Ethereality News & Weblog

News:
Uploaded a new concept piece:

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I received Digital Art Masters: Volume 1 today, which contains my work with an accompanying tutorial. It took a while because somehow the package was missent (that’s the word they used on the postal marking) to Thailand. How the hell did they make that mistake? The book is very nice, with great design and print quality. I was quite impressed. Kudos to the folks at 3dtotal.com!

Weblog:
My dreams have been pretty damn interesting lately. I think it’s because I’m only a month away from moving back to the States and looking for a new job, so there’s a lot on my mind. I had one last night that was so complete that it practically requires no editing to be a finished short story. Don’t believe me? Guess I’ll have to tell it to you then.

This is my dream about Neil Gaiman and the Sandman:

(For those of you that don’t know, Neil Gaiman is an author, and The Sandman (whoes name is Morpheus), is a famous comic book series Neil created/wrote for many years.)

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Neil receives birthday cards from various people wishing him a happy birthday. One card in particular was stunning–a flash animation made collectively by various indy comic book creators. It told a story of the Sandman.

The Sandman was in fact Neil himself, and he’s at his birthday party with all sorts of guests. His lover comes to get him, ready to go on a little getaway vacation. They bid their guests fairwell and travel to the middle east. While walking around, they pass by unfortunate victims of political violence–people getting their heads chopped off at the hand of political adversaries. Morpheus’s lover begs him to put a stop to the violence, and the Sandman says he cannot interfere in mortal affairs whenever his whim strikes–that is not why he was given his immortal powers. The human world must function on its own set of rules, without the interference from immortals at every turn of events.

But when the Sandman come upon a dear mortal friend of his–a war journalist who’s become a captive and is scheduled to be executed, his resolve was shaken. The journalist seems to have made peace with his pending demise–his demeanor calm and composed, ready to step into the afterlife. Morpheus, remembering the many late night chats with his friend by the fire while drinking good wine, decides he could no longer take a neutral stance in human affairs. With a wave of his hand, Morpheus makes himself visible to the mortals and stops time–everyone frozen except for his journalist friend. The journalist was shocked and overjoyed to see the Sandman, but his defective heart gave out with the sudden astonishment. The Sandman reaches out and caught the collapsing body of his friend, and when he lifts his friend’s face, Morpheus was heartbroken to see a horrifyingly distorted laughter, silent and frozen on the journalist’s face. It was a death caused by happiness.

As the Sandman carries his friend’s body away from the makeshift prison, he notices something at the edge of his peripheral–something odd at the other end of the makeshift prison. Morpheus walks to the other end of the building to take a closer look–then it strikes him what is so odd. It is a small group of soldiers hiding in the bushes right next to the building, and the soldiers look nothing like the ones walking aound–they have different uniforms and carry different weapons. They are a squad of American speical forces–specifically Delta operators–just about to strike and rescue the journalist from the enemy’s clutches.

Shaking his head in despair, the Sandman turns to his lover and said quietly, “This is why we are not supposed to interfere with mortal affairs.”

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Pretty damn cool, eh? Notice how the dream actually contains a fully functioning irony for the ending? That’s what I meant by it being a finished short story without any editing from me. Maybe I should tell it to Neil Gaiman–I’m sure he’d be amused.

Weblog:
All you synth head out there–the long anticipated Terratec Komplexer is finally here! This bad boy can actually import sounds from the Waldorf microQ–which for many people is probably the most exciting feature (and says a lot about its capability/quality). It’s a virtual analog with wavetable synthesis, three oscillators with sync and ring modulation, up to 256 voices–and get this–eight types of comb filters. I tried the demo yesterday (the KVR guys were all over it), and it was beautiful–right up there with my favs like zeta+, Rhino 2, Tera 2..etc. It seems that synths just keep getting better and better these days, as music software developers continue to battle it out in the market. You can download the demo here (this is a temporary link, so no guarantee how long it’ll last).

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At six AM this morning, a marching band started blasting away downstairs in the courtyard of our apartment complex, and played on for hours.

This is a common occurence.

I’ve written about this in the past, and I’m going to talk about it more in depth this time. Basically, this is what people do in China when someone passes away in the family. They hire a marching band and make a lot of noise as soon as the sun rears its head, with the reasoning that sending a loved one off to the netherworld with fanfare is a good prologue for the upcoming journey. Even if a family can’t afford it, they’d borrow money to do it because it’s expected of them. If they don’t, the neighbors might point fingers and accuse them of being uncaring and selfish–that they don’t care if their deceased family member has a good afterlife. Can you imagine that? Peer pressure. And you know what? The band is always terrible–off beat, off sync, off key, with bad arrangement (think of the worst middle school marching band you’ve ever heard) and the most inappropriate choice of tunes–even trendy pop tunes. WTF–it’s like as long as they make a lot of noise, it counts.

What pisses me off the most about it is that many people do see it as an unreasonable tradition that disturbs everyone’s morning and needs to be stopped, but because of peer pressure, even apartment managers succumb to this old and unreasonable tradition. In the modern age of highrise apartment communities, a single marching band blasting away at six AM for hours on end is essentially sonic terrorism for literally thousands of people living in the immediate vicinity. I firmly believe that not all traditions are good, and some must be altered or abandoned as civilization progresses to the next step. China is a developing country, and it’s got a ton of unreasonable traditions that clashes with its wish to become a developed modern society. This morning marching band crap is definitely one that needs to go. I wouldn’t be surprised that in another five to ten years, it’ll completely disappear from the Chinese society. Hopefully within another generation, most of the bad tradtitions would be eradicated, just like foot-binding or selling daughters off to slavery.

Weblog:
It’s usually hit or miss when someone tells you about a dream he’s had, because depending on how well you know the person, you may or may not give a damn. But the person talking about the dream is always compelled to do so with a fevor that would not be dampend by any display of disinterest by the listener. So, with that said, I’m going to talk about a dream I just woke up from, whether you give a damn or not.

My dream was in two parts. The first was about my father (who’s actually my stepfather, but in my mind he’s the only father I recognize in my life). I dreamt that he had moved into a small and cozy new house (with a spare room where my brother Dennis has moved into), and was in a jolly mood. His laughter was infectious, and his high spirits lifted my own up to the sky. He was showing me a set of photos and asked me to pick one for him to submit to the court for jury review, and in one of the photos he was in his birthday suit (although his private part covered by a cushion) and looking so happy and content–that’s the photo I picked, although I reminded him he needed to crop the photo to about mid-chest length. The whole time he looks so happy and in tune with where he’s at in his life, that I can’t help but be affected by his exuberance. Turned out the reason he was needed in court was because he had been a witness in a car accident. He had jumped out of his car in the middle of the road and ran towards two cars that had just crashed into each other, bravely helping with the rescue attempt. The dream pretty much reflected how I see my father. The last time I saw him was a couple of months ago when Elena and I went back to the States for almost a month. I felt so happy for him because he was energetic and talkative, and in great health despite a mysterious incident of heart pains that the doctor couldn’t explain. My father’s always been healthy and had a good sense of humor. He used to tell stories at the dinner table–sometimes about the his past as a poor college student attending Stanford University, his childhood in China, or funny stories about his co-workers. He’s a major positive influence in my life because he’s a responsible and compassionate person–always donating money to the needy and doing the right thing. He’s also a very practical, down to earth, and wise person–never overspends, displays any hubris, always curteous, and never gets himself into trouble.

The second part of the dream was about Steven Spielberg. I dreamt that my buddy Nadim applied for job with Spielberg and got accepted (although in the dream, Spielberg had a huge operation similar to Lucas–essentially an empire). I had also applied for a job, and got called in for a portfolio review. When I went in, I was quite nervous because I didn’t have my portfolio with me, nor even a decent sketchbook, so I asked Spielberg if he was willing to take a look at my website and he agreed. In the dream I felt such admiration and affection for him, almost like a father figure. The sheer humility was overwhelming. His wife was there too with their daughter–a little blond girl. She had commented that they needed to go soon, and I replied “Of course, if the little one doesn’t get her nap, she’ll be grouchy for the rest of the day.” We were sitting in big lounge, filled with his staff artists (the whole setup is probably much more like Lucasart or ILM), and they were reviewing some dailies and early effects shots–a film that looked like Spielberg’s foray into high fantasy a la LOTR or D&D. The scene playing was one of a forest fight, with the heroes and villains shooting arrows on horse back and running between trees in the dense woods. I thought the expressions on the actors were a little stiff, but I didn’t say anything because I knew nothing about the context of the story. Spielberg and his wife then led me to another office. While walking in the hallways, Spielberg mentioned that he was very impressed with what I said in my cover letter, particularly the sentence “I want to work for a man who knows what he wants, how to get it, and is revered for his ability to get it.” He felt that it demonstrated my understanding of him as a visionary, and also my own work ethics. I expressed my confusion because I didn’t apply for any specific job–I could be an artist, a writer, a director, a photography, or in a pinch, even a composer. Spielberg hinted that because of what I wrote in my cover letter, it’s most likely I’ll be working for him as a writer. While he was busy calling up something on his computer, I commented to his wife that no matter what happens in the future as I worked for her husband, I just wanted the experience of walking into the fire and coming out on the other end a new man–someone who took the challenge head-on, didn’t flench, and survived stronger than ever. “Or just charred and crispy,” she joked. I laughed and felt like it was the beautiful beginning of a new life at a new job. Then I woke up.

I love dreams that I wake up from feeling hopeful and encouraged. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I usually have a great day as the result. Today’s going to be a great day.