On Worldliness (A Confession)

As you may or may not know, I haven’t been posting a lot recently on most of my blogs.

I’ve been incredibly busy with my jobs, living in a new town, and really working on my fiction projects. Besides the various life issues, I have to be honest with everyone.

I came to the realization that worldliness was a big flaw of mine.

Sure, something’s wrong when people focus way too much on celebrities and useless things. I’m sure we can all agree with that. However, my case was more peculiar.

Some of you know that I cannot stand so many forms of mainstream media. Movies, music, books, etc. I became immersed in indie movies, obscure anime, and other lesser-known things. I realized that I became worldly, but just through another avenue. This had to stop and I realized how much focusing too much on unimportant things for the longest time. I’ve been a fan of different things, and I’ve been hindered.

Seriously, I could still name-drop random bands on Tooth & Nail records over it’s history as a record label, yet I only recently knew who some local politicians are in my hometown.

I can tell you every aspect of Kimba the White Lion that a very certain movie shamelessly stole from, yet I didn’t know all the aspects of African history and what was stolen during the Scramble in that continent.

I could probably still remember all the characters in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 (one of my favorite games growing up) and even mentioning which comic or game series they’re from, yet I didn’t take the DIY ethic seriously enough to make my OWN characters until the past 4 years of my life.

This was a ball and chain around my brain. I was captured and didn’t even know it.

Look, I’m not a role model or a guardian angel. I’ve screwed up multiple times. I don’t understand why some people would want to look up to me.

I apologize if this aspect of me rubbed off on anyone. However, I do not apologize for my hiatus across most of my blogs. For those that do like my content on here and elsewhere, then please be patient before I feel like I can do other things like my music, videography, and film reviews on my other blogs.

Although, you can check out my fiction blog as I serialize Gateway to the Empyrean. Just sayin’. Hahaha!

Okay, now back to being serious.

I had to make important changes in my life like researching various things in my own free time, creating more of my own stories, and cutting out anything that has distracted me. This partially means less movies and anime to watch for me. This means reading more nonfiction (the legit kinds). This means creating more than what I consume. Don’t get me started on how I feel about various fandoms and how those involve are squandering their potential for greatness. As much as I could point fingers at some people, I don’t want to focus on that. I blame only myself for not believing in me, having so much self-hate for most of my life, and for finding distractions to fill a void.

For the few of you that follow this or any of my blogs and read this. Thank you.

I need to become a better person. I need to do more important things in my life.

-Curtis

Hold up! Wait a minute! Put a little liebe in it! (A Liebster Award post)

Bonus points to anyone who got the reference in the blog title! Anyways, I received another award and it’s the Liebster Award. It’s awesome. I would like to thank Bloom Reviews for nominating me. Bloom Reviews covers anime, manga, and comic reviews that deal with romantic elements. I first discovered Bloom after finding out they reviewed The Place Promised In Our Early Days (which is a movie you all should check out). Feel free to check out this blog and my other ones at Autumn Peal Media (photography/videography), C. M. B. Bell (fiction), and Iridium Eye Reviews (indie movies/documentaries/anime/world cinema/short film reviews).

Here are the rules for this award:

-Share the link of the blogger who has shown love to you by nominating you
-Answer the 11 questions they ask
-Nominate 11 bloggers for the same award in the spirit of sharing love and solidarity with our blogging family.
-Ask them 11 questions that you are dying for the answers to!

Alright. Now I’m going to answer Bloom’s questions related to this nomination. I know the stuff in the questions pertain more to one of my other blogs, but I’ll still answer them here.

1. What was your most overhyped anime of 2017?

It’s tough for me since I haven’t been watching a lot of anime in 2017, let alone this decade so far. One 2017 anime that I recently finished was ID-0.

2. If you had to recommend one manga or comic what would it be?

I haven’t been as big of a comic or manga reader as I used to, but I’d say Persepolis. Yup. I read both the comics and saw the movie.

