Passing the graves of the unknown

Tall Heights \ Rafters \ Rafters The last few months have sort...

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:16:46 +1000

Tall Heights \ Rafters \ Rafters

The last few months have sort of been an endless parade of inspiring cellists in contemporary music. (Also work, which has been challenging and encouraging and stimulating, but I want to talk about cello, dammit)

Between Green or Blue, Pearl and the Beard, a few key Joe Day songs, Tall Heights (see above, because wow), The Ballroom Thieves, and what must be 9/10 leitmotifs on Game of Thrones (cheers, Ramin Djawadi!), I’ve got a lot of inspiration to draw from in terms of using cello in a band context. Add classical to that (of course), and all I need to do is get my intonation up to scratch and buy some looping equipment, and we’re good to go!

Should only take the rest of the year or so. Just gotta find the time and energy to practise at home first. Not a small first hill to surmount.

Citizens \ Citizens \ Praise to the Lord We’re...

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:45:00 +1000

Citizens \ Citizens \ Praise to the Lord

We’re reintroducing “Praise to the Lord” this week at church with an arrangement heavily inspired by this one here by Citizens, from Mars Hill.

It’s a great hymn - you can sort of think of it as a “Blessed Be Your Name” that’s less immediately accessible, but contains more detailed reflections on different aspects of the same core idea: praising God in all circumstances.

Thought I’d leave the lyrics (English and German) and the psalm they’re based on here: easy access for future reflection.

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near; [alternatively: brothers and sisters]
Join me in glad adoration

Praise to the Lord, who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires ever have been [alternatively: how all thy longings have been]
Granted in what He ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord, who hath fearfully, wondrously, made thee;
Health hath vouchsafed and, when heedlessly falling, hath stayed thee.
What need or grief ever hath failed of relief?
Wings of His mercy did shade thee.

Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.

Praise to the Lord, who, when tempests their warfare are waging,
Who, when the elements madly around thee are raging,
Biddeth them cease, turneth their fury to peace,
Whirlwinds and waters assuaging.

Praise to the Lord, who, when darkness of sin is abounding,
Who, when the godless do triumph, all virtue confounding,
Sheddeth His light, chaseth the horrors of night,
Saints with His mercy surrounding.

Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him.
Let the Amen sound from His people again,
Gladly forever adore Him.

Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren;
Lob ihn, o Seele, vereint mit den himmlischen Chören.
Kommet zuhauf,
Psalter und Harfe, wacht auf,
Lasset den Lobgesang hören.

Lobe den Herren, der alles so herrlich regieret,
Der dich auf Adelers Fittichen sicher geführet,
Der dich erhält,
Wie es dir selber gefällt.
Hast du nicht dieses verspüret?

Lobe den Herren, der künstlich und fein dich bereitet,
Der dir Gesundheit verliehen, dich freundlich geleitet.
In wieviel Not
Hat nicht der gnädige Gott
Über dir Flügel gebreitet.

Lobe den Herren, was in mir ist, lobe den Namen.
Lob ihn mit allen, die seine Verheißung bekamen.
Er ist dein Licht,
Seele, vergiß es ja nicht.
Lob ihn in Ewigkeit. Amen.

Psalm 103

1 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and all that is within me,
    bless his holy name!
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits,
3 who forgives all your iniquity,
    who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit,
    who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5 who satisfies you with good
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
6 The Lord works righteousness
    and justice for all who are oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses,
    his acts to the people of Israel.
8 The Lord is merciful and gracious,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9 He will not always chide,
    nor will he keep his anger for ever.
10 He does not deal with us according to our sins,
    nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
    so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
13 As a father shows compassion to his children,
    so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
14 For he knows our frame;
    he remembers that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are like grass;
    he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
    and its place knows it no more.
17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
    and his righteousness to children’s children,
18 to those who keep his covenant
    and remember to do his commandments.
19 The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,
    and his kingdom rules over all.
20 Bless the Lord, O you his angels,
    you mighty ones who do his word,
    obeying the voice of his word!
21 Bless the Lord, all his hosts,
    his ministers, who do his will!
22 Bless the Lord, all his works,
    in all places of his dominion.
   Bless the Lord, O my soul!

On Bioshock: Infinite and its treatment of Christianity

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 01:26:00 +1000

Spoilers for the first ten minutes of Bioshock: Infinite in the first part of this article, I guess? If you’d call those spoilers?

