Sunday, July 31, 2011

Of seizing the day

Regreting the past and worrying about the future, that's me not enjoying the present. That's probably one of my biggest problems, not stopping to realize the moment I'm living now is the real chance I have to do my precious tastings.

I envy yesterday, when I was free to be happy, but I also feel too guilty to enjoy today. I have the constant worry I have to be prepared for tomorrow and I can't waste time. I should not please myself with such things as comfort and happiness as I have work to do, skills to improve, things to learn.

But I don't think that removing this pressure will do me any good. I'm afraid the absence of pressure won't do me any good. So I guess I'll have to live with it, but trying to not to give in to the harmful hurry it demands.

Of acceptance

Always thought of myself as an optmistic in an pessimist world. One day when I've read an article about Science saying that optimism is harmful, and I felt like they had insulted me personally. But then, further the reading, I realized their conception of pessimism actually matches my vision of the world. Seems like probably it's the very opposite.

One has to accept the flaws of this world. It makes perfect sense to me to think that people who always think the world sucks are the ones who actually expect it to have as few problems as it can impossibly be. I've seen that being argued against, though remarkably unconvincing. The more I think about it the more it seems that people who are constantly hating the world because of the problems we find here are the ones who are just not expecting it. The ones who are always stressed and bitching about are the ones who aren't tolerating any possible flaws. Intolerance is the word. Eh, seems like people getting their faith in mankind always on the tightrope all the time are optimistic people being disenchanted constantly. See, I could lose hope in mankind because of this kind of people, but no, I'll accept the world creates such annoyance.

By the way, there's a subtle yet ginormous difference between acceptance and conformism. Acceptance makes us simply not behave like a 15-year-old kid who's bothered by his girlfriend's every flaw. Mankind does shitty things, there's no conspiracy being unfolded here. It's some sort of polarization, because rarely I see people talking about the good things in this world, and when they do, there's always a jerk who comes with a list of bad things to say they're wrong, the world is the worst (I've actually seen that). Yes, the world is as flawed as it can be. Never will I deny that. My point is, we can clean the shit better without annoying people constantly whining about the stench.

Also fuck misanthropists thinking they've got the essence of their intelligence lying in their ability to self-exclude themselves from the human responsibilities.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Of captured essence

There's something about femininity that buggers me. It frustrates me how hard it is to capture the feminine essence in drawings. Drawing males is a piece of cake in comparison, but a young woman? Damn you've got to master your lines, because you have to use as few as possible, as accurate and soft as you must. I've abandoned drawings for some months until a while ago, since I got my linestyle hopelessly viced on hard-edged male figures.. But I feel i'm loosening that vice. I feel like I'm doing some progress at drawing females.


This one was based on a  study from a Conceptart.org sketchbook, and although the result was unpurposely different, she still has a identity of her own, I like that. Quite a challenge to make her look believably feminine with these cartoon-like lines, don't really know how I pulled this off.



And this one looks really good actually, until one looks at the reference model. It's interesting how I'm so good at not being able to capture any of her idiosyncracies at all. Also I should work harder on hair. Hairline should be softer, for one. But the model's hair didn't help too, I must say.

And then again, I just started getting my hands dirty with drawing from references. I'm actually pleased with the progress I've made since the first one, which was a dream-shattering piece of shit. No kidding, that girl looked more like a Rancor monster with Joker makeup than anything else, I'll never show that to anybody. In fact, I should have burned that thing. Its horridness is probably drawing bad energy to my place.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Of learning

If there's anything I ever learned with this blog, it was how important it is to get the hands dirty. That's vital for learning, realizing how much I don't know. And that reminds me of one formula I once thought of but forgot about: Learning comes from interest comes from curiosity comes from doubt comes from mistakes.

All the testing of this idea came from my observations of maps. When I picture the european map in my head, I think I know it pretty well, so when I look at a real map I don't really pay too much attention. However, when I try to draw it without reference, I understand how I know shit about it. The funny thing is, when I look at the map again after this, my eyes will almost involuntarily track down every part I've came to a full-stop before, completely puzzled (that's you, Greece and Turkey). The information may not be retained for too long, but man does that trigger up the interest.

And that's pretty much the approach I like when it comes to learning. I feel I really absord the content when I think about it before, facing blanks and meeting doubts. It's not a oh-my-god-I'll-learn-the-history-of-everything-in-one-hour-with-this, but it's something that seems to noticeably enhance my learning process.

Of updates and standardization

The thing with names is that they have to be flexible, as they're only a vessel for the meaning. The names I create are meant to be born with this quality, as eventually I'll find a more "official" definition, or one that's used more efficiently. Or maybe someday I'll meet someone with this same naming-addiction, and it'll help the trading.

