there's now a link to a consolidated rss feed, the 6 blogs + 4 youtube sites, which is the best i can do. i will update this link as it improves itself.
but, i cannot get rss feeds from bandcamp, noise trade, patreon or facebook, unfortunately. in a sense, that is irrelevant, as i should cross-reference everything to the blogs; this feed will give you everything, and double or triple a lot of it.
http://www.rssmix.com/u/8317252/rss.xml
Saturday, April 20, 2019
unlike notley, trudeau actually has a realistic chance to win the upcoming election.
you'd have to think that there are still a sizeable number of people apprehensive about the conservative party, which was thrown out of power in a coalition intent on removing it, specifically; notley won against a split majority. the conservatives are still a minority nationwide, arguably even a weak one. the fundamental position of strength is on the liberals' sides, in terms of pure numbers. the hard question all of these people are having to face is if it's a better strategy to support the party, or try and work against it, but it's ultimately a meaningless question, because you have to unite in the end, anyways, to actually accomplish anything; if the liberals can build any kind of coalition around anything at all, they should have the pure numbers to win everywhere, decisively, so tactics towards unity should be aggressively deployed by anybody looking to do anything, and it follows that a liberal win becomes eminently plausible, which is believable because the liberals have held government for a disproportionate period of time over the last 100+ years. stated differently, this is a constant in canadian politics: the liberals always have an excellent chance of forming government.
unfortunately, the liberal party dismantled a large amount of that coalition when they came to power. it appears to be trying to reach deep into ethnic communities to make up the difference in voters, but i think it's a numerical miscalculation to conclude that this is even plausible. the uniform spread of something like election reform can't be replaced by a couple of localized sikh communities, even if the political financing involved in the latter is much greater. it seems to have been quite foolish to entirely throw these issues away, given the strategic value they had in the previous election.
it's just probably not going to be very hard to come up with a good reason why these ignored liberal left voters should cast a skeptical vote, even if they have to do a little bit better than basing a campaign around the negation of godwin's law.
so, of course the liberals can win the election. they just need to figure out how, first.
you'd have to think that there are still a sizeable number of people apprehensive about the conservative party, which was thrown out of power in a coalition intent on removing it, specifically; notley won against a split majority. the conservatives are still a minority nationwide, arguably even a weak one. the fundamental position of strength is on the liberals' sides, in terms of pure numbers. the hard question all of these people are having to face is if it's a better strategy to support the party, or try and work against it, but it's ultimately a meaningless question, because you have to unite in the end, anyways, to actually accomplish anything; if the liberals can build any kind of coalition around anything at all, they should have the pure numbers to win everywhere, decisively, so tactics towards unity should be aggressively deployed by anybody looking to do anything, and it follows that a liberal win becomes eminently plausible, which is believable because the liberals have held government for a disproportionate period of time over the last 100+ years. stated differently, this is a constant in canadian politics: the liberals always have an excellent chance of forming government.
unfortunately, the liberal party dismantled a large amount of that coalition when they came to power. it appears to be trying to reach deep into ethnic communities to make up the difference in voters, but i think it's a numerical miscalculation to conclude that this is even plausible. the uniform spread of something like election reform can't be replaced by a couple of localized sikh communities, even if the political financing involved in the latter is much greater. it seems to have been quite foolish to entirely throw these issues away, given the strategic value they had in the previous election.
it's just probably not going to be very hard to come up with a good reason why these ignored liberal left voters should cast a skeptical vote, even if they have to do a little bit better than basing a campaign around the negation of godwin's law.
so, of course the liberals can win the election. they just need to figure out how, first.
at
19:20
so, i'm caught up with the reviews and ready to get to the august rebuild.
i'm sure you caught the date.
i'm going to go for a walk.
i'm sure you caught the date.
i'm going to go for a walk.
at
17:47
these analyses of the alberta election that are claiming that notley was done in by negative campaigning are completely off-base.
to begin with, she had little chance of getting more than 40%. the idea that the election was really in play is not a serious premise, so this idea that she didn't do what was necessary to convince people to vote for her is delusional. she had no chance of winning the election by running on the economy, because there simply weren't enough votes in play for her to do so, and because her own base doesn't care about such things. she was simply never going to convince a substantial number of conservatives to vote for her, no matter what she did, and no matter how bad the other candidate was.
i misread the data, granted. but, it doesn't really change the necessary tactic. as she could at best get a plurality (she had no chance at a majority), and the opposition was no longer split, she had to figure out how to do two things:
1) maximize her own turnout.
2) minimize her opponent's turnout.
"appeal to your opponent's base" was not an option, here.
the truth is that she failed at both tasks, but the approach she took to try to minimize her opponent's turnout was the correct one. if anything, she should have been more aggressive about it. the greater failure is that she governed in opposition to her own base, and that should cost her her party's leadership. i look forward to her being fired by her own people, and her replacement realigning itself with the federal and bc wings.
but, in politics, sometimes failure doesn't occur because you did something wrong.
sometimes, you fail because there's simply no path.
there's nothing she could have done differently; she had little chance, at all.
to begin with, she had little chance of getting more than 40%. the idea that the election was really in play is not a serious premise, so this idea that she didn't do what was necessary to convince people to vote for her is delusional. she had no chance of winning the election by running on the economy, because there simply weren't enough votes in play for her to do so, and because her own base doesn't care about such things. she was simply never going to convince a substantial number of conservatives to vote for her, no matter what she did, and no matter how bad the other candidate was.
i misread the data, granted. but, it doesn't really change the necessary tactic. as she could at best get a plurality (she had no chance at a majority), and the opposition was no longer split, she had to figure out how to do two things:
1) maximize her own turnout.
2) minimize her opponent's turnout.
"appeal to your opponent's base" was not an option, here.
the truth is that she failed at both tasks, but the approach she took to try to minimize her opponent's turnout was the correct one. if anything, she should have been more aggressive about it. the greater failure is that she governed in opposition to her own base, and that should cost her her party's leadership. i look forward to her being fired by her own people, and her replacement realigning itself with the federal and bc wings.
but, in politics, sometimes failure doesn't occur because you did something wrong.
sometimes, you fail because there's simply no path.
there's nothing she could have done differently; she had little chance, at all.
at
17:26
i also attended a yamantaka // sonic titan show on monday night, before i left for toronto early on tuesday morning. i knew this was coming, but didn't want to commit until the last minute, because i didn't want to put missing the bus in question, and i knew it would be a long day. in the end, i decided i wasn't sleeping anyways, so i'd might as well go.
also, i hadn't been to a show in windsor in a long time and have reason to think i might not be to another one here in a long time, as well. there's just not much happening in the city that i'd be interested in...
...and, i needed the fresh air....
i decided to try an experiment with my new drink on the way in. i had already determined, through careful measurement, that the volume of a pill bottle (that is, the area of the circular opening of the cylinder as a cross-section of the imaginary plane that intersects the cylinder orthogonally, multiplied by the length of the cylinder itself) is roughly the amount of vodka required to emulate a mix of my now unavailable rock star vodka, and that simply dumping a pill bottle of vodka into an empty bottle of mountain dew, and then filling that bottle up with mountain dew, would be an easy way to rebuild the drink. while my sense of smell has it's limitations, i was not able to sense the slightest indication of the alcoholic nature of the drink, nor was i able to remotely taste the alcohol in it. success...
the walk was a little longer than intended, and i wasn't sure i was going to get in. the initial request was in fact denied, so i took a walk around the corner to think it through and came back with a compromise:
i know you're sold out, but i'm here, and i was actually just looking to see the first band, anyways. so, would it be possible to let me in for the first set, and then we can figure out who is staying and who is leaving?
"yeah, that works, just find me after the first set."
i'm not sneaky, i'm just rational. honest.
in fact, i wasn't sure if i was going to stay for the whole show or not; it was an honest claim of intent, due to the scheduling concerns around the bus ride out. i think i had decided that it was going to depend on whether i found some drugs or not, and of course i did, and rather fast.
it's legal, but you can't buy it anywhere.
"yeah. never stopped me before."
i had seen yamantaka // sonic titan previously, at zaphod's in ottawa, back in early 2012. i remember the show being kind of intense in a noisy kind of way, even while delving into this kind of japanese opera that just came off as kind of strange. i remember not fully understanding it, and not being particularly driven to; it was a strange cultural synthesis in the sense that it was a japanese noise rock band (something i thought i understood.), albeit from canada, that came off as more traditionally japanese than any japanese noise rock band i'd ever heard before, and i was really willing to just leave it at that. i've missed them several times since, but never at this small venue here in windsor, which is itself a draw when it gets the right acts in.
listening to the new(est) record a few times before the show led me to the conclusion that they'd toned their sound down a lot, and by incorporating a kind of syrupy pop layer that, to be consistent, almost sounded k-pop or j-pop in origin. but, the band the new record reminded me most of was actually ghost, in it's combination of prog-metal type guitar riffs with keith emerson style organ masturbating and sappy pop hooks, right down to the face-painting. i might normally write something like this off as silly, but i decided on this night that it was good enough for the walk...
it's a small venue, capacity less than 100, so you literally can't be more than ten feet from the stage. as such, an aspect of the show was the rawness of it. i must say that i wasn't expecting to get the full vocal treatment with the handheld drum and the whole bit, but that the first singer (they have two singers.) really managed to fill the room up with her voice, including for the tracks that i am presuming are traditional japanese chants, but could be easily mistaken for native american singing. the show was otherwise a competent working through a sampling of the slicker, glossier and proggier side of their discography.
i needed to get out of the house, and it was worth it....
i will eventually upload the last track they did, which was a cover, but there's a recent set here, for now:
as expected, i was allowed to stay for the second set.
i had seen the acid mothers temple before as well, and i'm really not much of a fan, although i do have a fond memory of the show as i got to watch a band i'd never heard of, mammatus, completely blow them off the stage. so, i remember that acid mothers show in ottawa as the night i found mammatus. if i weren't for the mammatus set, though, i would not remember the night so well, as the acid mothers were just kind of prodding and largely boring, terms i would use to describe them in general.
i will acknowledge that they were in truth better on this night than they were on that night in ottawa, more than ten years ago, and that a lot of it had to do with their drummer doing this kind of keith moon routine, where he demonstrated his displeasure with the mopiness of the singer by descending into these cacophonous outbursts, and then got visibly scolded and even drowned out by the guitarist for it. while i think that the routine was actually real - that there is a legitimate conflict over musical direction between the singer and the drummer - it could have just as well have been an act, and considering how frequently this band cites legacy rock cliches, nobody would have questioned it, either. as it was, intentional or not, i got the reference and a bit of a kick out of it on that level. but, the basic boringness of the act remains clear, and had the drummer not repeatedly misbehaved, i would have walked away from it without much to say.
this appears to be the set from the same show as above:
the walk home was pleasant, and while i told myself i'd get everything ready before i napped, i had to succumb to the intoxicants and get some rest. but, this was actually useful to me, as it ensured i got some actual sleep before i went into toronto.
also, i hadn't been to a show in windsor in a long time and have reason to think i might not be to another one here in a long time, as well. there's just not much happening in the city that i'd be interested in...
...and, i needed the fresh air....
i decided to try an experiment with my new drink on the way in. i had already determined, through careful measurement, that the volume of a pill bottle (that is, the area of the circular opening of the cylinder as a cross-section of the imaginary plane that intersects the cylinder orthogonally, multiplied by the length of the cylinder itself) is roughly the amount of vodka required to emulate a mix of my now unavailable rock star vodka, and that simply dumping a pill bottle of vodka into an empty bottle of mountain dew, and then filling that bottle up with mountain dew, would be an easy way to rebuild the drink. while my sense of smell has it's limitations, i was not able to sense the slightest indication of the alcoholic nature of the drink, nor was i able to remotely taste the alcohol in it. success...
the walk was a little longer than intended, and i wasn't sure i was going to get in. the initial request was in fact denied, so i took a walk around the corner to think it through and came back with a compromise:
i know you're sold out, but i'm here, and i was actually just looking to see the first band, anyways. so, would it be possible to let me in for the first set, and then we can figure out who is staying and who is leaving?
"yeah, that works, just find me after the first set."
i'm not sneaky, i'm just rational. honest.
in fact, i wasn't sure if i was going to stay for the whole show or not; it was an honest claim of intent, due to the scheduling concerns around the bus ride out. i think i had decided that it was going to depend on whether i found some drugs or not, and of course i did, and rather fast.
it's legal, but you can't buy it anywhere.
"yeah. never stopped me before."
i had seen yamantaka // sonic titan previously, at zaphod's in ottawa, back in early 2012. i remember the show being kind of intense in a noisy kind of way, even while delving into this kind of japanese opera that just came off as kind of strange. i remember not fully understanding it, and not being particularly driven to; it was a strange cultural synthesis in the sense that it was a japanese noise rock band (something i thought i understood.), albeit from canada, that came off as more traditionally japanese than any japanese noise rock band i'd ever heard before, and i was really willing to just leave it at that. i've missed them several times since, but never at this small venue here in windsor, which is itself a draw when it gets the right acts in.
listening to the new(est) record a few times before the show led me to the conclusion that they'd toned their sound down a lot, and by incorporating a kind of syrupy pop layer that, to be consistent, almost sounded k-pop or j-pop in origin. but, the band the new record reminded me most of was actually ghost, in it's combination of prog-metal type guitar riffs with keith emerson style organ masturbating and sappy pop hooks, right down to the face-painting. i might normally write something like this off as silly, but i decided on this night that it was good enough for the walk...
it's a small venue, capacity less than 100, so you literally can't be more than ten feet from the stage. as such, an aspect of the show was the rawness of it. i must say that i wasn't expecting to get the full vocal treatment with the handheld drum and the whole bit, but that the first singer (they have two singers.) really managed to fill the room up with her voice, including for the tracks that i am presuming are traditional japanese chants, but could be easily mistaken for native american singing. the show was otherwise a competent working through a sampling of the slicker, glossier and proggier side of their discography.
i needed to get out of the house, and it was worth it....
i will eventually upload the last track they did, which was a cover, but there's a recent set here, for now:
as expected, i was allowed to stay for the second set.
i had seen the acid mothers temple before as well, and i'm really not much of a fan, although i do have a fond memory of the show as i got to watch a band i'd never heard of, mammatus, completely blow them off the stage. so, i remember that acid mothers show in ottawa as the night i found mammatus. if i weren't for the mammatus set, though, i would not remember the night so well, as the acid mothers were just kind of prodding and largely boring, terms i would use to describe them in general.
i will acknowledge that they were in truth better on this night than they were on that night in ottawa, more than ten years ago, and that a lot of it had to do with their drummer doing this kind of keith moon routine, where he demonstrated his displeasure with the mopiness of the singer by descending into these cacophonous outbursts, and then got visibly scolded and even drowned out by the guitarist for it. while i think that the routine was actually real - that there is a legitimate conflict over musical direction between the singer and the drummer - it could have just as well have been an act, and considering how frequently this band cites legacy rock cliches, nobody would have questioned it, either. as it was, intentional or not, i got the reference and a bit of a kick out of it on that level. but, the basic boringness of the act remains clear, and had the drummer not repeatedly misbehaved, i would have walked away from it without much to say.
this appears to be the set from the same show as above:
the walk home was pleasant, and while i told myself i'd get everything ready before i napped, i had to succumb to the intoxicants and get some rest. but, this was actually useful to me, as it ensured i got some actual sleep before i went into toronto.
at
17:02
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
so, where am i posting these concert reviews to? and where am i not posting them?
i used to have two blogs - one for the music journal & one for politics, which was also a general blog. i always intended to introduce a third one for music reviews. the travel blog was never planned, but is an idea i will probably stick with for some time; it's a reasonable subset, and i like the premise. i can build a nice history up around this. & it might even get me out of the house a bit more...
but, the breakdown that existed was kind of insufficient to get a proper partition, and things ended up kind of weird. now that i have four blogs instead of two, let's think this through better.
1) concert reviews should appear at the travel blog when they involve traveling, and not otherwise. i think that's clear enough.
2) concert reviews should always appear at the review site because they're reviews. so, this isn't complicated, yet.
3) the idea of having concert reviews at the music journal is that a concert is always an influential experience, even if it's less than inspiring. i'm going to hold to this.
4) i did not previously post reviews to the general blog, but i think i'm going to be more explicit about the general blog being general, and start doing so.
so, the la dispute review will actually appear at all four blogs, whereas the yamantaka review (to be written shortly) will not appear at the travel blog, but will appear at the other four.
as i close these blogs, i will be juggling the information around accordingly.
i used to have two blogs - one for the music journal & one for politics, which was also a general blog. i always intended to introduce a third one for music reviews. the travel blog was never planned, but is an idea i will probably stick with for some time; it's a reasonable subset, and i like the premise. i can build a nice history up around this. & it might even get me out of the house a bit more...
but, the breakdown that existed was kind of insufficient to get a proper partition, and things ended up kind of weird. now that i have four blogs instead of two, let's think this through better.
1) concert reviews should appear at the travel blog when they involve traveling, and not otherwise. i think that's clear enough.
2) concert reviews should always appear at the review site because they're reviews. so, this isn't complicated, yet.
3) the idea of having concert reviews at the music journal is that a concert is always an influential experience, even if it's less than inspiring. i'm going to hold to this.
4) i did not previously post reviews to the general blog, but i think i'm going to be more explicit about the general blog being general, and start doing so.
so, the la dispute review will actually appear at all four blogs, whereas the yamantaka review (to be written shortly) will not appear at the travel blog, but will appear at the other four.
as i close these blogs, i will be juggling the information around accordingly.
at
13:09
so, i wanted to get something done last night, but it was instead another ten hours of sleep after a very short day, which is continually frustrating.
i hate sleeping...
i'm awake now, anyways, so let's see if i can get started on this or not.
i hate sleeping...
i'm awake now, anyways, so let's see if i can get started on this or not.
at
11:24
i just want to point to this as another exhibit of the root cause of why this government is probably going to fall in some way in october, be it halfway to minority or all the way out the door, and that reason being that it's a government composed of people that live an arm's distance from everybody else.
the government has a message about the carbon tax, and it wants to get past the media filters and directly to young people, so it does up a little video to talk directly to voters. then, it posts it on the internet.
great, right - it's using modern technology to get through the media, and that's the smart thing to do, clearly.
...except they posted it on twitter. and, probably from an iphone, too.
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjm1Z2y4d7hAhUmTd8KHQWbDjkQwqsBMAp6BAhNEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FJustinTrudeau%2Fstatus%2F1119006107622674432&usg=AOvVaw1X-jVb12wBhvIxTBwu4gZ0
i apologize for the google link, but i actually have a *twitter* line in my ad-blocking software to stop the embeds from showing up in newsfeeds. that is, i've purposefully blocked my browser from accessing the link to the video, as spam.
most people aren't going to go to such lengths to take twitter out of their lives, but my inability to even hit the link is indicative of the poor tactic being employed, here, which is itself a reflection of the bubble that the government exists within.
the reason they posted it to twitter is, of course, because they all use twitter, and that's obvious enough from observing them. they're the kinds of people that are glued to the twitter feeds on their (i)phones 24/7, and that are surrounded by other people that are glued to the twitter feeds on their (i)phones 24/7. in the absence of a representative sample, such uniformity of behaviour might actually appear normal to somebody that is behind this obfuscating veil of twitter-tinted sunglasses. but, a cursory analysis using things like statistics and market research would quickly collapse the bubble, were it to be actually carried out - pretty much the only people that use twitter are upper class liberals, that is people that act and think just like the people in the pmo. call it a circle jerk or a chant in the choir; you'd probably pick the latter, if you use twitter, even if the former is more widely stated.
and, if you were to ask them "why didn't you post it to youtube or facebook?", you might even get back some kind of snobbish response about youtube users being inferior to twitter users.
and, that's why they're going to lose.
the government has a message about the carbon tax, and it wants to get past the media filters and directly to young people, so it does up a little video to talk directly to voters. then, it posts it on the internet.
great, right - it's using modern technology to get through the media, and that's the smart thing to do, clearly.
...except they posted it on twitter. and, probably from an iphone, too.
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjm1Z2y4d7hAhUmTd8KHQWbDjkQwqsBMAp6BAhNEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FJustinTrudeau%2Fstatus%2F1119006107622674432&usg=AOvVaw1X-jVb12wBhvIxTBwu4gZ0
i apologize for the google link, but i actually have a *twitter* line in my ad-blocking software to stop the embeds from showing up in newsfeeds. that is, i've purposefully blocked my browser from accessing the link to the video, as spam.
most people aren't going to go to such lengths to take twitter out of their lives, but my inability to even hit the link is indicative of the poor tactic being employed, here, which is itself a reflection of the bubble that the government exists within.
the reason they posted it to twitter is, of course, because they all use twitter, and that's obvious enough from observing them. they're the kinds of people that are glued to the twitter feeds on their (i)phones 24/7, and that are surrounded by other people that are glued to the twitter feeds on their (i)phones 24/7. in the absence of a representative sample, such uniformity of behaviour might actually appear normal to somebody that is behind this obfuscating veil of twitter-tinted sunglasses. but, a cursory analysis using things like statistics and market research would quickly collapse the bubble, were it to be actually carried out - pretty much the only people that use twitter are upper class liberals, that is people that act and think just like the people in the pmo. call it a circle jerk or a chant in the choir; you'd probably pick the latter, if you use twitter, even if the former is more widely stated.
and, if you were to ask them "why didn't you post it to youtube or facebook?", you might even get back some kind of snobbish response about youtube users being inferior to twitter users.
and, that's why they're going to lose.
at
09:37
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