I watched Markiplier's “Edge of Sleep” and it was...fine. Inoffensive would be my gut reaction, even if I kept waiting for it to get to the point. Mostly I appreciated that all 6 episodes had the combined runtime less than a Marvel movie.

Of course, now I'm hearing all the discourse. Most of which is folks gushing over how good it is. Not really for the sake of the show itself, it seems. Rather as a parasocial exercise in propelling a low budget indie creator up the ranks of the oft-forgotten Prime Video platform to get one over on the networks suits with all the gusto of a middle schooler flipping off a mailperson for clout.

Thats not to say the show is bad. Clearly it's no one's first production rodeo and merits some recognition. The actors fulfilled their roles to the point I was idly contemplating how the dialogue could have been retooled to make me care more about the characters. Scenes were competently shot and edited well enough that I spent an inordinate amount of time saying “I get it, what's next?”

While efficient with setting the stage for the viewer to be invested, the story gets stuck reiterating its premise “Don't go to sleep” while doing jazz hands compelling you to believe there's some thrilling, mind blowing explanation on the way.

Then each episode just sort of...ends. Sure, there's a teasing reveal that does build on previous tidbits to paint something of a compelling picture about where the story began but does little to guide where it's going next. Which is mostly nowhere.

Each episode becomes a flurry of emotional stick waving driven by characters acting like they are functionally moving the plot forward. Meaningful character connections and any hint of plot resolutions, however, are scarcely more than the slowly fermenting carrot I can only imagine was dug from the leftovers of LOST.

I can sympathize with the reality of ambitious projects like this being launched on monolythic platforms like Prime where nothing is gaurenteed. As a result, the show feels caught between wanting to be a multi-season epic of slowly unveiling plot hooks and memorable character moments; or a one-off mini series exploring a a primal fear through a trippy metaphysical conspiracy. As a result, the mystery is largely suffocated trying to get the viewer to care about characters whom we barely have time, or reason, to connect with as they ambitiously hustle to do the heroic act of avoiding sleep.

In the end, it's a sophomoric outing arguably punching above its weight for the low budget allotted, at least in its technical aspects. Most of the hype is really around Mark and much of the discussion bypasses criticism to support the indie millionaire artist achieve his dreams by leveraging his own not-insignifigant platform as a short cut to the #6 spot in less than 12 hours. With that said, I'll probably still watch whatever he launches next.

Mastodon: @kryptonite@astral.camp

Sweet smells of summer air Moonlight shadow grow long in the night A blanket of stillness wrapped tight Lingering memories come to bear

Lungs releasing a languishing sigh Figures past crossing a closed eye Transported, moment unbound Coveted feelings again found

Music and comradery Unspoken creeds Never relived again Save for paper and pen

A vocal experiment: https://soundcloud.com/kryptonite803/moonlight-memories

Mastodon: @kryptonite@astral.camp

A Ballad

A limerick?

Some Words

---

The hour grows late I contemplate I outta clean some plates

When I hear the fearful tune A drip, drip, drip Of a pipe that's lost it's grip

Peering undertow, curious It surely can't be serious

A loosened screw can be fixed Good as new! Oh, if only I knew What problem had brewed

A clog big as a log Soap and grease now seized Snaked, raked, awkwardly pleased

Here a broken joint needs solder What else could be the bother? Cullet with missing threads At least it's not made of lead Now I find a tattered gasket It all belongs in a battered casket!

Cussing, groaning in song Toolbox proning before long Wrench and hammer join my venture Bring out the torch for good measure

A sigh and wipe the sweat from my eye Last week's dinner: fried fish on rye

Resignation sets in A job I just can't win The hour is late And plates need scrubbed Reduced to this fate Scouring in the tub

Mastodon: @kryptonite@astral.camp

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Twisting my brain over...

The Pots and Pans Problem

It happens every time I move somewhere

Every. Time

The place feels so big and expensive, there must be room for all my stuff, and then some! That is, until I'm actually staring at the mountains of boxes in the space.

Especially kitchen stuff.

And through physical exhaustion moving piles of stuff and decision fatigue trying to think through the collosal Tetris puzzle that is 'Moving in', it always comes down to just shoving things into drawers and cabinets just to have it out of the way. “If I don't like it this way, I can just move it somewhere else later,” I always say. Famous last words (unless they're not? I suppose not, I've had plenty of words since then. Oh well.)

