Strange dreams…
Stir now, sleeping consumers!
Discomforted by unthinkable acts of self-preservation.
Another sacrifice to the “Greater Good†left bloody bodies that blatantly clog our conscience with their memory.
Victims of self-justified, pre-forgiven atrocities remembered only as nameless statistics that slowly melt into our collective forgetfulness.
The controversial stench of guilt is easily sanitized, then dismissed, before entirely buried in today’s trivialities and tomorrow’s news.
eat!
Smile now, oh self-proclaimed elite!
Leaders that make fools of your people
and cannibalize life.
Today the gluttons make a feast!
Wealthy murderers guiltlessly rejoice in the spoils of blood as they declare victory.
God has blessed those who oppress in the name of their own well-being.
…god?
Where are you now, oh absent deity?
The one that made man,
then walked away,
and has long been reasoned out of existence.
Your holy men do unholy things then hide behind their holy scriptures.
If they speak the truth then god must be a hypocrite!
Nothing more than a pointless riddle written into holy books.
…deaf,
blind,
and mute.
death…
This is the death of man.
Incarnated into that abhorrent form of a deified Nation.
An omnipotent demon, drunk with conceit, casting the shadow of fear and of grief
Of bullet and bomb…
To reap death, that mad fruit of power and pride.
Bred upon the faces of fathers, while lacerating the flesh of children, and tearing apart the hearts of mothers.
strange bitter dreams…
sleep.
…That being the newest interactive addition to BlueSuburbia. Go see!
You can also download it for offline viewing as a funky projector thing:
Or view it outside of BlueSuburbia as a lonely stand alone… to save your mouse clicks… for more important things… like internet pron!
This was by far THE most animation intense thing I put myself through. Frame-by-frame-by-frame-by… it has very little tweening. Wow.
Personally, I’m surprised at how well Flash handled all that. A 106 MB .fla (with all assets in the library in full use) turned into a 3.24 MB .swf. Impressive to say the least! …although the .fla literally takes two coffee-breaks to open. Many of the animation sequences are VERY abstract “Flash-rotoscopes†from old public-domain World War 2 and 1950’s Nuclear Testing/propaganda footage. After drawing all the separate sequences I applied a shitload of bitmap filters to them to make them look like burned/damaged 8mm film. A combination of scripted Perlin Noise and just Noise was used to lightly texture the background… and to finish off the “filmy†effect all other film-noise-flickers-blurs-splotches-grains-etc are randomly generated via action script. The soundtrack (both sample and synthesis based) is very fragmented, with the main track being generated at real-time via AS. It’s pretty cool because the method of having actionscript constantly assemble the audio saves loads on the end-products filesize. You don’t have to make a huge .mp3/.wav to play “seamlessly†in the background, let the code be the DJ. All other audio is then user generated, via interaction… so the thing always sounds interesting… and… well, go!
The Girly Martini
In a cobbler shaker combine:
1 shot Vodka
Dry Vermouth
Monin Rose
Monin Almond
Monin Peppermint
A ton of ice
Shake! Hard! 1 minute…
Pour (unstrained) into a martini glass.
a
Just thought i’d leave a comment about how amazing your Blue Suburbia flash is (although you probably already know that.) Visuals, audio and content are absolutely stunning. I was just blown away at the haunting atmosphere you were able to create. Thanks for the experience.
Thanks! Much appreciate the comment + glad you enjoyed it. :)
Best,
-Nathalie
Holy shit lords i’ve been keeping up to date (sorta) with Blue Suburbia and I must say that new poem is fucking AMAZING. How do you do all the graphics and blurring like that? Makes me want to make a website like that. You should make cart00ns.
Notorious… notorious milkshake? Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the poem. For the blurrings I use F8’s filters, the combinations you can make are awesome. Hmmm… cart00ns? I like yours. Especially “The downlfall of AIM”, keeps hapening t–
:o
http://www.stumbleupon.com/url.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnathalielawhead.com%2Fnoodles%2Fadream%2F
“*thumbs down* by LaurieLaw17, Sep 3, 9:23am
Ugh. Some that’s some pretty grim stuff.”
Kekeke ^^, some poor stumbler stumbled me.
There you go again, always scaring people n shit…
… :(
*sniff*
Don’t cry Nat!
I think bluesuburbia is cute n’ cuddly and makes me warm fuzzy and happy in many places of my body…
xD
I absolutely love your site, Blue Suburbia. I stumbled upon it while looking for games (amazing, since your site isn’t really a game) and I immediately fell in love with your poems. Now I’m sharing the site with everyone I know. Keep writing, please! I hope I can read more of your stuff. ^^
Thanks Chelly! Glad you enjoyed it. Its a funny, people mistake it for a game all the time. The reactions are enjoyable… and priceless, to say the least. :)
…Thanks for passing the link arround,
-nat
Hm, I heard about Blue Suburbia from Chels, and enjoyed sifting through the many poems. Your poems echo the thoughts that have been in my mind for over seven years. You’re a wonderful artist and poet. I look forward to more from you.