Willebrant: Sands I (New Light)

Posted on July 14, 2024 by Stupidity Hole

One listen. Not sure what I was going for here.

It’s pretty clear that I started off doing this one way and switched. Whilst I think that, overall, I got an idea of the song across well enough, I need to make use of my vocabulary a bit more.

Willebrant’s “Sands I (New Light)” is from Desert Songs.

I hope you enjoy.

—

A high hum shimmers in waves, and descends into itself. Another rises, seemingly looking to reach through a stark scenery. Almost silence for a moment. Almost; another hum appears and looks toward the uncertain and the grand.

Loops around and the sounds continue, seemingly more defined, and loop around once more, and more details come through. Imagery comes in through the bright, and the space forms and takes shape and expands as necessary. The grand is realised, and these light hums find themselves buoyed by a low, soft rumbling.

It’s still stark and seemingly arid, but the grandness of it all comes forward even more, as does the stillness. The land is still and it is rich, and bright and wonderful, and the sounds continue to carry on and reveal more of its shape, and rise to a point of intensity, lightly tap it and fade out as the song ends.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1385: A Cold day for Rambling

Posted on July 14, 2024 by Stupidity Hole

Another cold day and another one marked with the sounds of vehicles in the distance. There’s dew on the window and it’s not drying. Hopefully it soon does. I hope it does, and soon.

There’s new music to explore and more things to grab onto, and it’s a lovely day, but it’s a cold day, and if the day is cold it is not warm.

The sounds of birds in the distance. There were others earlier, and maybe there is the same amount now, but they cannot be heard.

Just realised I was listening to this music slowed down by a quarter. It was throwing me off. I’ve heard this album before so I was wondering if I’d been hearing it incorrectly this whole time. A real moment there, let me tell you.

The stillness in the morning is nearly over. Soon the vivid afternoon will arrive, and with it many things of various contexts and experiences. The afternoon will draw long and it will draw into an urban quiet, and things will continue to tick on forward. There’s no going backward at this point.

The music is nice and gentle and it flows in a way that it didn’t seem to when I first listened… or within the last two minutes, for that matter. It’s nice to hear; it’s nice to let wash over. It’s plenty pleasant and I like that about it, but it’s not offering an easy and straightforward thing. It’s penetrable… well maybe it is offering something simple. It’s not as complex as it could be and that’s fine. I don’t know.

So I wonder about this. I think about that. I hear vehicles roar and I think about how cold it is, and I enjoy this music for which I’m hearing. It’s pleasant. It’s nice. It’s melancholic, and it’s all sorts of colours. That’s good for me right now.

I think things need to calm down a good deal. They won’t, but I think they do. Everything is too much all the time and… well, it’s too much. It’s constant. There’s no release or relief, and maybe it has been this way the whole time and I’ve become more aware of it over time. I don’t know. I can only wonder and think, and sometimes I think and wonder, and I try to talk about these things but it seems that no one wants to notice. Fair, I guess; who am I to say what is right and wrong here?

To be fair though, I do believe it’s better to take notice. Perhaps if enough people do and start working toward the betterment of things, things will calm down and we can get back to living our lives, because it feels like the wheels are spinning whilst the vehicle is held aloft.

At least right now I’ve this morning, or rather what’s left of a morning. The time ticks away and it continues on, and there are things to consider, but everything keeps on going.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:34:90

Some of this is okay. It feels a bit hesitant to me, which is fine, but in this particular case I think the writing came off as stilted.

Written at home.

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Years in a Day

Posted on July 13, 2024 by Stupidity Hole

Today I drove into the mountains. Nothing new there. Do it plenty. Left a bit later than usual, but arrived where I was meant to be at the time I said I’d be there, so, you know, all good. All fine and all that stuff.

I was meeting up with two friends; one I don’t see much at all, and the other I’ve seen only two or three times in the last… ten years, roughly. It was a good time; we went walking and hung out and had breakfast and all those things, and it’s nice to see where we are now in our lives. The two had been friends for much longer than I’d known them, and I met them whilst we worked at the same place; it’s just nice to know that we’re still kicking on, and we survived.

Anyway, we hung out and at one point said our goodbyes. They were heading to meet up with another of their friends and I was heading home, and so home I headed. I left Katoomba the way I usually do, which is by some backstreets and through Leura. Avoids a bit of traffic.

The way I go also takes me past a place of which I’m familiar with, which is the house that was one of my best friend’s mum’s. Was as she passed away last year.

