Everybody Dies

I don't like war games. Most of the time they're constructed upon a "let's shoot dem commie/turrist/asian bastards!" platform that doesn't hide their politics. Political themes in games can be interesting, so long as they're presented in a non-propagandistic manner. A little intelligence goes a long way.

Command and Conquer is Starcraft (or Warcraft) with better graphics and modern political alliances (and biases.) America's Army is nothing more than Unreal Tournament with an Army mod. (The politics and propaganda of that game bother me far, far more than any other game I've played--Postal 2, Grand Theft Auto III, and Manhunt included.)

It's almost a shame I don't have my generals now, after the release of Introversion's Defcon. The second question (that of ethics and morals in video games) would've gotten a lot more interesting. It and Call to Duty may very well be the only games on the market, which show the horrors of war. I think if Introversion weren't an independent game company, Defcon would never have been made.

For those of us who remember the Cold War, Defcon's premise is simple: lose the least. It takes place in a command center (represented on one's computer screen) The UI presented to the player is a line-drawing of the world, in the style of the map presented in the movie "War Games." Population centers are dots of varying size and intensity, depending upon population density. Missile silos, air bases, and naval fleets are depicted similarly. At different stages, different types of deployments and movements are possible. Only at Defcon 1 are missiles able to be launched, for instance. In games against other people, alliances can be formed and broken.

If it had only computer blips and bleeps for a soundtrack, the game would be just another strategy game. But the soundtrack is much like Dark Age of Camelot's in that it's made up of segments of musical material with ambient noise layered on top. The musical material is like Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei" meets Giya Kancheli. If that weren't enough, the ambient sounds are things like rumblings, the hush of wind and fallout, a distorted recitation of the Lord's Prayer, and women crying.

Unlike so many other games, the soundtrack is what makes this game so horrifying. Playing with the sound off is a completely different--and less powerful--experience. It's rare to see real musical irony in a video game. Those who play Defcon only to nuke the crap out of their most hated city are missing the point and the experience.

Day 9

When walking home from a friend's house, all the worries and stresses of the past week seemed to dissolve. I stopped for a moment, taking in the newfound stillness, and was overwhelmed by the honeysuckle bush next to me. "Sit in your cell, and it will teach you everything."

Day 8

Last night involved rantings from mentally unbalanced neighbors, and I'm still on edge. I'm also coming down with a cold. If there's one thing a cold teaches you, it's that you need to take time for yourself.

Day 7

At the end of the summer, I find myself back in the same mindset as I was before my exams--unable to relax, and feeling like I should be working all the time. I've seen this attitude with others, and it's one of the symptoms of burnout. It's easy to forget what "holy leisure" is, when deadlines are looming. May we all find the rest we need.

Day 6

Lately I've been reading the book Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by J. Neville Ward. It's a weird book (the author is a Methodist minister--not that Methodist ministers are weirder than anyone else), but while I may disagree with minor details, he's dead on with most of his points about the rosary and his mediations on the mysteries. Here's one passage that struck me (from his discussion of the last of the Glorious mysteries, the Crowning of the Blessed Virgin):

The title "Ever-Virgin" draws on ancient forms of expression in man's long struggle to say what the divine must be and indicates thoughts for which we would use other terms, though they might well be no more effective. It means that, her son being who he is, we see her as one called into a single, exclusive, unrepeatable part of the service of God, as being wholly involved in this spiritually and physically, hearing the word of God and keeping it with all her heart and soul and strength.

Its meaning extends in the thought of an emptiness of self that waits for God alone to fill it, a faith that endures losses and unmet longings and ungranted prayers, without running to compensations and distractions to fill the void, because it believes that God will give himself and his meaning in his own time. The Christian mind in meditation finds the Virgin Mary meaning this absolute openness to God and aspires to it, wants to breathe its free yet dedicated atmosphere.

And most deeply, as the ultimate fulfillment of God's purpose begins in Jesus, there is a sense in which it also begins in Mary, so that she is a sign of the first light of that kingdom of heaven where Jesus said there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage but only the fullness of love that transcends all the limitations and predilections of temporal sexuality(161-162).

Day 5

Tonight in his homily, one of our priests mentioned that the core of ministry should be a path to joy. (Paraphrasing. Unfortunately he doesn't put his homilies up on the web. HINT.)

It's really hard to see myself as a bringer of joy and my path as a joyful one, when increasingly more and more college students care only about the degree and not the knowledge. I know I've been guilty of this, as well, in my impatience to get done with this degree.

I could use a little patience here, Lord. And help me remember the saying of Seung Sahn's, that living in a community is like washing potatoes--they bump into each other in the pot they're in, and everyone comes out clean.

Day 4

Lately I've been wondering if I made the right decision. Did I waste my time going to this school? Am I making the wrong decision to get a doctorate in a field people don't value or care about? I've never questioned my role as a composer (ability, sure, we all do). But I can't help but hear the voices of family and teachers before college, who resoundingly said what a worthless degree I'd be pursuing, if I went into composition.

I know it's normal to doubt one's vocation. When I decided to go into composition, I didn't know how it would work out. All I knew is that this was the path I had to take. "Help my unbelief!"

Day 3

Since it's the second of three Ember Days, there are special antiphons for the Gospel canticles (as are there for all of the canticles, at least in my version of the Divine Office.) Here's the one for today for the Benedictus (same translation as before, to spare you my bad Latin): "A woman who was a sinner in the city, stood at the feet of the Lord behind Him, and with tears began to wash His feet and wipe them with the hairs of hear head; and she kissed His feet, and anointed them with ointment.¹"

I've been blessed to have been spared the horror of an abusive advisor, although I know there are many in graduate programs, who have them. The brokenness of an abusive relationship doesn't go away with time, and it's easy to feel like the woman in the antiphon--broken beyond help, and like "damaged goods." In the account of it in Luke, it's her love which frees her. Today's prayer is for all those in the grad student/advisor relationship, both good and bad--may we all be guided by unconditional love.

