whatleydude

So long, 2011. 2012, here we come!

via

PS. I know this has been seen a million times everywhere already, but I still love it.

Zooey + Average Joe: Gorgeous

This time last year I was saying ‘So Long 2010‘ with an air of the unknown and a wariness of the uncertain.

Life had changed rather dramatically and – as alive as I felt, as invigorating the sense of endless possibility was – I didn’t know what would happen next. And, truth be told, I continued not knowing for most of the year.

Today however? I am above par.

_________________________________________

Imagine tumbling through darkness:

You’ve slipped from a mountainside and a blizzard roars up and around as you desperately flail and fall through the cold, black nothing.

In that never-ending gloom, in that deafening storm, peaceful acceptance eventually takes over and calm reigns throughout.

Do you feel it?

The ground is far, far away. The air on your face is a blanket of ice smothering your face as it burns… Yet it somehow refreshes; filling your lungs forcefully as further still you cascade through the bleak unknown.

In that tranquil nothingness, thoughts spark and race through your mind, freshly cut to rage, rage against the dying of the light. Upwards, around you, chinks  of sunlight break through and, in that moment, in that quiet deathly moment, your hands shoot out and cling and claw – like grappling hooks – at the rocks around.

You catch one, two.. three… and pull.

_________________________________________

My light has shone, my hooks have been launched and at last I’m climbing.
Better yet, I’m climbing higher than I’ve ever been before.

And the view is breathtaking.

Happy New Year friends and readers, I wish you all the very best for 2012 and everything wonderful that it brings.

As a certain chap said to me recently: it’s going to be epic.

c/o Michael Hell

Taking an hour for lunch isn’t easy at the best of times. I try, we all do. Hell, (1000heads creative director) Robbie Dale and I have been trying to schedule a weekly lunchtime catch up for nearly two years now – it’s shocking how this meeting is hardly ever kept. However, the promise of it being there week in, week out at least makes us try to keep it…

Something new is required, a weekly focal point of something where I deliberately take myself away from the office (where possible) and attempt to build something new. Be it a new piece of writing or a new photography effort; the fourth day of the working week – the lunch break at least – is where I’m going to do it.

I started a fortnight ago and have already built something cool for the guys I work with; “1000heads is Out of the Office“.

This week? I don’t know… I might revisit This is my N8, maybe.

So here’s a challenge for 2012: book yourself an hour a week to build something new. Something fun.

Oh, and do it on a Thursday.

…

Get to it.

*Big Wall of Asia

Moleskine Entry: 24th April, 2011

Up early today, we’re on the 9:30 train out of Beijing to visit the Great Wall of China.

We came, we saw and the Big Wall of Asia did not disappoint.

Tonight most of the friends I’ve made are off home and I’ll be venturing out into the city on my own for another week.

I say ‘on my own’, there other people here, friends I’ve made along the way, plus one of my train buddies has extended his stay to hangout a bit longer. Should be cool.

Can’t believe I’m less than a week from home.

Moscow – nay London! – seems an entire world away.

Other things:

• Photos with locals [they really do love tourists]
• Getting told off by guards
• The AMAZING CCTV building
• Checked out of hostel, checked in to 5* hotel [best. forward planning. ever.]
• Scorpions for dinner. Again.

– – — – Whatley out

The trailer is here -

And, even though Mr Ridley Scott would have you believe otherwise, the connections to the Alien franchise are strong with this one.

Exhibit A:

This ship, the ship the crew of the Nostromo board at the beginning of Alien in response to the distress / warning call.

Which, surprisingly enough, looks remarkably like this one, exploding and falling out of the sky in the trailer for Prometheus.

Similar right? Shape, structure etc… it’s all there.

OK, so some spaceships look like other spaceships. True. However, any fan of the original Alien film will recognise the following image, aka – Exhibit B:

This chap is actually nameless in the film, however he has somehow earned the name of ‘The Space Jockey‘. Look what he’s sitting on and just look what this is, coming out of the ground in the Prometheus trailer.

This film is set on the ship that the crew of the Nostromo discover. That much is plain to see. Ridley Scott has said that there will be no Aliens, however there will be space jockeys. In Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gifted it to man. The film’s official synopsis talks about man’s search for its very beginnings.

One wonders if these ‘space jockeys’ are pitched as our creators [as well as those of the Xenopmorph] and this is what happens when we meet ‘God’ face to face.

Who knows, we only have to wait until summer 2012 to find out and it’s about time Ridley Scott came back to the sci-fi genre.

Bring it.

“Let’s just be friends” came the reply.
“What? Just friends? Can I ask why?”

Panic flickered across her eye,
she looked away and began to sigh.

Go on, say it. Say that lie…

“I like you a lot, you’re a really nice guy…”
I heard the “…but” as I gazed at the sky

It’s always me, I just wanna know why.

— JW, 1995

2am. Life is changing, again. I don’t where I’m headed. I don’t know what’s coming next.

9am. James, life is always changing. You do know where you’re headed, you do know what’s coming next.

Get a grip.

[Private post - made public Dec 23rd, 2011]