So this is the reason I'm updating the name Formulation to Templating. I guess it feels more comfortable, and its message is carried with clarity in that name. It's a sad goodbye, I've grown attached to formulation after all these months. And it's weird, Templating looks to me like having a more advanced technology, or like it has a modern design. Feels like fresh air, for some reason.

Anyways, it's important I get used to this let it go mentality, I need to practice that, I feel like having some maturity pouring in. And I have plans of standardizing the names so they will be better organized, then it's better to put this in verb mode already. Maybe I could hierarchize them as well, it'll help me deal with them more intuitively.

Of a new rule

Sometimes I feel like a dictator around here. And I guess I do am installing a dictatorship here. This whole bureaucratic procedure, labeling every passing idea, thowing their face to the floor when checking their ID, so rude! And all those bulky guards watching against a loose discipline, that's inhuman. Not to mention poetry is banned here while discipline isn't attained, and now I'm having rules. Am I the next Hitler?

The Double-three Rule is: no post shall have no less than three paragraphs, and no paragraph shall have no less than three lines. I'm doing my best to reach the fuuuuuucking third line. There.

It'll bring several benefits. First of all, it may not seem like much of a challenge, but it's the first level and it'll be enough for most subjects, and not too much for the most simple things. Plus rules end up setting standards, and that'll help me understand the structure of the texts before expanding them and trying real challenges (Double-four?), which are actually the approach I like the most to develop skills, setting for a harder mode. Finally, it'll make the texts tight, which is always a good thing.

Of evaluation

I always been taught that, when rating something from one to ten, 6 meant something acceptable and ten is a flawless perfection.

However, i can't escape the feeling that 2 would be the acceptable, as this would be a proper scale to the distance between doing something ok and something perfect.

By the way, I believe I'm at, um, 3 or something.

Of Spinning Speed

Whenever I'm practicing any skill, I always noticed that the quality I aim for will usually start appearing fleeting and sporadically, before vanishing and being followed by a sequence of frustrated attempts all over again. And as times goes on, it starts appearing more frequently.

That's something quite common when drawing. When I first started drawing faces, the proportion always seemed wrong, it wouldn't matter how methodical I were, it wouldn't matter what techniques I'd try. Then, after a lot of raw insistance, those elements began to find a way on their own, and then the techniques I've thought before would begin to serve me some use. Actually I can't tell if these techniques have been unhelpful, but at first they don't really seem to until the I've got the basic hang of it, which explains why formulation is always the most stressful part of developing a skill.

And when said quality I'm aiming is spinning effortlessly, it could be when Fluency is achieved. It becomes frustration-free, despite of eventual mistakes. So I think it's all a matter of simply keeping practicing then, until things get a little less frustrating.

Of Timing

Night comes and I go to bed and in these dark hours the sparkles put my head On Fire with the most beautiful ideas. And I feel so enthusiastic I feel I have to write them down, so I get up and turn on the lights and the ideas go all "aaaah, it burrrns" and disappear. So here I am, feeling like a blank idiot, like I usually feel when I sit down at my computer to write on this blog. And I keep playing Minesweeper like... grr, like I'm doing right now. It always happens when I open the blog and I stare at it like a retard, so I do that addiction of mine or then tab myself away to other sites, and that's something I need to explore more, the reason I procrastinate like that.

When I'm like this, I can only write about the only thing that comes to my mind. What could I do to keep the ideas intact until I turn them into words? and Where did these ideas go nao? and Why can't I write the way I fucking think?. So that's the reason this blog is riddled with posts about mey trying to find a way to improve my writing instead of talking about actual ideas. And even then, I describe them too shortly, because I can't think properly right now.

And this time I realized something! This time I almost got the timing right. I felt like I made the move in the most accurate moment, but then I failed in the next steps. Yes, gamification, like a failed combo or those annoying quick-time events.

God, do I need a harder discipline. At least I feel good by knowing I'm actually doing the right thing. Just doing the right thing wrong, though.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Sparkles #5

If I think of Aftergoal's potential for storytelling, it would be great for sequels. The very essence of any story is layered down to creating and resolving conflicts, and I find it interesting when the characters struggle their way to resolve their ultimate conflict with the belief that everything will be fine afterwards, but then realizing maybe not everything is going to change as they expected to. I think I really like this spice of real life in stories.

