Tsuyoshi Sekito: The Rider’s Boon

Posted on September 19, 2022 by Stupidity Hole

This one took two listens and I think it was due to trying to keep up whilst falling behind due to trying to capture certain details. It wasn’t the best way to go about things.

I think this is alright. Not completely certain. There’s detail in there but it’s not entirely about the detail… I think.

Tsuyoshi Sekito’s (関戸剛) “The Rider’s Boon” (“その背に揺られて”) is from two soundtracks: Before Meteor: Final Fantasy XIV Original Soundtrack and Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Original Soundtrack, both soundtracks for Final Fantasy XIV. Both were composed by a few different people and whilst their styles come through, the soundtracks are more harmonious than they are not.

I hope you enjoy.

—

A slight rush in and strings look up whilst gentle percussion remains steady underneath. It then all shifts as bass also comes in. Gentle guitar and woodwind carries on a breeze and look onward. Soon other sounds come in and let themselves flow along, perpetuating the airiness.

The percussion remains gentle and gradually pulls sounds here and there whilst the other instruments continue their moving and building, but it’s kept gentle. Something rich and gentle develops and it’s almost as though entering the middle of a season.

Eventually guitar takes a stronger focus and picks its notes carefully as it moves over hills and through valleys but it is only brief.

There seemingly is a build toward something new and gradually sounds reach out and rise in steps. Something more victorious comes forward, though it remains soft. Sounds fill out and expand, reaching for high places and eventually eventually it all plateaus. A grand beauty presents itself as success rides on high, as does relief.

Slowly it unwinds and the guitar comes back into prominence as the sounds return to an earlier point, but before there is any continuation all fades out and the song ends.

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Palm Beach

Posted on September 18, 2022 by Stupidity Hole

When I took this photo I was trying to get everything after the hill I was on. Due to elevation I was unable to get a shot without the hill unless I waned to lose a good part of the beach area. Still, I think the result works. There’s a sense of distance which comes through better with the hill and it doesn’t take away from the land’s shape.

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

Now that I’m writing about the image I think the most obvious opposites here would be liquid and solid, what with this being a landscape featuring a fair bit of water. However, the reason why I’m submitting this image (other than saving it for a challenge) is due to it featuring both the suburban and the natural.

The urban presents an environment often based on human-based development and shaping. The natural is also based on development and shaping but it takes place over longer periods of time in a manner that doesn’t feel so much like forced process. Often the urban and the natural clash with each other and I wonder how much we think about that sort of thing.

To be fair, what is considered natural here likely has seen a lot of human-based interaction and shaping, but even though it could be argued as being more of an idea, it still is seen as natural.

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 – Guest host

This one is hosted by Tina. Donna of Wind Kisses guest-hosts the next one.

I recommend participating in the challenges. They’re open enough to allow for a fair bit of thinking about approach and closed enough to keep focus on meeting the theme of each one. 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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A Poem About a Grim Situation

Posted on September 18, 2022 by Stupidity Hole

Not the happiest thing I could’ve written, but it’s what I felt most strongly writing about and so… yeah.

Needs a lot of work to read well, but it’s another thing where I feel I get the point across.

I hope you enjoy.

—

An age grew long
Its night drew close
We saw our work
And we were proud

We formed islands
We shaped terrain
We left a mark
Vast and long-lived

Once we were loud
Our shouts traveled far
What could still be heard
Fell on no ears

Our achievements stood spread
And some denied them
Though they were earned
And they were ours

When offered choice
We stayed on track
For we knew better
Than to listen

For one last time
We closed our eyes
Our night came
With one last dream

What we built
And what we grew
Lingered on
Through new days

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1157: Tired of Aggressive Indifference

Posted on September 18, 2022 by Stupidity Hole

How much have I done this week?
It appears more than I expected but also less than I hoped. It is the nature of things but I can carry on right now, but I’m just exhausted.

