Elated

Posted on January 17, 2021 by Stupidity Hole

Here’s a photo of Fleshgod Apocalypse’s Francesco Ferrini caught in a moment of elation.

I think this is a pleasantly joyous photo.

Here are three other shots from the gig.
As this was taken for Culture Eater, the gallery can be found here. Also, a review can be found here.

This is my submission into the one hundred-and-thirty-first Lens-Artists Photo Challenge.

The theme for this one is “Emotions“.

The challenge is hosted by four people and cycles weekly:

Week 1 – Patti

Week 2 – Ann-Christine aka Leya

Week 3 – Amy

Week 4 – Tina

This week’s challenge is curated by Patti. The next one will be curated by Leya.

The challenges are pretty fun and there’s a lot of room for interpretation that doesn’t get in the way of enjoyment. If you’re into photography, then I suggest participating, or at the least checking out what other people are submitting.

I hope you enjoy.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 864: Some Relation

Posted on January 17, 2021 by Stupidity Hole

Right now I am sitting here and feeling not well, but I am pushing through as I need to do things. However, this is not something I would recommend doing. It is much better that I rest but I’m not going to. I’m going to be stubborn and will continue doing the thing that I do which is the thing that I do, so I’m going to do it as it needs to be done.

Actually, it does not need to be done but I’m going to do it anyway as it is something that I do and doing the thing that I do is something that I do and therefore I will do it, though I still don’t recommend doing what I am doing as it is far better to look after yourself than it is to push through feeling not well in order to do things that can be done another day, and there are plenty of days in which these things can be done, but it just wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t do the thing that I keep on doing and so I continue in the pursuit of things that I shall not discuss as they don’t fit in with the thing that I am doing, especially as I am in the process of doing it which is currently happening right now, though of course this will be read after the thing has happened and so therefore it is not happening except for whilst it is happening which happens to be right now even though it is being read after it has happened.

Now, I think I know where I am going with all of this and all of that, but what this is and what this is not is yet to be determined, so therefore at the moment this is this and that is that and this will become that through the process of transition from the present to the past even though it is past read in the present and only read in the present rather than the past, though of course once it is read in the present it then falls into the past of which it was once read and therefore it was read in the past, but is not read in the past and can be read again but is this really something you will read in the present or in the future?

I think I’ve illustrated something here, but that something is certainly a thing of varying quality, some of which are neither here nor there, but therein lies the search for a place known as “here”, wherever that “here” may be, which just so happens to be over there but is no longer there when you’re there as then it is here and where you were pr3eviously here becomes there until you go back there again, in which case you are once more here and not there as where you once were becomes there once more when you’re here.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 05:42:95

Rather mediocre, but I’m quite happy with the result.

Written at home.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 863: The Hidden Meaning is There is no Hidden Meaning

Posted on January 16, 2021 by Stupidity Hole

This bit of writing needs a little bit of an accelerated pace behind it so that I can get it done sooner rather than later. That is not to say that I am aiming for under a time such as, say, four minutes, but I would rather be done sooner rather than later as I still have things that I need to do that I need to get out of the way and then get back to after this bit of writing. Therefore, I need to get this done soon, but so long as it does not take more than ten minutes, then that is a sort of victory, I guess.

That said, I don’t know as to what it is that I am looking to cover and perhaps I have waited a little too long to get started on the doing of the writing. Realistically, I could have done this much earlier on in the day, but that did not happen and so here we are. I am doing this now and pushing other things aside so I can get this done and then I will have a little bit more pressure on my shoulders that was not necessary to have. I’ve brought this upon myself and as such I will accept the responsibility of my lack of action so that I can move on and get on with it and all of that other stuff that I need to say to show that I have grown as a person, or something.

Now I can’t remember as to where I was going with this, but I’m sure that there is some sort of hidden meaning through the inertia of accelerating one’s reading pace to be able to work out what it is that is going on as I have absolutely no idea and I don’t think that stating such a thing is necessarily a productive endeavour, so I don’t know where I’m going with this particular sentence, but I am sure that there is something in it that reveals it all and therefore you will have a better idea about all of this than I will, which may or may not be a good thing. It depends on your perspective and how you twist it all about really. Don’t start twisting just yet, however. There are other things at hand that need to be trampled underfoot before we can really take off into the lands of meaningless meaning and intent that seemingly leads nowhere but provides everything necessary.

