Exploring the Dark Side

Lately it seems I've been spending a lot of time exploring the 'dark side' of things, particularly philosophy and music, ranging from reading about 'left-hand path' philosophy to watching Cradle of Filth videos on Youtube.

This has a lot to do with aspects of my personal philosophy I've been thinking about lately. I believe the human mind does have a darker side, the side ruled by subconscious fears and desires, the wilder, potentially more harmful instincts and impulses. (These are the real 'demons', if we take a subjective/Jungian approach to religion, as I do, seeing deities primarily as archetypes of the subconscious.) I also think that trying to deny, ignore or banish this side of us (as conventional religions have a habit of doing) is probably not healthy, that it would be better to integrate it, to guide it towards positive results.

But philosophy is only part of it, of course, there is also a purely aesthetic fascination. I've always been a fan of horror movies and dark fantasy. Though 'darkness' isn't synonymous with 'evil' of course, and I equally enjoy elves and soothing, beautiful starlight and candle-lit evenings.

There are some snags, though. Some left-hand path traditions and darker metal bands seem to have a tendency to go overboard with it, with their misanthropic and anti-Christian themes. Hostility towards other groups and philosophies is something I find annoying (in milder forms) or simply unacceptable (in extreme forms). Wasting time and energy on hate is simply counterproductive. I don't see why being pro-dark should mean being anti-light, or anti anything else (except anti-stupidity and anti-intolerance, of course).

In music this applies also sonically. Black metal bands tend to sound rather too harsh to my ears, countering aesthetic elements I could potentially find pleasing if used more moderately. (Although I must say in general I seem to find the black metal shriek, used in moderation, less bothersome than the death metal grunt.)

In philosophy and religion this doesn't really present much of a problem. I'm not one for following any ready-made philosophy, anyway. Probably couldn't even if I wanted to. I make my own path, and don't care much about what others think or believe. But in music I'm of course always open to new experiences. It could be interesting to find music that explored the dark side in a more positive way, both sonically and thematically.

Assembly 2010 Revisited

I meant to write a recap post about my weekend of following Assembly 2010 on TV right after the weekend, but somehow it got delayed with other stuff, and I was having problems with my Flash installation etc. (Yes, I still, or rather again, have Flash installed. Grudgingly. It breaks my heart, but what can you do, it's a Web 2.0 world...)

In a nutshell, I had a blast watching the show and the compos (short for competition, naturally) were entertaining and the quality was, from my not-really-a-scener viewpoint, pretty good. I think I manage to catch all the (non-gaming) compos (except for executable graphics, which was so short I missed it while popping down to the kitchen).

So I thought I'd post links to some of my favourite creations. Assembly's website has this to say about demos:

Demos and intros are not pre-rendered animations but rather non-interactive programs made for a chosen computing platform (Windows, Mac, game consoles for few examples). These programs are made to show off one's skills and to entertain the general audience. Since the user cannot interact with the program flow the demos are kept short, packed with stunning visuals and often synched with a catchy soundtrack.

The deserved winner of the demo compo was ASD with their demo Happiness Is Around the Bend. Pure audio-visual delight. Here's the Youtube link.

The 4k and 64k intro categories are always fascinating. As the names suggest, these are demos that are limited in size to 4 or 64 kilobytes, and it's amazing what skilled programmers can pack into an executable of that size. The winner of the 4k category was Neanderstaller by Pittsburgh Stallers. (Video quality is a little below par there, though.)

One of the highlights for me is of course the oldskool demo compo (i.e. demos for obsolete hardware). Sadly there were very few entries again this year, but the winner, the Amiga demo Grind by Dekadence & Accession, was pretty good. Very low res, of course, but with a nice atmosphere and aesthetic style.

Aside from the demo compos, I'm of course always interested in the music compos. The winner of the main music was one pretty awesome hard rock number called The Apocalypse Will Arrive On A NES Cartridge by GRiMM / Meridian, which uses NES sounds as a lead instrument. The winner of the executable music compo also features some spiffy NES chip goodness: Pixelated Knight Tales by King Thrill / Tekotuotanto.

Just one more: the winner of the short film compo. RetroStorm by Tekotuotanto is a very cool tribute to oldschool gaming.

More entries can be found at assembly.org in the gallery section. And I also recommend the Demoscene Documentary released at Assembly. This first episode covers the famous Finnish demogroup Future Crew.

Assembly 2010 Begins

I thought I would have blogged about the demoscene and Assembly before, but if I have I can't find such a post now. So, today at noon I turned my TV on, and it's likely to stay on for the most part until Sunday. Why? Because Assembly 2010 has begun, and a live broadcast from there is shown on the local cable network.

Assembly is, of course, Finland's biggest demoparty, and one of the major demoscene (here's the Wikipedia article if you don't know what that is) events worldwide. Now, I'm not a scener. I've never been involved in any kind of demo production, nor have I ever even been, physically, to Assembly. But I've had an interest in the demoscene for a long time. I first became aware of it sometime near the turn of the millennium when I was introduced to tracker software (another Wikipedia link). Many of the sample tunes I downloaded, and loved, were by a guy called Skaven (aka Peter Hajba), from the legendary demogroup Future Crew. I love the now rather retro, oldschool sound of 90's tracker-produced electronica, which was largely associated with the demoscene.

Like I said, I've never been to Assembly, because a) it costs money, b) I'd need suitable friends to go with, and c) if I went, I'd really want to participate in some compo (which for me would most likely be some music compo), and that's easier said than done. But some years ago I discovered AssemblyTV, which is streamed online and also broadcast on our local cable network. Watching the compos and other stuff is fun. And as I once again managed to miss all of this summer's conventions, this is as close to any major event as I'm likely to get anytime soon...

Moore, Magic and Me

I just read this bit from the Wikipedia article on comics writer Alan Moore, which is very descriptive of my own views and experience:

On his fortieth birthday, in 1993, Moore openly declared his dedication to being a ceremonial magician, something he saw as "a logical end step to my career as a writer". According to a 2001 interview, his inspiration for doing this came when he was writing From Hell in the early 1990s, a book containing much Freemasonic and occult symbolism: "One word balloon in From Hell completely hijacked my life… A character says something like, 'The one place gods inarguably exist is in the human mind'. After I wrote that, I realised I'd accidentally made a true statement, and now I'd have to rearrange my entire life around it. The only thing that seemed to really be appropriate was to become a magician."

I've been a big fan of Moore's comics for some time (his run on Swamp Thing, Watchmen and others being some of the best works of fantasy and science fiction ever created in any medium), but I wasn't really aware about his ideas on religion/magic before. The statement above, and other thoughts summarised in the article, only increase my respect for him.

I've written about various occult topics in this blog, and other parts of my website, before, but lets say it publicly for once: I practice ritual magic. I don't practice it frequently or well, because I'm just too darn lazy and crap at really concentrating on anything, but it is still something I have a real interest in. I don't subscribe to any particular school of thought or tradition, but have been influenced in particular by Wicca, hermetic/qabalist traditions and Aleister Crowley.

As for my views on religion, one might say that I'm externally an agnostic, but internally a neopagan. Moore's statement, 'the one place gods inarguably exist is in the human mind', is a perfect description of my views. Why should anything we can imagine be less important or powerful than what we perceive in the world around us? Without a balanced internal world we're unable to function properly in the external world. And the way we communicate with the internal world is through words, symbols and actions in the external world, i.e. ritual.

This seems like a very shallow summary of deep issues I've been thinking a lot about over several years, but that's really the gist of it, and I can't really think of anything worthwhile to add at this point.

A View from a Hammock

oh, to float

suspended in air, looking up

into the birches, arching above

feeling the sway, the rustling whisper

the breeze on my skin, caressing my hair

blue and grey, the swirling sky

just a dream beyond, so far above

beyond these leaves, these whispering veils

both cocoon and ocean, closed in yet free

oh, to float

in flow given form, in stillness reborn

in the wood's silent roar, the gentlest of storms

Odes at SoundCloud

I just found SoundCloud. It looks like a nice place for uploading and streaming music, much more pleasant and functional than, say, MySpace (which I loathe but registered at anyway so I'd have a place for people to easily stream my music).

I've registered, and uploaded Odes to Melancholy there in it's entirety. The whole album can be streamed here. It's still the same album as before, though, with it's amateurish home recorded songs and crappy sound quality. And no, I have no idea when I might get around to recording more or better quality songs.

