Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN I never really thought about it like that. Definitely not a musician. I played the trombone up till high school, but a severe lack of talent closed off a career in music. I like to read but wouldn’t consider myself an intellectual. I’m firmly in the ‘lowbrow’ range of cultural pursuits.

Are you a professional musician, in the sense that you can make a living out of it?

@Mr_B021 Not a professional. But I have played live on numerous occasions in different (unsigned) bands in the past. I won't list the names as I am not in touch with my former bandmates and I don't know how they'd feel about me sharing our work on here.

What sort of books do you read?

@Jimmer-jammer Completely agree. 🍻
I work in an industry that doesn’t have many clear creative outlets; much of my time is spent in traditional productivity mumbo-jumbo. I do try to tackle my tasks in creative ways and try to foster some level of inventiveness where possible. It’s just really hard in a corporate driven world. It takes a lot of effort.

And I feel a modicum of bitterness, to be honest, at how the public school system works where the arts and music is under-financed compared to scholastics and athletics. I wasn’t given the opportunity to learn a musical instrument as a youth. I’ve often wondered what could have been had I started with an instrument in my youth or given some incentive to develop an artistic skill.

When I’ve tried to learn art and music later in life it has been really hard. First, I think our brains aren’t quite as flexible (not to mention our fingers aren’t either 😅) nor as malleable to learning new things. But secondly and more importantly, the time to commit to learning something, like a music instrument, is constantly thwarted by adult responsibilities and there’s a large amount of physical and mental fatigue that has hindered my learning something like that. I’ve tried.

I do like that philosophy of adversity being a driver of creativity. It’s like that saying that “Necessity is the mother of invention”. Unfortunately I haven’t been very good at turning adversity into art or creation. Through most of my adult life when I’ve had adversity, I’ve tended to shut down and become apathetic or lackadaisical. When I’ve been beaten down by the world a few times I’ve tried creative writing, which is about the only artistic endeavor that I have any comfort with. It’s therapeutic, and probably the closest thing I have to what you all can do with painting, drawing, music, building, sewing, or whatnot.

@Th3solution Thanks! I'd like to think so too. What would you say your main creative interests are (outside of gaming, of course)? I remember a time when you said that you had found that you were losing interest in things like books and movies, I know you like sports, though, and you could argue that there is creativity in sport, right?

I am planning on getting a book on improvisation by guitarist Derek Bailey in order to further hone my skills, and in terms of my more "lowbrow" interests I am definitely eyeing up some more Scorsese Directed/Non-Scorsese Directed Gangster movies. Goes perfectly well with hip hop.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN I’ve rekindled some of my TV/movie watching lately. Enjoying things like The Last of Us season 2 and Arcane. I’m considering getting back into reading as well.

And then of course gaming is the main artistic and creative product that I consume. I love the whole art of video gaming and the coupling of interactivity with the storytelling.

True that there is some creativity in sport. The athletes have to be creative in the way they attack or defend, and it can have its own impromptu choreography, like interpretive dance. Sometimes I am amazed at how the really good athletes can use their bodies to move and score creatively.

So as you can see, most art I consume and appreciate, rather than create. I’m in awe of people like you who can make music and have such diverse talent!

@Th3solution Thanks man, and I am glad that you are getting back into TV/Movie watching.

I am always one of those people, who, when they like something, like to engage in it and see if they can have a go at it on their own.

I evenonce entertained aspirations to become a Game Designer, when my interest in gaming was first rekindled, but I fear my reach exceed my grasp there! It's very very hard to get a demo created by yourself, or even with a small team of buddies helping you, and takes vast amounts of money to make something even vaguely able to compete with the big budget titles.

As a caveat to what you said about appreciating and consuming art, rather than creating it, video games, I would say, are the only art form that the appreciator actually actively engages with and participates in, simply by playing the game, an interactive form of art, if you will. Especially in the Souls games, where you can be incredibly creative with your builds and how you play the game.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN That’s a great point about the way that formulating builds in games like the Souls games is its own form of creativity. I hadn’t thought of it that way before.

@Jimmer-jammer Cheers, buddy. Kind of you to say. Truth be told I had aspirations to be a writer several years ago. I have some stories sitting on a hard drive somewhere that never got polished up enough for distribution. I was proud of some of the ideas I came up with, actually. And come to think of it, the core themes in a lot of those writings were based on some of my own painful life experiences. Some of my darkest days happened during that time when I started writing. Although the stories I created were fictional and fantastical, they were rooted in some of the raw emotions I was having at the time.

