Due to my lack of contributions to this blog as of late, I thought I would attempt a fun experiment with myself: Type up something interesting in an hour. This might seem like a strange timeline to place on myself, but I've realized that I should probably go ahead and see what comes out. Why not, right? So here: an experiment. In the name of science! Or a possible novel.
* * * * *
Actually, on second thought, I should probably abstain from placing the actual text online, now that I've read through it. It went to a dark place fast, and might be another addition to a running idea I have. If my readership might be interested in it, I would be glad to send a copy. Just to caution those reading: this might be rather brutal. Gory even. I don't know where this character or the story's going to go at this point.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Collaboration with Delirium
It's now, when my immune system is low and whatever flu-like symptoms plague me have subsided somewhat, that I receive an intervention in the form of inspiration. Or not, and I just feel like being productive after a day of sweating, suffering and overall hating life. Either or, when one is delirious from fever, interesting ideas come out of the woodwork. Ones that haven't found the recognition that they deserve to a irrational mind. Oh, the colors you'll taste! (Notice: synesthesia is not a common side effect of fever-induced delirium. I'm just playin', dawg.)
Now, I'm sure that my grammar and my usage of literary devices is sub-par, but I fancy myself a decent enough writer. I haven't had a chance to post anything that sticks out in mind, and I should get on that. However, my creative side, as well as my physical side, is lazy. It's very hard to kick my ass into gear, but once it does, I enjoy getting something under my belt. I'm just not good at sustaining. (Make as many sexual innuendo as you wish about the previous sentence. I put it there purposely.) At one point, I plan on writing an opus work that revolves around vignettes of a different sort. Though I'm sure a trip to the psychiatric ward of any hospital will await me if I were to do it, I think it would make excellent fodder for a novel.
And I think that will make this post the shortest to date. I blame the headache and aching I'm experiencing from the shivering.
Now, I'm sure that my grammar and my usage of literary devices is sub-par, but I fancy myself a decent enough writer. I haven't had a chance to post anything that sticks out in mind, and I should get on that. However, my creative side, as well as my physical side, is lazy. It's very hard to kick my ass into gear, but once it does, I enjoy getting something under my belt. I'm just not good at sustaining. (Make as many sexual innuendo as you wish about the previous sentence. I put it there purposely.) At one point, I plan on writing an opus work that revolves around vignettes of a different sort. Though I'm sure a trip to the psychiatric ward of any hospital will await me if I were to do it, I think it would make excellent fodder for a novel.
And I think that will make this post the shortest to date. I blame the headache and aching I'm experiencing from the shivering.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
The Elements of Music: A Short Discourse on Why I Hate High School Students
Now, the title shouldn't fool anyone. I only can truly hate people I've met before. Though the concepts that are forced on a high school level mind bothers me to some degree. (Like teaching toward a standardized test. However, that's a complaint for another time.) Since all the stress of academic success falls on learning Literacy, Mathematics and Science nowadays, the Arts have taken a back seat. Especially the performing arts and the fields of study surrounding them. My chief complaint comes from the lack of education in music theory and composition. (That complaint can transfer to the other arts as well, but again, another time.) Music is around us in too many forms for it to be wholly ignored like it has been in the American education system.
So, with that in mind, I present to my audience The Elements of Music (also known as Aspects of Music). How many there are differs from who is asked, but I break it up into five different categories, a combination of old and new world concepts:
"Why should I care?" is probably a question that appeared during my explanation. I'm sorry it took so long to get to that point. Why should one care about The Elements of Music? To me, that's like asking why someone should care about knowing first aid before treating someone or like saying, "I like those chemicals because they mix well" to a chemist. Music is all around humanity, a common trait that all cultures share. And knowledge, even the most basic, is vital to understanding it. Also, seeing as though everyone has an opinion on music in one way or another, I thought it might be nice to provide some basic vocabulary besides "I like the way it sounds". Having some clue as to why something sounds nice makes people sound less ignorant of something that's so prevalent in humanity's past, present and future, it could practically be considered a "universal language".
Back to the Elements:
Pitch is the highness or lowness of sound. This is a very simplistic explanation of what pitch really is, but the concept of sound wave frequency is hard to explain to grade schoolers. (Note: That's right! Elementary school students know about this! Isn't that a hoot?) Since humans have a limited range of perception, most tones an average human can hear fall between 20Hz to 20,000Hz. Pitch is also the kingdom to the phylums melody, harmony and interval. Don't fret about those terms unless you want to, but they are what make up pitch in music. At least, that's where I place them.
Duration is the length of, or the time involved in sound. Rhythm and tempi (plural of tempo) fall under this category, as they constitute how long a note lasts as well as the variety and speed at which it may be sounded. A pitch can exist at any given frequency, but without duration, it could last for only microseconds, or perhaps too long or short for human perception.
Dynamics (or intensity) are the loudness or softness of sound. A cutting edge, easy description of it falls to a remote control's volume settings. Frequency aside, the strength of a pressure wave like sound gives another quality to it. Just because a note falls within our range of hearing and is long enough to pick up on doesn't mean that it's loud enough to hear. This category deals with decibel level and particular articulation markings that cross between dynamics and:
Timbre (or tone color) is the quality of sound. Notice how a sound can seem scratchy? Maybe metallic or grinding? We employ thousands of explanations for the quality of sound, and that falls under the auspicious and overlooked element known as timbre. It explains why an oboe sounds nasally, or how a trumpet sounds different from a flute. It gives a term to various different ways sound presents itself to human hearing. It can be strange how one can overlook something that seems so obvious and cannot place a term to it.
Texture is its own beast, relying on many different terms. To me, it's basically form and style of musical sound. Wikipedia makes this its own separate concept, but I like including it the Elements because its a way to perceive what that same site refers to as "aspects of music". If you want the lowdown on that, just go to the Wiki. I've no time to describe further on the topic.
If I was teaching right now, I would be starting any beginning music theory class on these five concepts. Hell, I'd even be teaching them to a college level class if I get that far. An elementary school program would be taking each individual idea a class or two to cover. I should write curricula and see what schools say about it, although I can almost guarantee MENC and the NJMEA would not appreciate it at this point.
The more you know, I suppose.
So, with that in mind, I present to my audience The Elements of Music (also known as Aspects of Music). How many there are differs from who is asked, but I break it up into five different categories, a combination of old and new world concepts:
- Pitch
- Duration
- Dynamics
- Timbre (pronounced TAM brr)
- Texture
"Why should I care?" is probably a question that appeared during my explanation. I'm sorry it took so long to get to that point. Why should one care about The Elements of Music? To me, that's like asking why someone should care about knowing first aid before treating someone or like saying, "I like those chemicals because they mix well" to a chemist. Music is all around humanity, a common trait that all cultures share. And knowledge, even the most basic, is vital to understanding it. Also, seeing as though everyone has an opinion on music in one way or another, I thought it might be nice to provide some basic vocabulary besides "I like the way it sounds". Having some clue as to why something sounds nice makes people sound less ignorant of something that's so prevalent in humanity's past, present and future, it could practically be considered a "universal language".
Back to the Elements:
Pitch is the highness or lowness of sound. This is a very simplistic explanation of what pitch really is, but the concept of sound wave frequency is hard to explain to grade schoolers. (Note: That's right! Elementary school students know about this! Isn't that a hoot?) Since humans have a limited range of perception, most tones an average human can hear fall between 20Hz to 20,000Hz. Pitch is also the kingdom to the phylums melody, harmony and interval. Don't fret about those terms unless you want to, but they are what make up pitch in music. At least, that's where I place them.