Of Aftergoals

It helps me to augment my motivations by having clear objectives. And do I have some clear objectives. However, I realized I have to be more careful with them, as it seems that if overcome these problems haunting me everything will be ok and the worries will end, and that's quite an illusion, as if I was believing I'd live happily ever after.

Looking back I can see some problems of the past I've come to resolve, but the journey goes on and in many ways life is still the same. But the thing is that some of these problems weren't quite an obsession. In fact, sometimes it's a moment of realization when I think back in time and remember things troubling me that I barely remember. And this is quite different when it comes to my current goals. The effort I'm putting here... it'd be really devastating if it doesn't pay off.

Maybe it has something to do with this whole rat race. Running from one goal to the next one, with the belief that everlasting happiness will totally be there. I wonder if I'm not really being pushed around in this mad race. I'd really love to settle down and lead an unstressful life without many goals, just having time to taste life. Oh wait.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Of inspiration and motivation

So these last few days I've been trying really hard to keep my stamina up, trying all sorts of tricks to refill it as it is constantly going down. I'm doing all I can not to let the inspiration run out and then drown in frustration. Though the forces of frustration are powerful, it's been an interesting battle, as gamification is helping me to visualize the progress and understand the timing to try a new healing item.

So far I'm using all my music collection to keep the stamina from running out. But the thing is, I can't use them all for too long, they have to be reloaded, the songs. That is, I have to keep myself from listening to certain albums so their effect on me will increase as I get back to them later. And I think I'm not managing it properly, as I've used a whole lot of reloaded songs these past few days, even the strongest ones I have in stock. I'm afraid I'll run out of them, and then I'll enter in a musical shortage, having no songs that'll keep me inspired. And then it's hell.

Goddammit, what's happening? I'm taking more damage I can deal with...

Starting to notice here there's a line between inspiration and motivation I never gave too much thought before. I'm yet to think of the minutiae of their relationship, but as far as now it looks to me that motivation could be my, umm, defensive strength. I wonder what if I were to augment my motivations to shield myself from the damage I take. Wow, gamification is a poweful ally. I shouldn't keep myself from embracing it more only because it looks silly to think of my mindwork within a game structure. I'll not be deceived by petty realizations. This is not a time for fancy embellishment.

Now let's think, if they do have different characteristics, what are the things that motivate me and what are those things that inspire me?

Of things to keep in mind

"One trick about writing for the Internet is remembering how little most of your readers give a fuck about anything. At all times, they are a second away from every other site on the Internet, 75 percent of which have boobies. So don't try entertaining them with one side of a pedantic argument. Make your case, in all your own words, slap on a picture of some twins riding a Slip n' Slide and get out of the way." Bucholz, Chris (2011).

(I think mine sounds like #1, by the way)

Sparkles #4

It seems that to protect my sister from stupid jerks somehow all I need to do is to become the coolest brother ever.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Of air safety

I once had a friend to whom I would show my drawings, and, being an artist herself, she would give some of her thoughts on my stuff. It always caught my attenttion how she would unknowingly compliment the very elements that had always bothered me the most.

Or was she a psychic who could read the troubles of my mind to get me exceptionally delighted or I do put a nice ammount of effort to fix the most flawed aspects of my drawings. Interesting is, they even seem to be improved in a way the least of my concerns end up looking pale in comparison, starting a repetition of this cycle.

Currently drowning in all this frustration, it's almost comforting to remember I am not one who is going to give up this easily.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Mindscapes #3

The city I live in is quite rural by some standards (mostly teenagers' and city-people's), so when I'm getting close to home, I can see some green plains and a chain of mountains just beyond. Simply put, lots of raw nature, which is an awesome view to be soundtracked with traditional music.

So there was this day, around sunset time, when the sky decided to stop weeping, and the sun wanted dry her tears, so there was some conflict up there. But when sun presented the sky with a beautiful rainbow, she answered with a smiling blue.

And I was on the bus, randomly listening to Otyg, which plays scandinavian folk songs. Misteriously, that viking feeling fused with that landscape. Maybe it was seeing this much green, or this whole aura of "I was sad but I'm getting better now".

But it makes sense to think of this weather condition as valued by scandinavian people. It's even featured on their mythology. The bridge to Valhalla, the Castle of the Slain, had appeared!

Sparkles #3

When winter was first giving signs of its arrival, it was already staining my soul with bitterness, so one day I got home and I fell on bed letting that freezing cold embrace the sour of my heart.

I wasn't quite feeling like pushing up the blankets and sleeping, instead I removed my arms from my jacket and pressed them over my chest, the very instinctive act to hold the heat around my vital organs.

