wing.

in the grand scheme of the whole nanowrimo, a major theme is to never look back and, in fact, to write headlong and to never stop. i forgot that what happened last year was not so much lack of interest, but lack of grindstone in the face of the retail holiday season's endless pummeling. i don't feel myself, really. not that it's a bad thing or that i'm slipping away or anything like that. but i think we all hit that notch in which you fall where nothing glows the way it should, and picking yourself up to do it all again, any of it, requires a crowbar and a hammer. i'm in the middle of that.

and i hear the other day, i hear someone say, "just another month," and that's until it goes back to the way it always is. which isn't something particular to look forward to.

gloat!

I had a very good dream last night. very good. it wasn’t really beneficial, so to speak? meaning it wasn’t a dream in which I was given a ton of money, or a ton of love or a ton of compliment in general. just that the world was very rich. I was at a show at first, and it was very dark, and we were in some kind of house that had a lot of little coves where you could tuck yourself in and watch where the bands would play. “this town again” was the band playing, and I was telling someone about watching them and when you watch them, you have to enjoy all of the really complex interesting stuff, but sometimes they go into these parts of their songs and they are just terrible. very bad. so you have to literally hold on and not get knocked over or knocked off of the shelf you’re on. because it’s so bad.

blur.



then I’m looking at the banister or the railing of a deck and I’m watching a cicada on it, and it’s crawling away from me, and its wings are those of a blue jay. and it was incredible. they folded flat against its back, but the color pattern was the light blue, the white, and the darker blue tones of a blue jay. and it was actually feathers. I wanted to grip it from the back of its wings and hold it and examine it. when I reached for it, it jumped away like a cricket. those big crickets, I think they call them camel crickets. it was gone, though. and they would appear again every so often.



and where I was, I was slowly building the world in my brain and the longer I stayed and understood the culture of that world, the more the world had detail. north south east and west was slowly established. things of that nature. I started to see there were different groups of people, but they were extravagant outlandish differences. like one group was full of pirates in full garb, others were ancient wizards, there were japanese school girls, and so on. but the most sought after groups, the groups that entire throngs of people would follow were the cicadas with the blue jay wings, who would eventually grow larger and larger and walk on two legs, but crouched over like the urRu from the dark crystal. they’d walk around slowly, but covered in robes almost like Gandalf type spell casters, and people would follow them and follow them. they seemed to still have that aimless insect gait. this village or world was somewhat like a tree village with lots of levels and branches and little places that were built into the tree or building to go into and live or shop.

headwind.

click the above picture to get a little glimpse at my profile for the work i'm doing for nanowrimo. it'll probably be very static save for the word count, which is something i plan to update as i take it on daily.

as i learned from reading brian martinez' piece from last year's nano (kissing you is like trying to punch a ghost) it doesn't have to be as demanding as it seems. it's about telling a story, almost like sitting down at a campfire with an idea and exciting yourself and anticipating your audience's moves a lot less than your characters'. each character has a voice and a path and you let them speak through you. almost a channeling piece.

bring me up.

so nanowrimo has begun again. i remember that i had begun during last year's in writing something i had somewhat shaped in my head and then started running at 12:01 on 11/1. it didn't come together as i'd thought as i got overwhelmed with the goal, word-wise and underwhelmed with the overall concept i had and the actual words that were coming out. (see what i'd written here)



this time around, it's all very random and a little more patchy (much like the beard i'm allowing to overtake my face) but it's more fun, and i feel more drawn to it than i have in the past. i'm not concentrating on word quantity, but more the act of getting down to write something all on one massive project. i'm generally more one to open up a piece of blank notebook paper, start with a line and run on randomly for whatever time it takes until the dagger hits the hilt. it's rare that one project makes sense to me for more than an hour. maybe this will go over well.

quandary.

i just thought this was a great film poster.
i'm sure the movie will be phenomenal as well.

crux.

i have been waiting forever to get a writing desk.
been looking for a good desk to sit down at and really get down to it.
just moved into a new house, and one was abandoned here.
the room i moved into had the perfect wall for it.
utility.

kierkegaard.

