Tim Larkin: Air Stream

One listen and it felt quick, and I struggled a bit, but that’s okay.
Need to stop drawing out these sentences.

I heard the song last night and decided to do it, but I don’t think I was loose enough to write about it, if that makes sense.

Tim Larkin’s “Air Stream” is from Uru: Ages Beyond Myst (Original Game Soundtrack), the soundtrack for Uru: Ages Beyond Myst.

I hope you enjoy.

Guitar plays with in specific notes, and another with a twang, and they seem to play into an open space. A rattling of shuffling noise here and there, and more guitar seems to play over what is happening, and it seems to play specific notes to fill out sound.

A bit of bass here and there, and the space fills but it remains spacious. There’s a very specific and precise melody coming forward, and there’s a bit of the melancholic coming in too.

There’s some beauty here, and perhaps some wonderment, but it’s all on a small scale. Dusty, wide, expansive, empty, but filled and small, and maybe tiny too. And in all of that, these sounds slightly change and add and grow, and they stick to the pace, and something akin to woodwind drifts in and calls out. It stretches along lines, and then disappears, and the other sounds start fading and the song ends.

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

The Underwater Look

A lot of people would say that this isn’t a good photo of a bird… I think. There seems to be a consensus on what does and does not make for a good bird photo, and usually it involves seeing its face, but this is still the bird.

I hope you enjoy.

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

Coloured Curves

This is a sculpture of sorts near where I work. Took a few photos of it and two turned out well enough to share.

So here’s one of the photos, and I think it works well in terms of perspective, lighting and colour all working together. There’s a sort of flow between widening and narrowing, as well as how the light hits the colours.

I hope you enjoy.

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

The Brain Fire

I wrote this yesterday after someone I speak to said something that gave me an idea.
Recently this person has stoked a greater desire in me to write than I usually have, and so I’ve collated a bunch of ideas into a list so I know what I’m writing and I can properly prepare them rather than just rattle the ideas off and move on. It was not an intentional move on their part, and I greatly appreciate it.

Anyway, after the thing was said I churned this out. Was about thirty-four minutes of writing. It’s rough; it’s sloppy, but I got something out of it, and it was a fun bit of writing to write.

I hope you enjoy.

So once upon a time, in a land known as “Canada”, was a wee man by the name of Bevan. Bevan was your regular go-getter with certain skills and abilities that helped him make the most of his skills in the art of using words to make sentences. He meant well and did no harm intentionally.

Anyway, one day whilst going about his usual routine of making and creating, and disseminating, Bevan felt this thing in his brain. He didn’t know what it was, but it was there. Didn’t feel like a block; didn’t feel like an itch. Didn’t feel like anything, really. But it was definitely felt, but it was small. It was insignificant. It was annoying, but insignificant.

Over the days and weeks Bevan continued with his routine, and both gradually and insidiously the feeling grew. It was mostly ignored, but as it came to prominence, it became harder to do so. It seemed to itch, and that itch turned into something akin to a burn.

It grew and grew, and even though Bevan was able to get through his daily routine and his act of creating, the feeling would create more distraction, and drops in attention, and take time away. There would be time lost to this sensation. It grew and grew, and it moved from a burn, to something else.

It felt hot. It felt intense. It felt like a fire. In the brain.

It ate more time and it kept on going, and all these ideas would flow out and Bevan would capture them where he could, but he could not put them down for the fire was too much. Eventually he could no longer keep pushing past it, and so he decided to do something about  the issue. He wanted his life back, for it was the loss of his time that saw his life dispersing.

It was a particularly biting winter at the time, but Bevan had a focus that was driven by the distraction. He went outside, and looked upon an axe. “Ah, old trusty axe” Bevan said with a knowing smirk. It was there, lodged in the last stump that it had helped bring to the world. From the stump had sprouted something small, and near it was where the axe lay embedded. “Life does spring from the direst of situations”, Bevan said to no one in particular.

He then focused on the axe. He tried to stare at it as much as it he could, and he tried to keep focus. The brain fire did not react… not at first.

It was cold and it was the afternoon, and afternoon shifted to twilight, and twilight shifted to night, and nothing seemed to change, but it did. The brain fire seemed to howl inside. It started reacting to this focus on the axe, and the axe it did not like.