When I go to the mountains, or most places really, I set a playlist and try to set it with rising and falling moods, and hope that it matches the scenery and time of day and all those things. When I left Katoomba I went back a few tracks, just to see if I could be back on the highway before one track finished.

I’ve been getting into Underworld a fair bit over the past couple of months. I’ve been getting into them quite a bit. I was passing the house, or rather very close to it when Underworld’s “Best Mamgu Ever” came on, and it floored me.

There is a lot of emotion tied into that house, and perhaps its foundations are defined by those emotions and memories. That’s my friend’s story to tell; not mine, but I have my own set of memories and emotions around it too, though vastly different, albeit tinted with understanding of some of my friend’s perspective. But it was an overwhelming moment.

I was wondering then, and I can’t help but wonder now, however, how much of my feeling what I felt as I passed and “Best Mamgu Ever” played, was me trying to feel something through my friend’s experiences and emotions. Was it me trying to claim his memories as my own in that moment, or was it me feeling for my friend’s experiences? I don’t know; I don’t think I will ever be able to say for sure, but I can’t help but wonder. I do know, however, that what I felt was very real, and heavy and intense.

I helped my friend clear out the house a few times last year, because I wanted to help. I wanted him to be able to get back to living his life. In a sense he had to put time on hold to do what he felt he needed to, and maybe it wasn’t the longest time, but it was years in a day for a while. I was just there for some parts of it, and I did what I could.

When someone passes I feel that, whilst they still travel through time, in a way they stay behind. They’ve exited the train at their station, and what we have left are the memories and all that those entail.

I know what my friend went through was pretty heavy, but again, that’s his story to tell. His memories are his to express. The best I can do is try to be there for him when he wants, or needs me to be there.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1384: Peeling Eggs

Posted on July 12, 2024 by Stupidity Hole

Don’t have much time, so it’s time for me to power through a bit of writing, and maybe it will be more sensible than the last bit of writing. Don’t know yet. We’ll see. And so on and so forth. And you get the idea.

So I was sitting here, minding my own business when all of a sudden I…

Wait, I was going to rant about peeling eggs.

So don’t you hate it when you put boiled eggs in the fridge, then grab them the next day and go to peel them, and they’re too cold to peel easily? Don’t you just hate that? I hate it. Shell gets everywhere, and my heart is not able to cope with that kind of tomfoolery. It just ain’t pleasant.

You know, the shell gets everywhere and then you need to pick up the bits and pieces of the shell and some of it is on the ground, and you also gets bits of egg on your fingers and you try to clean that up too, but it’s just going everywhere and it spreads outward and you can’t stop it as you’ve already made the mess. Actually, you can stop it, but in order to do so you need to stop peeling the egg, and why would you want to do that? I wouldn’t want to do that. Would you?

It seems like a bad idea to stop what has already started, but you’re going to have to and then you need to try and eat the egg whilst it’s still partially encased by protective layering, and that ain’t fun, let me tell you. I would much rather not risk swallowing the shell of egg, and I’d much rather pretend that what I’m doing is having a gourmet meal made for four and consumed by one. However, now I need to spend time being aware of the situation I’ve gotten myself into, and I just don’t want to. Who wants to be aware? Who wants to be considerate?

This should be considered a warning for all of those who try. Don’t assume that the egg will be fine if it was boiled and put in the fridge the previous day. Do not let the deception of the shell get to you. Peel with caution and peel with deliberate movement. That protective layer will do what it can to make your life harder, and you’ll only have yourself to blame if you do not heed my warning.

Sometimes I wonder if the egg was created to deceive and fool us. We so slovenly worship its existence, and yet it continues to elude our greatest senses and perceptions of the world around us, and I don’t even know anymore. Perhaps the egg just isn’t and we all think it is, and then it all goes bad from there. Everything ends up egg-shaped and this canoodling with desire is suddenly cracking open, revealing the deception, but there’s no escape and now you’re an egg too.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:09:65

Decent speed, and something a bit closer to what I wanted this blog to be about way back when I started it, so I’m mostly happy with what I wrote here.

Written at work.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1383: Thursday Nonsense

Posted on July 11, 2024 by Stupidity Hole

And so another day crawls and slithers its way across a golden horizon of cloud and smog and haystacks that lean into themselves, or maybe they don’t, but the day does crawl and slither.

I’m tired. Such is life. Such is everything.

I’m listening to talking and all the sounds of talking, and I’m wondering about grand pianos and words and sounds, and wondering about lids going down when you’re finished. I’m wondering about other things.

Some things that are said about cooking and putting things back, and staring and leaving people struck silent, dumbfounded and wondering about broken locks.