Well, that is what I hope but really, there’s nothing to this bit of writing other than a series of words put together to form sentences. Many of them use letters. Though perhaps it is not many but all, but that is something I do not feel like clarifying at the moment as I don’t know why, but let us just pretend that I have a valid form of reasoning that explains it all and leaves everyone satisfied in their understanding.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 04:56:25

Good speed but not good writing.

Written at home.

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Masato Kouda: Monster Hunter

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Stupidity Hole

I think with this bit of writing I was trying to find a balance of describing imagery and feeling, and what the instrumentation was doing. It’s all quite surface and imbalanced, I think. That said, I do think that some of the imagery is as strong as I could make it over two listens given my fatigued state.

Masato Kouda’s (甲田 雅人) “Monster Hunter” is also known as “Proof of a Hero”. It’s a composition with quite a few variants now, but the one I wrote about is from the first Monster Hunter and found on the albums Monster Hunter Soundtrack Book and Monster Hunter Hunting Music Collection ~ 3rd Anniversary Commemorative Best Track ~.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Brass rises, sounding awakening to an extent, but before it all becomes bombast the music brings in its elements and goes down to the valley, showing rivers, greenery, vibrant life. It all appears idyllic, and perhaps it is. There is a sense of peace and wonder that permeates the flowing of the scenery.

There is a pause, and some wind instruments make an announcement. Something disturbing the atmosphere. The music shifts and the raising of tension and danger become prominent. Percussion beats away as sounds build on each other. The danger increases in prominence, brass sounds out, more percussion and then it all pulls back for another moment. A sort of pause.

A quiet call of sorts as the music builds up once more. Soft, then the striking announcement of pushing back. The chance to fight off the danger is there and it is being taken. The tides have turned.

Another brief pause and a rumble. Now the final moment is at hand. A dance in this battle is found. Hope and desire may be realised and victory may be at hand, but before that final moment the song’s last notes ring out and it comes to an end.

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Underneath an Overcast Sunset

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Stupidity Hole

Another sunset shot with dramatic clouds cover.

I think the space in the photo works well as it helps the colour permeate, but I think the small amount of objects in the photo help to draw attention away from the sunset which in turn works better for the photo. I imagine it wouldn’t be an issue if this was only the sky, but I feel that having the context of these objects does the aforementioned whilst also keeping the sunset in mind.

I do like the sky not being too vivid, as well as details in the objects being visible. I think that helps make this feel more transitionary.

Kind of a side note: I’ve looked at this picture on three different screens. The main one I’m looking at it on right now has the colour oversaturated and the objects much more in silhouette, whereas the screen I processed the image on has it at all the levels for which my description applies.

The third screen was displaying the image closer to how it appears on the original screen.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 862: Denying Responsibility

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Stupidity Hole

Very tired I am right now, and whose fault is that? I refuse to accept responsibility. It is not my fault that I am tired, but everyone else’s. They should have known better.

On a side note, it is interesting as to how my ability to type sharply declines in relation to my being tired, although it probably isn’t, but I find it to be interesting, so there you go.

So anyway, back to denying all responsibility for my lack of sleep. I blame everyone else. It is not my fault. It is everyone else’s fault. You all should have known better, and yet you all let this happen. This is what you get for my lack of sleep. I can’t believe that you didn’t stop me from getting more sleep. This is rather disappointing, to say the least. I don’t know what to do with you all now that this has happened.

I should try and get more sleep, but the thing is I soon have to work and that requires me to be awake. However, I am not going to be operating at full functionality and as such my ability to do that which I need to do in order to earn money is going to be compromised. I cannot accept that due to my choosing to get to sleep later rather than sooner is my responsibility when I am surrounded by enablers of this irresponsible and, quite frankly reckless behaviour.

What am I to do then? How am I meant to go on about my day and get to the end of it when I am surrounded by those that refuse to accept the burden of my actions? This is a problem I find myself grappling with and I don’t know how to proceed.

On one hand I should continue to admonish you all for this, and I probably will. It is something that needs to be done so that you all feel the full extent of the danger of your actions (or lack thereof) and therefore hopefully never repeat the same mistake in somehow enabling me and putting me in a position where I had no choice, because I had no choice in the matter. My hand was forced after your cards were dealt and there is no way I could back out. There were no second or third choices. Where was I to go? What was I to do?

Sure, I could have refused, but that would have left me going in the same direction regardless and I would have ended up losing sleep, for the trap of enabling was set and there was no escaping from it, and so I could not get out of it no matter how I tried. Not my fault; not my responsibility, but now I have to clean up the mess.

