A Trip to the Moon

A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la Lune) is a 1902 French space exploration surrealist silent film directed by George Melies. The film is inspired by a variety of sources, notably Jules Verne's novels From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon. I've already checked out these novels in pdf form through Google and I gotta say that it is quite impressive science fiction writing for the time, 1865 and 1870. Fitting for the time of the Industrial Revolution.

The film follows astronomers who decide to build a rocket and get launched into space to reach the moon via a cannon. They explore the moon's surface and find Selenites, (lunar inhabitants) these sort of insect creatures that explode when they get hit by the astronomers. They end up capturing a Selenite and bring it back to Earth. The film features a bunch of French theatrical performers, "led by Méliès himself in the main role of Professor Barbenfouillis, and is filmed in the overtly theatrical style for which Méliès became famous." (Wiki)

The film was very successful and ended up getting pirated a lot in the United States. This movie ended up having a profound influence in cinema because of its use of narrative, through this more movies ended up developing stories more effectively. Although the movie became out of place when Melies went into retirement, later in 1930 the film resurfaced when film devotees noted its importance on the history of cinema.

"A Trip to the Moon was named one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century by The Village Voice, ranked 84th. The film remains the best-known of the hundreds of films made by Méliès, and the moment in which the capsule lands in the Moon's eye remains one of the most iconic and frequently referenced images in the history of cinema. It is widely regarded as the earliest example of the science fiction film genre and, more generally, as one of the most influential films in cinema history." (Wiki) Now for more on the movie.

The film starts with a meeting of the Astronomic Club, where the leader Professor Barbenfouillis proposes a mission to the moon. After a bit of dissent five other brave astronomers; Nostradamus, Alcofrisbas, Omega, Micromegas, and Parafaragaramus—agree to the plan. They build a rocket in the shape of a bullet and get shot into space via a cannon. They get a little help with the rocket from the 'marines', women dressed in sailor's outfits. As they fly off to the moon the Man in the Moon watches the spaceship, and it hits him in the eye.

One they get on the surface of the moon the astronomers walk around (without the need of a spacesuit) and after a while they get tired and sleep. As they sleep a comet passes, and the Big Dipper appears with human faces in each star, "old Saturn leans out of a window in his ringed planet, and Phoebe, goddess of the Moon, appears seated in a crescent-moon swing. Phoebe causes a snowfall that awakens the astronomers, and they seek shelter in a cavern where they discover giant mushrooms. One astronomer opens his umbrella; it promptly takes root and turns into a giant mushroom itself."

Then, a Selenite (an insectoid alien inhabitant of the Moon, named after one of the Greek moon goddesses, Selene) appears but is easily killed by an astronomer, as the Selenites explode after being hit by blunt force. More Selenites appear and the astronomers get zerg rushed (reference to Blizzard pc game starcraft, insect-like aliens that come to kill you in great numbers), captured, and brought to the Selenite king. An astronomer hits the king on the head and the king explodes. The astronomers get chased as they run back to their spaceship.

As they approach the ship Barbenfouillis himself tips the spaceship off the moon and into space, while a Selenite is attached to it. The ship, astronomers, and Selenite end up in the ocean on Earth. At the ending scene we see a celebratory parade for the astronomers, the captured Selenite in a cage, and a statue bearing the motto "labor omnia vincit" (work conquers all).

The movie is quite thrilling, fun, adventurous, surreal, and perhaps even psychedelic. Running at only thirteen minutes its a great film to show to a film class, friends, and science fiction aficionados. Its the history of cinema at work. And although it isn't quite developed you could say that its still quite good for its time, 1902. This is the oldest movie I've ever seen and its great. I highly recommend watching it. If anything you should watch it so you can see where cinema and science fiction cinema comes from. Education for sure.

You can watch the film here.

Metropolis

Metropolis is a science fiction film from 1928 that's inspired by the book of the same name written by Thea von Harbou, an actress (who plays Maria, a working class prophet) in the film and also Fritz Lang's wife. Where do I start with this film? There's so much going on, much of it is open to interpretation from the viewers. Here's a basic synopsis.

The story follows Freder, the son of the city's (Metropolis) ruler and Maria, a poor worker. They try to overcome the societal differences between the poor that live beneath the city and the rich who (live above ground) wear white shirts and shorts and play tennis. The movie is said to have Communist ideas, I can see that but to me its not overtly pronounced. I see the film more for its beauty, to find that common ground between the rich and poor.

So Freder is hanging out in some sort of garden relaxing and Maria comes in with a bunch of poor kids to show them how the rich live. "Look at them. These are your brothers," Maria says. Maria and the kids get sent away but Freder follows her to a machine room. He sees an explosion that kills some workers and experiences a hallucination. In the hallucination he sees workers being fed to the Machine, a sort of Aztec sacrificial ceremony, at least that's what I thought when I saw it.

Freder tells Fredersen, his dad (and ruler of the city) but his indifference towards the treatment of the workers leaves him cold, so Freder decides to help the workers in any way he can, in an attempt to help the poor and disenfranchised. There's a lot of stuff that happens in between this as the movie is about two hours and twenty-eight minutes long but for the sake of a shorter blog post I'll summarize things more briefly.

Later, we see Maria is prophesying the arrival of a mediator who can unite the working and ruling classes together. There's a mad occult scientist who uses this machine-woman (robot) to create another version of Maria, who goes on to sow discord within the working class, creating many problems and dissent.

The workers end up destroying the Heart Machine, which the false Maria told them to do. This causes the city to flood, and all their children are left to drown unless somebody saves them. The real Maria and Freder end up saving them. The working class burn the false Maria at the stake as a witch and find out that it was just a robot, as the fire burns through to the metal. There's a fight between Freder and the mad scientist Rotwang but Rotwang ends up falling to his death. In the end Freder fulfills his role as mediator between the working class and ruling class by uniting hands with the foreman (in charge of the working class), his father, and himself, a sort of male triangular unity, perhaps even referencing the Holy Trinity, the father, son, and holy spirit.

So that's it. If you think about it and see the movie, the plot is quite simplistic. Its the ideas that go within them that's open to interpretation, which is where a lot can be said of the movie. First, I would like to point out the fact that there's a lot of science fiction based on this: the idea of a political break between the rich and poor. The poor trying to 'get whats theirs', a sort of futurist communism, although in this movie the Marxism is probably very high by today's science fiction standards, but at that time I would say its not quite as pronounced. I might be wrong on that though. So yes, the idea of social construckts, government, poor living underground, and the rich living above ground is something seen in tons of science fiction. Its quite a common trope.

Then there's the idea of love between Freder and Maria. They obviously love each other and find romance in each other. They ended up saving all the children of the underclass together, becoming surrogate parents to an entire generation. That's love for sure. One could say that Freder might have even become interested in following Maria to the Machine Room because he was interested in her, interested in a woman who wasn't from his social class. In doing this he opened up to the world around him, and found love in the process, a sense of discovery.

Then there's the ideas of science and the occult, another common idea in sci-fi. Rotwang, the mad scientist is a true screwball who planned on using the Machine-woman (named Hel) to take over Metropolis. In the scene where we first see the Machine-woman we see a giant pentagram symbol at the foot of her body. This signified a sort of luciferian procreation. Metropolis the book has more occult associations than this movie, which makes sense because its easier to do that in a book than in a movie that will be showed to thousands of people.

