this is a little more interesting, but in a familiar sort of way. it's still pointless.

https://claricejensen.bandcamp.com/album/the-experience-of-repetition-as-death

this is essentially a bad parody of industrial music.

but, that's all industrial music has been - a bad parody of itself - for 20 years.

i also want to point out that there were a lot of really substandard ambient records released this year.

what year was music for airports? 77? and, eno was more of a marketing genius than anything else; he didn't really invent the idea. so, 45+ years later, what's the point of releasing the same record over and over?

it's just a product. a commodity. and, you put on the newest style in office ambience to be seen, to be cool. admit it.

i don't have time for such contrived bullshit. just give me music for airports, or music for films on a bad day. bonus: phil collins.

i'd put the records by olafur arnalds, bonobo, nihls frahm and the eno brothers in this category, just to name a few. it seems like there was a trend...

i've been pretty disappointed by most things tortoise for quite a while, so my expectations have absolutely cratered. i guess that if you really need a jeff carter guitar fix, there's something here for you. but, songwise, this is pretty bland.

https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/suite-for-max-brown

tersely: gay men will always challenge the patriarchy in ways that other queer people just don't.

even cultures that considered homosexuality normal, like it was in the classical world, have tried to regulate male homosexuality into dominant and submissive roles.

it's not the sexual act. it's the submission - and, specifically, the concept of masculine submission. that's the part that's subversive, that the patriarchy just can't fucking deal with, and will always be revolutionary so long as there's a patriarchy in place to overthrow.

i think i've listened to all of perfume geniuses records a few times, and they just don't get over that hump of abstraction for me. everything sounds 60% done. this is more of the same. but, i know i'm looking for something that the artist isn't really intending to produce; i'm seeking out abstract art, and he wants to make art pop. i want coil or queen, and he wants duran duran. or tom petty, even.

that said, i'm in solidarity with the subversiveness, even if i wish it was just a bit more, all around. i've written about this a few times recently - in-your-face gay male sexuality is still shocking, even when everything else considered "queer" has been sanitized and normalized. 

so, i'm not listing the record on it's merits, but i'm acknowledging it exists. 'cause you might have less strenuous requirements than i do. and, maybe the subversiveness has value on it's own.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l38nMfxcO7XtTjdfnkWYFVHVrmm1bXspc

so, fiona apple took the critic's list by storm this year. i remember her from the 90s...sarah was a big fan...

i can get my head around why this has happened, as she fits almost uniquely into this kind of neo-boomer space (she's a beatnik.) that's probably at it's high point right now, as millennials go through their last years of cultural relevance at the same time as the last boomers retire. she was an odd duck in the 90s; kind of there, but neither hitting her commercial nor her critical potential, trying to navigate this space between gen x oddity and girl-beck redux. so, has she found something here?

see, it just sounds to me like fiona apple.

and, it's still got the same old quirkiness, even if it's more predictable now, but still lacks that c'est la vie that i never felt she really had. but, i need to flip it over, because people are going to get into this because it sounds like yesteryears, whereas i'm going to just shrug off the retro sheen of it. and, in the sense that she's been doing this beatnik shtick for however long now, has it reached some plateau? i dunno.

it seems she's kept her fan base happy, though.

i just don't hear anything on this record that i haven't heard her do before, and so don't see the point of listing it. but, it's really the critic's choice this year, so i feel compelled to react in some way. and, that's all i got - it's a new fiona apple record. swell.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nvvTVXc476e1vHBGAN7Y-DH9_sZjOhgx8

in principle, rambling 45 minute tracks are right up my alley - i like music with sections that evolves, and i'm willing to look into quite a few different styles to seek out that sort of development. so, while this may be too opaque for most non-fans (and, i've never found his work compelling...), the length and difficulty of this recording was actually something that attracted me to it.

in the end, though, this isn't purposeful; it's just totally self-referential and absurdly self-indulgent. but, it's actually a little frustrating, because if this was about something, i might actually really like it.

https://pwelverumandsun.bandcamp.com/album/microphones-in-2020

another dominant influence on the kate nv record is early cocteau twins.

like, this was 1985, and it still sounds contemporary. while it's a great little tune, it's not a strong reflection on the level of creativity in the contemporary art scene. but, you have to understand it in relation to the greater world - it's easy to attack the kids, and i'll fall into it sometimes, too. but, it's structural. it's a reflection of the society, and the economy underlying it.

and, note that you have to go to russia to even find western 80s retro music masquerading as forward thinking experimental electronica.

it's a sad state of affairs. truly.

all those innovative artists in the 70s and 80s were funded by government art grants, or just flat out living on welfare. as the market wouldn't support them, they needed state investment to exist and be creative, and they needed a system that was focused on not just allowing them to exist outside of market conditions but nurturing them outside of them in order to develop.

despite the propaganda to the contrary, when they took that away in the neo-liberal counter-revolution, the innovation dried up entirely. and, we've been in total cultural stasis since the mid-90s, as a result.

if we want innovation in art, we're going to need to get back to funding it via government grants. and, the same is true for science.

what markets do is enforce a regression to the mean, a dumbing down, a great saming. and, they have to, because you're forced to conform to market demand to produce a product in order to exist. it's inherently contradictory to the function and purpose of both art and science to try and coerce them into meeting demand like this, and both will necessarily suffer in the end, for it. 

if we want people to think freely and move us forward with those free thoughts, we have to emancipate them from both government censorship (which is the problem they have in asia, although it's increasingly setting in here) and market forces in order to do it. we had the right balance, before we undid it. we'll have to find it, again.

in the mean time, we're just going to keep recycling ideas to meet market demand, in utter stasis and stagnation.

listen, i know better than to look for something innovative. you're not going to find innovation in late capitalism - there's no funding for research. the market won't innovate without investment, and the investment's completely dried up.

but, we can still hope for execution in this sad state of affairs.

and, i have a responsibility to point towards the actual innovators, even as they're dead or dying.

this is very much a throwback to the space that peter gabriel & kate bush were working in in the early 80s, and i'd suspect this person is a gigantic tony levin fan. it's so easy - and common - to water this down to the point that it's boring and where this seems a bit better is that it doesn't commit that error. while derivative and backwards-looking, it's also legitimately interesting and that's rare in the genre, nowadays.

https://katenv.bandcamp.com/album/room-for-the-moon

yeah, even if there's a few legit high points on the jerskin fendrix disc, there's too much just aimless nonsense that accomplishes nothing besides weirdness for the sake of it to justify repeated listens. 

there's plenty reason here to keep an eye on him for later, though.

so, i gave this a listen, and while i can't say i got much out of it, it's not due to a lack of familiarity with the source material - what's curious about this is the act of hearing somebody piece together cliches out of genres that normally don't go anywhere near each other. these sorts of mixes are often stable, but i suspect this is just too weird, and i'm left with another ween or tom waits or tricky drop or something - something that works better on paper than in real life.

i mean, winterreise almost reminds me of right said fred, and when you strip it down, that's where this really exists - it's just purposefully odd, without succeeding in being profound. and, it's sort of half-assed attempt to be profound just makes it more weird.