Leveling at its maximum
is like the stillness of death,
where one can hear one's own heartbeat,
a stillness like death,
into which nothing can penetrate,
in which everything sinks, powerless.

redgold.

i wish i could get as stoked for things as i used to.

like 2004 stoked.
or maybe 2006 stoked.
very different times.
such very different eyes.
i had a good feeling about a lot of it.
and a lot of it was just as vague.
"a lot of it" as a definite indefinite.

i've hit a point where nothing matters.
not in an empty way, i'd hope.

i think i've always had this vision of having an unbelievable crew of individuals who are this massive inspiration to each other. who write and create on a daily basis and who throw each others' work around back and forth at each other because while they can't wait to have their next piece done, they really, almost moreso, can't wait to read what's next from the guy down the hall. throwing opinions on each others' work back and forth and constantly building. like a massive lennon and mccartney thing, happening always. always.

if i had that, i wouldn't care what kind of money i'd be making or even who loved me.
but fuck it,
these are seeds to the wind,
and off to the rocks or the sea.


you left with him
and even when you didn't,
you said it's definitely someone else.

weak in the life.

yo.
i'll be
right back.

, but soundly.

so, this is done.
it took me a trip to office max and a few cutting jobs
to get furious about The Beach Boys' becoming Beach Boy's.
was trying too hard to keep everything contained on that size.

spherical evaporate, the.

i've lost something.
two things, really. one which wasn't as significant.

they were placed together in my old apartment while packing, and i put them together in a place i knew i'd be able to access easily once i got back to the house here. and now i can't recall where that place is. it's a whole book of poetry i'd been working on, a specific project. tons of notes. it was one of those composition notebooks as well. i've lost moleskines before. those seemed random, though. i've lost two or three. and while the realization that it is no longer going to be found is a massive heart breaker, it ends up being kind of okay. i feel like it's sort of a gift to someone. the 1/10 chance that someone might find it and appreciate it (vs the 8/10 chance someone will simply toss it, or the 1/10 chance someone will find it pathetic) is good enough for me. but this is a pretty big deal. i'm feeling a great weight of it. i don't feel i've ever had a major tie to anything that i could really lose. i tend to feel most things are replaceable.

there was a letter in that book as well.
and drawings.

-

new mix cd is done.
mix xix: ", but soundly."
track list up in a week or so.

species pieces.

could be the best night of my life.
just broke a horse's neck.
could be the worst night of my life.
that's a dead fucking horse.

RIP MMVI-MMXI (2006-2011)

district of columbia.

had i been guilty of those fabrications,
i'd have left me too, by god and Gods.
many fictions have been donned by myself,
and none so much as the character who could show you
such adoration.

painter, o', i looked at you as sun on breathless acres,
though in passing seasons as light fractured in panes of plated glass.
and the silhouette meant you still showed up.

i heard the rain, you know it.

the bathtub filled with bottles
where there once were hands instead,
which cupped the stories.
they bang together ungraciously,
no concept of what will sound a proper cadence,
all hollow space filled with merciless spinning
where there once were maps of every coast and in between.
i never heard you sigh again, i only heard you breathe.

the bottles floating endlessly, you tied them sweetly,

addressed to home.

had i been your greatest fear,
at least i would remain inside your backwards glance.
but i know you're sleeping soundly now,
no light to pale your face.



i have only loved survivors.

you said.

i believed you, and you weren't even the only one.
you talked about how i filled a vacancy and with hope.
i could wake up flattened and dried all wrong, and still
you never admitted that you were just a figment.
you never spooled up on the projection room floor.
you never hissed at the end of your final song,
intermittently puffing with no sound to release
despite the perpetual spinning.
i believed you, with your hand on my heart
and talking about being lost in nameless cities,
talking about being old and storied.
your hands on my face, watching your tear pass down your cheek
titled: "this would be years and decades"; still framed.