The science part was pretty cool. In Rotwang's lab we see all sorts of potions, tubes, lights, bells, and whistles. It was a cross between a 15th century laboratory and a science physics lab from the year 2000. Something like that. It was quite something. That was a cool scene indeed.

In the end we find that Freder has fulfilled his destiny as a mediator between the rich and poor. One could say he was swayed and perhaps even chosen by Maria to be the guy to do this. This shows us that perhaps leaders in government have to be certain kinds of people, come from certain places, have a lot of money, and perhaps be chosen for and by the people, much like the systems we have in place today for our political elections and office.

For example, if Freder wasn't the son of the guy ruling the city he wouldn't have as much power or sway over government. If he wasn't the son of the ruler Maria might not have come to him with the children. This ending gives me a lot of ideas about government and power. Can politicians come from anywhere, be anyone, and still be elected into high positions of power? I'm not so sure. I think it works in some cases and other cases it doesn't. There's a gray area for sure.

Take for example Donald Trump. He's been a media highlight for a long time and he didn't come out of nowhere. He was the son of a rich guy, thus making him rich. He started talking about government and the poor white working class of America voted him into the Presidency. It could not have happened if he didn't have those other traits: being born rich, using that money to political advantage, and using his political platform to speak to the poor white working class.

This movie makes me think about things like that, why certain politicians get elected into power. However, its probably more important to think of this movie as a great example of German expressionist art, of which it is a wonderful example.

You can watch the film here.

HEAD and HANDS need a mediator. THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN HEAD AND HANDS MUST BE THE HEART!

Closing thoughts on 2017

Any last thoughts on 2017? Yes, many. 2017 was quite a year for the world. A terrible year for rock and roll which left many musicians dead, of drugs, suicide, and unavoidable old age. California had the worst fires ever and the blazes were only about ten miles away from my house. Donald Trump was elected and has done a terrible job in office. Americans found out that the election was heavily influenced by Russian trolls, called hackers but I prefer to think of them as trolls. Unrest in the Middle East, especially surrounding Israel and Palestine, after Trump made a comment calling Jerusalem the capital of Israel. I started working in a different department at my work. In addition, I started to read a lot more, to increase my knowledge, improve my writing (for the blog), promote the blog on Twitter, play piano, start singing and playing guitar at the same time at the open jam and with my 'band' (a two man band right now), and really focusing on losing weight. Wow, that's a lot! I could probably go on and on, because this year was jam packed with tons of events, information, and there are probably things that happened that I either don't know about or simply forgot.

Its hard to say anything of real intrinsic value happened to me. One could say that reading has really opened up my world, increasing my knowledge and improving my creativity and involvement in writing. And then there's the different position at my job. Now, the latest I get off from work is nine pm whereas before I was working as late as one am pretty much every shift. I don't miss those days but I'm not totally against them either. Life has improved for me in many ways. I think I've become a better, smarter, and more evolved person. Not bad.

On that note I'd like to say that I'm hopeful about the future, mine, America's, and the world. Things may seem grim and bad things happen all the time but we should continue to work together to overcome these obstacles and improve the world in which we live.

Leave the place better than when you first entered.

La Jetee

La Jetee is a French short science fiction film made in 1962. It runs at about twenty-eight minutes. The movie was a big influence on William Gibson, one of my favorite science fiction writers. The story focuses on a man as a child and adult who is watching planes take off at an airport. He sees a woman there. The last thing he remembers is seeing the woman and in that moment he knew that he saw a man die, but this is all he can discover from this. Eventually the world becomes engulfed in darkness, a sort of nuclear apocalypse perhaps? In the end we learn that what he saw was actually his own death.

Later he wakes up as an adult in this underground city, called galleries in the film. There's these scientists that are doing experiments on people so that they can go to the future to find a technology that can restore the world of the past. They decide to use this man because the strain of going to the future is hard on the mind. They think that because this guy is so attached to this idea of his youth, that moment described above, that his chances for doing it will be greater. So they put some stuff over his eyes and conduct experiments on him. In these experiments he meets (in a sort of other world) the woman he saw at the airport as a child and he comes to have a romantic relationship with her complete with jokes, conversations, and numerous hangouts every time he goes through the experiments.

Eventually during one of these experiments our protagonist finds himself in the world of the future, where the people have this black dot stuff (not all of them were dots, some were other shapes) on their foreheads. The future civilization people give him a technology that can restore the past and prevent impending doom. So he goes back to the dystopian present where his mission is completed, thus saving humanity.

Upon his arrival our main character figures out that these scientists are going to kill him. The aliens of the future ask him if he wants to leave that time permanently and go with them but the man instead asks to go back to the past so he can meet the woman. They agree to do this.

So he goes back to the past at the airport. He knows he is there as a kid. He sees the woman and just before he gets to her he dies, killed by a government agent that works for the scientists. What a movie!

The movie brings to mind a bunch ideas. Time is inescapable. Try as we might we are all subservient to time, we bend to its will in a way. We think we understand the past but we don't totally get it. Instead, we find ourselves in the hear and now, an important concept in Zen Buddhism, which I've read a little about. 

It also brings to mind the idea of dystopian modernism. If the Earth got flattened by nuclear war we would probably build cities underground, a popular idea in many science fiction movies. The surface would be contaminated by nuclear waste and we wouldn't be able to live in such nice places anymore. As the movie said we would become lords of rats.

There's ideas of utopia thrown in there as well, The scientists in the present think that the world in which they live is so horrible that they have to keep conducting experiments that probably harm peoples' minds because they want to regain what they had lost, their precious happy-go-lucky past where parents take their children to see airplanes take off at the airport. What a precious and happy thought.

Lastly, the film brings up romance. Ultimately our main character becomes attracted to the woman and keeps wanting to see her. When he finds out he's going to be killed, instead of going with the future citizens he asks them to send him back to the past so he can find the woman. When he does this it shows that he loves the woman, perhaps may want to spend the rest of his life with her. He could have gone to the future and lived the life of a revolutionary but instead he chooses love.

There you have it. A short science fiction film that displays tons of great ideas and all with still photos! I can see how and why something like this would influence William Gibson. These ideas are still portrayed in movies and talked about to this very day. You could even say that some of the virtual reality things I've been blogging about and reading are sort of related to this-science, dystopia, utopia, love, futurism, and the modern dark ages.

You can watch the film here.

Nothing distinguishes memories from ordinary moments. Only later do they become memorable by the scars they leave.

Open Jam Tracks

Here's the tracks from last week's open jam at the local pub. I played two songs, Spirits of the Dead and Hey Joe. Spirits of the Dead is an original doomy death metalish sort of thing that I wrote on the first of October. This version here the vocals are a lot more cookie monster than I would've liked. I think I'll work on making the vocals coarse but not so 'cookie monster'. The cool thing is that this is probably the first time the song was performed as it was intended-screaming vocals and all. Not bad. I even threw down a solo in the song when there wasn't meant to be one. My drummer friend Martin's playing was splendid.

The other tune is Hey Joe, a Jimi Hendrix cover. On this one it was pretty rough. My guitar is sorely out of tune and we fucked up royally on the intro. But hey reader we made it through it. As you can hear even my guitar part goes off you can hear Martin is holding the beat steady on the drums. He has really improved his playing a lot. The longer the song goes the better it sounds, me thinks. The solo was well done by yours truly. Martin's fills at the end of the song are great.

Enjoy the tunes!

