These New Puritans: The Way I Do / This Guy’s in Love With You

One listen for this one, though I stopped it twice through just to sort of get what I was writing down. Not quite in the spirit of the exercise, but anyway…

I think I spent too much time here trying to describe the song. It’s suggestive and I could’ve drawn a lot from that, but I didn’t draw enough. Still, I think what I wrote is okay.

These New Puritans’ “The Way I Do” (also known as “This Guy’s In Love With You” for specific reasons) is from Field of Reeds.

I hope you enjoy.

Keys rock back and forth, and they are gentle. They seem to move in a simple motion, and they have sound stretch out from underneath them. The sound stretches and connects, and from it various scenes as though memory rise. Voices and slight wisps of other instrumentation are there, and it seems to be a fond looking back, or a fond imagining.

Suddenly it all stops, though it smoothly transitions into a series of other sounds that feel small in a way, and textured and congealing. They seem to be a mass and growing whilst remaining small.

The rocking back and forth returns, as do those other sounds and the voices, and now bass gently pushes firmly. Then it changes shape and seems to murmur and lurk, and drag for a moment. It seems to pause and think, perhaps, and brass comes in and calls loud and takes precedence as everything gathers around, and it keeps calling out, perhaps joyfully, and then it and everything else stops, and the song ends.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1373: Another Cold Day

Another cold day and all that stuff and you get the so on and so forth, blah blah blah. I’m listening to These New Puritans, and it’s not the worst day outside; nor is it the worst inside, but I have to wonder how much I have been defining my life based on whether I am outside or inside, and now I’m wondering if I should be bothering with ideas of defining my life at all.

Life is meant to be lived, isn’t it? That’s what I should be thinking about more, and of course I’m alive and I’m living it, but I mean living it, rather than just being alive.

The gaps are filled with so much nothing and getting along to the next big thing, and all the planning and saving, and then that big thing may never come, and we just keep on going on and struggle and rise to the top and succeed, and then struggle some more as we slide on down, and maybe we don’t get to do what we want to do, and then we wonder if life was wasted, but it wasn’t… was it? Does it really matter, so long as we are still getting on with things?

I think there’s a great deal of a lack of care because “that’s just how it is”, and that sucks. Surely we could do more for each other, and show some more genuine care for our fellow people; especially those that we callously trample upon along the way to victory. Surely we could be more conscious about other people, and do more to help them have a quality of life some people think they don’t deserve. Surely we could make sure that we don’t disregard their struggles and help them have a better quality standard of living.

But maybe we can’t. I don’t know. I’d like to believe that we can but we won’t, because then at least we can work toward turning that kind of thing around and work on making things better, but we have to actually put in the work. A lot of battles don’t end just because we get what we want. They keep on going, and maintaining a base standard requires a collective effort. It requires enough people being willing, but they have to keep going, and you have to get more people involved over time, and everyone has to work for the betterment of everyone. You can’t settle just because you think everything is okay, because the likelihood is it’s just okay in your backyard and your group, and not in others.

Sometimes I wonder if the way things are should be allowed to continue instead of working on change and improvement. Sometimes I wonder if maybe society should be allowed to collapse, because we’re certainly good at treating others poorly. We’re good at being dismissive because we choose to not recognise that our paths are simply one and we got lucky. But that’s just how it is.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 08:17:51

I guess I’m a bit angry today, or despairing. Not sure.

Written at home.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1372: It’s Cold. It’s Winter

It’s cold. It’s winter. It’s cold and it’s winter. How surprising.

Trying to type this out with my hands and it’s hard as my hands are cold and it’s winter and cold hands and winter when it’s cold don’t make for a good mix… due to the cold and it being winter.

I wonder how long this will last. I wonder how long it will be before they invent heaters for hands that are powered by piss and vinegar. Maybe that would make them too warm, but you could have storage of the excess energy and that way they stay powered for a while, or something.

I think I’ve had an idea.

So anyway, I want it to be slightly less cold, or at least slightly less miserable. It’s not great weather, but I think I should survive. I think I could survive. I think I will survive. I’ll survive. However, I want more blankets, but I don’t want to be sweating, but this is the kind of weather where there is no real balance; it’s just one or the other, and you make do, so I’ve decided to deal with being both warm and cold, but only half of each.

It’s the only way to get the perfect balance.