So life carries on. Weeks, months, even years of daily life pass by. And if you're anything like me, some things begin to irk you. Maybe it's an inconvenient cabinet to pull out some pans, or the pots don't quite fit the way you want, or general flow around the space is clumsy, whatever. It might be a good idea to reorganize.

Buuut, all the other kitchen implements already take up all the other spaces. Trying to optimize the space to improve quality of life would require a tremendous amount of time and effort, so everything continues to sit and be irksome.

The same could be true for other aspects of our lives. Maybe it's little behaviors we picked up to get through a hard time. Or dream projects that keep trying to spill out of the mental cabinet. It could be just daily junk from news and media making it really inconvenient to reach that pot of ambition or pan of relaxation.

All I know is I've got a lot of decluttering and organizing to work on. How's your kitchen faring?

Mastodon: @kryptonite@astral.camp

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Some off the rail thoughts about...

The Celebration of Bad

“Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink.” An oft repeated nugget of wisdom from my uncle, or maybe the internet. Who knows at this point. It pairs well with another classic expression, “Everyone's a critic.”

Criticism isn't entirely a new idea, though some casual googling suggests the term and practice came about sometime in the 17th century, which coincides with the rise of printed works rising in popularity that were not the Bible. As a result, it became a newspaper feature to inform folks of a newly available title and maybe some thoughts if it's worth the investment. Today we refer to it as “Journalistic Criticism”.

It wasn't too long before literary enthusiasts began publishing more pointed opinions, seeking to raise or destroy the profile of local authors they deemed worthy. Fast forward a couple centuries and it was easy to slot those fancy new talking pictures into the same format. A lot of coverage focused simply on the release of a new title and a few impressions. But a new generation of nerds came about becoming the latest taste makers of cinema.

Fundamentally, these critics certainly had a deep love of their chosen media. At the end of the day, however, they were always concerned with what is “Good”, by whatever arbitrary metrics and standards they devised.

Enter Mystery Science Theatre 3000, brain child of Joel Hodgson. Inspired by the likes of “The Golden Turkey Awards”, which nominated and awarded the worst movies, MST3K took to commentating and joking over old B-tier films. The kind of parody may be older, but it was the first time I was made aware that just because something is maybe “Not Good” does not mean it has no value. Even if the only value might be poking fun at it.

Speeding through history again, we see the rapid explosion of video games hitting worldwide markets. And again, a cottage industry of reviewers informed the public of what was worth a substantial price tag. The best were put on pedestals while the rest were tossed to the gutters of history. At least, until the internet popped up.

Much nostalgia was waxed for arcades and past generations of home consoles. Aggravations were shared for money wasted on bad rentals or squandered gift opportunities with regrettable titles. Until comedy found its way round again to make light of bad video games with the likes of James Rolph his creation: The Angry Video Game Nerd (formerly The Angry Nintendo Nerd).

This video series took early video sites by storm. A novel mix of nostalgia exploration and foul mouthed lamentations infected my adolescent mind as I watched them on repeat alternating between nodding in agreement and howling with laughter. It was such a wildly successful format, many speculate it single handedly paved the way for most (if not all) video game content on YouTube. Personally, nearly everything I consumed on YouTube from the late oughts through the mid 10's got their start doing largely the same thing: find an off beat “bad” game, poke fun at it, add a review spin to it, maybe even validate some elements of it.

Thankfully, there's been evolutions in content creation. Not everything needs to be presented with an over the top aire of vitriol. Many creators now make deep dive documentaries on technology and specific titles. Others simply take an honest look at a game and comment on what works and what makes it a worthwhile visit today. And still others just show off playing them for the simple joy of playing.

And that's a beautiful thing. Taking movies or games that may have been lambasted or pushed aside when it came out and giving it a sort of second chance. Not necessarily to defend a specific title, but for the pure love of a medium and just wanting to celebrate all of it, good or bad.

(Disclaimer: These rambling thoughts were at one time part of a larger piece taking up space in the cluttered attic of my mind. Maybe someday I'll come back to this and rework it into a more polished full piece.)

