Indistinct Form at Sunset

Posted on May 21, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Just a photo of some clouds as seen from my backyard and during sunset.
Sort of a muted, soft scene with a light sense of layering, I think.

I like how there’s a vague sense of something recognisable in some of the clouds. Not much else to say there; just something I like.

This is my submission into the two hundred-and-fiftieth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Skyscapes or Cloudscapes“.

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

Amy is curating this one. For the next one Anne is curating.

The challenges are fun to engage with. The themes are specific enough to keep some focus whilst loose enough to allow room for interpretation. I recommend participating as it’s a fun community to be engaged with and it’s a good way to focus on subject. If you don’t participate, you should still check out what others of the Lens-Artists community are submitting.

I hope you enjoy.

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P-Oiler: Compress Me

Posted on May 21, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

A few unfortunate restarts on this one. Had difficulty getting a grip with what was going on. Should’ve just gone for two listens but I didn’t.

I think what I wrote here captures the song really well, but not in a way that gets its energy across. There’s an idea of that energy, but not really a coverage of it, if that makes sense.

P-Oiler’s “Compress Me” is from Greatest Hits Vol. III.

I hope you enjoy.

—

A little light strumming beeps into quiet. A sudden burst of loudness before the light strumming comes in. The burst comes back and shows a rhythmic chug. A voice asks who the hell you are in a small space between, a little guitar seems to flicker off of it and the rhythm then fills all the space. It rises and mutes slightly whilst always sounding at maximum. Minimum, yet maximum.

It starts rising and then a lot of the loud falls away. It sort of yells and then leaves mostly bass and percussion to funk away with some other sounds here and there. This is a smooth moment of sorts and it has a bit of a bounce. More voice here and there and eventually guitar becomes more prominent as the bass becomes more aggressive. Percussion shifts and rolls over itself, and its back to rocking out.

Constriction and release go hand-in-hand as the sounds increase in their sense of loudness, but it’s much more controlled in feel than earlier. There’s a bite and grit but it retains a sense of smoothness until it returns to that early rhythmic chug.

Once more it stops and leaves mostly percussion and bass. Guitar is there, playing a little solo of sorts and keeping the funk alive and it all builds up again. The sounds of traffic, or at least an idea of traffic appear before it pulls back to the funk once more.

At least for a short moment and that traffic-like section returns and builds and once more the sounds unleash in their chug and punch forward and suddenly stop, leaving something more “ambient” and stretched to close things as the song ends.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1257: Jerkiness Ramble

Posted on May 21, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Writing whenever I’ve a queue of photos processing is never fun as there’s a sort of jerkiness that comes through, and of course that is due to how many resources my computer has to allocate to tasks at any given time. That aside, it’s not something I usually do. I think I may have once or twice before now, but otherwise I try to avoid it due to not wanting to have to deal with writing whilst my computer is busy processing photos.

I’m doing it now as I want to try and maximise my time. I don’t have long before work starts so I need to get a few things done before then and so now it is time for compression. Not a fun time but it is a time, as they say.

So now that that is out of the way I guess I can start talking about some other things but there isn’t anything coming to me at the moment. I’m not going to write about some sort of fantastic situation right now.

Oh, I was going to write about friendship.

So I had this idea where I was going to write about friendship as a way to work out some thoughts for a thing that’s in the very, very early stages of planning. Worried about planning and refining too much. Don’t want to lose the emotional content of the whole thing. Want to keep it feeling in the moment, as they say, but even so it’s still good to try and plan some things out and get some ideas down in some manner, so that was my plan this morning. Then started thinking about the having the thing being stale when it actually happens and… yeah.

So anyway, I’m not going to write about that this morning as I need to work out some other things first. There are a lot of things to work out and this is a set of some of those things and so there will be no writing about friendship this morning. Instead it’s just this lengthy ramble about how I was going to and then decided not to and maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be. Maybe I’m not meant to write about friendship on this morning of mornings and instead deal with the jerkiness of writing whilst my computer is processing photos. Perhaps that is the hand of fate playing its cards and now I’m out of a full house.

I will complete this task diligently. I will see it to completion in as least efficient a manner as possible and I will succeed somehow, but perhaps there is no success whatsoever to this. Perhaps all this is is a series of steps forward whilst success keeps galloping away.

Who knows.

On the plus side I get to do a bit of writing right now and that’s a good thing. Good way to warm up, but now I’m thinking I might have been better off writing about friendship.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:29:05

Not bad, not good. Somewhere in the middle.

In a way this feels like trying to work out an idea. Not so much the friendship bit, but something else. Unsure of what, however.

Written at home.

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A Poem About Mentally Drifting Off

Posted on May 20, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

This was written a bit faster than I’d hoped.
Pretty sure it makes for an idea that should be worked upon rather than something published in any capacity. That said, rigorous standards of quality is seldom a regularity here, so… yeah.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Caught in a drift
Floating away on thoughts
Carried through a night
Moving above closing lights
Anchored in a single position
Held at a desk
Yet somewhere else entirely
Caught in a drift
Floating above a changing landscape
Dreaming of what is there
Hoping for what is to come

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1256: Last Five Minutes of the Shift

Posted on May 20, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Got around five minutes before work ends. Gonna see if I can get this done in that time. Probably won’t but that’s fine. That’s all okay. Not the worst thing in the world.