But I didn't feel the usual warmth we desperately try to hold as it dies, but instead my body seemed to produce it in a feroucious way, a burning heat emanating from me. Not really metaphorical, I felt it on my forearms. I don't know if the, huh, acoustic of my jacket allowed me to retain the heat this efficiently, but my body was working like a fueled oven, so I decided to let the burning heat embrace the sour of my heart.

Of leitmotifs

I miss catchy themes in recent entertainment industry. As far as I can tell, the latest truly memorable themes have been in the early Harry Potter movies, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the first and second Pirates of the Caribbean movies. That's some early 00s stuff, and I can't remember many more since then. Only now and then there are some movies with one or other melodical soundtracks, but overall I feel there's been no real effort bringing songs that make you hum around for days.

I even started to think that perhaps the audience doesn't actually want it anymore. Maybe everybody got sick of it. But then HBO released Game of Thrones and now I know that's bullshit. The opening theme of this series is simple and catchy, and, as far as I can see, everybody seems excited about it. It's been really a while since I've seen people reimagining songs through metal and violin and 8bit versions, or even mashups of all these versions altogether.

I hear the leitmotif technique roots from opera composer Richard Wagner, which must set John Williams as a Wagnerian composer, then, because leitmotifing is just what makes him one of my favorite composers of all time, as he has an astounding ability to craft memorable themes for every single thing, and using these themes in critical moments to keep the audience under his spell. Star Wars is one of my all-time favorite series exactly because of that, the masterful use of leitmotifs by John Williams. Also lightsabers and awesome starships, of course. But the gentle whisper of the theme of the Force can send a chill down the spine of someone who's aknowledged with its meaning. For example, there's a scene in episode IV when Luke watches the binary sunset and thinks that there might more to his life than working in that farm in the middle of nowhere. Oh wait, you don't really know what he thinks, you only listen to that melody, and you can understand the character through it. And boy, what a great scene it is exactly because of that. You can show a lot through music, things that don't need to be told with actual words. Show, don't tell, the axiom of art.

And you don't have to have a movie or a game or a play to make use of musical themes. One of the greatest accomplishments in the using of themes that I can tell lies in the album Remedy Lane, by Pain of Salvation. There you find a love song, This Heart of Mine, with a very clear melody in its later chorus. And after that you have a depressive, melancholic song called Undertow. When the instrumental section of this song starts, if you pay attention, you can recognize that love theme, though brutaly distorted. It's all about this little melody played with a lot of tremolo-ing. The greatest thing about it is that you don't really need this logical analysis to understand the pain it conveys.

So that's why I really miss musicians exploring all the possibilities that music themes can have. The using of easily recognizable melodies as a symbolization of characters, places, events, feelings, ideas, or just anything, should be a technique of utmost importance for any storyteller.

Come to think of it, I have themes of my own. They're what I've been calling Hymns. Let me see if I can explore all the possilibilities that music themes can have.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Sparkles #2

There was a night some months ago when I could be found practicing drawing, furiously. I was drowned in all my bitter motivations, fueled by some thrashing metal. I didn't really notice how deeply immersed in all that burning feeling until I felt a little drained and went outside, and watched the moon shining delicately over me.
Suddenly I felt like I had been through the most vicious journey and was now back home, watching that peaceful view.

Funny how it was all in my head. To an outsider I'd look like simply being in my desk for hours and then going out for a few minutes.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Of hurry

I'm such a nerd I've played Shadow of the Colossus to celebrate my undergraduate degree.
Ok, it was more like "it's finally over and  now I can do something I want to". But anyway, it's definitely one of the greatest games I've ever played. And then, as usual when I'm marvelled, I start looking for more material. No, I don't have ICO here. I've stumbled upon this american podcast where they play through certain ammount of the game each week and then discuss about it. It's nice to see the progression of their impressions throughout the game. But I was a little puzzled at how two out of the four members didn't really enjoy the game. It's not that I'm huge fanboy who can't take critics, cause my favorite member (Gerritt, I think) turned out to be one who didn't even finish the game, but, oh man, half of them were not having a good time when playing it.

But then that guy said he probably didn't enjoy the game because they had to get to a certain point of the game to talk about it on the podcast, so that made the experience a little stressful. If he had more time and no pressure to get to the colossi and slay them as soon as he could, he could probably have enjoyed it more. He could have tasted it better. And I think that's the point, Shadow of the Colossus has to be tasted slowly.