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¹ from Luke 7:38, with bits from 37.

Day 2

A co-worker forwarded this link to me. It's a site with the final statements of people executed in Texas. I expected angry statements, and ones lashing out at the system that gave up on them. But what I didn't expect were the majority of statements, which were full of peace, love, and acceptance of their deaths. Some of those people have little more than a few years' of high school education, yet some of their statements are wonderfully profound.

Day 1

I'm late starting, but better late than never.

Today is the day when new TA's have their orientation, most faculty are around, and the new students are having their theory/history tests. After weeks of silence, it's jumping around here, and the halls are less quiet. When normally my mornings are filled with quiet, catching up on my blogs, and sipping coffee, I've been jumping today with a thousand things.

It's also the first of 3 Ember Days (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday), one of four weeks during the liturgical year (all roughly at quarters of the liturgical year) for prayer and fasting. The collect for lauds this morning was, " Misericórdiæ tuæ remediis, quæsumus, Dómine, fragilitas nostra subsistat : ut, quæ sua conditióne atteritur, tua cleméntia reparétur." Or: "We beseech You, O Lord, may the remedies of Your mercy sustain our weakness; and in pity renew our strength which by its nature is ever failing." (Edited...removed my lousy translation I did without a dictionary and replaced it with the one out of the Monastic Diurnal reprint.)

I think it's an appropriate commentary on what I'm after during these nine days.

Odds and ends

First, a video I found linked off newmusicbox.org: How to write a fugue (described recursively) with a subject from a Brittney Spears song. I like recursion.

Second, thinking about pulling a Sr. Susan and doing a sorta-novena the 9 days before the semester starts. Not sure if I'm dumping it here or over on my LJ. Maybe part here, part elsewhere. I like this format for more "serious" things, even though I haven't been overly serious lately.

Thanks to workstudy, I'm stuck in the area until September 26, with the next semester starting September 27. I'm burnt to a crusty little crisp, so I'll probably check in with my advisor and take off somewhere for a week, as long as I've got the laptop set up to do music stuff. I'd love to go back to Our Lady of the Rock, but it's hard for me to get to. Other suggestions are welcome. (I don't drive.)

International viewers: if you wanted to see the BSG webisodes in the last post, you can find them on youtube. (Also good for those of us in linuxland.)

BSG

And now for something really important: Battlestar Galactica webisodes, leading up to the season start in October. If you're in linux and don't have a version of Adobe flashplayer 9 to install, you're screwed. But find a windows or OSX box: they're good so far.

It's tiding me over while I wait for BSG to start back up, the Doctor Who Christmas episode to air, and then season 29 of Doctor Who to start up in the spring.

Summertime blues

I can't remember a summer that actually went well, and this one has been no exception. The things that have gone wrong--little things, in the big scheme--would normally be easily dealt with, and life would continue as usual, but the normal summer for me involves them piling up, one after another. Maybe it's the lack of structure, or perhaps it's the longer light levels--I seem to recall an article in the Chronicle¹ about academics being affected by SAD in reverse. But by the time the end of July rolls around, I'm literally counting the days until the semester starts.

There were minor computer issues. There were issues with one of the lab monitors not recognizing personal and private space. There were family issues. There were arguments with financial aid, still unresolved. There are still issues with neighbors not respecting common courtesy.

Computer drama was mostly resolved: the solution involved wiping the hard drive of the laptop, and reinstalling linux and windows on it. Now, the last time I tried installing linux on a laptop was 1999, and then it was a lesson in futility or an act of self-mortification. Oddly enough, linux was working perfectly, but windows wouldn't install. Finally got it working, got linux all set up...and I couldn't get a version of LISP running.

Now the people in my parents' generation settled on LISP because it was (then) platform-independent. It still is, to some extent. LISP code you write in linux will run in OSX, or Windows (assuming you can find a LISP implementation that doesn't suck). However, LISP implementations vary widely, and the specific set of functions I use to extend LISP to be used in sound synthesis will only run on a few. (Supposedly.) For some strange reason known only to my computer and St. Isidore of Seville, one of them--the one that's commercial and the license of which covers me while I'm a student²--magically started working³. I'm trying to migrate over to CMUCL, but either it or I'm having Issues getting it working⁴. For now I'm happy my old--commercial--standby is working. I've got awhile before the migration becomes critical, and who knows what CLM will become by then.

So normally spending a day composing would leave me feeling warm-happy-sleepy-tired. Today it was a different kind, and I thought it was just latent stress. Nope. Stomach flu hit tonight. So looks like tomorrow's filled with bad daytime TV and warm ginger ale.

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¹ http://chronicle.com
² The license, last I checked, started at $600, and for something similar to what I've got would be closer to $2000.
³ Here is where I pause and mention that all computers suck--it's just a matter of how much and in what manner.
⁴ I'm not ruling out PEBCAK--"problem exists between chair and keyboard."

PSA

By the way...for those who can't convert their blogs over to the new version of gmail-blogger and are having trouble logging in...

Go here and log in with your blogger account. When you log in successfully, you'll be popped back to an empty version of that page. This is OK. Then click on the blogger logo, and it should bring you to your dashboard. Happy blogging!