Sometimes the rush makes me reflective of a job I no loner work and I wonder why. I certainly have no nostalgia for that job and am glad that I can say it has been years since I was last in its offices, but sometimes I do miss the people, or at least the people who I worked with and now no longer talk to.

I don’t miss cycling from St Leonards to Glebe at night, though sometimes I do. It was an easy run in some ways. Not the best and not the worst. Realistically I could do it again but seeing as I live a little further away from St Leonards now it would end up taking a lot longer and so I don’t want to do that.

Maybe one day.

Thinking about how sometimes I’d do my writing in the last ten minutes of working in an evening. It was something I could do and so it was something I’d do on occasion. I think.

It was a very different time back then to how it is now, or maybe I’m just more aware of things now than I was then. Not sure. Some things have certainly changed, but I also think there are some things I was pretty ignorant of back then that I no longer am, or at least I’d like to believe I no longer am.

Still so much to learn really.

Actually, sometimes I do miss that office space. Not so much the business I worked for, but the office space itself. It wasn’t the best. It wasn’t the worst.

And there goes the last five minutes of the shift.

So anyway, it was kind of a cosy office space, though maybe it was ore that it was one I was really familiar with. It’s where I met Ewe, Fe and a few others but it was one I got to know. But I don’t think I’d go back given the opportunity unless it was for some sort of biological research rather than more customer service.

Working in St Leonards certainly was a time. It was not a good time most of the time but it certainly was a time for realising a lot of things. Also was a time for feeling as though that was going to be the rest of my life, and I’m finding myself feeling the same way now. The environment may change but all I’ve done is move sideways. Hopefully I can move upward at some point.

It’s cold now and that reminds me a little of the cycle. I think I’ve written about that cycle home before and I’ll probably write about it again at some point in the future. For now I think I’m just going to wrap this up somewhere around here.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 09:58:97

Toward the end of this I slowed down a bit. I think it had to do with the work shift coming to an end. Also tried to pick my words somewhat carefully. Didn’t lead to an improvement, or maybe it did.

Written at home.

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Anamanaguchi: Power Supply

Posted on May 19, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Had a rough start to this one but eventually got a feel, or at least I think I got a feel for what was going on.

Just realised I could’ve written about how the song powers up and winds down, making the title pretty appropriate. Didn’t. Kept things relatively brief but could’ve written some things differently.

Anamanaguchi’s “Power Supply” is from Power Supply.

I hope you enjoy.

—

A sound moves about rapidly between a few notes. The beat starts building and stomps away, and soon bass joins. A brief pause and then the sounds charge forward without necessarily altering their speed.

There’s something smooth and gliding in this and fun, and maybe there’s a bit of guitar in here as well. There’s a slight pause of sorts where the sounds sort of throw their hands up in the air as a celebratory thing before they get back to their gliding smoothly.

The sounds charge forward in unison; some electronics sort of rise up in parts and then they stop again for a moment with a bit more space before getting back on with it, and they keep moving between these shifts, alternating a little here and there.

The electronics offer extra details as they follow the rhythm, almost looking to draw attention to themselves rather than the melody. They dance and fly whilst everything else charges along, but they don’t quite feel separate, and so this sense of harmony continues as the sounds fade out and the song ends.

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Anamanaguchi: Dawn Metropolis

Posted on May 18, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Two listens for this one, in part due to being a bit slower this afternoon than I was this morning.

I struggled a bit with this one. The struggling came down to listening to this and trying to work if there was anything beneath the surface, as the song seems really shallow. That’s fine; I think it’s a nice bit of fun, but it has potential to offer more and it doesn’t seem to do so.

Essentially I got caught up on something that perhaps I shouldn’t have and so I ended up writing something that was really clunky. It does cover the song but I can see where I could have done better.

Anamanaguchi’s “Dawn Metropolis” is from Dawn Metropolis.

I hope you enjoy.

—

A waking energy comes through. It’s the heralding of the hustle and the bustle and the sounds ride smooth as they travel forward. Electronics glide along the rhythm and there’s something warmly celebratory about all of this. Something really joyful.

A drop away leaving one sound before everything comes back in and continues on. The rhythm remains steady and all seems cool and busy. More of the space and scene is revealed and it’s easy to take in. This section seems to ooze cool.

Something cuts in and out and melody is rich and it continues on. All remain steady and focused and keep pushing for fun and joy. A brief flicker before continuing on once more.

Until it doesn’t. Until it stops and leaves electronics to pulse and reveal something grandiose. Other sounds come in and and once more they all return to a state of the celebratory. Here everything becomes grand and massive whilst remaining small. It’s busy and its looking ahead but its firmly in the moment. It’s of now.

More flickering as all others are held in motion, seemingly ready to go ahead once more but before anything else happens the sounds stop and the song ends.