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead-1
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/hey-joe

The Day the Earth Stood Still

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a science fiction film from 1951 (in black and white), 20th Century Fox, produced by Julian Blaustein, and directed by Robert Wise. The movie stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Billy Gray, Hugh Marlowe, and Sam Jaffe. The film was inspired by a short story called Farewell to the Master by Harry Bates. The score was composed by Bernard Herrmann. 

The film is about this humanoid alien named Klaatu. He comes to earth in a spaceship accompanied by an eight-foot robot named Gort. He has an important message for the entire human race. Klaatu only gets to speak through a few sentences before some lunatic shoots him down, blood oozing out of his shoulder. 

Klaatu goes to a hospital where he's treated by doctors ("He makes me look like a third world witch doctor!") but the doctors eventually learn that Klaatu has healed himself with some sort of futuristic healing salve. He gets himself out of there, mysteriously. The government was not going to let Klaatu go off and do his own thing. Their primary directive was to keep him imprisoned for a while, maybe even do some experiments on him (the dark side of political and scientific research). They don't show on-screen how he leaves the hospital, as it was surrounded by army personnel. In the next scene we find him on the streets, at a dry cleaners. He takes a suit with the name Mr. Carpenter on it, his new human identity. 

He finds lodging in a sort of boarding house, using the name Mr. Carpenter. There's a boy and her mother there that Klaatu becomes involved in. He babysits the son while the mother is off with a guy (boyfriend, businessman) who wants to marry her. While exploring the city Klaatu asks the kid who the most important person in the world is. He says some scientist. So off they go the scientists's house. 

Klaatu tells the scientist that he needs to bring together all the greatest minds of Earth to the spaceship and there he will give a speech outlining a message for the future of human civilization. There's some political and relationship stuff that happens in between that happening. For example the mother's boyfriend suspects Klaatu is the alien (who everybody is looking for) and he informs the authorities. Consequently the mother dumps her boyfriend and goes off with our alien main character. 

In the end Klaatu ends up getting shot (again!). But this time Gort (the eight-foot tall robot) comes to his rescue, doing a lot of damage in the meantime. Klaatu had told the mother some alien language words that she needed to say to Gort if anything was to happen to him. So she ends up saying the magick alien words and the robot calms down and stops destroying everything. 

Gort picks up the mother and they go in the spaceship. Gort places Klaatu is some sort of plasma beam generator healing tank and it makes a bunch of melodious beeping and tea-pot kettle-esque sounds. My friends really liked that sound effect and scene in particular, although I found it to be quite jarring. Klaatu starts breathing again and the gun wound is but a blood spot on his suit.

He puts on his alien clothes, this sort of chrome sports suit and goes to address the greatest minds of Earth. He warns them about their tendency to war and violence. And that if they keep it up Earth will be blown asunder. He doesn't really explain much beyond this, its almost as if his entire being for going to Earth was more of a warning, which the Earthlings could construe as a sort of threat. 

After that he goes back into the ship, which causes the smartest Earthlings to run in fear, ironic. Klaatu and the mother fly off into space. The End in cool science fiction letters. Cool movie. 

A movie like this is quite stylized for its time period, the 50's. Its a sort of old school science fiction when science fiction was still in the ghetto. The characters are sympathetic, understanding, and realistic. The idea of an alien coming to warn Earthlings about their nature and future is a popular idea. The movie does a great job of developing Klaatu and the ways in which he learns to work with humans from a different civilization from his own. I think I got a lot out of that idea from the movie. 

The film can be found on Netflix. 

Klaatu: I must admit I'm a little confused. 

The Machine Stops

The Machine Stops is a science fiction short story written by E.M. Forster in 1909 for the Oxford and Cambridge Review. At 12,000 words its pretty detailed. This isn't your third wave science fiction folks, which is what I'm more used to.

Here we have a civilization that lives in honeycomb-like underground cities. People don't touch each other, not even for handshakes or hugs. People have become anxious when it comes to non-virtual meetings. Each pod that people live in comes with one book, The Book of the Machine. All other books and information are electronic. "All other info is electronic, and the forests, Forster explains, "had been destroyed during the literature epoch for the purpose of making newspaper pulp." The Book not only instructs which button to push when, but alleviates the trepidations of life in the Machine." (Wired) 

The story focuses on a mother and her son. The mother is a lecturer (I think she teaches music of certain civilizations) that gives these lectures from inside a room that is controlled by machines, much like how today we can do tons of things in the comfort of our homes, behind our computer screens, Iphones, and television screens. Her son is against the Machine, the electronics that give the people everything they need, from beds, email, to video (a prehistoric FaceMeet, where you can video call people). The people live underground with no sunlight of course but they can go to the surface, if they wear the proper attire (facemasks, the air can kill them) and if they have permission from the Government. We learn that this guy makes illegal trips to the surface often. He's quite the resistance type. 

Even scholarly trips to the surface are not allowed. Experts get their information about the surface from the Machine, a sort of proto-google. The Machine doesn't sustain itself forever. Life is not getting better. The music starts to get blurbs and bad quality sounds. The water has a smell. The Government says they're fixing the problems with the Machine but the repairs needed exceed the damage that keeps accumulating.

On the final day Vashti (our mother character) isn't doing so well. She's horrified to see whats outside her cubicle.

She whirled around, praying to be saved from this, at any rate, kissing the Book, pressing button after button....
An airship ... crashed downwards, exploding as it went, rending gallery after gallery with its wings of steel. For a moment they saw the nations of the dead, and, before they joined them, scraps of the untainted sky.

And I thought working a nine to five everyday for the rest of my life was scary. 

Here we have a science fiction dystopian sort of story that looks similar to the world we live in today. If all the computers in the world crashed right now the entire world would go into chaos. We're reliant upon these machines for everyday life. Could you live without a smartphone? I don't even own one and never have. We think we can do without it (modern technology) but most Americans would never put themselves through that. For them it would be torture, even for myself. Have we really empowered the machines to the degree that we've become weaker as humans? Perhaps that was what Forster was going for. Nevertheless it certainly makes for interesting science fiction writing. Everyone that likes science fiction and uses computers should read this short story, there's a lot to be gained from its dark brooding mentality about technology.

Read the full story here.

Christmas of Goodwill

(Here's another sort of vlog or personal blog post for you)

Today was a terrific Christmas. I started the day off by waking up early at nine-thirty to play some Heroes of the Storm. Then I proceeded to play Destiny 2, which my brother got me for Christmas. Its a great science fiction fps mmorpg (that's a lot to say!) created by Blizzard Activision under Bungie, there's a lot of companies working together on this game. They did a pretty good job with the product. For an mmo that doesn't cost a monthly subscription its a fantastic game. Definitely worth the buy, or in my case worth trying out.

I got past the beginning areas and was playing Crucible mode with my brother. Crucible mode is Destiny's pvp (player vs player) combat system. We did this mode called quick play where we had to capture points and kill any enemies that tried to take them from us, basically king of the hill from Call of Duty, Team Fortress 2, or Overwatch, other popular fps's. I'll probably end up leveling my character mainly through pvp. Its fun. More on me getting sliced by an energy sword and dying instantly in another post.

After that we went to lunch at this Korean bbq place, except we didn't cook bbq. Instead, we had this clear broth beef stew with pot stickers, all these cold items, and this great hot steaming egg dish. It was excellent. My dad and I talked a lot about new music, avant-garde classical music. By then it was around three or four.