I Comment, Therefore I Am

Where do people vanish on summer Saturday's? There always seems to be a drastic drop in the number of status updates on Facebook. I tend to be at home most Saturdays, so this always seems baffling to me, as does the drop in updates over various holidays. I mean, that's when you're supposed to have more time to hang out online, isn't it? Not the other way round.

I generally check Facebook and Twitter (and IRC of course) for new messages at least once every couple of hours unless I'm out somewhere, probably much more frequently when I'm in the vicinity of my computer (which generally is pretty much always). I shudder to think how much more time I'd spend there (and how much more pointless updates I'd post) if I had a web capable smart phone.

I'm currently vacationing in Nilsiä, as I often do this time of year, so my social existence is more or less limited to the Internet. So people vanishing for most of the day is understandably a worrying prospect. Internet addict? Maybe a little, but if the alternative is to have no social life at all, I'll pick this any day.

Speaking of summer in Nilsiä, as I've written before, I read Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind every summer while I'm here. I just finished reading it again, and it's still as beautiful as ever (so beautiful my eyes blearing up occasionally makes reading difficult). And I still keep noticing new details after all these years. Honestly, if there's one printed work that's even more dear to me than The Lord of the Rings, it's Nausicaä.

Finland's been tormented by an uncommonly long heat wave lately. Today's been surprisingly pleasant, though, with temperature here rising only to about 20°C. I really don't like extreme heat. And it only seems to affect me more each year. I guess I'm getting old. Anything much more that 20°C, and I'm too exhausted and uncomfortable to really do much of anything. Although I'm not sure that's really a drastic change from my normal existence...

Building Up Steam

So somehow I've ended up getting into a lot of steampunk-ish stuff lately. First, of course, there's my new fantasy roleplaying game Tales from the Teya'o Iva. Once we finally got started we've been playing pretty actively during June and July, and having lots of fun. The players have been getting into the spirit of the game admirably, contributing lots of ideas. Zany monsters, eccentric rival zeppelin crews and crazy inventions abound. (In the very first session the characters spent a fair share of time designing and building the world's first blow dryer! Which they actually were able to put to good use next time when battling a bunch of ice elementals.)

Then I was pointed to the comic Girl Genius (published online and free to read), and was instantly hooked. I can't believe I've only now found out about this masterpiece. It took me only about four days to read the first nine volumes (doing very little else during those days, of course). Now I'll somehow have to adapt to reading it just a page at a time as it's published. Not necessarily an easy task.

Last, I started to wonder whether there's any good steampunk themed music. Through Wikipedia I found Vernian Process, a darkwave band (they describe themselves as 'steamwave') with Jules Verne/steampunk themes. I've just listened through their album Behold the Machine, and it's not half bad. What's more, you can download it for free from their website.

Final Fantasy XIII - Final Thoughts

So, I just beat Final Fantasy XIII. (Could've done it weeks ago, but I got sidetracked by other stuff... At least this time I came back to it relatively soon, too many games still remain unbeaten.) This was, in fact, the first FF I've had the motivation to play all the way through since the days of the PS One. (Yeah, I'll still beat that FFX, and others, some day, just don't know when.)

The game's clock stood at about 75 hours. Honestly, it felt shorter, at least when compared to the likes of Final Fantasy VII. I think this was largely due to the way storytelling was handled. Although there were lots of cutscenes, the story itself, while fairly epic, was relatively short and straightforward, with very little branching, being basically limited to those cutscenes. Almost movie-like, one might say.

When I first started writing video game reviews for my website, I decided I wouldn't review Final Fantasy games. 'Cause, well, that'd be like writing a book review of The Lord of the Rings. Pointless. But I can still blog about them, of course.

All in all, Final Fantasy XIII was a game with some nice ideas, but also many flaws. The new battle system was quite fun to play. However, they'd pretty much made that the whole game. One battle after another, with very little exploration or NPC interaction. Considering the length of the game, it's not surprising that it could get somewhat monotonous at times due to this.

There were also some problems in regards to the placing of content. Once you're finally given the option to do some optional exploring by taking on 'missions', all of this content is placed in more or less one area of the game. So you can spend hours and hours doing this stuff (which is still basically just killing monsters, without a single NPC or anything in sight), while the story is essentially on hold. They could have spread this content out more, so it wouldn't affect the pacing of the story so much.

After beating the game, it's possible to return to complete more missions etc. (some of which would be very hard, if even possible, before). But honestly, once the story's done with and the credits roll, what possible motivation could I have for carrying on? I don't really see the point of accomplishing everything just for the sake of it. Not in a series like Final Fantasy, anyway, which has always to me been more about story than anything else.

The music, which for the first time had no input from Nobuo Uematsu, wasn't bad, even if there were few really memorable themes. There were some nifty ideas, though, like the use of vocals on several tracks, something I don't recall encountering before in this type of game.

The world, story and characters, as such, were fairly interesting and original. But there would have been potential for much more. Like I said, the story did feel surprisingly short for a game of this length, particularly since there were so few NPC's and little exploration involved. With a little more variety it could have been a great game. As it is, it was still pretty entertaining, but by no means a new FFVII.

So, what next? Since I'm likely to be spending a lot of time out of town during July, there's not much point starting another big game right away. Maybe something I can play on my laptop, if only I knew what...

I Know This Seat

I know this seat

I've sat here before

this chair in darkness

this lonely throne

through flames I came here

through swordplay, great journeys

through laughter, delight

many shining souls

the story goes on

with or without me

yet always a parting

a nightfall, an ending

an empty vessel remaining

bittersweet melodies

accompaniment

to a fall into oblivion

PS. 200th blog post.

One Solstice Night

It is the shortest night of the year, the summer solstice. In honour of this, I've decided to stay up till dawn, if I'm able. For company I've got a bag of liquorice (salmiak flavoured), and a bottle of 'Dry Anis' liquor, which I've never tried before, and decided to give a shot in celebration of the event. (Or rather, I'll be giving myself the shots - here I go with the bad puns already, and the night's hardly begun.)

23:00 - The sun should've set a few minutes ago in Helsinki. The first few minutes of 'night' are spent listening to Robbie Robertson's first album. I've been wondering how to spend the night. A friend at Facebook joked about working from dawn to dusk earlier, and we also chatted about vampires. Which naturally in my mind adds up to From Dusk Till Dawn!

23:40 - Tarantino plus Rodriguez... A match made in heaven! A formula for pure genius! One of my favourite movies, I might add. Also probably Clooney's best ever role. The aniseed stuff tastes, unsurprisingly, like cough sweets, or something. Probably best as shots. Mixed with the liquorice taste in my mouth, um, slightly peculiar.

00:15 - Just a couple of (angry) words about the DVD import industry... There appear to be some companies that make Scandinavian versions of DVD's really cheaply, and make a really half-assed job of it. For three reasons: a) They usually only have subtitles in the Nordic languages. In this global age English should be compulsory! b) The Finnish translations tend to be really crappy. c) For some reason a lot of these cheap imports seem to have a weird bug that makes it impossible to turn subtitling off! (And I've tried with several DVD players, so it's not a player issue.) If someone would like to donate me UK versions of this, and several other DVD's, I would not say no...

01:00 - Drinking shots in the movie! That means I'm having a shot too, of course!

02:00 - Movie's over. Sky's still a pale blue, turning to yellow near the horizon. And we're past halfway through the night, so it won't be getting any darker. A bird singing... probably a nightingale, but not 100% sure. A little tipsy, naturally.

03:00 - Watching the bonus disc documentary 'Full-Tilt Boogie'. (I've had this DVD for years, but I don't remember ever watching this before...) It's already much lighter outside than it was an hour ago.

03:55 - Documentary's over, and it's about time for sunrise. (Already? This night went faster than I expected.) And (surprisingly) it's a lot lighter than it was an hour ago! Might need to actually close the blinds if I want to get any sleep tonight... (Something I rarely do, my bedroom being on the north side of the house, and on the first floor, so neither light or privacy's rarely much of a problem.) Still a tad tipsy, but starting to sober up already. (I like to think I'm fairly good at that drinking in 'moderation' stuff. Honestly, I've only had, like, one really bad hangover in my life.) It's just... damn it, I don't feel at all sleepy now!

04:15 - OK, scratch that, I think I'm ready to crash. Good night, all!