Hello again: well, this is another post to fill in while waiting for the one being prepared, but I believe no less interesting. It concerns "Fast Forward Magazine" (well, ROMzine actually, since it's in DVD form) and its "Street Art Issue", that is the one before the current "Asta Na Pane Issue".
The DVD is distributed free and I came by it coincidentally, while out shopping for - what else - books and comics. Seeing as most free material of this kind is usually not worth bothering with (and to me, street art is pretty to look at but it also reminds me how badly I suck at drawing anything), I left it lying around my room for quite some time. Then, a few months back, during a routine clean-up of miscellaneous and obsolete stuff, I was checking anything lying on my desk, before deciding whether I should chuck it in the recycle bin or not. Finally, I inserted the DVD in the PC's drive.
It just goes to show that the old adage concerning rules and exceptions still holds true: "Fast Forward" was anything BUT a disappointment and it currently resides safely on my DVD shelf. The funny thing is: its title material was probably the least interesting to me, whereas a fantastic documentary, by Steal This Film Project, conspicuously titled "Steal This Film", completely won me over.
Contrary to what the title might imply, the film does not stick to the matter of piracy, file-sharing etc. alone, but instead it goes on to do an analysis of modern information dissemination, a historical review of the reaction to any new popular medium and/ or method of information sharing and duplication. Furthermore, it generally does a very interesting overview of this whole issue, its origins, the wrong handling which backfired on the related industry and much more.
I watched it in one breath and naturally, I then dug through every corner of the rest of the DVD: movie and video-game trailers, a paint-ball feature, shotgun comics reviews by Makis Katalifos of Jemma Books and Comics, a short film about last year's Torture Garden at Second Skin and of course, graffiti. I also liked the simple, functional 3D interface very much.
In the end, I believe I will become a loyal reader (or is it watcher, in this case?) of the team's material and try to track down their previous issues (the new one is already out, from what I see on their official site). Furthermore, lots of material from all the issues can be found in the archive, so make sure to check it out.
Unfortunately, I suppose "Steal This Film" was just too huge to put on there but you could always check the project's official website (link a few paragraphs up) and help promote their way of thinking, if you agree with it.
...is what Percival said to King Arthur after the completion of the Grail Quest, in the 1981 movie, "Excalibur", featuring a phenomenal cast of actors, such as Helen Mirren (Morgana!), Liam Neeson (Sir Gawain), Gabriel Byrne (Uther Pendragon), Patrick Stewart (Sir Leodegrance) and classic legendary actor Nicol Williamson (Merlin).
Today's post refers to this particular movie (which I watched when I was entirely too young to meet the age restrictions and my parents enitrely ignorant of its specific content, when I asked for it in VHS) only by association to the latest book I read and then only throught this particular phrase. The book is "Voice of the Fire", by Alan Moore (author of "Watchmen", "V for Vendetta", "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", "From Hell" and other such masterpieces) and I bought it several months (maybe even a year) before I entertained any thoughts of starting to read it. That's just how it is with me: I keep accumulating interesting things I mean to read, which I pile upon the previous bunch of such interesting things and so on and so forth. However, I eventually get there, especially when - by necessity of work deadlines and bad time management - I cloister myself at home: there is only so much one can do between 6-hour work intervlas of translating "hard science for the masses" (read the beginning of the article for more details).
At any rate, when the work-seclusion started, I needed something to relax my brain from all the science and yet keep my thought processes alert enough to get into the flow of work, to get used to seeing so many words fly by my eyes so quickly. Hence, I first picked up Neil Gaiman's and Michael Reaves's "Interworld", which will be covered in a different post: it flew by effortlessly and even with my limited available reading time, it was gone in a little less than a week and it had enough cosmological and scientific references which, though helpful to my necessary thought processes, prevented it from being as relaxing as it would otherwise have been. I needed something else...
Alan Moore's writing has come to be perceived, almost by definition, as very deep and hard to understand. I have personally received the comment: "What?! You're reading Alan Moore? No way dude, he's faaaar too complicated for me: I cannot stand him." That was a comment provoked by the author's graphic work, along with Eddie Campbell, entitled "A Disease of Language". Funny enough, I have not had the time to read that particular volume just yet, but I believe we are dealing with a genuine case of "deceiving appearances". Alan Moore IS deep and no question about it, since all of his works have been hailed as masterpieces, at least in the comic book domain, for which he has been rewarded with non-resolvable contract fine-print and a number of bad movie adaptations (I believe that, despite its stellar cast, "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" was by far the worst, tantamount to ridicule). As for being far too complex and hard to read, I would have to say that it's a rather inaccurate statement: I believe it would be more correct to say that Alan Moore's works, especially when not aided by the imagery of the comics medium, require that the reader becomes interlocutor, instead of passive (even though captive) audience.