3. What’s your favorite animated film so far?

This choice will make me look like a more depressed person than I am, but my favorite animated film is Grave of the Fireflies. There aren’t many animated or even live-action films with as much emotional gravitas, strong writing, and great characterization. It’s one of those movies that really stands out in animation as a pure art form and something you can take seriously. I’ve yet to see any mainstream animated film have this much depth, substance, and great writing even though Grave of the Fireflies is VERY tragic.

4. What’s the longest running manga you’ve ever kept up with?

Here comes my old-school anime fan self here. The longest manga I’ve read from beginning to end was Whistle!. Yes, I’m talking about the soccer manga that’s 24 volumes long. It was actually the first manga I bought when I was in my teens and I’m not even that much into soccer.

5. Who’s your least favorite anime character?

This question was a tough one because I kind of wanted to forget any characters that I hate. Haha! It’s too easy mentioning villains, but people are supposed to dislike them. After thinking about it, I’d say Kimiko from Debutante Detective Corps. She’s no hero at all. What kind of a heroine goes around exploiting cops, act lazy, faking a kidnapping plot, allows innocent people to be killed, manipulates her friends, doesn’t take responsibility for her actions, and is able to buy her way out of not going to jail? This is hardcore Protagonist Centered Morality to the highest degree.

6. If you had to pick one guilty pleasure anime, what would it be?

Guilty pleasures are so hard for me to think about. Well, after referencing Family Force 5 in the title, I guess I have to have some kind of answer. From the top of my head, I’d say Night Warriors: Darkstalker’s Revenge. For an anime series based on a video game, I didn’t think it was that bad.

7. What are you most excited for this year (anime or otherwise)?

I am so out of the loop when it comes to all the newest and latest things to be brutally honest.

The selfish answer could be me doing something new musically and of the literary persuasion.

8. What’s one recommendation you would give to new bloggers?

Good question. I’m going to cheat and mention one recommendation per media since I cover so many topics across several blogs.

Music: The Old-Timers

Live-Action Movies: Mother of Mine

Anime: Haibane Renmei

Western Animation: Wrinkles

Documentary: Hate Crimes In The Heartland

Books: The Third Reconstruction by William J. Barber II

9. What was the toughest thing you had to deal with in starting your blog?

In any and all my blogs, it would be finding some kind of audience. I had a fear of failure that no one would like or care about my stuff.

10. Who’s one blogger or writer you would recommend everyone read or follow?

It would be my friend Jeannette Jonic. She’s a very talented writer, reviewer, and a very supportive person.

11. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not blogging?

I enjoy coming up with new story and character concepts for my fiction projects. I also like reading, a tiny bit of graphic design (I’m such a neophyte though), video editing, creating acousmatic soundscapes, playing the ukulele, and learning about several cultures.

Thanks for reading! I hereby nominate the following…

1. Haiku out of Africa
2. Hikeminded
3. Little Fears
4. Chizurue
5. James Edgar Skye
6. Madekesiworld
7. Keiko’s Anime Blog
8. Rebel Guy
9. Harotian Essentials
10. Fueled by Smiling
11. African Book Addict

I have 11 questions for those who I nominated.

1. What was the watershed moment that made you enjoy blogging?
2. What are your fears as a blogger/content creator?
3. Which languages would you like to learn the most that you don’t already know?
4. How would you best describe your blog’s identity?
5. Who inspired you to blog?
6. What are your strengths as a blogger?
7. What are your weaknesses as a blogger?
8. Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
9. If you can have one wish to improve the world, what would it be and why?
10. Which movie, musician, series or book that’s unknown to most that you like and wish more people knew it?
11. Has blogging been therapeutic for you? How so and why?

I guess versatility pays off? I’m a recipient of the Versatile Blogger Award!

This has been a positive few days for me. Just recently, I was awarded the Versatile Blogger Award from Raistlin0903. Thank you so much, Raistlin! It’s good to know that I’m a quality blogger and versatile in different subjects whether on this blog or my other ones.

Here are the rules for this particular award:

-Display award
-Thank the person who gave this award (and include a link to their blog)
-Share seven things about yourself
-Nominate bloggers of your choice

Without further ado, let’s get this started!

