Spatial.

[Image note: you're welcome to re-post as you like, since I'm not a complete hypocrite, but crediting is always deeply and sincerely appreciated. Lin Swimmer.]

The filth; and I don't mean the police.

Alright... new combinations of image sources. I must say, my photo-history class has gorgeous material I'll have to mine. Unfortunately, this is inevitably a slow process. If you cast yourself backwards within the blog, adrift and listless, you'll find that I used to post many more historical photographs than what's represented these days, but they were mostly taken from archives of "found" photos; archives that I've now largely abandoned.

I was feeling reticent to address the presence of the pornographic material, yet again.

But then I thought, no; I've written frequently enough about nearly all of the photographs that I've been posting lately. Why should these be excluded from examination, discourse, analysis? The same critical procedure granted to all images I view as interesting.

And unfortunately for those of you that truly find them objectionable; this is a problem. Because I rather enjoy them. I understand that inevitably a percentage of readers will fail to find them sexually titillating; but is it so inconceivable to simply find them interesting as subject matter? A thoughtful objection might revolve around the perception of a heteronormative agenda. If so; I'll keep this in mind. I'm not opposed to a widening of perspective. A caveat, though, is that this is not my field, nor do I wish it to be. In other words, the projected path has the possibility of deviation, but not the promise. Sound good?

Probably not. C'est la vie.

[And to equivocate even further, I myself have gone through long periods in which I specifically avoided this kind of imagery. I didn't want to think about it; mostly due to loneliness, at that time. So, in that regard, I do sympathize. Still, if you're in a period of your life in which you rarely get the opportunity to be intimate with another person, you can certainly rest assured that, to my knowledge, sex still isn't much like this for what I consider regular people. Which we all already know. Sometimes it becomes very difficult addressing writing toward an abstraction of a reader. Sexual orientation, marital status, age, political affiliation? I mean, my regular Saudi visitors (hi, guys) have their own thoughts and opinions on these matters. How do I remain sensitive to their... this is an impossible train of thought. Regardless, the internet must have some form of... I mean, we're global, online. Right? Are you guys teenagers? White-collar professionals? Students? I'm not trying to belittle or berate you. I'm just curious.]

Pornography as an environmental cursor.
After watching an hour-long lecture (alright, playing in the background) on effective "networking practices," (essentially in-depth analysis of Linked-in, Facebook, and Twitter; meaning irrefutably that, in terms of self-promotion and professionalism, I simply do not exist) I found myself realizing that these images create an implicit categorical or meta-level rejection of traditional "safe advertising" environments. Um... you have noticed, presumably, that I attempt to treat this as a precious, commercially protected space, no? I mean, aside from beer commercials, which have never done anything bad to anyone, ever.

Although this stance can be very simply challenged by acknowledging that these images, by their nature, can almost not not exist as product, and that by posting and propagating them, all I'm tangibly doing is providing free advertising.

So be it. If advertising insists on attempting to capture my interest with subtle allusions (or not-so-subtle, as the case may be) toward the sexual act, then god damn it, I'll just look at that act. Why half-measure? I've never understood advertising's smug assumption that they can siphon off the inherent interest that most people have regarding sex, but without having to face any of the ugly realities; at least of its form after commercialization and commodification. Not sure what I mean? Well, for an off-the-top-of-my-head example, the history of violence and coercion involved in the filming of sex. Another would be the more recent (within perhaps the last 15 years) integration of these impulses and emotional resonances into a viable commercial model. Choking, slapping, the ubiquitous demeaning and often cruel nature of practically every spoken word uttered aloud in commercial pornography. When they bother to speak. Most of the time, it's barely recognizable as human behavior, and I feel like a very old person in worrying about what an idiotic child (or adult) could "learn" from watching these uncritically.

Regardless.







A general question, and one more specific: why transition into explicit sexual imagery, and secondly, why the emphasis on fellatio?

Answer one. I don't know. Sources of appropriated images, somewhat. Change of pace. An inevitable desire to display a less racially homogenous representation of erotic work.

There is certainly erotic work widely available that conforms to the censorship restrictions found in Japanese erotica, but for a reason I wouldn't be able to specify it tends to be extremely uninteresting, photographically.

Does it really make a difference?

Answer two. Coincidence? Not quite true, but almost. I like it when I can see the performer's eyes. That sounds creepy, and perhaps a little insane, but the images I've gathered of orifices and appendages interacting becomes, in isolation, like some kind of mechanical catalogue, and moderately grotesque. I'm not setting out to dehumanize this stuff even further.

(Can you tell why compiling a collection like this isn't as much fun as you'd think it would be? This material can get depressing in an instant.)

Lastly, on the horizontal cut applied to vertical images. Practical necessity. However, it also encouraged me to take a little time appreciating what was happening in portions of the image that normally I wasn't focusing on much. For a little while I thought they might be interesting in that perhaps they (one half of the whole) would be completely non-graphic. Does that change their value? However, in study, I found there wasn't an un-explicit half. The implication of the act is usually enough to tip your brain right away that this isn't a normal image.





That's all I've got. Enjoy!

(And don't worry; we'll take a break from this for a while now.)

[Final image note: that last one seems rather sweet, to me. Perhaps it's just because they're holding hands. So romantic.]

Real grief.

It's been a while since I threw a couple lectures at you. Sometimes, when Netflix doesn't feel like the answer, and you realize you've listened to all your podcast/interview things twice now and there aren't any new ones because they don't come out frequently (the good ones, which I've been meaning to compile and link to for a while now), and you watched quite a few multimedia stories (like these pieces of spectacular honesty by Maisie Crow)

A Life Alone from Soul of Athens on Vimeo.

Hungry: Living with Prader-Willi Syndrome - By Maisie Crow from liveBooks on Vimeo.

... the only things left, to engage your mind; you're sleepless, slightly bored, but curious, your mind is racing, but not in a particularly formal, "I should be getting things done" frame-of-mind, (a state I, and I imagine a portion of you as well, find myself in with relative regularity)... well, maybe, in this state, something like this might be appealing. Even as something going in the background while you write, say, a blog post.





Fucking kids these days.


And finally, I've been working on a post about pornography, but it's become something larger and surprisingly better than I'd anticipated, so it's taking more time to finish. Soon.

But.

It's somewhat unpleasant! Porn. Yea-uch. I mean, honestly. So I started looking at gay porn.

Yup. Hi internet. I've looked at gay porn. Come burn my house down, please.

