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field-s-of-flowers · 2 years

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Something of a scholar

My @drinkwithme-exchange fic for @schroedingers-draht! Hope you enjoy!

The Café Lemblin was, in a word, sweltering. Even with the windows open, the breeze blowing in was a sticky one characteristic of July, and the old proprietress refused to extinguish the roaring fire even at Grantaire’s most persuasive requests. It was a good place to go in the winter, when the world outside is achingly cold and nothing sounds better than a mug of coffee in your hands.

And even in the balmy days of July, Jean Prouvaire was always cold, so this initially seemed like just his place.

“What’s the matter, Jehan?”

But, as often, Grantaire’s young friend was quite unreachable. Jehan Prouvaire never seemed to notice the world around him half as much as he did his own thoughts. He looked even odder today than usual: sunburnt to a crisp, with a tawny, girlish braid rapidly coming undone and a kelly-green waistcoat that looked to have been thrown around him in haste. Such was the fashion sense of this type of dreamer.

“Prouvaire, did you hear me?”

“Hm? Did you say something, R?”

Grantaire only laughed. “Nothing of importance, my friend,” he said, shifting to be closer, “just asking what was on your mind. It’s always something entertaining, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” Jehan sighed. “Though it’s more melancholy than usual this evening.”

“How so?”

He sighed again, a little softer this time, but did not answer. Instead, he opted to gaze out the open window.

“You know, it’s not polite to accompany your friend to one of Paris’s best cafés only to-”

“Today is July 25th, isn’t it?”

“Er- yes, I think so. Why?”

He turned back to Grantaire and met his eyes, for the first time this whole evening.

“Today is the anniversary of the death of André Chenier.”

Grantaire took a moment to peruse his memories- Chenier as a name certainly sounded familiar, but if he was being honest, his mind was coming up quite empty.

“You’ll have to remind me of who that is.”

Jehan looked almost hurt. “The one who wrote De Nuit, la Nymphe Errante, don’t you remember? Et sa plainte amère excite leur risée?”

Still no recollection, and it clearly showed. Jehan turned towards the window once more, refusing to meet Grantaire’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, my friend. I don’t think I’ve ever read any of his work.”

His own eyes light up. “Really?”

“Almost positive.”

“Oh, you’d love him! There’s a compilation of some of his work by De La Touche. I’d be happy to lend you my copy- he has some fantastic metaphors in Jeune Captive that I think you’d…”

The Café Lemblin was stiflingly hot. Grantaire’s coffee was cooling down already, and it was just a bit sweeter than he liked it. Even so, just for this moment, he was perfectly happy to listen to his friend’s daydreams.

“…And do you know, he was from- Grantaire?”

“You’re awfully smart, do you know that?”

Jehan kept his eyes down, as always, but Grantaire could clearly see his wide smile.

Quite a nice way to spend an afternoon, isn’t it?

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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Have you read the short story Norvell Page wrote as a wedding present for a Big Name Fan about Dick and Nita's first meeting? Any thoughts on it? My main is that Page does not go where you expect him to based on that description.

I did! Actually it was one of the first Spider stories I read. And yeah, to an extent, it's absolutely not what you'd expect from something set in The Spider's world. And on the other hand, it's absolutely what makes the most sense for these two characters. Because, yeah, Norvell Page could have done what he usually does, and written some over-the-top action where Dick and Nita happen to meet during it.

But no, that wouldn't work. Because, for all the turmoil and chaos in The Spider, for everything that he and Nita go through, there are many times when, sturdier even than Dick's resolve is their love for each other, the deep understanding and affection that carries them through hell itself time and time again.

And so, when it was time to showcase how such a romance started, Page wisely deviated from his usual narrative style, and instead told a very, very intimate and personal story, a long and extended conversation between the two, and more importantly, between Page and the reader. Between The Spider, and You, peering into The Spider through the eyes of Nita van Sloan.

I think for a start, it's an interesting coincidence that this meeting takes place on a cruise ship, and it involves Dick rescuing Nita from suicide. I say this because Margo Lane's first meeting with Lamont Cranston, in the pulps, was stated to have taken place on a cruise ship, and of course, the first time we see The Shadow in the pulps, he's rescuing Harry Vincent from suicide, and both Harry and Margo are The Shadow's main supporting characters. I'm not saying it was intentional, but it's an interesting fact. And more so because Dick doesn't really rescue Nita.

Her scarf whipped in the wind on deck, and it blinded her... and a hand touched her arm, and a voice spoke to her.

"If it's intentional, don't let me stop you," the voice said, "but you're heading straight for suicide."