I wonder as to how much longer the glasses I must wear in specific circumstances will keep impacting the way I see things when I am not wearing them.

Sometimes laughter carries in a stilted silence, and sometimes you’re woken up earlier than you’d like, and that might lead to odd reviews about staying somewhere on a cold day among a breeze that blows through the grass, and sometimes you want people to know where you are so people don’t get concerned.

There are times when one wonders as to what is and is not scary, and should we be afraid of things anyway? Should we wonder as to what is and is not constituting a season in hell, and should we wonder about squatters?

Sometimes the stories are so bad, and someone tries to kill someone else alive, but thankfully that doesn’t always happen. At the very least there can be entertainment among a dreary day as it keeps on crawling and slithering, and leaving a trail of destruction behind. That’s the problem, but if the donor doesn’t tell people what it is that is being donated, then that could lead to issues.

Apparently in The Netherlands there are terrestrial forms; that is to say, there is more than one terrestrial form. What if this is a lie? What if this is a gross misrepresentation of the truth? What if this delusion is… unsustainable?

There could be a longing to reveal what it is behind the veil, but who really wants to know, anyway?

Who wants to be emailed by randoms? This could be fake. There could be no verification. It could be a huge, huge thing, but there’s no telling at the end of the day as the conversation continues to flow onward and people go to met up with other people and chat, and there’s no sense of security. It gets thrown to the side as though reckless abandon is abandoning recklessly. But it doesn’t matter, so long as someone has the long hair, the illusion may exist regardless of how many are pulled down. It doesn’t change and nothing changes, but it seems like it changes.

But then there’s traveling and that needs to be considered, but who knows, really? There could be too many families to consider when it comes to all of those things, and perhaps it’s not something that should always be considered.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:34:28

I started writing and there was a conversation happening near me so I decided to let bits and pieces of that come in. Makes this bit of writing quite messy, but I do like the result.

Written at work.

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Willebrant: Sands V (By Night)

Posted on July 10, 2024 by Stupidity Hole

One listen.

I wrote this yesterday and decided to sit on it until now. Other stuff to deal with and all that. Looking over it briefly, it feels a bit meandering in parts, and I’m not sure if that is beneficial, or detrimental. That said, I think some imagery comes through, and that helps to paint an idea of how the song feels… I think.

Willebrant’s “Sands V (By Night)” is from Desert Songs.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Silence, or quiet. Perhaps just too small to be heard, but eventually danger spreads thin and thick, and runs smooth over the space. It seems to linger, fade and then give way to something else in a grand emptiness that presses down and presses in, but it’s not all danger.

There’s danger, but in these sounds drawing out and moving upon lines is also a sense of wonder. There’s a sense of quiet framed by sounds at a distance. The sky seems to become even more massive; overwhelmingly so, and the sense of danger is there, but it also seems safe.

The space is framed by the sky and stars, and around is the openness of the desert, and all its ridges and shape and form, and it spreads beyond visibility, and it’s dark and quiet, and filled with low, soft sounds, and it extends in the dark with waves held still, and it continues on as the sounds fade and the song ends.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1382: Wanting to be too Aware

Posted on July 9, 2024 by Stupidity Hole

Alright, going to see if I can get some stuff done before work… again.

It’s nice. This is all nice. It’s nicer in here than it is out there, though that’s a matter of perspective, really.

What am I going to write? I’ve got nothing. I’m trying to let go and be free, but I just can’t today. My thoughts are wanting to be too aware and I don’t want to be aware of them, but they are here and I am here and so there’s a confluence of thoughts happening right now, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Such is the world of the way, as they don’t say.

So I sit here and I wonder “Is this all I have?” as maybe it is all I have. Maybe I’ve nothing left to offer, but that’s not something I want to face. It could just be that I need to warm up and get on with the getting on, and if that’s the case, then that should happen sooner rather than later. However, there is no telling with these things some of the time.

I know that wearing glasses seems to be impacting my ability to do much of anything, so I’ll blame those… even though I’m not wearing them at the present moment.

Sometimes you just have to deal with and accept that it’s your time to bow out, but now is not the time. I know that, somewhere within me, there is something left and I need to dig it up. I need to pull it up from the well. I need to get the bucket and fish it out and pull it out with the bucket, and go from there. That’s what I need to do.

I need to just think of something else to write.

I need to let go and feel the breeze as it falls through my hair and tries to pull my hair away from my head, and I need to stand there and pretend that I’m enjoying the sensation, which I might be to be fair. However, I likely wouldn’t in this particular scenario due to that being the only way the scenario works, but I think I might.