I’m tired. I’m really tired and I keep on going on and I’ll keep on going on, but people don’t have to make it harder. There are ways to look after people and we don’t need to screw each other over to look after ourselves. That’s a really rough sentence as it reads poorly, but I don’t care. I don’t care right now.

I’m sick and tired of watching people piss on each other to race to the bottom. I’m sick and tired of seeing all this denigrating bullshit that continues to get thrown around. I’m tired of people reveling in their own shit. I’m tired of the rampant selfishness and I’m just tired of seeing everything go to shit because people in a position to do something and change their ways, even slightly, decide it’s better to just keep attacking others, such as kids and teenagers; you know, the ones who know nothing and therefore have no right to be concerned and proactive about the future we’re leaving them.

It just amazes me as to how much we can do to make things better for ourselves and everyone else and instead we spend time tearing people down. I occasionally see it in my own generation and it’s disappointing.

There seems to be an aggressive indifference toward taking better care of things and looking after each other and I don’t know why. I don’t know why people think that the environment doesn’t matter and I don’t understand why people are so hostile toward the idea of people trying to make things better. Actually, maybe I do but I want to believe in the inherent ability to do good and make things better.

What are people concerned about? That we’ll have cleaner air? That we will have safer areas for flora and fauna? That overall health will improve? Are these things that we should worry about? Are we really so fucking selfish and useless that we’ve decided the best thing to do is destroy everything so as to have some temporary convenience?

I don’t have much else to say on this. I think I’m tapped out and I’m tired of trying to get the issues that we face across and I’m tired of people not wanting to listen. Of course I’ll continue talking about these things. I’ll keep going on about these concerns but there’s not much I can do if people want to pretend the problems away. I can’t do much about people trying to cut down kids and teenagers expressing concern about their future if people don’t want to change.

But, you know, at least the younger generations are trying to do something. Of course there are others of mine and older generations, but at least the younger are. That’s more than most.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 10:41:69

A tired rant.
I think I get my point across well enough, however.

Written at home.

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Broken Bay and More

Posted on September 17, 2022 by Stupidity Hole

Or at least a bit of Broken Bay and a lot of its surrounds.
This was taken a few weekends ago during sunset. Not much to say; there’s a nice stretch of land that seems quite large and it is sandwiched between sea and sky.

I hope you enjoy.

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Blatherskite: …And You Thought You’d Die Alone

Posted on September 16, 2022 by Stupidity Hole

This one took two listens and it helped as I fell behind early and kind of caught up but skipped a good chunk to do so. I also was able to fill out some parts a little more.

At the time I wasn’t actively aiming for anything in particular but in hindsight I think I was trying to use describing what was happening in the song as a way to describe scene. I think. Didn’t completely work but now that I’m thinking about what I wrote I’m also thinking about Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds. Should watch that again.

Blatherskite’s “…And You Thought You’d Die Alone” is from Where The Wasteland Ends.

I hope you enjoy.

—

A disembodied voice stretches out and fades just as percussion, guitar and bass play dry. The voice fades in and out, seemingly different and seemingly changing.

There is an expanse and it is open and sparse. More guitar comes in and seems to rise up from the scenery in a way that does not unfurl but still seems to grow and strike out. Somewhere among it all a calmer, more recognisable voice finds itself also stretching, having come from the previous disembodiment, though it remains buried and almost distant. Almost vague.

A sudden halt and change; bass and percussion remain drivers but there is more of a sense of rhythm. Another stringed instrument seems to hover and glow and shine and fade in a distance whilst dancing on the rhythm. There’s almost a conclusiveness and acceptance and the landscape changes. It seems to move to a night and a darkness falls over everything. Voices gather and chant and soon the bass falls away. The percussion continues its steady, almost calm yet driven striking and when it stops, one voice is left in a silence, signaling a farewell as the song ends.