Later in the day I went to one of my best friends' house. We relaxed, exchanged gifts, played Smash 4 (he won most of the games), and watched a little of Metropolis by Fritz Lang and a bit of The Day the Earth Stood Still, both of them are two super old science fiction movies on Netflix. Metropolis is from 1926 and The Day the Earth Stood Still is from the 50's. I'll definitely want to finish both. I've already seen Metropolis but The Day the Earth Stood Still seemed quite interesting.

Approaching seven I went back home. My brother and I exchanged gifts and opened them by the fireplace. The gag gift I got that was also quite amazing was a framed picture of Mercy from Overwatch, a gift from James, my brother. Its quite good artwork. Its a head portrait but you can also see a little of her bodysuit armor as well as her characteristic halo and blonde hair. Sick.

In addition to that I got Starbucks coffee (I'm a coffee addict as of October), chipotle sea salt peanuts, a Lucio Pop figurine, a $25 Panda Express card, a Zelda wallet (from my friend), and the first science fiction cyberpunk novel written in the 1950's called The Stars My Destination. I think I scored the motherload. It feels really great to have people who care about me so much and got me great thoughtful and utilitarian gifts.

I called my mother and spoke to my younger brother. It was nice to hear their voices. I told my brother that he's really helped me get situated into reading more books and increasing my knowledge, improving my writing, and finding an audience for this blog. He's an inspiration although he can't take all the credit, (laughs). My mother seemed to be doing well and she said she was going to ship one of my guitars from Wisconsin out to me here. The guitar I'm speaking about is a heavily modified (Frankensteined) Godin guitar, a Canadian guitar brand. I got the guitar because I've seen John Mclaughlin playing Godins. It will be really cool to get that guitar out here eventually. I could use it for jams, recording, and band practices.

Yeah, things really turned out well on this Christmas day. It was a great occasion for good food, good friends, good family, and a good optimistic outlook for tomorrow. It couldn't get any better.

Christmas in the Modern Dark Ages

Its two hours from Christmas. I got off work at nine. It was a bit of a downer at work but otherwise another successful (and unfulfilling day). Another day at the office. Sitting down and thinking about Christmas, many thoughts go through my mind. This is a Christmas unlike any other. A medieval Christmas, a Christmas ripe for the modern dark ages. Let me explain.

Sure, life is okay and the economy isn't in a complete recession. You might even have a great job, security, a home, friends, family, and food. But sitting down this year during the holidays I can't help but feel a sort of modern holiday dystopian feeling. Its a gut feeling, brooding within the mind. Donald Trump is President and things haven't improved although many Republicans will tell you the economy is great and that unemployment is down. Even if that was true they haven't made my life better. What has Trump done for me? Nothing great.

Part of this feeling comes from the loss of my step-mother, who loved Christmas and always went all out for gifts. Then there's the age difference. I'm now twenty-eight years old and Christmas just doesn't do it for me anymore. The gifts are still significant, they show that people care for me. However, my circumstance of being 'po' (as black people say) has made me much more disillusioned. In fact, I wasn't able to get everything I wanted for my friends and loved ones this year because I didn't have enough money. And I didn't have enough money because they didn't want to give me more hours at the office. Tough break. Better luck next year kid.

The government, your jobs, big pharma, and businesses want us to spend a lot of money this year but how can one find happiness in buying gifts for others when the state of the country (city, state, continent, world, universe) is in such disarray? You could say, "Look man, you need to lighten up. Its just a holiday." But the thing is that this 'holiday' has a bleak future, that is if we are to keep promoting gifts instead of investing in better lives for the people.

As I sit back and wait for Christmas I think about all the people who have nothing, the have nots, the Untouchables, the Undesirables, the sick, the disabled, the poor, the homeless, the mentally ill, and I say to myself, "What does this holiday mean for them?"

The best gift for me this Christmas would be a resignation from Donald Trump. Or people 'smartening' up and running for government themselves. That's the only way to fix this political malfeasance. I'm hopeful in the next generation of politicians, priests, CEO's, writers, poets, musicians, computer programmers, and business owners.

After all, if there's one gift I'm giving to myself this Christmas, its hope. 

The Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality

I read this cool book that just came out in 2017 called The Dawn of the New Everything, written by this computer programmer named Jaron Lanier. Lanier and his startup in 1984 (coincidence) created VPL Research Inc, the first VR company ever in which he was the CEO and creator with a bunch of ragtag electronics experts. They created the idea of VR, avatars, VR gloves and suits, and made it what it is today. The book focuses on Jarons' life spectacularly, from his dark child past where he lost his mother in a car accident, to having a goat farm, and eventually going on to learn about computers and electronics at the closest University. He was a musician who was cool with the avant-garde classical scene, he used to hang out in John Cage's circle.

After the more biographical parts of the book he focuses on VR. What it is, the science of it, the dark side of it, his thoughts on everything about it. For me the idea of VR is that it will probably be mostly used for porn and video games, at least that's what its like now. However, Jarons' view on VR is much more optimistic and beautiful. He sees the human side to VR. He isn't interested so much in the creation of VR and the science of it as he is in the workers working together and learning through each other about VR-the humanitarian side of modern technology. That's something that isn't really talked about in the dozens of Wired articles I read. This guy is onto something, something interesting and spiritual, albeit a sort of electronic/human hybrid spiritualistic approach.

I enjoyed the very last ending of the book very much. In the Appendix he talks about ideas that he only touched lightly on in the book. For example he talked a lot about the idea of algorithms choosing things for us. What we watch, what people to be friends with, what music to listen to, who we have sex with, what events we should go to, etc. He believes that because of this we are allowing the computers to become smarter than we are. We aren't informed enough to make good decisions about all those things so instead we rely on Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Tinder to decide all the 'hard' choices for us. In the long run I think he's right. The tech industry is dark, the whole thing with net neutrality is a good example. On the internet he has much to say.

He believes the internet was created for good intentions, with the sales of goods, trade, and expertise for trade between people. Instead some people make tons of money from the internet while others just have a really cool Facebook page, tons of Twitter followers, or write a great informative blog (like this one, I'm talking about myself). He talks about the history of the net and how links and web pages were supposed to go both ways. You were supposed to be able to click on something and tell where it came from, and they were suppose to be able to know where you came from upon finding it. Things like that. And the early ideas of monetization for the net was that people with trades skills were supposed to use it to exchange goods and services for cash, a sort of free enterprise for everyone. Of course it didn't turn out that way. The companies control cyberspace, the term coined by William Gibson in his 1980's science fiction novel Neuromancer. In many ways William Gibson was writing about Lanier (and his computer friends') lives.

The most fun part was reading his ideas on virtual reality within the universe. For example, if an advanced civilization could create virtual realities within a universe, the existence of one or many universes wouldn't matter because we would believe the virtual reality to be the universe. In the Appendix he talked about this idea that aliens could have some sort of compiler that could create VR within the world they or we live in. Sort of reminds me of the matter compiler in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. In the book the matter compiler is a device where you can get anything you want from thin air.

No matter what you think of VR or computers the fact remains that our world is shaped by these things, especially right now. In a speech on Youtube, Jaron talked abut the ideas of VR coming to fruition around 2030 and 2040, which isn't that far off. We're already almost there. From the beginnings of Orwellian 1984 to the Fake Russian News of the Trump Era, the times they are a-changin'.

In the book Jaron says the most technologically advanced 'computers' we have today are musical instruments. Maybe one day playing a musical instrument will be like computer programming, a valued and highly sought after skill. The musicians will have more jobs!

