Used to make phantoms I could later chase
Images of all that could be desired
Then I got tired of counting all of these blessings
And then I just got tired

Magazine, “A Song from Under the Floorboards“

The beat goes on, whatever we’re doing; whether we’re striving or resting, attending fiercely or blocking it all out, the beat goes on. Work’s going steady—I’ve been asked to orchestrate the office Halloween party, which we haven’t done in years, for obvious reasons. I used to put it together with a partner-in-crime, but she was let go some time ago. I miss her badly because she was a creative force and an inspiration, but life is a sequence of discovering new things, learning to love them, and losing them systematically.

One of the prominent stories in my bloc is a new manga coming out, and no one will agree on the title: Chieri’s Love is 8 Meters (English translation) is what Google Translate will give you, as well as the anglicized nihongo on the cover, so let’s go with that. It’s about a high school teen whose childhood friend went away and came back after an abnormal growth spurt setting her at titanic proportions. She’s brash and flirtatious, and the protagonist is proud and self-conscious; hilarity ensues. Give a little love to Giantess Hug for setting up a cute little promo for the new book.

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I recently received notice (Hindustan Times) about an Instagram video, posted by the female lead of a new Bollywood movie, Phone Bhoot. Among people who know of such things, it’s notable that this is the first time that Katrina Kaif will team up with Ishaan Khatter and Siddhant Chaturvedi for this horror/comedy. I’m afraid I’m not familiar with them, but I can correct that (recently enjoyed the three-hour RRR that’s supposed to make Hollywood jealous).

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What am I up to? Pfft, nothing much. Failing to see the point in much of anything, and so withdrawing from banging my head against various implacable walls.

I will say, I’ve been plugging away at a graphic comic of sorts in Daz. I had an idea for a premise, and I staged a few shots, and I was inspired to run away with it and see where it would go. Right now it’s almost 140 images long, because I set up a scene and make renders of it from various angles. It’s exciting and interesting to me, but I have no plans to package it up and release it. It’s nothing more than something that amuses me and seems to be amusing me for a very long time. I’m just gonna see where it goes.

I am having fun with expressions and poses, and it’s a rigorous exercise in camera angles and settings and lighting. Maybe it’ll increase my skills with this stuff, or else I’ll get really good at bad habits.

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I’m still listening to the rest of the world, because there’s amazing stuff out there that you can only find by luck and determination.

• Zytokine, feat. Itori, “さまよう刃 (Wandering Blade)”
• Randy Watson Experience, “Be Still My Beating Heart”
• Singers & Players, “Snipers in the Streets”
• Los Huayra, “La Solís Pizarro”
• Klear, “ผีเสื้อที่หายไป (Lost Butterfly)”
• Thomas Dutronc, “Gypsy Rainbow”
• AR Rahman, Carolene, and Noel James, “Thee Thee”

I’m in the middle of a few books, too. I’m trying so hard to finish Howard’s End but the narrative style is several generations old and not as gripping as it must’ve been in the day. It’s struggling to depict a small aspect of the upper classes that have caught hold of notions of equity for the working class, disapproving of the opportunistic capitalists who divorce themselves from responsibility for their actions. It’s like, I get it. It’s 2022. We’re deeply entrenched in this shit too.

And I’m reading A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator’s Rise to Power. I haven’t read a long novel/documentary about North Korea in several years, so I’m wondering if it’s something I can get back into. I studied DPRK intensively for a couple years, then basically learned everything I needed to and dropped it as an interest. Now, when it comes up in the news, I have some context and a continuum to place it in, but that’s about as useful as it gets.

Also, a friend of mine runs a publishing house, and she sent me a rather sizable novel of humorous erotica, semi-autobiographical, printed in very small font. I’d like to get into it, but I just don’t have my reading muscles like I did 25 years ago. I also have less curiosity and tolerance for bullshit, or what I perceive to be bullshit, which substantially hampers a voracious reading habit.

I’m not writing anything. I have two commissions, two series I’m in the middle of, and I’ll get to those, but for myself I’m not writing anything, for fun. I’m past feeling bad about it, too, so it’s far in the distance. At times like this I used to wonder “well, what else am I supposed to do with my life?” and it seems it really doesn’t matter. If I write, if I work, if I support my family or fuck off and sleep in for days, none of it matters. Nothing great happens, and nothing really bad happens. I only feel a teeny-tiny bit guilty I’m not actively seeking something to amuse myself while I wait to die, but I’m also unmotivated to find that, and it really, really doesn’t matter whether I do.