A few months ago, I decided to skip Bioshock: Infinite, despite the fact that it was basically guaranteed to be a great game. My reasoning: (a) very little time for gaming as a first-year grad physio, (b) horror tropes tend to absolutely wreck me, and (c) I’d heard that the game prominently featured a fictional Christian cult.

I’d rank (c) as the least significant of those reasons, but I figured that given the current social climate (I’m sure there’s a better phrase for that), I’d be subjected to some degree of the usual rah rah Christianity is terrible rhetoric, and frankly, I prefer to enjoy my games.

That said, when Kotaku linked to a video in which the game’s major points are condensed into three and a half hours (I guess that’s more “condensed”, huh?), I couldn’t resist taking a look at the story everybody was raving about.

And I was pleasantly surprised, for the most part! A very early scene in the game refers to a baptism by prophet (Comstock, game’s antagonist), city, and Lord. Any Christian should recognise that as a huge blasphemy: a rewriting of the Trinity. In a similar vein, a character who is definitely not Jesus is consistently referred to as “The Lamb” by this same cult leader. And so on.

I figure this makes for an exceptional piece of worldbuilding, and is a great way to show that this prophet teaches a super-weirdo offshoot cult of Christianity. Seeing all this twisted doctrine made me uncomfortable, sure, but at no point does the game pretend that Comstock’s religion is anything similar to real-world Christianity.

While these points might be lost on players who aren’t Christian - I could see plenty of people agreeing with Comstock’s assertion that a god who could flood the world must be a cruel god - it’s certainly not the game’s responsibility to put up huge disclaimers everywhere and pinpoint all of the ways in which the cult is heretical.

All of this praise notwithstanding, one point near the very end of the game was disappointing.

MAJOR ENDING SPOILERS ahead.

I got the impression from the ending that in universes where DeWitt becomes a Christian, he always becomes Comstock. I know that DeWitt is a damaged man not meant to be representative of all people, and that the game does technically allow wiggle room to say that not all Christian Booker DeWitts must become megalomaniacal cult leaders, but the twist, as it was presented, skims over all of this. It just goes to reinforce the tiresome “all Christians are irrational crazies” rhetoric that’s so prevalent as of late.

(That said, I wasn’t a big fan of this twist in the first place. It does recontextualise big swaths of the game in interesting ways, but in most other ways, it fell flat for me. I was impressed, though, with how the game used the other big twist - Elizabeth’s identity - to distract us from this one.)

I dunno - maybe this impression’s just the result of the game’s choice not to flesh out the path from DeWitt to Comstock. That much last-minute exposition (the game already has so much!) would definitely have bogged down the ending.

Nonetheless, I think the game handles this topic pretty well, given that so much of the setting is based in this Cult-of-Comstock. It’s certainly a much more sensitive treatment of the topic that I would’ve expected from an atheist lead writer - Levine should be applauded for his work.

Infinite is in many ways a role model for making cults out of real-world religions without using them as straw men with which to point accusatory fingers at religious gamers. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing more of the same.

bfleuter: FULL PAGE HERE In which there is nothing out of the...

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 23:51:12 +1100

bfleuter:

FULL PAGE HERE

In which there is nothing out of the ordinary here.

Also Derelict is now two years old!

Read and reread and reread Derelict because it is awesome.
Go to (mostly) dark church building to practise piano.
Have this panel as a paranoid niggle in the back of your mind all night. (If you don’t get it, take a closer look…)

So coooooool.

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 23:41:05 +1100

So coooooool.

ryannorth: jennipoos: This cabinet was created by architect...

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 23:23:05 +1100

ryannorth:

jennipoos:

This cabinet was created by architect Ferruccio Laviani to look like a wavy digital glitch!

via Colossal

whaaaaaat

Did some reading on Goya’s Black Paintings today, after...

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:49:56 +1100

Did some reading on Goya’s Black Paintings today, after being directed there by Ben Fleuter’s comic, Derelict. (It’s a long story. Incidentally, the comic is excellent!) Consider me thoroughly disturbed. Especially by the most famous of the paintings.

(via io9) Amazing.

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 22:36:18 +1100

(via io9)

Amazing.

(found on Tor.com) This is amazing.

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 20:04:59 +1100

(found on Tor.com)

This is amazing.