Last week's jam

Here's some music I played last week at the open jam I go to all the time. We played Sunshine of Your Love (a staple for us, my drummer and I) and Spirits of the Dead, an original metal tune I wrote on the first day of October this year. Upon listening to Sunshine I've realized I gotta get my vocals better. The first lines of the song are tuneless but later in the song I start to sing with more authority and tone. On Spirits of the Dead I was going to sing the whole song but my lyrics fell off the music stand! Oh well. I sang it again last night and it sounded amazing. I'll post that when I get the tracks from the percussionist, there's a guy who plays tambourines and hand drums that records everything and sends it to me. Whatta guy! You can find the tracks below.

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-1
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead

The Library, The Relentless Resource

Here's a sort of personal blog post or vlog post for you. So ever since I started reading more books I've been using the library as an unending resource for everything I'm interested in. This isn't a new idea and most people that read go to the library often. There are many opportunities available to the public through city libraries. Its quite grand. In the future I hope libraries become bigger and better. This is what I usually do with my card.

Order things online. This is the primary use of my card. I go on the online catalogue and just search for anything I'm interested in. I've been getting jazz cds, classical & new music (avant garde classical) cds, science fiction novels, jazz biographies & defining the genre style books, scores (I've got a copy of John Adams' Doctor Atomic, the full score), and I'm always in a cycle of returning and getting more. Its an unending black hole of content. I'll eventually start using it to find old Hollywood and European films as well. I'm interested in silent films as well as old European art films. Right now I'm waiting to get the Thelonious Monk autobiography. That should be a good read.

Hang out there. Sometimes when I hang out with my friends I figure there's no point in going home after I hang out if I have work later in the day. So if they have work before me I always ask them to drop my off at the library. When I'm there I'll usually have brought a book so sometimes I'll read. Other times I'll go on their computers and listen to music while reading articles on websites like Wired, Downbeat, and PcGamer. Once you get used to going to the library you'll start to see a trend, its always the same people there using free WiFi mostly.

Pick up things in person. Sometimes when I'm there I'll find things that weren't there before. I've noticed their science fiction section at the Tarzana branch has some new stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary but its good to see that their collection is being recycled throughout different branches. Lately I've been borrowing classical albums that I find there. The most interesting ones so far have been Leonard Bernstein's last performance and Copeland Conducts Copeland, Max Roach's Bitter Sweet (on Impluse!), and an Aaron Copeland album I just got and listened to today. Not bad.

Get out of the house. Sometimes I have nothing to do before work other than the usual grind of waking up, checking email, reading articles/books, and playing guitar or keyboard. After all that I always want to leave the building. The walk to the library is only about a mile but that's good enough for me. I want to have something to do that won't cost me tons of money. This is it. Even seeing the building when you get there is cool. It has a unique architectural shape that gives Tarzana a good look. Proud to live here for sure.

Libraries are often seen as archaic for the memesters of today but if you use it your education and room for intellectual growth is unparalleled. See you at the library.  

Eifelheim

Eifelheim is a book written by Michael Flynn that came out back in 2006. Flynn is a notable third wave science fiction writer that's won some prestigious awards. This book is ancient by today's memelord society (because it came out in 2006). Its a science fiction novel about aliens that visit human civilization in medieval Germany (1340s AD). Meanwhile, in the future these physicists are trying to decipher what happened to the town because it seemed the town of Eifelheim just disappeared right off the map. Its an interesting idea and noteworthy because of how prolix the writing is.

The writing in this book is hard to get around. Difficult. Unrewarding throughout the entire book until the very end. However, that doesn't mean its a terrible novel. Rather, you get to notice how much work went into this projeckt. This isn't just a book. Its about a historical narrative, science and physics, metaphysics, and spiritual searching and reformation. All great ideas rolled into one book. Something like Star Wars could never compete with something like this. Although the book is 'difficult' (for lack of a better term) you get a sense that you are learning about something, all the things I just mentioned.

The book starts with the aliens crash landing in medieval town Eifelheim and this priest named Dietrich is the first human to meet with them. He eventually comes to befriend these demons from the sky and he realizes that they aren't so bad. They crashed and their ship was wrecked. Now they were stuck and had nowhere to go. They needed to get supplies to fix the ship and fly back to their home planet. Simple enough.

Dietrich learns to converse with these grasshopper-like creatures and he comes to the conclusion that these creatures must be saved in the name of Christ. So he tells them about Jesus and converts them. Can humans convert aliens? Michael Flynn says yes you can. Why not, right? Its a novel idea and something I've never seen before in science fiction. That alone constitutes reading the book. If anything its a great idea. Of course it makes you wonder if that's really possible why is it that sometimes we can't even convert ourselves? But I digress.

The aliens steal some steel wire somewhere and Dietrich gets upset. But in the end the aliens fix their ship and fly home. However, some aliens stayed in Eifelheim. The Black Plague was purging the entire region and it had reached Eifelheim. Those remaining aliens that stayed helped to take care of the sick, as they were immune to the disease. What a wonderful part of the story. You help me and I help you, what a great intergalactic Utopian moment for the book.

At one point Dietrich is accused of being a heretic for converting demons but he gets out of it through politics and knowing the right people, mostly knights in the army. The book ends with Dietrich fleeing the Black Plague-infested Eifelheim. Meanwhile in the future the physicists had worked out the idea of how the aliens used time and space travel to get there and leave. The idea that aliens had been there was ruled out until the very end of their findings. There was talk (earlier in the book) that these demons might have even been Chinese.

They decide to go to Eifelheim and look for themselves. They dig up the town's graveyard and find skeletons of the grasshopper aliens and even their German names written down on plaques. Knowing that they discovered something of lasting importance to the human race and civilization they revel in their discovery, and that ends the book.

Pretty great idea ain't it? I think so. I haven't read science fiction like this before and I'm not sure there's really any other books out there that are like this one. It got me interested in the Dark Ages and I've even got Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror checked out. History can be science fiction too. Its so foreign to me that it might as well be from another planet.

Long live the Devil home!

Star Wars The Last Jedi

The Last Jedi is a great space opera movie about intergalactic politics and space samurai. I was actually surprised it was so good and that I liked it so much. I would put it up there as one of the 'better' Hollywood movies from 2017, among Baby Driver, Logan Lucky (which also stars Adam Driver, our young Sith Lord), Thor Ragnorak, and Justice League. It's got good company. But what makes this movie good? What makes it stand out from the other seven Star Wars films? We'll get into that. I'll divide this essay into parts: story, characters, changes (from the original Star Wars tropes), and my favorite things.

Story
The Last Jedi has a simplistic plot. Its the same as any Star Wars movie. The bad guys (now called The First Order instead of the Empire) are trying to wipe out the last remainder of the Resistance (the good guys, led by Leia Organa, their General). Its a very much Robert Heinlein sort of idea, military science fiction, the core of pretty much every Hollywood science fiction movie. There's tons of space battles and stuff but after a while I became immune to the spectacle of it.

Emperor Snoke (leader of the First Order, Palpatine's successor) is trying to make Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) into a real Sith. He mocks him and even uses force lightning on him because he lost to a girl who's never held a lightsaber. Ouch. Ren is very upset and distraught.

Meanwhile (back at the Jedi planet) Rei tracks down Luke Skywalker and he reluctantly teaches her the ways of the Force. While she's there she discovers she has a Force connection with Ren. They have several conversations and Rei goes to meet with Ren, who's working with the First Order as a sort of would be successor to Snoke. Rei believes Ben Solo (Kylo Ren) can be swayed back to the Light side of the Force and Ren believes Rei can be turned to the Dark side. Interesting idea.

At the same time the Resistance is getting destroyed by the First Order. Finn (John Boyeega) and Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), a Resistance maintenance worker work on this plan to hack into the First Order's systems and stop them from tracking the Resistance's main ship, a ploy to buy the Resistance time. They go to this casino planet and Finn remarks how wonderful it is. But Rose tells him that she grew up as a poor girl in this sort of rich lifestyle town and that it was good to see it get destroyed (they had to escape a prison using these camel-like horses), destroying everything in their path.

At the end The First Order is about to destroy the Resistance. All the major players are there: Ren, Rei, Lei, Finn, Poe (Resistance pilot, quasi leader of a mutiny), and Luke. Rose ends up crashing into Finn in a ship to save him from doing a suicide mission to destroy the First Order's military mechanism that's going to destroy the First Order's base. In the process that explosion ends up destroying the First Order's weapon thing and solidifying a loving relationship that would probably happen anyways. Everything is going wrong for the Resistance when Luke shows up and walks outside among the military science fiction fanfare. "I want all guns shooting at that man!", Ren shouts to General Hux, a military lackey who thinks he's classy. Luke takes a million blaster shots and explosions but is seen walking through the smoke. Kylo Ren walks out to confront him, lightsaber at the ready.

They have a short talk. "You won't be the last jedi", Luke snaps. Ren gets upset and strikes him with his saber. The saber goes through but there's no feeling or damage. Turns out Luke was still at the Jedi planet and he was only with Ren in spirit or ghost form. Fitting for a student of Old Ben Kenobi, who also became one with the Force and used this Jedi ghost form ability. Later we see Luke disperse into the sky, becoming one with the Force, back at the Jedi planet. Rei uses Force powers to lift heavy rocks so the Resistance can escape from their tunnel base. At the end of the film a slave kid is seen sweeping the floor and looking up at a ship in the sky, his Resistance ring at the ready. There's a lot more to it but this sums it up nicely.

Characters 
Emperor Snoke: Leader of the First Order, the main villain in the Universe, Kylo Ren's master.

Kylo Ren: Played by Adam Driver, Leia and Han Solo's son. He killed Han in the first movie and he isn't doing so well because of it. Moody, disturbed, but much more enlightening about the Dark side of the Force in this movie than in the Force Awakens, where he was seen as childish and lacking depth and personality, bad traits for a villain.

Rei Erso: Played by Daisy Riddley, daughter of junkers who sold her into slavery for drinking money (or so Ren told her). Her force powers become powerful super fast and in this movie she begins to discover much more about the Force through Luke, Ren, and Snoke. Is she really just a nobody slave? Her Force powers say otherwise.

Leia Organa: Carrie Fisher's last appearance on screen. She plays an intelligent Resistance General who can at times be sardonic but also caring.

Luke Skywalker: Mark Hamil's performance (and probably his last major Star Wars appearance, because his character dies) was superb. He's shown as an old Jedi hermit who just wants to die on this Jedi planet, and to not deal with anything that has to do with Sith or Jedi, or politics, even though his sister is the General of the Resistance. Oxymoron anyone?

Finn: Rei's love interest, although they don't meet or see each other until the end of the film. He finds another love interest in Rose Tico, a Resistance maintenance worker. What a player.

There's more but the movie really focuses on these characters and I think the character development with them is of much more value than the introduction of some of the new characters.

Changes
There's a lot of changes in this movie that differs from the traditional Star Wars. That's one of the reasons that the movie has been shunned by some of its fanboy community.

First, there's not really many lightsaber battles, just one. That alone would be enough to offend the average fanboy. But then there's also the way that the Sith and Jedi are perceived and shown. The Force is shown as something not everybody can understand, a sort of metaphysical force field binding everything within space and time, that allows understanding, compassion, and if you're Sith inspired can lead you to ruin. Luke senses this in Rei who becomes attracted to some Dark thoughts during a training session and he couldn't calm her down to make her realize her mistake, thus creating a mini earthquake on the island Jedi Planet.

Diversity. This movie has a diverse cast, a big change to the original Star Wars films which mostly starred white guys like Hamil and his 'dad' wearing a bucket. Rose Tico is Asian, Vietnamese to be exact. And Finn is a black guy. And the main character (Rei) is a British woman. I've always liked British women and their accents. That's enough to get the base riled up. Let's face it, most Star Wars fans are white geeks who probably don't have many minorities in their friendship circle. This movie could change that. Younger viewers in the audience might realize that hey, maybe this isn't just a white boy geek thing, maybe I could find a place for myself within a new, more inclusive, and diverse fanbase. That's the hope at least.

Changes in Force powers. General Snoke reveals in a meeting with Ren and Rei that he used Dark side powers to join their minds together so that they would speak to and relate to each other. This is something very common in the Star Wars video games, especially Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2. But we've never seen it to this degree in a movie. The fact that users of the Force can communicate millions of miles away (and even see each other) is a new display of Force powers upon the audience. Likewise, Luke dupes Ren into believing he was actually there fighting with him, for a while. Although we've seen Jedi ghosts in previous movies we've never seen an illusion do a lightsaber duel. So that was new too.

Dialogue, soliloquy of lasting importance over action. I would say this movie displayed a great importance of dialogue and character development over anything that happened physically. In this respect its probably the best Star Wars movie ever made. Here comes the Star Wars Police. 

Favorite scenes
Kylo Ren and Rei are in a meeting with General Snoke and Snoke is torturing Rei a little bit, we can see that Ren is uncomfortable with the whole thing. He had just learned that Snoke set up their entire Force sensitive psychic link and he doesn't seem pleased about it. Rei is about to get some hurting but then Ren lifts a lightsaber using the Force and cuts Snoke in half, killing him instantly. In this moment Kylo Ren has completed his training in the Dark Side, and becomes the leader of the First Order, and the entire galaxy. Not bad for Lena Dunham's boyfriend.

What happens next is a melee in Snoke's throne room between Snoke's Sith warriors (dressed in red, using physical weapons instead of lightsabers, like in the videogames), Ren, and Rei. It's quite a great fight, very violent and the best in the movie. We see them both get overpowered by these warriors (showing that they aren't all powerful even if they're Sith and Jedi) but they help each other out and overcome them. At the end Ren says, "Join me. Together we can rule the Galaxy." Rei doesn't really answer and is quite disappointed by how things have turned out, a turning point for her in the film.

In the beginning Snoke is talking to Ren about how he got "bested by a girl who's never wielded a lightsaber." He's saying all this negative stuff and all of a sudden uses force lightning on Ren, who goes flying while he's being electrocuted. Cool, violent scene.

At the end Luke is fighting Ren in ghost form. Ren has the First Order fire on him, millions of laser shots. Luke walks out of the dust and brushes his shoulders off, the funniest moment of the movie.

Back at the Jedi planet Luke isn't feeling too great about not helping Rei. Yoda comes to him in ghost form and says, "Lose Rei, you must not." He then goes on about the Force and all this other philosophical Force stuff but the important thing I liked about it was that he said Rei and Kylo Ren would become what they were. Very important quote describing master and apprentice, important to both the Jedi and the Sith.

That's all folks. Go see this movie, it's really good. I'm actually really surprised that so many people dislike it. However, there's no pleasing everybody. I'm not usually such a Star Wars fanboy but the movie really struck a chord with me, it was quite a grand experience, especially on opening day morning.

Let the past die, kill it if you have to. Its the only way you'll become what you're meant to be. -Kylo Ren

The Disaster Artist

The Disaster Artist is an adaptation of The Room starring James Franco and his brother Dave Franco. The Room was a terrible movie I've dubbed (whenever I talk to other people about it) "so bad, its bad." So why would a smart artist actor James Franco want to do a movie about it? The answer to that is (probably) because The Room is a Hollywood success story. Sure it didn't get any awards and isn't a 'good' movie but it has a cult following and a fan-base that loves Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero. And now that The Disaster Artist has done well James Franco and Tommy Wiseau can rest easy knowing they both did a great job in Hollywood. Sure it might be comedic relief but that's not the point. The point is that Tommy came from nowhere and is now a movie star. The dream of every actor that comes to LA. Just like my dream to become a guitar player. And I'm from Wisconsin so I might as well have come from nowhere.

The cool thing about the movie is that it was sort of autobiographical. It shows Tommy trying to be an actor in acting school and he fails hard. When he comes to the realization that he may never become a famous actor he decides to make a movie of his own. Nobody knows where Tommy comes from or where he got his money to make a movie. Let's just say he's probably some sort of financial investor, like how he played a banker in San Francisco with long hair (premise of The Room). Anyways (how is your sex life?), Tommy figures the only way he can become a star is if he does it himself, everything from producing, directing, acting, and casting. A novel idea but nothing to take lightly. You can sink or swim, even more so in the movie business than in music. Seeing his humble beginnings on screen makes me think that everything I do to become a famous guitar player isn't enough. I have to increase everything I do tenfold if I wanna be like Tommy. Or just play so bad its bad (bad as in good, like the jazz cats say). One thing to note is that Tommy worked hard to make The Room a cult classic, even spending tons of money to keep the movie playing in a theater for two weeks so it could get a chance to be nominated for awards. He also had an ad out back when the movie came out that had his real phone number on it.

Its a funny movie but it wasn't as funny as seeing The Room for the first time. Now that's funny, especially the sex scenes. Instead, I watched this movie and took in the more documentary aspects of it rather than any particular laughs, or any laughs at all. However, the audience laughed a lot and they're right, its sort of a funny. But I've seen it all before, all the jokes, the scenes, and Franco is not as funny as Wiseau (but he tries). This movie recreates scenes from The Room in exact frightening detail. Sure its cool that they recreated scenes but to make it exactly to the point that the lighting and shading and details of the rooms (ha) were identical? Now that's something a madman would do. Or just somebody who really loves The Room. In this day and age I suppose that's maybe not so farfetched.

Oh, hai Mark!

Charles Mingus Beneath the Underdog

I finished this book a while ago and I wanted to record some of my thoughts on the book. Its an autobiographical (with some fiction thrown in, probably a lot) work written by Mingus himself and Alfred Knopf. Charles Mingus is a famous jazz musician, a bass player who is known as a composer and working with Eric Dolphy. I know of him more through Dolphy than his own compositions but his works have great artistic merit and he will not be forgotten because of this.

The one thing to note is that although this book is about a jazz musician most of the book has nothing to do with music at all. Rather, its more like poetry through life itself. We start with a young baby Mingus who's mother is fearful for his life because he'd been dropped on his head. Great opener, "I almost died as a baby."

The book goes on to display Mingus' young life as a youth facing off against bullies, learning to fight and stand up for himself, and most importantly finding love and woman. Oh, yes this guy was a womanizer. To the point that as an adult he was pimping for a while. But he had other and more musical desires. The parts about music mostly focused on the fact that although he was acclaimed as a good composer and had found fame, he was still quite penniless at times. Mingus described "what it feels like to be an artist – actually be it, in a world that is not only trying to stop you being an artist but has tried to stop you being human in the first place." (wiki/Beneath the Underdog)

A stand out story was this part where Mingus is up in Mexico and he fucks twenty Mexican girls within two hours. Definitely fake but still a cool story. The human body definitely can't handle that but the thought of it is sort of interesting. This book had tons of sex scenes in it. It was probably just as bad as Fifty Shades of Grey, except probably worse. There was some really raunchy sexual stuff in the book, things they don't even do in porn because it would be construed unacceptable. These parts of the book, although vulgar to a certain degree, has a certain poetic beauty to it. Is sex really all these things and more? For Mingus sex was of utmost importance. And not just the act of fucking. Its the act of making love that was important. I think that was the best thing I learned from these parts of the book.

The women in Mingus' life were numerous. At one point he was living with two chicks who were devoted to him. He pimped them for a while but eventually quit to focus on music. You get the sense that for him its not about one woman, but an infinite number. And all of them could important to you, not just a fuck. This idea was quite new to me although I've heard of men marrying multiple women in Islam so its nothing new. Interesting to see it in the context of a jazz musician.

Mingus' personality shines through well in this book. He is a man of complexity. He could be mean, angry, racist, gentle, forgiving, and loving all at the same time. Although the book focuses more on his anger and troubled issues I like to think of Mingus as a troubled man who found himself (intellect, art, musicality, and social ingenuity) through music.

If anything I found out about what jazz musicians are really like, not just some white guy's (critics) thoughts on them. And for that it is invaluable. 

All the Things You Could Be By Now if Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother

The Joy of Free to Play

Ah, the joys of the truly free to play game. Lets talk about one of my favorite games for a moment, Heroes of the Storm (Hots for short). Hots is a free to play moba created by Blizzard in 2015 that has micro transactions (mostly for the coolest skins and mounts) but otherwise characters can be unlocked by spending gold in the shop. Gold is acquired by logging in everyday and doing quests, which can earn you from 200 to 800 gold. Each day you get one new quest, thus giving you unlimited (but limited b/c of how the time and respawn of quests work) gold as long as you keep logging in and playing the game.

At first you would think this is time consuming or too much of a hurdle to go through to unlock characters-because of the grind. But no, this grind has brought me joy.

Its been about two weeks since I've been grinding gold and doing quests in Hots to earn the latest character Alexstraza (pictured above), who now costs 10,000 gold (when heroes first come out they are 15,000 gold). Right now I am sitting at about 9,500 gold and it feels great. The work, dedication, craft, and blood of my enemies to earn all that gold is quite satisfying. I don't think I would get this same satisfaction if I played League of Legends of Dota 2, two other popular mobas. Those games are work just to make it through a forty-five minute match. But I digress.

When I unlock Alexstraza in a few days it will be quite the reward. Rewards for playing games is something most gaming companies have to work much harder at. Sure you can earn loot boxes in Overwatch but at the end of the day the skins don't add much. A new character to your roster in a game adds much much more.

Here's a game that does free to play gaming right. I can earn every character through grinding quests and find a ton of satisfaction from it. Beat that EA.  

Early December Muzak

I listened to some good music today and I'd like to share my thoughts. 

I ordered two albums from the library and both of them came in today, wonderful. The first listen was John Zorn's Naked City band album also entitled Naked City, released in 1990 on Nonesuch Records.

<sup>The music on Naked City is all over the place but it has its moments. The opening track for instance is quite alluring because it reminds me of some sort of Batman theme, that might've even been the song. Another stand out moment was the James Bond theme, that was memorable and signifies a certain point towards the end of the album. There's tons of free jazz moments, grindcore death metal thrashing, punk rock screaming and shouting, lounge jazz, rock and roll, and more. It does all of these styles in an eclectic way. I can see why this is one of John Zorn's best albums. Its all over the place but it still sounds nice in a "I can put this on for anybody sort of way." However, its not for everybody. Grindcore purists will scoff at this sort of thing and jazz fans won't exactly find the punk parts to speak for them. For someone like myself in the middle I can simply say, "This is ok." I see its relevance in today's musical climate and I think that would be saying a lot of the album and John Zorn's work in general. After all, I have been listening to a lot of his music-enough to make critical assessment of his career.

