This is not everything I wanted to capture with these clouds, but this was the best photo I could get. I remember grabbing the camera specifically to capture these ones and I think the photo turned out alright. Soft and peaceful.
I hope you enjoy.
One listen.
Let it carry me as much as I could. Found I had to force myself at points, but otherwise this came through without actively thinking, and I’m happy with the result.
downy are an interesting band. As far as I’m aware, they’re named after a softener brand, and their music is very experimental and not at the same time. That comes through quite well on “Night Crawlin'”; there’s a strong sense of traditional structure (not all their songs are like this) and it’s doing things with how the instruments express themselves that aren’t necessarily traditional. Not sure if that’s the best way to put it.
downy’s “Night Crawlin'” is from 8th album “Untitled” (all their albums are untitled; this is the eighth one).
I hope you enjoy.
—
Drums striking and thumping, playing what feels like a little shuffle, but might not be. Don’t know. Soon guitar comes in, feeling like it should be ringing out more, and holding onto restraint. Bass fills in the spaces, plays carefully.
Soon more guitar joins, finding other parts it can sit in in seeming gentle strikes. Voice fragile, seemingly weak, carrying words that seemed pained. A moment holds on the percussion and everything then moves into a build of ragged melody and roughened emotion.
There’s a hurt here as sounds scream out in brightness, howling and crying before settling back to a verse. Settling, tempered, but some things are changed. Not all, but some.
Those vocals wander lonely among a blurred landscape, sketches, impressions. Suggestions of surroundings and soon there’s that unleash once more, and emotions cascade upon interactions with nothing, and inner turmoil becomes external.
Calling out once more, forming shape and framing context, and context leads to a dance between loneliness and and the self, or maybe it’s more pensive joy. That sensation of happiness, of ebullience, of bliss, of jubilation of in the moment whilst pensiveness and melancholy lurks around everything. And these times fall into memory, and things are changed as they’re thought of over long walks in the dark; among the backdrop of the night framing space as empty, and it goes on until everything stops and the song ends.
So I’m dealing with CBA refusing to provide me with a paper statement. This seems a bit of a “So what?” and normally I’d be fine with an online statement, but there’s a reason I’m specifically requesting one. I need it to renew my passport.
Technically I can use any document with my current address on it, but the only thing I have that connects me to my current address that I should be able to get a delivery of a document with my current address on it at the moment is my account with CBA. If I still had to worry about power bills, this wouldn’t be an issue. However, I don’t, so I need to rely on CBA.
I contacted them last week, was told I need to go through their messaging service. Couldn’t do that at the time, get around to it yesterday. Make my request, am told I can download my statement. As previous statements have the address on the account at time of generation, I can’t use them. I reiterate my request, add the context of it being for my passport, am told that CBA’s system would not allow them to mail out a statement as it can only be accessed by me. I question this as I have the option to set my receiving method as paper, rather than digital.
Whomever I’m speaking to advises that they’re generating an out of cycle statement, then tell me I can download it. I ask if they can mail it to me, they tell me I can download it, then advise that they can’t email a statement. I reiterate that I want a paper statement, they tell me there’s no option to send me a statement. I ask how that’s possible when I can receive paper statements. They tell me they are unable to provide them and tell me to download the statement instead.
There’s a bit of going in circles here, and sure, I could download the statement and then print it somewhere, but I don’t want to be using work resources to be printing non-work documents. So I ask when their manager can call me. They tell me that call services are limited so I’d be directed back to messaging. They then ask me to confirm my address as they’re checking if statements can be mailed. They then advise that the request will close in a few days, and to reply if I still need help, then tell me how I can view my statements, how I can update my statement preferences, and to get a paper statement I’ll need to visit the nearest branch, but this might come with a fee.
I’m digging around the website as this is happening and there’s confirmation that CBA can provide paper statements via mail. I advise this, advise they haven’t told me why they can’t do this for some reason and point out that they’re refusing to escalate my enquiry. I’m told that calls can’t be arranged by messaging and that they don’t have the option to mail out statements, then go to close the request again.
To add some clarity here, this is a statement for a loan that I’m requesting. Part of the terms and conditions specifically state (I had to check this to make sure) that CBA will provide a paper statement upon request. So I advise this. Whomever I’m speaking to tells me that in order to do so, I need to change my receiving preferences, and if I need a statement sooner, to go to my nearest branch. More back and forth, then I’m told about the statement cycle.
I’m in the process of raising my complaint away from message chain, tell them I’m raising it, tell them to not contact me again. They then contact me again, raise their own complaint on my behalf, advise me that if it were an option to send me a paper statement, they would have, then tell me again that I can update my preferences.