i'm fairly sure it happened, and it's simple to never be fragile again.

locustoms.

you can be no one and still escape nothing.
in barred windows, their faces are catalogued in longing portraits.
no wilderness here in hindsight, boy.
there's no one willing to petrify your presence.
you're out, in league with the antiquities, and ain't that a thing or two?


we waited you out, The Flood and I, in winter's berth.
it's easier to pique with no one watching, and the eager half as willing.

i could never work this genius shit out,
for it was always lack of courage.

well, you could breathe.

fully uninspired.
brutal.
smoking with the windows up.

i've had these visions the past few days of being stabbed repeatedly. in the head, through the skull. no one having the humane rationale to stop it, so they all scatter or stare like no life is at stake, just a playground scrap. i imagine my blood on my driver's license. i think about building a graveyard stare to keep the wolves at bay. i think of men of no consequence. i think of their bearing down on me. nothing lost in their attack, though nothing gained. a violence to contribute to their sin, a pelt for their collection. my life dominated by fear for a solid three months. shame and nothing else. this is the dynamic.

feels like i left a record playing in the next room.

remendeleev.

d
on't change now into
somethi
ng you can't handle,
because when it's
done i
t's done,
and whe
n
it's through it's through.

esmé.

i feel awash.
awash.
words on a page
sworn by ink in western pictograph.

make no promises

their own self resonance
and she won't answer.
it's not as if i turn her away.
fruitwine;
alone for volumes and more.
the passing and passing of an evolution of imperfect wrecks.

we pace in a dream state,
halls, halls,
and then company.
dreams of sex with her in hell
aside broken wine glasses on sidewalks.
eyes passing by the windows.

we are false, for real.

wanna share an epoch?
or communion?
real spirit, but o' nothing promised or true.
the dead in your dreams are your questioned breaths,
a want to be good, alone and unique.
strong because you are art without premiere.

hands, idol.

i have spent a lot of time in 2011 playing video games. i wouldn't say it's one of my passions, but it's definitely a story telling medium that i've come to appreciate since i was younger, and beyond that, they can be entertaining on SO many levels beyond telling a story. in fact, sometimes it's a relief to be blasting dudes with guns bigger than my torso because of some vague shadow group they belonged to or were hired on by. and they were in my way.

i spent forty something hours on mass effect 2. as commander shephard, i was trying to save the human universe from collectors who were stealing human beings and using their bodies as husks and as a model on which to build a gigantic reaper, which would then be consumed with destroying all organic life within the galaxy. ya know. that's what i did. i think what got me so deeply involved in this game was the fact that a massive portion of the game is spent building your team. which was a throwback to possibly my favorite game of all time, final fantasy vi. building this pretty major relationship with the various men and women you pick up and aid ends up coming to a massive head in the final drive towards the final goal, when you have to select different individuals to lead parties, perform specific tasks, and fight alongside you based on their previous and current training. you're also given the option to go on character-specific loyalty missions which are requested specifically by the individual characters which can bring them closer to you by showing you're willing to go to another level for your crew. dope game. third one is coming out next year, probably around march. whole thing looks a little different. i've heard there is going to be a smaller crew overall, so that you can build richer relationships with those with you. i was a little bummed to hear that the other characters who i'd just fought side by side with wouldn't be playable in the new one, but bioware announced that they'd be back in some level. stoked. gameplay in the game actually wasn't all that great, to be honest. it was standard cover based shooting, accented with different powers like fireballs, shockwaves, gravity altering singularities, etc. but what kept this game a staple in my daily life was the size and depth of that universe, and the ever building and changing relationship with everyone i'd met and brought along in the game. phenomenal.

