Erosion of the Rock

I took this photo at some point last year and didn’t really know what to do with it.
I feel like I could’ve done a better job and it didn’t feel as strong as I wanted it to be, and maybe that’s okay. It’s just showing some eroded rock (sandstone I believe) and it does a decent enough job of that.

This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. This one is hosted by Dawn of The Day After, and the theme is “Rocks“.

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.

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Grace Jones: Operattack

One listen.

I’ve wanted to cover this song for a bit but haven’t gotten around to it. I think it’s a great bit of music that decontextualises voice in an interesting way. Didn’t get that across though; I stuck to just trying to describe what I was hearing and that’s a bit of a shame.

Grace Jones’ “Operattack” is from Slave to the Rhythm.

I hope you enjoy.

Cascading layers of voice descend and seemingly crash into deepness. They repeat and they cascade and crash and it is rhythmically, harmoniously cacophonous. After these loops a cut seems to echo and speed up, various phrases come and go, and repeat, and the cut returns and repeats.

More voice calls out and it is a void in which they call, and they create a space and paint an image and a frame and context, and that cut shifts pitch and speeds past, and it repeats and changes whilst remaining static.

The cascading returns, though seemingly disjointed, and it rushes and crashes and seemingly disintegrates into something else as it distorts and lowers, and it stops and the song ends.

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Iron Cove Boats

Just some boats I saw the other day. Decided to take a photo.

The lighting in the preview was weird but it didn’t properly come through when I was processing, so instead I made this a bit more gloomy which is more accurate to how the day was at that particular time.

I hope you enjoy.

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Peter Gabriel: The Drop

One listen where I threw myself into the song.
I think there’s a transition here that’s not as smooth as I’d like. However, it is one that I appreciate. A lot of this just describes the song, but toward the end I started prying a little deeper and I like that I was able to get there, even if it was brief.

Peter Gabriel’s “The Drop” is from UP.

I hope you enjoy.

Keys gently played, up in the higher spaces, seemingly slowly descending, ringing out into space. Echoing, or rather drawing out, playing with silence. From a lower position they then briefly rise whilst vocals gradually creep into clarity. The space remains, though diminished.

Seemingly fragile, the vocals continue on, moving on top of the keys, and seemingly the melody starts linking with itself more, but then the vocals disappear and there’s some space and the keys are there, alone.

The keys begin to fill again and it’s not long before the vocals return, clear, but quiet. Fragile still. Old and worn, and soft, and fragile, and maybe reminiscing. Maybe sinking into a melancholy through some sort of realisation that within the banal was the fantastic.

Not long after all sound stops and the song ends.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1346: Zoned Out

Completely zoned out when I’m meant to be getting stuff done. That’s okay.

I don’t know where I zoned into, however. All I know is that I was here, but I wasn’t present as I was present elsewhere, and now I’m here. I’m present once more.

Where was that place? What was that place? Was it even a place, or more just a memory on repeat? Why do I even ask these questions?

Now I need to stretch and I’m trying, but there’s a lot to stretch here and I’ve not much in the realm of range stretching.

But anyway, I’m listening to music that’s probably not, but sounds hopeful, and it gives me a sense of determination. It gives me a sense of drive and I need to keep making use of that if I am to get anywhere. Sometimes it feels like working out, though I imagine working out produces results that are more noticeable much sooner than trying to seek some sort of success that pulls one out from being quite close to poverty. But who knows.

So I guess I wanted to know what it was that I zoned into. I want to know that if I zone out, I’ll be able to get back there, but there is no telling. I don’t know how I’d go about it, to be honest, and maybe there’s some fear in there. What if it was something incredibly pleasant?

What if I’m missing out on where I am meant to be, and I can’t get back because I didn’t step fully through before? Would rather be there than here, to be honest. Then again, what if it was worse? What if it was a nightmarish hellscape that was far beyond me? What if I end up there by mistake? What if I try to zone into that and then I realise and there’s no going back?

I don’t know what it is that I should do from here. Sitting down and doing very little has served me well for years and I could just do that again, but there is something out there that needs exploring and I can’t sit idly by when the possibility of possibility is so close at hand. I should do what I can… maybe.

Maybe I should go for a walk and go outside. That too is a viable option. Get started on the day and start doing things and all that stuff and… yeah. Experience some things and then get on with the getting on and all that razzmatazz. And then I can think about what it is that I want to do and then start the zoning.

I could zone out and into some other planet, or maybe a nearby shop that sells bagels. I could go for a bagel right now. Wish I had the money to do so. Just go and get a bagel with cream cheese and sit and eat it, or maybe walk and eat. That’d be nice.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:31:38

Bit faster. Bit of a mess with something running through it all, but a bit faster.

Written at home.

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A Voice in Shadow

Another photo of a member from the band Sorry.

When I was photographing the band I was trying to get a lot of moody shots, and this one turned out well. There are some parts of it I wish were better, but it feels moody to me, so I think it works.

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

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

Donna

Egídio

Ritva

Donna is curating this one. Next week Ritva is curating.

I recommend participating in the challenges as they provide a fun way to interpret theme. If not participating, then at least you should still check out what others of the Lens-Artists community are submitting.

I hope you enjoy.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1345: Staying Upright and Staying Determined

Right now staying upright remains a challenge, and some days are better and some days are worse. Covid may be “done”, but its grasp lingers. I work to get better and improve, but a lot of it falls on hope and so I need to keep on hoping and resting where I can, and trying to stay healthy where I can and all that stuff.

