猫 シ Corp. & t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者: Sector 131

Posted on November 23, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

One listen.

I wasn’t sure what would come forward, but I knew I’d be fine so long as what I wrote was coherent. I think this is mostly okay. Some sentences could do with better phrasing and I think what I wrote is, overall, a bit flat, but otherwise I did okay.

猫 シ Corp. & t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者’s “Sector 131” is from Building a Better World.

I hope you enjoy.

—

As rain falls a car drives on by, and it’s not long after that percussion plays out in chiming motions. A lower noise seems to drag here and there, or maybe it is not dragging but rather extending out. Something whirs past here and there and what could be a voice appears through the sheet of rain, though it only appears in parts.

Gradually that voice is joined by some mass of calm, and the voice itself starts appearing more often, and all seems cold. It is all welcoming but it is cold, and those sounds in the rain take space, but it does not seem so. They seem appropriate; fitting, but they eventually disappear and there’s an emptiness of sorts. There is a sense of being pulled out from a spell, and a vehicle drives on by in the rain, and the song ends.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

An Open View From Under

Posted on November 23, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Behold! A view… under a bridge!

It was an overcast day and I was walking along to see if I could get a photo for the recent Lens-Artists photo challenge. I ended up taking the previously photo I shared on the way back from under this bridge. My initial plan was to get a photo of the bridge’s edge from the underside and I took that but I felt the lights would work better for the challenge.

Anyway, I took a few more photos and this one only happened due to my deciding to walk to where the water was after seeing some algae (I think) and seeing how it interacted with the bridge’s reflection. I took a bunch focusing more on the reflection and I took this one to see if it would work with a specific framing, and I think it does.

I like how there’s a wide openness beyond the bridge. Of course there’s shelter under the bridge, as well as a sense of openness, but (probably for obvious reasons) it feels enclosed. It also doesn’t quite feel away from the overcast sky, so to speak.

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.

Posted in Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Lights Above

Posted on November 22, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Here’s a photo of lights as seen from underneath them.
I like how the lights look like a leaf… sort of.
At the least, they remind me of a leaf.

This is my submission into the two hundred-and-seventy-sixth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Looking Up, Looking Down“.

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 guest-curated by James of Jazzibee. Patti 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.

Posted in Photography | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

猫 シ Corp. & t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者: 目覚め

Posted on November 21, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

One listen and I was hoping to pull more imagery out of this than I did. I think focusing on that here was better for the writing, but I didn’t go as far as perhaps I should have.

猫 シ Corp. & t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者’s “目覚め” is from Building a Better World.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Rain falls as a thunderous beat strikes out, and it seems all is dimly lit. An urban seen comes through as the rumble extends and grows into a long heave of sorts, at least for a moment. However, rather than continue pressing down, the beat starts rolling and filling out whilst synth draws long and calm as it laps at the rain. Something akin to a woodwind rises and distorts, and becomes shimmery in a sense, floating along and drifting through the lives moving in the afforded space.

That heave reaches out once more, or at least an idea of it does, but it is underneath, and maybe it’s not there at all. That woodwind continues moving and it becomes like a flowing ribbon as it moves through everything and continues threading itself through the space, and soon it disappears like the beat.

The heave closes off and disappears into the rain, and soon it too comes to a stop at the song’s end.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nujabes: Decade (Interlude)

Posted on November 21, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

I did this over three listens.
The first was just listening to the song to see if I could get my head around it. I’ve heard it before but not listened to it as actively as I just did. Over the second and third listen I felt the writing started off stiff and it became less so, but not by as much as I would have liked.

Nujabes’ “Decade (Interlude)” is from Samurai Champloo Music Record – Impression, one of the albums of music from Samurai Champloo. This one features songs from Force of Natures, Nujabes, Fat Jon and Minmi.

I hope you enjoy.

—

A steady beat and keys raining down in cuts, and both underscored by a soft bass. The sounds move with a melancholy on a thick night, or perhaps a bright day. They look inward and outward, and maybe they isolate whilst they include.