By Jove, I am an artist. Go figure. 😛

@FuriousMachine Just following up on our Books Chat, How are you, by the way? I only know you from the Books Thread, and we have had some discussion of Movies and Music as well, but just to follow that up with a bit more of a formal introduction, I volunteer for a mental health charity in the UK, and outside of that when I'm not reading or gaming I'm usually playing guitar or socialising.

What do you do career-wise? Any or many hobbies outside of gaming and books? I know you like a bit of rock and hip hop music-wise already.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN I am quite well, thank you 🙂The arrival of the summer months always lift my spirits; undoubtedly my favourite time of year.
I'm a software developer working in a smallish company and we make Norway's leading visitor management solution, and probably Scandinavia's as well. We recently got acquired by the biggest software conglomerate in Scandinavia, Visma, and the onboarding process there has generated a lot of extra work that's taken me away from doing the things I enjoy, and has been quite stressful the last couple of weeks. Even so, I'm learning a lot from it and while some of it feels like "corporate bulls***", it is mostly things that will help us a lot and pay back dividends once we're through.
Thankfully, it looks like I'm nearing the completion of the tasks I'm in charge of, so I will soon get back to doing my "regular" job, so to speak.

As for hobbies, I am a voracious consumer of stories, whether they be written or filmed, which is why I'm mostly active in the books, movies and TV threads here. I do of course also enjoy gaming, again mostly with story based titles, but will also spend time with city builders and the like (currently, "Timberborn"), which I will typically engage with as something to do while listening to music

Music is very important to me, I listen to music almost constantly, whether I'm working, reading or being out and about. I have broad tastes; I have a solid vinyl collection that contains anything from Kacey Musgraves to Foetus, 2Pac to KMFDM, George Michael to Killswitch Engage. I would say rock/metal is what I gravitate most towards, though. Funnily enough, I tend to listen to lighter fare in the summer (Raye, Tyla and Tinashe have been on high rotation the last month) and gloomier/darker stuff in winter (October always brings out Type O Negative and Paradise Lost is heavily played during winter).

I try to not turn into a social recluse, so once a week I connect with two mates to play an online game, which again is mostly something to do while we talk about everything and anything (again, "Timberborn" is the game of choice at the moment, but we've also done "Rimworld" and "Factorio"). I also get together with a group of people for some board gaming about once a month, but it is difficult to schedule with all the busy people, so we don't get to do it as often as I'd like to.

Volunteering for a mental health charity must feel very fulfilling! And it's probably often hard work, too, I imagine?

@FuriousMachine Paradise Lost. Now that's a band I remember from my metal band years. I preferred their more melodic experimentation. Draconian Times, Icon etc. that era was definitely my favourite. And have you heard stuff like Believe In Nothing and Symbol of Life? Where they venture into borderline Depeche Mode territory? I have mixed feelings about those ones.

But, regarding volunteerng in mental health, it's definitely a mixed bag at times, but overall more rewarding, and, like you say, fulfilling than anything else. I have been doing it for about a year and a half now. Hopefully I can treat people in a face-to-face therapeutic setting one day. That's the ultimate goal.

Fingers crossed that you can do more of what you prefer to do at work soon.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Thanks, I hope so to. Looks like it won't happen until I get back from summer vacation, but that is thankfully not far off, so I'll persevere and push through 😉(it's not that bad, really)

I read a great quote about Paradise Lost just yesterday, from Metal Hammer: “This band have tried their hand at everything from death metal to synthpop, but they’ve never once done it with a smile”
Truer words, etc. "Icon" is probably one of my top 10 albums of all time and the one that really kicked off my love for them (I was sort of on the hook with "Shades of God", but "Icon" was the one that reeled me in). I even like their synthpop phase, though I absolutely prefer their metal output (which I put more as "doom" than "death", re.: the quote above).

I would love to hear more about your volunteer work, but I don't want to pry, so if you don't feel like sharing on a forum with (basically) strangers, that's cool too, of course.

@FuriousMachine I can't really say much about it, but yeah, it's very rewarding and I would like to envision a future for myself within a mental health career.

Back to Paradise Lost, though, I agree their output has been variegated and great for the most part, with only a few key/core members being consistently involved throughout their career. But since gravitating towards jazz and hip hop ,I haven't really followed them. I would say that a rabbit hole might open up for you, if, like you say, you like Tupac, then you might be interested in exploring the Griselda Records back catalogue, as I would say their artist roster is firmly situated in the same vein as the late, great, 'Pac.

