Tautology

There isn't a lot to be said about a lot of things.

Whether or not that string of words is a cliche, or the idea conveyed through it is a cliche, saying it feels somewhat cliche. This is not to say that I am bothered by such a thing, because I'm not; repeating what others have said is impossible to avoid. Take that however you will, but unless you're making words up, you're not saying anything new. But then again, what am I really saying? Am I actually saying that to describe or analyze a happening or event, or to describe one's analysis of that same thing, is to fall short and misrepresent what you are in fact comfortable enough to talk about?

Or perhaps I am saying that there aren't enough words to properly articulate the very things anyone and everyone speaks of? Does the dictionary not contain enough to correctly put down on paper? Are it's pages scrunched too tightly with no room for an appropriate amount of vocabulary? I don't think in such a way. But even if this were so, the mental capacity of the average individual would be incapable of containing every single word. I digress, but I continue.

The way I see knowledge in respect to the human mind, or maybe it is the other way around, the human mind in regards to knowledge, is that even if the brain had the psychological competence to store every single piece of information available to us, as a way to quantify information, let's say current knowledge in the field of astrology, a human's mind would never allow itself to retain everything. The brain has a mind of it's own, and to knowingly attempt to fill it with 100% of the knowledge available to you would go against its very nature; it isn't meant to be filled, it is mean to be expanded. One is not meant to know everything, and one will never know everything, not even in one field of study. The brain knows, and this is how I feel. Wow. My point is: even if the dictionary was considerably thinner that it is now, no one would be able to recall all words at all times. Even Shakespeare, the man responsible for so many of the words we use today, wouldn't be able to memorize a 500 page dictionary. That sentence is redundant: the fact that we use so many of the words created from Shakespeare's mind suggests my very point. It is not as if Shakespeare was completely restrained by the available selection of vocabulary, and instead of just finding words already in existent, he would just make them up on the go. The English language is extensive, and if you were ever to "run out of words," borrow from another language. But this isn't really what I'm thinking about.

Maybe instead what I mean is that there isn't a lot to talk about at all; that everything is far too similar to truly differentiate between everything else. But that would be ridiculous. What it may be is that every piece of the aggregate of human perception, which is easily differentiable from the other allotments, isn't even worth discussing. It is all either too boring or too mundane for anyone to say anything.

Maybe no one wants to say anything. That doesn't seem too farfetched. The world is a stupid place, the world is a lazy place, and the world can be a scary place to have your voice heard, even if it is only to be heard by yourself.

But maybe what I'm saying is merely a fallacy. That there truly is much beauty in the world in both noun and adjective, in the things we both do and see, and the way we speak and sing could spread a whole new blanket of stars over the landscape, all left to our devices.

My point may be lost, but it lost within the semantics. It's all semantics, everything.

Question what people say and what you read. Do no get caught up in your first interpretation. It may not be the author's intent to say what you are reading, and it may not be your your reading that the author is intending.

Good luck.

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I am a translucent sack of organs, a bloated bag of tissue stitched together by a thin red vein. And everyday before the dawn a phantom hand replaces my heart and brain and lungs and everything else with objects I hate or of no import. It is easy to confuse these foreign fragments as parts of my true aggregate, but as I rise from my slumber and the whites of my eyes meet the blinding light of the day, I cough up blood and smoke and damp brain cells and I know that these things cannot be right. I can't help but think about the automaton I have become, or the abstract idea of 'living' that has completely engulfed my life. What has been put into this shell? Could it be debasing my very soul? My liver is gone, nothing but a black hole remains. No stars or moons or planets, just vacuumed darkness inhibiting my central cavity. Lungs, no more, ragged mosquito nets occupy the empty spots beneath my chest. Heart is squashed, merely an aging pin cushion now, stabbed until the insides made out. It doesn't run, it doesn't beat, it doesn't give me hope for anything, if it ever did. It's just a fucking pump filled with fluff. My ribcage loose, the ribs clack uncontrollably under the weight of dead meat, like the insides of any feral confinement. I wince as they pinch against my melting body, sending ripples through the drawn up pieces of fat. Who am I but a manufactured heap of flesh? Who am I but a rotting corpse? Who am I but a human being? Who am I but a fraud? My head is filled with the brain of a man unknown to me, and as his skull aches I can only scratch and claw at my own forehead to drown out his incessant complaint. My only hope is that I can delay his inevitable trip to the ledge of our unconscious and save ourselves from plunging off the edge. But as my skin sheds and my nails thicken, my acceptance of this reality becomes stark. I do not know who or what this phantom is, or why he chooses to flood me with such scattered light, but what I do know is that I will never understand. Acceptance does not require understanding. And while I hate what he has done to me, I do not hate him, or it, or she, or they, or we, or me, or whatever have you, because I know all of it is who I am, and to hate myself would be a monstrous contradiction.