It's something I've heard in another podcast, where they have a term for this game-tasting experience. It's a portuguese word, hard to be translated. Anyway, they mean getting immersed in that world, playing as if you're the character. The true role-playing experience. The walking-slowly-button is vital for this kind of experience, they say. I couldn't agree more.
Of course, maybe Wander would actually want to rush to every colossus and slay them as soon as he could, he'd have a reason to do so, I don't think he was crossing that barren world for sight-seeing. In fact, ignoring every passing ruin and bridge just in order to get where I needed gave me a feeling of urgency. But sometimes, when I decided to walk slower through the plains, the whole lack of music and just the sounds of Agro's galloping suddenly filled me with melancholy and a feeling of anguish and loneliness, and I started instrospecting Wander's mind. What a burden. And how selfish this all is, killing these poor giant bastards who sometimes are so indifferent to me. Oh man, there's so much to be said about the experience.

Anyway, that's one nice realization: hurry handicaps tasting. I think I can use that to improve my texts. Going along with the flow, explore it all slowly, no hurry to get it all done. Relaaax, dude.

Of Stamina

I've just discovered this artist named Zac Gorman who has a very interesting art style. I find his use of colors really inspiring. He writes some comics about Zelda once in a while. They're beautiful. And funny. Sometimes  so freaking epic.

So there I was recalling memories, tasting the art and the colors (and that atmospheric rain effect) when I noticed inspiration kicking in. It's weird, but things that make me recall my childhood can be so inspiring.

Then I noticed Link's stamina bar over there and things made sense. The connection between this feeling of inspiration with the feeling of replenishing health in the games suddenly occurred. It feels as if I could be hit and I'd still have strength to stand up and keep going.

I also realized something:

How come a game where the door of the hero's house lies carved a heart can be so epic?
Sparkles are shot from Link's sword when his stamina bar is full. Goddamn Sparkles. Coincidentally, in more recent games, like Minish Cap, I think, when the opposite happens and you're left with one heart only, Link will regain the ability to shoot those energy blasts, like some kind of desperate strength Analogizing back to the inspiration and ideas, this could very well be Calvin's "last-minute panic".

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Mindscapes #2

 I was on the bus, listening to Vezpresmer Klezmer band, that one that plays hungarian-jewish music.

It was sunset time, shadows were stretching out along the world, the day was ending, clouds were being painted with evolving warm clouds. (edit: wtf, how do I do things like this)

Someone started eating an orange. I hate people who eat on the bus omg everything upsets me It felt incredibly right, that cheerful song and that citric smell. Jewish people would eat fruits in their parties, right? Drinking beer and eating traditional jewish food I don't know much about, but fruits felt like a nice idea.

Also, I started thinking of orange. The color, I mean. I never payed too much attention to that poor guy.

Of Soundtracking

Music is amazing to go along reading. Every book I read has to have a soundtrack. And I always try to listen to something that has not being stained with memories already, for the soundtracked experience adds value to both the songs and the books. Reading Silmarillion when listening to Weiland, by Empyrium, brought me the best experience I've ever had with soundtracked reading. I'll never forget the difference it made to the experience, it was made unique. I also read Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles when listening to Neun Welten's Vergessene Pfade, and relistening to the songs fatally reminded me of Derfel's life. Unfortunately, I've listened to that album so many times after the reading that the memories were erased again.

But there's much more to soundtracking than meets the eye. This is an unbelievably rich source of mindscapes, soundtracking my life. They are in everyday's life. Sometimes, by letting music fuse with things I see and smell and think, sometimes they fit together like it's a shocking realization. I feel like being, for a second there, in a new place. These mindscapes are some sort of sparkles, as they last for a few seconds. For some years, I learned to taste the soundtracked mindscapes in that small moment when the world seemed to stop and everything just fit together like it was eerily intended to happen.

I guess that's where the search for nuclearity was born, because I started training to keen my eyes in spotting the elements from the landscape or my thoughts that fused with elements from the song. And as soon as the mindscape appears, I have to have a quick reflex to grab and hold on to the very elements that originated the mindscape, so I have a longer time to taste it.


As I commutte by bus, this is probably the idea I've given the biggest ammount of thoughts, so this grew to be a really complex concept, with a lot of details and variables.

Of Fusion

I have the habit of doing as many things at once as possible. Well, sometimes it's not really overwhelming to walk and listen to music at the same time, but when I seem to concentrate on two things parallelly, they seem to stain each other. For example, sometimes when I listen to a podcast when I'm on the bus, I usually have recollection of memories of the journey when relistening the episode.

What makes me turn my attention to any idea is to recognize its analogous quality. Fusion also happens when I'm drawing. I noticed that since I was a kid, because if I'm in class and drawing while the teacher's speeching, I usually recall some pieces of information when watching my doodles and sketches a few days later. A shame I never managed to master it enough use it as a code to retain information for exams, though. Mindwalking is the result of fusions too, except the place is all in my head, and a little too erratic to be used to retain information too.