So I have a feeling that, despite CBA’s chatbot initially telling me it’d put me through to the loan team, it put me through to another chatbot, based on the continued repetition and lack of understanding the request, and also the vehement denial of being able to do something their terms and conditions advise they will do. It’s another notch in a long list of grievances that has left me wondering if I can still be lazy about staying with them. I have no loyalty to CBA; I’ve just not wanted to do the inconvenience of changing banks, even though it’s pretty minor. But it’s stuff like this; stuff that comes with hours of trying to get answers as to why and being told the same thing which goes against their T&Cs; stuff like this that creates an unnecessary amount of stress, that makes me more inclined to start looking elsewhere.
This is what’s above the door(s) in this photo.
To me this feels a little bit like looking at a wharf from underneath. Not entirely, of course – I don’t imagine the design here would be the most amenable to boats docking, But it feels like it. Maybe in some sort of fantasy setting. Don’t know.
I do like that the reflection here completes an idea of the building through creating a sense of continuation rather than reflection. For me it changes the idea of how the building I know looks. Changes its structure, makes this feel a bit like a gateway.
This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. The next one is hosted by Dawn of The Day After, and she has chosen the theme “Symmetry”.
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.
One listen.
There’s two versions of this song and I decided to write about the first, and will probably do the second later on today if I have the energy. Writing about the first was interesting in that I kind of went in and out a bit. That shows, but I think it works.
Yuji Yoshida’s (吉田裕二) “Nightmare” (“悪夢”) is from Perfect Blue Original Sound Track, the soundtrack for Perfect Blue. The soundtrack was composed both by Yuji Yoshida and Masahiro Ikumi (幾見雅博).
I hope you enjoy.
—
Steps, or a train going over tracks. A voice, distorted. Moaning, mumbling words. A sudden strike, voice responds, noise rises. Oscillating noise.sound. Seemingly suffocated
Intensity, dread, horror. A darkness spreading and sounds are stressed. Everything but the noise remains, and something seemingly mournful, sad. Maybe pensive rises. It’s a counterpoint that is soon harmed by strikes of what sound like guitar. It remains, lingers, but gets smothered in parts but what else is there.
This sadness disappears and the percussive sounds return, striking and rumbling, bouncing and echoing. The voice also returns, if only for a brief moment, or at least it seems like it does, along with fragments of others. Everything presses in and forces down, suffocates in a bubbling crowd. A relentless force; a cold, violent intensity.
The sadness returns and the percussion changes whilst retaining its form. Everything builds and builds, and the percussion increases its control, and everything keeps getting more and more and more.
Suddenly it’s just the percussion, some voices and a vamp, seemingly cycling, seemingly trying to align, lingering in tatters until everything reaches the song’s end.
Taken a good few weeks ago now, after a ride to Tempe station. I like this photo due to the missing details. Everything is still there, but the focus sits on specific parts, and the dark of the early morning reinforces a sense of the quiet.
This is my submission into the three hundred-and-sixty-fourth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Quiet Moment“.
The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:
This one is curated by Ritva. The next one is curated by Egídio.
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.
One listen.
Heard this song a few days ago and it’s a bit cheesy. Highly dated in sound, but that’s part of why I wanted to write about it (and a few more from this soundtrack).
What this song does is capture a sense of wonder really well. It could be the wonder of a futuristic city, or a dewy forest. It could be the wonder of a time far ahead of ours. But it has that particular sound and feel.
I didn’t get that across as well as I’d have liked. I was trying to squeeze this writing in between things which was a bad way to go about it as my mind was elsewhere.
Hideaki Kobayashi’s (小林 秀章) “Day Dawns” is from Phantasy Star Online Songs of RAGOL Odyssey -Soundtrack EPISODE 1&2-, the soundtrack (or one of the soundtracks; I’m not sure) for Phantasy Star Online.
I hope you enjoy.
—
Brightness shines in and percussion echoes. Suddenly a relaxed, cool future comes in. Bright, shiny, designed. Sounds flow forward with all the heightened impression of grand structures, sleek in design, seemingly forever.
The sounds continue, they rise. They rise up and the sky seems part of the structures, lost among them all but still there. Still distinct. Still itself.
A loop back to the start and that coolness remains. Around certainty, around the wonder of it all. Rising once more, then a descent into something a little lower, though with sounds picking up at the same time, it seems. Everything is wondrous, and everything is overwhelming, almost. But everything is contained. Everything lingers until a loop back to where it began.
This is simple, and it’s easy. It’s where the pleasantness of something new; something beginning lingers. Rising, looking above all from a position of under, and little to say that this isn’t the future. It’s a future envisioned, and its image fades away as the sounds do and the song ends.
I was going to use a photo very similar to this one for the Lens-Artists photo challenge I hosted a few weeks ago. Ended up not as it didn’t feel right. Didn’t use this one either for the same reason, though this one is easier for me to know why.
It’s too busy for what I was looking to do.
Anyway, I like the photo, or rather I like the attempt at a photo. I think I can do this better.
I hope you enjoy.
Sometimes I look at the sky and I find myself appreciating what I see. Except that’s most of the time. Anyway.
Just some clouds in this photo and a bit of blue thrown in. Nothing particularly special. I just like the colour and form.
I hope you enjoy.
Stupidity Hole 