there's a place for weird, sure. but, let's not get confused - there's not interesting music or worthwhile songwriting underneath the gimmickry. maybe there might be, eventually. for right now, it's just weird...and you can enjoy that or recoil against it however you choose to....

https://jerskinfendrix.bandcamp.com/album/winterreise

so, yeah - this is awful in a certain sense, but it's a decent rock record in another. it's a bit past it's best before, but i'm a 90s kid, and i'm always going to have a soft spot for 90s rock, of which this quite clearly is. it's dynamic enough that they keep it interesting, even if it's....

i mentioned it was awful, and it's the cheese that is the concern, but this is so longstanding. self-consciously absurd acts like ween aside, there's plenty of music by more serious acts like sonic youth that is just chuckle-worthy at this stage, and never intended to be. but, i don't know if i want to tell them to exploit the cheese or throw it away, and i don't know if there's a right answer, at a point so late into the rock era as this. even people five years younger than me are going to be prone to interpret this sort of thing as a novelty act, and maybe that's ok.

in a strong year, i wouldn't put it in a best of list - unless that year starts with 198 or 199. but, it's enjoyable enough. and, it would be worth a beer, i'm sure.

we'll see where they go with it, but i'd like to hear them take it up a notch in profundity and intensity - it's a little too frivolous, a little too light.

https://them-airs.bandcamp.com/album/union-suit-xl

this was 1987, i think.

hilt was a skinny puppy side project. they intended to sit down and make the worst music ever, as a lark, and focused a lot on the cheesier and seedier sides of bad 80s club music.

the lyricist was an old punk, who went to town with it - it's totally tongue in cheek, without ever giving it away, entirely.

the result actually sounds fairly far ahead of it's time, when compared to all of the shitty indie rock out there that is only accidentally making the worst music, ever.

yes, this is a joke.

this sounds like a hilt record.

https://them-airs.bandcamp.com/album/union-suit-xl

i've been keeping an eye on liturgy for a while, and expected a record to eventually be produced that was something i could actually listen to. i don't exactly want to say i had a muted respect from a distance, because i can't even pretend to like the religious themes, but there was always enough in each successive fail to warrant giving the next one a shot.

while this is a dramatic step forwards towards legitimate listenability, it's also, in truth, little more than a series of dramatic crescendos, interspersed with a bunch of aimless cadences. it's the kind of thing that hipsters that don't actually know anything about music fall over themselves over, but real music nerds tend to snicker at. every generation has a few of these types that sincerely seem to want to get there but just never do.

i'm going to give it a few more tries, but, despite the major step forwards, it seems that there's just really not much here besides aimless pomp. & we'll see what happens next time....

https://liturgy.bandcamp.com/album/origin-of-the-alimonies-2

so, i've lost track of everything, and that's ok. i got very stressed out over my body changing in ways i don't like and just stopped functioning for a while. posts here will fill out when i'm done building my diet.

i'm going to need to rewind to 2013 and do a final scrub over everything before i'm able to refocus and get back to doing some work, but it really relies on halting the detransition. there is simply no existence on the other side of a detransition that i don't want. i will shrivel up and cease functioning and die.

this is a record that has some surface interest, but kind of continues to fall into the same hole that all of these vocal records do - the tracks kind of explore an idea or an aesthetic for a few minutes, but don't actually go anywhere. it's the add generation - they have no attention span, no concept of process or development. and, it's kind of all that so many of them want; my request for something more developed and written is largely alien to the bulk of them. but, all i hear here is a proof of concept - i want to hear this taken beyond the realm of an abstract idea and worked out into a finished product. i'm starting to realize i'm not going to get it...

but, if bjork was on to something with medulla (even if the idea is ultimately properly credited to autechre, or john balance, perhaps via the cocteau twins or dead can dance), the evidence of it is just building. there's a developing genre, here. and, while i may have to wait to get what i really want from it, it might be just around the corner.

https://lyrapramuk.bandcamp.com/album/fountain

ok, i finally got those noisetrade.com links updated to smashwords, lulu, bandcamp & drive links. that was time consuming, but it's done.

i need to really write that story next. it's coming.

i'm scatter-brained, and i'm having difficulty figuring out if i picked up a cold (it could be anything, there's no reason to assume it's covid-19, and i have no intention of quarantining myself over the common cold, so i'm not getting tested. there's nothing i can accomplish by presenting myself to the medical authorities. i'll just stay in for a few days, thanks.) or if i'm reacting to the smoker(s) upstairs, but the decrease in temperature outside is helping clear the air out in here a little and it's definitely waking me up a bit. i feel like i'm in a smoky room, and have a dry cough and a sore throat, but i can't smell it or identify the direction. but, if i stick my nose in something with a strong odour, i can smell it, clearly.

i'm also wondering if i'm having a glycemic reaction to my change in diet. i've been eating mostly pasta for years, now; i've now switched to a diet composed solely of omelettes and fruit. i also switched from rye to whole wheat bread. my sugar levels were fine, if bumping a little, when i tested them a few months ago, but that was before i switched. what i'm feeling is consistent with an onset of diabetes, which i have no evidence of in terms of sugar levels, but i'm consistently concerned about in the context of actual symptoms and what i think is a slow onset of ms, and which i know i can't do anything about. to be clear: my concern is i may be developing diabetes as a complication of a slow onset of ms, rather than as a result of diet, but that the switch in diet (to less glucose, actually.) may be messing with me. if i'm concerned about diabetes, and i slightly am, then the new diet is about as good as i can get. the fruit i eat - blueberries, strawberries, bananas, kiwis, raspberries - are all actually relatively low in glycemic index. it was my reliance on cheap pasta that was the more likely complicating factor, and switching to eggs is consequently actually a good idea, so long as i can manage to get used to it.

put another way, i may be sort of coming down from a pasta dependence and going through glucose withdrawals, which is potentially dangerous but probably good in the long run.

so, i'm feeling like i might be bedridden for a few days, but i'm not sure why, yet.

one story coming up...

...and, then i can get back to consolidating the four blogs from april 1 to present, and recalibrating myself and what i'm doing.

"western capitalism is almost a better product than heroin." - the now late genesis p'orridge

i might alter that somewhat - western capitalism is almost the same product as heroin.

