My thoughts
The nature of art is very clearly in communication. From artist to audience, an idea or feeling is sent and received.
Quite often, I feel less than partial to either the content or the presentation of an artist’s message. For instance, a film may come along which has a sweet idea, but which bores me to tears. Or a game which has some attractive promise turns out to be nothing but hollow, vacuous manipulation at its heart. We all know this feeling.
So then, I cannot be remiss in jumping ship so swiftly from nearly everything which loses my faith. I’ll quit a film after five minutes. Most games I only make it about an hour into. Books, it all depends on the introduction. But I’ll shut a book at any time, for any reason, and never pick it up again.
I wonder if there’s some better method, but the truth is this: my time is valuable, as is my attention. Any time spent in art which does not inspire is dead time. I allocate my efforts accordingly.
6/16/2024
In Fantasy, it is often remarked that wise-ards speak in incalculable riddles. Often the layman will try and seek answers from the Oracle at Delphi, but the bizarre puzzle-like form that their response takes tends to bewilder, rather than inform.
But why? Would not some advanced intelligence possess at once both the ability to perceive the world of the beyond, as well as the ability to simplify and communicate to such lesser beings? Perhaps it should be obvious that a truly advanced being should have even more capacity for such summarization, like how the truly best professors and scientists are those who can cover the whole range of their topic, and explain it to a freshman class alongside a post-doctoral group.
I tend to imagine two possibilities.
One, that the truths known by whatever magical or heightened being are of a kind wholly alien to our native mode of understanding. If a man with intuitive knowledge of the non-directionality of time, say for example one Dr. Manhattan, tries to reason with his natural counterparts, he simply cannot fathom how he would undertake it. If Gandalf the gray has seen a thousand years, how can he explain what that is like to a mere child of forty?
The second possibility, which is also sort of explored in watchmen, is that the high-minded pursuits a learned fellow engages in tends to isolate them from the rest of humanity. So much so, that they might grow raving mad, or follow inhumane methods, or just simply look from afar at the affairs of man, with not a bit of melancholy (or malice) at their distance from their native race.
Even in small capacities, this second hypothesis seems obviously true. Once you have spent months and years working at some problem, you are an expert on it. None will be able to truly understand your new understanding, even if you communicate very carefully.
It is the nature of deep work to heighten one’s understanding. But to heighten one’s understanding is to isolate, and perhaps that should not be taken lightly.
6/15/2024
So much of my life has been focused on parsing down - trying to cut things into the smallest pieces.
I love that stuff. Cleaning up, you know? Destruction, in a sense. Negation. It can really make you into something else.
I see now why Proust would refer to the two forces as “Art” and “Habit.”
Art is that which revolutionizes - which either renews, reinterprets, or reveals some form of life which is good and fresh. Habit is that which entombs that which is small and dead.
Many times I have sought habit in order to banish chaos from my life. “Hell Yeah or No” - it’s a strong antidote.
But we must retain the artistic spirit, even in those habitual forms. Life is free, and we mustn’t forget that it is beautiful, and fresh, and always present in all things.
6/14/2024
I think kids really can only be seen as wonderful. They can’t fulfill your dreams, and if they do, it won’t be quite right… I suppose that it’s possible, actually, but isn’t it a little wrong?
It’s like that way of raising the kids is in opposition to wonder. It presupposes that they don’t have anything to show you. In fact, that’s all that kids have: things to show you!
6/14/2024
What is with this focus on abstract objects in anime? Examples: Utena, Bakemonogatari, etc… Just a weird visual language. It’s like some extension of the normal cinema stuff, with comic book in it. I see why it would develop this way, but it’s surprising how far abstracted they get.
Au Clair De La Luna is really just like Ponta De Areia
Pioneer Square is really a nice place. There are nice places everywhere!
The Last Spring … what a potent idea! Listen to Grieg’s song.
6/9/2024
“Insist then, on the beauty of form and color to be obtained from the composition of the largest masses, the four or five large masses which cover your canvas. Let these above all things have fine shapes, have fine colors. Let them be as meaningful of your subject as they possibly can be. It is wonderful how much real finish can be obtained through them, how much of gesture and modeling can be obtained through their contours, what satisfactions can be obtained from their fine measures in area, color and value. Most students and most painters in fact rush over this; they are in a hurry to get on to other matters, minor matters.” Robert Henri, The Art Spirit
“Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Jesus, Sermon on the Mount
“Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” Thomas Carlyle
6/9/2024
Too much movement, transition, and routine. For us to find what is new, we must be able to focus on what is curious, free to follow paths, unbound by routine, and unbothered. Solitude.
And the other thing, which is the problem of input, is also unsolved. Find the list of good things, and enjoy! It’s like ice cream when you get your tonsils out. It’s actually good for you!
I thought a fair bit about the Earth Symphony yesterday when June’s choir sang it. The Earth as a dying entity - this is not that sad. But mankind’s inevitable end is certainly emotionally potent to me.
I’d like to put forth as much as i can to help humankind to avert the crisis so that my children can enjoy this wonderful world!
6/1/2024
You ever heard of the French Republican Calendar? Look it up.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a Gregorian at heart. But imagine the things this calendar could do for us.
12 30-day months per year. Just fill in the overtime with a few days at the end. Call that week rest week and it becomes like a sacred holiday.
Each month split into 3 10-day weeks. Sounds long, but you could do all sorts of stuff with them. You could have a day off at the beginning, middle, and end, getting the weekend wednesday effect. Plus, a week off is a big deal.
Anyways, seems like an interesting, but ultimately doomed measure.
5/30/2024
I wonder what the difference between fantasy nonsense and surrealism is.
Is it how seriously the film takes it? Maybe it has to do with whether it’s corny or not?
What does the Lady In The Radiator have to do with the cat creature in Suzume?
I don’t even know where to begin…
Maybe it’s just whether or not you, as the viewer, take it seriously.
Actually, I have some more thoughts on this now… Not a verdict, just had some more examples.
Haibane Renmei and Kino’s Journey present a narrative with both fantasy nonsense and surrealism. The surrealism is immediately distinct in both. You can tell right away when the switch flips from one mode to the other. I’m personally much more compelled by the surreal moments, and can barely stay awake through the fantasy.
I started to think about this since I watched Suzume, which is obviously hugely influenced by Kafka on the Shore. Suzume is like a fantasy nonsense version of that book. It suffers for it, in my view, although is probably much more palatable for it.
5/28/2024
Today was Memorial Day. I spent most of the day with my Grandma Sylvia. She’s the last grandparent I have left. We played Hearts and Bananagrams. Man, the rush you get in hearts when you decide to shoot the moon is unbeatable. Incredible design!
We went to the cemetery at Coal Creek by Lake Boren Park. The graves there were old. 1865 was the first grave, but a lot of 1880 and 1890. A lot of kids my age. 16, 20, 24. They died in the mines.
Can’t believe sometimes that that’s what life was like 150 years ago. But they walked the same paths i did, and swam in lake boren just like me.
Phlebas, the Phoenecian, a fortnight dead, and so on…
5/27/2024
Focusing more these days on clarity, organization, calm. Less work, more belief.
5/25/2024
Animal Well is the latest Super Metroid ripoff. It’s a good game.
I wonder, though… How long can we keep making the same game? We’ve done variations, polished it to perfection, and put personal spins on it.
But what is there really to learn from these games? What’s the point? Where’s the soul? What’s the feeling?
Can it all really come down to this vibe, these keys and doors, and this stringing along? Animal Well is great fun, and it’s a masterpiece, but I just don’t know if it’s the kind of thing which compels me anymore…
5/19/2024
Courage and cowardice are contagious.
It goes both ways - spread what you want to see.
5/19/2024
You ever try sitting like this?
Incredible position of power.
5/19/2024
Ideas come, but sometimes they take some time to implement. It seems right to try to fulfill each idea completely.
But what we don’t realize is that keeping an idea around is like standing still. It jams the pipes.
The new ideas can’t enter your mind until the old ideas have concluded.
So how should we handle old ideas?
If you have old ideas, clear them out as quickly as you can! Give every one a chance, then let it go.
Most ideas are unanswered questions. “What would this be like?” “Could I make something that was like this?” Finding answers to those questions is easier than we think.
Sometimes, you can find most of an answer with a little introspection. Other times, you just can’t figure it out. That’s a deep idea you just found!
And if you let an idea go, and it was really important, then it will come back again later, when you least expect it.
In short, don’t be afraid to let ideas go, to make space for the new ones!
5/19/2024
Writer’s block seems to be mostly caused by intimidation, either self-imposed or resistance-wise. But what is really at the root? What stops a person from doing anything which they ostensibly want to do?
Pride seems likely, or fear of failure. Perhaps it’s self-criticism, or some other mechanism. But these aren’t the real culprit. Those are the manufactured justifications.
At bottom, it stems from a lack of real desire.
That thing which seems like desire? That part of you which says it wants to do something? It’s lying. Listen more carefully, and the body will tell you what it wants.
The soul will chart the course. It will find the way. Do not stop it!
In other words, if you’re in writer’s block, then stop writing!
5/18/2024
Notes from a prototype unfinished
The Wasteland. Reread the wasteland!
One character should be a priest, who commends you for your commitment, and commands you to follow the path up the hill.
A part of the game should be in a hospital waiting room
We should have gameplay which breeds uncertainty, like the player doesn’t know if it’s the right thing to do in a given situation
Purgation - to purify Purgatory - suffering
Phantom vs fantasy
Maybe worth reading the divine comedy?
This work is a humbling experience. For all the work that you might do to seek your goal, there is still an infinite distance to go.
Perhaps when the player arrives at their destination, it shows that they have travelled such and such a long way, but it ends up being vast, vast leagues to go. Like they’re just a pixel at the end.
A dream. A game with intense dream sequences
Kaibe is a good inspiration too, but i really shouldn’t have too many more movie influences
David lynch made eraserhead with almost entirely art-based influences, and that works. I wonder if we can pull off the same sort of thing with games and movie influences.
Idk… the gameplay still needs to feel really good… like it’s mesmerizing in some way!
Elric of Melnibone
Boy is the world a lonely place! How quickly you feel it too.
I think i want this wasteland game to have some real life stuff. Like you should slowly accumulate noise, until it’s loud enough to hear all the time, and it sort of overpowers the music a little bit. And i want the character to sort of worry about their health, but not be able to do anything about it, like me with this medicine right now - could clot at any moment, but hopeless to stop it.
These things can be less obvious / more abstract, but they really matter to me.
Limbo is the clearest analogue we have in games. Or Little Nightmares.
I really love the premise of doing the dialogue cutscenes like the Mask Salesman in Majora’s mask. Where you do smash cuts to the guy in each animation. It also is like the scene from the Tatami Galaxy movie, where the guy is drunk and talking about stuff. Would be easy for mia to add some more animations to the rigs.
Will have to think carefully about light and shadow in godot. Put some thought into it.
5/01/2024