Duration is the length of, or the time involved in sound. Rhythm and tempi (plural of tempo) fall under this category, as they constitute how long a note lasts as well as the variety and speed at which it may be sounded. A pitch can exist at any given frequency, but without duration, it could last for only microseconds, or perhaps too long or short for human perception.
Dynamics (or intensity) are the loudness or softness of sound. A cutting edge, easy description of it falls to a remote control's volume settings. Frequency aside, the strength of a pressure wave like sound gives another quality to it. Just because a note falls within our range of hearing and is long enough to pick up on doesn't mean that it's loud enough to hear. This category deals with decibel level and particular articulation markings that cross between dynamics and:
Timbre (or tone color) is the quality of sound. Notice how a sound can seem scratchy? Maybe metallic or grinding? We employ thousands of explanations for the quality of sound, and that falls under the auspicious and overlooked element known as timbre. It explains why an oboe sounds nasally, or how a trumpet sounds different from a flute. It gives a term to various different ways sound presents itself to human hearing. It can be strange how one can overlook something that seems so obvious and cannot place a term to it.
Texture is its own beast, relying on many different terms. To me, it's basically form and style of musical sound. Wikipedia makes this its own separate concept, but I like including it the Elements because its a way to perceive what that same site refers to as "aspects of music". If you want the lowdown on that, just go to the Wiki. I've no time to describe further on the topic.
If I was teaching right now, I would be starting any beginning music theory class on these five concepts. Hell, I'd even be teaching them to a college level class if I get that far. An elementary school program would be taking each individual idea a class or two to cover. I should write curricula and see what schools say about it, although I can almost guarantee MENC and the NJMEA would not appreciate it at this point.
The more you know, I suppose.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Minecraft: Legos for Adults!
Now, I normally don't like to advertise for a product, even if I use/play it, but I feel this game is necessary for everyone to play at least once.
The game is called Minecraft, and right as this post is being written it is in the beta stage of the game. You may own this game for a nominal fee, and let your imagination run free. Honestly, most of my time on the computer is split up between playing this game, trolling Facebook and playing World of Warcraft. (To be fair, I don't think WoW needs an endorsement from me. If you want to play it, go give Blizzard your money. I'm not going to give the hard sell for that addiction.)
Minecraft is a very innovative game due to its lack of a formal structure. Really: this game has no goal in mind. A random world of blocks (it's massive, from what I remember reading about) is made in a few seconds, and one can punch down a couple of trees and start building tools. A monolith of obsidian blocks can be erected later on if it suits one's science fiction fancy. There's exploration! There's mining! There's crafting! There's explosions! All are in this wonderfully campy and original game.
By day, all of these activities are great and all. But build some sort of shelter quick-like. You must prepare for nightfall! That's when creatures with no purpose but to murder you come out! Specifically, watch out for creepers. Nothing in this game has inspired ire and fear much like this hissing suicide bomber. You've been warned. Spiders and skeletons are annoying, but the very unhappy green shambling mounds are the worst scare anyone can have in these randomly generated worlds.
Now, all this aside, the game has quite a few fun and clever twists when building is involved. Minecraft is so vast in creativity, there have been people who have created 16 bit ALUs and various other structures that mimic real life objects. Since I have met my quota for links in my blog, whoever wants to can do some research into those incredible time sinks. I myself am a fan of making floating towers, but that's just me. I have created a whole complex in the sky for renewable resources and the delivery system to the ground is in development.
This game gets my stamp of approval, mainly because you can do anything you want in this blocky universe. It's a callback to when Legos did the same thing for me. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, and Minecraft does that for me.
The game is called Minecraft, and right as this post is being written it is in the beta stage of the game. You may own this game for a nominal fee, and let your imagination run free. Honestly, most of my time on the computer is split up between playing this game, trolling Facebook and playing World of Warcraft. (To be fair, I don't think WoW needs an endorsement from me. If you want to play it, go give Blizzard your money. I'm not going to give the hard sell for that addiction.)
Minecraft is a very innovative game due to its lack of a formal structure. Really: this game has no goal in mind. A random world of blocks (it's massive, from what I remember reading about) is made in a few seconds, and one can punch down a couple of trees and start building tools. A monolith of obsidian blocks can be erected later on if it suits one's science fiction fancy. There's exploration! There's mining! There's crafting! There's explosions! All are in this wonderfully campy and original game.
By day, all of these activities are great and all. But build some sort of shelter quick-like. You must prepare for nightfall! That's when creatures with no purpose but to murder you come out! Specifically, watch out for creepers. Nothing in this game has inspired ire and fear much like this hissing suicide bomber. You've been warned. Spiders and skeletons are annoying, but the very unhappy green shambling mounds are the worst scare anyone can have in these randomly generated worlds.
Now, all this aside, the game has quite a few fun and clever twists when building is involved. Minecraft is so vast in creativity, there have been people who have created 16 bit ALUs and various other structures that mimic real life objects. Since I have met my quota for links in my blog, whoever wants to can do some research into those incredible time sinks. I myself am a fan of making floating towers, but that's just me. I have created a whole complex in the sky for renewable resources and the delivery system to the ground is in development.
This game gets my stamp of approval, mainly because you can do anything you want in this blocky universe. It's a callback to when Legos did the same thing for me. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, and Minecraft does that for me.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Exposé from a Disgruntled Wage Slave: Par for the Course
Now, let me preface this post by the fact that I love where I work. Normally, I can tolerate being paid minimum wage because I am surrounded by friends and generally awesome people that work alongside me. It's not fun in the work sense, but it's something to do in-between failing to get simple applications done to move on with my education. The things that I have heard of and have experienced as a seasonal government worker and a retail sales associate are surreal. If I kept a journal, the almost crazed reaction to any slight perceived by the customer in my current position would make people laugh awkwardly and question its integrity. Those doubts would be one hundred percent dissipated if someone decided to shadow me for a day and hear some of the stupid shit that comes out of people's mouths.
I did have another job before this current one. It's where I dealt with street signs. The amazing stories I can tell from this line of work are just as uncanny as some of the tales I can recount about my current employment. These disparate ideas could make a book/play/sitcom series with how dysfunctional things get when dealing with people that require the services and goods I helped provide them. Speaking of which, let me open up a vignette into the macabre world of this live social experiment. Names and dates may have been changed to protect the innocent:
* * * * *
September 24th, 2010
To whatever foul creature from the depths of Lovecraft's mind spawned the current students at Mercy Lane University: I wish to call the aberration forth and punish it a most fitting way. Even their Creator should have to experience the concentration of stupidity that forms like a haze around these girls. "That's what I've been doing to people?" might be one of the non-Euclidean thoughts that form from that interaction. We may even have a cry and hug before I have to tolerate more of the Creator's spawned existences and the Creator goes to procreate more in what would amount to a Nightmare creature one-night stand.
I know I'm still reeling from the encounters I have under my belt. I'm still trying to cope, albeit not as well as I probably should be at this point. Although it brings comfort to think that these monstrosities of flesh and air that speak at me in what amounts to nonsensical blather are actual atrocities visited upon the world by an unjust and unfair omnipotence that laughs at every misfortune to befall the human race. It may be possible that they are remnants of Cain's offspring, but that's just too biblical for my tastes. From the hilarity of having to answer questions like, "Is this the bookstore?" (while the customer is standing in said bookstore), to having to inform people that the store hours are listed on the recorded menu that precedes the option to talk to a sales associate, I'm just on a mountain of fun overlooking a vista of good times and broken dreams.
They refuse to relent as they pose inane questions with no merit while arguing with me about prices I cannot control. If truly there were an afterlife of never-ending torment, it would include a stint in a position like this. And some of these girls are going for their masters in education or attempting to become nurses. Someone, anyone save us all from the day they are allowed to function in society.