I’m sitting here and I need to work a job I’m now afraid of working, and I need to keep on going until something better comes along, and I think I can do it, but I’m not entirely sure. I need to push through the doubt and the self-defeat and l keep applying and keep going, and maybe I’ll get there in the end. Maybe I’ll succeed.

I know I won’t if I don’t keep on trying though, and I’d much rather deal with the feeling of hopelessness and the despair and the gradual, yet ongoing chipping away at my self-worth than stay in a job that is legitimately unhealthy for me to stay in due to the work environment.

Be a bit easier to hunt for work if I wasn’t still ill, but I have to keep on pushing through and keep on applying. I’ll get there in the end. I hope.

Trying to stay active is hard too, but it’s working somewhat. I’m definitely not as healthy as I should be at a base, however. The amount of sweat my body is producing in cooler weather at a standard average walk speed is pretty heavy, but I’m getting there. I’m pushing on and I’ll get there eventually. Just need to keep working at it. Just need to keep on pushing on and work through it all one day at a time.

There’s a lot of luck in success, and being determined and continuing to push on helps mitigate that luck, but it doesn’t eliminate that, and I think a lot of people forget that. I think that a lot of people forget that there are plenty of people who remain determined and keep pushing forward, and have all the right skills and do all the right things, and are excellent at what they do, and they don’t get anywhere. To be clear, I’m not claiming I’m anything other than determined here; it’s something to think about, and it’s something I’m going to think about when (if) I eventually get into a better job.

Who didn’t get what I applied for? Were there people better for the job? What’s going to happen to them? I imagine a lot of them will just keep on searching, but it’s something to think about. Not to the extent that it impacts our ability to do whatever it is that we’ve been taken on board to do, but rather just something that we should think about more often as we don’t consider how often we got lucky and got a job over someone who was far more qualified.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 08:33:91

Not as fast as I’d hoped and I’m not sure if the slower speed was beneficial.
Still, I like the shift this makes somewhere around the midpoint.

Written at home.

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Whirring Light

How I was able to get this pattern is interesting, though maybe it’s not.
I will say it was much more simple than it appears… or was it?

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.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1344: Afraid of Horses

Alright let’s start.

Left too many spaces so I removed them and I don’t know why I did that anyway. I think it just might be the act of not thinking, or something. Am I not thinking? Yes. Should I be thinking? Yes. Will I think? Yes. However, no.

So yesterday that I learned that horses have, at times, eaten people, and I don’t know what to do with this information. I don’t know if I now have to worry about horses and their existence. I don’t know if there are horses around the corner, and I am afraid. Why was I never advised this? Am I to now never go to Antarctica, and instead dig a little hole in which I can lie and hide in?

Do I need to get into some sort of counter-offensive so as to make sure that the horses are not coming for me? Do I run? Do I have to worry about driving away from a series of horses only to see them line up with each other so as to increase their horse power and then somehow catch up to whichever locomotive vehicle I happen to be moving in?

I don’t know what to do and I am terrified. As far as I can see, there are no horses outside of my window, but perhaps they are disguised as the neighbour’s house. I haven’t seen them in a while, now that I think about it. How do I know that they themselves have not succumbed to this unrelenting force of consumption?

It’s all over and from the skies rains the hail and torment of those whose hooves shine firmest, and they charge along, gnashing their teeth and pounding the sky with intent and malice, and all I can do is bear witness and hope for the best. All I can do is very little. I don’t know if I can document this grand atrocity of heinous acts against the name of God. Perhaps we were merely raised to be cattle for the slaughter.

I don’t know what else I can say. I don’t know how to go about anything. I don’t even know if the air I breathe is actually air, or just horses in rather small form. Can I even be sure that I am not a constituent of horses in the form of one person who runs this silly blog?

Perhaps this is how it has always been and everything is horses, all the time, or at least it wasn’t up until a point, and that point was when a horse ate someone in Antarctica for the first time, and it just progressed from there. I don’t know and I don’t want to profess to know, but I do know that I cannot tolerate this dangerous planet anymore and so therefore I need to head somewhere else. I need to get to a place where there are no horses, and I’ll have to do one magnificent leap to get there.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:20:12

Just a fun thing I banged out earlier today.
Not as fast as I would have liked, but I think that was more helpful here.

Written at home.

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Nobuo Uematsu: Light of Destiny

One listen.

This song sounds simple and I guess it is, but it’s also one you’d have to pay close attention to if you were going to play it faithfully. But I digress.

Just threw myself in. There were some pauses, but overall it was an easy write to do. Not sure if that was good for the writing, but I’m not overly fussed here.

I think I described the song up to a point. I have a feeling that this is not representative of where the song is used; I’m actually fairly certain it isn’t, but I still think I got something across.

Nobuo Uematsu’s (植松 伸夫) “Light of Destiny” (“召喚されし者”) is from Final Fantasy IX: Original Soundtrack the soundtrack for Final Fantasy IX.

I hope you enjoy.

A rising and falling, almost odd sounding, and shifting, and continues on its loop, and almost detached whilst firmly there. Anchoring and odd. Off. Percussion echoes metallic into the space, picking precise notes to create a flow almost otherworldly. It too is anchoring. It draws in as it picks its moments, playing out, moving out, and then disappears.

The rising and falling continues on. It continues and lets the moment sink in, and then that percussion returns. It seems gentle and perhaps in a way welcoming. Comforting. However, it still feels off. It feels eerie, and it continues onward, picking its moments and letting itself echo off before disappearing once more.

What remains gradually fades out, and the song ends.

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