The sounds remain steady, dedicated to their small loop. They are meant to be brief and they are not meant to explore, but they allow thought. They welcome the mind to stretch as they stick to the muffled loop, and there’s something warm and maybe sentimental here. There’s something about them that asks to stare into space and think, and maybe they invite action too. They are deliberate and they are precise; they are sound recontextualised.

It’s not long before the instruments fade out and everything drifts away as the song ends.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nujabes: Mystline

Posted on November 21, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

One listen and it was an easy one, I think. Occasionally I’ve wanted to write about some of Nujabes’ work but, considering how his music is, I’ve worried about if I could and as such not done so. Here I decided to just go ahead and do it and I didn’t have much difficulty. There were some parts where I started thinking a little too much about what I was writing, but overall it was a smooth experience.

Nujabes’ “Mystline” is from Samurai Champloo Music Record – Departure. This album is one of a few covering Samurai Champloo‘s music. There are a few artists features over the albums and on this one it’s Nujabes and Fat Jon. The album also features vocals from Shing02 and Minmi.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Piano rolls into a percussive strike, and it’s a gentle flow. Perhaps it is introspection here, or maybe it is some sort of danger, risk of failure. Maybe it is a forlorn pause, or maybe it is pensive. It is a moment of pause, and perhaps breathing.

Bass, or at least something that sounds like bass comes in and gently strikes whilst a lower, muffled sound makes itself apparent, seemingly moving constantly whilst still. The percussive strike leaves and eventually something else arrives and flickers and trails off the piano.

It remains a breathing moment and it draws out many things, and it continues as the piano builds, as does the flicker. But then some of it pulls away, as does most of the piano and, as the bass and muffled sound continue on there is stillness.

The keys return and move around, fluttering here and there, striking odd cut angles whilst swimming gracefully around the space. There is a slight joy in it all but it does not overwhelm and eventually the keys return to their original state. The moment holds and thoughts stretch outward, and maybe a calm is found.

Eventually it’s the keys alone, playing into silence, following their flow until they too stop and the song ends.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Masashi Hamauzu: The Vestige

Posted on November 20, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Two listens for this one.

Sometimes I wonder if I have any intent behind writing about a song (in this format) beyond thinking I can write about it. I don’t think I do and perhaps that is a good thing.

I think there is a chance that I went into this with an idea of imagery but that didn’t come through in the writing, and that’s okay. I don’t think I represented the song well enough, but I like how some of this turned out.

Masashi Hamauzu’s (浜渦 正志) “The Vestige” (“異跡”) is from Final Fantasy XIII‘s soundtrack, Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Voices dip in silence, but soon another sound joins them that seems stronger, but as smooth. A brief strike on its own appears, but soon there is more as the motion of the sounds expand with strings and more percussion.

This seems a peaceful moment, though perhaps it is more a vivacious one full of grand scenery and wonder. It is small, yet expansive and it seems light and airy in a way, but there is a weight behind it all. Somewhere among this is something carrying seriousness upon its frame.

The strings take lead and rise and fall and stretch, and the voices seem to follow along and hover upon the strings whilst percussion keeps space. Soon it’s another shift to more angular motions with a seeming spread before it suddenly stops, leaving the voices to linger for a brief moment.

In a new space it seems that everything has found a low calm of sorts, and as percussion floats voices hang in the air, and everything just flows on until a quick stop at the song’s end.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Takuya Kuroda: Tell Me A Bedtime Story

Posted on November 19, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

One listen for this one.

What I wrote came easy and I like that. I like that I didn’t struggle. Somewhere toward the end, however, I realised that bass may have been in the song since the start so I made some slight adjustments to what I wrote after the song finished. Sometimes I’ll make an edit here or there to improve readability; in this particular instance I felt it wrong to not include some more words on the bass, even if it is a small amount of words.