And it's super fucking interesting! Things I didn't realize, but should have:
Muscles. (Duh.)
Chest hair. (Oh. Sure.)
Much funnier textual accompaniment. (Again, duh. It would be nice to attribute this to Christopher Hitchen's theory on women and humor, but that would presume that not-funny and atrocious writing accompanying straight porn was written by women, which is a ludicrous assumption. I chalk it up to my nonsensical presumption of the inherent wittiness and proclivity of excellence in homosexual writing, or, more accurately, writing by homosexuals, but not necessarily only in regard to that topic.)

Five Things That Really Turn Young Boys Gay

Late. Cup of coffee at 23:30; not a good idea.

A few thoughts on statistics. Take a look.


That was fast! And, unsurprisingly, what we're seeing is that adult imagery (primarily the Sankaku-sourced Japanese erotica, which retains searchable image titles, and the handful of appropriately named Western erotica that's there), pulls in an enormous number of visitors. What strikes me is the importance of image titles, something I've always been a bit unmindful of. Another surprise is the true global scope of the hits. It's hard to even wrap your head around; the diversity of it. A concern would be that I've always desired a greater readership, while being a bit reticent regarding what that attention might bring with it.

Should I be disappointed that an almost astronomic increase in visitors is inextricably tied to the decision to post pornographic material?

Meh. It's search engine driven; hence almost utterly random. After just writing about and posting whatever the hell I felt like, I inadvertently stumbled across something that people are actually looking for. How naive would I have to be to be surprised or disappointed that pornography and erotica (of what I view of a high caliber) would drive visitors?

Besides, that's why the sidebar screed's there. If you're here for a second to grab your picture, please note that Google seems to point you toward the small, automatically generated thumbnail image, while finding and clicking the image in the body of the post will generally net you a much larger and more rewarding version.

And if you happen to read a word or two, and then more, and decide you'd like to stay awhile, or (heaven forbid) come back later, or subscribe, or whatever the fuck people do to make sense of any of this, let me say, enthusiastically and happily; welcome. I don't know anything about your country, most likely, but I'm happy that you're someplace where trawling around online is a viable entertainment option. (I might know something about your country. 10 % chance, let's say.)

Melt soften warm; Busman's Holiday.

Lets forgo formalities tonight. Let our hair down.

Detailed information regarding the portrait can be found in the comments, if there's anyone out there curious about the mundane details of its condition and process. Although I still haven't transcribed my Photo Shop notes. Perhaps I consider those sort of impossibly boring for anyone to look at (as well as being reticent to publicly reveal the true depth of my PS primitivism. My custom PS icon would be a little sledgehammer.)

Recorded some new audio tonight. The first I've done since May, I believe. What went through my head later were fleeting remembrances of Gene Hackman in Coppola's The Conversation.

I feel fairly excited about it. Although I'm not Orson Welles when it comes to the quality of my monologue.

I want to return to the site of my first field recording. Attempt to do it again, carefully. I'd like to do it with company, if possible. Ballast against the monologue. Actually, I wonder if Jon's busy Sunday. Wanna take a walk?

This all relates back to thinking about narrative. I'm pretty fundamentalist when it comes to narrative structure. To me, a key ingredient is a passage of time. Otherwise we're only describing a scene; something photography seems more than capable of achieving unadorned. A passage of time, though, has an implied narrative. Unfortunately, I come from a pretty heavy film background. Well, that's not the unfortunate part (that's just useful). No, what's unfortunate is that I revere people like Tsai Ming-liang. I even read a book about him, years ago (which is a few feet away from me as I type, actually). He said something about how some filmmakers would choose to show a passage of time by placing a shot of a man, sitting on some stairs, and showing him light a cigarette. Then another shot of his feet, with four cigarette butts there on the ground. And how he, his reaction to this impulse (he comes from a heavy French film background that I don't really share) is to just film the fucking guy smoking four cigarettes.


Obviously, when he does this, he has certain key things. One is being careful about music (mostly eschewing it) and ambient sound. Another element is careful framing. Another is careful casting. His movies tend to have people (his muse is actually a found non-actor who has become his default principle protagonist across several pictures) that are somehow simply pleasing to look at. Not that they're attractive. In fact, they're decidedly, identifiably ordinary, in some way. Which is a great tool for empathy. And very underutilized in narrative. At least when big money is involved.

You wouldn't think this would work. Until it does. Go watch What Time is it There? It's one of my greatest film experiences. And granted, one of the things that makes this technique work so flawlessly in his films is the presence, sometimes, of my absolute favorite cinematographer,
Benoît Delhomme. A man whose work in composition and color should be in history books it's so perfect. Also the cinematographer on Figgis's The Loss of Sexual Innocence, the Vietnamese Cyclo, and Nick Cave's The Proposition. All truly good uses of your time, if you find yourself so inclined.



Speaking of good movies to watch, let's do a quick roundup. Not much commentary, I'm afraid. Just fine films seen very recently. And all, at this moment, available instantly streaming on Netflix, although Beau Travail for not much longer.

Cruising. (1980)
Beau Travail. (French 1999)
The Beastmaster. (1982)
Cobra Verde. (German 1988)
Goin' South. (1978)
La Moustache. (2005)
The Edge of Heaven. (German/Turkish 2007)
Executive Decision. (1996)
The Great Happiness Space. (Japanese documentary 2006)
No End in Sight. (Documentary 2007)

And a fine film trailer for something that I'd very much like to see, when able.

La Vida Loca. [You may wish to view this in a separate window; scaling issues.]


Tragically, this filmmaker was recently murdered, almost certainly involving some faction of his subject. Which is chilling, and hopefully... no. I was going to say "serves as a caution to other documentarians," but this was a smart man. He knew what he was doing. He was careful. It's quite sad, actually. But I suppose it's a sad subject.

Still. It's usually preferable to survive.

Ryo KAWANISHI 河西遼; Luna light.

Interesting. Kawanishi-san has anticipated my working methods. When I took these into Photo Shop in order to make them more web friendly, I found that at my threshold of jpeg quality (60) I was saving less than 100 kb per image. Meaning they're already perfectly web friendly. And big! Bigger than any photographer's work I've ever found online!

Not everyone would get excited by this, perhaps. But, to us, this stuff matters a lot. Although I like and find interesting creating web images of such scale that they can only be viewed from a "nose-to-the-photo" distance, I still feel compelled to view them fit-to-screen as well. The advantage of his method of presentation (need we even make mention of his deferral of watermark?) is that I can go from bigger than screen dimensions to fit; reversed would not really function.