one thing i really admire about bioware is the fact that they are almost tolkienian in their chronicling of their worlds. even within the dragon age series, i felt i was reading pieces of information on races, areas and individuals that i'd never meet or be affected by. wars happened in which the result barely affected the present any longer. but they wrote about them. created heroes. killed heroes and kingdoms. and in mass effect, they've done the same. entire races are described in pain staking detail. information about the gravity of the planets are provided, the evolution of those races to their current appearance and economy, interactions with other races. and even in little ways, it will always be accurately portrayed in the dialog between two characters. when a character doesn't react or interact in a way you'd expect with another character of another race, you're not put off or calling it out. you can see within the choice of words that this whole process is one of distinction. the way the conversation plays out is completely believable.

the only reason i didn't dive directly into a second play through of mass effect, was because as i was finding myself concluding that story, another one was coming out. and this next undertaking was l.a. noire. it's a 40s detective story told in the motif of a lot of the books and films of the time. i don't have to illustrate it to you. the major part about this game was its innovation. and it all began at the visual level. they did this entirely using motion scan technology, which is used to capture the real actors facial expressions from a multitude of angles to really flesh out and embody the entire visage of the character. i can tell you with no exaggeration (possibly from the hype that i'd been building for it on my own) that when i saw in-game footage of it more than half a year before its release (and the first that many had ever been exposed to) i got a little choked up. legitimate body tension. i was floored. but still, i was unsure how they were going to actually pull the game off. sure it was pretty, but what am i going to be doing? how is this going to happen?

and that's actually what stole the show once the game was in my hands. an hour or two in, you quickly forget about the visual innovations and all the ground they're breaking there, because the gameplay is unlike anything i've done in a game before. your cases involve you finding clues within a crime scene, followed by interrogations of witnesses or people of interest. occasionally, there will be a more traditional chase sequence or some kind of action event that will finish up the case. this is fine. it brings you back to a place you're comfortable, you feel in control once more, and also, what's more, it makes sense when they throw it in there. it feels like an honest, pivotal moment.

you're a veteran who's become one of the last good police officers in the city. you're also a human being. the cases you see affect you, bring you different places in your life. but more importantly, you're doing your job with integrity, the right way, and diligently, regardless of the trouble you're given while it's going down. good, solid story.

the thing that i genuinely loved this game for was the way that it made people talk and think about the medium. i talk to people all day about these games. all day. and in a landscape that is completely dominated by first person shooters (namely the call of duty series), this one stepped up to the forefront and fearlessly threw most of the guns to the side. even many games within this sandbox genre are more open ended random encounter based shooters. but not l.a. noire. you thought about these cases while you were playing them. you were retaining detailed information not only to get a better idea of the story line, but also to succeed within the narrative. the best story was told when you were properly interrogating your witnesses, using every clue at your disposal, and recognizing the ticks that your questions had spawned, and knowing when and where to pull your ace in the hole.

a lot of times, i felt beaten down by this game, even though i was still getting to the root of a lot of the crimes at hand. and so were many others. many people genuinely wanted to get better at examining the crime scenes for every clue, to get as much information from each spoken eye witness account. you could hear people wanting to get better at what had become their virtual job because it was almost making them feel a dedication and an obligation to the city and its inhabitants. the pulse of this game was rich. something has to be said for the writers of this game, and how they had to think and speak directly to los angeles, and to the set piece that had been laid out for them, and not worry about what video gamers were going to think. this wasn't a game written or produced for gamers. it's for people who want a virtual experience, and all that comes from it. this was an entirely new type of storytelling.

i then played infamous 2 which is a much more traditional entry into the sandbox genre. it's a sequel, which lends itself to following a ton of already laid down mechanics, and even plot points and story arcs. this was not much different than any other sequel that the genre tends to offer up. though there's something about this type of gameplay that i cannot deny. the endless collecting, the massive scale, and the continuous character skill development makes me want to perpetually check in to the game, although i'm essentially repeating many of the same actions.

