Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1422: It Takes Time

Sometimes you just wonder as to how much noise is a tolerable amount before you decide to no longer tolerate what you have been tolerating. Sometimes you wonder, and you decide that you’re just gonna live underground… in the sky! Surely the views would be better, and perhaps the warmth, and less noise too.

I look outside a small gap and I see some plants and some traffic, and I wonder if the space could be greener. Realistically, the answer is yes, but it comes down to how much people would tolerate, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that people won’t tolerate much. Such is the way of things, I suppose.

The space outside, and a lot of the city could be much greener, I think. More plants, more trees, more growth. Help give a less cold and hostile feel to the state of things, but it is only one step. More greenways would be an improvement, I think. Some streets around could definitely use them. Help get more biota in various areas. Hopefully see some creatures that haven’t been seen in some areas for a long time.

But of course it takes time, and lobbying and fighting, and education and all those things, but I think it’s a good idea. I think it’s good to pursue if we can, and we can. I know the pathway that I currently can see does not need to be anywhere near as wide as it is. It could easily use more plants, and so could some of the other side of the road too. Make the area feel friendlier. That might ruin the hipness of the space, but it still would be nice.

Perhaps less hostile development in general would be a good idea. If you were building a building, then you’d have to have a number of endemic flora planted of certain types, and they’d have to be maintained too. That’d be a good idea, I think, but it’d have to be a meaningful amount; not just one or two plants here and there, and concreting everything around them so they’ve no room.  Actually give them the space to grow and develop, and if they spread they spread, and that’s awesome because you’d be creating more shade and helping to reduce urban heat island impacts, and don’t we want people to thrive?

There’s too much hostility toward having more greenery in general, I think, and a lot of what we see feels like it’s the bare minimum. We’ve only one planet to live on and it’d be nice to see it treated with better care, and there’s so much we can do and a lot of people do do. Adding more plants, especially ones endemic to the areas in which we live, is one small step, but it’s an important one. It’s something we can fight for and do more of, and so perhaps we should.

But I’m just hoping and dreaming at the moment. Nothing changes if we don’t work.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:59:86

Fast, and I think I might’ve dragged things out a bit much when I could’ve put in more.

Written at work.

Posted in Life | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Blind Idiot God: 747

One listen.

Threw myself in, got some result. More on the descriptive side of things than I’d have liked, but it gets the song across.

Blind Idiot God’s “747” is from Cyclotron.

I hope you enjoy.

Tense, quiet, ominous. Low sounds that suddenly roar into prominence. Bass rolls, as does guitar and percussion. Menace and release, and perhaps purity. It is violent music, stressed and high-strung, but there’s also calm and peace in it all. It keeps building and soon thunders on forward.

Fury along a path, or maybe it’s not, but just free throttling along. The sounds surge and charge, and they hold as one thing before suddenly slowing down and going woozy. They try to speed up but can’t, and heave and lumber on forward, and stagger, but they keep on going until they recompose themselves.

Hurtling along once more, all as one thing. All formed into each other, and going on together. They hit that wooziness once more, and it’s almost as though they’ve been struck by something. They try to get to that charge once more, but they don’t quite.

It’s much like how the sounds started. They’re formed, blistering, but not entirely locked into that thunderous charge. They build and build and almost get there, but instead of doing so there’s one final strike of percussion and the sounds draw out as the song ends.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New Growth

A dramatic photo of a wollemi pine.
I was trying to get a good photo from a particular angle that shows some of the new growth off. Think I did alright.

I bought this particular wollemi pine last year because I wanted one.
I don’t think that’s the best reason to get a plant, but I do like its appearance, and I think the conservation efforts for this plant are a good thing, so if buying one helps, then hopefully I’ve helped.

I hope you enjoy.

Posted in Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Vertical Glass

I’ve shared two photos of Toshio Iezumi’s Rectangular Glass Column, and here’s a third. With this one, I really like how the sculpture cuts into and “disturbs” the scenery.

I think this is my favourite artwork from this year’s Sculpture by the Sea. I like how it plays with perspective and perception, and how it works with the surrounding scenery. Just interesting overall.

This is my submission into the three hundred-and-twenty-fourth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “In the Details“.

Whilst this is only one photo, I think it works as part of the other two of this sculpture that I’ve shared. Sure, the sequence could be smoother, but they’re three photos offering differing forms of the same artwork.

The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:

Tina

Patti

Ann-Christine aka Leya

John Steiner

Sofia Alves

Anne Sandler

Egídio

Ritva

Patti is curating this one. The next one is curated by Tina.