If you're not yet viewing these expanded in their own respective browser tab (or Preview window), you're utterly unaware of the texture of the photos, which is how these images must be seen. I imagine printing must be quite challenging for him. (Prints often come out some degree darker than they appear on a monitor. If I were to attempt to print these without assistance they would be mostly black sheets of paper.)

What do I know about him? Ugh. Absolutely nothing. No! This information!

CV
1983　Born in Tokyo, Japan
2007　Graduated from Sophia University

1983　東京都生まれ
2007　上智大学卒業

These images are just a loose sampling of the work that he places on his blog. What is this work? Is this his main work? Does he do something else? Is he in school? What does he do for work, on a day-to-day level? I'm definitely presuming that he shoots film... does he hand meter? Does he underexpose? What does his digital process look like?

(Is that yellow image taken from a tight crop from a television? Am I completely wrong in my film assumption?)

Why does available light create such magical images, and yet has fallen almost completely out of viable commercial application?

Short answer; not my problem. (Very much not true.) Another short answer; we've got a drastic reduction in the resting level of baseline nuanced photographic appreciation of color. In other words, digital is sinking in, collectively.

Another short answer; clearly it's not completely lost. Hopefully not in my lifetime, anyway. Our kids will be looking at this stuff and thinking, "God. How could they look at a picture that isn't utterly full spectrum HDR?" (Or whatever term comes to replace the primitive, hideous technology we currently think of as HDR. I shot a boring HDR image once. It came back from the printer, who was probably bemused by my naive 32-bit depth of color, as very, very red. We were all a little unimpressed, as I recall. Now that I'm shooting film again, it's like a switch has been flipped, and I can do good work again. Or work that at least makes me happy, and sometimes proud.)

Photographers like Ryo Kawanishi tell me that I'm very much not alone.

Post script: I never even got around to writing about the date stamp. (Although I certainly included enough exclamation points for a few future posts.) Perhaps I didn't get around to it because this work, rather than this work, does not feature it so prominently. This is truly an idiosyncratic practice at this point. Even serious photographers, that I know, who are some of the most open-minded viewers you can come across and are in a position to accept or reject this compositional and data driven tool (which says things about physical tools, in effect cameras, cropping, historical positioning, etc.), seem to mostly view this technique as outside their realm of possibility. I find this puzzling. I know I came to it from a Japanese vantage point, through Araki, and then further from Ari Marcopoulos. And I certainly don't use it ubiquitously, as neither of these men do.

But the only critical discussion I've had about it has been, essentially, why is it there? Which does not work.

Don't get me wrong; I believe in questioning assumptions, and in a mandate of deliberation, and then deliberateness, steadiness. Why is it there? Sure.

The problem is; it's there. Why is it there doesn't make it not there. It's too late. Indelibly so.

So let's deal with it.

Okay? Because once we do that, we start to have more interesting things to talk about. (Even if every photographer I know personally would never dream of joining the club, even for their casual images. Or would rather do it in Photo Shop. Poorly, oftentimes. Because they've never actually done it; meaning they lack the facilities to, firstly, correctly reproduce/mimic the characteristics of an LED display, and secondly, because they've never given a moment's thought to what, literally, the decision entails. Namely: day-month-year, month-day-year [where I sometimes sit], year-month-day, or [where Kawanishi, and to my limited scope, only Kawanishi sits] day-hour-minute. Scroll down a ways to the vertical moon, on the previous post featuring Kawanishi-san's picture. Got it? Now tell me it's not something worth trying.)

Maybe that's why I never write about the date stamp. I start ranting about LEDs. You can't take me anywhere.

Clash of civilizations; Hirst's £500,000 [very rare Mongolian] pencil.

A Canadian soldier. Panjwaii district of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.


... a day before their circumcision ritual... Algiers.


Ramadan, Jama Masjid Mosque in New Delhi.


Eid al-Fitr, Mymensingh from Dhaka, Bangladesh.


The Montreal Canadiens’ Mathieu Darche, Quebec.


Calgary Flames Leland Irving, Alberta, Canada.


South Korea’s Na Yeon Choi, Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego.

More photojournalism. Which is truly blowing me away on a purely emotional level, lately.

Re-sequencing these offers wonderful storytelling possibilities. You wouldn't believe how easy it is to work with these in arrangement and sequence. They're so strong! They group themselves. And then converse with one another.

Breathtaking. Am I alone in finding these profoundly uplifting and inspiring?

I also feel compelled to note; I was largely under the impression that in a very broad genre categorization way, I had pretty much seen it all. Not that I was finding myself weary of any of them, by any means; one of photography's great charms is that it seems to be infinitely renewable, in terms of providing a sense of awe or wonder. But these are literally the first sports photographs that I found myself heavily drawn into and won over by. Granted, they're perhaps somewhat atypical of the genre as a whole, being, in the case of the Canadian hockey shots, very fleeting, raw, hastily-composed split-second moments of tremendous mirth, and creating in the South Korean's victorious dousing at the LPGA a moment of almost transcendent strangeness and near allegorical surrealism, but in all, to me, there's a marked restraint. No fish-eye, cusp of the slam-dunk shots, here. Perhaps they also appeal by falling slightly into the sport hierarchy margins.

Either way: sport photos. Who knew? (Aside from many, many of you.)

Random image note: Trawling through my old image archives, I came across these. I'd completely forgotten I ever collected these. Weird mechanical and romantic personal fixation on antique revolvers. Not sure why. Westerns, war, and noir, I suppose. (And probably a big dose of videogames, as well.)

Ryo KAWANISHI 河西遼; a not quite typical photo Friday.

Friday had an odd, very photo-centric morning. I was up and out early to go see an exhibit at the Greenberg Van Doren Gallery at 730 Fifth Avenue at 57th St of Tim Davis's The New Antiquity, which was really quite wonderful. Mostly rather cold, dilapidated ruins, but with instances of real, active, breathing contemporary culture seeping in, appropriating, commodifying, and generally defiling. Which makes it sound like some arch gesture; soldiers in Mickey Mouse ears shooting the nose of the Sphinx. But no, it was really quite subtly whimsical, skillfully finding a similar sort of smirk in Rome and China; to me a powerful exertion of the photographer's playfulness.

Worth visiting, although it would mean being in one of my least favorite areas of the city, Central Park South and 5th Ave. Trump Plaza, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Bulgari, Armani, Versace, Kenzo, Banana Republic, Uniqlo, The Gap, Luxury Jeweler, and eventually the string of 4th-rate pizzerias and I [heart] NY T-shirt chintz joints that cater to the most clueless, lost, and visually assaulted tourists anywhere. Who the fuck knows where these people are from. All I know is that I saw cameras everywhere, and had pigeons practically walk over my foot in front of Rockefeller.