Still, I’m sitting here and I’m not moving much, and it sucks but it’s also okay. It could be far worse than it could be far better, and somewhere in the middle is where it all why am I choosing to have half of myself be cold?

I can think of better ways to conduct myself, and I can also resolve this pretty quickly and yet I’m not. Instead of doing so, I’m sitting here crapping out a bunch of words. Why am I choosing this path? Why am I choosing to be this lazy? It’s not a good way to be, let me tell you, and let me tell you why:

I could be warmer.

It comes down to that. Warmth is something I can have more of and I’m choosing to not have more of it, and that would be considered not ideal by some. Perhaps it would be considered not ideal by most. I don’t know and I won’t profess to know until I truly know. However, I don’t want to know, you know?

So instead of doing the sensible thing, I’m cold and I remain cold and remaining cold is how I’ll remain, but for only half of me. The other half is still warm and it’s nice and all that, and at least there’s some pleasure in being only partially warm.

Then again, maybe it is an unnecessary burden that I am carrying and in my choosing to carry the burden I’m just hurting myself. Maybe I should just get under the sheets and forget about everything else, but I can’t. There’s still things to do and I need to be responsible and I don’t want to, but I have to, at least right now.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:39:41

Not exactly good writing by any measure, but it was fun to write.

Written at home.

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A Cut in the Bush

Everyone should be able to visit and experience ideas of nature.
However, we should think about the change we force to get that experience.

I hope you enjoy.

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Face Beside the Light

More experimenting and making a mess of things. There are bodies in this, but they’re obscured, as is the way sometimes.

I hope you enjoy.

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Flared Head

A gig photo that turned out well but wasn’t as usable as I’d hoped.
Still, I think it’s an interesting photo. Almost feels as though it’s showing some sort of magnificence.

This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. Next week’s is hosted by Dawn and she has chosen the theme “Roads, Lanes, and Pathways”.

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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Naked by the Pond

There was something aesthetically pleasing about this scene when I took this photo. Everything seemed as though it was in the right place. Looking at this version of the photo, and it feels like the place is quiet and isolated, and perhaps desolate in a sense. It’s not, but it feels that way to me.

I hope you enjoy.

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Down the Road in Morning’s Light

There’s not anything particularly interesting about this photo, and if I were afforded the chance I’d probably take it again, but with the tripod. Still, there’s something easy about it. Maybe it’s like comfort food.

I hope you enjoy.

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A Cluster of Trees

Recently a friend and I went driving with the aim to find places we thought looked interesting, including the area in which the below photo was taken.

When we got out of the car and took a few photos, my friend pointed out this cluster of trees and told me I should take a photo. At first I wasn’t going to, or at least I pretended I wasn’t going to, but then I did.

A lot of how this looks came through in processing. There was something in the scene that I saw that is one of a few things I’m trying to reach in terms of photography, and this is kind of close to that, though it’s a bit off too.

This is my submission into the three hundred-and-fourth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Behind“.

I think this fits the theme quite well as it’s the clouds that help set the scene and mood. I think if the sky had been clear, then this would feel quite different.

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

Donna

Egídio

Ritva

Ritva is curating this one. Next week Egídio is curating.

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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Ryota Kozuka: Da’at: yoyogi

One listen, though there was a point where I had to rewind for a moment.

Not sure about this writing. I think I dragged out starting too much. If I started when I queued the song up, I think this would be better.

Ryota Kozuka’s (小塚良太) “Da’at: yoyogi” is from the soundtrack for Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance, Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance Original Soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy.

A gentle flow of sound laps in and something springs forth from it. A low and muted beat underscores and sets the flow more obviously, and a harsh electronic sound follows, creating more melody.

Another bit of beat comes in and creates more steadiness, and around this new formation more detached sound seems to hover here and there. Sound pulls back and that detached sound takes prominence, and everything seems to become a little dreamier, or off in a way. Off and trying to keep going despite that offness.

That harshness comes forward once more, then suddenly ends, or at least grows quiet and everything seems to grow soft, and almost dreamlike and fading. The sounds springing forth earlier return for a moment, and then so does the harshness.

Everything seems as though veiled and moving back and forth, and everything seems to be fading and disintegrating, and there’s an urgency in it all, and it keeps on driving forward. Back and forth and cycling, and dissipating, and it continues on, stuck on a loop yoyoithat transforms into itself until it all fades out and the song ends.

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