We're getting better everyday.

"Belief in one's identity as a poet or writer prior to the acid test of publication is as naive and harmless as the youthful belief  in one's immortality...and the inevitable disillusionment is just as painful."

An Abrupt Tale of Hitchhiking

I once knew a family of Leather Tramps. Well, they weren't all active participants, but they were sympathizers for the most part. A son, two daughters, a mom and a pop; the parents had traded in their hand gestures years ago to take on the roll of enablers, drivers, people that make the system work. And in doing so they instilled the values of the Tramp onto their children: the mark of leather, if you will. In their youth they had put themselves into the hands of strangers, noblemen and women behind the ribbed ring of the road, people merely looking to help their fellow occupants travel more quickly to their places of destination. Lovely couple those two had been, and while the better part of my understanding of them comes from mere tales of the streets, I consider them to be my friends nonetheless.

Had they been? Yes. 

Individuals? Of course. 

Inseparable? When they could get away from everyone else.  

They had learned to trust the road, the people that inhabited it, and the fruits that it was willing to share. I learned most of what I know through the children, people closer to my age, the sensibilities of the Leather Tramp being amplified through them. And all I can say is that I'm grateful for that.

The only son of the family, the first born, had taken to his young parent's lifestyle quite quickly. Who am I kidding? He didn't have a choice. In the beginning, or his beginning I should say, a couple of Tramps, man and woman, or boy and girl I should say, gave birth to a well sized child in the hospital of a small town quickly lost amongst the paved concrete arms stretching out from it in every direction. His name was pending, she said. One can't simply name a person without rational thought, for a name is permanent, more than anything else. The argument has always been that a tattoo should have deep meaning, hours and months of relentless thought put into it, for once it is done, it's "forever." Well let me tell you, the name you are given is the tattoo of a lifetime and beyond, it will outlive the damned ink covering your arms and legs, your face. It will last until you are dead and gone, buried and burned, uplifted and tampered. 

The car was running, he said. They had to go. Despite the objections of doctors and staff the boy and girl and boy got up and out of the town. There was no car, there was no running, they walked out of that hospital and to the nearest stretch of highway, stuck out one thumb and flagged down the soonest vehicle. The boy would never see his place of origin again. Whatever had been going through their heads at the time is beyond me, perhaps beyond any sort of normal comprehension, only they would know. And their son, still pending, was now a part of whatever world his parents had immersed themselves in. Sorry kid, this one's up to them.

Years passed, rides were had, locations changed, the boy and girl began to grow up, while the littlest boy became still younger, they said. They said, they said; they said that a baby is not a person, it does not resemble an adult in anyway. A baby is still a creature of the body, an extension of two. Once an infant becomes a child can any sort of comparison be made. But this is only what they said.

The man and woman settled down, permanency was not their strong suit yet they willed what was best for their family. Growing up in the suburbs, surrounded by streets, this is where they decided to call home. They made sure to pick up fellow Tramps whenever they could. They didn't listen to the chattering voices that filled the pages of the newspaper or the cover of stories, hitchhiking was as safe as it had ever been. Their son, still pending, had grown up sitting beside the random strangers, the ones using their family car as a portal. Covered in their musk, he was never more than a few feet away. This is how it was, and how it seemed it would always be, this was comfort. 