In those chintzy souvenir shops (which are probably hoping to have people in there still a little fuzzy on Euro-Dollar exchange rates) I found myself haggling, twice, for an Olympus Stylus Epic. These guys want $100. And wouldn't get it out of the case. I said $60. He said I'll think about it.

Granted, I said (brilliant international haggler that I am) that they're going regularly for $10 on eBay. Which is sometimes, though not always, in fact true. $100; too much.

I think he'll sell it to me, but I have to check it out!

The second place I found myself evaluating some dusty, clearly neglected and beat-to-shit little champagne Olympus. $50, he says. I dunno, I say. See, the seal between the rings of the lens are crumbled.
What are you, a repair guy?
Ha.
No, are you?
No, man. I'm a photographer.

If I weren't so fucking sweaty and harried and uncool, I'd be pretty suave, eh? C'mon.

I took pictures, but I'm still waiting for the next good thing.

Then I went to ICP and chatted with my good friend JW Veldoen, who, coincidentally enough, is in not one but two of the best pictures (of the 6-7) from a longer period than I'd care to say.

Shooting a lot, which feels great. Have to start working with my T4 Zoom again. I've got some ideas for the zoom this time, which is a first. Maybe I can start getting some high caliber B/W, 3200 ISO stuff out of it.

And date stamp. My original love!

Bruce Haley is one of the best photographers that I've been lucky to have heard about.

Man, I'm stressing out lately!

Looking at Bruce Haley's stuff is a nice way to attempt to step back and get a little perspective, while being just knocked backward by the talent and bravery of it. So inspiring!

Fuji Superia 1600, OM-2n, and a negative scanner.

Work of the caliber that I should be producing regularly. I'm not displeased.

Peaks scaled, lows plumbed.

India Gate, New Delhi.

“The Rights of Human Beings and Citizens,” Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

“Coco Avant Chanel,” Tokyo.

Khost Province, Afghanistan.

Another night, another post. Quite a nice rhythm establishing itself, even if it is at a rate that runs contrary toward my self-professed ideal of a "deeper" reading experience.

Firstly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, I should offer fair warning; we're again in not safe for work (or school, I'm finding) territory.

In fact, though it may be considered uncouth, or even [gasp] pedestrian to acknowledge its presence in the slightest, today's post contains adult imagery of an explicitness not typical of the blog so far. Why?

Ah, why. What a great question. And yet, you do realize that in asking it that you've already made your determination that whatever response can be supplied will be unsatisfactory (you haven't said as much, actualized and potential reader, but I've seen it in your predecessors' eyes), and you'll (most likely privately) determine that I'm just juvenile, perverse, or semi-consciously misogynistic.

And you, being clever, wouldn't be wrong in any of these. Or at least not provably so.

Consider it a form of pictorial democracy. A leveling. Consider it a "youth" thing. I don't give a shit what you decide.

But the reason I'm acknowledging it at all (knowing rather than suspecting that it would in fact be beneficial to make no allusion toward it) is to tell you that I tried to weasel out of it. I thought, "You know what will absolve me of having to offer a justification for posting outright pornographic material? If I present it next to a copy of itself as a wireless bitmap image."

I thought this. And tried it. Just now. And see that it's quite ridiculous. It's actually painfully, laughably transparent.

The lesson I'm choosing to take away from this experiment? WBM is a format best reserved for appropriated pixel art; and don't kid myself about my ability to be clever.

I'm not that clever.



While I'm just calling down the wrath of the copyright gods, as I seem to do on a daily basis sometimes... let's just keep things going. The comic is from Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle, and is one of my favorite strips of the past few years.

The other is an essay by Mr. Luc Sante from this month's Aperture. These are photocopies. If you want the images in a better format, you still have time to rush out and pick up the new issue (which feature Eggleston's colorful abstractions on its cover). But also you can rest assured that I struggled there at that flatbed, dear reader, to ensure that those scans of photocopies of magazine-printed images would contain some amount of information. Previous entry in this series/project that I sometimes do. I've gotten much better at web optimization since then! Those old png-8s are gigantic, and I doubt look much better.

(This scanning project makes me want to buy this book. This one, too. I have The Cinematic. It's fantastic. Have you seen these volumes around? They're worth considering. )

The Tiger's Paw.

I was thinking about cutting all this, and then thought better of it. When I make huge cuts, it usually just means I'm feeling self-conscious, and chop things because I feel they're overlong, whiny, or... boring, maybe? Like I said, self-conscious.

Here's a strange problem; I love video games. I seem to enjoy thinking about them, occasionally analyzing them to various degrees of satisfaction, and reading others attempt similar goals. But....

Actually, maybe it's two problems.

Firstly, I probably shouldn't spend as much time as I do reading and thinking about games. (More than I spend playing them, in fact, but I don't think this trait is that weird.) But more importantly because I am not a game designer. I'm not in school for game design. I don't want, 10 years from now, to look back on this period and realize that I know more about (let's pick on Gamasutra) how to bleed higher ad revenue and micro-transaction models from social gaming or "mobile" gaming than I do about the history of photography, or thinking about photography's transformation into bits, and how this can (and inevitably will) lend itself to the porousness of other forms of bits. Photography and film have a relationship, and film and music have a relationship (sometimes, unless you're Bresson), but we're reaching a state where photography and music/auditory environments can start to meet. What will that look like? What does it do? What's gained, or lost?

This is a silly worry, and I'll get over it the same way I get over every concern of this nature; I'll read a shit-ton of books.

(And I'm not quite ready to believe that knowing way too much about games and gaming can't, someday, in some way, have some benefit. But, then again, I'm really weird when it comes to thinking about "careers," and debt, so... I usually change the subject. See how I did that? Seamless.)

The second problem, and the one that sparked this ill-conceived tangent; I dislike most of the writing that I find on games. (Almost all of which is on the internet. Should I be following the new crop of more scholarly and academic texts on gaming in dead tree format? And cut way, way back on what I follow online? I'd lose any hope of getting turned on to something current.)

None of it's what I want it to be. Is there some blog community that I'm not tapped into? What am I doing wrong? Or does this not even remotely exist? Can it?

I want a mixture of big, sweeping, vitriolic calls-to-arms and insightful summaries and commentaries on gaming and its history, and insightful and eloquent analysis of individual games to such an extent that I'm going to run, not walk, to my Google search field and get myself this game and dig in. And then feel so inspired by the quality of the original commentary that I want to add to it, perhaps even on a new game of my choosing. Perhaps something wonderfully obscure and under-appreciated. And we go round and round, and it will be fantastic.

This is why I miss The Gamer's Quarter. A lot. (I've tried posting to their forums, but I found out that I can't write like that. I write like this. Forums don't really go for that. I think they view it as arrogant. Which, obviously, it sort of is.)

If I had readers I could task an urgent plea. Help! Make recommendations! Alas.

(I seem to be using this word a lot lately.)

I really loved this rant! It's old, but since that's basically the last time I was playing console games [frowny face], it seems like it was written today! Three cheers for suspended animation. (You guys, I'm sure by this point, know that I have a weird fetishization for obsolete technology. Even pagers and, my newest stupid obsession, digital cameras that are so old and shitty they take floppy disks. Very NASA-ish.)

Death to the Games Industry

















Stats

Not long ago I mentioned some of my simple Sitemeter statistics. Are you guys vaguely curious about such things? I know Joe likes graphs. Here you go, buddy.



I think what we're seeing here is that during my closed-to-the-public period I was unindexed from Google's image search database. And as yet, not reindexed. Which... though single digit stats don't feel as good as the mid-fifties I was hovering around, I appreciate my long-term readers still coming back. Sometimes a site I read will report bitterly on the effects of being Boinged or dugg or whatever. They describe it as a very temporary flood of uninterested, unengaged traffic. Here today to crash your server, leave nasty, idiotic comments, and immediately gone. Which, of course, sounds pretty lousy. I'm lucky if my site is only read by people I know. Anyone still here likes something, I guess.

Maybe Google just demands more Sankaku re-blogging. Mostly I've been ripping off Gorilla Boots Fotolife lately. I am a terrible re-blogger. In case you didn't know.

Why do I blog these? Because I collect them. Easy answer. They just accumulate. If they bother you, you should definitely not collect them. Or just in small doses.

They are vital, in some way, though. No? You're boring.

Someone, I believe at the Village Voice, penned this. Mamet is in fact working on some adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank, though whether for the stage or screen I seem to have forgotten. So this is what some clever fellow thinks that might look like.

Leaked: Excerpt from David Mamet's The Diary of Anne Frank
By Roy Edroso in Featured, The Arts
Wednesday, Aug. 12 2009 @ 1:18PM

Peter: Goddamned fucking Nazis.
Anne: You want a potato?
Peter: No, I don't want a potato.
Anne: Take a potato.
Peter: I don't want a fucking potato.
Anne: Go on, take a potato.
Peter: What do I want with a fucking potato?
Anne: We're starving.
Peter: (pause) What the hell, I'll take a potato. (takes potato, eats)
Anne: I kinda like it without salt.
Peter: Salt. That shit'll kill you.
Anne: Okay.
Peter: I'm trying to make light of a fuckin' situation here.
Anne: Okay.
Peter: Like when you spilled milk on that cunt's fur coat.
Anne: That was an accident.
Peter: (Monologue on how there are no accidents)
Anne: Hey, kiss me.
Peter: Why the fuck not?

And then, around this time, I came across this. Whether it's genuine or another parody, I find myself unconcerned with.

The David Mamet Weather Report: August 13, 12:07 PM
"So is it going to rain or is the sky just gonna fucking pout all day?"

You want pictures? I've got your fucking pictures right here.

Remember these? My great idea of machine translation of two years worth of Famicase art? What the hell happened?

Regardless, I still think it's a great idea. I really feel that, broken and imperfect as they are, even rudimentary, fragmented translations give a non-Japanese speaking audience a much greater insight into the individual concepts that went into these odd, alternate universe Famicom cartridges exhibited annually in a Tokyo shop called Meteor. The first and second batch can be reviewed, or to get further information. I'm not sure why both previous galleries were appended to podcasts; but I was struck by what an excellent job I did on those podcast feature pages. I should try to get back to that level of polish with them in the near future, if possible.

And one last thing; we're still just aproaching the half-way point of this thing. I think I estimated 7 batches total. And, unless I missed something, there have been no comments or search engine directed visitors for this topic. Ever. So clearly I'm tapped into something huge.

Famicase 08
Games 17-24


"He BRESSE"
Tokyo pistol (彅Yohei Utikawa Taku and grass +) / editor + designer
"Friend was devoted to the wind out of the window to say, or" "local friends FUKIKAKERURASHII HAHIFUHEHOKARE breath and say," "broken KAKETARA solid fart" (from the net excerpt). Action and blow your breath on cassette FUッeveryone was doing. It was just a game! !吹KIKAKENAI the title screen and can not breathe properly is normal. What game is a breath spray to the computer, and he manipulated her BRESSE BRESSE. Up to the level of vital capacity, organization of evil "bugs" and fight. The DVD is recommended that non-modern or even a breath spray.


"Blades of Sushi"
Yokoo Akiko / illustrator
Ninja of the isolated "GUNKAN" Satan the devil living in the castle "OOTORO" Shooting barrage challenge the action. But "Lady gizzard shad," I can save? NES software created at the end of the minor manufacturers in North America. Popular lovers set in a dense part of the vampire motif and a mistaken view that Japan surreal world.


"Fear! Brunt of the quasi-child porn"
PRESIDENT RAISIN / PRESIDENTS
2XXX. Harm the human race "quasi-child porn" Suddenly, I hit the stark shapes! SABUMASHINGAN out of the impending evil to mankind, "quasi-child porn" must fight off! Looming, "the animation in the picture painted dots = quasi-child porn", I like to keep our hand in the shooter's weapon to kill.
※ The game includes a representation of a grotesque and violent scenes. Please note.


"BARETTOSHIGARETTO"
YOSHIOKAMIKUBO / office worker
The policy of the overthrow of the enemy fire before the smoke disappears HITMAN is to carry out the mission, HADOBOIRUDOAKUSHONSHUTINGUGEMU.討TE a woman SARATTA our gang! Hit! ! Fire! ! ! Shinjuku立CHI上GARE to protect women and night惚RETA! Paradise is waiting to break it!


"Oh!! Tamanegiyarou chindouchu!"
Kuni Yasushi Mori / illustrator
Are developing software in a strange way chinmyou! Received from the new, otogi jumped out of China, and Fabulous tamanegiyarou three large active muscular action RPG. Action tamanegi irritating to the eyes.


"BEKUTAPURANETTO"
Sasuda Minoru (Technologies Oriental) / Designer
"BEKUTAPURANETTO" The announcement was made in 1983 but released at the end of the year, did not release its GCE (after FGM) is a software visionary NES. The original work of FGM, was created specifically cartridges were found from the source. Tried to express a combination of sprite images BEKUTASUKYANMONITA the company's core technology, and strong work very experimental side, one vector is the wrong group of high technology engineers work. The company later, FC have withdrawn from the software.


"Rainbow"
haya @ TECS / Manufacturing
Game is stretched to the sky a rainbow. Choose a qualified目指SOU root stratosphere while avoiding the sun and rain clouds and planes. Bonus space in the stage, BONASUGETTO flowers flatten and stretch the rainbow! ! 2008 indie-released software, the back door, talking about the movie much like a part of the transitional stage PAWAZUOBUTEN bonus song and a certain flow to the game! ?


"FAMIRIJENERETA"
Aka HYAKUHACHI JAMITARAO / voice system (→ Rookie HIYOKKO bad)
Virtual Console and DS to come along and feel free to play with FC are now in the classic era, full of data that LV99 is not only ... want to play on the ROM pad at the actual machine from the remote control battery is out too long ago ... It will be ... there's a FAMIRIJENERETA. Turn left just six hours, the storage unit. The battery as a built-in software to make蘇RA入替ERE time! The data遊BIMASHOU nostalgia! (We have 8 to 30 percent in the ignition is not chasing a batting average of any liability) (the specification, but when exposed to electric shock and short circuit software basically)

Famicase 09
Games 17-24


"COSME MUSIC MAKER"
Hitoshi Matida Osamu (SPACE PICNIC) / multitalent MEIKUAPPUATISUTO
Hokkaido in 2000 (JAPAN) was established in number of people who LIVE with CHOP FROG hand, "to make every day a girl, feel free to create software in spare time and stylish music" was developed as a At this point, MUSIC MAKER "COSME". Trace of the brush and the makeup of the board dedicated to the music like a magic chain. Backup, save it with!


"DOKI! DOKI! Urban life for the first time."
Tokyo Bitch (AYAKO HISHINUMA + BIKINILINE) / FIMERUPUREIYA group member
Goodbye fight! Si staple of the college girl sunny Tokyo. I want to enjoy campus life, to love and like TORENDIDORAMA! Living alone for the first time, but full of anxiety. Looking for an apartment or choose interior is on the spot. However I also入RANAKU Circle, the first night full of temptation?出会ITAI na Carre also a wonderful course.生っbusy with college! Cotton system can really enjoy the urban life is this? The simulation was overwhelming support to the teen dream of city life!


"Character manufacturers Student"
Die / KetchupArts Hondalady
That the boom in process, momentum余っraid in the game industry! What is adventure game-style financial management techniques, and subtle things like the package is too loyal to melt, the game was supposed to be disappointing at first sight ... .... But! Gay ex-student in-game character's makeup, so I have made most troubled. The thrill of carrying out or how to dissolve the caramel & pleasure, I took the graphics processing逆手"melting only six" expressions, many addicts remain in Japan and hear music! It's a vision made him the status of the software sold in the game! (Commentary: DJ Miyamoto / Famitsu DS + Wii)


"LOVELETTER"
KIMA / artist figure, or
Thought to con him.
A character letter, I wrote a love letter in the form of a password.
Write Once saved,忍BASEYOU to her shoe cupboard.
The courage you have in hand do not care.
Good BADDOENDO end or whether it is in your drinking.
(The software can save this one, only once)


"Moero!'09 Japan-Korea WBC baseball edition"
Tokyo pistol (NAGI Yohei Utikawa Taku and grass +) / editor + designer
Touched all over Japan in 2009 Japan-Korea WBC game in the "pro burn" has been reproduced in full. IDZIRO ahead of run-scoring hit in the final, you can freely reproduce the miraculous catch of UCHIKAMA. Or the bird in the net and win the South, watch out because bamboo is a flag on the mound! Of course, "pro burn" if you will, also pose a bunt home run! ?


"KILLER CANDY / Candy Killer"
I expected SHIMAWA / video director
World's largest candy maker "fred candy" Candy is a prototype of the brain suddenly began to hit mankind! To grow bigger, manipulate at will to all that fond of "Candy Killer" and stand up against the ESUPACHIRUDOREN from around the world!


"Pix'n Love"
Flo / magazine editor in chief of Games
KYARAPOKO MUNII and suddenly I read gaming magazines, he was sucked into the book! And lots of old, they are attacked by a big pixels! Those pixels of the 3D technology, gamers forget they're angry! Now, I can escape from the hands and arms to kill the pixels and the KYARAPOKO MUNII? ! ? Or, side by side with them in 3D or rebound? Love Action Pix'n Love is the best game of the century!


"JANKEN"
TAMURAKAYO / illustrator
And the rock-scissors-paper,負KETARA stay behind.
Just repeat it,
Biological TOJAN huge right at the end.
Games would be MAKETARA eat.



Tiny Vices. Assorted shots from the last "Various" collection. I've been sitting on this one for a while as well. And there are a ton of galleries over there I should get around to recommending. Tiny Vices is too huge. It's completely overwhelming. Here's the first time I did this with material from them. And each image is named with the photographer's name. I haven't tried searching for any yet, but I see no reason not to, if you really like something.



















Isolated, unrelated fragment: my review of the freeware indie game Judith. Why? Honestly, it just happens to reside in the same text file as my 9000 stuff. So here it is.

Finally finished Judith. Now I can say, tentatively, that I liked it. Perhaps even quite a bit. It had a nice tone, decent scoring and sound effects (where present), nice pixel art, a nuanced palette. The writing was, perhaps, serviceable, without being beautiful. I feel much the same way about it that I do about Gravity Bone. Each are kind of teeth-knashingly contested. "This is not a game!" Maybe. What it seems to be, to me, is an evolution of interactive fiction; Interactive Fiction melded with a first person perspective. A type of pseudo-cinema; pre-scripted machinima. I was watching Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 not long ago; these games are not dissimilar to the type of "interactive" television envisioned in that film, in that they provide a cunning façade of interactivity. None of which is to say they're bad. They're many things: creative, personal, expressive, well crafted. Perhaps best thought of as the independent set's response toward gaming's implacable march toward ever more complex and completely unsatisfactory emphasis on narrative, as penned by fucking morons. No, that's not quite right. But certainly a group of people (publishers and mainstream developers) who decided that their audience really doesn't care about a quality narrative. In fact, market wise, it may actually end up being a detriment.