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Nightmare Ocean Sings and Weeps

Posted on September 16, 2022 by Stupidity Hole

This is a photo I took last week. I went to La Perouse to take photos of birds and instead took photos of waves breaking on a rock platform. There were other photos too, such as yesterday’s one and most of them turned out alright.

With this one I played around with it a bit and got this result which I quite like. It seems more about lines and shading to me than it does about scene or event. It’s also a bit flat and vivd, I think. Maybe the contrast should’ve been stronger. Oh well.

I hope you enjoy.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1156: A Moment of Trying to get Motivated

Posted on September 16, 2022 by Stupidity Hole

Having one of those moments where I realise I need to start powering through everything as quickly as I can as I don’t have much time as I’m starting work a bit later today and so if I don’t start doing anything now, then I won’t do anything later and I’d rather do things instead of not do things, but I think I need some TEA right now so as to build onto the COFFEE I had earlier. However, time calls for work and working calls for no procrastination until the work that I get paid to do comes into play. Then that is when the procrastination will strike.

So anyway I need to take advantage of the day and I’m doing that and I am doing that by trying to type as fast as I can as I’m going to once more try and squeeze as much as I can into a short period of time. It is not necessarily the best way to go about doing things but it is a way of going about doing things and so it is what I will do. I will try and get much done in a short period of time and then after that I will start doing other things. There are things of which must be done and there are things of which must not be done and so the balance must be struck. The focus must be there and the muscles need to relax so I can go as fast as I possibly can, though I find myself slowing down a lot more than I normally would right now.

Maybe my speed has left me and it is off to go somewhere else as there is no place for it here now. Considering how much crap I’ve written over the years, that might just make sense but I will ignore it as I don’t want to face the reality that this could create.

It could also be my fingers being sore from all the bass I’ve been playing but that is not something I’m willing to entertain at this particular juncture in time.

Well, the day lies ahead and I keep on seeming to go slower but at the same time I must recognise that I might just be perceiving time in a way that makes it seem as though I am writing slower and really what is happening is that I’m writing quickly and not realising it, or something. I don’t know how these things work; I just sit here and crap on about  things that likely do not matter and sometimes that is the way that I like it.

Sometimes I don’t like it but sometimes that’s just the way things go and so I just keep throwing myself out there in the hopes that out there turns into in here and somehow all will wrap around on itself and then there will be slightly less than all.

That said, things staying as they are works.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 05:01:68

Much faster than I thought I was writing.
Bit heavy on the repetition but I think there is at least something coming through that isn’t completely bland.

Written at home.

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Light Inundation

Posted on September 15, 2022 by Stupidity Hole

Once more a photo from La Perouse.

Not sure what to say about this one. It’s easy on the eyes and I like how there’s a light amount of tidal inundation. Makes things feel more together, in a sense.

I hope you enjoy.

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Final: Critical Thresholds

Posted on September 15, 2022 by Stupidity Hole

I was a little looser when I wrote this and it helped a bit.
A slight bit of stumbling but otherwise it was a smooth writing process.

Toward the song’s end I started thinking about how there may be a bit more pressure, inevitability and horror going on but it didn’t come through too much. Maybe that’s a good thing; maybe it’s not.

Final’s “Critical Thresholds” is from The First Millionth Of A Second.

I hope you enjoy.

—

A hum fades in and carries something seemingly stretched out. A light static underneath and it all fades in and out, almost like waves gently lapping at a shoreline. The sound carry something with them but it is difficult to make out.

Something else appears in brief stretches, quiet and careful at first before coming up rather suddenly and disappearing again. It shows itself only in parts rather than a whole and it takes space where it can.

Something pulses before fading away and a low sound seems to become present before also fading away. A rumble and a foreboding seeps into a wide, open expanse whilst sounds move in and around each other. A dread seems to crack through the air but it does not shift the calmness. It does not change the shaped formlessness created by the sounds retaining a minimal spread.

Eventually all sounds away, though one lingers just before the song ends.

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