I don’t actually write in the same place I live in all too often. During the late-night updates, sure, when there’s nowhere else to go, but I find it can be a little stifling to sit in the same spot every time I need to get words on a page. In fact, I’m writing these words from one of my preferred spots on campus. It’s well-lit, not too many people use it, and you can stay there as long as you want so long as you don’t bother anybody.
But I’ve also gone back and forth on starting a project involving some of the nearby parks, so I’ve been going there on occasion. And the library also works for a simple change of scenery. Or some other spots around town. Each place has its own pros and cons. Coffee shops, for example, are a good place but a lot of people know that so they can be crowded.
Even when I’m still at home, I’ve been trying to find good alternative places to be while writing. The porch works for short bursts of time, I’ve found, but longer sprees are out of the question. The seats in the kitchen are a little awkward but the rest of the area works really well.
I think changing up locations affects my mood and motivation a lot when I write. It’s probably the act of getting there that gets me thinking about the project ahead, a sort of preamble to the actual writing project. Not that I do anything else special -- I’m probably closer to a “pantser” than a “plotter” -- just the right frame of mind is enough to get me thinking.
-F
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Raindrops on Roses (Part Twenty-One): Logicomix
I kind of kept mum on the “theme” for this set of Raindrops on Roses posts, not because I was trying to avoid admitting that there wasn’t one -- there is -- but because I didn’t really have a “third option.” This is going to be a bit of a preamble, but I’d like to go into why.
The theme is “unconventional coming-of-age stories,” and for newer mediums like films and video games, that’s an easy enough find. Frances Ha has a significantly older protagonist than most stories like these and is so hipster it criticizes the previous generation’s perception of millennial culture before it was cool to do so, and Gone Home relied on environmental storytelling to tell the bulk of its story; the majority of the main characters don’t appear at all. But coming-of-age stories still generally have a set structure to them and stripping away the more visual elements makes it a bit more difficult to find something that separates them.
So maybe it’s cheating, then, to spend this slot on a graphic novel instead of a novel novel, but it’s my blog and the part I’m interested talking about isn’t specifically related to the pictures (though the pictures are nice). If you do want a novel novel recommendation, though, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami is a magical realism story about a cat, the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, and male pattern baldness and it’s good enough that it probably deserves its own post one of these days. But anyway, back to the topic at hand.
If coming-of-age stories are about coming to terms with a more cynical view of the world, watching as the protagonist grows out of their childlike optimism and accepting a more complete worldview, well, then Logicomix’s story of Bertrand Russel’s search for the fundamentals of mathematics appears to follow that guideline rather well. But it’s not just about that. There’s also a meta-story at play involving the comic’s authors and their own understanding -- their own search -- and it’s this intertwining of narratives that enhances both of them. If Logicomix was solely about Bertrand Russel, I don’t think it would have worked as well; the main theme -- that it’s hubris to try and understand every facet of reality -- becomes much weaker when it’s presented in the past, while the present-day story ends up being the author’s own commentary that, left alone, just begs for context to be put alongside it.
And then there’s the book’s own framing story which ties it all together. The authors aren’t portraying their story of Bertrand Russel, they’re presenting a talk by Bertrand set right at the outset of World War Two. The question, “Should America go to war with Germany?” is brought up frequently as the example of the questions Russel is trying to solve through his search for mathematics’ fundamentals. “When presented with a problem, we should just be able to say, ‘Calculemus! Let us calculate’” one of Russel’s colleagues says. But the war question isn’t an easy one. It’s answerable, as evidenced by history, but nobody ever uses math to solve it.
At the end of the book, the authors go see The Oresteia, a play that presents its own problem. Orestes has killed his mother in revenge for his own father’s death, and the goddess Athena rules that a jury of Athenians should decide his fate. Even with this problem -- should Orestes be punished? -- the jurors are tied, however, and only Athena can definitively rule for or against.
For a book about reason and the search for truth, Logicomix is actually a quite spiritual book. Not in an “Only God knows the answer” sort of way, but in a “Life’s mysteries are boundless and the search for understanding is difficult but still worth trying” sort of way. A splash panel about two-thirds of the way in shows this fundamental tenet: Ludwig Wittgenstein realizes, “The meaning of the world does not reside in the world!” only after a bout of existential extremism.
That’s the coming-of-age story. Of reason itself. It’s not a moral that some people can accept; one could apply its message as an argument against a lot of twenty-tens ideas, especially those involving deplatforming hate-speech. But Logicomix’s promise, of a better world as long as we constantly try to seek out what meaning we can, still keeps me coming back.