had i simply carried through with the core storyline, i could have had it buried in about 7 hours. you learn more mysteries about your powers (lightning and electricity based control, as set up in the first game of the series; a fantastic superhero origin story) and how to continuously upgrade them to charge a device which is meant to be able to strip powers from a massive "conduit", which is what they call human beings who are capable of wielding such powers, in the event that their inherent powers are eventually awakened. this one antagonistic conduit is titled "the beast" (lame) and is about the size of several buildings and is laying waste to the entire east coast. all the while, a preacher turned warlord is commanding gangs of mercenaries to stop you and is enslaving the faux new orlean's populace as well. you eventually get enough power to stop these villains, but consequences abound. depending on whether you've followed the good or evil storyline, the outcomes are vastly different, and have ripple effects, worldwide.

being the type of player, though, that isn't content to just follow the 20% of the video game that the story encompassed, i needed to recapture every piece of the city, i needed to gain the respect of the people (i played through the good storyline), and i needed to comb every corner of every street to make sure that i had obtained every piece of the underground, parallel story line that you can uncover by pieces together recorded messages between the support characters. i could find things to do forever in that game. something about that core gameplay style screams out to me, and i can't put it down. i'd say this game wasn't as good as its original, but its plot points were a little larger, and had a much bigger impact.

something that stood out to me in a big way was the fact that so many who had played and enjoyed the first one and didn't like the second would cite the character's new voice as a major reason they couldn't relate to the game. it's interesting that they had meshed, and gotten invested in cole (ironically named the same first name as the protagonist in noire) on such a level that something as minor as a voice could turn someone away from a game overall. this is a place that i'm sure many felt video games could never reach. a common case of "the other darrin."

and this is what i'm playing now. fear 3. i don't think i like it. i'll probably finish it, just to know what's going on with the storyline in the series. i'll try to break it down, but i'm not even sure i'm following it very closely. you play nameless "point man" who was sent in months ago to take down paxton fettel (who ends up being your brother) who had set up a psychic link with a hired mercenary squad. also helping fettel is a paranormal entity, little girl alma. in the second game, you control another guy, who alma is strangely drawn to, and she ends up somehow psychically getting impregnated by him. and now in the third game, you return to where these actions occur, and are trying to subdue alma from having this child. she's having massive contractions which are crushing the city. and if she has this child, it will be the embodiment of massive evil and suffering, and mankind will be ravaged by the child.

alright?

this is the perfect example of a game that didn't need to be made. i genuinely loved fear 2. from a gameplay standpoint, it was a very tight first person shooter with a nice bullet time mechanic, had great set pieces and well-balanced weapons and enemies. aside from being a shooter, it also was going for a survival-horror type thing which was pulled off perfectly. i can remember many conversations with friends about the school, wherein while they were playing that particular level, they genuinely wanted to go no further, knowing things were going to be messing with their mind. the game borrows a lot of themes from japanese horror, from the timing, to the off-angle shots of what is coming for you. also, misdirects and false reliefs were a major part of what made the game so stressful. a great, true fear experience, if you allow yourself to get immersed.

and what it comes down to is ideas, and the desire to pull them off. playing this game feels like you're hearing a story told by someone who read that it might have been told to someone who thought it was an okay story from someone who somewhat liked it.

there's guns and a ghost? here's alma? oh, and sometimes, you go slow.

this game had one solid moment, and it came in one turn of a corner about 3 hours into the game. the idea was then reused throughout the next few levels. they introduce enemies who act more as obstacles than functional inhabitants of the game world. if your ideas aren't strong enough to fill a concept from birth until conclusion, keep building ideas. what this game could have been is the remainder of the final pieces of an idea that barely came together in the end, or a full 10 hour experience built around a few neat ideas a writer had floating around. but what's more than likely the truth is they wanted to cash in on a franchise that has a fairly loyal fanbase that still had an open ended story with a few more chapters to be adlibbed. strong ideas only look strong when they're complete. beyond that, i've always felt that they get dragged down by the mediocre ideas you've used to vehicle them outward.

akimbo.

not sure what to do with myself,
so i'm standing on top of my doubts.