I don't really have time for an extensive post, but as I was browsing through some file binders, I found this beautiful pin-up by Mai-chan, which she had given me to upload back when we were trying to work on a joint project. Sadly, as many other well-laid (OK, perhaps "optimistically-laid" is more accurate) plans, the project fluked, though I still keep it in the back of my mind.
At any rate, it's one of her art-pieces that I count among my favorites and thus decided to share it with you.
You can check more of her artwork on her MySpace or her manga blog, Sakura no Kage.
*Clack-clack* *clickety-clack-clack* *click*. The sound of work, as fingers run a marathon over the keys and alternate with the occasional touch of the electronic rodent's buttons, the murmur of machine, at times a sigh and at others a furious, urgent blowing, mingling with tired sighs and a steady breath that mankind scarcely notices, taking it for granted until it stops. The eyes are sticky from dryness, due to long-time exposure to the screen's radiation and just plain old sleepiness. The mixture of scents is not a particularly appealing one, as sweat upon sweat mingles with the murkiness of the season, the night's dew transforming into mouldy atmospheric humidity, instead of refreshing moisture.
I take a swig out of my overgrown polymer vessel and taste the bitter-sour grapefruit juice - may the Lord rest the soul of he who invented ice-cubes. I have no idea why I drink the stuff - certainly not to lose weight, given my day-to-day stillness and rather foul diet - or even why I am more inclined towards salty, sour, bitter things, instead of sweets (unless of course it's the worst form of sweets, such as petroleum-extract jelly-snacks, or the sainted ice-cream). What I do know, is that once more the Universe makes a point of its peculiar humour, as lines upon lines concerning its creation drone - no, fly, but slowly - before my eyes and I am reminded of a whole chapter dedicated to it being at the grapefruit-size stage, one hundredth of a billionth billionth billionth of a second after its *plop* into existence.
The irony does not escape me but I find it scarce funny that the Universe once had the size of such a delicious, bittersweet thing (the actual fruit is so and make no mistake) and that I am trapped between lines of words brimming with its description, while I guzzle myself on something that might be the actual thing's extract: it's still bitter and I still like it and by now my thoughts have veered off into a place where all dimensions are at right angles with those of my assigned work. The quest for knowledge of the origin of everything and then some: Sacred Science indeed, although it is now unthinkable for the two words to be joined, except within the limits of history and philosophy.
Of course, all this frantic firing of my neurons and the wild DJ battle between my brain's seat of memory and seat of knowledge, results from the presence of one thing instead of another: I have been cloistered for work before, not 4 months past, then in the throes of great depression (seemingly even greater than the one menacing the world's finances), yet armed with solitude and a feeling of being disconnected from the rest of humanity - which things helped, or rather forced me to concentrate on my work alone (what else was there for me, after all, I was thinking at the time).
Now, after a turn of events starting 3 months ago, almost to the day, and ending a little less than one month and a half ago - events into whose details no gentleman of a right mind would delve - the depression was scrubbed off me rather violently, replaced by my returning feel of the humanity inside and around me.
All this may sound a bit aloof and all too philosophical, yet make no mistake, it's a rather simple thing that only perception manages to turn so complex: it is all about sensing humans as living, breathing, sentient things which, indeed, tend to break down too easily, instead of regarding them as only the result of behavioral patterns, cause and effect, strength and weakness. Certainly, the latter is an appealing outlook in that it defends you against a multitude of "acceptable" attacks, within the limits of our "civilized" society and makes you capable of returning the attacks in kind, if not multi-fold.
In essence, if you detach yourself from the complications of humane - and not just human - relations, you are pretty safe and, given the proper inclination, you can develop a number of skills to gauge and damage those around you, should you wish so. However, it is a lonely, barren and rather thankless road. Oh, you can certainly pretened about a great many things and "earn" the gratitude and admiration of those around you, yet the mirror inside yor mind's eye will always show you for what you are: a rather pathetic excuse for Dorian Gray. In time, even if you once had an inclination for malevolence or revenge, it drains out of you, leaving you indifferent, forced to wear mask upon mask to interact with people without coming across as cold (freezing cold at that). Their words reach your ears but do not register and are therefore promptly forgotten, be they insignificant personal dramas which mean the world to them, or serious thoughts deserving of further probing.