On the other hand, I could always accept responsibility for my actions and suffer the consequences, but I won’t as I vehemently refuse to do such a thing.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:10:70

This is only partially fictional. I am quite deprived of enough sleep at the moment so I used that as a springboard to write this and… yeah.

Written at home.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 861: Need to Water Plants

Posted on January 14, 2021 by Stupidity Hole

Do I even know as to what I am doing at the moment?

I’ve been awake for more than six hours and now it is that I choose to get started on everything. Clearly this morning was spent relaxing a lot more than perhaps I should have, but I’ll survive, or something.

Preparing for the sweat to come along and hit me hard. It is getting hot outside and I need to do things before the end of the day and even before the end of the hour. I don’t want to sweat profusely. What I really should do is stop writing this and take care of that which is outside. What is outside is plants and plants need watering to survive and all that. Not all plants, but these plants do. Do I dare doom them to a fate of heat without the sustenance?

I dare not.

So soon (and by soon I mean after this writing) I shall tackle the act of watering the plants so that they may remain sustained another day. Hopefully this leaves them not longing for sustenance for too long, or at all.

So anyway, I got distracted for a moment and now I’m back in the zone and I need to do things but this is what I am doing at the moment and right now I’m not looking at the keyboard, but then I just looked and now I’m looking again and I don’t know as to why I felt the need to write that, but I did. There you go. Some of my life has filtered into this bit of writing and now it is out there and I don’t know as to what else there is to say about the situation, really.

I think there were some other things that I wanted to say, but I’ve got some watering to do so I need to get this wrapped up sooner rather than later so I can do the watering. Well, really what I should do is stop writing and attend to the plants, but I’m on a loop of sorts and so I’m going to finish this off first as it won’t take up too much more time anyway, so there. There you go. You get this and you get some other stuff a bit later, but this first. This is the first thing and so then there will be some other things later.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, to be honest, so maybe I should really think more about closing this all off and going to water the plants, but I keep on getting distracted and so… No, I really need to stop going on those tangents and water the plants.

Alright; this is me saying I’m going to go water the plants and then they will be watered and I shall pat myself on the back for being a little bit more responsible than had I watered a few more hours into this warm day.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 04:46:91

This reads worse than my usual writing.
I got “stuck” during the writing, so to speak.

Written at home.

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Approaching Flight

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Stupidity Hole

I feel as though this is slightly on the subtle side, though admittedly I may be giving myself too much credit there. Besides, this capture had a lot more to do with luck than skill.

I like the slight implication of approaching motion, as well as how the feathers appear due to the monochromatic processing.

This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week.
I suggest checking out Leanne’s photography, as well as checking out what other people submit.

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

I hope you enjoy.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 105: Aiming for Under Nine Minutes Again

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Stupidity Hole

Alright, so once more I am attempting this thing. Very short amount of time since the last attempt but that’s okay. It’s not about creating content at the moment so much as it is my being on a mission to try and succeed and get to the target that I want to get to, which is the target of under nine minutes. Maybe I will make it today. I have hopes. They are not high, but they are present and they are the hopes of which I hope to satisfy in the hope of reaching the target of under nine minutes.

Of course, in order to do this I need to make sure that my posture remains good and also that my position of the hands over the keyboard remains unfailing. It might just fail, but that is on me rather than anything else. Need to remember not to slouch. Need to remember to maintain posture and keep on going and just power on and all of that other stuff that I need to remember. Need to also stay focused and not let my mind wander.

If I can pull this off today, then I think I shall rest for a little bit of time. That amount of rest will be determined by my need to do other things, so therefore there likely will not be much, if any rest at all. That is a shame, but there are worse things out there so I think I’ll manage.

It is warm in here which is not helping. That is a distraction that I don’t think I can afford to entertain, but it is one that is being entertained at the moment and I don’t want to. I just want to continue on with what I an doing and hope for the best and keep on powering on and not worry about the fact that soon I will start sweating profusely which will make me feel uncomfortable and therefore take my mind off what it is that I am trying to do, which is something that I do not want to do. I just want to keep on powering on nd keep on driving forward and hope that somehow I get to the end without any worries.