It howled and shrieked, and in its lashing out and feeling a greater weakening and desire to escape, the brain fire caused pain fantastic and unimaginable. However, Bevan kept on focusing. He knew he would win in the end so long as he refused to relent.

Suddenly Bevan felt his head snap upward, and a great physical manifestation poured out from his mouth and nose and ears. It heaved outward with a violence, and with it left a heaviness. Bevan had clarity again, but this clarity was a mere distraction, for the brain fire was now in front of him and preparing to strike.

By sheer luck Bevan narrowly dodged the forceful sweep, and by sheer luck he was able to start running. He had no idea how to fight such a thing, and it was between him and the axe. However, he had a thought that could lead to an idea, and so, as running, he called out “LORNE, IT’S TIME”.

You see, many years ago, when Bevan was much younger, he met a moose by the name of Lorne. Lorne was known by many names: The Mighty Under; The Singer of Trees; The Poet of the Graven; The Walker of the Horizon’s Line. However, only Bevan knew Lorne’s true name: Lorne.

How Bevan learned this was through being in the right place at the right time. He was lost in the woods, having gone on a walk to allow himself the time to think in the introspective manner. He saw the moose, and it seemed momentarily dejected. Bevan said “Same”. The moose looked up from its cigarette and said “Name’s Bevan, by the way”. From there, they came to each other’s aid where necessary, and many an adventure was had.

So when Bevan called out as the brain fire chased after him, it was no surprise that Lorne came charging and got a grip on the axe, taking the stump out with it, then gingerly tossed it to Bevan at the right angle so as to get around the brain fire. Bevan, with his eternal reach, caught the axe by the hilt. Then, turning around at just the right time, turned around and spun threw the axe at the brain fire.

The axe, rotating rapidly, passed through the brain fire as though nothing. Rendered paralytic, the last look on the brain fire’s face was one of incomprehensible feeling. Lorne came charging toward Bevan as the brain fire started rapidly expanding. Bevan hopped on and Lorne moved faster than a peregrine falcon.

They kept going, but the brain fire caught up… almost. Suddenly it stopped expanding, and something reacted within it and it exploded with grand magnificence and danger. In its wake, dying flames and ruin and wreckage, but safety. However, Bevan and Lorne kept going. They had won this battle, but what it signified was a war, and one that only they could fight, and so they charged off into the dark of the night, away from the dying flames and toward their destiny.

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

Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1413: Only so many hours

There are only so many hours and in those hours there are only so many interactions. The combinations may be close to unlimited, or perhaps they are unlimited, but there are only so many.

You think about these things and you think about how much you can get done, but there are never enough hours to do it all, but still, you try. You try with what you can and you get some stuff done, and maybe you’ll feel alright with it at the end of the day. Maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll stress yourself out, thinking you hadn’t done enough, but you should keep on trying where you can anyway. You also should try and get some rest. Rest is important; do not devalue the need for rest. Avoiding it when it creeps up is a bad idea.

But there are only so many hours, and you keep on trying. You keep on getting done what you can get done, and you keep going until there’s little else to do, and then you do some more anyway. You pile it all on, but it becomes so much. It becomes unbearable, but that’s why you have to keep on going and keep on trying.

Actually you have to keep going and keep trying because there’s so much life to live, and it’s never enough too. Time is limited, but we should definitely not spend every bit of it doing something. There is a virtue in doing nothing, and you’ve got to be willing to embrace that doing nothing sometimes. If you don’t, then… well, you’ve only got the path you choose to take to take.

Really that sums up the whole thing. There’s so many options in life, and at the end of it, can we really say how much of it was wasted? Sure, I know I wish I was more productive when I was a younger person than I am now, but I’m still doing stuff now and I was then. I don’t necessarily regret wasting my time; just wish I wasted less of it, but that’s been done and that time isn’t coming back so I’ve just got to keep on going and make the most of what I have now where I can and where I feel I am able to do so, and then keep going from there,

We’ve so much to see and experience, and we cut it off with our twenties far too often. Life keeps going beyond that. You likely have a good number of years to live after you reach thirty. Why assume that’s where it all ends?

Perhaps we put too much pressure on ourselves to have everything made and ready to go, and perhaps that pressure is borne of societal advertising of what is and is not achievable. Too many people who get some sort of massive success before thirty and even forty are advertised to us as the ideal. Most people don’t work stuff out until they’re older.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:02:03

Struggled around the middle. I think the rest of this is decent.