It occurs to me that, like a cossinus curve, I have been edging back and forth between conditions over the years, often resting at the 0 point of the y-axle, despite my best efforts. With age, the dinstinction becomes more blurry: I am 27 now and I have seen my share of abnormal situations - well, perhaps a bit more than my allotted share - as well as witnessed and felt intervals of happiness, some longer, some shorter, all in all good and bad balancing each other out, with a small yet very dinstinct "quanity of good" coming out on top. I am grateful for that and should you weigh the good and the bad in your life and find them as such or better, you should be too. If not, then you have reason to work towards making things better. Whining never helped anyone and the Gods help those who help themselves, as the old adage goes.
So now, I am observing and I am listening and I will remember all that you tell me and if you ask me a question, I will try to answer it to the best of my ability, unless I perceive that you already know the answer and are seeking something else. There are times when I might be annoyed, at seeing people conjure problems and imagined slights that stem from internal frustration and oftentimes, pure imagination. Still, I listen and I will speak my mind and I will not lie, though it may hurt you and possibly turn you against me. Such is our world: though we are all somehow connected, we do not necessarilly fit together.
As a last thought, keep this in mind: this, our world and life, is or will yet be filled with too much pain and sorrow. It's the natural way and course of things, as they stand. So do yourself a favor and cherish all that you enjoy as granted; and if you have the time for idleness, at least enjoy it instead of using it to poison your mind and your humour. We only get so much time and if there is one undisputable sin, in my opinion, it is wasting ours or that of others, either in our minds or through our actions.
Good morning,
Speedgrapher
P.S. In case you were wondering, I write these things because they float around in my mind and disrupt my focus. Materializing them into typed words relieves the pressure inside my skull, so to speak. I do wonder whether this train of thought traces its origin to my current work, in conjunction with my reading chapters from Alan Moore's "Voice of the Fire" late at night or very early in the morning.
Life, as they say, is stranger than fiction - how much weirder then when, the absolute weirdness of life becomes itself fiction. "My sincerest contrafibularities", as Lewis Carroll would say. I have often found very queer the fact that most (if not all) things seem connected and that no one you meet is really a stranger: "a silver thread, connecting all people", as those of a romantic predisposition would say.
At any rate, there has been a series of mostly unrelated events (my father getting an e-mail from the British Council, a presentation involving an overlarge green marble, a group of people doing weird and funny stuff with science, a team, some friendships, a violent break, some new decisions, a return and a new team) that led me to read "Little Arithmetics", a book by a young woman named Anna Varsamou.
As the flap of her book says, "within these pages are contained many wedding gowns, but no wedding, a house filled with powdery sugar (or something that resembles it), valuable manuscripts left to dry, Morissey giving advice, a strange, bloodless murder, the collapse of a mathematical axiom and a few other uncanny things we have all lived through. For even the strangest stories are different facets of a reality which is irrevocable and intolerably normal." I must admit, among the many things stated above, those that initially caught my eye were "bloodless murder", "mathematical axiom" and finally, "Morissey" (duly corrected), in that order, all contained and somehow interconnected, inside the small book I was holding in my hands.
The Cover of "Little Arithmetics". [If interested, you can find it at Perizitito.gr]
I do not know Anna all that well: in all fairness, I do not know her very much at all. We first met as members of the science communication team, SciCo, on the 24th of January, 2009. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss upcoming projects, one of which was "The Science of Love". Ever since, we have mainly rehearsed as part of the team, we have exchanged a (very) few stories and have shared in the stress accompanying any form of theatrical performance, moreso one executed by people who are not actors (well, we had to share her own stress, since I am an insenitive bastard). No, I cannot really say I know Anna and am, therefore, unable to confirm whether "appearances are deceiving", when it comes to her as a person; not so for her book. Having read it, I can now say, with absolute certainty, that "Little Arithmetics" did not turn out to be what I expected at all. Yet, it delivers all it promises, not having said a single lie to its prospective reader.
"Little Arithmetics" is not about numbers - not really - nor is any fabled scientific axiom deconstructed. In this book, no one dies and yet, there is death aplenty and mourning and a little happiness, in these small, surreal doses: like LSD drops that make you soar under their influence, leaving you broken and wondering what it was that you fleetingly dreamed of, in the harsh light of reality. It is a book about people, about their dramas and neuroses and false hopes, insignificant on a cosmic scale and yet vaster than any universe. They say "no man is an island", no man (or woman, for that matter) is completely alone and yet this book states a simple truth, that most like to deny: we are not just islands - we, in and of ourselves, are whole worlds and worlds apart from each other.