The theme is “unconventional coming-of-age stories,” and for newer mediums like films and video games, that’s an easy enough find. Frances Ha has a significantly older protagonist than most stories like these and is so hipster it criticizes the previous generation’s perception of millennial culture before it was cool to do so, and Gone Home relied on environmental storytelling to tell the bulk of its story; the majority of the main characters don’t appear at all. But coming-of-age stories still generally have a set structure to them and stripping away the more visual elements makes it a bit more difficult to find something that separates them.
So maybe it’s cheating, then, to spend this slot on a graphic novel instead of a novel novel, but it’s my blog and the part I’m interested talking about isn’t specifically related to the pictures (though the pictures are nice). If you do want a novel novel recommendation, though, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami is a magical realism story about a cat, the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, and male pattern baldness and it’s good enough that it probably deserves its own post one of these days. But anyway, back to the topic at hand.
If coming-of-age stories are about coming to terms with a more cynical view of the world, watching as the protagonist grows out of their childlike optimism and accepting a more complete worldview, well, then Logicomix’s story of Bertrand Russel’s search for the fundamentals of mathematics appears to follow that guideline rather well. But it’s not just about that. There’s also a meta-story at play involving the comic’s authors and their own understanding -- their own search -- and it’s this intertwining of narratives that enhances both of them. If Logicomix was solely about Bertrand Russel, I don’t think it would have worked as well; the main theme -- that it’s hubris to try and understand every facet of reality -- becomes much weaker when it’s presented in the past, while the present-day story ends up being the author’s own commentary that, left alone, just begs for context to be put alongside it.
And then there’s the book’s own framing story which ties it all together. The authors aren’t portraying their story of Bertrand Russel, they’re presenting a talk by Bertrand set right at the outset of World War Two. The question, “Should America go to war with Germany?” is brought up frequently as the example of the questions Russel is trying to solve through his search for mathematics’ fundamentals. “When presented with a problem, we should just be able to say, ‘Calculemus! Let us calculate’” one of Russel’s colleagues says. But the war question isn’t an easy one. It’s answerable, as evidenced by history, but nobody ever uses math to solve it.
At the end of the book, the authors go see The Oresteia, a play that presents its own problem. Orestes has killed his mother in revenge for his own father’s death, and the goddess Athena rules that a jury of Athenians should decide his fate. Even with this problem -- should Orestes be punished? -- the jurors are tied, however, and only Athena can definitively rule for or against.
For a book about reason and the search for truth, Logicomix is actually a quite spiritual book. Not in an “Only God knows the answer” sort of way, but in a “Life’s mysteries are boundless and the search for understanding is difficult but still worth trying” sort of way. A splash panel about two-thirds of the way in shows this fundamental tenet: Ludwig Wittgenstein realizes, “The meaning of the world does not reside in the world!” only after a bout of existential extremism.
That’s the coming-of-age story. Of reason itself. It’s not a moral that some people can accept; one could apply its message as an argument against a lot of twenty-tens ideas, especially those involving deplatforming hate-speech. But Logicomix’s promise, of a better world as long as we constantly try to seek out what meaning we can, still keeps me coming back.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Miscellaneous Smiles
I’ve started taking Tuesday shifts at work, during what would normally be peak blog-post-writing time for me. I don’t anticipate having too many issues getting posts out in a timely fashion, but if there are any, that’s why.
In the meantime, I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed with negative news, some of which I may comment on here if things blow over (I’ll be fine, I more meant the state of the internet), so in an attempt to balance that out a little bit, here are a few positive things from my personal life in no particular order.
I’ve recently discovered the joy of listening to a Neil Cicierega album. If you don’t know who that is, he is one of the creative forces behind the Potter Puppet Pals series and is all-around a pretty funny internet person. He has a band, Lemon Demon, who are most famous for their song The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, but what I’m talking about are the “Mouth” albums created under his own name, Mouth Sounds, Mouth Silence, and Mouth Moods. All three are basically one long mashup, borrowing from dozens of artists to create a fifty-minute-and-change musical stream of consciousness, and they’re all great.
Speaking of music, I’m going to a Welcome to Nightvale show soon, which I’m very excited for. If you can imagine a weird town with, say, a dog park only hooded figures are allowed into, an endless expanse of desert, and a miniature town underneath a bowling alley, all described through the medium of radio, that’s just some of the weirdness to be experienced in Nightvale. The live show promises to be more of that, but bigger and for an audience.
I’ve been integrating into my class pretty well. I sometimes have difficulty offering criticism in a group setting (which is difficult given that that’s basically the entire class), so the fact that I haven’t had that much trouble here is a good feeling overall.