Written at home.

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

Waiting Under the Clouds

Here’s a photo of my partner I took yesterday.
She was waiting for me to finish taking some photos of waves and so she had a slight rest.
I took this photo as I thought the view made for a good one. Just a person under the clouds sitting among the rocks.

This is my submission into the three hundred-and-nineteenth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Setting a Mood“.

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

Leya is curating this one. The next one is curated by Sofia.

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.

Posted in Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Changing Road

Not much to say about this photo. It’s just a road one and it’s one where I like the visible change in material, as well as the sense of distance.

I hope you enjoy.

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

Masashi Hamauzu: March of the Dreadnoughts

One listen.

Threw myself in, had to play catch up for a bit and got there in the end. Not great, but parts of the song are covered well enough.

Masashi Hamauzu’s (浜渦 正志) “March of the Dreadnoughts” (“ドレッドノート大爆進!”) is from Final Fantasy XIII‘s soundtrack, Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy.

Jaunty strings and percussion strike out brightly. Dims as keys and more percussion comes in, then brightens once more. The sounds then expand, sweep across and move through everything, moving around each other and spreading further before a quick military-type percussive strike plays out.

There’s a return to the first section, and it’s a bit livelier. That newer percussion continues, and it drives underneath, and everything sweeps once more.

A variation on the beginning. A little quieter, strings are more prominent, but it builds and stays firm and rigid, before once more spreading out into a smoothness; a flow that continues on, and it pushes the sweeping and dramatic, and it looks into the serious, but there remains some fun.

The sounds then fade, and the song ends.

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

Land to Float

Here’s a goose and it looks odd due to the moment of capture, or something.
Not the best photo; not the worst, but I’m pretty happy with this one as it feels natural and feels odd at the same time.

This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s Monochrome Madness for this week. For this one Leanne has chosen a theme, and the theme is “Reflections“.

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 , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1412: Some Thoughts Bunched Together

A lot of things to do today. Going to be a busy one, but a busy one is a good one.

Need to write a rebuttal that won’t be a rebuttal. Need to fight time and day, and need to get on with the getting on and listen to some less Pearl Jam. Maybe I need to listen to more Pearl Jam.

Anyway, I think that things are in order and I’ll get through the day, and I think that if I start starting on things I’ll find my way toward the end of it all, and that would be pretty cool. That would be good.

Thinking about what things mean and what things don’t mean, and thinking about how I can go about using my words to write something that means something. Looking for meaning in the words that I use, and looking for narrative to construct bridges that cross all things and make things neat.

Characters in games often lack depth and rather it is suggested. In some games this is more obvious than others, of course. Often characters aren’t written as characters, but rather representatives of personalities and moods and emotions and concepts, and it’s probably due to the difficulty of writing someone as complex, because you only have so much time and money when it comes to writing characters for games. At the same time, you have to wonder if there can’t be more effort.

It often feels like the quality of writing improves, but not the exploration of character, if that makes sense.

Look, what I’m doing right now is throwing a bunch of thoughts together and I’ll flesh them out later. I just need to get it all down now as if I don’t, then I’ll forget and it’ll float on away, and that’s it. I need to make sure these are down because, perhaps it’s not that I want to make meaning, but rather I want to explore meaning. Does that make sense? I hope it does. It seems to, but I’m not entirely sure. I’m not entirely certain.

We try to get things forward where we can, and we try to looking for meaning and attach to things as time flows forward, and maybe we miss the mark a lot. But is that so bad? Where does personal meaning get invalidated? What is the cutoff point? I don’t know, and I wouldn’t claim to know either. I don’t think I can quantify something so easily, and I don’t know if I’d want to invalidate people’s personal views on things. At the same time, I do think there is often a foundational meaning to some things, and that shouldn’t be ignored.

Where am I going with this? This is too thoughtful for this hour of the morning. I just want to keep going with scattered crap that means nothing at the end of the day, and I don’t want to be exploring exploration. I just want to get my mess and silliness on.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:53:83

Another bit of a mess, but this one is okay. I’m not fussed with how this turned out as some of it is a set of building blocks, so to speak.

Written at work.

Posted in Life | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment