Starting back up soon!

Probably this weekend. Oh snap. Here’s a random poem to tide you over when someone told me to write about anything:

“Anything”, you say! Oh, what poet’s plight is this?
To such an end, there’s none! Like asking a lover
To choose their partner from all the world that they know not!
The mere work makes me grasp around–
A flower! A soul! Some dream, or crooked streetlight,
Some tower that stands to be made symbolic,
Some reason with words to sulk or frolic,
Aie! Give me the curve of the Earth to write upon,
And my words shall not be visible in worldly scope,
Though at least, perhaps, to a kinder, smaller wanderer,
A passerby, who will see such a grandly sighted poem,
etched on a rock by the road, and wonder.

Goodbye for now! (Also, “Guerrilla Summer” sounds like the worst romance movie ever.)

Well then! I guess it’s the end of the summer! Which sadly means that the days of consistent posts are over–for now, at least. Right now the plan is to go into a hiatus for a couple of weeks as I get settled back into college (although I’ll probably still randomly post here and there during the hiatus) and then resume updates in some lesser but still existent fashion. I might gonna go for at least one significant creative project a week and some random little posts here and there otherwise. I’d like to have a schedule again, but no promises yet, just because I don’t know how my time’s going to fall into place this year, yet. (Part of the fun!) But, really, I don’t know where this is going to go from here, and I have a couple of ideas that are a little more drastic. We’ll see.

Wow, though. I’m so happy (and surprised!) I stuck through with this. I’m incredibly happy to look back and say, “Wow, I passed the buck here and there, but I was actually pretty productive creatively this summer.” Plus, I’ve really enjoyed the feedback and seeing people check out the site–it really, really is my main impetus for doing creative stuff, and I’m really happy that people have at most enjoyed it and at the very least have killed time here or just been a pal and read to support me! Thanks to everyone who ever read, and especially to people who commented some and consistently checked up on the place. You’re all awesome, and there’s a pretty decent chance I’m about to see you again for the first time in three months, so expect hugs. Mad hugs.

Stats, because I likes them: Since the beginning of June I’ve been posting five nights a week, which has led to about 1,500 views in the past 13 weeks, and a total of 65 posts (no misses! Woo!), including about 20-25 Writing posts, a three or four songs or little musical experiments, some stories, some explorations, 61 photos in 8 photorolls (I guess they weren’t THAT pseudoweekly), and a hell of a lot of self-deprecation! Good times. (I probably said “Good times” about fifty times, too.)

And, coincidentally, I’m adding a blogroll up top with some friends–lemme know if you want on. They’re all pretty awesome people, so give them a try!

So, how do I close this out for the summer? Well, uh, a little bit over-meta, but I’ve been thinking… what the hell is guerrilla philosophy?

When I thought up five months ago, it was just something that sounded cool, and I liked the word “guerrilla.” I think I’ve come up with a decent definition, though: it’s accepting the new beauty and wisdom you find in your life, regardless of where and when you find it, and never letting go of your sense of wonder. Strange? Sure. A little corny? Probably. Naive? You damn well bet. But damn if it ain’t fun, and always interesting and new.

Guerrilla philosophizing aside: See you guys in a wink! Thanks for reading! Adventure is out there! (And so onwards!)

This Isn’t My Story…

…but, frankly, after hearing it earlier, I feel both the need to write it down and the feeling that I probably couldn’t do any better. From an Aikido class:

“A man was running from a lion. He stumbled and fell right over a cliff. He grabbed a weak tree branch on the way down. The ground was fifteen feet below him. Immediately, a bear noticed him hanging and started clawing at his feet from the ground as the lion swiped at him from above. Barely hanging on, he noticed a lone strawberry growing within arm’s reach on the cliffside. He reached for it and plucked it. Biting into it, he said: ‘Mmm. Delicious.’ ”

That’s it. Man. As usual, Aikido has more to teach me than I could ever possibly learn. Just so this isn’t totally out of my ball park, I wanted to note that, apparently, I’m on the first page of hits on google when you search for “I don’t even know, man”, “short philosophy poems moon”, “childhood story of man”, and “It is good to renew one’s wonder” (which redirects to my entire poetry section, not just that one poem). Wow. These searches all make me pretty damn happy, haha. (In case you’re wondering, I know this because WordPress tells me what people searched for when they searched and then clicked my blog. It’s pretty fun, although I get tons of “Swiss Chalet” traffic when people search for an image of that. Wait, if I include all of these here, isn’t it gonna maybe all direct to this page? Uh. Hm. Blogsplosion?

Switchville Worldbuilding, Part 2 (Eccletic Boogaloo)

Oh, hey, we’re probably hitting 2,000 hits over the weekend! Maybe I’ll get some time this weekend to do that website reformat to celebrate and be a little epic. For now, a little bit more about Switchville. (I’m beginning to wonder how crazy I sound.) [Which, granted, is a ponderous moment that usually doesn’t last very long.]

The “art” here probably bears worth mentioning. There’s a fair amount of it spread throughout the city–half-torn-down murals on sides of empty apartment buildings, strange and seemingly pointless statues and sculptures and models made from bits of scrap metal, telephone poles and broken off screens of televisions. No one really ever stops to look and think about them–well, really, no one really thinks that there’s any sort of point. They merely exist in the most literal sense of “merely,” just as this entire world merely exists. People usually just wander by, hardly noticing any of it unless its in their way, a means of shelter, or is made from salvageable parts, in which case it’s dismantled completely, its original artistic state soon forgotten completely. There could be a reason to these objects and paintings, or some meaning to derive from them or their creator(s?), but for now, and considering the scope of Switchville itself and how many of these odd spots of semibeauty there are, no one has bothered to wonder to this extent. There is a steel buzzard perched on the third story of a tall skyscraper, its claws grasping the bent fire escape railing that is ready to crash into the opposite wall any second now. You swear you can hear the bird screaming, as if in warning to the occasional passerby below.

On the note of height, rooftops are incredibly well sought after. They are rare, considering that at least half of the buildings in Switchville are demolished, collapsed on their sides, or burnt down. And they even give a faint semblance of temporary safety, as one can see incoming dangers below and act accordingly, either by blocking off the rooftop’s doorway or by quickly bounding to a nearby roof in the midst of a night. If you can get up on top of a half-destroyed building, though, and find some nook covered by a rusted, heeled-over steel girder that has escaped the building’s original framework, then you can be even safer: Something disorganized and chaotic like that is antithesis to a Switchville sort of person–they would rather go somewhere simple and organized, as if symmetry and order created some sort of magic barrier around them, away from the horrors of mere living on the streets.

There are wet, dusty sewers in Switchville. They run incredibly haphazardly, to the point that one is forced to wonder who the hell could have possibly designed them. Then again, maybe they came into existence later than the rest of the city, or maybe they were transformed in some way. No one yet has figured that out, as per usual, although they have figured that the sewers is often the quickest way to get around, and surprisingly not dangerous. In our own world, there would be some sort of cliche fear of monsters or the like, but not in these sewers. They’re about as safe as anywhere else, if perhaps a bit darker and dirtier, and thus they get used fairly often by travelers. Isn’t it funny how much the Switchville denizen will go to such lengths and know so many ways around the city, just for fear of seeing other people? One wonders how right in the head they are, at least by our standards.

Beautiful Thing of the Day, Thoughts on Daydreams, and a Bit of Blogtalkin’

“Beautiful Thing of the Day” is something I’ve forgotten about in the past couple of months–the general idea is pretty self-explanatory: posting something beautiful, daily. Sadly, I ended up taking the blog more in the direction of more involved creative projects, which led to the five-days-a-week-around-midnight schedule, which in turn has made me forget a bit more about shorter posts of interest. As I start to get busier again and school kicks back in, I think I’d like to go from five creative things a week to one or two creative projects each week that I can dedicate more time to, and then some other shorter posts randomly throughout the week on random thoughts, notes/links of interest and (naturally!) some guerrilla philosophy. This’ll work better with me being busier and will hopefully let the site be interesting to look at randomly throughout the day. I’ll have to switch formats, though, since this setup is more geared towards big posts–as much as I like the little “:D!” at the top in the box. (Look up! It’s totally there.)

That’ll all happen a bit later, though. For now, I found something to preview Beautiful Thing of the Day, for when it eventually becomes a slightly more daily thing. It is this: “Scenes from Antarctica.” Trust me on this one–give it a try. The seventh picture literally made me gasp at the computer screen. (Hat Tip: Boston.com.)

Just to make this post a little more interesting and somewhat creative: I realized over the weekend that I spend an incredible amount of my time daydreaming, but just recently put that word to the action in my mind. It was a very strange realization to make–I mean, I daydream a lot, I always have, to the point that it’s become so ingrained that I kind of forgot it was different from normal thinking.

Blogtacular Ineptitude

I’m sorry, guys–I am really having trouble finding how much time I want to devote to blog updates while I’m travelling. In retrospect I really should have done more of these updates in advance instead of trying to keep doing them while in Santa Fe. So, sadly, and annoyingly for me, tonight’s gonna be simple, and posts through Thursday probably will be too. But! Thursday onwards will be super cool, long SantaVentures and some pretty big creative projects! I’ve learned my lesson at least, hopefully, so this probably won’t happen again.

That said, lamely enough, here are a couple of guerrilla philisophic websites I reccomend you check out in the meantime. Again, really sorry about this. I am still learning this whole blog thing, I suppose! Thanks so much to you guys who keep reading despite previous and current blogtacular ineptitude. (are either of those words?) I really, really appreciate all you guys! (all twenty of you. ;D)

wis.dm is a site where you simply ask a bunch of people on the internet a question (usually opinionated) and get back lots of answers. Endlessly entertaining.

Arts and letters daily is a gigantic daily compendium of essays, book excerpts, and news reccomended to me by a friend. Endlessly fascinating.

Stumbleupon is going to take over your entire Internet life in the best way possible. Endlessly entertaining AND endlessly interesting.

They see me bloggin’. They hatin’.

Well, not really. I mean, I haven’t gotten an internet drive-by yet, at least, but the guys across the street have been eyeing me funny, recently.

Right! Hey! This blog has been dead for two weeks. This is more or less because I lived in three or four different places during that period of time and was incredibly busy taking walks, watching movies from the 90’s and hanging out with awesome people. But! I’m back and a bit more stable in my computer use, now, so I’m finally re-kickin’ this thing, starting tonight! Now that’s it’s summer I’ll be updating at midnight (right at 11:59PM) each night, Sunday through Thursday. I think I’m mostly going to stick to that schedule; there might be some random other posts here and there but for the most part I’m setting things up so that the blog updates with whatever new stuff has been written since the last update will be released at midnight on one of those days. This also means that midnight updates can and often will consist of more than one new post (including this midnight update! Yay!), so do look a bit beyond the first post you see to see if there’s even more stuff to read!

Should be a fun season for this thing, in any case. I’ve got a lot of ideas to run through, including me taking a crack at hacking some video games again and trying to make a short radio drama. Plus, I’ll be recounting some adventures from Santa Fe and Atlanta relatively soon, too.

Guerrilla Philosophy[?]: An Introduction

So I am starting a blog/journal!

I don’t have the best track record with these things–I have a couple of blog pages floating around the internet, none of them with more than a half dozen posts. One in particular has about four posts, of which two were failed attempts (each separated by months from the previous post) to restart the blog and get it actually going.  This doesn’t even take into account my attempts to start a privately written journal, which are just way too numerous to for me to try and recount them all.

But then, why am I trying this now?