Time has a way of speeding up, slowing down, like the rate of an engine caught in traffic. Girls were born, they were twins, and even more strange, they had been named. Ebony and Ivory. The keys to harmonious difference. They grew up to be beautiful, more than their names had ever thought possible. They had aura, they knew, and no one else but their parents could have guessed that the aura attributed would allow them to discard their names forever, if they wanted. Permanency of name apparently had no meaning to them. But that is another story.

The children grew up, together, at once, believe it or not. But then, one day, it all began to fall apart. The son had begun accepting rides from whoever would give him one. He no longer felt as comfortable sitting in the cramped enclosed space with his parents, he felt as if he were being smothered. The lifestyle his parents had grown up apart of, bestowing on their children and continually contributing too had begun tearing their tight knit Leather Tramp family apart. Ebony and Ivory, the lovely twins, were a little more skeptical about the whole idea all together. Their upbringing had not mirrored their brothers, they were not born amidst the ever flowing concrete stream, they had been created amongst solidarity. And for this reason they did not completely understand what there brother was going through, and why it had become such an elephant amongst the entire family. They began to avoid everyone as much as possible, basking in their own aura. They were different. 

The lovely couple were not completely in tune with the nature of their problems, they could not comprehend that it was their teaching that started this negative trend of imploding family dynamics. So they continued; the turmoil that was their lives was merely a white noise surrounding them. The life of the Leather Tramp had taken adverse effect. And then one day, their son, still pending, was gone. They did not know and could not know where he had gone; how could they ever search for him, without a name he was lost forever until he allowed himself to be found. Sure, the parents had theories of where he had gone, that perhaps maybe he had gone looking for something. This was all they told me, or so I'm told. 

The beautiful, lovely twin sisters had now been estranged for several years. They had stuck with each other through it all, indifferent to anything their family did. The sobs of their parents were hardly enough to send them from their room. But they did, they came. Seemingly more enthralling than anyone in memory, they stood within the door frame, capturing everything beauty is, showing their condolences.

Unfortunately, this is where the story ends, for now at least. The lovely couple, the lovely twins, are long gone, along with their aging son. The daughters packed up their bag and left as soon as the shock of their brother's disappearance had settled. They had agreed when asked to look for him, but chances are they were merely acting polite. Their home, wherever that is, is gone. They blaze across the land, hand in hand, their identical beauty burning a permanent memory amongst the folk in every town, inspiring those willing to create what cannot be replicated.

Their folks, mom and pop, are dead. Years now, I guess it has been. Still quite early on in their lives, they had picked up Leather Tramps all over the country, they had seen everyone and everything that could be picked up. Until one day. Pulling over at the side of the highway on an unbearably hot day, they picked up who they would soon learn to be notorious vagabond and murderer Dell Klaten. He had seemed nice enough. His mannerisms were everything you can hope to expect when picking up a stranger: he was friendly enough to smile, polite enough to talk, and hygienic enough not to smell like several week old trash. Even as they had dropped him off at 6845 Corline Drive, the address that would soon be home to several cold, bloodied corpses, he had given a wink and closed the door himself.

Oh well, who were they to know.

Shortly after both passed away as they were caught in a storm upon a friends sail boat. Tragic.

Or at least this is what I've been told. 

I Have Been Horribly Misinformed

Despite having to eat all eighteen hundred fifteen of my words, I am pleased to introduce the greatest thing I have seen in a long, long time.

All we get is a Legend

I just beat The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, so.......
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All opinions are relative to personal interest: what I think is good isn't automatically good because I believe it to be so.