So yeah, that’s three things. Again, I’ll be fine, but like I wrote a few weeks ago, sometimes I need to balance out all the down with some up.
-F
In the meantime, I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed with negative news, some of which I may comment on here if things blow over (I’ll be fine, I more meant the state of the internet), so in an attempt to balance that out a little bit, here are a few positive things from my personal life in no particular order.
I’ve recently discovered the joy of listening to a Neil Cicierega album. If you don’t know who that is, he is one of the creative forces behind the Potter Puppet Pals series and is all-around a pretty funny internet person. He has a band, Lemon Demon, who are most famous for their song The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, but what I’m talking about are the “Mouth” albums created under his own name, Mouth Sounds, Mouth Silence, and Mouth Moods. All three are basically one long mashup, borrowing from dozens of artists to create a fifty-minute-and-change musical stream of consciousness, and they’re all great.
Speaking of music, I’m going to a Welcome to Nightvale show soon, which I’m very excited for. If you can imagine a weird town with, say, a dog park only hooded figures are allowed into, an endless expanse of desert, and a miniature town underneath a bowling alley, all described through the medium of radio, that’s just some of the weirdness to be experienced in Nightvale. The live show promises to be more of that, but bigger and for an audience.
I’ve been integrating into my class pretty well. I sometimes have difficulty offering criticism in a group setting (which is difficult given that that’s basically the entire class), so the fact that I haven’t had that much trouble here is a good feeling overall.
So yeah, that’s three things. Again, I’ll be fine, but like I wrote a few weeks ago, sometimes I need to balance out all the down with some up.
-F
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Raindrops On Roses (Part Twenty): Gone Home
(trailer)
A lot of people would argue that Gone Home was only good when it came out. That, back in 2013, game designers hadn’t really explored the quote-unquote “environmental narrative” game -- or “Walking Simulator,” if you’re feeling less charitable -- outside of thechineseroom’s Dear Esther and therefore any competently put-together work not just put together as a source mod like Dear Esther was would of course be hailed as a demonstration of how good game storytelling could be.
The problem with that reading is hopefully obvious, though. It detracts from the merits of Fullbright’s game and instead focuses on the media surrounding it. So while there is something to be said at least for how it paved the way for later narrative-focused games, there’s still the game in front of us. Paratext is important, but what about the text?
The text of Gone Home is straightforward enough. You play as Katie Greenbar as she comes back from college to a house she’s never seen before (her family moved in the interim). This would likely be a weird enough experience, but Katie also arrives to see the house seemingly abandoned and all of the electronics missing. The goal, therefore, is to explore the house with the hope of at least understanding what happened while you were away.
Exploration is the main mechanic at play here. Taking cues from point-and-click adventure games, progress is impeded by locked doors Katie has to find a way through, though unlike those games, the solution is invariably finding a key with the right label attached (i.e., the attic gets “key to the attic”). The only other measure of progress is a series of narrated letters from Katie’s younger sister, Sam, describing her own experiences after Katie left.
That isn’t to say that’s the only story, though. The designers had two stated goals when creating the environment: First, they had to make the house feel like an actual house instead of a series of video game rooms, and second, the environment had to tell a story as much as the narration had to. So in addition to Sam’s letters, there’s also the story of their family’s dirty history, their father’s job search and alcoholism, their mother’s trouble at her own job and more. These stories intersect throughout the game, weaving in and out of the spotlight with each unlocked door.
Gone Home wasn’t the first game to have this sort of approach to how its players interacted with it. Dear Esther came out five before it, and there have been other precursors to this sort of genre (the most (in)famous of which being a PS1 game entitled LSD (Lovely Sweet Dream) Dream Emulator). But it and The Stanley Parable, another high-profile game with an exploration focus, did bring the concept into the public consciousness. There are countless games that possibly owe their entire existence to this foundation, and amongst those peers, Gone Home still presents itself pretty well.
-F
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Every Movie In The Entire World, Ranked (Part One)
I’m kidding, of course.
Here’s an anecdote to start us off. I listen to a weekly music stream. Think of it like a radio show, I guess would be the best way to describe it, where the host spends the first half of the show playing what she found interesting out of the week’s new releases, and the second half taking requests from the audience. Occasionally, something rather well-known will come through the filter of suggestions (I remember Yes’ Roundabout coming on the first time I tuned in), and she’ll always say the same thing whenever it comes up:
“Just think of all the songs that have ever been written, ever, and now remember that there is so much more music coming out every single day,” she says. “Nobody can listen to all that music. There are probably a bunch of songs someone thinks are must-listens that you’ve never heard of.”