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.

Posted in Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1421: Day off the Knee

Today is gonna be a day of hard work, after yesterday was a day of nothing.
Well, I say that, but I don’t really know. I’m resting still as I’ve done something to my knee and so walking around isn’t exactly something that one could consider as being productive to getting better today. Still, there might be some.

However, instead of that, I think I might just meld into the furniture. Become one with the space as I slowly become some sort of flesh and bone residence. Sure, might not be good for getting around at a later date, but imagine the views. Anyway, what are they gonna do? Take the house away from me? Can’t take me from me; it’s all inseparable, baby!

But I do think that today is one of those days of rest, but there won’t be any. That was yesterday and I really do have a lot to get through. There’s this essay that I’ve been working on for far, far too long at this stage and I just want it done now, so I’m gonna knock that out and then go onto whatever the next thing is, which I believe is either a review or a transcription. One of the two; not sure as of which at the present moment.

The review is actually done… in draft form, and needs some serious editing, and the transcribing needs to be completed for an interview I’ll be publishing this week, and that’s pretty much the whole day. Hoping to have some time to work on some music, but I need to make sure I keep the pedal to the floor so I actually get all the things done.

There’s a light breeze outside and I’m looking forward to checking that out, but it’ll only be brief, for inside is where I will be. At my desk as per usual, but at my desk being productive for a change. Pushing on and pushing through and getting through everything at a steady rate. That’s the need and that’s what shall be done.

Shall it be done? Of course, I don’t know yet. I hope, but hope will only go so far, and going only so far does only so much so I need to actually push myself, so I will… but that’ll happen after I’m done being lazy, and laziness always comes first.

Just need to keep going and need to get through it, and not congratulate myself on small victories. There will be breaks but there will be rest, for my knee demands it, but I will not rest my hands. They shall glide and find what is wrong and fix to make something less wrong, and then I’ll go on and think about some stuff and then I’ll get up, and there will go my knee, and the lesson there will be to not try to fly so high that I go through the ceiling, but in a non-literal manner, of course. Only in the metaphorical.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:24:33

Damn knee, hurry up and get better.

Written at home.

Posted in Life | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Joyous Expression

When this was taken, the skeleton actually looked a little more unsettling, which I think had a lot to do with the sunlight. Processing somehow made it less so.

I hope you enjoy.

Posted in Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Scene Shift

Another photo of this sculpture (Toshio Iezumi’s Rectangular Glass Column), but serving a different purpose in this photo… or maybe the same purpose. I don’t know.

But it is about perception, in a sense, or appearance, or something.

I hope you enjoy.

Posted in Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Hinge

I took this as  part of a series of test photos I was sending through to someone.
Decided to stuff around with processing, see what came out with this one and you can see the result.

It’d be easy for me to point out what this is, and I might another time, but right now I won’t. I like the disconnect from what the hinge belongs to. Makes it more interesting to me.

I hope you enjoy.

 

Posted in Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ideas Captured in a Column

Here’s one of the sculptures from this year’s Sculpture by the Sea. The artist is Toshio Iezumi, and the artwork is called Rectangular Glass Column.

I like this as it plays with perception. What you’re getting is a sculpture that alters what is visible through it and what is reflected off of it, so you sort of get this impression rather than an actuality.

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.

I hope you enjoy.

Posted in Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Underworld: Techno Shinkansen

One listen.

There was a first attempt that didn’t go anywhere beyond a few words. reattempted later in the day, the words came out a lot easier. Not a great writing overall, but does give an idea of the song.

Underworld’s “Techno Shinkansen” is from Strawberry Hotel.

I hope you enjoy.

Keys play out and seem reflective, though maybe it’s more a quiet before excitement. A shimmer, then a pulse and the pulse joins in as something echoes on down to meet. The beat comes in and keeps this moment feeling more steady, more warming up. Light excitement and enthusiasm.

The shimmer returns in a moment that holds down before we get back to the main section, and it moves forward as scene flickers and blurs on by. Back to a pause of sorts, or maybe a reduction as the moment is held. The beat pumps and things continue to rush on by, and something blows and noise builds and builds and takes over, and pushes all away before the beat bursts through.

Endlessly shattering noise as the beat keeps on holding down until synth returns in full, and it’s a moment that seems to look to the future, and looks to a sense of wonder, though there’s a bit of melancholy there too.

The beat stops, and sounds shimmer and echo until the start lowering and disappear. Something that could be a voice sounds like it says something, then the song ends.

Posted in Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment