Wednesday, March 26

Photography

Grazing
Where am I at the moment with photography? I just don’t know. I’ve not committed myself to buying a pro or even a semi-pro camera yet and I’ve not found a style either.

My subjects range from portraits to close-ups of mushrooms and flowers, from landscapes to candid shots. I don’t really have a direction; I’m just kind of snap happy at the moment.

Now I don’t want to come across like I’m not enjoying my camera, and I’m loving the results of my picture taking, but I can’t help but feel that if I was to just concentrate on one thing I could be taking really great photo’s.

So, maybe I will take the first step and buy a new camera, research lenses, read a book or two. I’ve been considering taking some evening classes when I return home, perhaps a cooking course as I’m sure that I’ve forgotten how. Not only would an evening class keep me from my old bad habits of cotching in front of the TV all evening and achieving nothing, but I could meet new people.


Glover Garden


I looked at a few Saturday Japanese courses and have already decided that that isn’t a bad way of spending a Saturday afternoon. I have no illusions of ever coming back to Japan, no illusion and no motivation either, but learning Japanese at my own pace has been fun if not totally fruitful. So if Saturday is Japanese, perhaps Sunday can be photography.

Hhhmm… and now I’m on this train of thought, I really want to carry on with other things when I get back to England, so as well as the Japanese study I also want to carry on travelling. I don’t want to spend years on the other side of the world, but I don’t want to spend four day weekends drunk in London (again). Instead I could take long trips to some part of Britain or Europe I’ve never seen before. Life is too short for repetition.

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So this rant about my lacklustre photography is turning into a bit of an unruly, unfocused, manifesto, seems like my lack of photographic direction is a symptomatic of general lack of direction… screw it, let’s run with it.

My poetry. I was reading through some of the older stuff the yesterday on my way back from a Farewell party and, even though I was pretty drunk at the time, I still think it’s pretty good. So, what to do with that?

Lady Bird on Cosmos 2

Do I just keep writing them compulsively, and keep them hidden away on my Mac and backed up on my hard drive? Or do I, and this is what I was drunkenly day dreaming about… go and perform them… hhmm, ponder.

When considering the complex subject of ME, there is just so much to consider. Navel gazing isn’t easy, and I think that I will need a while longer being self-obsessed, self-involved and introverted before I come to any worthy decision. Luckily “me-time” is my favoutite kind of time.

Hhmmm… maybe self portraits.

Thursday, March 13

Top 5 Animated Films

I saw an article on Rotten Tomatoes, a top 5 run down of some guy’s top 5 animated movies. I thought, with a total lack of things that I won’t to share with my huge audience of readers (there really needs to be a font called Sarcasmo Toungeincheek Font), I would make my own list of 5 animated films that I thought were the fricking dogs hairy nut sack!

5) Superman: Doomsday

When I read the Doomsday story of Superman I must admit that I wasn’t very interested in Superman but was really interested in how the smug bastard finally got his comeuppance. It was a bloody and senseless end for a hero of such stature, and I loved it.


The animated feature length is just as good, getting Superman’s death out of the way quickly and brutally to concentrate on the important business of Superman’s resurrection as a clone controlled by Lex Luthor, and the the real Superman’s recovery and then a Superman VS Superman face off. Oh yeah, this was non-stop geekery to the highest degree. “Go on Supes! Hit him with a car… ooohhhh! In the face! In the face! That can’t feel too good.”

4) Fist of The North Star



What’s more appealing than shirtless men with big bulging biceps, using those biceps to inflict super mutant pain on other shirtless men? Not much, I would argue.
I watched this film with my cousin and was so surprised that I had lived my whole Anime watching career without being introduced to it earlier, this is a classic and needs to be seen by all Manga fans.

3) The Emperor’s New Groove



A film that is as good as it’s title! This film is the reason that Lilo & Stitch isn’t in this list, I just don’t think there can be too many irreverent Disney movies in one top 5.
The main characters of this film are possibly the ugliest leads of any Disney movie, they can hardly be described as cute, by despite their looks they both become incredibly endearing.
A fish out of water, coming of age and buddy movie twisted into an odd tale about an obnoxious Emperor who is cursed into a talking larmar. Excellent film, and a lot of fun.

2) Akira



This is the film that started it all for me, everything about this amazed me, from the cover of the DVD to the coral orchestra over the titles, the explosive start to the philosophic end that made me wonder if all of humanity had the potential of gods, not just destruction, but creation too.

Oh, and there are mutating cyborg arms, monster teddy bears and people having their arms shot off with laser cannons. It’s a movie of many textures.


1)The Last Unicorn



It’s odd how I keep turning back to this movie, it’s so obscure that no one has heard of it, which is criminal because it is fantastic, fantastical and beautiful.
Dragons, unicorns, witches and heroes that face insurmountable odds and constant threat. I remember the ending seeming dark and hopeless, I really rooted for the unicorn but felt that it was doomed… oh, imagination my elation when the little guy overcame his adversaries and the day was saved.

Wednesday, March 12

The shape of things to come

Written August 3rd, 2006, 8:13am

So apparently, and I don’t know if I’ve understood this correctly so don’t quote me, apparently all time exists at once as a sort of quantum supposition, this means that today and tomorrow are in fact happening at the same time and its only consciousness which chooses to see time in the linear form we’re used to.

So right now, I’m being born, green eyes lighter skin and full head of hair. My eyes soon turn brown, my skin gets darker and my hair does all sorts of things because things can take different shapes in time.

It’s an odd concept, because you have to come to terms with the fact that tomorrow already exists, its here already and its just one collapse of those quantum suppositions away. But of course time has no idea what tomorrow is, time doesn’t section itself into discrete infinite sections, time just is.

We however, we do see time as succession of discrete units, minutes, hours, days, months and years. It’s a structure we understand and we’re happy with. But what happens when you can’t seem to escape yesterday, what if yesterday is continuously overlaid on your today’s and your tomorrows, is it better that we can take a straight line out of our past, best that tomorrow never comes?

In 25 minutes I copy this email from Word into my email program and my finger hovers over the mouse whilst I wonder if I should send it.

55 minutes ago I was happy, I completed my first exam of the year and it went quite well. It wasn’t 55 minutes ago when it happened but its happening now, all time exists at once.

And right now I’m holding my cousin in my arms, she’s crying and I feel empty, I’m not confused, I’m not tearful, I’m numb. She’s crying and she’s pregnant with a baby boy, months from now in her past she conceived, months from now in her future she gives birth to a beautiful son. Right now she’s trying to comprehend death.

Two hours before this I’m laughing at the misfortune of Richard Pryor as he tells the account of him having a heart attack, he describes the pain in a whimsical dramatic style and falls to the ground clutching his chest.

My cousin falls on my shoulder and weeps into it, her new born is placed in her arms and she feels elation, her child is being conceived in love and she doesn’t know.

Richard Pryor falls to the ground with his arm outstretched and my cousin Nick grabs his chest and slumps over the steering wheel of a moving car, I write about it because I feel its cathartic and its been playing on my mind because Saturday is a year since he died. It’s my yesterday but I can’t escape it, its overlaid on my today and my tomorrow.

Richard Pryor falls to the ground clutching his chest and I laugh, I laugh when I organise a gig and its not a success and I laugh on New Years Eve months later, my cousins son laughs and his innocence makes people smile.

Nick falls to his steering wheel clutching his chest and I laugh, I’m laughing at Richard Pryor, at his misfortune, I answer the phone at 3 that morning and I feel numb, I tell my cousin the news and she holds me, I don’t know what to do to comfort her, I still don’t.

In 10 minutes I copy this email from Word into my email program and my finger hovers over the mouse whilst I wonder if I should send it.

I spend over an hour on the phone to an old girlfriend and we talk endlessly about anything just so that we can be talking to each other, in a months time she won’t answer my calls or return my messages. I wonder what’s changed not realising that things can take different shapes in time, emotions included.

And I feel numb, eyes glazed over on the worst come down of my life, people wish me happy birthday and I lay on a towel over the sand under the Spanish sun, Richard Pryor lays on the ground arm outstretched and I laugh.

In 5 minutes I copy this email from Word into my email program and my finger hovers over the mouse whilst I wonder if I should send it. As I do I wonder if this moment already existed before it happened and wonder about the shape of things to come.

In 2 minutes I copy this email from Word into my email program and my finger hovers over the mouse whilst I wonder if I should send it. And Richard Pryor falls to the ground, and Nick slumps over the wheel of a moving car, and people wish me happy birthday, its New Years, my cousin is in labour, I feel numb and I laugh.

I laugh, and I wonder what about the shape of things to come.

Friday, March 7

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