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Held in Hands

Posted on May 18, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Last week I took a series of reference photos with my phone for something I want to do.
I’d been meaning to take a few more with my camera but I kept putting that aside until last night. I checked the reference photos I had taken and realised they weren’t quite helpful for what I wanted to do. I decided to stop putting off taking some with the camera.

I’d also been meaning to take some more photos of myself whilst playing around with a speed light as a friend of mine let me borrow theirs. It was for the photography job I couldn’t work due to food poisoning and I figured that I might as well do some stuff with it rather than return it without having used it for something.

Anyway, I took new reference photos as well as some where I was trying to show form using hands and fingers. I also took the one below, as well as a few that are similar.

This is very much a representation how the last few months have felt. Some stuff has been great, but most of what has happened has led to a rather unrelenting slog. I’ve tried to keep a sense of “normalcy” going on but it’s been difficult. Of course things could get better overall, but right now things are not good.

I feel if I planned this out a bit more I could get a photo that is technically better. However, I don’t think that wold lead to a more expressive result. This was very much of the moment and I think it works best that way.

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.

A lot of what people are submitting will likely end up here.

I hope you enjoy.

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nenem: Taiga

Posted on May 18, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

This one was a challenge. Early on I stopped as I wanted to see if the style of vamp the song uses has a name. It has a particular feel and Rush used a similar one during some performances of “La Villa Strangiato” and I’m fairly certain I’ve heard it used outside of Rush and nenem. My search was quite short and lazy and so I didn’t find out.

Anyway, the challenge mostly came from keeping up as I was trying to get down more than I could. That said, I think I covered the song pretty well, albeit in a sloppy way. This could’ve been tighter.

nenem’s “Taiga” (“グストーゴフの森“) is from Cool Dawn Place.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Quick roll and into a bass and percussion vamp. It drives with energy, almost intense and yet low and calm. Keys enter, seemingly floating along whilst keeping with the pace. it’s a gentle contrast, even as percussion strikes out a bit more in places.

Suddenly the percussion gets busier and everything flourishes in sound. Guitar appears and rings out with the keys, whilst sounding like a shimmering crash as it rings outward. The keys keep their rhythm but become busier and play this quick bursts as a counterpoint.

It all ends and it’s just the bass in space. Something seems to whir and then the other instruments come back, but a bit softer. The energy is still there but there’s space. Guitar is squealing whilst the keys flutter about. Soon it all becomes full again and the unison becomes apparent; the sounds are locked into each other and remain feeling fluid.

Once more it all stops and it’s the percussion that has a moment. It is rapid, or busy, but feels slow in a sense. Once more the other instruments come in and play something that reaches more for the emotional, and perhaps it is a moment of breathing. It feels like some sort of slow release, and the song seems to slow down a bit more. The percussion then lets out one last strike that it trails off from. The other instruments follow suit and create something lighter, happier and perhaps beautiful as the song ends.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1255: Sunlight Comes Into This Room

Posted on May 18, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

So I started processing photos this morning but now that the sun is coming into this room at a particular angle it’s difficult to keep processing photos. As such, I’m stopping for now but I want to keep on being productive so I’m just crapping this out quickly in the hopes that something comes forth that is usable, or something.

So anyway, it’s a fine day.

I should go for a walk.

Why am I even writing this? I have no thing to go off. There is no thread. I’m just sitting here like an asshole thinking about how awesome I am for actually getting a start in the morning rather than after midday. There’s nothing special about this. There’s nothing to go off. I’m just being diligent for once.

What gives me the right to think that I can just do as I please and think so highly of myself for doing the bare minimum? There’s nothing. That’s like thinking that just because one is wearing pants they’re now king shit.

I guess it would could be a pretty snazzy pair of pants.

So what do I do now? I shouldn’t be going on this massive power trip. It’s unwarranted and I’m wearing some pretty standard pants. They are keeping me warm, but they’re still pretty standard. There’s no strut to get out of this. There’s nothing to get out of this. I’m sitting here wearing clothes that I should change. I’m sitting here crapping on about something and I don’t care to try and understand it, and maybe that’s the problem.

Maybe the point is that I’m refusing to try and understand this bit of writing and in doing that I am denying myself. I cannot truly be whole if I refuse to stare upon the baring of my soul.

Would be a bit easier if the sun wasn’t hitting the screen in the way it currently is.

Wait, if the sun wasn’t then I’d be processing photos. The reason why I’m writing this is that currently it is difficult to process photos due to the sun coming into this room at a particular angle and so I want to keep on doing stuff but am unsure as to what, hence the writing.

Probably should go for a walk.

Why am I even doing this? There are so many other things that I could be doing and instead I sit here, thinking highly of myself for wearing pants and a shirt when there’s no victory in that… given my relative level of comfort, of course. I’m just living life and going through things and getting on with it and wanting to process photos but choosing not to due to too much sunlight and so now I don’t know how to end this sentence.

Maybe I need to get up, sit back down, chill for a while, do nothing and then stress. Perhaps that is best, though I do wish the sun would fuck off out of my bedroom.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:06:84

Neither the fastest nor the slowest.

This was fun to write. There were times when I stopped to think which had a negative impact, but overall just fun. Silly and messy fun.

Written at home.

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