1. Poetry/Lyrics: Since I’m on the main Ospreyshire blog, I might as well talk about it. I’ve been writing poems and lyrics since I was 11. I didn’t actually write “real” songs until I was older. With my current project, I thought it would be an awesome vehicle to get this artform out there but with an avant-garde edge.

2. Multi-Instrumentalist, but what instrument is missing? I’ve been training to be adept at multiple instruments when it comes to songwriting and performing. Interestingly enough, I have never used a guitar for Ospreyshire. This was on purpose. I don’t hate guitars since it’s one of my better instruments, but I wanted to see what I can create without one of the most common instruments out there.

3. Cinema in multiple languages. Yes, some of you know about my film review blog Iridium Eye. I’ve covered movies from six different continents and dozens of countries around the world. It is a fusion of my love for geography and movies as I wanted to escape the Hollywood doldrums. I’ll spare you a list of every country that’s been covered by Iridium Eye so far, but here’s a list of languages that have been spoken in the movies I’ve reviewed so far. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin, Persian/Farsi, German, Dutch, Amharic, Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, Serbian, Afrikaans, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Hindi, Hebrew, Italian, Gaelic, Korean, and Danish. That’s not even counting stuff I haven’t reviewed.

4. Reading (whenever I can). I do enjoy a good book. Interesting fact, I’ve been able to read since I was 1 1/2 years old and I’ve enjoyed reading whenever I could. Granted with work, I haven’t been able to as much. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been reading a ton of non-fiction especially in regards to social issues, geography, lesser-known parts about history, and race relations especially with the African-American and Native American experience. It was fascinating learning about all these subjects and I certainly become more “woke” as the cool people say these days.

5. People think I’m extroverted. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The thing is I do work with a lot of people and I’ve had previous experience with public relations and customer service. I do like being around my friends whenever I can, but I’m really introverted. After dealing with a lot of people, I have to decompress whenever I go home. Even then, I just get on my grind by working on various creative projects like music or fiction or coming up with new content for any of my 4 blogs.

6. My first (real) start at fiction was microfiction. I tried writing stories when I was younger, but I am quite disappointed in the concepts I came up with. When I heard about microfiction (stories under 1000 words) a few years ago, I gave it a try. Some of them are on my writing blog such as this one about an invincible superhero having a bad day, a futuristic story involving people looking at social media accounts from the present, or a story involving a snarky dragoness dealing with a delusional knight. It’s a fun form of writing, and I encourage people to give it a try. If you have the TaleHunt app, you can find me @tocsinchronicle. Just sayin’.

7. I used to be a hardcore gamer, especially fighting games. This was actually a thing going on in my life. To be honest, I haven’t been into current games due to other interests taking precedence, but there was a time I was big into video games. Shoot, I still own a Dreamcast to this day. I was into different genres, but my favorite genre was fighting games. Back in my younger days, I could beat people in games like the first two Marvel Vs. Capcom games, Virtua Fighter, some of the Tekken games, King of Fighters, Power Stone, Project Justice (AKA Rival Schools 2), and various Street Fighter games (SFIII: Third Strike was my favorite and the most underrated game in the franchise). That was my jam back then.

Now that I got this out of the way, I hereby nominate the following bloggers…

Moyatorium
Travel Itineraries
The Drabble
Anime Q & A
Bipolar Online Blog
Medieval Otaku
Karandi
AfroSapiophile
Irina
Lunarian Thoughts

Thank you!

So I made some improvements to my film/documentary/anime review blog known as Iridium Eye…

Hello, everyone.

As some of my followers may or may not know, I have more blogs besides this one. Sure, it is my main one where I focus on my spoken word/music project, but I have additional interests you know.

That other blog is Iridium Eye. My new slogan if you will, is “Reviewing the best movies and series you’ve never heard of.”

This is a little review blog where I post things every Saturday. If you’re looking for a  place that’s all about the latest mainstream movies, this isn’t for you. I focus on media that’s lesser known to the mainstream zeitgeist.

I now made a menu of all my archived reviews from past to present. Everything is even in alphanumerical order from numbers to A to Z as redundant as it sounds. At the time of this post, I have written 135 articles critiquing things like indie movies, documentaries, anime, and short films.