What else is there to say? I’m warm and that’s nice. It’s pleasant being warm. Actually, I’m not warm, but I’m close enough, and that’s pleasant enough. I’m feeling nauseous, though that will pass. I feel like I don’t get enough sleep, though I seldom have. It’d be nice to get a full night of sleep for a change, and maybe that will happen soon. I don’t know; I’m yet to get there.

I think that I’ll stop this bit of writing soon. I don’t think there’s much of anything in it. I tried, but I don’t think it’s working today. There’s other stuff to tackle anyway, so I should start working on doing those things. After that, I can then get on with the day and get through it.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 05:55:87

It could’ve been better. I think it could always be better, but this could’ve been better.

Written at work.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1381: Orthopaedic Craunch

Posted on July 8, 2024 by Stupidity Hole

Monday; the day where the week begins, unless you believe the week begins on Sunday, in which case, Monday; the day where the week reaches its second day of the week.

That sentence was pretty weak, all things considered.

So anyway, I’m sitting on a chair and perhaps I am on a ship of stars, and I wonder as to how long the floating device of the given route will contour all the contractions within the context of salient actions. Perhaps the twisted nozzle will see what does not find itself comfortable on a given breeze, but the tundra calls silly words into an orthopaedic craunch machine.

Whether I wander fro and forward is immaterial when it comes to the plains of planes made of… doughnuts… but that is no reason to reject the circle as it happens upon whimsical seriousness in a suit that says “Ah, I’m a suit”. You don’t want to know about that anyway; it serves no purpose. But perhaps it doesn’t.

If the arms were to gargle the effervescent chimeric reaction that leads to the platitudes plateauing, then would you not also look upon despair and say to yourself, “Blessed”? Would you not find yourself shaking fists with the beef? And where is it anyway?

Never in the history of never has there ever been an ever, though time passes orthogonally in these situations, you must understand. You must also understand that the laptop’s keyboard is flapping about and it’s quite annoying. So long as there’s no wind or rain within this cradled shelter of comfort, I should be fine, but until that happens, I won’t know, and so I think about the liquid that sits next to me and I look at its alluring embrace as it says to be “Stan“, and I think about allowing its cool liquid state to pour into my throat and then into whatever lies beyond, and I wonder if this really is the true path, or if the oranges that await my return are going to be made and passing, or if I really am the hero of my own story.

Then again, if I weren’t so beholden to whatever it is that twists the knife into a cart, then perhaps the questions would never form. Perhaps that is what needs to be pondered, but if the leaves line the walls and the screen turns dark, is the couch really green, or is it more just an imagination of a table that stands at a distance, not used for its intended purpose, and fading into a blurriness that I’m trying to imagine, but cannot quite do so due to whichever restrictions have been placed between itself and I.

Surely there must be other ways, and surely the red and white and brown and green will remain distinct, and then I’ll see where someone’s jumper finally reaches its breaking point and transforms into a suit of skin that looks like a jumper, but there’s no telling with those marmosets.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:42:02

Fun bit of pointless writing. Just words thrown together with little sense.

Written at work.

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Hills on a Clear Day

Posted on July 7, 2024 by Stupidity Hole

Same area as seen here.

I think that I may have shot this a little too flatly. I do like that there’s a sense of space and massiveness here, and also a sort of smallness. An oldness too.

I hope you enjoy.

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Akari Kaida and Yoshino Aoki: A Light

Posted on July 7, 2024 by Stupidity Hole

One listen.

I was a bit hesitant at first. Told myself to just write and got on with it, and the below came out. I think it could be better, but overall this gets across an idea of how the song sounds and travels well enough.

Akira Kaida (海田 明里) and Yoshino Aoki’s (青木佳乃) “A Light” is from Breath of Fire III Sound Collection, the soundtrack for Breath of Fire III. My understanding is that the song (and the rest of the soundtrack) was first included on Breath of Fire Original Soundtrack Special Box, a collection of all the music (as far as I’m aware) used for the Breath of Fire Series. There is a soundtrack album called Breath of Fire III: Original Soundtrack that was released at some point around the time of Breath of Fire III‘s release but it is a selection of songs from the game rather than the whole soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Coming into view, a bright and vague hum seems to spread and fill the entirety of the space. Some light percussion rises and falls upon it, inhaling and exhaling. Woodwind flickers in and wafts along, and that hum also rises and falls in this moment.

It all stops and then starts again, and there’s something peaceful, perhaps. There’s something off about it too; there’s something tense in these sounds… something melancholic, but it all carries a tune and it permeates, and stops once more, and the song ends.

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