The other album is also associated with John Zorn. It's a Pat Metheny album called Tap: Book of Angels Volume 20. It's an album where Metheny plays compositions written by John Zorn from his Masada Book 2. It was released on Tzadik Records and Nonesuch Records in 2013. This album I would also say was just okay. However, it had its moments. There was a great moment where Pat plays a melody with the guitar synthesizer and he gets this really cool trumpet/flugel horn sound. *Edit: He actually played real flugelhorn!* That knocked me out. Most of the sonic atmosphere Metheny gets using guitar effects don't really go anywhere interesting but his acoustic guitar playing Zorn's melodies really give the music a Medieval feel. There's a lot of creativity coming out of Pat's arrangements of Zorn's music but at the end of the day there's a sense that John Zorn and Pat Metheny don't really mix. Most of the album combats this idea until you hear the acoustic bits and see the beauty in the melody lines. 

Pat plays so many instruments on this album! Here's a list of personnel.</sup> 

Personnel

• Pat Metheny – acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bandoneon, sitar guitar, baritone guitar, orchestra bells, orchestrionic marimba, keyboards, piano, bass guitar, tiples, percussion, electronics, flugelhorn
• Antonio Sánchez – drums
• Willow Metheny – vocals

<sup>Finally we have the last piece of music and probably the most interesting of the bunch. I listened to Stockhausen's Kontakte (Contracts), an electronic piece of music mixing electronics with instrumental music. What can I say about this piece? I don't know enough about it to be too technical with my analysis but here we go.

The other day at dinner I mentioned to my dad's composer friend that I admired Stockhausen and his music. I asked him what he thought of Stockhausen's work and he said "it lacks soul". What I can tell you about this piece is that it has plenty of soul. There's life and beauty to this music. There's melody from the piano and the electronics, and silence is used in an almost rhythmic sensibility. So far this is my favorite Stockhausen I've heard, the first and only other one being Gesang der Jünglinge. 

The point of this post? Yes, sometimes its easy to get distracted by popular musings. But don't forget about the true masters of the avant-garde like Stockhausen (pictured above).</sup>
 

Thor Ragnarok

Thor Ragnarok is fun super hero movie. It has Justice League beat. Here's why.

Thor's story-line is simpler and easier to see out on the big screen. The fact that Asgard gets taken over by Odin's first daughter Hela who's Thor's sister. She took over countless civilizations with her father Odian and was the god of Death riding atop a giant wolf. The fact that Thor continues to have family disputes is not a surprise.

Thor's fighting scenes are cooler. The fighting scenes in Thor are marvelous, like a crude man's ballet. The weapons really added flair as there was weapons like swords and spears, guns, and magic.

One guy had some sort of enchanted Mace. He was pretty cool but he got speared through the gut by Hela.

The Hulk used hammers and axes against Thor in a fighting exhibition tournament match, akin to a gladiator affair.

Hela used magic to throw these Asgardian spears at an entire army of soldiers.

Thor was able to channel lightning throughout his body instead of just using his hammer. Because his hammer gets destroyed by Hela (by her bare fists) he learns how to use his powers without it.

Yeah, that was all pretty cool stuff.

Thor had a better soundtrack. At one point Thor gets lightning powers and he starts to annihilate an army of bad guys. The music from Led Zeppelin Immigrant Song is blasting away. That was a standout musical moment for the film.

Thor Ragnarok is good superhero cinema. I thought that Idris Elba, Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Mark Ruffalo did a great job in their roles. Actors like these give a good name for superhero flicks.

Christmas Gift Ideas

Here I'd like to outline some ideas I have for friends.

Friend 1: Nintendo eshop card, something related to cars, fancy coffee and/or chocolate/sweets, guitar related equipment like my pick that lights up when you strum with it (comes with rechargeable usb), heavy metal CD, heavy metal shirt, Nintendo 64 anthology of games book (already own), Gamecube (already own)

Friend 2: comedy/tv show shirt, indie band shirt, indie CD, TV show DVD, movie DVD

Friend 3: PS4 game, Overwatch memorabilia (shirt, stickers, etc), Fix his Bass Guitar, Bass Guitar amp (smallest and cheapest one available, used)

Friend 4: Xbox one game, Xbox one controller, beer (chocolate beer possibly), Mountain Dew beer, gaming shirt (related to Call of Duty)

Friend 5: Nintendo eshop card, Nintendo shirt/memorabilia, gaming art book, historical art work book, art work supplies

Friend 6: Steam game, Magic The Gathering cards, Smashup Board game (already own)

Friend 7: Magic The Gathering cards (at Fire and Dice when we're together so he can choose a rare) 

Dad: book (of his choosing), Coffee bean card, California Pizza Kitchen card

Brother 1: PC game, gaming art work book, food gift card, gas card

Brother 2: African/Caribbean studies book (Naipul, Cornel West, etc), straight ahead jazz CD, book on Jazz

Mom: money ($20-$30 at most), book on Zen (already own), Holiday card, call, keep in touch through email more often

Myself: All I asked my bro and dad for was the AACM book, The AACM: A Power Stronger Than Itself. It's a 700 page scholarly book on the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, an experimental black music collective from the 1960's that spawned The Art Ensemble of Chicago, one of my favorite bands. 

If I play my cards right I shouldn't have to spend too much money. Some gifts are things I already own that I haven't used and can be re-gifted for better purposes. I'll probably start buying things as early as next paycheck so I don't have to buy everything all at once. As you can see I have a lot of people to attend to! 

What are you reading?

I've been doing a lot of reading. I figured I'd write about what I've been reading partly to keep track of it all and also to share my interests with the readers.

First of all, I've been reading a lot of online news and local (physical copies) papers. I've been reading the Guardian, LaTimes, NyTimes, Wired, and LaWeekly. These are all good publications with such a vast array of literary styles. I've been keeping up on net neutrality through Wired and getting my politics from online websites. By the time I see the news later at night or at work I already know everything they're going to say-to a point. Sometimes they have different agendas but for the most part they are telling the same stories.

Then there's all my library books.

Yesterday I checked out Charles Mingus' autobiography. I'm fifty pages in and its quite the novel, very detailed, dark, romantic, sad, and its just the beginning.

That same day I also checked out a book called How Computers Work. That one is very technical so we'll have to see if I even make it that far in that one. I've picked up an interest in computers because of a book on art and aesthetic called Multimedia From Wagner to Virtual Reality. That book contains a forward by William Gibson (one of my favorite writers) and tons of essays by artists, musicians, and computer engineers on art and technology. It has a lot of computer history in it and from there I became more interested in computers.

Then there's Eifelheim by Michael Flynn. This book is about a priest in medieval Germany who converts aliens. The book is so prolix and unrewarding that it is super hard to read. This is the second time I've had it from the library and I'm determined to finish it, more as an accomplishment than because its actually good. Its very dense.

Lastly, we have Kindred by Octavia Butler. Butler's work can be sort of complicated too but in a rewarding sense that Flynn lacks. The book is about a black woman who gets sent back in time to the antebellum South to the time of her great-great-great relatives and stuff. Needless to say its pretty dark.