We spin around our center, ignoring all that may orbit, or even approach us and in the off chance that our respective gravities bring us close, we crash into each other, hurting and cracking and hoping that we may end up as twin stars; and this we call love. This is a book about all these things, without fanfare, raw and honest. It is, above and beyond, a book about hedgehogs, past present and future, whether they walk on two legs or not.
When I found out Anna had published this book, I tried to track it down, due to one of my most integral flaws: curiosity. However, I could find it nowhere (it came out in 2000), so I asked her if she had a copy. When she gave it to me, she told me: "don't pay too much heed to it - it's just the ramblings of a girl at a messed-up age". I had no answer to that then, but now that I have read it, I concur: indeed they are and that is what makes the book important. A good book does not need to have complex, multi-layered mysteries or elaborate on the underlying fabric of reality. Putting into paper, in an understandable way, the everyday madness, delusion, pain and happiness of being human, is achievement enough.
One might plausibly ask, why did I like this book so much? You must have gathered by now, even by my choice of language, that I am not a great fan of Greek literature (at least, not modern): there are exceptions of course, but a good deal of it bores me to death, because many writers try to "dress up" their subject, to make it seem something different, more sophisticated than it actually is (and then there are those for which I simply have no frame of reference). This is a book that strikes me as having been written from the heart and it is a book I understand implicitly, as it touches at some sensitive chords of the past. I do not know if we are really all connected, but this book connects.
In closing off, here's a video of dEUS's (one of the author's most favorite bands) "Little Arithmetics", which inspired the title of the book.
Incidentally, I did not know dEUS before Anna and the following is a song of theirs ,which I really like.
Well, yes, in fact I managed to go! After around 5 Lives, I managed to go watch Flexxy and company on a humid Friday, finally! I had listened to No Offense's recorded live performances and yes, I thought they were pretty decent (it's a hesitation to say any more, that comes with any band doing covers), but now I have revised my opinion: they are good and not just "hey, they're my friends (well, Flexxy is) - they're OK". No, I mean actually, very pleasantly good.
They played a number of interesting covers, "Give It Away" (which always makes me appreciate Flexxy's voice range), "Unbelievable" AND Gazette's "Cockroach" among them and I believe the whole band is deserving of congratulations, for doing the songs justice. They also played two of their own songs, "A Fresh Start" and "One Step Forward", the first of which I liked very much, in and of itself, while the second brought to mind the music from the fictional band, Trip Cyclone, in the game "Shivers II" (one of the best soundtracks ever in a game, if you like classic rock).
At any rate, here's the photos from that night.
Presenting
No Offense
Vlassis "FlexXxible" Tsiamas (Vocals)
Haris Pandazis (Bass)
Panayiotis Kolidas (Guitar)
Vassilis Nikolis (Drums)
You know, I generally sort Flexxy under "depressed", or at least, potentially so...
...but whenever he is on stage (both when I saw them live and in videos)...
...he seems to forget himself.
The whole band was perfectly focused...
...not only keeping their building momentum...
...but also augmenting it as they went.
As to the ever-fearful question: "were there enough people?"...
...I believe this answers it (in part - there were many more on the other side but taking wide pictures is a pain in there).
Not to mention some familiar faces (Velvet Vortex)...
...John and NickUnknown (back from Scotland for Summer Break). There were also Raziel, Luna (far left, here), Nickmer, Darkside_Blues and Cavu (Ergo Proxy sleeped us off, yet again).
"Give it away, give it away, give it away now...!"
I have a small obsession with photographing drummers...
...because they invariably give me a hard time (Chiroto has been by far the worst).
After No Offense concluded, we ordered beers and Kamikaze Cocktail, which...
...gave Darkside_Blues the opportunity to test his... suction skills (you had it coming bro)!
I also took a couple of videos ("Cockroach" and "One Step Forward"), but they are huge and I have a hard time uploading them. However, I have given them to Flexxy, so he should get off his ass and upload them himself, yeah?! Well, at any rate, I want to congratulate the guys and thank Flexxy for dedicating "Unbelievable " to me. It did seem a bit weird to anyone who has not been exposed to the company's inside jokes but so long as I understood, alles ist OK.