It was something that I realized while reading this, his first work I have come across that is not in comic book form (I believe that "Alan Moore's Writing for Comics" does not really count in this instance). "Voice of the Fire" is many things: a novel in 12 chapters, 12 linked short stories, 12 iconic personalities and imagined characters from the area that is now Northampton. However and not presuming to understand the mindscape of Alan Moore (although I HAVE watched Dez Vylenz's documentary), I believe the point is a space/time testimony beginning with a half-wit neolithic boy, passing through Roman rule and decline, the time surrounding the arrest of Guy Fawkes, the Burning Times, the Victorian Era and reaching 1995, which sports the writer himself at the center-stage.
All 12 personalities, real, or assumed, or completely imagined, speak in the first person, through the lips of the author. Through their eyes we see how Hob's Hog and Bridge-in-Valley became Ham Town and in time Hampton, how the relics, both physical and metaphysical shifted, moved, were redistributed and yet remained with each people of the land, how the 2500 BC forge became Hammersmith Train Station, how - in the end - the land and the people and the tales, the blood, the violence, the sex are one: oh, they may change form but are never lost, a kind of "Conservation of Legacy", much like the indomitable Conservation of Energy. Each story is told in the appropriate way, whether half-witted neolithic thoughts, mad diary ramblings or last thoughts as the fire licks tender flesh. This is a book of themes and symbols pervading Alan Moore's hometown, as only an honest-to-(whatever) God Shaman can perceive and accept them.
There is no glossing over here: humanity has persevered through fear, murder and sex, as much as it has through imagination, ingenuity and creativity. Alan Moore not only presents a profound understanding of this, both instinctive and researched, but he doesn't try to put himself on the outside either: the last chapter may well have been an entry from his personal journal, where nothing is left unsaid, where he smirks ironically at his own reflection and that of his family and friends, all descendants in underlying nature, if not in fact, of the previous 11 protagonists, the whole lot of them, past, present and future, birthed from the fertile, wet nether regions of the Northampton land.
I cannot really say much more without referring the entirety of the book and there are even parts I had to reread in order to make sure the connections I saw were not imagined. Was it hard to read? Not really, not apart from the first chapter, which was no more difficult that a conversation with a retarded child would be: the language also changes from chapter to chapter, to reflect the era and is in itself a journey of discovery, as things unknown at first, start to gradually make sense. It also becomes clear that the historical research was arduous, what with the book being nearly 300 pages, having been written over a span of 5 years and first published in 1995.
Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie.
If I wanted to draw a general conclusion from this book, it would be this: however hard we may try to forget and strike from record what has come before, the land never forgets and it seeds our dreams, our fears and our superstitions with the clues to the truth. Whether we want to ignore them or not and what might the consequences of each action be, is a matter that we cannot hope to resolve - merely accept, if our mind is open enough.
Remember, for if memory is a river, the more debris you drop in, trying to stem its flow, the more disastrous the flood when the dams break,
The title of this post, though it did not appear as such in the good professor's book, is indicative of how much this particular work has influenced me. Let me clarify: the lines come from Blind Guardian's "The Bard's Song (The Hobbit)", from the album "Somewhere Far Beyond". The lines illustrate a most pivotal moment in Professor Tolkien's book, "The Hobbit", in Chapter XVI: A Thief In the Night.
"Somewhere Far Beyond" [1992].
I couldn't have been more then 8-9 years old, when my as yet unborn sister's godmother-to-be, suggested I read "The Hobbit", knowing of my inclination towards epic fantasy even then (although being asked, I could not have put it that way). It seems that, even at the time, I kept that piece of advice somewhere in the back of my head. So one day, when I was in the midst of my habitual mining through the piles, racks and shelves of stuff in my father's work room, I came across a 1978 edition of "The Hobbit", translated in Greek, by Kedros Publishing.
"Dad can I have this?"
"Sure, go ahead."
That was about the extent of the dialog exchanged between us concerning the book. I have said in the past that I do not believe in events and lives being written in some unreachable, cosmic stone and what's laid out for us is merely choices, some rather inconsequential, some decisive for our whole future existence: to me, picking up this book is one of those pivotal moments in my life, where the path forked, presenting the possibility of a child who did not, in fact, read the book and forgot all about it and that of a child who picked up the book in amazement and did not put it back down until it was finished. That second child grew up to be the person now feverishly typing these words.