There are times though where quality can't be disputed:

The Legend of Zelda (TLOZ) is considered to be one of the greatest video game franchises of all time, and it would be next to impossible to argue against that. Not only have both the critics and fans spoken, but the numbers don't lie. TLOZ has sold roughly 60 million copies, covering 15 different games, and various different consoles. And while it may seem obvious to say that Nintendo finds this series to be one of their most important, it has a lot to compete with, mainly the Mario, Donkey Kong, and Metroid series. The importance of TLOZ lies in its characters, it's expansive environments, and the insoluble message that has been embedded in it's protagonists search for the all mighty Tri-Force: courage, wisdom, and power. The way I see it is that The Legend of Zelda is a light hearted hack-and-slash approach to learning some of life's most valuable lessons.

As I discussed last week, the video game industry is teaming with potential movie ideas. Although things like The Super Mario Bros. have bombed both critically and within the box office, I expressed my unyielding belief in the successful possibilities that video games have.

The greatness that is The Legend of Zelda is an idea that has never been tapped. The amazing story of Hyrule's Hero of Time, Link, saving Princess Zelda has spanned almost twenty five years, and to my knowledge Hollywood hasn't once taken any sort of stab at it. Shigeru Miyamoto, the genius behind many of Nintendo's biggest titles, including Zelda, was once quoted as saying "Why can't video games tell a story?" This quote is a bit outdated, twenty years in fact, but it makes me think further about the attitude of Hollywood. Why can't movies tell the the stories of video games? Especially a story such as this.

If all it were to take was for Hollywood to know that this idea was a shoe-in, one might as well look at the comparable relationship many factors of The Legend of Zelda has with other successful movies:

To start things off, the vast setting that occupies the legend of Zelda is as expansive as it gets. It has a little bit of everything from where a director could choose from forests, oceans, mountains, and valleys to have his story set in. Whether the director would choose to completely adapt one of the many games, or opt to write a new story, he would have a variety of locations to choose from. The Legend of Zelda is considered to be of the high-fantasy genre, a parallel of our earth, relatable to that of the world of J.R.R. Tolken: Middle Earth, the locale of The Lord of the Rings. LOTR has been one of the most successful adaptations of all-time, and while its eminence has largely to do with the master-authorship of Tolken, it was the film's stunning backdrops and visually captivating images that pulled in the audience from the beginning. Designer Miyamoto suggested that in the soon to be released The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, his stylistic influence came from work of Claude Monet. The Legend of Zelda would undoubtedly be able to follow a similar directorial approach as the LOTR's in it's stunning scenes, and if not by anything else, attract audiences through it's visibly wonderful portraits.

Link as the game's protagonist comes as an iconic a role as the best of them; think Harry Potter but bigger. His childish demeanor, either as a youth or an adult, acts as a universal beacon of a spirited heart. His open eyes and childish grin, accompanied by the occasional yelp or sigh, creates a character not only lovable to mass audiences, but relatable in his disposition. And how could we forget his thought provoking catchphrase!? Along with all these mirthful character traits comes the toughest kick-butt attitude you've ever seen!...But honestly here, Link is a go-getter, and a fierce one at that. His strong moral fiber to do what is right, take down evil, and save all those who need saving is by far his most reputable characteristic. Physically equipped with various weapons and items, proficient in all, magical in some, and toting the mental stamina of Jeru the Damaja, Link can be considered not only the greatest of warriors, but the wisest of introverted extroverts. As the Hero of Time, Link is without knowing the significance of the tick of a clock. As we pass by, Link stays the same. And if Hollywood can't work with that I don't know what the fuck else to say.

And I won't get into any further than this, but having a supporting cast such as Princess Zelda, the fairest in all of Hyrule, and an opposition lead by the great power Ganondorf, the character dynamics are ripe for a deep-writing..........The classical story elements are all in place: a young man finds himself, discovers good and evil in the process, and is forced to rise to do what is right. A story neither over or under played, the perfect story: An adventure of the ages.