For myself, I would like to hear more of No Offense's original songs (which, as they say in their page, they are currently working on), but a slight suspicion I have about their next covers (not telling), has me waiting for their coming live performances.
Before I go, here are a video featuring Trip Cyclone's (whom I mentioned earlier) "Was I Even There" and another featuring the remix from the Shivers I game music.
Strangely enough, both I found were edited with Kingdom Hearts footage.
While putting a semblance of order in the chaos that are the files on my PC (pretty much like my room), I came upon this folder in the "New Photos" subfolder, aka, "photos I have not yet edited or posted".
On the day that the Final Fantasy Cosplay Party had taken place, Sarcana had asked around if some people would be interested in playing extras, for a scene shoot that would take place in UNDERWORLD, themed around Vampires. The shoot would take place on Sunday. A couple of others and myself showed up and well, let's just say that many left because the film crew was late around... 3 hours!
Regardless, before the director showed up, the make-up crew came along to transform Sarcana into a Vampiress and Sweet Lady With A Tiger-Tail into her all-too willing victim. Seeing as you can only indulge in so much small-talk (thanks Nicolas - I would have shot myself dead out of boredom!), I decided to take advantage of the dead time to shoot some pictures and post-editing, well, this is the result.
...climb onto them, which really makes for interesting photos.
Experimenting with the little available light.
Experimenting with Photoshop. You will notice that certain pictures have the eyes painted red - it's because I thought it fitting or just wanted to try out an alternative. Nikolaos, ???, Nerissa and Sarcana. Almost as if from a Vampire the Masquerade scene.
This is one of my favorites: her body type and skin, make for an ideal combination with the puncture wounds.
This one, as well as the following two, are also touched up concerning the blood smear.
All in all, a rather good set. Too bad I could not take some pictures during the scene shoot. To tell the truth, the setting was so disorganized as was (I don't even remember the name of the director but she really had to get her act together, both in directing the whole thing, as well as actually having an original idea) and I did not want to add to the chaos. I had heard a rumor that the movie, of which this segment was shot on that day, was to be taken to the Cannes Festival - never found out about that...
Here's a couple of things that might interest you, which recently came to my attention:
First-off, Bare Infinity, an amazing Greek Metal band, which has passed through much turmoil since its formation, in 2003, will be playing at 8Ball in Salonika on the 12th and at Sfendona (22, Alexandras Ave.) in Athens, on the 19th. What makes this band so amazing (to me), is that they sound like a healthy mix of Nightwish, Within Temptation, Epica and Sirenia, all of which are very dear to my heart. Of course, one would argue that you could always listen to those other bands, but the fact is, simply, Bare Infinity are good, really, really good!
When I first stumbled upon them, I started listening to their first album (Always Forever) medley on MySpace and I thought they were probably Finnish or Norwegian; lo and behold, looking at the profile details, they were Greek! I was amazed that a Greek Metal band could put out such incredible quality, both in sound and vocals (I find very annoying the fact that many Greek bands who sing English lyrics, have blatant accents - not so here, not by a longshot). Needless to say, the lyrics are nothing short of great.
On a personal trivia note, I thought their drummer, George, looked oddly familiar and indeed, I had met him years ago, during my Live-Action Role-Playing days. I will be attending their Athens Live with a 99% probablility and I believe that anyone who holds Melodic & Symphonic Metal close to their hearts, should as well.
As a secondary note, [room302] of ex-Ordre de Ciel and ex-Le Ciel, is organizing a Video Game Music Party at Texas Necropolis (corner of Themistokleous & Gamvetta) on the 5th of June, with a new team (?) called Save Point. The event will feature Video Game Music (and you can bet that there will be a lot of Silent Hill, if the past is any indication), as well as a Video Game RolePlay Contest, where people are invited to dress as their favorite game characters and win prizes.
My second detective story, "Bloody Carnival", will air as a radio dramatization on the greek station 902 FM, narrated by Dimitris Poulikakos and directed by Adelle Mermiga, as part of the station's detective story series, "Cops and Robbers".
The show is broadcasted every Monday at 21:00, with a repeat play every Sunday, at the same time. This story will again feature Prometheus Hermeticus, as did the story for the Ecocrimes collection, "Double Substitution Crime" and will be bradcasted this Monday, on the 25th.