The Greek Cover of the 1978 edition.
Reading "The Hobbit" had a profound effect on me and shaped me in more ways than my then impressionable mind could have ever imagined, like listening to epic metal as a teenager, playing Role-Playing Games, developing an insatiable curiosity about the myths and legends of diverse civilizations, writing and above all, desiring nothing in life so much as telling stories. There was a bit of biological hard-wiring in place, what with my keeping things in memory, though several years may have passed (even decades now!) and those things, seen in the light of the mind at different ages, becoming tales to be told and embellished upon. Even now, I can remember with perfect clarity (and even a measure of heartache) lying on an old sofa, reading:
"Farewell, good thief"
[...]
"Farewell, King under the Mountain!"
Thorin Oakenshield, by John Howe.
...with tears flowing from my eyes and down my cheeks, my chest in so much pain from sudden sorrow as if (God forbid) a dear friend or relative had passed away. Thinking back on the actual passing of relatives and the events surrounding it, years later and more than once, that deep and uncompromising sadness has now aged into the sweet taste of reminiscence, of innocence, of discovering truths about friendship, honor and forgiveness in the pages of a book as a child, more than I ever did in real life as an adult.
Therefore it was not easy for me not to squeal with delight when Kyoshiro sent me the following...
Granted, it's not much but you DO catch a glimpse of Bob Hoskins (at least, I think) and many glimpses of the Dragon, Smaug. Although I have known for quite some time (I first mentioned it here around the end of the article) that Guillermo Del Toro would direct the film, as well as the fact that there would be a second one, bridging the 60-year gap between "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" (probably material from "Lost Tales" and "Forgotten Tales"), this is the first actual peek into the production, so I am pretty elated to see it. I have high hopes for this film, based on my conclusions from his other works ("Pan's Labyrinth", "Hellboy II", "El Orfanato"), even more so because he really respects the source material. Although it was amazing seeing "The Lord of the Rings" on the big screen, Peter Jackson had done a number of unforgivable fumbles and changes, not the least of which was making Gimli, son of Gloin, a comic relief.
So far "The Hobbit" will have Ian McKellen again as Gandalf, Hugo Weaving (unfortunately) as Elrond, Andy Serkis as Gollum, Ron Pearlman probably as Beorn and Doug Jones ("Hellboy"'s Abe Sapien) as... well, I don't know. Of course, rumours abound concerning Bob Hoskins (as mentioned above), James McAvoy (who said it was sadly just unfounded internet talk) and Paul Giamatti.
Digging through del Toro's current projects, I also noticed he is working on Neil Gaiman's "Death: The High Cost of Living", a tricky business involving one of the most celebrated comic book characters of all time. The film adaptation has gone through a number of rough tumbles, but now its coming into existence actually seems feasible.
Death, Second of the Endless.
Here's to looking forward for SOME movies in the future: at the very least, movies that will be directed with respect.
*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.
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.
Christmas time again, Christmas Day today. I keep hearing a number of things about this whole affair, some positive, some negative, some indifferent but to tell the truth, I am not sure how many grasp the main point or even know the background.
To begin with, a large number of pre-Christian holy days and festivals were held around the 25th of December, usually some days earlier, on the 21st or 22nd, when it's the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. A non-exhaustive list includes the Saturnalia (Roman - when slaves were served by their masters for a day), Yuletide (Druidic - when the old Sun died in order for the cycle to begin anew), Mithraic Celebration of Sol Invictus (actually on the 25th, a bull was sacrificed in order for the young Sun god to be born), Shabe-Yalda (Iran - when people gather at home around a korsee (a low square table) all night, to tell stories and read poetry. They eat watermelons, pomegranates and a special dried fruit/nut mix. Their are tons of festivals to be found around the world from Brazil, to Native American Tribes, to India and so on and so forth (you can read more here).
The oldest surviving evidence of Christmas Day as a proper holiday (and celebration of the Birth of Christ), dates back to 336 A.D., in Rome, mentioned in 354 A.D.'s Philocalian Calendar (see here, page 20). Of course, it has been argued and debated ad nauseeum, that the historical figure of Jesus Christ was not in fact born in December, but somewhere closer to April and of course, he was not born in the year "0" but following that numbering, probably around 3-4 A.D. That much is probably true, especially the falsity of the 25th of December, given that, originally, this holiday was created as a "festivity merger" and later on, during the Church's "hostile takeover" of the older religions, as a counterbalance to one of the most important pagan holy days.