Not everyone has checked it out since it’s inception in March 2017, but I would really encourage my followers and even some new faces to check it out. Iridium Eye has been cathartic for me and it helped me become more assertive even in real life.

“What stuff have you reviewed before?” You may ask.

Good question, and I’ll make some statements that might match your tastes in film and/or animation.

Do you like some quality foreign films?
I’ve talked about movies such as Before Your Eyes, Ringu, Mother of Mine, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (the original) to name a few.

Do you like some well-made documentaries?
I’ve reviewed docs like Danielson: A Family Movie, I Am Not Your Negro, Bananas!*, This Is Not a Film, and many more.

Do you like anime?
I’ve critiqued movies and series such as Cyborg 009: Call of Justice, The Ghost in the Shell: Arise prequels, Haibane Renmei, and Kino’s Journey to name a few.

Do you want to see Western animated films outside of the iron grip of companies like Disney, Dreamworks, or Illumination?
I’ve certainly highlighted lesser-known animated films such as The Secret of Kells, Ernest & Celestine, Fantastic Planet, and Song of the Sea for example.

Are you into old-school stuff?
I’ve discussed things such as Yojimbo, Kimba the White Lion, and Key the Metal Idol.

Feel free to check out Iridium Eye if you want to discover movies and series you might enjoy. If you know some of that stuff, then that’s awesome. Follow that blog as well, if you please.

So do you like movies, documentaries, or anime?

I usually don’t post about things besides my spoken word stuff or music on here, but I would like to remind you wonderful people that I do other stuff, too.

For example, I review some movies at a little place called Iridium Eye: http://iridiumeye.wordpress.com

The thing is that I don’t review the typical Hollywood blockbuster stuff. My emphasis is on critiquing the following kinds of visual media:

-Indie films
-International films
-Anime
-Non-mainstream animation
-Documentaries
-Art house cinema
-Short films
-Random obscure movies

Cinema has been a passion of mine, and I like to give my thoughts on media that you may or may not have heard of. I give my honest opinions on why I like or dislike something even if it’s against what most other critics (professional or otherwise) believe. I also use some snarky humor from time to time, mention some fun facts about a movie or series, and I also give an option for a viewer to adjust the score if their tastes are different than mine since I know not everyone will agree with me.

If you want to check out some films, animation, documentaries, or anything off the beaten path, then feel free to check out Iridium Eye for reviews every Saturday.

Once again, it’s http://iridiumeye.wordpress.com.

Thank you.

-Curtis

 

Shameless Self-Promotion Post ;)

I normally don’t post on Mondays with this blog (yet), but I thought I’d make a random post.

You see, making spoken word poetry over some avant-garde and post-minimalistic soundscapes isn’t all that I do. I have other creative pursuits, and if you weren’t aware of them, then I’d be happy to tell you about my other blogs.

Autumn Peal: This is my little DIY video and photo thing that I’ve been doing for a while now. Most of my videos are music related (concert footage and the occasional music video), but I’ve also done sports highlights, poetry, and a few travel videos since visiting Ecuador for the first time. You can find this stuff at http://autumnpealmedia.wordpress.com and http://vimeo.com/autumnpeal. I post things on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays on the blog.

C. M. B. Bell Writing: Did you know I do fiction projects? You do now! I’ve been posting microfiction/flash fiction on Mondays and Tuesdays so far, but I have future projects that will be featured on this blog, so watch out for them. My stories tend to use deconstruction, satire, and the occasional parody. What? I like messing around with tropes. Check it out at http://cmbbwrites.wordpress.com.

Iridium Eye: This is my film review blog where I post things every Saturday for the time being. Iridium Eye isn’t some place to get Hollywood movie reviews or juicy gossip in that realm. Instead, the emphasis is on independent films, world cinema, documentaries, and even anime of all things (most of it being lesser known). I want to give some unknown movies a chance by giving my thoughts on what I’ve been watching lately. Feel free to check it out at http://iridiumeye.wordpress.com.

Okay, that’s enough shameless plugging today. Pardon my arrogance in this post. Hahaha!

-Curtis