Mastodon: @kryptonite@astral.camp

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A casual ramble about...

Frivolity

To know me is to know that “being in a bit of a slump” is effectively my natural state of being. I have discussed many times, at exhaustive length, my general malaise toward life; a certain hopelessness about my position. I struggle most every day with finding joy in anything I do. Even the things I tell myself I would love to spend my dwindling free time with have a habit of twisting into acts of despair. In response, on these numerous occasions, my partner has brought up a classic thought experiment:

“If money were no object, what is it you would want to do?”

That's usually where the conversation ends. I have never had a good answer. Maybe I do now. Although, it's not a satisfying one.

I want to fail.

Given the premise, presumably I would be free to pursue anything my heart desires. And while that framing is most often used to break one's preconceived notions of “success” or “what is a proper way of life”, inherent is also the privilege to just try things.

Perhaps that's what I want most. The luxury to throw precious time and expense at a smattering of projects just to see if I like them, if I find them fulfilling, if I can derive a sense of meaning from the experience.

For so long I have found myself in a life that has been dangling by the proverbial thread. There has been little room for errors in expending energy, time and money on frivolous projects that do not actively contribute to the household. It sounds like Nirvana to be given the chance to resurrect the buried forgotten box of dead dreams just to find out they are a poor fit for me; to explore the breadth of long held interests to discover I will never attain mastery of those skills; and to perhaps reclaim a locked away sense of humanity with the glee of a fool who proudly recognizes they know nothing, chases curiosity with reckless abandon, and fails at everything except enlightening their sprit.

What would you do?

Mastodon: @kryptonite@astral.camp

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Mulling over...

Definitions

I spend a lot of mental bandwidth, both alone or in conversation, considering definitions. For whatever series of afflictions my brain has, I am constantly trying to find the most appropriate word or clarifying definitions in a hopeless effort to communicate as clearly as possible. Which brings us to today's deliberation: genders.

To be clear, if you tell me how you identify, I don't have a problem accepting that. But as political discourse is determined to keep this some kind of smoldering volcano of debate, I have been attempting to think through some kind of airtight argument, should the need arise to educate the ignorant in my life. As it so happens, I found a post on the clock app also working through the same thing. It wasn't the cleanest argument, despite offering some inspiration for how to approach the situation, though frankly the content is a bit beside the point on this one.

It was the comments.

The comments were...I would call them 'oof', but at this point they were exactly as you would expect them to be. Specifically, one exchange really stuck out:

A: Don't y'all get any dictionaries anymore? B: We do, even updated ones. You should try reading it sometime C: Look up the definition of 'woman', you'll see it's backed by science D: It's defined as “one who identifies with the female gender E: Forget that, I'm going back to the OLD definition

It finally dawned on me that definitions DON'T MATTER.

At the end of the day, both sides are arguing about their feelings and beliefs, desperately grasping for something we consider “objective” as the yard stick to measure the world by and proudly proclaim “By this measure, I am right.” Words, language, definitions, none of it is set in stone, despite centuries of schooling trying to convince us otherwise. However, there's something more fundamental about words, language, and definitions we tend to overlook.

They are just tools.

Tools to uplift, tools to divide, tools to group, tools to examine, tools to destroy. Language is largely a sloppy, thrown together system of sounds and symbols in an attempt to convey our interior worlds to the outside world.

And so I wonder what the interior worlds of other people are like. To the naysayers, the the angry ones who put down others, is this all life is to them? What makes them so determined to argue until blue in the face about the meaning of a word or how someone identifies? Fear? Anger? A walled garden they have never seen over the hedges of?

What kind of compassion does it take for everyone to realize we're all flung into the cosmos on this silly little blue marble together? Probably more than some silly words lost in a silly place, but things have started from stranger places.

Mastodon: @kryptonite@astral.camp

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Some rushed thoughts on...

Making Arguments

As people, we are prone to many fallacies all over the place. One of which is putting logic above all else.

We tell ourselves “If I just think through the problem enough, I can seal every foreseeable hole and 'win'the argument.”

That's highly unlikely, for two notable reasons:

1) While good at forming arguments, we do not possess the omnipotence to really see every conceivable aspect of an issue at once. The world is huge and complicated and chock-full of grey areas to work around.