I think the same can be said for every artistic medium, from food to theatre to paintings to, yes, films as well. Movies have a much larger buy-in, too, especially for the more niche or independent ones. You have to sit in a dark room for two hours, more or less, and just take in what’s being presented to you. A song is what, three or four minutes?
And yet, I’ve also noticed people get a lot more vocal about “the classic” movies. “You haven’t seen X? And you call yourself a cinema snob?” And my general response has been, well, first of all, a label like “cinema snob” comes with a lot of baggage that I’m not particularly interested in being associated with (nor is it something I’m willing to go over here), nor have I ever called myself that (I fashioned myself a critic once -- that didn’t go over well), and second, I guess see the above quote?
I just figure I’ll pick up the older movies by osmosis, really. The worst someone can really do in this situation would be to march me to a TV, sit me down and put the movie on, right? Done, watched the movie, you never have to bother me about it again. And hey, I’ll probably like it, too.
In the meantime, there are so many movies I’ll never get to see coming out every day. I can try and stem the flow somewhat, but it’s an impossible task. I just have to hope I catch some good ones along the way.
-F
Here’s an anecdote to start us off. I listen to a weekly music stream. Think of it like a radio show, I guess would be the best way to describe it, where the host spends the first half of the show playing what she found interesting out of the week’s new releases, and the second half taking requests from the audience. Occasionally, something rather well-known will come through the filter of suggestions (I remember Yes’ Roundabout coming on the first time I tuned in), and she’ll always say the same thing whenever it comes up:
“Just think of all the songs that have ever been written, ever, and now remember that there is so much more music coming out every single day,” she says. “Nobody can listen to all that music. There are probably a bunch of songs someone thinks are must-listens that you’ve never heard of.”
I think the same can be said for every artistic medium, from food to theatre to paintings to, yes, films as well. Movies have a much larger buy-in, too, especially for the more niche or independent ones. You have to sit in a dark room for two hours, more or less, and just take in what’s being presented to you. A song is what, three or four minutes?
And yet, I’ve also noticed people get a lot more vocal about “the classic” movies. “You haven’t seen X? And you call yourself a cinema snob?” And my general response has been, well, first of all, a label like “cinema snob” comes with a lot of baggage that I’m not particularly interested in being associated with (nor is it something I’m willing to go over here), nor have I ever called myself that (I fashioned myself a critic once -- that didn’t go over well), and second, I guess see the above quote?
I just figure I’ll pick up the older movies by osmosis, really. The worst someone can really do in this situation would be to march me to a TV, sit me down and put the movie on, right? Done, watched the movie, you never have to bother me about it again. And hey, I’ll probably like it, too.
In the meantime, there are so many movies I’ll never get to see coming out every day. I can try and stem the flow somewhat, but it’s an impossible task. I just have to hope I catch some good ones along the way.
-F
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
Sick Music
I don’t know if I’m sick or under the weather or just not feeling it and suffering from some writer’s block, but I’m not in the greatest of writing moods. I did promise something positive for this week, though, so let’s talk about music for a bit. Just some quick paragraphs about songs and artists I like and maybe you readers can find something you enjoy as well?
I’ve been on a pretty big electronic kick lately, actually. It started with Justice (example song: Audio, Video, Disco) which I’ve blogged about here before, which extended into synthwave and darkwave (I think those are the genre names? Genres are confusing, but that's a topic for another blog post) with artists like Carpenter Brut (ex: Le Perv) and Perturbator (ex: Birth of the New Model). About the same time this happened, too, someone recommended The Prodigy (ex: Memphis Bells) to me, and while that’s not really any of the genres of the first three artists I mentioned, it’s still within my personal wheelhouse of “things I like”.
That doesn’t mean I don’t listen to acoustic music anymore. I’m very much on the Black Midi (ex: Talking Heads) train, and I still go back to artists like Barns Courtney (ex: Rather Die) and Poe (ex: Haunted). It’s actually a nice feeling, going back to songs you haven’t heard in a while and realizing you still know all the lyrics, or well enough that you can sing along to the chorus at least.
What else? Well, there’s The Budos Band (ex: Old Engine Oil) if you’re looking for something jazzy. Or Katzenjammer (ex: Tea With Cinnamon) if you’re looking for something a bit more indescribable (Wikipedia says Country/Balkan? I guess that works. Again, genres are hard). Or there’s-
Look, the point of this exercise was to get something on paper for this week, and I think that part worked out.I’m not saying I could throw out recommendations until the end of time, but I am still, well, I am still not feeling the greatest. I do hope you enjoy what I picked out for you all, though. I tried to stay away from a given artist’s biggest hits in an effort to try and attract you to more of their music if you like what you hear. So give them a listen!
