A world without colour

August 13, 2010 Reading time: ~1 minute

Nothing left to fear, l'Cie
Cradled in eternity
Shore of sands, your fate awaits
Oh surrender in the light

—色のない世界,
Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack


Fantaisie Sign

February 6, 2010 Reading time: 2 minutes

Une promenade et l'univers si loin
Après une cascade, son nom c'est toujours toi
Une escapade, la vie est dans les bois
Et puis une ballade, son sujet c'est toujours toi
Une promenade et l'univers si loin
Après une cascade, son nom c'est toujours toi

C ‘est comme le vert des champs, et
Comme un oiseau qui vole
C'est toujours toi
C'est toujours moi
Toujours le rocher de la nuit nue

Comme un enfant qui voile
Ton passé comme drôle
C'est toujours toi
C'est toujours moi
Sur les ailes de la joue du grand amour

Dans cette époque cybernique
Pleine de gens informatique
C'est la seul fantasy ici
Pour toujours
C'est toujours moi
C'est toujours toi

C'est toujours moi
C'est toujours toi
Toujours ce rocher de la nuit nue

Comme la si douce Montegu
Le bleu du ciel bien aperçu
C'est la seule fantasy ici
Pour toujours
C'est toujours toi
C'est toujours moi
Pour toujours
En dehors des jours
Et des jours
C'est toujours toi et moi

—Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts, No Disc: Cowboy Bebop OST 2


Call Me Call Me

November 18, 2009 Reading time: ~1 minute

I close my eyes and I keep seeing things
Rainbow waterfalls, sunny liquid dreams
Confusion creeps inside me raining down
Got to get to you, but I don’t know how

Call me, call me
Let me know it’s alright
Call me, call me
Don’t you think it’s now time
Please won’t you call and
Ease my mind
Reasons for me to find you
Piece of mine
What can I do to get me to you?

I had your number quite some time ago
Back when we were young
But I had to go
Ten thousand years I’ve searched, it seems enough
Got to get to you, won’t you tell me how

Call me, call me
Let me know you are there
Call me, call me
I wanna know you still care
Come on now won’t you
Ease my mind
Reasons for me to find you
Peace of mind
What can I do to get me to you?

—Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts, Blue: Cowboy Bebop OST 3


Somewhere in the Silence

October 24, 2009 Reading time: 2 minutes

Clouds of another life
Wash across the sunlight
Changing shape as they go by
Thought I saw your face there
But like them you just—

—disappear
Disappear into empty sky
Quietly
So removed from reason
Hey
Have you ever had to reason?
Hey

The eagle comes and goes
To somewhere much higher
When the silence grows
Can you hear it, sniper?

Visions and memories
Where some one once laid flowers
For the past and things to come
Thought you were gone
But I can feel you
So I—

—turn around
Turn around, yes, and there you are
Here again
Can you give it some meaning?
Hey
ask again, but you say nothing
Hey

Motion without sound
Ice inside the fire
The stillness in the storm
Silence hides the sniper

Eagles come and go
To someplace much higher
When the silence grows
Can you hear it, sniper?

What goes through your sniper’s mind?...

—"Somewhere in the Silence (Sniper's Theme)",
Yoko Kanno, Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society


The definition of a truly beautiful doll

October 15, 2009 Reading time: ~1 minute

is a living, breathing body devoid of a soul. [...] The human is no match for a doll, in its form, its elegance in motion, its very being. The inadequacies of human awareness become the inadequacies of life's reality. Perfection is possible only for those without consciousness, or perhaps endowed with infinite consciousness. In other words, for dolls and for gods. [...]

The doubt is whether a creature that certainly appears to be alive, really is. Alternatively, the doubt that a lifeless object might actually live. That's why dolls haunt us. They are modelled on humans. They are, in fact, nothing but human. They make us face the terror of being reduced to simple mechanisms and matter. In other words, the fear that, fundamentally, all humans belong to the void.

—Kim,
Ghost in the Shell: Innocence


Humans are different from robots.

October 14, 2009 Reading time: ~1 minute

That's an article of faith, like black isn't white. It's no more helpful than the basic fact that humans aren't machines. [...]

Unlike industrial robots, the androids and gynoids designed as "pets" weren't designed along utilitarian or practical models. Istead, we model them on a human image, an idealized one at that. Why are humans so obsessed with recreating themselves? [...]

Children have been excluded from the customary standards of human behaviour, if you define humans as beings who possess a conventional identity and act out of free will. Then what are children in the chaos preceding maturity? They differ profoundly from "humans", but they obviously have human form. The dolls that little girls mother are not surrogates for real babies. Little girls aren't so much imitating child rearing, as they are experiencing something deeply akin to child rearing. [...] Raising children is the simplest way to achieve the ancient dream of artificial life.

—Haraway,
Ghost in the Shell: Innocence


October 13, 2009 Reading time: ~1 minute

If the essence of life is informational carried in DNA, the society and civilization are just colossal memory systems, and a metropolis like this one, simply a sprawling memory.

—Batou,
Ghost in the Shell: Innocence


October 11, 2009 Reading time: ~1 minute

生死去来
棚[頭*]傀儡
一[缐**]断時
落落磊磊

from Ghost in the Shell: Innocence;
unknown origin

* [头]
** [线]