"before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”

it's a cliche, and one of the first memes i saw back in the day.

but, it's true.

and, i'm pretty sure my problem is the latter, not the former.

so, i don't need drugs; i need a safe place to exist, where i never have to deal with other people ever again...

i should post the record.

and, maybe it'll chill me out a little.

this is kind of a lost classic. somebody might correct me, but i believe this is the first thing that the singer from skinny puppy did after the band imploded c. 1995. there was a slew of key/goettel releases directly after goettel died....of a heroin overdose....but ogre was quiet for a while. he may have been on tour with ministry and/or pigface...kmfdm, even?

this was with martin atkins, mostly, although mark walk was also involved.

it's a concept record that is critical of ritalin use in children.

and, then, when you have kids that act like kids, they'll push crack on them, to turn them into zombies - until they can get hooked on heroin, too!

heroin for all!

we need to tell people to shut up and suffer, sometimes.

and, we need to get people conditioned to the necessity of suffering in existence, if anything to prove that we're real.

we live in a very, very, very sick world.

the doctors are all drug pushers and heroin dealers.

and, the political system wants to facilitate it.

i could have walked out of there with an rx for vicodin or oxycontin, virtually on demand.

they would have been happy to give it to me.

we should probably actually be making it harder for low-life doctors to prescribe this stuff, not easier to find it.

take a walk through downtown windsor some time and put 2 & 2 together.

it's easy to see why we have such a problem with opiates in this country: the doctors prescribe it like it's candy, even when people vehemently scream that they don't want it.

that wasn't the first time that er tried to give me opiates.

it wasn't even the second.

it was actually the third.

and, you'd have to tie me down and inject it, because that's one of the very few ways to generate violence in me; i'm a passive, non-violent person, but you put that shit near me, and you'd better be wearing head gear, cause i'm going to react like a hungry cougar and go for your eyes and your neck...

great health care system, huh?

even at the 50% dosage, i'd say there's a 75% chance i'm going to harm myself.

but, i have to do it before they'll react.

and they'll just give me heroin when they do.

the emergency supply of testosterone blockers was at half the dosage i've been taking since june. it's not going to be enough, and i'm going to need to act aggressively to get the surgery; in the meantime, i should expect severe levels of depression as a result of the rising t-levels that i've been trying to avoid.

and, i can only hope that it's enough to survive until i can chop them out and sacrifice them to demeter.

that ritual will happen, btw - i will get these horrible things in a jar, and take them to a field and burn them.

so, you wanna talk about a children's crusade?

fine.

let's add slaughter-house five to the pandemic reading list.

we need some indignant liberals this cycle, clearly.

it's actually a hitchensian argument.

what kind of cosmic despot is this? one that must be overthrown, and beheaded in the square.

let's send joe and the democrats a message: he may be willing to sacrifice his own son for this empire of greed and exploitation, but we're not willing to sacrifice ours.

it's an old story, told many times, in various different ways.

this interpretation seems to be most similar to kirkegaard's.

but maybe it's time for the left to chop off it's own hand - before we make a terrible mistake.

so, yeah.

if you want to sacrifice your kids at the altar of corporate greed, neo-liberalism and imperial domination, maybe joe's your boy. maybe you don't love them much, anyways.

if you'd rather they live, if you'd rather they have a future, maybe he's not.

he sent his own fucking son to die, and then claimed it was justified as some kind of "sacrifice".

if he'll ritually murder his own, he'll ritually murder yours, too.

but, think this through, carefully.

if biden was willing to send his own son to die, how likely do you think he is to send yours?

he died of cancer at an absurdly young age.

if the cause of his cancer was ultimately some kind of exposure in iraq - something that is noted by researchers but poorly understood - then that would make him about as stupid a person as has ever existed, given he had no reason to put himself at that kind of risk, as the son of a sitting senator and eventual vice-president.

i don't know if i'd call him a sucker..

i think i'd give him a darwin award, though.

and, yes - biden's son was a fucking dipshit, too, clearly.

i mean, what kind of senator raises his son to go fight in a war? what kind of absent parenting leads to that?

that's what poor kids are for...

if you judge a man by the company he keeps, biden's friendship with mccain is pretty devastating.

"john mccain was my friend" - joe biden

exactly.

john mccain was a loser, though.

he was a whiner, too.

and a crook, on top of it.

wait.

might the magician have been odin, himself?

it's interesting to note that the earliest inscription for the "pied piper" uses the latin term magus, meaning magician - or, pagan. he's not called a merchant....and the idea of being sold into slavery takes a hit, due to the specificity of the term.

if they were led out of town by a "magus", that would suggest they were taken away by pagans, whatever the context.

that it was at the solstice would indeed reasonably be of some significance.

we know they could write.

we just don't have anything that they wrote, that survived.

at least, we don't think we do; we've been able to trace technical roman documents about seafaring and agriculture to pre-roman carthaginian sources. they exist, to us, simply in latin. but, we can decode them, and figure out where they came from.

there may be things that we only know from latin that are ultimately translated german or celtic works, we just haven't figured it out yet.

to clarify a misunderstood point...

the germans and celts had a writing system, we just have almost no record of it. so, you hear christians say things like "the germans left us without a history", but this is a deeply misleading statement. what seems to be more true is that the romans completely eradicated any trace of their writing in the areas they conquered (much as they did with the carthaginians), leaving only scattered remnants in areas that never saw direct roman control, like the ogham scripts in ireland, the norse sagas in iceland and the gothic runes in the east.

so, it's true that virtually everything we know about the celts & germans was written by the romans, but it is actually rather dubious that it's because nothing was written - and more likely because their own history, as they wrote it, was eradicated as an intentional act of genocide.

it's a good example of how blurry our own history is. this isn't pre-history; it's roughly contemporary with aquinas, and marco polo. but, the christians destroyed everything...

on first glance, it sounds like a sanitation of a devshirme raid, but it seems too early for that. would the christians have rounded up kids like this? well, look at the residential school system in canada (and australia and south africa) for a parallel; it's not that crazy, but i don't know of any comparisons directly in europe. generally, the christians had the good sense to realize they could brainwash the young ones, and only killed off the adults.

could they have been sold off into slavery by italian merchants? that's not too outlandish, in this period.

but, my gut tells me that this is a late example of human sacrifice, perhaps in reaction to a lengthy period of drought. and, some cursory research does tell me that there were frequent droughts in this area of europe at the time.

sadly, we'll never know our own history, because it was purposefully destroyed or overwritten by the religious authorities. we can only guess, and warn others of the dangers of abrahamic colonization.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200902-the-grim-truth-behind-the-pied-piper

i don't know who is worse.

and, i'm more confused now than i was four years ago.

not much has changed, huh?

hey, here's some more:

as always, jello had the right answer 35 years ago.

yes: i support programs that give young, working class boys better options than becoming serial killers.

hrmmn.

sounds like something i might say, frankly.

the president is the commander-in-chief, so he can't be talking like that, even if the sentiment is essentially correct, and one i broadly share.

fuck the troops....

and, guess what gi joe? you don't wanna get blown up fighting for corporatism and the upper class, then don't sign up for combat. you won't see a tear from me, when you die - you fascist scum.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-said-us-soldiers-injured-and-killed-in-war-were-losers-magazine-reports/2020/09/03/6e1725cc-ee35-11ea-99a1-71343d03bc29_story.html

early reich is difficult and esoteric, i get it.

this, however, is a little bit of an overlooked classic that came out in the late 90s and was intended as a more accessible tribute to reich. if you don't recognize some of these names, realize that most of them were well regarded djs or electronic musicians from the 90s, and some of them were also very popular.

i'd recommend this highly for kids of all ages. it's one of my favourite records....

it's gonna rain came first, but from what i've read (my parents were both under the age of 10.), it was come out that first turned heads, and is actually exceedingly topical in a few ways right now.

and, if you knew this was next, give yourself a cookie.

i'm ok. i can walk. a few bruises on my arms. nothing like this.

it's gonna rain.

how many thermals fans got that?

i've been living in detroit for a while now, but i know the actual history.

this guy right here is the actual first dj ever.

my head's coming back, and i'm not calming down.

i'm mad as hell.

let's go.

here's the future for the rest of us: it's gonna rain.

maybe it'll clear out some of the smoke, at least.

you can still find people in their 60s or older that deny that smoking causes cancer.

it's all propaganda, they say. nonsense. lies.

smoking is good for them - they saw it in the ads, it was in the papers, on the tv. what changed?

that's your future, potheads: denial. denial. denial...

medical tobacco was really, seriously a thing, you know.

they prescribed alcohol as a cure-all, as well.

and, we think marijuana is different because...?

because we don't learn. we're fucking idiots, collectively...

it should ultimately be the security guard's job to clear out the smokers, one would think.

it would help if he wasn't the worst offender of them all...

and, he seems to think his job is arresting queer people that might upset the elderly and religious in triage.

but, now...

...i've said too much...

nowadays, they give you marijuana or opiates instead.

windsor - where it's still 1955, all the time!

this is truly the place that time forgot.

i wonder which brand the doctors at the emergency room at the windsor hospital recommend?

this is a track i tend to find whenever i need to recover or regroup in some way. it's both general and specific enough that it works in pretty much any imaginable context, so long as you need to sit and rest for a while.

I think I'll quit to the valley
Regain my strength and start again

that's today.

back to the struggle, tomorrow.

this is why the headlines at google news are about a relatively small protest in a tactically positioned, but otherwise unimportant, country that acts as a buffer state between germany and russia.

i am.

soon.

all i ever said was that this was never going to work. none of it.

so, you need to take responsibility for your self, instead of telling other people what to do.

in theory, if we were all nurses, right? but, we're not. and that was obvious.

al's old now.

"put on a mask, you fucker"

this is the world.

it's not working.

so, breathe!

breathe!

breathe!

breathe, you fucker!

so, they forced us to wear masks because standing six feet apart wasn't working.

now, the masks aren't working, either - which is probably as much about user error as anything else. you can't expect people to use masks correctly. you just can't...

so, what's next?

mandatory hazmat suits?

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/canada-s-active-covid-19-case-number-is-rising-shortly-before-most-schools-reopen-1.5085281

so, i've gone through and updated all of the noise trade links by replacing them with smashwords & lulu links in the other three blogs and am about to start it for this one as well, which was one of the loose threads i left off at in june.

my head is still oozy.

i've decided to avoid weekend shopping so i don't have to deal with the face mask nazis, meaning i'll need to get everything done tomorrow, plausibly for the entire month. it'll be a big run, at least, even if i have to go again mid-month. so, there should be a new fan in here soon, with a backup in case it breaks....

so, am i going to catch up on this?

i don't know.

probably, yes, but in a reduced manner.

everything in windsor is canceled for the foreseeable future, including the border. but, everything in detroit is canceled, anyways. well, at least on the surface, it is. it hasn't made any sense to me to start looking for house shows or underground raves when i can't get across the border, anyways. and, posting about them here would just be a liability, which i'm not doing to the scene in detroit.

the truth is that i fell into a very long head cave from mid-june to mid-august that initially focused me very narrowly, and then had me lose my train of thought altogether and in the end culminated in a very vicious migraine. so, i need to recapture myself, finish what i was doing and move the fuck on.

that is going to give me the opportunity to trace a few things, like the missed dso shows, but it's not even clear if people are rescheduling things anymore or when this is going to fucking end.

will there be shows by this time next year, even?

*sigh*

but, at the least expect some posts from the last few months to trickle in here over the next few days as i try and refocus.

the soundtrack, however, has the odd distinction of being a tangerine dream record.

i'm going to guess this isn't about a young drew barrymore, but it could be.

this minor socal punk band named themselves after the clown in it.

fripp is maybe easing up a little, it seems, but it's still hard to find crimson online.

this reference is reversed; stephen king appropriated the crimson king, and made it a character in several of his works.

years later, stephen king's son would write a book called heart-shaped box.

i guess he dug the salem's lot reference.

but fuck arnie, anyways.

it's the same basic mentality, though - when somebody tells you it's everybody else's responsibility to ensure they don't get sick, rather than their own, they are basically reflecting the lack of individual responsibility that is ruining the contemporary left.

and, you're just as likely to succeed in declaring a virus-free space as you are in declaring a safe one.

i'll let the internet run with this, and am sort of surprised that it doesn't seem like it has, up to now.

it would be extra sardonic if those kids were dressed like witch doctors, or orthodox priests, and were "cleaning" the air with sage (which is highly carcinogenic, actually) to ward the virus out of their safe space.

one of the few things i just can't do at all is draw. i've never been remotely good at it.

but, i'd like to see a cartoon with some activist kids holding up a sign that says

virus free safe space

...and some recognizable health experts looking at each other, baffled, with a bubble caption reading:

"why didn't we think of that?"

"life is short, art is infinite"

art is infinite.

you are finite.

submit.

so, i mean it's not about john a and it's not about that statue in that park. i have little but criticism for the man, and would probably support moving the statue to a museum, if it were to come up at a vote.

nor is it about race, or racism, however you want to define it.

rather, it's about the ideology underlying the actions, which positions them as public enemy number one, and something that cannot be tolerated in a civilized society: when the virus of religion rears it's ugly head in this manner, it must be rooted out immediately.

i would consequently call for the maximum possible penalties to be enforced against these people, and for the movement to support those penalties, and to clearly distance itself from this savage, uncivil barbarism.

if you don't want to be labelled savages, stop acting like savages.

i see that kind of thing and my only reaction is that red lights start flashing, and sirens start swirling, and giant words flash in front of me:

DANGER

DANGER

BOOK BURNING. RELIGION. DANGER.

DESTROY.

they've taken away their own voice.

we need to talk about inequality, and the correlation between race and poverty. clearly.

but, not in the context of the destruction of art - it's a non-starter, and i won't engage with people that behave like that.

we've been through this before, and it is the single most serious threat to civilization: religion.

when people gather and start arguing for book burnings, or any other destruction of history or art, they need to be mowed down with drones and bulldozed into the lake.

"but i don't want to save the art. i want to erase it from history."

then you're a dangerous menace to society and need to be stopped before you bring us back to the dark ages.

i have no solidarity for any group that prioritizes the destruction or defacement of history or art.

there is no excuse for destroying art of any sort - books, statutes, etc - and it makes me infinitely less interested in what they have to say when they engage in it.

they just look like a bunch of ignorant christians.

i may support a democratic discussion to move statutes out of parks and into private collections or museums. i have no particular attachment to a statue of john a in a park.

but, the destruction of art has no place in a civilized society or a civilized discourse, and anybody that insists on engaging in the destruction of art de facto removes themselves from the discussion, and renders their voices irrelevant.

they need to stop doing this.

it makes them look like uncivilized savages.

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/statue-of-john-a-macdonald-toppled-during-defund-the-police-protest-1.5084561

ok, i'm not being totally fair; it wasn't just rand, there was grisham, clancy and koontz, as well.

i enjoyed the grisham and clancy, but found the koontz a little weak.

i'd rank the best king works higher than all of it, both in enjoyment and technically, which i know is likely to get some push back. but, i actually like king's writing style, and think he was maybe misunderstood by a lot of stuffy people.

i'd expect he'll be revisited by academia in a more positive light, in time.

was stephen king a "horror writer"?

no....

his best works are actually science fiction, clearly, and that's the best way to understand him. he also dabbled in various types of drama, which allowed him to write substantive social commentary into his works, and his books are deeply psychological in the sense of getting into the heads of everything from rabid dogs to people with paranormal psychic abilities, but he's a science fiction writer, first and foremost and that is how history should remember him, as one of the most important authors of the 20th century.

the horror side of things mostly comes out of unfaithful film adaptations, much of it just plain out silly. and, if you're trying to understand king via the shining, you're really missing out. a lot.

a common theme in his writing is the idea of self-control, and i think that's what i remember pulling from him, as a child, more than anything else: good dogs that don't want to be bad and scold themselves for it, kids that can't stop themselves from lighting things on fire, adults that can't stop themselves from altering the future, etc. there's good lessons for kids, there, whether it's intentional or not, about grappling with concepts of actus reus and mens rea. 

i was maybe on the young end of things, but these are actually good books to give young teens to read, despite the reputation otherwise.

i actually did not know that shawshank was the top rated film at the imdb, or that it has been there for a long time. i'm just learning that now.

i used to watch a lot of films with my father & stepmother, and the way this would work would be that we'd pick up two films at the blockbuster - one 'normal' film for the two of them to watch, and that i'd usually skip, and one 'weird' film that i usually ended up watching by myself, after my dad gave up halfway through.

i picked out shawshank 'cause i'd already read it, and the stephen king billing was enough to keep the stepmother interested enough to sit down and try and watch it (she would normally prefer the kind of films that do better at the box office). i'm not sure i have a second example of something that they both managed to get through.

in fact, it was probably my father's favourite film, post-1990, at least. certainly, i can't think of any other film he would reference regularly, excluding things like stallone flicks.

the fact that the three of us could agree on it at the time says a lot, as we really couldn't agree on much of anything. but, it was more than that: if you had polled us at that time, in 1994 or 1995, we would have all ranked this as one of the greatest films ever made.

i'm glad to see it get the recognition that it should have gotten in the first place.

'cause, sometimes things are obvious, even if the world can't see it.

archive.org saves the day, again:

https://ia800700.us.archive.org/25/items/Popcornarchive-theShawshankRedemption1994_qkw5d/Popcornarchive-theShawshankRedemption1994_qkw5d.mp4

and, i'd recommend the text highly too, as you can see.

actually...

shawshank is exceedingly topical right now, with all of the talk of prison reform and racial conflict.

you don't get much more classic than this film. really. if you haven't had the chance, due to age or oversight, spend the time with it, in whatever way it is that people watch movies, nowadays.

i remember watching shawshank with my family, years later, and none of them realizing it was a king film.

and, i'll never forget the dropped jaws when i uttered those lines:

it's not as good as the book

there was a collection called the bachman books that i would have liked to hang on to, and had the running man & shawshank redemption in it. i also wish i had hung on to firestarter, the dead zone and cujo.

the weirdest thing is that i doubt she even read most of them.

my sister became very bizarrely propertarian over the books, for years afterwards. it is true that i gave them to her, if under duress, but nobody else accepted the validity of the gift. my mother vehemently insisted that she would hang on to them until i moved out and got my own place (i was 14.), but it didn't work out that way.

i do believe that taliban jackie discarded the bulk of them, in the end, when the sister tried to bring them into the house, which was foolish on her behalf.

and, i learned many years ago that arguing over ownership of the books was not helpful - and really should have taken it as a red flag of my sister's character, all of those years ago.

if you ask her today, she'll still insist they belonged to her, for no reason that anybody else can discern.

i didn't meet taliban jackie until i'd been walking for years, thankfully.

but, i basically grew up railing against this.

these were books that i bought when i was like twelve or something at the drug store with money earned via allowance, and still have, remarkably.

when i moved from my mom's to my dad's, i ended up "giving" my king collection to my sister (who stayed there) because my stepmother complained that the books smelled like smoke. then, she bought me a pile of books by ayn rand to replace them. yup, taliban jackie.

i never made it through atlas shrugged, because it was so fucking dry; it wasn't until years later that i even realized what i was even reading, or what she had tried to do.

i kept a couple squirreled away, though and still have them: the tommyknockers, it & the stand. in fact, they're sitting on my dresser, right now.

i was like 16 or 17 or 18 or something (i don't remember) when harry potter became a thing, which is the age you avoid things like that.

if i was an immature 15 year old, i could have maybe gotten into it, and if i had kids in my 20s, i could have found myself reading it to them. but, 16-18 is the age where you tend to avoid "children's books" pretty viciously.

i was also the kid that looked towards the older people in the room and really didn't like the younger people. so, i was the last gen xer, even then; i was interested in underground 80s rock music, and trying to build friendships with people in their 20s, rather than trying to connect with people my own age. even at the age of 20, about the year 2000, i realized i was dealing with a generation gap, or on the cusp of something, with people that were almost the same age as me. i'd go work on projects with kids in my class, and realize i related better to their parents than i did to them.

but, i had a handful of friends that were outcasts and rejects, and they tended to prefer the company of people younger than them. so, i remember hearing people talk about it. i never interpreted it as anything more than a children's story, and never developed an interest in it. i'm not exaggerating - i never even cracked one of them open.

even as a kid, i went for the classics. i wanted something more profound, and had no interest in literature for young people that just struck me as a waste of time. so, i was reading like joyce and asimov and stuff, rather than rl kline or whatever else the kids in my class were into.

the closest thing to a contemporary popular novelist that i ever got into was stephen king (by 1995-1996, i had read pretty much everything he'd written up to that point) and i was well aware that nobody my age was reading him.

so, i vaguely even know who she is, and i haven't the remotest interest in her opinion, at all.

the first time i remember reading about the gaia hypothesis was in asimov. foundation's edge. i was very much just a kid, but it got into my head, and i've wondered about it a lot since. nowadays, i wonder more if the real life force is the sun, rather than the earth. the ancients seem to have made a lot of sense to me, more so than the modern religions ever have. and, if the sun dims enough to save us from our own stupidity....

but, i want to react to the idea that geo-engineering is just an excuse, because we may be nearing the point where it doesn't matter anymore.

it's similar to the argument i have with myself about isis, because i bloody well know where they're getting their guns from. so, how can i sit here and argue that we have to stop this using western military might when i know that they're getting the weapons from us, and in fact doing our dirty work? and the reason is that the other option, a new fundamentalist caliphate in the middle east, is just a non-starter. the amount of suffering that would cause is too great to even contemplate. so, you find yourself supporting this struggle that you know is unnecessary, because you just don't have another choice. the intent may have been to terrorize the iraqis into specific concessions, and that may have been horrible, but now they've got us by the crotch and we just have to give in. it's the old story of blowback, and the deficit of good options to deal with it once it sinks in.

so, he's right: geo-engineering should be a non-starter.

but, we might not have a choice, and it might already be too late to avoid it.

https://theanalysis.news/interviews/regenerative-agriculture-and-massive-planting-of-trees-is-our-only-hope-earl-katz

i have never read a word jk rowling has written and i do not care what she thinks.

that is all.

yeah, i'm not exactly a fan, but this woman's career trajectory is particularly exploitative, from the start - from child actor to legal prostitute and everything in between.

the court should have probably put a restraining order on her father, rather than give him custody over her as an adult.

there's such a long history of this kind of abuse in the music industry. your favorite female pop stars were essentially all slaves to the men in their lives, going back to the 1930s and no doubt longer.

she should be granted control of her own finances, for better or worse, in a country that is supposed to be about the pursuit of happiness.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-53930167

i impress myself sometimes...

this is a mix tape i put together in 2015 of material initially recorded before the year 2000.

use headphones. please.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ambient-works-vol-0

my grade three teacher had a thing for yellow submarine.

and, in hindsight, perhaps lsd.

he kind of disappeared. we never got a straight answer.

freakin' kids.

this should be taught in grade school, along with other timeless classics like beethoven's fifth.

be kind to your children.

please.

the world depends on it.

energy. momentum. love.

it's just physics.

conservation law.

qed.

i forget sometimes that there are children in the room.

ok, maybe your dog cares about you, but not if you raised it like a nazi.

i'd rather flip this over; dogs, like kids, need love, first and foremost. and, these wise words are perhaps useful, in the context of parenting:

and in the end,
the love you take
is equal to the love
you make

i mean, you don't think your dog cares about you, do you?

you're just a cookie dispenser.

your dog would eat you in a minute, if you ran out of treats - and your kids will too, if you raise them that way.

the woman is basically stupid, if she thinks that kid will grow up caring and compassionate.

that kid is going to turn into a utility monster. that's what she's teaching it - selfishness as a virtue.

https://www.cbc.ca/parents/learning/view/train-your-baby-like-a-dog-parenting-is-here-and-the-internet-is-angry

does this seem kind of oddly current?

i think most people realize how absurd that is, today.

yet, they wear masks to the mall and don't see the irony.

but, your kids will....

if you read up on this era, you learn that it's only half the case that the politicians were idiots; they knew that wasn't going to be useful, but they pushed the fear anyways, because it was more about control and dominance.

we're in a very weird moment.

you're not free, not exactly - not any more free than an electron in a field is. we are subject to the effects of external forces. clearly.

but, you're certainly not predetermined.

that's not even classical.

that's not even wrong.

i mean, if it was a church group, i'd maybe have a more subtle response.

but, it's not.

so, my condemnation is clear:

you? never did! fuck the kenosha kid.

i can condemn this kenosha kid.

if he blew up a mosque, that's a diversity of tactics to advance secularism - i wouldn't advocate it, but i won't condemn it

but, i have no common cause with anybody that wants to shoot black protesters on the street, unless the protesters are explicitly christians.

Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with shooting three people — two of them fatally — during a Kenosha protest Tuesday night, considered himself a militia member trying to protect life and property

you never did.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/26/kyle-rittenhouse-charged-kenosha-protest-shootings-militia/5634532002/

i never did.

- the kenosha kid

it can't happen here, right?

if death grips were half this good, they wouldn't suck.

but, they basically built their career on this old bowie/eno/reznor/ice cube/rave ogilvie collab.

i had to do a lot of running around yesterday.

i was concerned about cops sitting on the street corners with baseball bats, but almost nobody was maskless, indicating that the fear, uncertainty and doubt seems to be working. there were again two cases yesterday...

people actually seem to have been taken aback by something they saw on me that they may not have seen on anybody in quite a while, namely lipstick.

i'd bet cosmetic companies are taking it hard right now in some places, because what's the point when you're wearing a mask? but, you could see it in the eyes of random females walking by.

i remember that. i miss that, just a little. not jealous.

i managed to find another month's worth of brand name estrace, right here in windsor. is there more out there? there might be, i don't know....

this month was been awfully unproductive. i keep trying to clean up posts back to early august, and keep getting stuck, either via distraction (posts this month are twice the average) or as a consequence of migraines or oversleeping. it snuck up on me this time by accident, but quitting smoking is not fun. but, i'm inside now for a bit, and am two weeks past it, so let's hope i can get a bit of work done before i have to do groceries for september.

i got kind of sidetracked. it's going to be a while before i get out of it, still.

if you're wondering what i'm listening to, it's music linked to off of this page over 2013-2015.

plexiglass.

seriously.

that's what they're saying.

https://www.blogto.com/sports_play/2020/07/concerts-events-ontario-stage-3-rules/

where are we?

what happened?

wait.

do you think your moderating choices are, like, somehow better than mine or something?

i will insist my arbitrary choices are just as arbitrary as yours are, and my interpretation of the conversation is just as valid as yours is. sorry.

https://deathtokoalas.blogspot.com/2017/02/zgoombah-lot-of-confused-soccer-moms.html

i'm going to update my reviews for a few of these items that i'm backposting.

back in februrary, 2014 i wrote that the ambient sections on this record are amelodic, rambling and highly derivative of a post-rock formula that's been recreated hundreds of times, and angrily discarded comparisons to mbv as an insult to the impeccable craftmanship of that band. i may have given off the impression of a damning review of this disc.

that was not my actual intent. i will stand by initial statements, but i need to temper them with the acknowledgement that this is a listenable record, as badly flawed as it is through varying levels of cliche. time has maybe eroded the annoyance of the juxtaposition at the time and left something that is not entirely without guilty merit.

it's weak all around - in construction, in abstraction and even in grit at points, as that dull blast beat in the end just flattens out all of the dynamics. but, at this point, they might have even been still worth a beer to check out, and i thought about it a few times, but i never did.

so, i was harsh in my comments, but i'd have given it a C or something. and it's maybe even aged a little better than that, as the cliches just sort of fade backwards into some amorphous blob of previous existence.

this is actually my favourite beethoven piece that got canceled this weekend, although the piece is so important that it will no doubt be not very long before it appears again. while nothing else survived in the form of a listing for long enough to say much about it, i would have likely centered my weekend around this performance, somehow.

i've tended to avoid commenting too deeply on pieces of this sort, because what's the point? but, this is the one that was dedicated to napoleon, and then had the dedication retracted when he declared himself emperor. and, i love that beethoven did that - almost as much as i love the piece, itself.

all of the textbooks will tell you that this is also beethoven's turning point, from being a classical composer to being beethoven and that's likely a key part of why it's seen by so many, including myself, as being his best work. you kind of get both sides, and you get it fresh, before he kind of settled in this sort of routine.

that is to say that the piece is not just dedicated to a revolutionary in a revolutionary time, but is itself revolutionary, in scope - and therefore fit for the ears and minds of revolutionaries of any time.

if you haven't heard this, you really must.

there was a cancelled bing & ruth show this week, as well.

i guess there's three ways to approach ambient music. the first is as purely background sound, in which case any sort of cerebral analysis misses the point. the second is as film music, which explicitly evaluates the sound in terms of how well it can be paired to a set of visuals. this second approach is of essentially no interest to me, as i have no interest whatsoever in the medium of film. the third is via active listening, which is the one i tend to default to, even when i know i should be interpreting the music as background. the ambience that i'm most likely to connect positively with is the type that maintains the aesthetic of the style, while still allowing for active listening; i don't want to eject the cerebral component entirely, i still want to actually listen to something. so, this is the kind of struggle i get in interpreting music in the genre - should i be listening carefully or not? am i listening too carefully and missing the point? i'm not interested in the visuals...

there was a time when i was more actively interested in this genre, but i had not heard of bing & ruth previously. when i went to check them out, i learned that they initially started with a large ensemble before slowly dismantling it over time. so, i thought it would be best to start at the beginning.

unfortunately, this ensemble seems to mostly be focused on the second approach, which is sort of out of my sphere of interest. as the music seems to mostly be intended to integrate with visuals, it is often actually too abrasive to function as background - it's too loud for that. but, after sorting through each of the three records, i've found nothing at all that is interesting enough for active listening.

he could use some counterpoint or something here and there....there's just none of it....it's just tonally absolutely bland, all the way through.

i will consequently have to excuse myself from this, and leave it to the film majors to enjoy, instead.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_x_YzBWlL_q_nFJ9rNW0Hg/playlists?view=50&sort=dd&shelf_id=17666223384013636041

actually, i like this quite a bit, and would have probably checked it out. these are, in truth, the types of nerdy lyrics that i more readily relate to and, while it's a little light, it rocks nicely when it picks up.

it would have been next friday in detroit, but it's already cancelled.

https://retirementparty.bandcamp.com/album/somewhat-literate

yeah, i'm going to label this record top notch to groundbreaking, and we're constructing a sort of a theme for what might have been. this disc should be in your best of 2019 list.

after sorting through their older singles & eps, i don't think the slint or sonic youth suggestions are that off base (and there's a lot of mbv & swans, as well). the blastbeats are not some kind of accident, but this is fundamentally some kind of early 90s alt-rock, and you know that's where my brain really lives...

it turns out they went to berklee, so the bent knee drop isn't totally out there, either.

it's really all over the place, which is refreshing. i miss when music was this diverse and creative, and disinterested in following rules or appealing to markets. so, tell them to come back...

https://elizabethcolourwheel.bandcamp.com/album/nocebo

ok.

so, their bandcamp page is misleading - it makes it seem like they have a large discography, when it's in truth just a scattering of singles. what i posted is really their first substantive release.

so, that's why i've never heard of them.

i listened through all of their early singles, and while there's bits and pieces of various interest, it's all just a lot of teases, without ever getting anywhere in the end. maybe if you strung them all out together, you might have something more interesting, but half of them are demos, there's a lot of overlap and the vocals were at about half the intensity through most of it...

rather, it seems like this record of theirs is actually quite a long time coming, which might have something to do with the detail present on it.

i'll post a final review in a bit. but, that's a show i would have likely gone to. alas.

speaking of more palatable approaches to "black metal"...

i've never heard of this band before, which is happening more and more frequently, enough that i'm starting to wonder if living in detroit is kind of cutting me off. nobody comes here anymore. there's nowhere to play.

in fact, this band was initially scheduled to play here in windsor tomorrow night, but it's not happening (even if they could have found a house to play at, they're not getting over the border). there's this guy doing local production, and i keep checking out the stuff he brings in, and not much appeals to me; this is both a pleasant surprise and arguably an exciting show, for downtown windsor.

i'm going to listen to their back catalog a bit more before i comment further, but this is actually maybe more in the same space as bent knee, in that it's diverse enough to almost be labeled as prog, but also in it's focus on songwriting over showmanship. or, at least, that's my impression from the first listen of the new record.

the black metal thing is...it's fashionable. yeah, i don't exactly get it either, but this is something that has happened, somehow. that said, if you'd never heard of black metal, you could get away with just describing that aspect of this sound as coming from a heavy blues influence; she screams like an angry punk here and there, but she more often sounds vaguely like a janis joplin or an amy winehouse, as the guitars screech out these pentatonic patterns. i mean, you can't unhear what you know, even if you'd rather you could. but, you could erect this out of, like, slint and sonic youth instead. even if it's disingenuous...

i'm going to give it a closer listen, but it's elaborate enough that i almost certainly would have checked it out. and, let's hope that happy little crowds brings in stuff that is this interesting more often in the future.

https://elizabethcolourwheel.bandcamp.com/

it's crazy times.

really.

and, we need to be very fucking careful with our collective brains and what the fuckers are trying to do to them, right now.

i'll try not to post this every other day.

it's mostly about the part at the very end.

but, at some point, we have to clue in, we have to realize this isn't random, this isn't accidental.

they are exactly the same.

is there really footage out there of carroll spinney conducting an orchestra as big bird?

if not, there should be. and, i'm sure we could come up with a great program. some messaien, some bits of beethoven's sixth...

but, i almost feel like i should commission myself to do this, as though it needs something more specific that does not yet exist.

the ostrich overture.

with oscar on the cans.

wait for it.

(it could be a while.)

i need to reiterate something i've said a few times...

i don't think i've ever actually listened to a metallica record from start to finish.

if i have, it was at a party when i was young, and it was incidental; i don't remember it.

i mean, i have a general idea; enough to realize it's not worth bothering with.

but, i actually suspect i'd like their later material better than their early material.

so, interpret my reviews of self-identified metal-spectrum artists as you will.

there was, however, a show scheduled in detroit tonight that i may have made some attempt to make it to.

i think i've been crystal clear that i don't like the slightest thing about black metal - i don't like the culture, i don't like the music, i don't like anything about it. but, it's become this weird thing that you unfortunately have to deal with in some way or another if you listen to much of anything derived from punk rock, nowadays. i guess, in that sense, it's become the new emo - you can hate it to your core, and you can be right to feel that way, but you kind of can't avoid it. you just have to take it head on.

this is some kind of supergroup that is retreating away from the dumber aspects of the sound, and managed to integrate a cello player as an integral component of the band in the process. the strings are not a gimmick, as they usually are in rock music; the cellist is a part of the band. clearly.

i didn't find anything of interest on their first record. however, if you start with their second record and let it bleed into the third, it becomes progressively more interesting, as they slowly lose the cave man vocals and slowly embrace a more musical sound. they're kind of hamstrung by the fact that they're fundamentally a punk band, meaning they don't take compositional chances when they arguably ought to. but, put together, it's strangely compelling.

i don't know if my interest in this will be sustainable; if they realize they're losing fans and go back to being stupid, i could have missed my chance. but, this is strangely interesting to me as pop music. i guess there's been a few tries at something like this - we had deafheaven, we had liturgy and we had a bunch of other stuff trying to take the basic sound of this black metal scene (which has terrible politics.) and market it to people that aren't nazis, by mixing it up a little. out of all of the hybrid attempts, i think the only one i've found legitimately interesting is touche amore (who are generally not interpreted that way); this is, otherwise, maybe the closest to something i've heard that i can actually get into, and it's probably because it's focusing less on the avant garde and less on metal cliches and more on punk rock and musical romanticism, if not a little bit of baroqueness. it's melodic where those other bands aren't; it's coherent, where they're often not.

so, i think this would have been worthwhile to check out, if i could have worked it out in a way that made sense. it would have certainly been a good night to get out of the house on a bicycle and chill out in a park. alas.

https://chromewaves.bandcamp.com

i don't want to make it seem like i'm explicitly shunning music for small ensembles or something.

but a trio in a church is a little bourgeois for me, and none of these pieces really go anywhere interesting, although the brahms piece, which i'd argue is stronger than the beethoven piece, is again reminiscent of something, namely chariots of fire. i guess i'm just the last to know.

i just like my classical music a little more violent than this.

well, the weekend is over, and the temperature dipped a little, but it was actually fairly nice in detroit. it would have been nice to get out and do something, if there was something to do. while i'm sure a lot of things got cancelled last weekend before i got to them, the most interesting things were a series of beethoven/brahms shows, one downtown and one in the burbs.

the first show was downtown and ran on thurs-sat, i believe. the second was on monday in a difficult to get to place.

it would have started off with a short piece by a contemporary scandinanvian composer. this strikes me as sort of a period piece; it's in a style that is fairly dominant nowadays, especially in films, which is something that this orchestra seems to want to focus on. so, it's called drifts and that's more or less what it does, eventually building into a crescendo, when the kid is saved from certain death at the last minute, or something. lots of suspense, lots of development, yes - and admittedly fairly rich in detail - but, not much point, at the end. see, i'm going to say something like that for a large percentage of the music of this era, though; it is what it is, and if you like dramatic film music with abstract layers, you might like it...

beethoven's violin concerto is one of his pieces that i'm less familiar with. there is only one violin concerto by beethoven, and you can sort of tell why - while this is a violin concerto, beethoven's general use of strings is so intricate that it often seems like it's missing a lead instrument. maybe this could be somebody else's violin concerto, but for beethoven it just sounds like you forgot to mix the piano in. so, if you're like me, you just expect those romping pianos, and you're just not sure what to do without them.

beethoven was a master hook writer, though, and that little melody will get to you, if you let it. maybe you might want it to be bigger, more grandiose, more epic...but, if you give it a chance, it might grow on you.

so, it's a little light for beethoven, but it doesn't drag like his lightest works do. i have to say i wish i'd have checked this out sooner, but i can't listen to everything.

as an aside, i appreciate the dso's playlists. i'm not liking all of it, but it's helping me fill in gaps i should have filled in some time ago, even with some of my favourite composers.

and, we're back to brahms again, as though somebody is trying to get to me.

i put the first piano concerto halfway between beethoven and rachmaninov, but this symphonic piece is more like beethoven, as remixed by wagner. he's lifting melodies directly; it's shameless, really, because these are melodies that are so well known that you cannot for one second get away with it, and you'd think it was worse closer to the source. you get the guttural, beethoven-like attack in many parts, too, so it really is clear what he's starting with. but, he's also bringing in those proto-atonal string stabs that you'd get with wagner and then later with schoenberg, which i'm going to argue sort of drag down the piece. if you like the blunt attack of early romanticism, you could get frustrated by the way he draws this out; conversely, if you prefer the messier sound of the late romantic, you might interpret this as the best thing that beethoven never did.

but, it's also missing a lead instrument...

what do i think of brahms? well, i'm not reacting particularly badly to it, but, after exploring his first piano concerto and first symphony over the last few weeks, all i'm able to interpret it as is transitional. i guess i have to give him credit for his influence on rachmaninov, but i'm only ever going to get at that anachronistically. so, what does brahms sound like? i still don't really know, quite yet.

so, that was the first show, and if i could have made room for it, i would have likely attended. it's three moderately strong pieces that, together, strike me as worth experiencing.

but, i stayed inside and listened to it on youtube, instead.

i have done a lookahead for june, but, i mean, everything's cancelled, and it's been cancelled for so long, now, that there's not a lot left to review.

the most exciting shows that i could find were at the dso, so expect some classical write-ups, and perhaps not much else.

i'm still hoping this is temporary, as i don't understand what's happened to the existing site. it seems to continue to exist, but i can't log into it. so, is it frozen? disabled? i've received no communication from them at all...

did i get hacked?

in the mean time, i've set up a new site. this is a sort of a test. i suppose that if the site ends up frozen like the other one, i'll know that noise trade has frozen it. but, if it doesn't, i'm going to start to wonder if i got hacked.

there are fake deathtokoalas out there, and some of them seem to be unhealthily obsessed about it.

http://books.noisetrade.com/jj/072013-012014-deathtokoalas

my noise trade site has kind of evaporated, and i don't know what's going on with it. i've sent an email to the site requesting some further clarification as to why i can't log in and why the files are unavailable.

in the mean time, i've put the files up at a google drive share.

this is temporary, but i don't want the files to be unavailable while i figure out if i'm being censored, or if there's some kind of systems glitch.

i wasn't on noise trade very long before they got bought by paste, but i'm not a fan of paste, and don't particularly like the fact that they're hosting the files on amazon. so, it's not exactly my preferred hosting solution. the question is whether there's anything better out there or not.

i'm not going to whine and bitch and fight with the server mods, i'll just post somewhere else, and encourage people to follow me there. it's just that they haven't communicated with me in any way at all, so i don't actually know what's even going on.

for now, the files are here. enjoy.

and, buy something at bandcamp if you want to throw me some cash.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vEisI6NCO3jPMOwOVwEEauwkdERXmM-A?usp=sharing

this is the end of this for a while, as i pivot back into period three.

but, here is the complete readable archive of this blog for the first reconstruction phase, from july, 2013 to january, 2014.

the second reconstruction phase ran from february 1, 2014 to the end of june, 2015, when i looped back around to remaster the inri material from source. while the politics and music journal sites are largely reconstructed over this period, i do not intend to get back to rebuilding the travel or dtk blogs in any systematic matter or doing music journal releases until (1) i am in a comfortable flow with the alter-reality and (2) i am finished with period three, which ran roughly from the time i got back from bc in 2003 to the time i moved into the apartment on bronson in 2007. journal releases for the foreseeable future are going to be dated from 1988 or 1989 forwards.

so, that's what's coming up.

but, i need to get through another 11 liner note releases, and update at least inri022, probably others. the coming re-releases are inri031-inri034, inri036-inri041 and inri045.

http://books.noisetrade.com/j/072013-012014-deathtokoalas
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-deathtokoalas-blog/ebook/product-zrgr94.html
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10DbwOVdqWt73rHNzWJWgEfduzREogExX/view