Cav's Place

Yes, it’s yet another personal update and it’ll once again be a quick one, because I’m in between things and want to post it before midnight anyway. Then there’s something else I need to write later tonight, though I’ll probably put it off until after I’ll eat, because right now I just woke up from a nap and will be forcing my mind to pull itself together quite quickly and very much against its wishes in order to quickly write this post. As such, I doubt it’ll like moving on to writing something else immediately afterwards, and doing that is hard enough even without such added complications.

Last week, I was saying that I had almost finished Tropico 3 and only needed to play a couple of sandbox games before truly being done with it. I have now done that, going through a quick “God mode” one today just to say that I did that too. The other one took a few days to complete, but I actually generated it so the listed difficulty was 200%, not just 100%, and went through the maximum of 50 years under those conditions, eventually reaching the end with the happiness of my citizens at 70% and therefore finally obtaining the happiness achievement as well.
I hope I’ll manage to write a review before the end of the year, perhaps even next week, but let’s see how that will work out. Right now I found myself moving straight on to Empire Earth, which was offered for free for two days by GOG.com, though of course the AI is wiping the floor with me from the very first scenarios. I really suck at such games, but I guess I’ll give it a shot and then decide whether I’ll keep at it or consider it a lost cause and move on to something else.

Otherwise, I’m actually quite proud to say that yesterday I managed to meet the first two conditions of that crazy plan of mine. It required me to wander around the city for six days and made me feel quite bad in quite a few ways, but at least it’s done now and I can move on to the third condition, which is the last one that actually depends on me. The fourth should also be handled as much as I possibly can, but I’m not the one who’ll have the final say, so it’ll only be a matter of doing my best and then hoping for a good outcome.

Last but not least, with this being this week’s first post and the end of the year being only two weeks away, it means I have five more posts to write, four of which are already planned to some extent. One will be the review for Tropico 3, another will include the details of this crazy plan of mine once it’ll either succeed or fail, while two more should be of the sort that’ll get filed under Society, because a couple of months ago I sort of set a goal of having more than 150 in that category by the end of the year. I won’t necessarily be writing any of the two or three I have in mind right now, but I’ll have to figure something out very soon, because this week’s second post will likely need to be one of these planned ones. If it’s not, then I’ll have my work cut out for me for the next two weeks, with no room to maneuver.

It‘s a collection of short stories, so not much to it, as I don’t take well to this sort of thing. But there are some interesting ideas in here, some of which are still just as relevant.

Rating: 3/5

I finally got around to starting the final scenario from the Absolute Power campaign yesterday and found it noticeably easier than at least a few of those that were unlocked before it, so kept playing until I won it. In truth, the listed difficulty is a mere 129%, which puts it below those unlocked in the previous batch, one of which went as high as 171%, not to mention that, if I remember correctly, seven of the 15 from the original campaign had a listed difficulty of at least 200%, the last one going all the way to 300%.
That said, now I still need to play two sandbox games to say that I truly finished Tropico 3. One will be the “God mode” one, which will be a walk in the park, but the other will be hard, because I mean to activate both “rebel yell” and “free elections”, making for a very difficult start despite otherwise aiming for a listed difficulty of only 100%. Actually tried it once before, but failed, so now I’m hoping that I learned a few more things and will manage it, so I’ll be able to finish and also review the game by the end of the year, despite keeping myself rather busy with something else these days.

What I’m keeping myself busy with is an insane idea I came up with about a week ago. It’s insane because pulling it off requires meeting four conditions that are next to impossible to meet, and even then the most probable outcome would be the opposite of what I’m hoping for. But I can’t just sit here like this, so I have to at least try. If the first two of those conditions still won’t be met a week from now, I’ll get back to curling up in a ball and whimpering, adding yet another failure to the list, but I already spent a couple of days looking for things this week and plan to really do all I can next week.
Looking for things did involve some on-line searching, but that didn’t result in finding what I’m looking for, so I wandered around the city on Thursday and Friday and that’s the plan for next week as well. I’ll be going out again tomorrow and if that’ll just turn out to be another failure I’ll keep at it at least until Thursday, unless of course I’ll meet the first two conditions before then. The weekend, particularly at this time of year, seems like a very bad time to look for things, however, so I guess I’ll have to give up if I won’t have it by then…
I’ve had months to think of this, but it never even crossed my mind until about a week ago, and now it’s such a wrong time to be looking for things, both because everyone else is doing the same, so it’s very crowded, and because prices tend to increase, particularly for such things. Then again, it’s also perhaps more likely for something like this to be in stock and on display somewhere. So far that doesn’t seem to be the case, but what do I have left but hope?

