Archive for the 'Thoughts' Category

Hypocrites

Written on August 30, 2010. 9 Comments

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

(Matthew 6:5-6)

I think a lot of Christians would do well to remember this one. When they encounter yet another idiot claiming that “our God is greater” (i.e. we are better than other people) or go to a church that cost more money to build than some people earn in their whole lives, they should remember what the person they believe is the Son of God actually said. Truly following Christ is not about making a big fuss about your faith or the might of your God; it’s about living by Christ’s principles. It’s about turning the other cheek, loving your enemies, and showing mercy when others wouldn’t. It’s about giving to the poor, and not turning away those that society has cast out. It’s not about fetishizing death by crucifixion, either; it’s about loving life and the living, and being prepared to sacrifice everything in the name of love.

If you’re not willing to do that, you better STFU about “your” God.

That the Jews assumed a right Exclusively to the benefits of God. will be a lasting witness against them. & the same will it be against Christians

- William Blake

Games are Art: The Romeo and Juliet Argument

Written on August 24, 2010. 4 Comments

A short video-type-thing about one of arguments that always get repeated when the “Are games art?” debate pops up again. I mainly did this to get it out of my head.

And now for the end of the fucking world…

Written on August 21, 2010. 3 Comments

Last night I had a creepy dream about an asteroid hitting the Earth and generating a huge wave (or several, actually, in the dream). The dream wasn’t particularly realistic – my parents and Verena and I survived the second wave in a submerged car – but it certainly was frightening. Seeing that wave approaching the beach of Nikiti was a truly eerie feeling.

Then, in the morning, Verena told me she had dreamt nearly the same thing. In her dream we were in Frankfurt, and the details were all different… but she also dreamt about asteroid impact and a giant wave.

How creepy is that?

The Truth Matters

Written on August 18, 2010. 0 Comments

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” – Thomas Jefferson

Believe

Written on August 12, 2010. 3 Comments

The whole tooth disaster has kind of thrown everything into confusion here, and we’re still trying to catch up. So many boring things need to be done: the flat needs to be cleaned, paperwork taken care of, that sort of thing. And we also have to work on creative or at least creativity-related issues: sending Verena’s novel out to agents, and finishing my own novel. (And a couple of other things I’m working on, that I’ll say more about later.)

It’s all kind of shitty right now, though. The weather is incredibly depressing; three weeks of sunshine just aren’t enough, and no matter how much I try to ignore it, I feel this underlying sense of heaviness, of being in the wrong place. Verena feels much the same. The money situation could also be better, and I fear looking for yet another mind-numbing job will soon be a priority. I don’t mind working, and working hard (we did 36-hour days in the theatre and never complained), but I wish I could do something I’m actually good at.

I haven’t lost faith. Watching Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story (a documentary about Eddie Izzard’s life) reminded me just how many times the people I admire fell on their faces before they got the chance to do what they wanted, and that no matter how many people tell you that you’re mad, that doesn’t mean they’re right.

But man, we’ve been working at this for a long time, and the dark days sure are dark…

Well, fuck that. Back to work.

Beat Him With His Own Schtick

Written on July 7, 2010. 0 Comments

If there is one thing I hate in art, it’s repetition. It’s fine to have connections between works, or to have works that are part of a greater whole, but I have an absolute horror of repeating myself. And, to be honest, I tend to look with disfavour upon artists who keep writing the same book or making the same movie. (Tim Burton is a good example of the latter; an artist whose complacency has made him a prisoner of his own abilities.)

I like to think that it’s possible to see this belief in variety reflected in my work. My games may share themes, but there’s a vast distance between The Museum of Broken Memories and Desert Bridge, or either of those and Phenomenon 32, and even vaster distances between those and the novel I’m writing. Hell, there’s vast distances between every single chapter of the novel.

But then there’s stuff that is quite similar, and that’s something that’s beginning to worry me a little. Not because I think I’m doing something wrong, or because I worry that people will think badly of me, but because I do believe in trying to represent certain artistic principles. I don’t want to start giving the impression that I’m that guy who does everything in black and white and puts Blake quotations, visual or textual, everywhere. I would really hate people to come at my work from that angle. (That was one major reason for choosing to write Desert Bridge after The Museum of Broken Memories.)

I do have reasons for telling these stories in the way that I’m telling them. The Urthona Revolution is not really just a pastiche of Blakean images – in fact, I’m hoping that as it goes on, people will see that its central motif is not related to Blake at all. The Great Machine: A Nightmare is perhaps the work you will find the most familiar, but that’s because it belongs quite firmly in my web of stories about Urizen. But it’s also likely to be the last story of that kind for a while. There will someday be a story called Urizen, but I’m not ready to write that one yet.