I've mentioned Stains a long time ago, and these memories, usually bitter ones, scattered around the world, also happen thanks to fusion. Most games I've played are stained, for unfortunately I've never been really good at escapism. I always keep thinking of my problems when slaying monsters and exploring worlds, even unconsciously. Probably if I go back and replay some 16-bits RPGs, I'll find them to be haunted by faceless memories of romantic frustrations.

Of Intertwining (trias politica)

One of these days I was watching some random tree, and I was thinking of how I could draw it. I noticed then that I was using several of my ideas at once. Tasting, breathing, and trying to hold it whole in my head while layering it down to get its nuclearity.

These ideas grow together, like they're all branches of each other. Sometimes they share so much in common I think they are just part of one main thing, something so complex I can only chew a small chunk of it at once (Wholeness, do something about that!).
That's actually what makes it so hard to write about them, as they are all connected, and I can't talk about one without mentioning the other, and I don't know which one is the requirement of the other one.

Spices, mindscapes, sparkles, tasting, soundtracking. I've grown surprised to realize they work together in sinergy. It has to do with fluency, making they all connect with no effort. Lucky me it's one less skill to worry developing.

Also, naming, firm grip, marching pace, formulation, fluency, wholeness, ungapping, layering, analogism, hybridism, seasoning, growing, logistics, they represent a different kind of intertwined ideas. I know their leader is Solidity, so this is the name to represent the whole group, just like Tasting could represent the other group.

There's also a third group, whose leader is obviously Mindtrap. Vices, polarization, metatraps, petty realizations, jumping, osmosing, mermaid words. Those would be the, huh, criminals. Drawbacking and doublethinking and loosening are agents that protect me from them.

Some things are hard to classify, like breathing, gamification, they seem to belong to both. Sour fuel seems to belong nowhere, though it's a motivation issue, it could be.. hm, I'll eventually find a place for them all.
If I think of the previous groups as departments, Tasting governs the Department of Resources, as they represent the poetry and creativity, and it's where my emotional sensibility lies.
Solidity runs the Department of Development, and it represents the executive power. It aims to search for efficiency and a way to make things work. It's my logical side, and it's what shows through the most on this blog. Mindtrap is elected to run the Department of Law, and it means policing against heading to the wrong roads.

If I use Drawback Lens, I'll see that Solidity, for example, is only one political party with power. It's got an opposition force, clearly. The opposition force constantly protests against the problems inherent to it. The members of opposite force wear scarfs and hate hollywood movies. Ops, polarization.

Anyway, so that's enough for now. There's still a whole lot to work on this, because even though I'm calling them Departments, they're also deeply intertwined, and I need to think of the connections they share. But I guess formulation did its work already. It's only half of the road, but as now I'm glad I have a basic structure to work on, and I guess it can resist some smaller storms.

Mindscapes #1

I am completely fascinated by the place I live in. Maybe I could be happy everywhere, but it's where I live now that seems to fulfill me. I love how the weather and period of day seems to change the feeling I get from the whole landscape.

And this night there was a full moon shining through a foggy valley.

It was supposed to be sublime, a dreadful beauty, not just incredibly amazing.

I'm afraid this picture doesn't do it justice, and it's the most faithful one I've got. It feels a little too colorful and not-really-scary. Being there, it was a much more spookier feeling, watching this ominous view and tasting the smell of a smokey night with a pleasant breeze.

It felt eerie as the moon seemed to be really close. Hanged-above-the-valley close. Maybe it was the fog filling up the whole sky that changed our perception of distance, making the light to be perceived as to come from inside the mist, not way beyond it.

Sublime is the word indeed. It's going to be one of them Sublime Mindscapes. But its eeriness also hooked me. And eerie's one of the main words I love tasting, as it represents one of the feelings that have influenced me the most, because it brings me back to my childhood. If I ever write a tale, its feeling is going to be inspired by the the place I grew in.


There'll be no zombies, it'd be too easy.

I may have lied, the place I live now doesn't feel as appealing to me as this one. But I guess it's actually better to leave it be in my memories. It's part of growing up and let things go, I think, despite of how life-changing important they were. Also the fond memories are more magical that way, because when I recall hints of it, my sparkles are fired up like hell.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Sparkles #1

So I was lying in bed, and I heard one voice saying "this song is called Midnight Tango". I have never heard of a song with such a name. But I liked this name. Sadly, there was no song in my head.