Maybe I can get to under eight minutes, but that is not a target for today. If it does happen, of course I’ll be surprised but also maybe I was expecting it and therefore waive my right to the art of surprise and therefore need to carry on with whatever it is that I am doing that does not involve this, which is working the day away so that I get tot he end of it and can thusly proclaim how tired I feel and then turn into a pile of goop. Some sort of object that once had some sort of shape but is now amorphous, which still gives it a shape somehow as despite the one structure disintegrating, the skin keeps it all together and therefore I still l have  shape that is recognisable as something but somehow it still all is amorphous and all for that other stuff and now I shall move toward something else so that I don’t stick to this bit of thought for so long as there are other things out there that need conquering and I am not the person to do so, which is a surprise of sorts, I guess.

Now that I think about it, that really is a bit of a surprise as I was trying to boost myself up to gargantuan proportions and now I have managed to cut myself down in size. This is not what I wanted to do, but now I have and now I don’t know what to do from here on out. I guess the target is to finish this sooner rather than later, but what else am I meant to do if I cannot boost my ego far beyond what is reasonable? Where do I go from here? I feel as though I am at a loss and I don’t know as to what I can do about it. Maybe I can write my way out of this situation, but that of course is a long stretch and really, I’m just hoping for the best when the best has already come along.

The illusion is shattered and I am now in a desultory state that I cannot comprehend as I was forced to experience something that is completely and utterly alien to my ability to think far greater than anything else on the planet, and now I am aware that the veil has dropped and I am just a person, sitting here banging away om a keyboard and doing little else other than creating crab that needs to be thrown into the cosmos of crabs. That is a long throw but maybe I can do that. Maybe I can discard all of this and then become something else. Maybe I can build up to what it is that I thought I was. That is a long stretch of course, but it is possible so long as I keep on trying to get there and in the end if I do it, then maybe, just maybe I am what I think I was, but of course there needs to be the suffering of the personhood and the dismaying of the ego in order to get there.

But of course that is all a pipe dream of sorts and what is really going on is that I’ve gone on some sort of tangent and am now trying to land back on the ground before I float away too far and lose control of this whole thing which is nearing its end anyway. Soon I will get there, but I just need to keep on pushing on and so long as I keep on doing that, I will work out how to end this, right words used and all.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 08:46:39

There were ups and there were downs.
Laughter was heard and tears were shed, but at the end I managed to get this done in under nine minutes and at the same time produce something not worth reading.

Written at home.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 860: Rooted in Memory and Sound

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Stupidity Hole

Early(ish) in the morning and the sound of a cricket doing its cricket sound is made somewhere of in a close distance as it is audible to my ears and I can hear it as it is happening at this present moment.

It pluses and keeps going and does not stop and it is not the most enjoyable of things at this particular hour as, on a personal level, I’d much prefer the overwhelming drone of cicadas as that is something I find significantly more pleasing to hear than the sound of a lone cricket playing its cricket song in order to do something. That could be anything, though I’m sure there is a specific purpose behind what the cricket is doing at this particular moment and I am sure that it has nothing to do with creating some sort of annoyance that I will end up finding annoying.

Gradually more bird sounds take up some space and the cricket fades away. It stops, starts again, though in a lower pitch and seemingly a little more distant than before. Maybe it is a different cricket. Could be for all I know. That lower pitch does not last long and eventually there is no more sound of crickets. Instead the birds keep going, all of varying distances and lengths and sounds and it gives an idea of the suggestion of location from what I can hear outside my window.

All I can see out there is a fence and the neighbour’s roof of their car port. A little bit of the outside wall of the house too. If I move in just the right way, I can also see a bit of sky, but there’s not much of anything else to see. All the sounds I hear are suggestions and so I find myself spending a lot of time trying to put sound to bird, though of course that isn’t through active attempts, but just rather my mind trying to paint a picture of what it is that is outside based on what I do and do not know of the outside world from this particular vantage point. Sure, I can piece some of it together from my time in the back and front yards, but from this particular position it all takes on a different shape and meaning and so I am left guessing more than I am knowing.

This does lead to some creative imagery, what with a lot of it being rooted in memory and sound, but none of it quite matches the reality of what is there and that is fine. It’s a different perspective on what is there, though of course with greater understanding of what is and is not there, the created image becomes a little clearer and perhaps a little more true to life.

At the moment the morning bird sounds continue, though they too are spacing out a little. As they fade the image I create will grow a little in its ambiguity.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:35:31

A little faster than yesterday.

This started off slow. When I got to writing what I can see out of my window the pace picked up and I think the rest of the writing came easily.

Written at home.

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