Nita looked then at the stop toward which, blindly, she was going, and it was a chain barrier beyond which was the sea. And she looked at the man who had stopped her and it was Richard Wentworth. And his words had been a shock to her.

"You wouldn't try to dissuade me from suicide?" she asked.

Wentworth's brows were tilted whit a hint of mockery, but his eyes were very grave. "Every man is master of his own soul, and hence of his body," he said. "And your eyes are wide open and awake. So it would be a considered action. I'm not sure, under those circumstances, that I would have a right to meddle in another's business."

Nita said, "I think you can help me."

Wentworth shook his head. "Only you can help yourself," he said, "but it may be that someone else could help you find the way."

The whole text is a great example of how wonderfully realized of a character Nita van Sloan is in ways so unlike the typical pulp or superhero girlfriends at the time, because the text is written from her perspective, and half of the text reads like an extended character breakdown of who Nita is as a character and person. And the other half of the text is almost entirely comprised of Dick Wentworth spouting philosophy and talking in-depth about his reading of her and what's upsetting her, talking about God and fate and so on. And like so many other attempts to explore serious theological/psychological/philosophical/etc concepts explored through pulp fiction, half of it is bullshit, and half of it is fascinatingly disturbing and thought-provoking bullshit.

"Self-contempt," Wentworth's words were very quiet now. "Is second only to self-pity among the greater sins. Self-analysis is a dangersous thing. You need so much charity. And any person who is advanced enough to think about himself at all is apt to be over-stern in his judgment of himself."

He said to her, "If you don't honor youself, who will honor you?" And, a few moments later, "There is conceit in ruling others, but none in mastering yourself." And, "There is no arrogance so great as self-righteousness."

Nita clashed with him violently, "You are being self-righteous in judging me!"

Wentworth laughed. "I am speaking only truism. It is you who judge yourself, not I." He was serious, then. "My dear," he said, "I would be presumptuous to try to teach you. No man can teach another. But one who has been along that same trail would be less than a man if he failed to mark certain signposts and certain places where there is water to drink so that another, traveling that same road, may know where another struggled and what he has learned. But, as no man can travel a road for another, so no man can teach another. You must work out your own salvation."

"That sense of separation between the inner and outer self," Nita rushed on, "between yourself and the world ... while you were talking, I could almost feel that difference disappearing. The feeling is gone now, but ..."

"All progress is three steps forward and two back," Wentworth said, slowly, "and this is good because thus all ground is three-times covered and triply learned."

And I should probably clarify by this point that, it's not so much Dick Wentworth talking in this story, as it's Norvell Page himself. In fact, he admits as much in another letter he had sent to his readers that he was prone to talking philosophy by this point.

There was a time when the burden of writing just one more Spider seemed too much to undertake. (After all, the magazine is in it's ninth year!) But I never feel that way any more. I know now that the Spider actually does help people; that there are those who appreciate his idealism even though it is expressed in violence.

Especially in the last half dozen Spiders, beginning with the 100th I believe, I have tried very earnestly to teach a little of the philosophy and faith, of which we all need so much in these days.

Here's the thing about The Spider: It's not that the character is mad. Well, okay, he IS mad, I don't pull these over-the-top maniacal cartoon meme descriptions out of thin air, but that's because he lives in a batshit insane disaster horror world where there IS no sane response other than joining the carnage to overcome it. It's not just that Wentworth who is a madman. It's that Norvell Page was a mad man, and Dick Wentworth was Norvell's Page alter-ego, by the man's own admission.

Friends have informed me that I moved about the company as one in a trance: there were some who were concerned about my health, so oddly did I behave. Of course, only my body attended that occasion. My mind was entirely engrossed in Dick Wentworth's big problem - back in my study on a sheet of paper stuck in my typewriter

I did not dream that night; in the morning I restlessly paced my floor thinking, thinking, thinking. I sat down at the typewriter, stared at the words and the keys. Suddenly, as if by magic, Dick Wentworth seemed to move of his own volition. My hands raised, my fingers literally flew over the keyboard.

No matter how ridiculous it seems, I will always feel that Dick Wentworth, creature of my own fabrication, guided me through that tough scene.

No two people can live together without being influenced by each other to some extent. So constantly has Wentworth been in my mind, it is as if we were roommates - partners in everything.

Page has talked about how close of a connection he feels to the character, about many ways he's emulated his mannerisms, even some pretty embarassing anectodes where he claims to have "accidentally" used the character's "indomitable will" to scare waiters or drawing connections between The Spider's cast and real people he's met. Others who met him remarked that he talked of the "Spider" characters as though they were members of his family, or drinking companions.