Well, I tried to bring a tango song to my mind, and try to play around with its notes. I brought some song by Astor Piazzolla so I could work around (formulation going on), and just as I was starting to get the tango in my head, I turned around in bed. As I was laying on my side for a long time, deep into my thoughts and songs in my head, it felt like a colossal movement.

I've been playing Shadow of the Colossus for some time now, and I've been so immersed and addicted to that game that I recognized the feeling like when you're holding on to the colossus' head and they'll swing it around trying to throw you off. This turning around felt like that epic whoosh-effect, and it got mixed up with the song, giving me a new sensation to the running tango. Unfortunately it felt so strong that the realization diverted me from my immersion in a way it all went downhill.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Of nocturnal discoveries

These might be the last days I have an excuse to visit my university, so I decided to take some pictures of that place. It's a really beautiful place at night, so I was again frustrated at how cameras still don't take good photographs of night environments. But I started exploring the camera's options when I learned I could do something unbelievably amazing with little to no effort at all. It's amazing how fast the quality went from so-lame to better-than-real-life.

The result was so wonderful I felt like sharing my two favorites:


You can('t) view the university from my aunt's apartment. God, how many nights staring at this view.


My house's backyard view, which happens to be the one I tried to describe in that entry about stars.

Best thing yet, this is the "starry skies mode", or so it says in the camera. As I could in fact spot one or two stars on the pictures, I'm thrilled with the prospect of finally photographing the Milky Way, which is something I always dreamed of.

Of HK-47 Protocol

[The Simpsons Principle]
I didn't particularly enjoy the game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic that much. I've found the game a little 'meh'. Really, its story, the so-claimed strong point, is quite whatever and average and the rest is a rip-off from the elements of the original movie trilogy. There, I said it. But there's this very interesting character there, HK-47, a "Hunter-Killer assassin droid", who shows a very peculiar way of delivering his sentences (as can be seen here). The way he classifies them inspired me to analyse my texts. And this is how I'll start paying the promise I've made myself, to work harder developing my writing skills.

[?]
The plan is all set: I'll have to use Formulation in my texts. It'll grants me a Solid ground to expand and develop more complicated structures. But in order to build a formula, I'll have to understand the Whole of the text. And for that I'll have to Breath the text so to identify the Milestones. And this is where the HK-47 Protocol comes in.

[Objective]
It's a procedure I'll use to classify paragraphs by naming them, therefore making them simpler so it'll be easier to hold them whole in my head. It'll be visible only in this post, but in the next ones I'll work with them behind the curtains because it'd get tiresome to have those things always shown on texts. Until this classification procedure becomes a fluent, second-nature skill, there's a long way to go with it. Mostly because different texts will require different formulas and this procedure is essential to analyse all variables and identify what elements they share in common. Anyway, I think posts dealing with namings will pretty much follow similar patterns.

[Conclusion]
In the end, I believe this will be a very useful paliative trick. They are like those lens that'll make issues awkwardly visible (like, what's the name of that transitioning paragraph, it couldn't still be part of the introduction, could it? An introduction that long?), and I can even feel some issues being instantly healed already. Ye-hay, that's nuclearity for you!

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Of Breathing

When I was writing my course's final piece of work, I knew I was having some issues with all this digital writing. For some reason I couldn't really feel my text, it felt unreachable and untouchable. And I think it's the same thing with all those online researches. I wanted to have dozens of books opened all around me on the floor (instead of dozens of pages shown individually on my browser). I wanted to experience the whole mess; to have to stumble through papers to find some lost ramblings. I know this is anti-ecological, but the whole lack of intimacy in typing seemed to handicap my efficiency.

So this whole immersive involvement, diving deeply into something, I call it Breathing. It's in essence pretty much like Tasting, but while this is a more, say, resourceful concept, Breathing is designed more specifically to develop skills. I'd say Breathing is a bridge between Tasting and Nuclearity, as when Breathing something I aim to get deeply involved so to be able to see the core, the Wholeness of things in my head.

I admit it, I am not quite fluent on breathing my writings (probably the same reason mentioned above), and I think that's the reason why I haven't been able to develop them as quickly as I should. I'll see if I can overcome this with some trick or if I'll have to resort to handwritten texts.

-

Off-topic: ok, this name seems to be sticky enough to last, unlike with previous attempts. Thanks I left this idea to be seasoned, I don't want to have to deal with another case like Nuclear Aim.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Of revolutions

I usually wonder about some historical matter, such as the classification of historical periods.
We had modern period, now contemporary period. I think I can feel it changing. The advent of computers and the internet can easily be as world-changing as the invention of the printing press that helped to transit the world from medieval to modern period.

