Surfacing

So, I hate James.

Just for the record.

Presently, he's standing about three feet from me, playing Guitar Hero, while I sit on the couch and try to spin some truth out of my life.

The fact that I'm bathed in sweat and just came inside from sparring with shinai isn't helping.

My life is a neverending procession of swordfights, classes, guitar hero, anime, homework, arguing about the nature of the best life and the best society to live in, and wishing I had more time to sleep.
Last time I wrote here, I was looking back at Folk Festival, and subconsciously preparing myself to dive back into school. Since then, I've been slowly driving myself insane doing 22 credits of mostly physics, with a little bit of economics and Political Science.

Yesterday, I dropped a class, which I'm hoping will mean that I can actually make some progress on the eight million new projects I claim to be working on.

Thus far, all I've done is complain about how busy I am. I think it's time I told you about something awesome, lest I fail in my duties.

So, without further ado, a quick list of some anime that don't suck, that you might not have heard of:

Mononoke: (No Princess) There are only seven episodes of this fansubbed at present, but... it's very nifty. From the same people who did Gankutsuou (The Count of Monte Cristo), it's about a traveling exorcist under cover as a medicine seller in Edo-period Japan whose demon-slaying sword needs Form, Truth and Regret in order to be drawn. As the Form, Truth and Regret of each ghost or demon is different, the show is paced as a supernatural mystery, with the medicine seller serving as both detective and, at times, judge. Add to this deliciously slow, mildly unsettling pacing, deliriously psychedelic art, ghosts and demons that are actually disturbing without being overdone, visual metaphors, symbolism and a sense of atmosphere and spatial structure unrivalled by anything else I've ever seen done in anime, and you have Mononoke.

It's like a demonic japanese cozy with occasional swords. (Cozy as in the sub-genre of mystery, so if the last sentence gave you the image of anyone cuddling with swords, or crocheting, you read it wrong.) You'll love it, trust me.

Next up: Baccano. I've only seen about four episodes of this, but it has a million well developed characters, is set in 1930s America, and is full of gangsters and murder and hilarious robberies. The plot is baroque and is taking it's time to get anywhere, but there appears to be an elixir of immortality involved, and an extended sequence in which six or so different factions are all robbing the same train, on the same night.

Also, the train is called the Flying Pussyfoot Express.

Finally, there's Magnetic Rose, one of three short films that together make up Otomo Katsuhiro's Memories. This one isn't nearly as recent as the other two, it's been around since 1995, but... it's a Mystery in Space film where the mystery is based fundamentally in human nature, rather than arising from the inhuman nature of some discovered artifact.

Junk-trawling astronauts respond to a distress beacon from what turns out to be a massive space mansion built by an incredibly rich and famous opera diva after her voice went and her husband died. It's a visual feast, and while it hits some of the same notes as Mononoke for me, without hitting them quite as hard, the sheer power of the directorial vision and the impact of seeing hard scifi space-suit wearing men with assault rifles exploring a decaying ruin of a baroque mansion, in space, puts it over the top into awesomeness.

Did I say space enough times in that last paragraph? Probably not.

Magnetic Rose. It's awesome. In space!

Speaking of space, and hard-shifting gears, it turns out that Allegheny College has an observatory, which is something I've always known, because it's the security office. I go there when I lose my keys.

However, I did not realize that housed within it's dome was a still functional, thirteen foot long glass and brass and wood telescope, mounted delicately on subtle clockwork that causes it to rotate at the same speed as the stars.

Looking at the moons of Jupiter through it set me back, and reminded me why I come here.

It's not for the video games, or the anime, of even for the friends that I make.

It's to learn, and to prove myself, and to become more than I am now. There's a world out there, and I would like to be able to have a say in what happens to it.

I'm all over the place here, and off my stride when it comes to writing. Going to have to work on that. But I started this groupblog for a reason, and I'm not going to just let it fall by the wayside quite yet. Hopefully ever.

And no, I still haven't beaten Bioshock. There must be something wrong with me.

Yeah, it's been a while. (But at least I still updated before Zach.)

A disclaimer. I've been working, reading and writing assignments rather than posting here. It's been two weeks now since my last post, and much has happened. Parties came and went along with a rekindled Starcraft obsession, though the Starcraft has stayed, to my euphoria.

But, like most of my posts, music is involved.

Why is it that before large gatherings of my friends, I hear and succumb to the siren call of Thursday's "War All the Time"? The first verse is about committing suicide with a friend in the garage with the car running. And I play this before parties. Where people are having fun. And enjoying themselves, and perhaps, even my company. There is something wrong here.

I'm nervous, and large crowds scare me. That shouldn't be news. I do want to inoculate myself with melancholy, and said song is quite the powerful fix.

Its position may soon be usurped by Crime In Stereo's "...But You Are Vast", a melancholy song about either the singer's medication (the singer had cancer when he was 18, and it's now in remission) or a girl. The first line? "You're no good for me." Jesus. That's how the song begins.

Late at night, when my phone hasn't rung for days and it's 40 degrees in the house, my fingers worm their way to Boysetsfire's demo for phonecall 4 AM, with the line "please believe I've lost myself inside of you". Or, when all of the above are happening, and when I feel like the beat just can't go on.

Then there's Nick Drake. His body of work like a very powerful, addictive medication. The music powerful and the sorrow is palpable as it comes through the speakers. It is the kind of music I listen to when I just want to hear music and I don't care who is listening. It is not quite sad bastard music. American Football is sad bastard music, they are a group who (in my opinion) made a full length that should be the soundtrack to crying over the opposite sex, if you're straight, and the same sex if you're not. (For all the bisexuals reading this, forgive the gender binary.) But Nick Drake carries a different melancholy. I'd argue from what little I've heard, Nick Drake is more about reminiscing about previous partners. Now, the Styrafoam remix of the Postal Service's Nothing Better arrives on the airwaves, and the dagger that is the song slips in between my armor. Moments later, more people enter the DJ booth, and the armor goes back on. Sigh. That'll stay with me for a while since the DJ booth is cold, and I'll stew in my memories until I can leave the booth and begin the uphill walk home.

Suddenly.

I'm Yours, Boston begins playing, and suddenly, I don't need the armor, and the feeling of melancholy evaporates.

Music can fuck with your emotions, and thank God for that.