Even before I got into The Spider, I had heard of rumors that he used to present or discuss stories in his office by putting on a cape and jumping from desk to desk, swinging a yard stick in his hand, and I can't find any source that confirms it, but I don't doubt it in the slightest. A lot of pulp writers had really weird lives, and Page was no exception. He was a journalist who frequently dug into his newspaper clippings for grisly stories to incorporate into narratives. I mean, just look at the dude's eyes, he's seen some shit.

When he was 3, his mother fell down a manhole while they were walking down a Chicago sidewalk. Norvell, terrified, thought she had dissappeared and never quite got over the experience.

When he was a little older, according to some family members, his parents had tickets for the Titanic and escaped disaster when Norvell begged them to cancel the trip for reasons unknown.

Norvell again played a hand in the family's escaping disaster when, one Christmas the family home caught on fire. Candles on the tree had been left burning. He quite arguably saved everyone's life. Waking first, he threw his mattress out of his window, grabbed his infant brother and sister and ran screaming through the hall as he went back to jump to safety. His screams woke his parents who then jumped to the mattress themselves.

Norvell lied about his age and experience to the Norfolk "Observer", claiming to have been writing for Richmond's "Times Dispatch" and was hired there.

His father managed Thomas Edison & Hugo Wurlitzer's ad accounts, and had always encouraged him to write, envisioning him as another Poe, whom his Great-Uncle had worked with as an editor

It is rumored that, in NYC, while at the "World Telegram", he became involved in fellow editor Varion Fry's effort to rescue artists and scientists from occupied Europe. President of the American Fiction Guild, he edited their newsletter for some time. Among his closest friends were fellow writers Ted Tinsley and L. Ron Hubbard and Surrealist painter Max Ernst.

WRITER'S REVIEW 35.08: Norvell W. Page, whose bloodthirsty Spider novels would do justice to Ghengis Khan, demonstrated his bloodlust the other day by accidentally killing a sparrow.

He wrote until 1943, when he abruptly stopped without warning. He dissappeared, for all intents and purposes, from both New York, the arts world and the pulp world for good.

His wife of 20 years, Audrey, had died and this, along with the U.S. involvment in WWII, led to his returning to VA where he would go on to be an intelligence worker in the Truman, Kennedy and Eisenhower Administrations.

He died suddenly of a heart attack in August of 1961.

Surviving family members do not know where he is buried.

I think this is a story that Page might have told differently had he written it earlier in his career, before he got tired, before he underwent his depression and loss of weight that caused him to briefly stop writing pulps all together, in a time period before the World War had cast an oppressive miasma on the world. In a time period where most of the horrifying nightmares he infused into the stories were really just that, nightmares, that he didn't live long enough to see turn into prophecies.

Because that's another thing about The Spider that makes the character more than just a batshit vigilante: As over-the-top as the stories were, a lot of them also inevitably turned out to predict some form of catastrophe in real life.

Written with an eye to the horrors festering in Germany at the time, The Mayor of Hell now reads as an infernal vision of the Homeland Security Act.

The poisoned products found in The Red Death Rain and The Pain Emperor call to mind the Tylenol killings of the summer of 1982, and the hundreds of poisoned products cases that followed.

Bio-terrorism plays large in the Spider mythos, with bubonic plague in Wings of the Black Death, rabies in The Mad Horde, and cholera in The Cholera King foreshadowing the Anthrax scare of 2001. The same could be said of the terror gases from Kingdom of Doom and Green Globes of Death and the nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subways in March of 1995.

Masters of the Death Madness unfolds as a nightmare meditation upon suicide, which has become one of the principal weapons of modern terrorists. One scene involves suicide bombers.

Another scene chillingly presages the Jonestown massacre of 1978: a grand procession lines up to drink from a bowl of poisoned wine while surrounding gunmen pick off anyone who refuses to drink.

The modern reader will recognize the psychological and sociological effects of a citizenry living under the threat of terrorism, so chillingly evoked by Page: the grating loss of safety, the imminent threats lurking in familiar objects, the way security can no longer be taken for granted, the kind of skittishness that empties a building at the first sign of an unknown white powder.

The eeriest of all the modern terrorist parallels appears in a novel called The City Destroyer, originally published in 1936. It features a set piece involving the collapse of a fictitious gigantic building, supposedly the tallest in New York City, called “The Sky Building.” When it fell, it wiped out five city blocks and claimed 1,000 lives. And perhaps it’s worth noting a further parallel that occurred in the 1970’s, when Pocket Books tried to revive the Spider; they repackaged him in a paperback series, striving for an image of what was then cool and thrusting Richard Wentworth into a contemporary setting.