Hope you can listen to it and give me your feedback!
I have been meaning to write this post for quite some time now; more specifically, the pictures were taken on the 9th of May 2009, at a Starbucks near the Athens Metropolitan Church. A company of friends gathered to say goodbye and wish a safe journey to Raven Sweetwater, a.k.a. Nozomi Sugihara, who would be leaving on the following day for the U.S.
Reasonably, one might wonder why we would gather with such urgency,, with such a feel of necessity, given that she is supposed to be gone for 20 days - until the end of May. Well, for one, it's a Greek thing and in her case, those of us who know how and why she has suffered for the past months, needed to see her off safely, so to speak. It is almost ritualistic, as if our gathering for a (temporarily) last outing, like we used to, will be a good luck charm for her to bear on her journey (not to mention that she needed all the encouragement she could get - she is friggin' terrified of planes).
Among the people gathered were, of course, Kyoshiro and Flexxy...
...who took it upon himself to film the whole outing (as if photos were not enough!)...
...the mighty KrizD -sensei...
...Chiroto (else known as Master Betty), who brought disaster the moment he stepped in there, spilling 330 ml of whatever it was Ploutonas was drinking, on the ground...
...Ayami-chan...
...Didi...
...and the aforementioned Ploutonas, among others (are you flashing us or is it my idea? Dude...).
For my part, however, there was a thought lodged in the back of my head - involuntarily, as it often is and refusing to budge one inch: "she might not be coming back". Really, for all the company and friendship, for all the good days she might have had, her time here gave her a lot of grief and too much to deal with, too fast, too coldly, in the one place supposed to be a safe haven: home. In fact, I am not very sure she even considered having a home here, after a while.
Then, I started getting news from her, what she is doing in the U.S., how she spends her time. Then she started blogging again, started posting pictures of people and places and not one of them has been about Sugizo, her seeming obsession with whom has become sort of a frequent, well-humored, inside joke. Those last two posts were about herself, her own life, her own thoughts and contrary to what had become the norm, she seemed alive, happy, vibrant, not struggling against depression and madness, with her life coming apart and crashing down all around her ears.
One of many funny moments: Didi - yes, Didi! - is on a diet (fer chrissake), so...
...the moment Ploutonas went to talk to Kyoshiro...
...she started oggling Ayami-s cheesecake dangerously!
Given the choice, what would you do? What would I have done? I have no idea, but that thought at the back of my head asserts its existence: she might not be coming back and I cannot really say as I blame her...
"Group photo, group photo!". [KrizD has left and here you can also see Sokail (top left), myself next to him and Xander (top right).]
Safe travels Stormcrow, wherever they may lead you...
It was high time I posted something here - with all the craziness (mostly good and a few drops of bad) in my life right now, it is all I can do to keep my work and absolute necessary blog posts up to date. However, it would not feel right NOT to announce this here.
A friend from the immensely active Japanese community of Athens, Vlassis "FlexXxible" Tsiamas, aka Flexxy (or Fle-chan, when we want to get on his nerves - a pretty common occurrence) and his band, No Offense, will be doing their first big gig after getting back together again, at the Rodeo Live Club, on the 3rd of May. The evening will be split between three bands in total, the other two being The Virgin Steve and Accidents Happen.
I have not managed to attend one of No Offense's lives yet but watching some of their live video recordings and often witnessing Flexxy singing, I can say pretty confidently that they got their mojo right. As far as I know, at the moment they are focusing on covers from early millennium alternative-indie music, although as I have been informed, they plan on doing "Cockroach" from the Japanese band, The GazettE. Here's what the original sounds like:
Hopefully, I will be there to cover the whole thing with my camera and then report it here.
...or, "what's in a name". In this particular blog's name there's lots of things: there's two old friends, one of which is fond of peculiar words and another, who sighs in exasperation at his taste in them. There's the things that make our day, the things that ruin it and everything in-between. There's quite a bit of past, a measure of present and effort for the existence of a future. There's music and there is art. There's also weirdness ranging from the purely scientific, passing through the philosophic and reaching unto the peculiarly aesthetic (or contrary thereof). Basically there's lots of rant stemming from the realities in our minds, realities that, should it please the readers, they are welcome to be subjugated by.
