NOTE: Sorry for the cryptic title of the post. It's explained further down in the post. I just felt that it sums up my current state of mind and thought patterns pretty well.
Well. My writer's block continues. Sometimes I wonder if one of these days it'll start and just never stop again. When I think about the fact that I didn't write anything for nearly six years, it doesn't seem that unlikely to me. In the mean time, I try to keep pushing myself to write to try and avoid that outcome. Nothing I've written in the last week or so is really worth publishing though. So instead it's time for a bit more rambling from me.
When I haven't been trying to write, I've been working on games, trying to figure out how various elements of PowerShell work, or taking my cousin to a few of the Reel Anime festival movies. I haven't made it to the movies a lot recently, so that was actually a lot of fun. We went and saw A Letter for Momo, which was a beautiful children's movie fans of My Neighbour Totoro are sure to enjoy. After that, we saw Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redoten minutes into that, I realised that Hideaki Anno had been lying his arse off when he said that the goal was to make the new Evangelion movies more accessible and understandable than the original Neon Genesis Evangelion series. Finally, we watched the double feature yesterday. The Garden of Words was up first, and turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable drama about two strangers who meet in a park on a rainy morning and develop a friendship, followed by Ghost In The Shell Arise: Border 1 - Ghost Pain. Arise is the newest adaptation of Masamune Shirow's cyberpunk manga, Ghost in the Shell. The manga has previously spawned two movies (both based directly on stories from the manga), a series (two seasons, a movie and two games that were independent of the manga), and a fantastic PSone game that used to be one of my favourites. I loved the first episode, and can't wait for the rest.
I've also been getting ready to go to the seventeenth Canberra International Film Festival. I decided that since this is the first year I've been in town and not too busy for it, I'd make a point of going to as many movies as I can. So over a two and a bit week period, I'll be going to see (in alphabetical order since I can't be bothered working it out in chronological order): Blue Ruin; Filth (I'm looking forward to this one the most, check out the trailer ): Ginger and Rosa; In Bloom; In Bob We Trust; Intimate Parts; John Dies At The End; Magic Magic; Michael Kohlhaas; Mirage Men; Night Train to Lisbon; On My Way; Only Lovers Left Alive; Patrick; Short Term 12; The Butler; The Priest's Children; and What Richard Did. It's going to be a busy few weeks, but I think it'll be worth it. There are others I'd have liked to see, but this gave me a good mix of genres. There's some drama, comedy, thrillers, mysteries and horror in there. As I mentioned above, Filth is by far my most anticipated one, ever since I first saw the trailer I've wanted to see it. I loved Trainspotting, so another film adaptation of an Irvine Welsh novel is very welcome, and from everything I've heard, it's the defining performance of James McAvoy's career. Also, Jamie Bell is in it, so you get to see the guy who played Billy Elliot shoving his face in a massive pile of cocaine, which should be good for a laugh (reminds me of how amusing I found seeing Rupert Grint smoke a joint in Wild Target, because it felt like watching Ron Weasley getting high). Only Lovers Left Alive also looks very good, and given that it stars both Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton, who I consider to be amazing actors, as vampire loves, it should be one hell of a head trip. I've already got all my tickets booked, and have cleared my schedule for the duration of the festival, so it should be a hell of a good time. I ended up joining as a member of the festival, as it ended up being $120 cheaper for me to do that and go see eighteen movies, plus the six free screenings they'll put on throughout the year for members, than it was for me to go to the initial fifteen I wanted to see. I love when things like that work out.
Other than that, I've been doing a lot of thinking. Since I've been stuck with the loaner scooter, and won't have mine back for a few weeks yet,I've mostly been at home and have had a lot of time for that. Sadly, it's not always a good thing. Lately my thoughts seem to chase themselves in circles, and run down various unproductive paths. Distraction is the only thing that works here. So I try to find books and so on to keep my mind occupied. I had a marathon session to get through Season 16 of South Park on the weekend, have re-read The Final Empire, and worked my way through several other books which I can already barely remember.
One thing I've been giving some more thought recently, that I actually don't mind thinking about, is the tattoo's I plan to get when I have the spare cash available, and have some other stuff sorted out. There are two I definitely plan on getting, and two others that are strong possibilities, along with some others that are still nebulous ideas. Before anyone says anything about rushing into designs, well, the two definite ones have been in consideration since I first moved out of home back in 2006. So you can't deny that I've been putting plenty of thought into them. They are two phrases that I want to get tattooed onto the insides of my forearms. The left will be "Omnia mutantur, nihil interit", which is Latin for "Everything changes, nothing perishes", but is more commonly read as meaning "Everything changes, nothing is lost". The right will be "Soboj ostat'sya dol'she", which is Romanised Russian, and translates as "To remain myself longer". Both of these phrases hold a lot of meaning to me, and have for far longer than I've been considering getting them tattooed on me. The first phrase is from Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics, while the second is from the song Inner Universe, by Origa and Yoko Kanno (the theme song for the first season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex). While they may be from pop-culture, I don't think that reduces their meaning or beauty in any way. The value inherent in words and phrases is derived from how we perceive them, not the nature of their origin. As for the others I've been thinking about, well, I'm not quite ready to talk about them yet. They need some more thought.
Anyway, I'll leave you with a song I've had stuck in my head for a few days now, Noctura's cover of my favourite song by The Offspring, Gone Away. Both the cover and the original get stuck in my head on a fairly regular basis. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the song is about the loss of a loved one. I've never seen a confirmed comment by Dexter Holland regarding who the song is about, if it is anyone specific, but the most common story about it is that it's about a woman he was dating who died in a car crashing. What a lot of people don't understand is that, much like what I said about the phrases I'm getting tattooed, the meaning and value of a song is in what we bring to it and what we take away from it, not necessarily what the band themselves were thinking when it was written. Sure, that's important too, but the more important aspect is how we react to it, and what it makes us feel. The lyrics are beautiful, and always make me think of friends I've lost. Some of them I've just drifted apart from; some have changed so much that I barely know them anymore; and some will never change and never grow old, because they sadly aren't with us anymore, except in the memories of their friends and family Maybe in another life
I could find you there
Pulled away before your time
I can't deal it's so unfairAnd it feels
And it feels like
Heaven's so far away
And it feels
Yeah it feels like
The world has grown cold
Now that you've gone away
Leaving flowers on your grave
To show that I still care
But black roses and Hail Mary's
Can't bring back what's taken from me
I reach to the sky
And call out your name
And if I could trade
I would
And it feels
And it feels like
Heaven's so far away
And it stings
Yeah it stings now
The world is so cold
Now that you've gone away
Gone away, gone away, yeah
I'll Save Your Soul
I reach to the sky
And call out your name
Oh please let me trade
I would
And it feels
And it feels like
Heaven's so far away
And it feels
Yeah it feels like
The world has grown cold
Now that you've gone away
Gone away, gone away, yeah
I love both versions of this song, for different reasons. The original by The Offspring is an angry song, filled with pain and rage and a refusal to accept the unfair reality of the situation. The Noctura cover, well, it's the same lyricsbut it's a sweeter, more soulful sadness and feels like it's about someone who is dealing with the loss, coming to terms with it, but still feels the pain of their loss no matter how much they move on.
If you want to have a listen to them, I've put links to them below:
Anyway, sorry for the rambling off-topic post. Just needed to get some thoughts out of my head and onto paper.
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