When Pocket Books reprinted and updated The City Destroyer in 1975, the collapse of the Sky Building was replaced with the collapse of the World Trade Center - Stuart Hopen's essay on The Spider

Regardless of how much reality Page was infusing into his stories (because, again, he took a lot of his material from newspapers) or how much he foresaw intentionally or not, writing The Spider definitely took it's toll on him, and as the magazine neared it's final stretch with him on the helm, certain parts did began taking a more philosophical or religious tone, as more of Page's own beliefs, more of Page's attempts to use it as a vehicle to do good, began to bleed through the page.

And ultimately I think that's also what the story of Dick and Nita's first meeting is about, sort of an extended analysis not just of Nita, who Page himself said was a character he conceived as "the epitome of womanhood" and everything he thought admirable about it, but also of Wentworth's own character, and the things Page wanted to get through in his time.

Religion crept deeper into the series with each succeeding year. By all accounts, Norvell Page was a man of deep faith and spirituality who just happened to be writing the exploits of a hero whose idea of mercy was a bullet in the brain instead of the stomach.

In the 100th novel, Death and The Spider, Wentworth battles Death itself - or so it seems - and on Christmas Eve, he is shot so badly while protecting the President from assassination that everyone believes he's dead - including himself.

Dead or not, he forces himself to fight on, sustained only by reciting the 23rd Psalm over and over again.

Nita laughed and accepted a cigarette. "I don't know how to thank you."

"Don't," Wentworth's voice was sharp. "I told you I am only a channel. Don't confuse me with the Source."

It stopped words on Nita's lips, and it gave here a new respect and a new and sudden attitude toward this man beside her, this man who could laugh and jest with everyone about him, and who could teach like a very oracle ... and who carried about him such a sense of dedication to high purpose. He might seem apart from the world, but he was utterly and completely of it.

Nita said, half-laughing, half-serious, "May I like you? And may I admire your ... adjustment?"

"Don't envy my adjustment," he grinned at her. "Have one yourself." He snapped flame to her cigarette with his lighter, and his lean, strong hand was steady and sure as his eyes, as his voice. He was speaking to her but he was looking at the lighter. "I have found my mission," he said quietly.

#pulp heroes #the spider #nita van sloan #pulp fiction #norvell page #it's pretty much impossible to talk about the spider without sounding like a pulp writer yourself

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shylaxgameblogs · 6 years

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Shylax’s Top 10 Games (Played in the Year) of 2017

Yep, it’s the return! You’re going to be here a while, so...

10. Mario Golf World Tour (2014)

Yep, that’s right, a golf game. It wouldn’t be right without one, and here it is.

I really wanted to play this game because @pawelcyril kept gushing about it, but I don’t really play it anymore. It’s not a bad game, it wouldn’t be on this list if it wasn’t, but it could have been a lot better than it was. There are a lot of 9 hole only courses, which is disappointing. The single player story mode is fun, but short. Online’s loading times are disappointing. Being able to create and customize a Mii golfer is fun, but the Mii’s driving distance sucks compared to Star Mario. The tournament system is fun, and solves World Invitational’s cheating problem by just letting you go as many times as you like, but...Hot Shots Golf World Invitational was so much better. That game had so much more staying power, even with its own flaws.

9. Fire Pro Wrestling World (2017)

I remember playing Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium on a SNES emulator. That was my first experience with Fire Pro, and it was so much different than any other wrestling game I had played before. Probably the closest that comes to the Fire Pro experience are the aki wrestling games, most notably WWF No Mercy.

If you’re a fan of American-style wrestling, this game will probably disappoint you, because even though you can create your American favorites and have them battle each other, this game doesn’t feature the wild and crazy antics that make American wrestling tick. There are no storylines here, and no cutscenes. This is pure puroresu. Japanese wrestling is treated more like a legitimate sport, and so does this game. It’s all about the competition.

This game has no license, but it has a robust Create-a-Wrestler system, allowing you to create your favorite wrestlers, characters outside of wrestling, or original characters. You can even create bear wrestlers if you’d like, which is a major plus in its favor in my book.

However, the meat of the game is its robust wrestling engine. It’s 2D at its very best, relatively unchanged since the SFPWXP days, although it does look much better. The action is displayed in a 3/4 isometric view, and the grappling system is unique, and unlike American wrestling games, punishes button mashing, instead of rewarding it. There are three styles of grapples - weak, medium, and strong. You have to build up with successful weak moves before moving up - if you try to go for medium and strong moves too early, you’ll get countered.

The only reason I don’t play it more is it’s still in Early Access, and more features are being added and refined. Online play is there, but the netcode is pretty laggy. There’s not a story or career mode, so unless you have friends who are ubercompetitive at this game, its only other real use is as a supreme @tangobunny Watch Mode game.

8, Parascientific Escape Gear Detective (2015)

The sequel to 2014′s Parascientific Escape Cruise in the Distant Seas, which was a refreshing take on the Zero Escape formula, adding in powers you could use during “escape” sequences, and being able to backtrack to rooms you already completed, was a huge improvement over the original. The first game felt like a teaser for a much larger story, and felt pretty generic and cheap (the localization didn’t help).

Gear Detective (the Parascientific Escape games are eShop only games for 3DS) wasn’t anything groundbreaking either, but it was a much better use of your $5 than the original. While it seems to abandon the story the original set up, it is a more fully fleshed out story, feels more complete, and has multiple endings, which the original did not feature.

It still doesn’t compare to more full-budget and full price titles like the Zero Escape series, but the escape room genre is pretty limited, and this game is well worth your $5. I’m hoping to play the third game in the series soon so it can be eligible for next year’s list.

7. Pokemon Moon (2016)

This game was a mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed it, but there were some annoying decisions that prevented me from playing it more.

First, the good. I really liked the character designs in Sun/Moon. I enjoyed Alola more than Kalos, I enjoyed the new Pokemon in Alola more, and I appreciated that they tried to do something different with the Trials instead of the Gyms. I liked that they tried to breathe new life into old Pokemon with Alolan forms.

The downsides: Breeding is still a hassle, even with quality of life improvements, so competitive is still a hassle. Online was a huge step back, no more Super Training, no more being able to access online features while playing, you have to go to a separate screen. For its flaws, the PSS >>>>>>>>>> the Festival Plaza. Let us be able to chat via text and speech online, you cowards! There was a golfer character, but no golf minigame.

6. Pocket Card Jockey (2016)

Pocket Card Jockey was an unheralded 3DS eShop game that combined horse racing and solitaire. But while I played it, it was oh so addictive. I loved raising my horses, racing them, and naming them after obscure video game systems. If you don’t have it, you should definitely buy it. It’s a great way to pass the time.

The art style is incredibly cute as well, you’ll love your horses.

5. Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator (2017)

I almost forgot this game. @hopeies would have killed me if I had, so I put it on the list. I’m not super keen on romance-based visual novels, although I did put Katawa Shoujo on there last year. Being a heterosexual male, I did not think I would enjoy this game, but I was pleasantly surprised. I got to enjoy meeting and getting to know the various dads (Damien and Hugo were my favorites), but the game got some things right with the whole visual novel experience (and some things wrong).

My favorite thing about Dream Daddy, is that you can romance who you want. You can just go, “I want to romance that guy”, and YOU CAN FUCKING DO IT. No decrypting mysterious route conditions, no looking up a guide. And if you don’t know who you want to romance? You can get to know the various dads before committing to one. It also makes it very clear when you’ve pleased or displeased a dad, and pleasing or displeasing a dad is obvious if you’ve paid attention to what they like and don’t like. It takes a ton of the crypticness out of visual novels, and other VNs should take heed.

On the other hand, it doesn’t feature basic visual novel features like being able to backtrack or see a chat log, which is disappointing. DDADDS manages to mix up things by including minigames, made possible by the Unity engine. It also allows you to create your Dadsona, averting the typical blank slate protagonist of most visual novel games.

4. Mystery Chronicle: One Way Heroics (2016)

I bought the original One Way Heroics for 78 cents on Steam and loved it. It was a delightful hybrid of 16-bit JRPG and roguelike, and I was so excited when I heard Spike Chunsoft was doing an enhanced remake of this game. I haven’t played it as much as I want to, but it’s the original game but better, and that’s all I wanted.

To keep you from dawdling, you have to keep moving forward, or else the left edge of the screen will consume you. You also have to keep track of HP and hunger levels. Once you die, that’s it - but you can transfer items between playthroughs and gain perks that will help you do better in future playthroughs.

It’s such a delightful throwback to the old days, and a fun roguelike.

3. Love Live! School Idol Festival (2014)

This is the first ever mobile game to make the list. I knew I wanted to download this once I joined the mobile world - Cute girls, trading cards, and music? What’s not to like? The rhythm game aspect is very good. It’s very responsive, and fun. The visual novel aspect is kind of hit or miss, but I love the girls, so it’s all good. It’s basically just the characters being themselves, and no real story of importance. I wish the game was a bit less stingy with love gems, but otherwise, I love it.

2. Nier (2010)

Nier is kind of punching above its weight here. While the game itself isn’t anything special, it’s wrapped up in this awesome music, beautiful graphics, and innovative storytelling that makes it something special. Besides, Yoko Taro is just a great guy. I can’t wait to get a chance to play Automata, so I can surely put it on a future list.

1. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997)

This is the video that convinced me to give SOTN another try:

youtube

It truly is a masterpiece, but some of my own thoughts: It’s a shame Sony discouraged 2D games on the PS1, because the 2D games on the PS1 are timeless. 2D is timeless. 3D ends up looking like shit later, and the PS1 3D games surely do look like shit.

#shylax original #text #video games #shylax top 10 of 2017

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cynicalharmonia · 5 years

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Final - Is This Sound Art?

My final is called “Is this sound art?”

It is a collage that combines many concepts that we learned of in class. From John Cage’s take on sound, noise, and silence to the late 20th century masters of sampling all the way to the modern day vaporwave and glitch art scene.

I was influenced by dirt style, vaporwave, plunderphonics, Ryoji Ikeda, glitch music and art, acousmatics, Christian Marclay, James Tenney, Hugo ball, Amacher, and the internet as a whole. The visual (skit) format was influenced by Forcefield and early Fluxus performances.

My Piece very much has a lot to do with comedy and internet/digital culture. I wanted to make something that peeked back at my life so far and all the things I enjoyed growing up with (and still do today). The video is done in skits, sort of like a “Robot Chicken” of sound art. It is called “Is This Sound Art?” because I have a sense of humor and mainly because that is a very thing I questioned myself with while making this piece. It starts with me receiving a VHS that contains a collection of my past, told through various things I’ve enjoyed throughout my life, like video games, music, internet memes, anime, tv, and movies. It begins and ends with the tape, and the video in which I am watching begins and ends with heavy distortion. I very much enjoyed working with both Premier Pro and Adobe Audition to create this project; I learned many new skills and hope to improve my editing prowess in the future.

When creating the sound pieces, I later introduced gifs and stills that complimented what was going on, later I incorporated clips from movies and eventually one thing led to another and I was simultaneously making sound art and videos that were edited around the sounds. Through responding to one thing the other came along shortly. Most (if not all) the videos used are replaceable with other clips or stills if edited properly. The sounds created gave me a vision of the visual aspects that would better portray the very impact of what I intended the sounds to have in the first place.

I will post images of my project panel to help show the actual process involved in creating this piece.

Process:

One of the thing I didn’t get to go over in detail in class was the process and the lengths in which I went to to find fitting video clips to match my sound sample pieces.

Note: 95% of the video clips used did not retain any of their original material in terms of sound or were edited/transposed with other sounds!!!

(a perfect example of this is found at the 1:44-1:45 min mark in my video, in which you see an M40A3 sniper from CoD4 go off and seemingly hear the sound of a gunshot to go with it. This is in fact not at all the sound you are hearing (or a gunshot noise at all!), instead, I used a section of the recording of “Fearless” by Pink Floyd and added a reverb effect in Adobe Audition that makes it sound void and distorted to make the effect. (the same song is used at 0:58-1:01, and football chant section at 1:14 and 2:30 respectively)

Also, many video clips were edited to make it look like people/characters are speaking words in which my sound collage sample is saying, but they are just either examples of pure chance, like at the 1:17 mark, where it looks like you see The Hound from Game of Thrones singing “I’m Tickled Pink” by Jack Shaindlin. (He is actually singing....this.) Or they were intentional morphed into looking like they spoke the word, like the obvious one at the 1:20 mark.

I started my process by mingling together sounds and songs samples from various medias and in some cases spoken word. I then, completely separately, compiled a massive load of videos from various sources on the internet, and also recorded some videos myself, of myself, and from footage of video games recorded by myself. I then tried my best to fit my sound examples together to form separate “skits”, then I did the daunting task of editing the videos together in a way to make it look like it all fit together somewhat naturally!

Description (as seen on YouTube):

This is a project that I made for my sound art class! It combines themes we learned like plunderphonics, collage, acousmatics, and sound sampling to create something that is meant to be a revision of my past. I explore things that are important to me through: Internet culture + memes, video games, anime, TV, movies, music, and more! My main inspirations were glitch art, vaporwave, dirt style, and the core essence of what it is to be a sound sampler. I always ask myself: What is sound art? And to no avail, i get myriad of answers and descriptions. I created this piece to challenge the very question of what makes something "sound art" and what makes it just some plain old memified video found on the interwebs. This took me 3 days straight to create and I hope you'll enjoy!!

Samples: [Emboldened = Used for longest period(s)]

Sounds - From the beginning (some are used multiple times with varying degrees of effects/distortion/application)

CD Scratch sound effect (edited - later used unedited)

VHS Tape Hiss (used throughout VHS tape and distorted at beginning)

Voice Recording - “What is Sound Art?”

The Boredoms - Budokan Tape Try

dubbed.wav - (voice sample)

Footsteps recording - by me

Ambient noise of city recording - by me

Steven Connor: Photophonics - excerpt as text to speech

Lighter flick sound recording - by me

VHS Tape Insert sound

Static effect 2

Paper Rad - Welcome to my site

Hitting my TV recording - by me

Come on, what is this shit? recording - by me

Glitch effect(s) (I used about 7 of these, I will list the #’s used)

John Cage - Music of Changes

Me playing Violin in response to music of changes

VHS Static Noise

THX Sound

Glitch effect 1

Glitch effect 2

20th Century Fox Intro - Recorder Edition

Glitch effect 3

Glitch effect 4

Highly distorted pokemon noise

Error noise - subtle

Omae wa mou shindeiru (NANI?)

Chewbacca's Roar

Saya No Uta - Song of Saya I (Video Game/Visual Novel)

Sonic Youth - Green Light (barely heard underneath Song of Saya during seq.)

Junko Ohashi - Telephone Number (first awooo)

Windows computer error noise

Warren Zevon - Werewolves of London (second awoo)

My cat (Luna) meowing - recording by me

Pixar Animation Intro (used bounce sound)

“This Isn’t Sound Art!” - Voice recording of myself

Naruto - Sadness and Sorrow

WTF Am I Doing? - Text to speech (text to sing!)

“The thief was smart” from the YouTube Video, “Professor pwnage”

The Velvet Underground - All Tomorrow's Parties

Pink Floyd - Fearless (Highly reverberated/distorted during 0:58-1:01, and the sniper scene(1:44); I also used the football chants found near the end of the song at 1:14 and 2:30)

“What I am calling poetry is often called content” - Quote from R Murray Schafer - The Soundscape reading from class, Text to speech

Big Bill Hell’s (Fuck You Baltimore! excerpt)

Cheering crowd (stock sound)

Glitch effect 5

Korg-M1-Windbells MIDI sample file

Birds chirping (stock sound)

ORA ORA ORA - from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (Anime)

“Because life doesn’t happen...But i’m making sound and that’s the important thing” Quote from filthy frank video.

Glitch effect 6

Helicopter.wav (stock sound) (used during Monty Python: Upper Class Twit of The Year part) - This is worth a watch :D

Leeroy Jenkins - Popular Meme from the video game: World of Warcraft

Glitch effect 7

I’m Tickled Pink - Jack Shaindlin

Vinyl Crackling sound sample

Hey! Listen! - Navi from the video game: Zelda

Asuka saying “Ehh”- From the Anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Cpt. Beefheart - Veteran’s Day Poppy

Radiohead - Fitter Happier

Avengers: Age of Ultron dialogue + ambience

ELO - Mr. Blue Sky

“Too many F****** People” - Recording of myself

Beeping censor effect

ARA-ARA

Who the hell are you?

Frantically writing - sound recording by me

Guided By Voices - I am a Scientist

The Grateful Dead - St. Stephen (used underlapped w/ “I am a scientist part-distorted into chime like sounds, also used at 2:01 more clearly)

Porky Means Business - Track from the video game: Earthbound

Call of Duty 4 Intro sound effect

“Aw shit, here we go again” - (GTA: SA Meme)

Nintendo Gamecube startup noise

Super Mario Bros. Theme

Dropping coins - Recording by me

Led Zeppelin - Going to California

Clannad OST - Roaring Tides II (Anime song)

Robert Johnson - Hellhound on my trail (used at 1:58-9)

Steins;Gate Opening (Anime; Used glitch sound from beginning)

Truck backing up beeping sound

Ally Kerr - The Sore Feet Song (used at beginning of the Halo 2 sequence in juxtaposition of Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California”

George Carlin - Advertising and Bullshit (”I call this piece...Advertising”)

Guided By Voices - Wonder Boy Poet (briefly behind “The Sore Foot Song”)

Door Stuck! Door Stuck!!! (Used video as media and mic chatter as audio)

Yawning - recording of me

Powerful goku vs the pursuer

To Zanarkand - Final Fantasy X

Lelouch’s Checkmate (Dub)

Galaga sound effects

TV static sound effect

Nautical Almanac - sounds from clip (further distorted/warped)

Mac death chime

Windows (PC) crashing sound

USSR Anthem played on Nokia 3310 phone

ZUNpet Test (Touhou video game music emulator)

Popotan Intro (eroge) (source of Caramelldansen meme dance)

“Help me” - Voice recording by me (reversed)

Rain ambiance stock sound

“Aw Shit” - Voice recording by me

Toto - Africa

Shion Laughing Insanely (Anime: Higurashi [a personal favorite])

The Doors - How To Touch The Earth (I AM THE LIZARD KING!)

VHS eject noise

VHS getting destroyed video

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alouxtte-blog1 · 7 years

Text

COSETTE + HER WARDROBE.

Friendly reminder that in Cosette’s early teenage years, she had absolutely no sense of fashion:

On another occasion, she was passing along the street, and it seemed to her that some one behind her, whom she did not see, said: ‘A pretty woman! but badly dressed.’

And this is lent to the fact that Cosette had no mother to show her the way to ‘ properly dress ‘ herself ( “ A mother, for instance, would have told her that a young girl does not dress in damask, “ ) and Jean Valjean buys her anything that she just happens to like. Later, however, when she realizes she is beautiful her sense of fashion ‘ just comes to her ‘. Hugo, you tried. While this is pretty heartbreaking – the physical effect of her having no mother in the 1800s – I think the modern translation would be pretty interesting.

Her first phase begins at twelve and lasts until she is fourteen. It consists of baggy sweaters, pre-ripped jeans, sparkly headbands, plain knee length skirts, button ups, and tennis shoes she wore to the soles. This phase is a combination of Cosette’s lingering childhood ( flowery patterned button ups with peter pan collars, for instance ) and her attempt to hide her awkwardness in personality and physical appearance. Canonically, pre-teen Cosette is often described by others as ‘homely’, as she is growing into her eventual beauty. In a modern sense, Cosette would attempt to hide her insecurities about her appearance through her clean-cut – though boring – clothes.

Her second phase is around the ages of fifteen and sixteen. Cosette’s beauty has become a little more obvious ( she’s still got awkwardly brushed through curls and braces ) though she is completely oblivious to it. In this instance, her fashion sense becomes more experimental. she is surrounded by more diversity in school, but is unsure which trends to emulate. her fashion is possibly the most atrocious at this point, as she is prone to mixing and matching patterns, styles, colors ( jeans under skirts, a slew of pale pink, ties over t shirts ) in order to find what she likes. it was the earlier 2000s, use your imagination. she also began with makeup — her Catholic school did not allow it, but she managed to smuggle lip gloss, blue mascara, anything that amused her. at some point within this phase, Cosette managed to break away from trying blend into trying anything that seemed attractive to her. It’s a small victory, considering how low her self - esteem was at the time.

Her third, and current, phase is at seventeen to nineteen. At seventeen, Cosette fully came into her own and understood she was beautiful. At this point, she had decided to adopt a more serious form of fashion —- the color schemes she chose were dark blues, black, touches of pale yellow and pink, and white. Her clothes became more fitted as she could wear her shape more confidently; you’ll find her in well - fitted jeans, a jean jacket or pea coat, high waist / princess / blouse cut dresses as well as the occasional band sweatshirt, paint splattered jeans, mustard yellow socks —- a wonderful combination of the dignity and enhancement of her beauty as well as an expression of Cosette’s individuality. Her makeup also has expanded to eyeliner almost every day, lipstick most days, and foundation ( though she struggles with covering her freckles ) — however, she’s still learning. Her curls are also well maintained and no longer brushed ( though I am certain at some point in her life, she chops off her curls to donate as homage to her mother )

#to see the soul / headcanons !*#blood of the bohemian / character study !*#the science of dress / wardrobe !*#idk why the hell i decided to write this but its just interesting to me???#i think it lends to the fact that in fanon cosette is seen as basically this born perfect child who grows into a perfect teenager #which isn't true she grew and developed and made mistakes which is the beauty of her character #she was able to become someone so beautiful after having been marred by the effects of abuse and not having her mother #and one way that shows is through clothes #marius better ask for pictures because valjean has pictures of her neon green braces and purple pedal pushers #anyway no one is gonna read this unless ur as much a costume design junkie as i am

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