2) People are NOT creatures of pure logic. We are emotional animals, which means we can bear the most amazing, well thought out, air tight argument the world has ever known, and STILL reject it just because of feelings.

Given these realities, it might add some perspective as to why it's a Herculean task to change someone's mind. And I fear the only advice I can offer is to try to appeal to all parts of a person. Connect on their level, as best as possible, to see what feelings fuel some of their beliefs, and maybe address them if you can.

Mastodon: @kryptonite@astral.camp

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An examination of...

Telling Our Own Stories

Most everyone in my circle of engagement have felt, at one point or another, like everything wrong in the world is because of themselves

I'm certainly not exception. I've spent large swaths of my life in that mode. Perhaps there's a reason. And no, it's not because I was right.

The world is large. Like, incomprehensibly large. No matter how much we quantify it, we are physically incapable of taking it all in. Just imagine a highschool gym full of people. You could count them easy enough. But now imagine knowing the entire movie length film of a story that is every single person's life. Keeping up with Marvel films was hard enough, there's no way I'm keeping up with a thousand stories, or even a few hundred.

And then consider there's (approximately) 8 billion people

Read that again.

You can digest the word 'billion' easy enough. You can write out enough 0's in a couple seconds to represent it. But truly experiencing a Billion is a tremendous feat.

Cool, what's that matter?

Well, that many people is a single facet to the absolute chaos that is our reality. Hundreds, thousands, or billions of billions of interactions and reactions causing the world we see it as it is now, and driving it forward. Yet, our minds have another interesting quirk.

Story telling.

For whatever reason, our minds are inescapably geared to telling stories. Your life is a story, casting yourself as the main character. And if you think back on your favorite, most impactful stories, there's bound to be at least one thing they have in common: actions of agency lead to consequential outcomes.

Whether that's a villain hero making a choice to be evil and causing a hero to rise, or the protagonist deciding to help or abandon a friend, it all boils down to this deeply ingrained concept that characters have agency on the world around them.

Western culture has played a big hand in driving this concept deeper into our psyche. Narratives like “You reap what you sow” bely the nature of our existence; suggesting one that is purely built by one's own actions.

So we tell ourselves stories in which everything revolves around our own decisions. And then we find ourselves in deeply uncomfortable, painful, or traumatizing situations. And our culture is quick to victim blame. So we “logically” run through all the available options we have for ourselves. Maybe we even run through trying most of them to no avail. Given the framework of our life, we are left to a singular, undeniable fact: if I cannot act my way out of this struggle, then I, as a person in their entirety, must be the problem.

If you've read this far, perhaps I don't need to tell you, it's not true. And very likely, you can acknowledge that truth on a cognitive level. But not emotionally. We can't rationalize and argue with that part of our brain. We need to comfort and nurture that part like an emotional child. And part of that starts with gently reminding yourself the narrative you have been raised in is wrong.

It's time to start rewriting our stories.

Mastodon: @kryptonite@astral.camp

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On the matter of...

Blog Names

Names are a funny thing. Knowing one commands a tremendous power over a thing, yet are easily forgotten like yesterday's lunch. They can be an incantation, magically summoning a person to your presence; or a psychological spell to trigger thoughts, memories and associations in someone else's mind. Their power can be used, twisted and manipulated into something a bit more sinister: a brand.

Everything and everyone seems to be reduced to a brand these days. And the cornerstone of any noteworthy brand is, of course, a name. Something catchy, something memorable. It needs to roll off the tongue and give some sense of what the brand is even about.

All of which brings us to the matter of this blog. I don't even know for sure what I will do with it. I do know I have thoughts that, to put it lightly, bore the snot out of most people. Maybe it's a pointless level of nuance on a subject or treading the same tired pontification. So what better than to stick those thoughts into the galactic dumpster of cyber space known as the Internet.

And for a name? I'm sure I could spin my cognitive tires for weeks thinking of the “perfect” summation of intended direction, but fuck it.

Overthinkification.

I'm sure it has elements I'm looking for. Maybe you can tell me what it means to you. In the meantime, welcome to my broken brain.

Mastodon: @kryptonite@astral.camp