Author Archives: Filemon

Jan 24 2011
Uncategorized

Lessons Learned

I played another open mic last Friday night. It was pretty good.

Open mics are terrifying experiences for me. I am fraught with worry. Did I practice enough? Will I forget what I’m doing once I’m up there in front of everyone? What if someone picks the exact same song as me? Do I just not have the chops to perform live? Is my hair okay? What if I break a string?

In addition, I am gripped by the most harrowing feelings in the pit of my stomach.

Nerves.

So when I started into the first chords of my performance, what I specifically did not worry about was a certifiably crazy woman making her way into the performance area, precariously sloshing a cup of tea, standing in front of me, and starting to sing a different song.

Naturally, this is exactly what happened. Continue reading →

Jan 21 2011
Games, Technology

Playing Video Games with Audience Participation

I have a couple of friends that absolutely love having over when I play video games. I love them as an audience.

I played through the first Dead Space, which is a fantastic game, by myself, but then I played through it again, with an audience and it is still a great game. In fact, it is my opinion that the audience made it better.

I played Heavy Rain entirely in this manner, and the experience was harrowing, to say the least. There are times in that experience where I had to repeat difficult sections with an audience member screaming or gripping my arm. Overall, there was an additional level of tension not unlike performance anxiety.

But we all got through and my friends, who normally would never play video games, got to enjoy the storyline.

I’m thinking about starting up Uncharted with the same folks, as well as possibly Dead Space 2. I think it will be a good time.

Dec 24 2010
writing

Songwriting

At some point, I stopped just plinking around on the ukulele and started practicing it, and then, hours upon hours of practice later I started understanding it. It was a sudden thing and not something I was ready for.

So when my ukulele instructor encouraged me to get this song out of my head, I wasn’t quite prepared for it.

I have chord progressions, and a melody, but the one thing I don’t have right now is lyrics.

I’m working through it, and it’s the first song, but I’m enjoying the process of just recording and writing everything down.

I’ll see where it goes.

Nov 20 2010
Blog

Breakfast

I hold the silver dollar in my hand. The year embossed on it is 1928, a full 47 years before my birth.

The man who handed it to me is Alex, from the Ukraine. He tells me a story about the depression in the Ukraine and how the Jewish storekeepers would only accept silver, since paper money was worthless. It’s why, to this day, he carries around five silver dollars in his wallet, a simple black billfold wrapped in a white handkerchief.

He talks of entertainment in the 1950s. The village in the Ukraine had nothing in terms of entertainment, but did have one phone line shared among six households. So when the phone rang, everyone picked up and just listened in on the conversation.

“There were no secrets in the village,” he tells me this as a dry fact.

He feels sorry for young people, inheriting the world that they live in. Things were better when he was growing up.

He has no need for a computer, he’s 88 years old. In two years he’ll be 90 and what is there to do anyway for a 90 year old on the internet? What’s so interesting that he can’t read about it later in the paper?

We talk for a while and then he walks off.  I haven’t been in to Whole Foods for breakfast for a while, but Alex’s words still stick with me.

Oct 15 2010
Games, writing

Heavy Rain

I finished Heavy Rain back in April and my experience was pretty amazing overall.  I’m still sorting out all of the emotions that I went through.

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