Further to what I have been saying on here previously, about the possibllity of phasing out gaming in order to focus more on guitar and counselling psychology, in addition to relaxing with my other recreational activities, I feel like so far I am being more consistent than usual, cementing these recent plans. I haven't changed my mind, for example about just playing two more games after Sekiro, and I have stuck to and expanded upon the free jazz guitar model I set up for myself to follow in recent months.

I have my eye on switching to acoustic guitar, going for a different sound to give to my pre-existent material, and am planning to share some videos of my Erdtree playthrough when I get around to it.

Edit: Also, last night I heard on the radio that Debbie Harry (from Blondie) was one of the earliest pioneers of hip hop, after hearing rapping at a few underground parties in the states, she incorporated a rap into a Blondie song that received significant airplay on MTV, and brought about the global phenomenon that we know hip hop to be, today.

Further to what I have been saying here and in other threads, I feel like I have finalised my plan now, and after 10 years of reading Literature and playing Games, I am now in the process of phasing those activities out of my life for the foreseeable now, by playing my final trilogy of games (Sekiro, Nine Sols, ELDEN RING: Shadow of the Erdtree - if I don't just stop after Sekiro, that is, and completing my final trilogy of books (the final three books in the Remembrance of Things Past septet by Marcel Proust, and my main focuses in terms of recreational activities will be Art, Music and Film.

Music has always been, and hopefully will always be a focal point of my life, ever since I started playing guitar it has been very important to me, and, though I have radically changed my musical tastes in the last few years, hopefully, as this is a fresh start in a way (I haven't explored these genres as thoroughly as rock and metal in the past) I will always have music as a part of my life.

Art and Film are relatively uncharted territories for me. I mean, I know most people have seen a lot of movies throughout their lives, but the passion for cinema, discovering new gems and rarely seen masterpieces will definitely be ground-breaking for me.

As for Art, that is a bit niche', and I'm not entirely sure where that came from, I've attended a few classes, and studied it, like a lot of others, at school, but I have always been drawn to the more subversive and provocative movements in art, and those artists that have gone against the grain. So I would like to take my research further and maybe hang some affordable posters of classic prints on my wall.

As for Gaming and Literature, been there, done that now, it's nearly 10 years of gaming in the recent past, and over 10, on and off for Literature. Time for something new.

N.B I will still be playing guitar, which I consider adjacent to listening to music, but no longer recording, as previously stated. And there is still some manga I want to read (art-adjacent) and I will also be reading newspapers and magazines (as stated in the relevant thread) (adjacent to literature). So it's not an entirely narrow range of hobbies and interests, I just feel like my mind gets a bit cluttered if I have too much to focus on at once.

There! Done!

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN I admire your focus. Just to look at it from a different perspective — couldn’t one say that video gaming is an amalgamation of all those different recreational diversions? Art, music, literature and storytelling, news and journalism… there’s a form of each of those pursuits that are inherent to the hobby. The interactivity component of gaming definitely sets it apart as a different beast, but I often think of my gaming hobby as a way to dip my toe into several different types of recreation at once. 😄

That said, there’s value in direct engagement of all those subclasses of creative consumption. And if you’re like me, your life goes in phases and cycles. I find that I will sporadically get in the mood for certain distractions. I’ve kept my gaming interest for a long time now. I often wonder how long until I hang up my controller. I think I might be gaming until I die! 😅 I look at my backlog and definitely feel like I’ve got years and years of it ahead of me.

@Th3solution That'd be one way to go, a guy frozen stiff from rigor mortis, in nothing but his boxers, holding his controller in a vice-like grip in his hands. 😂

Edit: And it would have to be whilst playing a FromSoft game, with the fitting caption "You Died." on the screen.😂

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Lol, I think I just decided what I want my tombstone to be engraved with! 😂 Big tombstone in the shape of a controller, etched with the saying “You Died.” and instead of flowers I’ll have some estus flasks and all the different version of grass from Demon’s Souls.

@Th3solution Fantastic image. 😂

@RogueCooper @Jimmer-jammer One is sufficient, thank you.

It seems the 'Red Dead' announcement was for some Gaming Expo event in Florida that most of the cast is appearing at. Oh well, I'm sure they will do some sort of update/remaster eventually.