And I keep thinking, what will this next age be called? Neo-contemporary? Cut this crap, this kind of classification is not working. I think each period has to be known for its own characteristics, not restrained by time-classification. For example, I think we are entering in the age of informatics, so to give it a name. The internet is changing the world, in a way or another, so this is a new time. And we can see the consequences of that. I mean, I've heard facebook and twitter weren't as influential to the Egyptian Revolution as they're claimed to be, but then we've got Anonymous and Wikileaks and how governments are feeling ominously threatened by them.

I can feel a slight hint of "revolution" (it's a strong word, but I think it's not really unfit) in a scale much closer to my reality. The teachers working for the state are currently in a on-going strike that has last for about two months now. So far as now, kids studying in public schools are at home the whole time. My mother is one of those teachers, so I quite know everything first-hand. And the state governor is trying all he can to discount these "days off" from their salaries while they're on strike, claiming the strike to be illegal. How can a protest be illegal? For all I know that's dictatorship.

'There's no more money for you, stop begging', he says. 'Go back to the classes, our kids need you'. However, the sindicate proved money destined to the state education was diverted. Still, there seems to be no agreement, no deal. The governor leaves the state for a week, so there's one more week of waiting for a next reunion and the next deadlock. That's so absurd there's an on-going an attempt of impeachment. And as far as I know, some other strikes are going on throughout the country, with some other impeachment attempts as well.

And I think internet has its own share of importance there. Not only being informed of the situation in others states give us confidence, but information keeps us united. My mother keeps herself informed through a blog of a jornalist, where she reads the comments of teachers around the state. There's all kind of rumors going on like "everybody is giving up!", so my mother says that this way it's seems to be easier to keep things organized, as the professionals can remain united and confident. With all these rumors of threats to their strike, that seems extremely important.

I think it makes sense to think the internet is being glorified as a way to have something interesting to hit headlines or something, but I do feel the potential of change in the air, though it's still underdeveloped. I'm trying really hard not to sound like I am all "yeah! it's whole new world where everything is great", because I am just not, and I even think Anonymous' letter to Nato was quite a lot romantic in its own "this is no longer your world, it is our world - the people's world" idealism, but pay attention to all those issues, how the government is always involved, this time showing up threatened.

There's a lot more to learn and reflect on this subject, but so far as now there have been my thoughts (my untested thoughts, it's worth adding), trying to figure out what's going on.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Of Nuclearity

So sometimes a badly chosen name makes me embarassed of it.
Somehow Nuclear Aim makes me feel uncomfortable, so I've been avoiding its use mostly because it feels awkward to bring it on. But this is a very important concept for me and I can't let this foolishness ruin my progress. Learning and mastering - or defeating - the innermost cores is a strategy that is very nuclear for achieving efficiency.

So I decided to change Nuclear Aim for a very simpler and more efficient name: Nuclearity.
See, this name brings the nuclear principle of the idea. Nuclearity is just everywhere.

Checkpoint #3

There's not much to be said this time. As in the last few days I already posted entries regarding things that I usually say here, this time this will end up shorter. Also, as I've been writing less, there was less to be analyzed anyway. But I've been finishing writing my final report to put an end to my undergraduate course, and that's where I got Seasoning from. Eh, June's been a busy month. But this month I'll work better on the formulation of the texts.

By the way, I wish I could say Seasoning had a  slowed down the posting rate, but I'm afraid that would be a lame excuse for postponing. Weird how some topics I feel the usual whatever-good-enough rush and that's how seasoning can help me, but also there are some topics that I feel quite the opposite, and that's something seasoning can also help me. Eh, should've have said that in the proper entry. Not seasoned enough, that one.

But I've been thinking about this blog. I've been thinking about reseting it so things could started more organized, but that would be a much rushed decision, so I decided I'll keep writing my shit here. I guess I'm learning to accept and have fun with my mistakes and weirdness. Probably a good step in improvement, I'll just have to be careful not to get it into a vice.
I've also been wondering on these "Of ..." titles. Sometimes they don't sound right and I've even thought of removing them, but that would get rid of the capital letters that are indicative of Names, so it'll stay as it is.

Discovery of the month:
I really like how sometimes a little sprout of ideas sometimes develop better when written down. It's the case of the Unseen things. I've been thinking about the sequels and I've been realizing greater things. It's getting awesome. Seasoning is much too recent, and so far it has only taken the role of a writing tool, but, um, as I write this sentence I can see it has some potential to be developed if I just send it to analogies department.