The Legend of Zelda series has been running for twenty five long years, and it's longevity will last longer than we know. As there have been fifteen games in total, Hollywood would have no issue contracting at least a trilogy of movies, thusly making mad cash and furious dough. If we're lucky, these movies won't be half bad in their production either. Every time the latest edition releases we won't have to drop our heads and sigh like the majority of us did during the new Transformers trailer, or maybe when we all found out about the idea of another three Pirates of the Caribbean movies. With it's long history, Zelda has acquired myriads of fans over the years, assuring that people young and old will show up for it's theatrical release. The younger kids, having spent countless hours playing Twilight Princess, learning to appreciate the relic that is Ocarina of Time, will be interested in seeing their favorite video game hero on the big screen. The older folks, remembering their days surrounded by Nintendo's and Super Nintendo's will obviously come a-running. Because deep down, everyone's a kid, right? Pulling the sword from the Temple of Time.

This is what I offer you, Hollywood. Can you not grasp it's glory?

Or maybe you're wiser than I thought.

Because in the end, I don't really believe that The Legend of Zelda would be a realistic idea for a movie. In fact, I'd go as for as to say that I don't even think it would be any good. Link is one hell of a guy, there's no arguing that. The guy rocks a cleverly thought out tunic, it's calm sway acting as a commentary on the unisex garments of the period, stabbing and killing all at the same time. But when playing these games what don't we ever get to hear from our fine hero? That's right, a fucking voice. I mean, sure, he makes noises, expressing himself in a way most people wouldn't even fucking understand, but that's not talking. For the most part he runs around interacting with whoever he wants to...refusing to make a goddamn sound. I mean, he uses a fair amount of hand gestures, so I guess that has got to mean something. And he blinks a lot too, he's constantly breathing, so perhaps combining all these things together leads to some sort of pre-oral communication system, but I don't know. What I do know is that a speechless leading role is going to be way harder to appropriate than even a character with Schwarzenegger like dialogue.

Anyone who has ever played a Zelda game knows what the "hero" is actually like. Sure, Link is cast in a heroic light, ultimately completing a quest that few could fathom, but pushing all that aside, one will find where the real Link resides. This is the Link that Hollywood would be left to work with.  Imagine this: The Legend of Zelda, the movie, run time of roughly two and a half hours, an epic journey filled with heart-pounding adventure, coquettish romance, and a booming soundtrack...half of which follows Link smashing every fucking pot Hyrule has to offer. Can you picture that? A movie focused on some guys fucking OCD smashing everyones pots. I swear, the better part of The Ocarina of Time consists of entering someones home and well before you even acknowledge the resident's right to personal property, there's broken porcelain strewn all over the floor, and a raving Link scavenging for the loose rupees. It's havoc; a movie can't work with that. I'm fully surprised that the NPC's in these games put up with Link's shit. At this point the pot count must be reaching into the millions. I would completely understand if the folk of Hyrule made a unanimous decision to toss out Link and fend for themselves, thats your shit he's braking! Come on, Link, get your act together!

Realism is not one of The Legend of Zelda's strong suits. Fantasy isn't anything new in the realm of main stream film, enough people are comfortable following fantastic plots that they would be willing to suspend their disbelief for the sake of Zelda, but this is not the realism I am referring too. It would be an understatement to say that Link enjoys rolling. I mean, when your main source of transportations is rolling, I don't even know how to describe one's enjoyment of that. Link has mastered the roll in a way in which it makes him faster than if he were running. I know, you know, the use of the roll is paramount in the newer Zelda games, it is movement. While I don't doubt that the opening scene to the Zelda movie would be fucking genius mind blowing, a helicopter shot following Link from high above, zooming in causally as these certain scenes always do, him literally barreling through a grassy valley, a constant stream of rolls keeping his speed well above forty kilometres an hour, fucking triumphant, tear-shedding, Japanese National Anthem, Koji Kondo crafted love ballad. Despite that, despite all that I just don't see it going anywhere. I don't even think rolling up and down stairs is physically possible.

So yeah, Hollywood, your call. As much as we'd all love to see Link tear some shit up, Zelda included, these kind of shenanigans may or may not be applicable to the silver screen. And if you decide just to scrap the whole idea, you can always re-release the old TV show.

Only Time Will Tell

I'm extremely interested in the context behind this video.