tape 230321 [mp3] - 1:41
again visiting the church in the video game looking for clues. repetitive seven eight SQ-80 organ through BBD (thanks ezra!)
about a decade ago, visiting alpine lakes in the high sierras. eight thousand foot elevation, snow melt runoff, still the coldest body of water i swam. and a profound encounter with mosquitos. when overwhelmed, running as fast as possible hoping they could not catch up. but they do eventually.
n-so - count to ten (2022)
björk - unravel (1997)
arthur russell - home away from home (1993)
[mp3] - 14:16
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."
- Edward Abbey
ross from friends - pale blue dot (2018)
floating points and marta salogni - intimate intensity (remix) (2021)
depeche mode - waiting for the night (1990)
[mp3] - 16:00
today's research subject ping-pong
- assembly language
- icelandic sheep
- circuit trace widths
- thatched roofs
"For the holiday weekend they're doing the top 200 songs. By request, I think. So it's the top 200. Depeche Mode had more songs in the top 200 than any other bands."
"What is this weekend about?"
"It's to remember the people who were killed in the war, isn't it?"
"Which war?"
"Any war. People who have..."
(interrupting) "I hope it's not to celebrate the War of Independence, come on!"
"All the wars."
- Depeche Mode: 101 [web]
"There were fights that would break out in food co-ops—they were called the “Twinkie wars.” People wanted the food co-op to carry the highly processed, no-doubt-bad-for-you foods that they could get in the supermarket, and the more PMC types did not want that."
- On the Origins of the Professional-Managerial Class: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich - Dissent Magazine [web]
saturday march 4 1pm EST on NTS 2 [web]
an assemblage of sounds, old and new and forgotten together.
thank you to beau beaumont for the invitation. NTS is a gem.
(archive and elaboration forthcoming)
cool maritime - temporal dryft (2022)
aki tsuyuko - solitary tiger (2019)
oneohtrix point never - chrome country (2013)
[mp3] - 19:28
reading old text, recognizing oneself but not remembering writing it
"i needed more hands, i made very specialized virtual hands. i did not make a virtual hand training facility or virtual hand factory or virtual hand playground."
hold that thought
for a billion years
(brilliantly improvised not by me at band practice this evening)
tropic of cancer - i woke up and the storm was over (2015)
autechre - yulquen (1994)
dead can dance - the carnival is over (1993)
[mp3] - 18:36
unfamiliar territory: i've written a piano composition that i cannot play.
it's a strange reversal in that i'm used to writing code that effortlessly executes the humanly impossible. but physically playing this piece is what brings it to life, so now i'm into month two of dexterity training.
the cleaners from venus - only a shadow (1982)
the psychedelic furs - sister europe (1980)
tears for fears - the hurting (1983)
[mp3] - 12:06
after numerous failed attempts at transcribing upon waking, my dream-self concocted a brilliant idea: record these brilliant melodies and chords and articulations to tape. which i did, in dream-world.
now to transport those tapes from that place to this place.
options when encountering a problem:
- meticulously design a specific solution
- repurpose an existing thing which sufficiently addresses the issue
- identify that the problem actually does not exist
trying to stay awake and not fight various alluring nonexistent battles
lunar new year ceremony
drum groups colliding out of time
rumble through several panes of glass
renew day spa 2
keeping phased time against
the less metered
new age solo flute record
short delay medium reverb
maybe eighties but remarkably
chromatic at times
mid range tastefully overdriven
through cheap ceiling speaker cones
steady hazy wash from heating vent
whose mechanics discovered a resonance
and rattle and relax and slowly repeat
distant unknown conversation and
electronic timers declare beginnings and endings
and my time is over but this perfect
composition continues
"If technology advances, if it is, as they say, progress, why does so much of it regress, ending up broken and dead in landfills? (...)
The objective should not be to extract economic value from objects and materials we consider to be waste, but to reimagine what we consider waste to be."
- An Ontology Of Electronic Waste [web]
software - island sunrise (1988)
dam funk - galactic fun (2009)
art of noise - moments of love (1985)
[mp3] - 16:20
sky, hazy blue fading to mauve
water, silvery green
snow, pink and grey
investigating the territory between ambivalence and acceptance
millennia of the same
"The basic principle was that the client depended on his patron for protection and assistance, financial and otherwise, in return for a variety of services rendered, including votes in elections. Later Roman writing is full of rather high-flown rhetoric from the patron class on the virtues of the relationship, and miserable complaints from the side of the client about the humiliations they have to go through, all for a second-rate meal. In the Twelve Tables, the rule simply states: 'If a patron has done harm to his client, he is to be cursed'-- whatever that meant."
- Mary Beard, SPQR
the father of a friend once told them a good story: that there's a fine line between being dedicated and being stuck
robert wyatt - nothing can stop us (1982)
cocteau twins and harold budd - sea, swallow me (1986)
gowns - fake july (2007)
[mp3] - 10:41
"By claiming the end, energy is freed up to create new beginnings."
- Geert Lovink, Extinction Internet [web]
any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from religion.
for the last couple years i've been slowly refining a collection of ideas embodying the whimsical term "computer folkcraft." it's perhaps a mix of permacomputing [web] and anarchism and appropriate technology and plain old antiquated "computer literacy," but the "folkcraft" aspect energizes this combination: common people and artistry.
despite numerous conversations and scribblings i hadn't spend much time investigating the potential origins of my, uhm, quest (and its accompanying obsessions and ideologies.) a fellow traveller writes perceptively:
"From time to time, certain small groups of tech-savvy people happen to grow up in the same place and at the same time as certain powerful new technologies. Because of this unique background, these people - and these people alone - are able to very clearly perceive visions of the future which are both glorious and 100% technically feasible, the technical feasibility being something that they feel in their bones by virtue of direct experience, or at least direct observation. Those people therefore mistake these visions for being not just compelling but actually being inevitable, for being the obviously, undeniably natural and pre-destined state of the world, for being exactly what everybody else would want too, if only they understood things properly! But these futures aren't inevitable, they're actually mostly wishful thinking and they simply don't come to pass."
- solderpunk, Orphans of Netscape [web]
this reckoning can also be liberatory? in that disappointment is real but perhaps the secret knowledge was actually just circumstantial.
i think this was what i needed to understand in order to move forward.
tehn@nnnnnnnn.co