’s (植松 伸夫) “Lifestream” (“生命の流れ”) is from the soundtrack for Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Upon the growing strings percussion twinkles in a darkness. Steadily more is revealed as sound layers upon sound before it slightly fades and comes back in on the first percussive echo. More percussion shines, and moves slowly upon the sounds as they express the small grandness and wonder of it all.

A sense of beauty comes forward as the space afforded to the sounds lets them breathe and feel more expansive, and for a moment it is just the strings drawing long, drawing innocence and seriousness in equal measure.

That percussive echo returns, as does the second shining, and it becomes apparent that woodwind is there. It was there earlier, and now it seems more apparent as it rises and falls with the shining, and they slowly move through a history of balance.

Once more the strings are alone, and they fade out and the song ends.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1325: I Bang on the Keyboard

Posted on December 9, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

The sun is setting and the heat is dying down, and I get the feeling that the sunset will spread glorious colour soon. I have no idea if it will, but I feel it will. I do wish I had a better view of the sky than I currently do, but it’s not the worst thing in the world.

I sit here, I bang on the keyboard and I try to stop sweating by moving as little as possible. It is a losing battle, but I still try for the less sweat leaving my body, the less I have to worry about re-hydration and therefore the less water I have to drink.

For the record, I love drinking water but I may have drunk too much for the day at this point and so I need reduce how much I am drinking. Could be worse; could have much worse problems.

So I sit here and I sweat and I watch some of the sunset and sweat keeps pouring down my face and down my body and I hope to cool down sooner rather than later. The bedroom window is open but it has no screen. I am worried about insects coming into the room, but there is little that can be done about that at the current moment. Maybe later I’ll be able to do something about it, but for now this is a risk I have to take, and it’s a pretty small risk, so what am I worried about?

The breeze is cool but the room remains warm and so it feels more like some sort of appeal to desire than it does something actually, physically happening, but it’s there. It’s there and it’s relieving and that is something that I truly appreciate in this given moment. A brief reprieve is better than none at all, and, much like prior years, this heat worries me, so I hope the reprieve somehow lasts a long time and temperatures are a little less intense.

I am highly worried about what is happening and I know that things can be turned around to an extent, but I am also worried that not enough people are doing what they can. I’ve talked about collective action and looking after each other before, and I know that some people are interested in that, but I also think that the allure of convenience and consumption is too much, and I think that there is a responsibility for all to try and combat that stuff. However, that we’re actively fucking up our lives and futures is not something I wanted to write about at this particular moment and so I will stop.

What I will write about right now is how this is probably going to get worse and I’ll keep sweating and the cool breeze won’t last long enough and it’s not fun and all that stuff, and I’ll keep banging away on this keyboard, hoping to reach someone out there, and hopefully inspire progress.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:41:56

Wasn’t expecting this to go the way it did and I think that’s a good thing.
This is a little less repetitive than usual, I feel, and so if I can keep going that way, maybe I can get back to getting better at writing.

Written at home.

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Heinz Rolls Through Light

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

I took this a couple of nights ago and I’d been meaning to do so for a few weeks, or at least do something very similar. The idea was to play around with long exposure to create trails on a can, but I had a method that wasn’t rolling in mind.

Anyway, my partner and I stuffed around a bit to see how the photos would turn out and this is one of the better ones. In a sense it’s serious, but it’s also kind of humorous.

This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. Participating is pretty straightforward and something I recommend. If you do, then include the tag “monochrome-madness” in your post. If not participating, then at the least check out Leanne’s photography as well as what other people submit.

I hope you enjoy.

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Drowning Horse: Black Waters

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

One listen for this one.
Tried to throw myself in and it sort of worked but I had a bit of conflict between having an expectation of what I thought the song should be doing and what it was doing. When I say “should” I mean based on my hearing the song previously, though I’ve only listened to it maybe four, five times, with it being many years between the most recent which was a few weeks ago, and the time before then.

Drowning Horse’s “Black Waters” is from Sheltering Sky.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Buzzing hum layered by another expands and shrinks and draws long, harsh and flat, and somehow calm; somehow as there is an intensity, a violence in the drone’s low roar. Expansive and linear and all in a single moment, the sound is, perhaps, arid and empty.

The sound draws long and something rises up but it remains low and in the background, and it seems to go back into the drone. It then rises up once more, rises higher, seemingly revealing something specific in the distance, then disappears once more. The drone remains arid and empty, but form reaches out from it and falls back in.

The drone continues on, seemingly lowering, and soon another guitar comes above and calls downward. It cuts into a formed landscape with a menace and dread, blunt and dry and violent, and in places something else howls and haunts in the distance.

In this grand emptiness an act happens; an event that breaks the sense of stillness, and once it ends, everything fades to silence and the song ends.

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