It’s quite frustrating not to be able to share more of my work, some of which is wildly different (I’m quite certain there was not a single reference to Blake in The Lord of the Thingies). Ah well, most of it is my own fault – I just need to finish it and get it published. Hah.

Is there a point to all this? Mostly I want to reassure you that I’m not falling into a rut. I don’t think black and white equals art, or that every damn story has to be about war. There will always be some central themes to my work, but I’m not trying to find a niché, or trying to establish a style. I still believe that every work of art requires its own approach and has its own spirit, and any artist who does not keep this in mind will end up either crassly commercial or pathetically pretentious. There you go, I ended on an alliteration.

Art Without Teeth

Written on July 1, 2010. 10 Comments

One of the biggest problems art is facing today is the definition of art in people’s minds. Too many people have been misled into believing that truly good art must consist of ambiguous abstractions that are somehow “timeless” – that art must be exclusively introspective, lacking context, and dedicated solely to celebrating the inability to come to any kind of conclusion. Good films are those that “apolitical” (i.e. lacking courage), whereas any film that attempts to find or portray truth is “message-heavy” and more propaganda than art.

Truth, after all, has been declared to be relative, at least when it’s convenient, and not the business of the artist. Good art, we are told, pretends that people exist in a vacuum and the world doesn’t change; or if the world changes, it does so in ways that are beyond our ability to comprehend. (Perhaps we should leave it to our leaders? They may do bad things, but really they’re just people with daddy issues, and a government of the people by the people for the people will be the same as a plutocracy, because all people are the same, driven by Human Nature. Right?)

That’s the going definition of art: self-important, intentionally myopic bullshit pumped out by cowards and apologizers who justify their lack of vision as belief in “the small things” and their lack of courage as “not wanting to preach.” But it’s not a coincidence that theatre evolved from religious rites; art is about the truth, and always has been: about seeking it, about finding it, about questioning it. It’s about humanity, about God, about the nature of the universe and the nature of society. It’s about justice, and truth, and love; fuck that, it’s about Justice and Truth and Love.

Art is about the fire, not about rearranging the motherfucking matches.

Climate change!

Written on June 21, 2010. 1 Comment

If the climate change deniers are right, why is it the middle of June and I’ve just turned on the heating?

I know Germany’s a cold country, but give me a break…

Anyone who thinks this is normal can only be classified as a lunatic. This is one position where it’s not a matter of opinion or perspective.

Organize

Written on June 12, 2010. 2 Comments

This is part of an email I got the other day:

Down here in Australia our government has kindly brought in laws that make all union activity in the construction sector illegal, unless it’s expressly related to legally sanctioned Enterprise Bargaining Agreement negotiations. The Australian Building and Construction Commission was set up to enforce these laws (technically it’s supposed to enforce all industry laws, but employers are effectively never called up on safety violations and under-paying workers). The ABCC also has its own quasi-police force, which can require any worker at, or any person who was a bystander near, a construction site to come before a secret interrogation. If they don’t show up, answer any and all questions, or if they divulge to outsiders anything that took place during the interrogation, they can spend six months in gaol. More info here:

http://organisesa.blogspot.com/2010/04/leaflet-against-abcc.html (if you look around the site you’ll see the Greece solidarity poster we put up around town as well)

http://arkstribe.blogspot.com/

So long story short, next Tuesday is the trial of the first worker being prosecuted for not cooperating. A whole lot of unions and radical lefties are holding a protest to support him for the length of the trial. [...] If you could spread the word around about what’s going on here, that would be muchly appreciated too.

So I thought I would do just that, because it’s an important issue. As the financial situation becomes more and more extreme, and everyone realizes that there’s no going back to how things were before, the powers that be are doing their best to make it illegal for anyone to stand against their austerity measures and destruction of workers’ rights. It’s important to fight these developments and to raise consciousness about what’s going on, so if you’re in the vicinity, please consider giving these people a hand.

I read in the newspaper / They questioned all my friends

Written on June 3, 2010. 0 Comments

On days like today, when the sun is finally out in this cold and miserable country, it is hard to believe it shines down on a planet so close to the abyss. A planet where resources are running out, governments are becoming increasingly criminal, and corporations are making our decisions and destroying the environment.

Sometimes I despair. I lose faith. I think there’s nothing we can do.

Then I remember The Nightwatchman.

“Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.” – Malcolm X