Unfortunately, I played this over the summer, at work, spread out across two lunch breaks. Meaning I sort of rushed. If you feel inclined to try it (it's probably not longer than a half-hour), try not to play it while having to check the clock every few minutes.



And finally (this became a much, much larger undertaking than I'd originally expected), 9000.

9000 is the name of an artist. In Bogotá, Colombia. He has a Flickr page. It's astoundingly good work. This is just a small sample. I'll have to come back to him again later.

He's also got some writing up accompanying select images. For whatever reason I feel more guilty running Spanish through a machine translator (perhaps since I know actual Spanish readers and speakers who would cringe at such a thing), but damn it... clearly this guy's tapped into something. (And I'll give the original Spanish as well, in case you can avail yourself of it.)

Did I mention this took forever? I did? Well, it did.




















En el nombre de Dios.

Condenado hoy a muerte, pido a Dios que si todavía, no me exime de llegar a ese trance, me conserve hasta el fin la decorosa conformidad con que lo preveo y, al juzgar mi alma, no le aplique la medida de mis merecimientos, sino la de su infinita misericordia.

Ad portas de mi inminente muerte, la espero sin jactancia, porque nunca es alegre morir a mi edad, pero sin protesta alguna como estoicamente me enseñaron mis creadores. Acéptela Dios Nuestro Señor en lo que tenga de sacrificio para compensar en parte lo que ha habido de egoísta y frívolo en mucho de mi vida. Perdono con toda el alma a cuantos me hayan podido dañar u ofender, sin ninguna excepción, y ruego que me perdonen todos aquellos a quienes deba la reparación de algún agravio grande o chico.

Sea notorio que yo: 9000, natural de esta comunidad viral y condenado a muerte por todos los pecados cometidos contra sus semejantes y por considerársele una mala imitación de ser humano, he dispuesto ordenar este mi testamento, creyendo ante todas las cosas como firmemente creo en el alto misterio de la Santísima Trinidad, Padre Hijo y Espíritu Santo, tres personas distintas y un solo Dios verdadero, y en todos los demás misterios y sacramentos que tiene, cree y enseña nuestra Santa madre Iglesia Católica Apostólica Romana, bajo cuya verdadera fe y creencia he vivido y protesto vivir y morir como católico y fiel cristiano que soy, tomando por mi intercesora y abogada a la Serenísima Reina de los Ángeles María Santísima, madre de Dios y Señora nuestra y devoción y demás de la corte celestial, bajo de cuya protección y divino auxilio otorgo mi testamento en la forma siguiente:

Primera. Primeramente encomiendo mi alma a Dios Nuestro Señor, que la crió de la nada, y el cuerpo mando a la tierra de que fue formado, y cuando su Divina majestad se digne llevar mi alma de la presente vida a la eterna, ordeno que dicho mi cuerpo, amortajado con el hábito de mi patriarca Charles Baudelaire, sea sepultado en cualquier callejón detrás de cualquier bar, dejando la forma del entierro, sufragios y demás funerales a disposición de los perros callejeros.

Segunda. Instituyo único heredero a la señorita “MCV”, natural de otra comunidad orgánica y ser humano de intachable moral, como única heredera de todos mis bienes tridimensionales. Disponga como plazca de lo que acumulado he, por tantos años de sufrimiento. Preferiblemente al fuego si así ella lo dispusiera.

Tercera. Que soy de estado soltero, y que no tengo ascendente ni descendiente. Nunca fue mi intención dejar legado congénito, solo fue menester de mi disipación practicar rigurosamente el acto de concepción como divertimento. Por eso ruego perdón, si cause en persona alguna cierto agravio.

Por el presente revoco y anulo todos los demás testamentos, codicilos, poderes para testar, memorias, u otra cualesquiera otra disposición testamentaria que antes de ésta haya hecho u otorgado por escrito de palabra, o en otra forma para que nada valga, ni haga fe en juicio, ni fuera de él excepto este testamento en que declaro ser en todo cumplida mi última voluntad en la vía y forma que más haya lugar en Dro. En cuyo testimonio lo otorgo así ante el infrascrito escribano público del número de esta ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad, ciudad de Venice California, a diez y ocho de marzo de dos mil ocho a las diez y quince de la mañana. Y el otorgante a quien yo dho. En otras tres hojas además de ésta, todas foliadas, fechadas y firmadas al margen.

1000 0000 8000=9000



In the name of God.

Sentenced to death today, I pray to God that if still no excuse I get to that performance, I kept to the end under the decorous so provides, and to judge my soul, not to apply to the extent of my merits, but in his infinite mercy.

Verge of my imminent death, I hope not boast, it is never happy to die at my age, but without any protest stoically as I taught my creators. Accept it as the Lord God of sacrifice that has to compensate in part for what has been selfish and frivolous much of my life. Perdono with all your soul to me how many have been hurt or offend, without exception, and I pray that I forgive all those who should repair any injury or big kid.

I is clear: 9000, this community of natural viral and sentenced to death for all sins committed against their peers and regarded as a poor imitation of a human being, I ready to order that my will, to believe all the things I believe as strongly in the high mystery of the Holy Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit, three distinct persons and only one true God, and all other mysteries and sacraments that has cree and our Holy Mother Church teaches Roman Catholic, whose faith and true I have lived and belief protest live and die as a Catholic and faithful Christian, I take my lawyer and advocate for the Serenissima, Queen of the Angels Holy Mary, Mother of God and our Lord and devotion and the other heavenly court, under whose divine protection and help give my will as follows:

First. First I commit my soul to God our Lord, that grew up from nothing, and body control to land that was formed, and when his Divine Majesty Digne take my soul from this life to the eternal order that my body shrouds with my habit of patriarch Charles Baudelaire, is buried in any alley behind any bar, leaving the shape of the burial, funeral and other votes at the disposal of stray dogs.

Second. Institutions only heir to the lady "MCV" natural organic community and other people of impeccable moral character, as the sole heir of all my goods dimensional. Available beyond that as what I have accumulated for so many years of suffering. Preferably the fire if it is available.

Third. State that I am unmarried and have no ascending or descending. It was never my intention to leave a legacy congenital alone was necessary for my practice dissipation strictly the act of conception and amusement. And I ask forgiveness, because if one person in a grievance.

I hereby cancel and revoke all other wills, codicils, testamentary powers, memories, or any other testamentary disposition by which it has given written or verbal, or otherwise so nothing worth, nor do faith at trial, nor was it other than declare that this will be accomplished throughout my last will and way on the path that has more in Dro. Whose testimony is provided in well before the undersigned Notary Public in the number of this city of the Holy Trinity, California city of Venice, in eighteen of March, two thousand eight at quarter past ten. And the grantor whom I Dho. In addition to three other leaves it all foliated, dated and signed on the sidelines.

1000 +0000 +8000 = 9000

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It will not be a stylish marriage, I can not afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.

A mini bang, Afghans, and a sad, manic man with some bad memories, fully earned. Respect.

So a lot of what I'm sitting on are videos. In case that wasn't painfully obvious already.

VBS recommendations. Did you get a chance to watch Escobar's private photographer reminisce about his time working for the man? I really can't praise it highly enough.

I'm at the point where I'm tired of qualifying and clarifying my stance on Vice every time I enjoy something they do. Also, frankly, I'm a bit tired of feeling required to work to overcome anyone's pre-determined hatred of the brand, and uninformed pre-emptive judgement of anything they have anything to do with. Can we grow up a little bit, and accept that while Vice has qualities of which we're not in love (and that as we're aging we're falling out of their demographic anyway, if we were ever drunk, stupid, and high enough to have fallen in it to begin with), they still manage to attract talent, and that talent produces worthwhile content?

Anyway, enough of this fucking waffling.
CERN. (24:25)
Afghanistan, part one and two. (19:11 & 15:45)

This Afghan piece can not not blow your mind. How these guys can slump down, smoke a joint of hash or opium, and jump up and blast an RPG barrage two seconds later... I... I mean. C'mon. Wrap your head around it.

And finally, I succumb to the inevitable bit of curiosity. And man, am I glad I did. What an amazing piece.



And the rest are right here. Too bad that living forever thing didn't quite pan out. But it is a very nice sarcophagus.

Hotel Hot Shower Restaurant; Will Self walks places and makes it sound like an act with purpose.

I don't know what the current state of affairs is in regard to Google's legal hurdles in its book scanning project, but I can state that their Authors@Google series should be considered great advertising for publishers. Jim Rossignol of Rock, Paper, Shotgun (mixed feelings; not my market segment) and occasional, excellent BLDG Blog guest poster, pointed me at Will Self's Psychogeography lecture, which started the ball rolling. Then I watched this.











Now I've got three of his novels, one of which I just recently finished, and one volume of short stories. Though Great Apes wasn't a knockout title, for me, I'm not giving up on this one. He's got a much larger body of work than I'm used to seeing in a contemporary novelist. And these are too good to dismiss.



If only I could do my radio show like that! Alas, if Pilkington and Self represent competing impulses, vying shoulder-crouched whisperers, Karl tends to take it when we hit record.

Adam Curtis, "The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom?"

[A warning, not because I don't respect you, but because I do; this is three hours. It's also wonderful. You've been warned.]

Podcast update, thoughts on blog survival, and a barren visual field, choking, sun beating down, placing one foot and then the next.

Where to even start.

I don't feel much inclined to write a huge amount regarding the whole Blogger/Google thing. As a summary of the larger situation, this link does about as good a job as one could want at just helping to explain some of the factors involved. Also, someone in the comments made the excellent point that when you're using a service that you aren't paying for, what you can reasonably expect in customer service has to be scaled back to a great degree. It should be obvious, but it really hits home when years of output that you obviously view as precious is on the chopping block that Google really doesn't owe you a damn thing. When you're asking for help and cursing the anonymous indifference of the experience... it's a humbling thing.

Anyway, my "behind the wall" thoughts can be pretty easily surmised from the comic below (which, lest we kid ourselves, no one from Google actually read, but is, I think, one of the best things I've ever made), and from my fading-patience borderline hysterical whining during last night's podcast.

Speaking of which; the podcast. August was a month of rough-edged shows. The show of August 5th went long, meandering, and weird. After it was recorded, I thought, "I won't promote this one. I'll just let it sink." This called down the hex on the show, and the next one on August 19th had a software failure that we didn't catch during recording, resulting in about the first 15 minutes being recorded, and nothing else. About three songs or so, and out before the first mic break. I remember the show being fairly decent (and that fragment is available for listening if you really feel so inclined), but one thing I've learned about doing these is that without an archive, it's as if they never existed. After this, I was thinking of releasing the prior show, which on further listening wasn't as bad as I originally thought (perhaps), but then there was... well, that whole Terms of Service Violation thing I said I wouldn't write much about.

So, here we are. August 5th, 19th (the fragment), and last night's, September 2nd. Which is still under the hex, if you're curious. Weird meandering, overly loud bed music for the first few minutes, and kind of middling sound quality throughout. I'm wondering if I should be reducing my levels as a whole. Although I guess it's possible that a lot of my vinyl is just kind of dusty and beat up.

Every individual WHFR show page now features both Flash players and MP3 download links for portability. So although I'm shirking my individual, lovely show summaries, there isn't actually any loss of functionality.

I'm striking Google and podcast backlog from my list of topics I'm behind on.

It's a weird feeling, being back, open to the public. When the blog was closed and on the edge of being killed (presumably), I felt real, genuine anxiety about its future, and about the scale of the potential loss. And it was a strange feeling to peruse it myself, as usual. For those two weeks, it was a true private garden, rather than my tucked away space. Real internet isolation. It really forced me to think about it. And now that the initial relief and (this sounds sort of hokey) joy have subsided a bit... well, now I just have another unpopular blog that I can't even get most of my friends to read, with the majority of visitors only floating in from Google's image search, looking for pictures of breasts. June and July saw a pretty marked uptick in these fleeting, fairly unimportant visitors. But even so, having 50 or so hits a day does usually snag at least one visitor that seems to really look around and read a bit, so... that's progress, I suppose.

I'm curious to see how long it takes for the hits to rise up to where they were, or if they even can.

Apologies for what might be construed as a negative tone. I suppose all of this has traumatized my feelings about the site, and I'm still figuring out what the hell I'm doing. Changes? Maybe. Nothing major. We'll get to that soon enough, I suppose.

Also, as the observant among you may have spotted, this piece of text is aging. Hence the hasty posting, and absence of the usual amount of visual splendor. It feels very strange posting unadorned text. Consider this a long, boring, unnecessary public service announcement. In other words; too long, didn't read.

Post #158

Good God damn, we're back, you beautiful, terrible motherfuckers. Come here; we're gonna hug it out!

I've got a huge backlog of material that I should have been preparing but haven't, but I'm too damn happy and relieved to care much about that now. For now, let's just sit, sipping our drinks, and let this goggly-eyed Aussie sing at us a while.

Yeah. Welcome back.