-F
I’ve been on a pretty big electronic kick lately, actually. It started with Justice (example song: Audio, Video, Disco) which I’ve blogged about here before, which extended into synthwave and darkwave (I think those are the genre names? Genres are confusing, but that's a topic for another blog post) with artists like Carpenter Brut (ex: Le Perv) and Perturbator (ex: Birth of the New Model). About the same time this happened, too, someone recommended The Prodigy (ex: Memphis Bells) to me, and while that’s not really any of the genres of the first three artists I mentioned, it’s still within my personal wheelhouse of “things I like”.
That doesn’t mean I don’t listen to acoustic music anymore. I’m very much on the Black Midi (ex: Talking Heads) train, and I still go back to artists like Barns Courtney (ex: Rather Die) and Poe (ex: Haunted). It’s actually a nice feeling, going back to songs you haven’t heard in a while and realizing you still know all the lyrics, or well enough that you can sing along to the chorus at least.
What else? Well, there’s The Budos Band (ex: Old Engine Oil) if you’re looking for something jazzy. Or Katzenjammer (ex: Tea With Cinnamon) if you’re looking for something a bit more indescribable (Wikipedia says Country/Balkan? I guess that works. Again, genres are hard). Or there’s-
Look, the point of this exercise was to get something on paper for this week, and I think that part worked out.I’m not saying I could throw out recommendations until the end of time, but I am still, well, I am still not feeling the greatest. I do hope you enjoy what I picked out for you all, though. I tried to stay away from a given artist’s biggest hits in an effort to try and attract you to more of their music if you like what you hear. So give them a listen!
-F
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
What We Talk About When We Talk About Work
I’ve noticed that the quantity of work-related posts has increased on this blog recently. I wouldn’t chalk that up to more things to talk (read: complain) about per se, though we are approaching a couple of major changes that are worth bringing up. The menu is going to be changing soon, we’re going to be handing out silverware soon, and I’ve been told the employee roster is going to change in a major way soon, though outside of some new hires I’ve yet to see anything there that is really that significant.
I don’t really talk about any of that because, well, it’s much more fun to complain about things. Like how the grill is broken or how coworkers can be a bit too nosy. It also keeps things a bit more universal in application. Everyone has nosy coworkers and appliances that refuse to work, or at least can sympathize with the idea of them. Less so the minutiae of silverware logistics; there are definitely fans out there, just fewer, I think.
Taking the complaining route also benefits because it’s simply a stronger emotional reaction, one of the few ones left once one gets into a working routine. It’s a moment of catharsis, excising frustrations because everyone has those.
I have talked about before, though, how I don’t want this blog to just be complaining about random things. There’s a danger to a wholly negative mindset, I think. It can bleed into not only the work one might be complaining about -- becoming the cause of complaints rather than relaying them onwards -- but also the rest of one’s life. That’s one of the reasons I started the Raindrops on Roses series, just to be nice to things on occasion.
So while I could talk at length about how, instead of replacing the grill, we now have a new dishwashing machine, I’m going to just leave it at half a sentence in a concluding paragraph. And next week? I don’t know yet, we’ll see. But it’ll hopefully be something a bit nicer.
-F
I don’t really talk about any of that because, well, it’s much more fun to complain about things. Like how the grill is broken or how coworkers can be a bit too nosy. It also keeps things a bit more universal in application. Everyone has nosy coworkers and appliances that refuse to work, or at least can sympathize with the idea of them. Less so the minutiae of silverware logistics; there are definitely fans out there, just fewer, I think.
Taking the complaining route also benefits because it’s simply a stronger emotional reaction, one of the few ones left once one gets into a working routine. It’s a moment of catharsis, excising frustrations because everyone has those.
I have talked about before, though, how I don’t want this blog to just be complaining about random things. There’s a danger to a wholly negative mindset, I think. It can bleed into not only the work one might be complaining about -- becoming the cause of complaints rather than relaying them onwards -- but also the rest of one’s life. That’s one of the reasons I started the Raindrops on Roses series, just to be nice to things on occasion.
So while I could talk at length about how, instead of replacing the grill, we now have a new dishwashing machine, I’m going to just leave it at half a sentence in a concluding paragraph. And next week? I don’t know yet, we’ll see. But it’ll hopefully be something a bit nicer.
-F
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