Orientation yesterday. Useful skill: listening and drawing at...

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 19:10:52 +1100

Orientation yesterday. Useful skill: listening and drawing at the same time.

Also: yay hands! Yay (very limited) foreshortening! Nay positions of forearm muscles in supination and pronation!

(Johnny Wander: Ananth only got socks for Christmas) the...

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 23:25:26 +1100

(Johnny Wander: A nanth only got socks for Christmas)

the greatest joke possible has been made, the competition is over

Slow day at work. Also, foreshortening is HARD

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 00:41:42 +1100

Slow day at work. Also, foreshortening is HARD

bioware bioware bioware bioware Didn’t do a sketch before...

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:00:32 +1100

bioware bioware bioware bioware

Didn’t do a sketch before having a go at Hawke. Don’t know why. (I hesitate to say I went directly to inking, since my left hand is currently glued to Ctrl+Z.) Turned out pretty well, but I’m still leaning really heavily on reference.

(at least Shepard looks human this time)

I think these might be the last heavily-referenced heads I do. Gotta do some more drawing from imagination, get back to working on varying faces. Might take a break from flatting as well: it’s satisfying, but now that I’ve figured out how to use BPelt properly, I’m not learning anything by doing it! At least, not until I start figuring out how to shade, cell- or otherwise.

Sketchdump for the past few months. I’m starting to feel a...

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 18:27:41 +1100

Sketchdump for the past few months. I’m starting to feel a bit more confident drawing from reference (most of this page uses posemaniacs.com), but I’m still leaning heavily on said reference for proportions, especially leg length, and the relative sizes of the head and ribcage. Just starting to make baby steps with foreshortening, too. A few more months of this and maybe I can start foreshortening hands! (or maybe not)

Continuing to figure out Photoshop and The Tablet. I finally...

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:00:36 +1100

Continuing to figure out Photoshop and The Tablet. I finally used BPelt Multifill and Flatten for the first time today: they are amazing.

I’m using my Shepards here to practise (very small) vertical angles of the head. Also did some drawing guidelines and tracing over screenshots before doing these freehand, to get a better idea of how to produce closer likenesses. In both aspects, one was more successful than the other, but progress is progress.

One of my Shepards has a much more tragic arc than the other - no prizes for guessing which - but I think it makes him and his story more compelling. It’s my favourite part of replaying these games: knowing all the events and options, you can plan out a more coherent arc that arises from your character’s (somewhat retroactive, I know) motivations.

internerd: Fireworks In Reverse [NYE 2012 Melbourne] (by...

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 01:09:07 +1100

internerd:

Fireworks In Reverse [NYE 2012 Melbourne] (by jcltay)

(via io9)

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 20:31:31 +1100

(via io9)

Making a start on that transition from GIMP to Photoshop. My...

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 02:48:00 +1100

Making a start on that transition from GIMP to Photoshop. My brother and some mates got me a Monoprice tablet for Christmas: thought I’d start familiarising myself with it by doing a test ink/flat.

On un-SMART goals

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 02:44:00 +1100

One month left before work starts. I basically spent the December sleeping and replaying Dragon Age II, but in the interest of not wasting my last holiday, here’s a to-do list for January:

Start reading regularly again: daily Bible readings, at least thrice-weekly other Christian books, fiction at least once a week
Revise all of the musculoskeletal physiotherapy units learned at uni
Put together basic Cantonese vocab list (commands, body parts, activities of daily living, common health problems)
Figure out if I can swim or run for aerobic exercise without triggering headaches, else try cycling. Start a thrice-weekly morning routine by last week of January
Start new routine for practising music: 2-3 days per week each for piano and cello
Start drawing regularly again (at least four days per week), work on varied faces, angles, bodies, poses
Transition properly from GIMP to Photoshop: familiarise self with tools, learn shortcuts
Start learning to paint digitally, from reference to begin with
Start learning to cook, keep learning to bake
Game no more than 2 hours per day
Put together new budget/expenses spreadsheet
Get phone repaired
New phone plan
New bank account
Stop spending so much bloody money

Trying to fit all these routines around work is going to be … interesting. Something’s probably going to have to give, but I’ll burn that bridge and salt the bodies when we come to it.

(via io9) Watching this is so relaaaxing.

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 19:21:42 +1100

(via io9)

Watching this is so relaaaxing.