Given what I write, one might think that I am making a case against Christianity. Not at all. In fact, I DO believe in the one God and call myself a Christian. That said, it doesn't mean that I agree with the trappings of organized religion such as it is today or such as it was in Byzantium, after Emperor Constantine forced the Synod to create "one proper faith", to unite his people. Faith and religion are two very different and nigh on unrelated things. Hence, I dub myself an Unorthodox Christian (for, surely, most priests would have excommunicated me). Don't even get me started on respecting other religions and believing that, in fact, Science and Faith don't have much to argue about, at their core, because some would be inclined to exorcise me or treat me to a round of psychotherapy sessions.
Besides, I digress: our subject is Christmas and all the other related holidays. As you have seen, there are quite a few queries and more than a few ambiguities on the whole subject matter. However, in almost all the aforementioned celebrations, there are three common axes: hope, kindness towards and fraternity between people, as well as between people and our small blue world, be they Zoroastrian, Wiccan, Druid, or indeed Christian. These things are the only ones to keep at heart, for everything else - and I DO mean EVERYTHING - in the end is ashes and dust and our differences, quarrels, territories and wars, merely smoke and mirrors.
It's official, Barack Obama is the new President of the U.S.A., winning 297 to 135 (if I saw correctly on CNN), thus becoming the first black President of the U.S.A. under the Constitution and not the Articles of Confederation. I do not have much to say about this whole affair just yet, seeing as it's 06:21 here in Greece but as a historical development, I thought I should at least make a token mention, to begin with. More in the coming days. Meanwhile, this is his winning speech in Chicago.
Here we are then, the last JMCM post, the last Japanese event-related and Ordre de Ciel related post on Easy Subjugation (from here on look for them in Otaku Lens), the post that wraps up Ordre de Ciel's great, last season, even as the new one begins the day after tomorrow. We have come a long way and I want to thank all of you for your continued support, readership and crazy love. As big things are under way for Ordre de Ciel, so they are for the Speedgrapher / Ergo Proxy team but unfortunately, I am not at liberty to discuss any of it just yet. Just wait and see and you won't be disappointed...
However, I will not indulge myself in tearful, spectral goodbyes, since I will (hopefully, for your own sake) see all of you again on Saturday, during the Ordre de Ciel Grand Opening. Hence, this is where I shut my trap and let you enjoy one of the craziest Ordre de Ciel sets yet!
"What? Your hat...?"
"But... errmmm..."
"This. is. MY. HAT!!!"
Despite all appearances to the contrary...
Louiza: beer-guzzling mode!
Aaaand here's for outfit #3, a custom-made T-shirt with Tatsumi Saiga, the original Speedgrapher in front and crossed letters, writing "Easy Subjugation" and "Otaku Lens" in the back!
Sophia running to Musashi in order to escape my lens. So naive...
Musashi: J-pop Crazy
Yu-Kun: Here, here kitty...
Simply gorgeous...
"Ahh! No, stop him!"
"And just what have you kids been doing here? Hmmm...!"
"Uh... Um... I dun' really know but I kind of remember--"
"We were just getting ready for your picture! That is all!"
Screenshots of my first movie series in process...
"Hot-aku"
vol. 1
vol. 2
vol. 3
vol. 4
They say the sleep of Reason breeds monsters, but the sleep of the Elven Queen breeds...
Uh...
... ... ...
And of course, only Sokail could ask Lamia
Cross for a signed CD when we are about to take our cabs home!
300 edited photos (give or take a few) later, the JMCM finally comes to a close. Roughly 1200 edited photos have kept you smiling, laughing, maybe even crying a bit, over the past year. Though my index finger twitches reflexively from using the mouse for so many hours and my eyesight may have gotten a bit worse, it has been an immense pleasure. A lens without a subject is just a pretty piece of glass and a photographer without someone to take a picture of, is merely looking at his own, inverted reflection.
Minna, hontou ni, arigatou,
Speedgrapher
P.S. Well, after that emotional bit (I try to contain myself but in vain), let me remind you about the Saturday party, when I too will be on the decks, with my set: Eien Monogatari Part II - Kaeri to Omoide (Eternal Tale Part II - Return and Remembrance).
P.S. 2 (not the console) Here's two videos from that night, heheh... The first is not of really good quality but it was the best I could do under near total darkness. The second is the funniest thing I have seen filmed impromptu. Enjoy!
...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.