Over a year ago, I was writing a post about the priority people of different ages should receive, on average, when it comes to healthcare. Some conclusions could be derived from that, and in part they have been pointed out in the post in question, but a recent conversation made me want to spell out my view on this issue much more clearly. I won’t bring society’s views on the matter into it, be they religious, philosophical or of any other kind, but will simply approach the issue of healthcare from this perspective, considering the potential future quality of life for the patient, the resources required and the usefulness of using said resources under various circumstances. In other words, I’ll try to be annoyingly rational about it.

What most people now know is that proper healthcare is expensive and usually available only to the rich. In part, this truly is due to the greed of the companies that control most of this field, but what people also need to understand is that proper healthcare truly uses a huge amount of resources, many of them not available in a sufficient quantity to meet the demand and many others only obtainable through very damaging methods. As a result, it’s a simple fact that, while some treatments or even cures may theoretically be available, plenty of people do need to suffer or, since I’d prefer to avoid suffering unless absolutely deserved, simply die when they become seriously ill. What’s worse, as the amount of available resources keeps decreasing and the human population keeps increasing, the number of people who’ll need to face such a fate will also continue to increase.
Faced with this reality, we need to very rationally determine when would it be justifiable to spend that amount of resources in order to cure or treat a person. It’s obvious that personal wealth shouldn’t be a relevant criterion when it comes to this, so any treatments that require a significant amount of resources should be awarded, not sold. This would require the use of a strict and objective set of criteria in order to determine who should such treatments be offered to, according to the chance of success, the exact definition of said success, the real potential benefit for the patient in the future and, of course, the value the person in question has for the world. After all, those who are making and could continue to make a major positive impact obviously need to get everything they may need before anyone else, regardless of any other factors.

I’ll first point you back to my previous post on this issue and say that age should play an important role in determining who should receive such treatments. If a child is born with or develops serious health problems during the first few years of life, it’s likely that their body will continue to develop problems later even if the initial ones will be cured, not to mention that their development will almost certainly be negatively affected. This could also apply to serious problems that are the result of accidents or infections, as those may not be developed by the body itself but will very likely have long-term effects if they happen during that stage of life. As a result, the solution that makes the most sense in these scenarios is euthanasia while the child is not old enough to fully comprehend what’s happening. It’s harsh, but it’s perfectly logical, because otherwise more and more resources are likely to keep being required in order to continue extending that life, a life which the person is unlikely to be able to make the most of anyway, just because of these constant problems.
Past this point, the deciding factors should be the patients’ minds, whether or not they have others in their care and, if so, whether or not the treatment will allow them to continue to provide such care. People with sharp minds who do have others in their care need to be offered any treatments they require in order to continue to provide the necessary support, while euthanasia is the only logical option for those whose minds are truly going down the drain, those who are simply not intelligent enough to understand life and make even basic decisions for themselves, and of course for those who truly want to die. In between these clear scenarios and excepting a few other truly extreme cases, the priorities specified in that previous post I mentioned hold true, those who have reached the age of ten without serious problems being offered everything they need at the very least until the age of 50, and if at all possible until 65.
When it comes to old people who are not in any of the clear situations described in the previous paragraph, it would depend on how serious the problem is and how well can it be mitigated or cured. If the mind’s still sharp, the person still wants to live and the problem can be either completely cured or mitigated well enough to still ensure a good quality of life without using resources that are desperately needed by younger people, then that life should probably be extended. If not, it shouldn’t be, because it can be said that those people have already lived their life and death would simply be the next natural step, one which anyone who has reached such an age should be prepared for.

I actually had a few more things to say, particularly about some special cases which could be observed among older children and teenagers, but I guess I’ll leave it at this for now. The main point I meant to make was that such systems need to be used in order to make such harsh but logical decisions, simply because it’s impossible to keep prolonging all human lives to the full extent of our current theoretical abilities and because personal wealth shouldn’t decide who benefits from these discoveries and who doesn’t. We quite simply need to determine who’d be better off dead and, out of those who’re better off alive, who exactly is worth saving, according to the available resources and the amount of people who require them.

After a wait of more than four years, Nightwish have finally released their seventh album. It was supposed to be titled Imaginarium, but shortly before release they were asked to change the name in order to avoid confusion with other things with the same name, so it became Imaginaerum. The name of the last song has also been changed to reflect this, though the word “imaginarium” is still found in the lyrics of Storytime, which was selected as the first single.
The original plan Tuomas had was to film a video for every single song, all of these videos having a common theme, which would be best understood by watching all of them in order. However, once Stobe Harju, who should have directed these videos, heard of it, that crazy plan evolved even further. As such, the album will be followed, most likely in the spring of 2012, by a movie with the same name, for which it is essentially a soundtrack, though some changes have been made to the songs in order to make them fit the action of the movie better.
But I should stop here, as this post should in fact be a song-by-song review of the album, which I have been listening to for the past four days. It’s the first time I’m trying something like this, so I’ll just be taking the songs one by one and writing my very honest but purely personal and highly subjective opinion of each. If that’s all right with you, keep on reading. If you were expecting or desiring something else, move along now, because you won’t find it here.

The first song, Taikatalvi, is one I tend to ignore. It’s supposed to be an intro, but it seems to be something in between, too much for an intro and too little for an actual song. The music itself is nice enough once the lyrics end, but I can’t get much out of it before that. A large part of the reason why that happens is likely the fact that it’s in Finnish, so I can’t understand what’s being said, but I get the feeling that I wouldn’t care for it even if I did. The music box sound it starts with, before the orchestra steps in, adds to the feeling that it’s a bedtime story for a child, which is another thing that bothers me, for quite a few reasons, not particularly related to the song itself.
Then we have Storytime, which has already been released as a single. It seems to me to be the most commercial song on the album and quite similar to Amaranth in that way. It’s reasonably catchy, but otherwise it didn’t impress me when I first heard the single version and the longer album version doesn’t impress me either, instead appearing more like something that had to be included for the sake of the record labels, so Tuomas could get them out of his hair and be free to work his magic on the rest of the album. Taken like that, a bone thrown for the suits to chew on, it’s good enough, but let’s just let them play with it while we move on.
I’m tempted to say that the album actually starts with the third song, Ghost River. It’s likely the harshest and heaviest song on the album and, despite being nothing compared to Dark Passion Play‘s Master Passion Greed, my initial reaction was to reject it for that reason. Listening to it once was enough for the chorus to burn itself into my mind, but I had to listen to the entire album a few times before allowing myself to open up to this song. Once that happened, I saw its purpose and started liking it more and more. It’s not one of my favorites, but I can see myself looking for it in my playlist while angry or scared for quite some time to come. The lyrics certainly help as well when it comes to seeing it fit for such a purpose.
By contrast, Slow, Love, Slow is likely the most unusual song on the album. The other songs are quite different from each other as well, but this particular one is unlike anything Nightwish has ever done before. When I first heard it, I was puzzled and tended to reject it, so at that point I feared that I wouldn’t like the album at all, the first four songs all seeming inadequate from my point of view. However, as in the case of Ghost River, listening to the whole album a few more times made me see this song’s value and purpose as well. It’s not a sound I’d particularly care about, but the song is better suited for your mind’s eye than your ears, as it intends to create a certain atmosphere and does so perfectly. In addition, a line like “only the weak are not lonely” could be enough to win me over on its own, plus that Anette‘s voice sounds surprisingly good on it, being different in a good way from what I was expecting.
I Want My Tears Back was the first song I liked right away, without needing to listen to it multiple times first. The guitars are actually quite angry and the vocals can get there as well, but the Celtic portions have been mixed wonderfully into it, taking away that edge and creating a simply brilliant whole. Anette again sounds surprisingly well and the lyrics can paint pictures faster than your mind can process them. This is where the album, the movie, the spirit of Nightwish and what we know of Tuomas truly tie together. It’s the first song I liked right away and also the point where this album grabbed hold of me and never let go. From this point forward, expect magic.
Once hooked by the previous song, Imaginaerum will throw you straight into a carnival of horrors with Scaretale. Anette’s voice, now depicting an evil queen who has you in her clutches, again fits the song just perfectly, and Marco completes the picture like he was born specifically for it. There may be one or two places where the guitars have been allowed to take center stage for just a little too long, but for nearly all of the song’s seven and a half minutes music and lyrics blend again to put images into your awestruck mind. It’s creepy, it’s epic, it’s memorable and absolutely, completely brilliant.
And then you suddenly find yourself in the desert. Arabesque is the album’s first instrumental track and is performed strictly by the orchestra and the choir, without any members of the band. Yet even without words it paints a vivid picture, which is all the more shocking when it’s so different from the one painted by the previous song, or in fact by any of the previous songs. At first glance, you could be tempted to say that it doesn’t fit with the rest of the album, but then you realize that the album is held together by imagination, fantasy and storytelling. Are not the Arabians known for all of these?
The next song, Turn Loose the Mermaids, reminds me of The Islander. It’s a soft, melancholy tune, sung entirely by Anette, whose voice again fits it like a glove. I know I keep saying that, but it’s true for most of the songs, and perhaps even more so for this one, and I was surprised to say the least, seeing as I had relatively low expectations from her. You can simply close your eyes and let her voice and the beautiful music accompanying it carry you away, allowing new images and emotions to fill and calm your mind and soul. After a carnival of horrors and the Arabian desert, it was perhaps time for some rest.
And that’s exactly what the following song, Rest Calm, tells us. However, the song itself is anything but calm or restful. During the first half, Marco’s voice is actually rather angry and the guitars carry a punch, the only calm and restful moments being the two times Anette sings the chorus alone. And then you get to the second half, which consists of nothing but the chorus being repeated several times, delivering an increasing amount of energy. At first it’s still soft and soothing, sung by Anette and a children’s choir, but then Marco joins in and seems to take charge, with the orchestra and the drums becoming more and more powerful with each repetition. It’s supposed to present the end of the journey, the final moments before death, yet it feels more like a rebirth. Which, perhaps, it is.
However, after recharging us with energy, Imaginaerum takes us to another soft and lovely song, The Crow, the Owl and the Dove. It features the vocal talent of Troy Donockley and again makes me think of The Islander, particularly due to the sound of acoustic guitars. Also like The Islander, it was composed by Marco, so the connections are obvious, as is its place in the album, at least musically. No matter how energized we might have been after the end of the previous song, it signified death, and death brings rest and peace, which is exactly what we get. On the other hand, I’m still not quite sure how the lyrics fit into the story at this specific point, though in themselves they’re every bit as deep and meaningful as anyone could expect. I’m also still wondering about the meaning of those two lines that aren’t in English.
But those questions are forgotten as soon as Last Ride of the Day starts. It’s the proper conclusion to the album’s story and, while only four and a half minutes long, it’s every bit the rollercoaster ride it means to represent. Mostly energizing, but alternating in intensity, having a few moments when it seems to almost die down only to suddenly pick itself back up and throw you with all its force past the next peak. It’s the kind of song to listen to when you need to get yourself going, especially if you also pay some attention to the lyrics, which will once again paint pictures faster than your mind can register them. I don’t exactly agree with the meaning behind those lyrics, but that was a given, seeing as the album is supposed to be a celebration of life and its beauty.

What could possibly follow after the conclusion of the story? The conclusion of the album, and perhaps of life, which I’m going to make a separate section for because it’s a world apart from the rest. If this album would have ended before Song of Myself, it would have still been a very good album, it would have still been a testament to the talent of one of the greatest living composers and lyricists. However, it would have been a regular album, made up of songs. The songs may have a somewhat common theme, most of them may be very good, they may leave an impression on you, may make you dream or remember, may energize or depress, soothe or anger, but they’d still just be songs. This is more than that.
What could be said about Song of Myself to do it justice? I simply don’t know. It’s 13 and a half minutes long and so much is going on in it that I don’t even know where to begin. I’m not even sure if it wouldn’t be better to just read the lyrics and let them sink in before listening to the song, especially since the second half is a simple recitation, on many voices, on top of a very soft orchestral background. At first I thought that it was a portion of the original poem, but it’s not. The quality and depth of the lyrics is absolutely outstanding in itself, and I’m sure that in fact nobody but Tuomas himself could ever find all the references and meanings hidden inside them, past the obvious ones.
As I said, this is more than a song, it’s an experience. You simply have to listen to it, read the lyrics, let it all sink in, course through your body, mind and soul and forever leave its mark on you. It’s far more than the sum of its parts, and if it won’t move you to tears then… Well, then nothing I say will change that, but I have to wonder what’s so terribly broken inside you to cause such a lack of reaction. I only know what’s broken inside me to make me only choke on tears that only moisten my eyes but will not come out…
The only bad thing I can say about it is that it makes me miss Tarja. Only after noticing that Anette’s voice doesn’t fit this song, which still took me some time, did I notice a couple, and just a couple, of other moments, on other songs, where she sounds more or less like I expected her to, which isn’t exactly a good thing. All I can say is that, overall, the rest of the album is so wonderfully tailored to Anette’s voice that I’m quite sure it sounds significantly better like this than if Tarja would try to sing it. However, something as massive, as epic, as extraordinary as Song of Myself simply begs for Tarja’s voice… Then again, perhaps it’s better that she’s not singing it. Humans aren’t meant for perfection, so if we were to hear it we all might have simply broken down, never to recover.
And after all of this, what could I still say about the last song, Imaginaerum, which is in fact the final portion of Song of Myself, separated due to the requirements of the movie? It’s an instrumental piece, essentially made of portions of all other songs and arranged by Pip Williams. It’s meant to be the credits song of the movie, but if I were to also guess at its purpose in the album I’ll say that it’s yet another way to remind us to dream. It’s supposed to be a memory of imagination, a dream of a fantasy. And after Song of Myself, or more exactly after the other parts of Song of Myself, it fits wonderfully.

Perhaps I criticized a few little things too much, or pointed out my initial impression too much instead of the fact that I’ve been more or less listening to this album for four days straight and it just seems to keep getting better. Or perhaps I let myself get carried away with what impressed and awed me and forgot to mention other details that may be more meaningful. But I simply wrote what I felt, what it made me feel.
This is not the Nightwish that brought me to metal, at the end of a process that required some four years. This is not the Nightwish that made a song I fell back to without fail whenever I was in any sort of negative mood for over a full year, which was obviously also the first song I fell back to after Andra left. This is not the Nightwish that made a song that made me cry my eyes out for 40 full minutes, hugging myself and rocking back and forth, only stopping because I was walked in on and asked what was I doing. This is not the Nightwish that made an album I gave a huge personal significance to for years. However, in every way except the female vocals, this Nightwish is significantly better than that Nightwish. And when even that single issue is mitigated close to perfection on all but one of the songs, we perhaps need to be thankful that it exists. Otherwise, as I said, we might have found ourselves in the presence of true perfection and broken down as a result, never to recover.

Imaginaerum is an absolute masterpiece to which my words could never do justice. Not to diminish the merits of all the others, I must say that it’s yet another testament to the genius of Tuomas Holopainen, who is undoubtedly one of the very best composers and lyricists alive today. No amount of work or training could ever result in something like this without an inhuman amount of talent. And likely no amount of talent could ever result in something like this without certain life experiences meant to trigger such an outpouring of meaning and emotion. Unfortunately, those experiences could not be pleasant, as the best art is always born of pain. However, what Imaginaerum reminds us is that there’s always a hope for better days. As long as we can still imagine, as long as we still remember how to dream, we can still hope that one day it’ll all be worth it. And we can still hope for that one moment of perfection… Even if it’ll be our last.