If these were isolated incidences of crazy, I wouldn't be so concerned. Half of the customers I have met are at least a shade stupid enough to fit the bill of what was explained. If anyone is reading this, I must tell you that there are horrors beyond description in dealing at the retail level of any store. Insanity reigns here; it is the unwritten rule of anarchy amongst these ravenous fiends that pose as "customers". Natural selection should have taken them a while back, but by some miracle these dregs still exist and haunt my dream(nightmare)scape at night. It's undeniable proof that science has not gone far enough to explain this phenomenon of these girls' continued living. According to Darwin's theories, their flawed genetic mutations should have died out. Yet they persist. The environment must have a role in keeping them alive. Now to find out why these creatures thrive here. There should be a Nobel prize in my future for this, but I can only see the maw of madness ahead of me.
* * * * *
And there we go. A normal, everyday retelling of a day in the life. Enjoy.
I did have another job before this current one. It's where I dealt with street signs. The amazing stories I can tell from this line of work are just as uncanny as some of the tales I can recount about my current employment. These disparate ideas could make a book/play/sitcom series with how dysfunctional things get when dealing with people that require the services and goods I helped provide them. Speaking of which, let me open up a vignette into the macabre world of this live social experiment. Names and dates may have been changed to protect the innocent:
* * * * *
September 24th, 2010
To whatever foul creature from the depths of Lovecraft's mind spawned the current students at Mercy Lane University: I wish to call the aberration forth and punish it a most fitting way. Even their Creator should have to experience the concentration of stupidity that forms like a haze around these girls. "That's what I've been doing to people?" might be one of the non-Euclidean thoughts that form from that interaction. We may even have a cry and hug before I have to tolerate more of the Creator's spawned existences and the Creator goes to procreate more in what would amount to a Nightmare creature one-night stand.
I know I'm still reeling from the encounters I have under my belt. I'm still trying to cope, albeit not as well as I probably should be at this point. Although it brings comfort to think that these monstrosities of flesh and air that speak at me in what amounts to nonsensical blather are actual atrocities visited upon the world by an unjust and unfair omnipotence that laughs at every misfortune to befall the human race. It may be possible that they are remnants of Cain's offspring, but that's just too biblical for my tastes. From the hilarity of having to answer questions like, "Is this the bookstore?" (while the customer is standing in said bookstore), to having to inform people that the store hours are listed on the recorded menu that precedes the option to talk to a sales associate, I'm just on a mountain of fun overlooking a vista of good times and broken dreams.
They refuse to relent as they pose inane questions with no merit while arguing with me about prices I cannot control. If truly there were an afterlife of never-ending torment, it would include a stint in a position like this. And some of these girls are going for their masters in education or attempting to become nurses. Someone, anyone save us all from the day they are allowed to function in society.
If these were isolated incidences of crazy, I wouldn't be so concerned. Half of the customers I have met are at least a shade stupid enough to fit the bill of what was explained. If anyone is reading this, I must tell you that there are horrors beyond description in dealing at the retail level of any store. Insanity reigns here; it is the unwritten rule of anarchy amongst these ravenous fiends that pose as "customers". Natural selection should have taken them a while back, but by some miracle these dregs still exist and haunt my dream(nightmare)scape at night. It's undeniable proof that science has not gone far enough to explain this phenomenon of these girls' continued living. According to Darwin's theories, their flawed genetic mutations should have died out. Yet they persist. The environment must have a role in keeping them alive. Now to find out why these creatures thrive here. There should be a Nobel prize in my future for this, but I can only see the maw of madness ahead of me.
* * * * *
And there we go. A normal, everyday retelling of a day in the life. Enjoy.
Monday, January 24, 2011
So what's this all about?
Ah so. The title makes little sense without context. Which I will leave that way. Explaining the reasoning behind the title of a blog is a meta-masturbation I'd rather avoid. And that's not the point. I did this for me. I made a blog to showcase my pseudo-intellectualism and celebrate my dictionary.com lexicon. I made one of these things with the sole purpose of being as hipster as possible, and I won't have my own readership judging my thick, black rimmed glasses and arrogant laissez-faire attitude toward The American Dream by pretending to be a nihilist. I mean, I live in America n' stuff, and I'm going to prove it by using the word "socialist" in a negative connotation and discussing how everything's pointless!
I may have been misleading as per my reason for starting one of these up. I believe a close friend and associate of mine started one of these blogs on the premise that she would help broaden the horizons of those that asked questions of her through philosophy and critique. I make no such promises, and even suggest this blog may have an adverse effect on you, the reader. However, I feel I owe the world a lot of explanation as to why I haven't started one of these thingamajiggers earlier, and the answer is rather simple. I'm lazy. I'm so lazy that I can almost guarantee this blog will fall to the wayside faster than Avril Levigne's career. Besides, blogging sounds like it's another way to say jerking off, and I can't prove or deny the credibility of that statement. And if I can't take the name of something seriously, it's almost impossible to take the actual act seriously.
I honestly thought of at least five different things that I could have done with the time that I spent typing this up, most of which would have been immediately tabled so I could play more online games or cruise Facebook. So the question becomes: why not? Certainly, there are less productive ways to spend my time, and I'm sure that no one but good friends will care what I write here. So it becomes a venting place for all of my unprocessed and repressed rage that have accumulated over the years. It's like the therapist I'll probably never need. My joy is overwhelming me.
So, about me!: Along with my many outdated, archaic tastes lie the urge to make people uncomfortable and say obnoxious and possibly insulting things. I have a bucket list that includes starting a riot, so it's only fair that I have a potty mouth that may or may not incite mobs to rage against The Man and take to the streets. Either or, fun times. I also plan on making small inserts about my interests so as to make things more... interesting. Expect to see controversial facts/chicanery about composers in history, complicated music theory and Greco-Roman gods and their fucked up behavior.
So expect to see a short burst of activity followed by a tapering off and eventual stop. I know I can't wait to disappoint a larger group of people than my mother!
I may have been misleading as per my reason for starting one of these up. I believe a close friend and associate of mine started one of these blogs on the premise that she would help broaden the horizons of those that asked questions of her through philosophy and critique. I make no such promises, and even suggest this blog may have an adverse effect on you, the reader. However, I feel I owe the world a lot of explanation as to why I haven't started one of these thingamajiggers earlier, and the answer is rather simple. I'm lazy. I'm so lazy that I can almost guarantee this blog will fall to the wayside faster than Avril Levigne's career. Besides, blogging sounds like it's another way to say jerking off, and I can't prove or deny the credibility of that statement. And if I can't take the name of something seriously, it's almost impossible to take the actual act seriously.
I honestly thought of at least five different things that I could have done with the time that I spent typing this up, most of which would have been immediately tabled so I could play more online games or cruise Facebook. So the question becomes: why not? Certainly, there are less productive ways to spend my time, and I'm sure that no one but good friends will care what I write here. So it becomes a venting place for all of my unprocessed and repressed rage that have accumulated over the years. It's like the therapist I'll probably never need. My joy is overwhelming me.
So, about me!: Along with my many outdated, archaic tastes lie the urge to make people uncomfortable and say obnoxious and possibly insulting things. I have a bucket list that includes starting a riot, so it's only fair that I have a potty mouth that may or may not incite mobs to rage against The Man and take to the streets. Either or, fun times. I also plan on making small inserts about my interests so as to make things more... interesting. Expect to see controversial facts/chicanery about composers in history, complicated music theory and Greco-Roman gods and their fucked up behavior.
So expect to see a short burst of activity followed by a tapering off and eventual stop. I know I can't wait to disappoint a larger group of people than my mother!
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