Takuya Kuroda’s “Tell Me A Bedtime Story” is from Fly Moon Die Soon.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Keys soon allow in a moving at striking angles, darting here and there with synth and percussion. Bass underscores it all whilst brass draws quickly slow and smooth around, countering the sounds as they seem to clutter and and spread here and there.

A sudden switch to a slow groove and it’s a sharp change, but it feels right. The percussion keeps steady and spaced whilst the keys seem to punctuate softly. Bass continues to keep a firm base and brass calls a long and seemingly joyous fancy outward, and the sounds alternate a little in their speed before eventually reaching a slight pause.

Still slow and spreading out gently, softly, into a quiet. It is an expansive moment before returning to the slow groove and the instruments keep all the cool and seeming calm going along for the ride.

Another shift but remaining slow and brass moves more to the forefront. It expands and compresses, and it plays slow and fast. It is seemingly jaunty and it floats there and gets among it all, and the instrumentation underneath keeps its pace deliberate before it starts to pick up a little. As it does the brass keeps going, picking up, picking up before it suddenly dissipates.

The keys and percussion take a little more lead whilst the bass plays slow. The percussion flickers whilst the keys dance and they move together, finding themselves right where they need to be. They keep it all soft and gentle, and they reach another brief pause.

Brass returns and it seems there is a reach for something grand, but instead of going for the build everything keeps it all gentle. It’s soft and small, and it doesn’t seem to want to strike out for something big, and all play slow until the final moment where the instrumentation echos a little and fades away as the song ends.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1321: That’s Fine

Posted on November 19, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

And so once more it begins. It is a morning in which there is fatigue. Who has this fatigue? I cannot say.

It’s me.

Tired and sweaty, and there is little reason to be sweaty. Well, there probably is good reason to be sweaty and that likely has to do with a sleep of the low quality. Fitful and tossing and lost in the dreams, looking for a way out and overheating and soaking the sheets with liquid secreted from some of my cells.

Now I am here and I am wondering if I will make it through the day. Of course, I will. However, I still wonder. I cannot help but wonder. The day always seems long and every second is felt, and yet it compresses into a moment. It shrinks away and it becomes a highlight if it is ever remembered. Such is the way of things.

Why am I talking like this at the moment? It seems like I’m trying to be grand and profound but all I’m doing is being pretentious. There are better things to do with the time that I have, so why am I doing this? For what purpose could this ever serve? I am not here to stoke the fires of my ego, though sharing everything that I do is inherently an egotistical endeavour. However, that is not what I am doing here, or at least that is not what I want to do in this particular moment.

I think there are more important things and that is what I want to embrace. I want to talk in a way that gets across stuff in a way that doesn’t express some sort of supreme arrogance. There are better ways to go about life and I do not have anything that I can make use of that can back up the words that I am currently using, and maybe that is the ultimate shame of it all; that for all of my experience and position in life, I will never attain a point where my speaking in a lofty manner will be warranted or even backed by whatever it is that I go through and learn and discover, and that’s okay. There are far worse things out there that I could be dealing with, so this is fine.

Maybe as we drift through everything there are times where we overreach far more than we’d like, but it won’t seem like an overreach; it’ll just seem like some sort of speaking using too many words. These moments mark points in time where our growth may change direction, and hopefully for the better, but you never know. Maybe they’ll just be a slight bump along the road that we move along and, like most bumps they’ll be forgotten very soon after they disappear from view. I don’t know; I’m just throwing out something I’m thinking of at the moment, and perhaps this too will be forgotten sooner rather than later, and I think that’s fine.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:53:06

Speedy and this is mostly okay.
It feels like the most “flowy” one of these I’ve one in a while, and I like that it became more thoughtful over time.

Written at home.

Posted in Life | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Suggested Motion, Suggested Stillness

Posted on November 18, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

A photo of a drummer doing the drummer thing.
I feel this photo feels odd and I think it has to do with how the light is balanced around the musician’s face compared to everywhere else. Then again, it just might have to do with the shininess of the hair.

I hope you enjoy.

Posted in Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment