1% after 10 hours. 1000 hours is 42 days. and that's just the os partition. it'd better pick up.
it doesn't look unusable, so far. even if i can just get what's there off...
...and
this ancient 90s compaq actually isn't bad once it got tweaked to a
bigger pagefile. it can only handle a few tabs, sure. but it's at least
as functional as an iphone...
if you want to run a 90s computer on
the existing internet, you'd better get used to adblock. i don't need
more RAM, websites need to stop loading their pages with crap.
seriously.
as an aside, i get why i need to block twitter. i think
its useless, but it's popular. why, though, do i need to block aol? why
are websites still linking to aol? who uses aol? it's a 90s computer,
not a time machine back there...
bonus: one can block entire commenting systems.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
(it turns out it won't be necessary to actually partition anything
out because chkdsk does that in the mft. i did know how mfts work, but i
wasn't clear on whether the information coming at me related to the
physical sectors or the mft; it's the latter. which makes things easier.
a chkdsk is enough; the file system will take it from there. and,
thankfully, it does seem, right now, that the corruption is just at the
front of the mft.)
i should point out that i've got the disc split into a small operating system partition and a large file partition. it seems like that's going to save my data, even as the os needs a fresh install. which is why i did it like that.
i should point out that i've got the disc split into a small operating system partition and a large file partition. it seems like that's going to save my data, even as the os needs a fresh install. which is why i did it like that.
i've had a lot of bad luck with storage over the last few days and
it's probably going to be a few days, if not longer, before it gets
entirely fixed. i'm typing this from a compaq evo that was manufactured
in the 90s, that's missing half it's keys and in all honesty probably
belongs in a museum.
but note that it still boots. that's better than i can say for two far newer laptops that are even made by the same company. proof that everything was better in the 90s? fuck, this thing has *rust* on it. laptops with rust is a weird idea, but think of it like a reliable old chevy. it was probably actually even manufactured on this continent.
i even have an old quantum fireball drive that came with windows '98 on it that still boots. yet, the hard drive in the fancy windows 7 machine that my dad left me imploded after less than a year. it's not that we can't do better than this, it's that it isn't profitable to make electronics that don't break after a year. it's fucking pathetic, really.
it started yesterday when one of my usb drives just snapped. nothing out of the ordinary happened, it just disintegrated - almost as though it was timed to fritz out after the first. it might actually have been designed that way. engineers actually take full credit courses in a concept called "forced obsolescence". they spend as much time designing things to break as they do designing things to work. because profit. it's fucking pathetic.
i snapped the plastic off and the solder just gave way. nothing complicated about it, no fault on my behalf - it was just designed to break. just cheap garbage.
this morning, i take the laptop out of sleep (as mentioned, it's practically brand new) and the video spazzes out into static to reveal a blank screen. wait. fuck. reboot. nothing. memory is fine, but the hard drive test is failing. again, there was no strain on the device. worse, it came with no warning - it wasn't clicking or whirring or buzzing. it's almost like it has a timer in it....
i'm running it through a chkdsk right now, which should hopefully be done by the end of the week, and it looks like, in the end, i may get away with a corrupt boot sector and a reinstall; hard to say at this point, but it appears like i may be able to partition out the bad part. but, there's no reason for this. it's just badly designed (accidentally on purpose) garbage.
the laptop is sort of gravy. it was a gift, to replace one that came to me on a grant (another compaq with another dead hard drive). if i can't get it back up, it just means i'll have to get that router fixed sooner than later. it's not devastating.
in the mean time, it's this museum piece with 650 MB of obsolete RAM that is the one that's still kicking - rusty joints and all. and hp/compaq should be fucking embarrassed about that. except not. 'cause profit.
but note that it still boots. that's better than i can say for two far newer laptops that are even made by the same company. proof that everything was better in the 90s? fuck, this thing has *rust* on it. laptops with rust is a weird idea, but think of it like a reliable old chevy. it was probably actually even manufactured on this continent.
i even have an old quantum fireball drive that came with windows '98 on it that still boots. yet, the hard drive in the fancy windows 7 machine that my dad left me imploded after less than a year. it's not that we can't do better than this, it's that it isn't profitable to make electronics that don't break after a year. it's fucking pathetic, really.
it started yesterday when one of my usb drives just snapped. nothing out of the ordinary happened, it just disintegrated - almost as though it was timed to fritz out after the first. it might actually have been designed that way. engineers actually take full credit courses in a concept called "forced obsolescence". they spend as much time designing things to break as they do designing things to work. because profit. it's fucking pathetic.
i snapped the plastic off and the solder just gave way. nothing complicated about it, no fault on my behalf - it was just designed to break. just cheap garbage.
this morning, i take the laptop out of sleep (as mentioned, it's practically brand new) and the video spazzes out into static to reveal a blank screen. wait. fuck. reboot. nothing. memory is fine, but the hard drive test is failing. again, there was no strain on the device. worse, it came with no warning - it wasn't clicking or whirring or buzzing. it's almost like it has a timer in it....
i'm running it through a chkdsk right now, which should hopefully be done by the end of the week, and it looks like, in the end, i may get away with a corrupt boot sector and a reinstall; hard to say at this point, but it appears like i may be able to partition out the bad part. but, there's no reason for this. it's just badly designed (accidentally on purpose) garbage.
the laptop is sort of gravy. it was a gift, to replace one that came to me on a grant (another compaq with another dead hard drive). if i can't get it back up, it just means i'll have to get that router fixed sooner than later. it's not devastating.
in the mean time, it's this museum piece with 650 MB of obsolete RAM that is the one that's still kicking - rusty joints and all. and hp/compaq should be fucking embarrassed about that. except not. 'cause profit.
excited about new mt zion record
i'm actually pretty excited about this. the last really amazing one was back in '08. they're due for something consciousness-altering. you can't take this band out of context, but the excerpt sounds focused.
actually, it seems to have been leaked.
(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnpQFjefXCRPozHrQgQnQ4_djW51IA_fk)
little borrowed melody from ka-spel to start things off. gotta keep things clean, clean, clean....
you can almost instantly tell if they're "on" or not. they're on. the recording quality on the youtube up is not so good, though. and that matters for this band.
(wait)
wow. as always, this is going to require some disassembling. not the kind of thing that you can listen to once or twice. i'm impressed on first listen, though.
actually, it seems to have been leaked.
(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnpQFjefXCRPozHrQgQnQ4_djW51IA_fk)
little borrowed melody from ka-spel to start things off. gotta keep things clean, clean, clean....
you can almost instantly tell if they're "on" or not. they're on. the recording quality on the youtube up is not so good, though. and that matters for this band.
(wait)
wow. as always, this is going to require some disassembling. not the kind of thing that you can listen to once or twice. i'm impressed on first listen, though.
Friday, January 3, 2014
publishing inridiculous (inri033)
except to split out the last track as a single, i've decided not to alter this in any way.
i was moving, conceptually, to more serious styles of music. i wanted to write these epic 20-minute trips that reached into every genre imaginable. you can hear that shift over the last few things i posted, and it really accelerates moving into the year 2000. this is my last kiddy recording...but it isn't really a kiddy recording.....
see, i had a bunch of noise tracks that i'd been putting aside for a third demo, trinri, that was meant to carry on with the same concept as the first two: "songs" and "collages" would alternate over 19 tracks. the problem i ran up against with trinri was that i was no longer interested in writing songs. what was coming out, instead, were these fifteen minute journeys. that's ultimately the driving reason that i switched things up: the format had worn itself thin.
so, i pulled the noise collages together (along with some older collages that i had pulled from various sources as far back as my first demo tape) into this thing. i became aware at some point, very suddenly, that the whole idea and product was sort of ridiculous. hence the title.
this recording is consequently void of actual songs. it isn't easy to listen to, and offers few reprieves, but if you're a fan of the genre that includes bands like coil, psychic tv, dvoa, nurse with wound and hafler trio (i hesitate to use the i word in context) then you may find something of enjoyment here.
cover art is from 1999. how the hell did the greeks think mesopotamia was an ocean, anyways? surely, they had contact with babylonians, if not indians. that's never made sense to me.
the last track just got tagged on as an afterthought. it never really fit the theme. so, i've removed it (as of january, 2014) and placed it here: http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/book-it.
recorded from 1996-1999. this is my third record. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, keyboards, tapes, synthesizers, live drums, drum programming, hammerhead (909 emulator), sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, loops, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, flute
released december 10, 1999
the track i've split off into a single:
AND THAT COMPLETES MY INRI RUN THROUGH.
well, i have an inricycled to construct, still. that should be fun. but it's a different thing.
i was moving, conceptually, to more serious styles of music. i wanted to write these epic 20-minute trips that reached into every genre imaginable. you can hear that shift over the last few things i posted, and it really accelerates moving into the year 2000. this is my last kiddy recording...but it isn't really a kiddy recording.....
see, i had a bunch of noise tracks that i'd been putting aside for a third demo, trinri, that was meant to carry on with the same concept as the first two: "songs" and "collages" would alternate over 19 tracks. the problem i ran up against with trinri was that i was no longer interested in writing songs. what was coming out, instead, were these fifteen minute journeys. that's ultimately the driving reason that i switched things up: the format had worn itself thin.
so, i pulled the noise collages together (along with some older collages that i had pulled from various sources as far back as my first demo tape) into this thing. i became aware at some point, very suddenly, that the whole idea and product was sort of ridiculous. hence the title.
this recording is consequently void of actual songs. it isn't easy to listen to, and offers few reprieves, but if you're a fan of the genre that includes bands like coil, psychic tv, dvoa, nurse with wound and hafler trio (i hesitate to use the i word in context) then you may find something of enjoyment here.
cover art is from 1999. how the hell did the greeks think mesopotamia was an ocean, anyways? surely, they had contact with babylonians, if not indians. that's never made sense to me.
the last track just got tagged on as an afterthought. it never really fit the theme. so, i've removed it (as of january, 2014) and placed it here: http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/book-it.
recorded from 1996-1999. this is my third record. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, keyboards, tapes, synthesizers, live drums, drum programming, hammerhead (909 emulator), sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, loops, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, flute
released december 10, 1999
the track i've split off into a single:
AND THAT COMPLETES MY INRI RUN THROUGH.
well, i have an inricycled to construct, still. that should be fun. but it's a different thing.
publishing inrimake (inri032)
....and that closes this down.
it's weird how this represents such a segue. it's on the ass-end of my kiddy releases, but it's reaching towards something more mature and realized. on that note, i need to be clear that, while these are technically remixes and/or covers and/or reinterpretations, they often differ so far from the source material that the connection is barely discernible. the ones that are instrumental are really original compositions in the style of something like the art of noise.
if you're going to listen to this, it absolutely requires headphones and some serious focus. pretty much all these songs are built around very dramatic and very hard panning effects. it's not just a little sci-fi kind of gimmicky sort of thing, the disorientation that the panning creates is really key to interacting with this.
as with most of my more extensive releases, this touches on a wide array of outsider genres: 60s garage-psych, experimental trip-hop, idm, prog, jazz fusion, psychedelia, synth pop, skate punk and several others. at it's core, though, this is both on the art rock fringe of the experimental/industrial genre and on the electronic fringe of the psychedelic genre. that's how to interpret this.
==
something that happened in the late 90s, when fans of bands started getting together and talking on the internet, was the phenomena of the unauthorized remix. schemes were hatched all over the internet to create remix records, tribute discs, fan collaborations and whatnot. in hindsight, given what the internet turned into, it was actually a refreshingly productive use of networking.
different artists have reacted in different ways. i got yelled at by the now deceased singer of god lives underwater for one of these. trent reznor, on the other hand, eventually went so far as to set up a competition (which i didn't take part in, as i'd moved beyond the idea by that point).
once i'd put a few remixes/recreations together, and received more positive feedback doing it than with any of my own songs, i began to realize that if i could get somebody's attention then i could construct myself a launching pad. it seems like that's what a lot of people were thinking; it didn't work out, but i did end up with a number of remixes.
unfortunately, i've lost a lot of them. about a third of them ended up on a cd-r i threw together at the end of 1999. a third just sat on my hard drive, and a third disappeared into the internet. i'm putting them all together here under the title of the 1999 release, 'inrimake'. the initial release ended after "the day inri messed the world up"; the last five songs are 'bonus tracks'. i've further split off the first two tracks to a standalone ep, liquify (inri031), partially because they never fit here properly and partially because it pares the augmented version down to under 80 minutes.
now, i should point out that i was very much going for the *abstract* remix sound rather than the club-friendly mix. you can't really dance to these. you're not supposed to. you're supposed to blare them through headphones and trip out into them.
in terms of my own work, this record very much extends a bridge from the inri period into the deny everything period, to the extent that it arguably realizes the goals of both phases better than either phase does.
recorded sporadically, and without cohesive intent, over '98 and '99. originally compiled in the fall of '99. augmented and minimally altered in january, 2014.
HEADPHONES ARE MANDATORY TO EXPERIENCE THIS AS INTENDED.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, drum programming, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencers, loops, remixes, reconstructions, reinterpretations
released october 15, 1999
it's weird how this represents such a segue. it's on the ass-end of my kiddy releases, but it's reaching towards something more mature and realized. on that note, i need to be clear that, while these are technically remixes and/or covers and/or reinterpretations, they often differ so far from the source material that the connection is barely discernible. the ones that are instrumental are really original compositions in the style of something like the art of noise.
if you're going to listen to this, it absolutely requires headphones and some serious focus. pretty much all these songs are built around very dramatic and very hard panning effects. it's not just a little sci-fi kind of gimmicky sort of thing, the disorientation that the panning creates is really key to interacting with this.
as with most of my more extensive releases, this touches on a wide array of outsider genres: 60s garage-psych, experimental trip-hop, idm, prog, jazz fusion, psychedelia, synth pop, skate punk and several others. at it's core, though, this is both on the art rock fringe of the experimental/industrial genre and on the electronic fringe of the psychedelic genre. that's how to interpret this.
==
something that happened in the late 90s, when fans of bands started getting together and talking on the internet, was the phenomena of the unauthorized remix. schemes were hatched all over the internet to create remix records, tribute discs, fan collaborations and whatnot. in hindsight, given what the internet turned into, it was actually a refreshingly productive use of networking.
different artists have reacted in different ways. i got yelled at by the now deceased singer of god lives underwater for one of these. trent reznor, on the other hand, eventually went so far as to set up a competition (which i didn't take part in, as i'd moved beyond the idea by that point).
once i'd put a few remixes/recreations together, and received more positive feedback doing it than with any of my own songs, i began to realize that if i could get somebody's attention then i could construct myself a launching pad. it seems like that's what a lot of people were thinking; it didn't work out, but i did end up with a number of remixes.
unfortunately, i've lost a lot of them. about a third of them ended up on a cd-r i threw together at the end of 1999. a third just sat on my hard drive, and a third disappeared into the internet. i'm putting them all together here under the title of the 1999 release, 'inrimake'. the initial release ended after "the day inri messed the world up"; the last five songs are 'bonus tracks'. i've further split off the first two tracks to a standalone ep, liquify (inri031), partially because they never fit here properly and partially because it pares the augmented version down to under 80 minutes.
now, i should point out that i was very much going for the *abstract* remix sound rather than the club-friendly mix. you can't really dance to these. you're not supposed to. you're supposed to blare them through headphones and trip out into them.
in terms of my own work, this record very much extends a bridge from the inri period into the deny everything period, to the extent that it arguably realizes the goals of both phases better than either phase does.
recorded sporadically, and without cohesive intent, over '98 and '99. originally compiled in the fall of '99. augmented and minimally altered in january, 2014.
HEADPHONES ARE MANDATORY TO EXPERIENCE THIS AS INTENDED.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, drum programming, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencers, loops, remixes, reconstructions, reinterpretations
released october 15, 1999
publishing book it! (inri034)
this is another lost track that exists in a sort of an ill-defined alter-reality. the track mixes idm, new age, jazz fusion and progressive rock into a ridiculous, hyperfruity masterpiece. it's a mash-up of return to forever and mike oldfield, as remixed by coil.
it came out of a jam in my basement that fall. i was feeling a little more lonely than usual. see, i was quite literally the only person in my social group that bothered doing grade 13. so, school was converted from my only real social grounding (and i was always an extremely introverted loner) into a place of isolation and alienation. i skipped a lot of classes, actually, in a desire to escape the people. looking back, i sort of regret not reaching out to the people around me a bit more; it would have helped in more than just a social context. but, in hindsight, i'm also able to understand the separation better as one of class; as much as i regret keeping myself isolated, i think i would have been better off not carrying on with school at all.
i mean, i did well. my average was over 90. but i felt hopelessly out of place. i knew i didn't belong there....that they would never accept me unless i became the kind of pretentious jerk i despised. nor did i want anything to do with them, anyways. i really hated the superior attitude that i found myself immersed within. so, i just kept my physical distance and my mouth shut, hoping the condition was temporary (it wasn't).
the flip side of this is that i was also working a part-time job in a fast-food restaurant and i hated it just as much. i didn't fit in any better there, amongst the kids with no aspirations in life except to work in order to exist.
so, i found myself stuck between worlds, not wanting anything to do with either. in both cases, though, what i found the problem was was the people. "i don't mind the job, but i'm repulsed by the staff".
what i really wanted was just to be able to lock myself in a room and never have to engage with anybody ever again. i think that i'm the only person that could have written this. it exudes my idiosyncrasies in surreal, tongue-in-cheek humour. but it's also dead serious.
"i'd rather have a book than a friend.
it's loyalty will never end,
doesn't succumb to fashion or trend,
and all the information it sends,
will never get lost along the way.
when things get as tough as they may,
it will always know exactly what to say,
'cause books don't hurt...
...or do they?"
musically, there's some fancy playing here. everything is completely live: no loops (except the drums, programmed into a 909 emulator). that guitar part is sort of tricky. and check the bass part in the breakdown.
the thing i really like about this the most, though, is the gorgeous kosmische ending section, which is built up on overlapping sixths and is just the most dreamy thing to escape into ever. dramatic ending chord care/of a day in the life.
and, indeed, this is the dramatic ending chord for inri.
recorded in the fall of 1999. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, sequencers, drum programming, flute, digital wave editing, vocals, production
released december 15, 1999
it came out of a jam in my basement that fall. i was feeling a little more lonely than usual. see, i was quite literally the only person in my social group that bothered doing grade 13. so, school was converted from my only real social grounding (and i was always an extremely introverted loner) into a place of isolation and alienation. i skipped a lot of classes, actually, in a desire to escape the people. looking back, i sort of regret not reaching out to the people around me a bit more; it would have helped in more than just a social context. but, in hindsight, i'm also able to understand the separation better as one of class; as much as i regret keeping myself isolated, i think i would have been better off not carrying on with school at all.
i mean, i did well. my average was over 90. but i felt hopelessly out of place. i knew i didn't belong there....that they would never accept me unless i became the kind of pretentious jerk i despised. nor did i want anything to do with them, anyways. i really hated the superior attitude that i found myself immersed within. so, i just kept my physical distance and my mouth shut, hoping the condition was temporary (it wasn't).
the flip side of this is that i was also working a part-time job in a fast-food restaurant and i hated it just as much. i didn't fit in any better there, amongst the kids with no aspirations in life except to work in order to exist.
so, i found myself stuck between worlds, not wanting anything to do with either. in both cases, though, what i found the problem was was the people. "i don't mind the job, but i'm repulsed by the staff".
what i really wanted was just to be able to lock myself in a room and never have to engage with anybody ever again. i think that i'm the only person that could have written this. it exudes my idiosyncrasies in surreal, tongue-in-cheek humour. but it's also dead serious.
"i'd rather have a book than a friend.
it's loyalty will never end,
doesn't succumb to fashion or trend,
and all the information it sends,
will never get lost along the way.
when things get as tough as they may,
it will always know exactly what to say,
'cause books don't hurt...
...or do they?"
musically, there's some fancy playing here. everything is completely live: no loops (except the drums, programmed into a 909 emulator). that guitar part is sort of tricky. and check the bass part in the breakdown.
the thing i really like about this the most, though, is the gorgeous kosmische ending section, which is built up on overlapping sixths and is just the most dreamy thing to escape into ever. dramatic ending chord care/of a day in the life.
and, indeed, this is the dramatic ending chord for inri.
recorded in the fall of 1999. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, sequencers, drum programming, flute, digital wave editing, vocals, production
released december 15, 1999
Thursday, January 2, 2014
publishing liquify (inri031)
i've split this ep off from inrimake. it never really belonged there in the first place. that's a remix/cover album, and this is two forgotten experiments. it makes more sense to spin it off here. it also pulls the augmented version of inrimake back under 80 minutes. inrimake is now solely remixes and covers.
i should clarify, actually, that this 20-minute burst would be labelled progressive rock by most people. it takes in ideas from industrial and related types (post-punk, generally), jazz fusion and minimalism but it's really very much prog to the core - whether prog in an electro-branca sense (first track) or prog in a zappa-meets-genesis sense (second track).
HEADPHONES ARE MANDATORY TO EXPERIENCE THIS AS INTENDED
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, synths, loops, drum programming, vocals, samples, cool edit synthesis, sequencing, digital wave editing, production
released august 1, 1999
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/liquify
i should clarify, actually, that this 20-minute burst would be labelled progressive rock by most people. it takes in ideas from industrial and related types (post-punk, generally), jazz fusion and minimalism but it's really very much prog to the core - whether prog in an electro-branca sense (first track) or prog in a zappa-meets-genesis sense (second track).
recorded in the spring and summer of 1999. originally
released on inrimake in october, 1999. minimally altered and split into it's
own ep in january, 2014.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, synths, loops, drum programming, vocals, samples, cool edit synthesis, sequencing, digital wave editing, production
released august 1, 1999
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/liquify
liquify (original album mix)
this is the headache track for this disc. filtering is actually going to be minimal for inrimake and most projects from here on in. the source has moved to digital. i've left this as is, except to fade the track out about a minute early. there's no use in taking the truman show ending to it's conclusion on each listen.
in truth, this is an impressively thick, warped and very messy piece of music. it'd be nice if i could turn the vocals down a tad and the lead guitars up just a bit in a few places, but the mix isn't going to allow that.
1) i've hinted at my mixing method being a type of synthesis. usually, one records parts separately and allows the interference to develop on playback. i've recorded the parts separately and electronically synthesized the interference, which creates secondary interference on playback. that creates a unique sound that is, overall, an asset to the track (and others), but it makes separating out fundamental frequencies virtually impossible. it also just flat out swallows entire sections. the depth on the bass is devoured by the guitar distortion and it's never, ever separating itself out (my only theoretical hope is something like (but not exactly) de-convolving it, but i don't have the right signal to use).
2) the bizarre vocal effects i used here (and note this is mid 99, before the early 00s vocal sampling craze) saturate the frequency spectrum. there's no way to cut them without cutting something else - the best option is to hollow them by zeroing out a series and it just doesn't sound good. boosting any frequency at all is going to boost the vocals. it's a total gloss.
3) the tactic i was using to fatten the bass cannot be used for the tracks on this record because it blurs the stereo separation and the extreme panning in these tracks is a part of what they are, on the level of the compositions themselves.
4) the above, combined with the saturation on the track, suggests that any modification is ultimately arbitrary. see, here's the thing: this needs to be listened to carefully through headphones, anyways. any attempt to actually do that is going to order the sound. so, regardless of whether i actually can isolate the frequencies i want to isolate, the reasons i want to isolate them collapse when the required listening approach is contemplated.
5) through repeated listening, i've reminded myself how weird this is anyways. ultimately, this is a weird song that is hard to digest on first listen, but it needs to be deconstructed by the listener, not cleaned up by the composer/engineer. the drums, for example, are constructed out of low quality samples for most of it. i can't pull out a bass drum because there isn't one. instead, there's a deep tom that's ultimately in the middle of the spectrum. etc.
i have to recommend this, though. there's a further lengthy write-up on the page that explains why the vocals caused me grief. musically, though, the track is very lush prog. it really explodes through a pair of headphones around 7:00 in.
recorded in the summer of 1999. edited jan 2, 2014.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/liquify-2014-edit
in truth, this is an impressively thick, warped and very messy piece of music. it'd be nice if i could turn the vocals down a tad and the lead guitars up just a bit in a few places, but the mix isn't going to allow that.
1) i've hinted at my mixing method being a type of synthesis. usually, one records parts separately and allows the interference to develop on playback. i've recorded the parts separately and electronically synthesized the interference, which creates secondary interference on playback. that creates a unique sound that is, overall, an asset to the track (and others), but it makes separating out fundamental frequencies virtually impossible. it also just flat out swallows entire sections. the depth on the bass is devoured by the guitar distortion and it's never, ever separating itself out (my only theoretical hope is something like (but not exactly) de-convolving it, but i don't have the right signal to use).
2) the bizarre vocal effects i used here (and note this is mid 99, before the early 00s vocal sampling craze) saturate the frequency spectrum. there's no way to cut them without cutting something else - the best option is to hollow them by zeroing out a series and it just doesn't sound good. boosting any frequency at all is going to boost the vocals. it's a total gloss.
3) the tactic i was using to fatten the bass cannot be used for the tracks on this record because it blurs the stereo separation and the extreme panning in these tracks is a part of what they are, on the level of the compositions themselves.
4) the above, combined with the saturation on the track, suggests that any modification is ultimately arbitrary. see, here's the thing: this needs to be listened to carefully through headphones, anyways. any attempt to actually do that is going to order the sound. so, regardless of whether i actually can isolate the frequencies i want to isolate, the reasons i want to isolate them collapse when the required listening approach is contemplated.
5) through repeated listening, i've reminded myself how weird this is anyways. ultimately, this is a weird song that is hard to digest on first listen, but it needs to be deconstructed by the listener, not cleaned up by the composer/engineer. the drums, for example, are constructed out of low quality samples for most of it. i can't pull out a bass drum because there isn't one. instead, there's a deep tom that's ultimately in the middle of the spectrum. etc.
i have to recommend this, though. there's a further lengthy write-up on the page that explains why the vocals caused me grief. musically, though, the track is very lush prog. it really explodes through a pair of headphones around 7:00 in.
recorded in the summer of 1999. edited jan 2, 2014.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/liquify-2014-edit
in search of hibernation genes
you know, i have to wonder sometimes if you humans (and, by extension, the species i am) haven't flirted with hibernation at some point in your evolutionary past. i would think it unlikely we're evolving towards it, but did we experience it in the recent past? i have "northern genes" from a variety of sources (norse, finnish, cree (siberian)) and definitely get sleepy in the core of the winter.
*yawn*...
see, i'm a good test subject because i avoid the sun most of the year. i can rule out vitamin d and light-sensitivity by pointing out i don't get much less sun in the winter.
these guys hibernate:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/2012/06/18/the-mysterious-brain-of-the-fat-tailed-dwarf-lemur-the-worlds-only-hibernating-primate/
...which suggests to me that hibernation is probably something our distant, pre-primate ancestors actually did do. further, we're more related to lemurs than might be obvious by looking at us side by side. we probably do have dormant "hibernation genes" that could be switched on in a lab.
did they get switched on at some point in the last ice age? and is it why vikings, siberians, natives and other descendants of northern ice age people get sleepy in the winter?
http://mentalfloss.com/article/30616/could-humans-hibernate
"For instance, a gene called PDK-4 becomes more active during squirrel hibernation, controlling their cardiac function and allowing them to sleep for extended periods. Most of these "hibernation genes" are highly conserved in species that don't hibernate - humans also possess the PDK-4 gene, for instance. Taken together, the evolutionary profiles of hibernation suggests that we humans may well still carry the genetic mechanisms needed to hibernate."
http://io9.com/5857754/your-hibernation-pod-is-ready
i was actually thinking of tarsiers, who (believe it or not) are our closest non-simian relatives:
*yawn*...
see, i'm a good test subject because i avoid the sun most of the year. i can rule out vitamin d and light-sensitivity by pointing out i don't get much less sun in the winter.
these guys hibernate:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/2012/06/18/the-mysterious-brain-of-the-fat-tailed-dwarf-lemur-the-worlds-only-hibernating-primate/
...which suggests to me that hibernation is probably something our distant, pre-primate ancestors actually did do. further, we're more related to lemurs than might be obvious by looking at us side by side. we probably do have dormant "hibernation genes" that could be switched on in a lab.
did they get switched on at some point in the last ice age? and is it why vikings, siberians, natives and other descendants of northern ice age people get sleepy in the winter?
http://mentalfloss.com/article/30616/could-humans-hibernate
"For instance, a gene called PDK-4 becomes more active during squirrel hibernation, controlling their cardiac function and allowing them to sleep for extended periods. Most of these "hibernation genes" are highly conserved in species that don't hibernate - humans also possess the PDK-4 gene, for instance. Taken together, the evolutionary profiles of hibernation suggests that we humans may well still carry the genetic mechanisms needed to hibernate."
http://io9.com/5857754/your-hibernation-pod-is-ready
i was actually thinking of tarsiers, who (believe it or not) are our closest non-simian relatives:
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
if sports are a distraction floated by the elite, just who is being distracted by them?
deathtokoalas
he's mostly right, but he's usually mostly right. what he's drawing on is historical imperial policy. there was a time in the history of rome when sports teams didn't just function as a distraction but were controlled by the state specifically as a distraction. there was some blowback to that. the nika riots. but the idea of "bread and circuses" was very entrenched imperial policy for hundreds of years.
what he's missing is a sort of bigger context of people that are obsessed with sports largely having a lot of boredom to pass over due to the trivial nature of modern existence. if there weren't sports to distract the disinterested middle class with, then they would invent them. worse, if they lacked the imagination to invent sports then they'd drink themselves into criminality. there's no need to distract people when they're already oblivious. there is, however, a need to keep them occupied, in order and in line with the proper work ethic. the focus on the myth that hard work has results strikes me as the primary propaganda purpose of sports culture.
if they were hungry, it would be a different issue, but walk into a sports bar some time and get an eyeful of what these people actually eat. chomsky, the muted optimist, wants to believe that people would take a greater interest if they weren't so deeply controlled, but misses that the real basis of their disinterest is that they're well-fed.
but, he's mostly right.
i remember seeing images of this after 9/11:
DEFENSE. DEFENSE. DEFENSE.
...and almost barfing.
james
i would disagree, to a degree. many people are slaving away, day after day, leading lives that are hardly trivial but more hand to mouth and on the edge. sports, celebrity culture, tv and movies (the latter two to a lesser extent, since people are nowhere as passionate about them) are all diverting peoples attention from the absurd lifestyles and endless greed of the rich. at the same time these distractions could be a form of coping. regarding your food analogy, it truly hope that isnt what motivates people because when in 50/100 years we wont have anything to eat it will probably be too late
deathtokoalas
what i've noticed is that if you go to a soup kitchen then the people eating there don't have time for trivialities like baseball. yet, if you go to a software company where the janitor makes 60K, you can't go five minutes without hearing about the "local sports team". the idea that people that ought not be distracted are being distracted doesn't seem right; it's not the poor that are distracted by sports, or that could benefit from spending less time fawning over idiots, but rather the upper middle classes that fuel the obsession.
and, take a look at ticket prices or the cost of memorabilia or even the price of cable. the poor cannot afford to be sports fans.
perhaps things were different fifty years ago, but sports, today, are out of the reach of the poor that people suppose are being distracted by them.
what the people you're describing are actually distracted by are the three jobs they need to pay their bills.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
umm, i think the massive protests against the world cup demonstrate my correction rather profoundly. as the wealthy glue national flags on to their suvs, the poor carry out massive, popular revolts and endure incredible police violence.
the thing is that the people that are supposedly being "distracted" have approximately zero revolutionary potential in the first place. i didn't say that there's no reason to distract the poor, i said there's no reason to distract the wealthy (or "middle class") because they benefit from the exploitation. the poor, on the other hand, do need to be distracted - but cannot be by something so trivial as sports.
he's mostly right, but he's usually mostly right. what he's drawing on is historical imperial policy. there was a time in the history of rome when sports teams didn't just function as a distraction but were controlled by the state specifically as a distraction. there was some blowback to that. the nika riots. but the idea of "bread and circuses" was very entrenched imperial policy for hundreds of years.
what he's missing is a sort of bigger context of people that are obsessed with sports largely having a lot of boredom to pass over due to the trivial nature of modern existence. if there weren't sports to distract the disinterested middle class with, then they would invent them. worse, if they lacked the imagination to invent sports then they'd drink themselves into criminality. there's no need to distract people when they're already oblivious. there is, however, a need to keep them occupied, in order and in line with the proper work ethic. the focus on the myth that hard work has results strikes me as the primary propaganda purpose of sports culture.
if they were hungry, it would be a different issue, but walk into a sports bar some time and get an eyeful of what these people actually eat. chomsky, the muted optimist, wants to believe that people would take a greater interest if they weren't so deeply controlled, but misses that the real basis of their disinterest is that they're well-fed.
but, he's mostly right.
i remember seeing images of this after 9/11:
DEFENSE. DEFENSE. DEFENSE.
...and almost barfing.
james
i would disagree, to a degree. many people are slaving away, day after day, leading lives that are hardly trivial but more hand to mouth and on the edge. sports, celebrity culture, tv and movies (the latter two to a lesser extent, since people are nowhere as passionate about them) are all diverting peoples attention from the absurd lifestyles and endless greed of the rich. at the same time these distractions could be a form of coping. regarding your food analogy, it truly hope that isnt what motivates people because when in 50/100 years we wont have anything to eat it will probably be too late
deathtokoalas
what i've noticed is that if you go to a soup kitchen then the people eating there don't have time for trivialities like baseball. yet, if you go to a software company where the janitor makes 60K, you can't go five minutes without hearing about the "local sports team". the idea that people that ought not be distracted are being distracted doesn't seem right; it's not the poor that are distracted by sports, or that could benefit from spending less time fawning over idiots, but rather the upper middle classes that fuel the obsession.
and, take a look at ticket prices or the cost of memorabilia or even the price of cable. the poor cannot afford to be sports fans.
perhaps things were different fifty years ago, but sports, today, are out of the reach of the poor that people suppose are being distracted by them.
what the people you're describing are actually distracted by are the three jobs they need to pay their bills.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
umm, i think the massive protests against the world cup demonstrate my correction rather profoundly. as the wealthy glue national flags on to their suvs, the poor carry out massive, popular revolts and endure incredible police violence.
the thing is that the people that are supposedly being "distracted" have approximately zero revolutionary potential in the first place. i didn't say that there's no reason to distract the poor, i said there's no reason to distract the wealthy (or "middle class") because they benefit from the exploitation. the poor, on the other hand, do need to be distracted - but cannot be by something so trivial as sports.
i'm going to lay this down.
something i want to change this year (and i don't usually do that, but i've been thinking about this for a bit and it's kind of a coincidence with the time of year) is minimizing the amount of time i spend arguing on the internet. that's not the amount of time i spend reading, or discussing, or conversing or even debating - it's arguing, with people that i don't agree with and that i'm never going to agree with.
i've wasted a lot of time doing this in the past. not just here on facebook, but on forums and newsgroups. i mean, this goes back almost twenty years now. what it actually is is a bad habit, bordering into an addiction. when i say the time is wasted, i mean that quite literally. yet, i felt i had more time to waste in the past than i feel i do now.
i've actually taken a number of steps over the last few months that are slowly converting this into a one-way flow of information. i'm not there yet, and don't want to push myself there; it might even reverse. yet, i feel it's given me back some time to spend on music and reading things that aren't related to debating or trolling.
why do we debate on the internet, anyways? i have three answers that i think are true in varying amounts:
(1) it helps us form our own opinions. for me, that's actually the dominant thing. and it's not really about challenging myself, it's more about going over the same points over and over and working out the bugs. in the sense that the debate is a challenge, it's a challenge to see the ideas from different input variables. for the most part, i'm talking over the person i'm debating with. those that have debated with me or seen me debate know this is true. there's no real consideration on my behalf that i might actually be wrong. (well, if i make a factual error, i'm known to correct myself, but that's not what i mean).
(2) it's an opportunity to learn. that is to say that it directs research topics in a way that is lively and organic. it's not a reading list somebody is pushing down from above. i find this does drive me, but it's also the biggest reason i want to reclaim the time. at this point, i've constructed a reading list for myself and the debating is getting in the way...
(3) ego. but, believe it or not, it's not that strong a force for me. my debating tone can be brutally condescending, but that's far less about how i interpret myself than may be initially apparent (and those who know me know my ego is not powerful. i'm actually driven by a super-ego that seems to be extra-terrestrial in origin.).
i just feel i've exhausted the possibilities with (1). i've had every debate that the internet offers so many times that i'm no longer working things out. it's consequently become sort of boring for me. in conjunction with the feeling that it's getting in the way of my productivity, that presents the aforementioned context of feeling as though i'm engaging in a bad habit that needs to be corrected.
i dunno. maybe i'll switch it around. maybe i'll be the nicest person ever on the internet and an impossible tyrant irl. maybe i'll lose my release. or maybe i'll channel it back into my guitar. who knows...
what i know is that this is not the beginning of this slow winding down. i'm several months into a process that will likely accelerate with the new year.
something i want to change this year (and i don't usually do that, but i've been thinking about this for a bit and it's kind of a coincidence with the time of year) is minimizing the amount of time i spend arguing on the internet. that's not the amount of time i spend reading, or discussing, or conversing or even debating - it's arguing, with people that i don't agree with and that i'm never going to agree with.
i've wasted a lot of time doing this in the past. not just here on facebook, but on forums and newsgroups. i mean, this goes back almost twenty years now. what it actually is is a bad habit, bordering into an addiction. when i say the time is wasted, i mean that quite literally. yet, i felt i had more time to waste in the past than i feel i do now.
i've actually taken a number of steps over the last few months that are slowly converting this into a one-way flow of information. i'm not there yet, and don't want to push myself there; it might even reverse. yet, i feel it's given me back some time to spend on music and reading things that aren't related to debating or trolling.
why do we debate on the internet, anyways? i have three answers that i think are true in varying amounts:
(1) it helps us form our own opinions. for me, that's actually the dominant thing. and it's not really about challenging myself, it's more about going over the same points over and over and working out the bugs. in the sense that the debate is a challenge, it's a challenge to see the ideas from different input variables. for the most part, i'm talking over the person i'm debating with. those that have debated with me or seen me debate know this is true. there's no real consideration on my behalf that i might actually be wrong. (well, if i make a factual error, i'm known to correct myself, but that's not what i mean).
(2) it's an opportunity to learn. that is to say that it directs research topics in a way that is lively and organic. it's not a reading list somebody is pushing down from above. i find this does drive me, but it's also the biggest reason i want to reclaim the time. at this point, i've constructed a reading list for myself and the debating is getting in the way...
(3) ego. but, believe it or not, it's not that strong a force for me. my debating tone can be brutally condescending, but that's far less about how i interpret myself than may be initially apparent (and those who know me know my ego is not powerful. i'm actually driven by a super-ego that seems to be extra-terrestrial in origin.).
i just feel i've exhausted the possibilities with (1). i've had every debate that the internet offers so many times that i'm no longer working things out. it's consequently become sort of boring for me. in conjunction with the feeling that it's getting in the way of my productivity, that presents the aforementioned context of feeling as though i'm engaging in a bad habit that needs to be corrected.
i dunno. maybe i'll switch it around. maybe i'll be the nicest person ever on the internet and an impossible tyrant irl. maybe i'll lose my release. or maybe i'll channel it back into my guitar. who knows...
what i know is that this is not the beginning of this slow winding down. i'm several months into a process that will likely accelerate with the new year.
i'm not somebody that's lived a lunch pail life. i've tried to make things interesting, which has meant taking some chances. it's meant uncertainties in things most of us take for granted. it's meant sleeping in some weird places. it's meant that you win some and...
that was probably the most intense year of my life so far. it feels like a decade of time went by; i can barely even contemplate where i was this time last year, except as part of a past existence. i'm 800 km away in space and even further in mind. if i'm not a decade older physically, i feel like i'm a decade older, mentally.
taking it from the context of 2011 as a rock bottom, and 2012 as a needed recovery followed by a slow crawl out, i feel i turned a corner on a lot of things over 2013 - and not just things that had carried on since 2011 but things that had carried on longer than that. everything seemed to go wrong all at once at the end of 2011, and it all seemed to pass all at once in the middle of 2013. it's remarkable, really, how total and sudden both events were. so, there's a lot of legitimate newness for me in the new year. if things continue on the same trajectory, it looks positive.
that was probably the most intense year of my life so far. it feels like a decade of time went by; i can barely even contemplate where i was this time last year, except as part of a past existence. i'm 800 km away in space and even further in mind. if i'm not a decade older physically, i feel like i'm a decade older, mentally.
taking it from the context of 2011 as a rock bottom, and 2012 as a needed recovery followed by a slow crawl out, i feel i turned a corner on a lot of things over 2013 - and not just things that had carried on since 2011 but things that had carried on longer than that. everything seemed to go wrong all at once at the end of 2011, and it all seemed to pass all at once in the middle of 2013. it's remarkable, really, how total and sudden both events were. so, there's a lot of legitimate newness for me in the new year. if things continue on the same trajectory, it looks positive.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
well, they predicted a ridiculously cold winter this year and got it right. the mainstream forecasts were in the same neighbourhood, but not as extreme. for example, they predicted it would be cold in the upper midwest but warm in the southern midwest (it has been cold in both places) and cold in ontario but warm on the coast (it has been cold in both places).
meaning that it probably comes down to a variable or two and that, for whatever reason, the almanac was able to predict that the arctic air masses would overpower the probably maritime factors that the mainstream forecasts thought would overpower the arctic air masses.
it would be really nice to actually see how they came to that conclusion, but they won't publish.
i mean, it's easy to write it off as pseudo-science, but the truth is that we can't analyze the method because it's not public. sure, that obviously justifies some healthy skepticism. but it seems foolish to write something off without even knowing what it is.
http://www.ibtimes.com/farmers-almanac-winter-2014-forecast-draws-skepticism-weathermen-1401939
the last question is sort of silly, though. it's widely acknowledged that sunspots and planetary position have an effect. the problem is that the argument often comes up in the context of people arguing against anthropogenic climate change - and the overwhelming evidence that sunspot activity isn't even correlated with the increases in temperatures we've seen. but denying a link between climate change and sunspots doesn't negate the sun's effect on the earth's weather (weather, here, being contrasted with climate). we can connect all kinds of weather phenomena to sunspots. and with positioning, this is a real thing that's widely accepted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
but if they won't publish, there's no way to scrutinize what they're doing. from where you or i are standing, it's as good as magic. but if we knew what they were doing, we might be able to pull something of value out of it.
it's been widely published in wonky sources (and less wonky sources) that sunspot activity recently slowed down to almost nothing, leading up to a magnetic pole reversal that finally happened (after a longer than expected wait) a few days ago. even though the source of the cold is arctic air moving south, you don't have to take an obscure, gw-denying position to acknowledge that that might have had an effect on the cold winter we've had.
it would just be nice to see their calculations opened up so that that could be examined.
the recent magnetic reversal dismisses the fears in the article, but it gets to the point i'm making:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24512-solar-activity-heads-for-lowest-low-in-four-centuries.html
right. but it could give us a nasty winter or two.
then again, the current "nasty winter" would have been normal 30 years ago.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/11/solar-activity-and-the-so-called-%E2%80%9Clittle-ice-age%E2%80%9D/
btw, an interesting question that i've explored a little on this page going way back is whether there may be a way to connect volcanic activity to "space weather". i'm mostly thinking in terms of gravity. there's a really intuitive example with tides being caused by the moon. could all the gravity floating around us, from the sun and jupiter and whatever else, have an effect on the way continents interact, thereby affecting volcanic activity? if so, there's not a contradiction in the two ideas.
meaning that it probably comes down to a variable or two and that, for whatever reason, the almanac was able to predict that the arctic air masses would overpower the probably maritime factors that the mainstream forecasts thought would overpower the arctic air masses.
it would be really nice to actually see how they came to that conclusion, but they won't publish.
i mean, it's easy to write it off as pseudo-science, but the truth is that we can't analyze the method because it's not public. sure, that obviously justifies some healthy skepticism. but it seems foolish to write something off without even knowing what it is.
http://www.ibtimes.com/farmers-almanac-winter-2014-forecast-draws-skepticism-weathermen-1401939
the last question is sort of silly, though. it's widely acknowledged that sunspots and planetary position have an effect. the problem is that the argument often comes up in the context of people arguing against anthropogenic climate change - and the overwhelming evidence that sunspot activity isn't even correlated with the increases in temperatures we've seen. but denying a link between climate change and sunspots doesn't negate the sun's effect on the earth's weather (weather, here, being contrasted with climate). we can connect all kinds of weather phenomena to sunspots. and with positioning, this is a real thing that's widely accepted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
but if they won't publish, there's no way to scrutinize what they're doing. from where you or i are standing, it's as good as magic. but if we knew what they were doing, we might be able to pull something of value out of it.
it's been widely published in wonky sources (and less wonky sources) that sunspot activity recently slowed down to almost nothing, leading up to a magnetic pole reversal that finally happened (after a longer than expected wait) a few days ago. even though the source of the cold is arctic air moving south, you don't have to take an obscure, gw-denying position to acknowledge that that might have had an effect on the cold winter we've had.
it would just be nice to see their calculations opened up so that that could be examined.
the recent magnetic reversal dismisses the fears in the article, but it gets to the point i'm making:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24512-solar-activity-heads-for-lowest-low-in-four-centuries.html
right. but it could give us a nasty winter or two.
then again, the current "nasty winter" would have been normal 30 years ago.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/11/solar-activity-and-the-so-called-%E2%80%9Clittle-ice-age%E2%80%9D/
btw, an interesting question that i've explored a little on this page going way back is whether there may be a way to connect volcanic activity to "space weather". i'm mostly thinking in terms of gravity. there's a really intuitive example with tides being caused by the moon. could all the gravity floating around us, from the sun and jupiter and whatever else, have an effect on the way continents interact, thereby affecting volcanic activity? if so, there's not a contradiction in the two ideas.
i've posted about coywolves and hybrids here.
this is informative. and remember: nature will not simply roll over as we destroy it.
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/meet-the-coywolf
this is informative. and remember: nature will not simply roll over as we destroy it.
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/meet-the-coywolf
Monday, December 30, 2013
careful with this. sounds like austerity politics to me.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/23/if_the_risk_is_low_let
there's been several examples now of authorities using may day vandalism as an excuse to hold people. putting the politics aside, it seems to be me like the pragmatic thing is for activists to stay away from thugs.
http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2013/12/23/grand-jury-resistor-jerry-koch-bids-for-freedom/
no sane person thinks we should freeze in the dark to make an ideological point.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/24/christmas_for_many_wont_be_the_same_wynne.html
http://libcom.org/blog/pussy-riot-released-pr-stunt-olympic-proportions-24122013
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20835-food-security-can-come-in-tiny-wiggly-packages
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/11/17/pentagon_reverses_position_and_admits_u
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11244
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/beyond-cute-and-cuddly/story-e6frg8gf-1111114841214
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/23/if_the_risk_is_low_let
there's been several examples now of authorities using may day vandalism as an excuse to hold people. putting the politics aside, it seems to be me like the pragmatic thing is for activists to stay away from thugs.
http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2013/12/23/grand-jury-resistor-jerry-koch-bids-for-freedom/
no sane person thinks we should freeze in the dark to make an ideological point.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/24/christmas_for_many_wont_be_the_same_wynne.html
http://libcom.org/blog/pussy-riot-released-pr-stunt-olympic-proportions-24122013
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20835-food-security-can-come-in-tiny-wiggly-packages
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/11/17/pentagon_reverses_position_and_admits_u
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11244
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/beyond-cute-and-cuddly/story-e6frg8gf-1111114841214
there has been talk of a reinvasion of iraq for a little while now.
there's a clear comparison in palestine. they ran elections. the americans didn't like the results, so the elections didn't count.
it's sort if the same thing. this maliki guy is a bit of an authoritarian, but the bigger problem is that he's aligned with iran. but of course he is. he's shia. this hypothetical "shia power to replace iran" thing was always a pipe dream, because the threat of oppression by saudi arabia is too great. iran is the lesser evil from a shia perspective and nothing can be done to change the calculus besides take the saudis out of the equation, which would defeat the point in the first place.
so, this shouldn't surprise anybody.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/27/iraq-d27.html
there's a clear comparison in palestine. they ran elections. the americans didn't like the results, so the elections didn't count.
it's sort if the same thing. this maliki guy is a bit of an authoritarian, but the bigger problem is that he's aligned with iran. but of course he is. he's shia. this hypothetical "shia power to replace iran" thing was always a pipe dream, because the threat of oppression by saudi arabia is too great. iran is the lesser evil from a shia perspective and nothing can be done to change the calculus besides take the saudis out of the equation, which would defeat the point in the first place.
so, this shouldn't surprise anybody.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/27/iraq-d27.html
Sunday, December 29, 2013
that seems about right
rural ontarians would vote for a statue of jesus if you put a jersey with an embroidered C on it. it doesn't matter how bad hudak is. the only way to break that block is for the liberals to prop up the CHP. which is always dangerous...
what's important is that the provincial liberals don't make the same mistake the feds did, which is giving up on leftward pressure (rather than giving into it). there's no votes in the pc/liberal swing. the conservatives represent a frighteningly large block of ideological extremists; the true swing vote is on the center-left.
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2013/12/23/ontario_headed_toward_another_minority_government_poll.html
rural ontarians would vote for a statue of jesus if you put a jersey with an embroidered C on it. it doesn't matter how bad hudak is. the only way to break that block is for the liberals to prop up the CHP. which is always dangerous...
what's important is that the provincial liberals don't make the same mistake the feds did, which is giving up on leftward pressure (rather than giving into it). there's no votes in the pc/liberal swing. the conservatives represent a frighteningly large block of ideological extremists; the true swing vote is on the center-left.
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2013/12/23/ontario_headed_toward_another_minority_government_poll.html
https://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/3d-printed-artificial-reefs-bring-back-sea-life-persian-gulf.html
see, this is the kind of thing that could be used in conjunction with indoor growing tactics to maximize yield while minimizing environmental impact.
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-genetic-discovery-bigger-yields-tomato.html
even the early brain signals don't make a lot of sense: what are they reacting to? clearly, our brains don't just make things up, that's preposterous. the only way to make sense of it is to bring in an independent entity, like a parasite, that is in control.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-apple-court-samsung-tablets.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/solar-variability-has-a-small-effect-on-climate-change/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/syrian-rebels-have-taken-iconoclasm-to-new-depths-with-shrines-statues-and-even-a-tree-destroyed--but-to-what-end-9021017.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-solar-key-climate.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/thorium-put-to-use-kills-a-few-more-versions-of-supersymmetry/
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-carbon-dioxide-picture-global.html
https://phys.org/news/2013-12-scientists-closer-rna.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/21/amaz-d21.html
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/20/why_obamas_hints_at_intel_reform_are_mostly_window_dressing
http://fpif.org/u-s-determined-re-freeze-thaw-relations-iran/
http://fpif.org/bluster-blowback-beirut/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/23/pers-d23.html
http://libcom.org/blog/protesters-clash-police-rote-flora-social-centre-eviction-hamburg-22122013
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11237
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20604-detroits-dan-gilbert-henry-ford-or-henry-potter
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11225
http://libcom.org/gallery/1932-ford-hunger-march-massacre
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/19/the_political_science_of_syria_s_war
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/23/the-last-chance-for-peace-in-syria/
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20803-inequality-government-is-a-perp-not-a-bystander
http://intercontinentalcry.org/guatemalas-high-court-affirms-right-of-consent-for-indigenous-and-rural-communities-21455/
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/10/bushs_shrinking_world_george_w_bush
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/23/suda-d23.html
http://phys.org/news307038787.html
see, this is the kind of thing that could be used in conjunction with indoor growing tactics to maximize yield while minimizing environmental impact.
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-genetic-discovery-bigger-yields-tomato.html
even the early brain signals don't make a lot of sense: what are they reacting to? clearly, our brains don't just make things up, that's preposterous. the only way to make sense of it is to bring in an independent entity, like a parasite, that is in control.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-apple-court-samsung-tablets.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/solar-variability-has-a-small-effect-on-climate-change/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/syrian-rebels-have-taken-iconoclasm-to-new-depths-with-shrines-statues-and-even-a-tree-destroyed--but-to-what-end-9021017.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-solar-key-climate.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/thorium-put-to-use-kills-a-few-more-versions-of-supersymmetry/
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-carbon-dioxide-picture-global.html
https://phys.org/news/2013-12-scientists-closer-rna.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/21/amaz-d21.html
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/20/why_obamas_hints_at_intel_reform_are_mostly_window_dressing
http://fpif.org/u-s-determined-re-freeze-thaw-relations-iran/
http://fpif.org/bluster-blowback-beirut/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/23/pers-d23.html
http://libcom.org/blog/protesters-clash-police-rote-flora-social-centre-eviction-hamburg-22122013
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11237
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20604-detroits-dan-gilbert-henry-ford-or-henry-potter
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11225
http://libcom.org/gallery/1932-ford-hunger-march-massacre
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/19/the_political_science_of_syria_s_war
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/23/the-last-chance-for-peace-in-syria/
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20803-inequality-government-is-a-perp-not-a-bystander
http://intercontinentalcry.org/guatemalas-high-court-affirms-right-of-consent-for-indigenous-and-rural-communities-21455/
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/10/bushs_shrinking_world_george_w_bush
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/23/suda-d23.html
http://phys.org/news307038787.html
Saturday, December 28, 2013
music video for ‘inertia’
i'm sure this won't be the last traditional music video i put
together, although i don't have much respect for the medium and have no
interest in doing it as something mandatory.
this footage just struck me as very powerful, and fitting to the track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjPvgGh2qw
original video taken from here without requesting permission:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS_oLmWlG8s
this footage just struck me as very powerful, and fitting to the track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjPvgGh2qw
original video taken from here without requesting permission:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS_oLmWlG8s
i'm basically convinced that free will doesn't exist, because parasites.
^ that is legitimately chilling though, albeit sort of touching. the parasite does this long dance that ends with it caressing the dead roach, sort of hugging it goodbye.
and, perhaps my empathy is pathogenic.
hrmmmn.
yeah, yeah. i know. not everybody can appreciate the beauty in this.
so, back to the jennifer aniston romcoms with ya, then.
^ that is legitimately chilling though, albeit sort of touching. the parasite does this long dance that ends with it caressing the dead roach, sort of hugging it goodbye.
and, perhaps my empathy is pathogenic.
hrmmmn.
yeah, yeah. i know. not everybody can appreciate the beauty in this.
so, back to the jennifer aniston romcoms with ya, then.
(no subject)
well, then.
happy things. merry stuff.
weirdness prevails.
hey, check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjPvgGh2qw
those images hit me sort of deeply, so i orchestrated them. there's such an ambiguous overlap between love and parasitism....the video wasn't shot with this is mind, but the exploration it presents of that overlap is just sort of wow.
i cried making it. are the images as powerful as i see them, or am i just insane?
wait, don't answer.
you should come visit.
j
happy things. merry stuff.
weirdness prevails.
hey, check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjPvgGh2qw
those images hit me sort of deeply, so i orchestrated them. there's such an ambiguous overlap between love and parasitism....the video wasn't shot with this is mind, but the exploration it presents of that overlap is just sort of wow.
i cried making it. are the images as powerful as i see them, or am i just insane?
wait, don't answer.
you should come visit.
j
re: roach situation
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord
actually, i got one right away. it's in a plastic baggie - i guess i can bring this upstairs...?
i'm no entomologist, but it sure looks like a roach to me. again, it seems to have come out of the wall looking for water; i caught it near the shower. also, given the pattern i've seen, i suspect it may be the same one i saw a few days ago and let get away into the crack. i really don't think there's an infestation in the unit, but rather a high number near by. when one gets in, it runs around for a few days until i catch it and then i don't see another for weeks....
j
To: the initial landlord
actually, i got one right away. it's in a plastic baggie - i guess i can bring this upstairs...?
i'm no entomologist, but it sure looks like a roach to me. again, it seems to have come out of the wall looking for water; i caught it near the shower. also, given the pattern i've seen, i suspect it may be the same one i saw a few days ago and let get away into the crack. i really don't think there's an infestation in the unit, but rather a high number near by. when one gets in, it runs around for a few days until i catch it and then i don't see another for weeks....
j
ugh. if you must rot your brain with the garbage they call "film" nowadays, can you please have the common fucking courtesy to not monopolize the entire block's bandwidth for hours at a time?
BAN NETFLIX.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/15/bittorrent-says-netflix-is-hogging-bandwidth-not-beating-it
when you contemplate what this technology could be doing, it's flat out revolting to think it's being wasted on middle aged bureaucrats watching jennifer aniston romcoms - to the point that it's starting to strangle service. that's the kind of imagery that makes me yearn for the consequences of nuclear warfare.
i'm pretty sure my upstairs neighbours got netflix for christmas, and i'm going to have to move to dsl as a result. i'll give it a few more days...
BAN NETFLIX.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/15/bittorrent-says-netflix-is-hogging-bandwidth-not-beating-it
when you contemplate what this technology could be doing, it's flat out revolting to think it's being wasted on middle aged bureaucrats watching jennifer aniston romcoms - to the point that it's starting to strangle service. that's the kind of imagery that makes me yearn for the consequences of nuclear warfare.
i'm pretty sure my upstairs neighbours got netflix for christmas, and i'm going to have to move to dsl as a result. i'll give it a few more days...
Friday, December 27, 2013
re: roach situation
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord
they're easy to kill by hitting them with a kleenex box, they don't seem to react to humans at all until they're attacked, but it may be a while before i see another one. as mentioned, they seem to be in the walls rather than in the unit. they never stray far from the hole they came from and try to go back in the hole if you don't get them the first time. when i blocked them off in the bedroom, they went away for months. now that i've blocked the dead radiator, i haven't seen another. i'm not sure what other entry points might exist, but i'll keep an eye out.
j
To: the initial landlord
they're easy to kill by hitting them with a kleenex box, they don't seem to react to humans at all until they're attacked, but it may be a while before i see another one. as mentioned, they seem to be in the walls rather than in the unit. they never stray far from the hole they came from and try to go back in the hole if you don't get them the first time. when i blocked them off in the bedroom, they went away for months. now that i've blocked the dead radiator, i haven't seen another. i'm not sure what other entry points might exist, but i'll keep an eye out.
j
re: roach situation
From: the initial landlord
To: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Happy Holiday, we have never had roaches but have had occasionally had bugs that are similar. They had appeared briefly from time to time and had originated from the storm sewer drain . I will contact my brother and he can use some product we might still have from a few years ago when we had a few bugs appear. Please try to capture one of the them so we can make a determination of what the bug is.
To: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Happy Holiday, we have never had roaches but have had occasionally had bugs that are similar. They had appeared briefly from time to time and had originated from the storm sewer drain . I will contact my brother and he can use some product we might still have from a few years ago when we had a few bugs appear. Please try to capture one of the them so we can make a determination of what the bug is.
publishing inrijected (inri022)
this is a collection of rejected tracks from the inri/inriched period. it's just chronologically sequenced.
recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth, drum programming, lyrics, samples, loops, cool edit synthesis, digital wave editing
released feb 27, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrijected
recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth, drum programming, lyrics, samples, loops, cool edit synthesis, digital wave editing
released feb 27, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrijected
publishing inrimixed (inri023)
this is a collection of weird, glitchy remixes from the inri/inriched period that i meant to do something with and just never did.
the cover art is actually the waveform for track 2; similarities to the mirror reflection of the cover of any seminal eponymous records from the late 60s are purely coincidental.
constructed over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, synths, bass, drum programming, vocals, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencing, loops
released feb 28, 1999
the cover art is actually the waveform for track 2; similarities to the mirror reflection of the cover of any seminal eponymous records from the late 60s are purely coincidental.
constructed over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, synths, bass, drum programming, vocals, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencing, loops
released feb 28, 1999
yup. headphones cleaned and as good as new. in the end, i'm going to prove these things are indestructible.
mixes passed through multiple listening tests and the result is acceptable if not always perfect. minor existing problems are source related, and in tracks i'm not as attached to. moving on. finally....
i hope to have the reject cd done by the day, and maybe move into inrimake.
mixes passed through multiple listening tests and the result is acceptable if not always perfect. minor existing problems are source related, and in tracks i'm not as attached to. moving on. finally....
i hope to have the reject cd done by the day, and maybe move into inrimake.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
ugh. i just spent the last several days trying to figure out what the
factors were around certain tracks buzzing only on the laptop, to
realize they buzzed out of the pc, now, too - because the buzz is coming
from the headphones. autechre and htda and even asmz are also buzzing,
albeit at different levels. it's definitely the phones.
these are my beloved phones that i've had since i was a kid and that i just replaced the cord on. and was very excited about having in working order again...
on the one hand, i seem to recall them buzzing like this in the past. yet, they weren't doing this recently up until this week. it sounds like i blew a speaker and i'm sort of blaming myself for it. i was really blaring them.
there's an off chance it could be dirty, but i'm not really sure what to do if the speaker is actually blown. that's twice, now, that i've run up against these headphones being out of order. but i don't have $800 to blow on a pair of phones that are comparable. i don't even have $300 to blow on a downgrade.
the only other pair i have to mix on are a pair of "noise-cancelling" phones that designed for ipods, and they're just too synthetic to get a useful signal from. they're just not useful for this purpose. unfortunately, my previous backups (aiwas) seem to have gotten damaged in the move.
i'm going to try and clean them and let them sit for the night and go from there. it seems bad, though...
even blaring them is...i blared them for years...
i'm wondering if the cord had too strong a signal for the speakers, a different impedance. these phones are 20+ years old, the cord is for newer models. i used the cord support told me to use, but that doesn't really say much..
these are my beloved phones that i've had since i was a kid and that i just replaced the cord on. and was very excited about having in working order again...
on the one hand, i seem to recall them buzzing like this in the past. yet, they weren't doing this recently up until this week. it sounds like i blew a speaker and i'm sort of blaming myself for it. i was really blaring them.
there's an off chance it could be dirty, but i'm not really sure what to do if the speaker is actually blown. that's twice, now, that i've run up against these headphones being out of order. but i don't have $800 to blow on a pair of phones that are comparable. i don't even have $300 to blow on a downgrade.
the only other pair i have to mix on are a pair of "noise-cancelling" phones that designed for ipods, and they're just too synthetic to get a useful signal from. they're just not useful for this purpose. unfortunately, my previous backups (aiwas) seem to have gotten damaged in the move.
i'm going to try and clean them and let them sit for the night and go from there. it seems bad, though...
even blaring them is...i blared them for years...
i'm wondering if the cord had too strong a signal for the speakers, a different impedance. these phones are 20+ years old, the cord is for newer models. i used the cord support told me to use, but that doesn't really say much..
there's a young lady in the neighbourhood that's been bumping into me repeatedly and coming up with excuses to try and start a conversation with me. nervous hands, giggly voice. obvious; annoying, really. unfortunately, anybody that is displaying any interest in any type of interaction that is less than completely random and spontaneous is going to instantly be put in my perpetual ignore filter. see, anybody that is going out of their way to try and get to know me better is making a gigantic mistake, the proportions of which they really have no grasp of. it demonstrates bad judgment. to begin with, my first assumption is cia, and that assumption isn't going to recede quickly. but, i'm ultimately not willing to waste my time when the conclusion is predetermined. it's better if others get the point quickly rather than waste their own time. that's just time i could have spent by myself, doing something i'm more interested in.
it got me thinking, though, as i was turning the corner a block early to avoid crossing paths. it's actually been almost 8 years, now, since i last had any kind of sexual activity. that's probably longer than most people in convents and monasteries (i don't really think most of them take those oaths all that seriously). practically speaking, i think i've revirginized myself.
i don't really think about it, or even really care. my level of cynicism about sex is probably clinical. like, in need of deep psychiatry - or so people would claim. whatever. the reality is probably that i'm absolutely right and the rest of the world is totally naive. i think i'm more likely to convince a shrink than the other way around. it's just a question of coming to terms with the futility of existence. maybe i'm being a little bit buddhist again; again, whatever.
but eight years is really impressive, considering it's just out of absolute disinterest rather than anything ideological or philosophical. i see no reason to think i won't go another eight...
it got me thinking, though, as i was turning the corner a block early to avoid crossing paths. it's actually been almost 8 years, now, since i last had any kind of sexual activity. that's probably longer than most people in convents and monasteries (i don't really think most of them take those oaths all that seriously). practically speaking, i think i've revirginized myself.
i don't really think about it, or even really care. my level of cynicism about sex is probably clinical. like, in need of deep psychiatry - or so people would claim. whatever. the reality is probably that i'm absolutely right and the rest of the world is totally naive. i think i'm more likely to convince a shrink than the other way around. it's just a question of coming to terms with the futility of existence. maybe i'm being a little bit buddhist again; again, whatever.
but eight years is really impressive, considering it's just out of absolute disinterest rather than anything ideological or philosophical. i see no reason to think i won't go another eight...
jessica amber murray
this has been going on for a while now.
1) don't believe the conservatives when they question the validity of climate science. clearly, they're accepting it.
2) there's a big problem with the permafrost melting insofar as it will release absurd amounts of carbon. but if you follow their politics, they see that as beneficial - despite the global consequences.
3) it's not just the russians. the americans don't accept canadian claims over the region, either. any canadian-american alliance on the issue to reject russian claims is american pragmatism that is going to serve the interests of american capital in the long run.
4) the area actually legally belongs to the indigenous people of the region. for all chretien's faults, give him credit for explicitly taking that legally correct position.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11170
a related issue that's going to develop is the question of letting ships pass through the region. there was a bit of a hullabaloo a few years ago when it was discovered that china was sending icebreakers to "explore" the region, completely ignoring canadian claims. in reality, canadian claims over the arctic don't seem to be regarded amongst other nations - again, that includes the americans. the conservatives have made a nationalistic show of the whole thing. but the americans and others see the "northwest passage" as international waters.
eventually, what's going to have to happen is something like this, that allows free passage of merchant ships and restricts military vessels. but our current government, at the least, is likely to fight against it pretty hard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits
dave
State claims over totally undeveloped areas of the world is ludicrious and usually abusive
The very best people who would have a claim over the region are the people who live there and have developed it, and that would be inuit peoples in some regions, and nobody in other regions
jessica amber murray
i tend to agree with that. it seems to rarely be even contemplated inside of canada, but outside of canada the water is generally viewed as an international strait. our government is wrong to assert sovereignty, especially considering that almost the entire area is in the boundaries of nunavut.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nunavut-irked-by-arctic-sovereignty-talk-1.881954
(of course, clinton was really pushing the american perspective of the area being an international waterway)
this has been going on for a while now.
1) don't believe the conservatives when they question the validity of climate science. clearly, they're accepting it.
2) there's a big problem with the permafrost melting insofar as it will release absurd amounts of carbon. but if you follow their politics, they see that as beneficial - despite the global consequences.
3) it's not just the russians. the americans don't accept canadian claims over the region, either. any canadian-american alliance on the issue to reject russian claims is american pragmatism that is going to serve the interests of american capital in the long run.
4) the area actually legally belongs to the indigenous people of the region. for all chretien's faults, give him credit for explicitly taking that legally correct position.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11170
a related issue that's going to develop is the question of letting ships pass through the region. there was a bit of a hullabaloo a few years ago when it was discovered that china was sending icebreakers to "explore" the region, completely ignoring canadian claims. in reality, canadian claims over the arctic don't seem to be regarded amongst other nations - again, that includes the americans. the conservatives have made a nationalistic show of the whole thing. but the americans and others see the "northwest passage" as international waters.
eventually, what's going to have to happen is something like this, that allows free passage of merchant ships and restricts military vessels. but our current government, at the least, is likely to fight against it pretty hard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits
dave
State claims over totally undeveloped areas of the world is ludicrious and usually abusive
The very best people who would have a claim over the region are the people who live there and have developed it, and that would be inuit peoples in some regions, and nobody in other regions
jessica amber murray
i tend to agree with that. it seems to rarely be even contemplated inside of canada, but outside of canada the water is generally viewed as an international strait. our government is wrong to assert sovereignty, especially considering that almost the entire area is in the boundaries of nunavut.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nunavut-irked-by-arctic-sovereignty-talk-1.881954
(of course, clinton was really pushing the american perspective of the area being an international waterway)
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
you know, a lot has been said about how the boomers are entering mass retirement, which is good news for everybody, but something that hasn't been pointed out is that the oldest gen xers are entering year 50 - the prime of their existence insofar as making measurable change is concerned.
they're going to have a short time window. i mean, they had their influence muted by the reality that they were dramatically outnumbered by the boomers for far too long to begin with, and they're going to be outnumbered again by the millennials (who seem to be worse than the boomers) within a few decades.
...but this is the generation that was in control of the rise of technology. they're the architects of giant recent shifts in human culture. there's a huge amount of wealth, there, and a very different DIY attitude.
i may be being overly optimistic, but it seems like we're on the cusp of a big change from an industrial economy to a technological economy, and it's coming packaged with a generational shift that has a legit desire to fuck some things up. the haliburtons and standard oils are being phased out for microsofts and googles and ebays.
what i'm getting at is that there is some hope that they may have an interest in finally fulfilling the promise of technology, as seen in the science fiction paperbacks and blockbuster films that they grew up reading and watching.
it's a narrative i'm going to keep an eye on.
well, actually, maybe the window may not be so short.
millennials have fuck-all, opportunity wise.
about the best a millennial can hope for is to climb it's way up a technology firm...
this is hopefully just a start. first, take on the media:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/19/pierre-omidyar-first-50m-media-venture-glenn-greenwald
i mean, i'm not naive enough that i don't realize this is big money with big money interests, but it's precisely because i'm not naive that i realize that media follows the directives of it's founders - see fox news, for example. it's not the end of history. murdoch's empire will be replaced with something else.
...and i think there's some hope, here, with a generational shift, that different principles will be thrust to the forefront.
i mean, there's a reason there was a liberal shift in the middle of the last century, and the popular movements we saw were a *result* of it rather than the cause of it. there used to be a class of wealthy british and american liberals that sought to manipulate public opinion through media. they just died out, and were replaced with something much more conservative.
they're going to have a short time window. i mean, they had their influence muted by the reality that they were dramatically outnumbered by the boomers for far too long to begin with, and they're going to be outnumbered again by the millennials (who seem to be worse than the boomers) within a few decades.
...but this is the generation that was in control of the rise of technology. they're the architects of giant recent shifts in human culture. there's a huge amount of wealth, there, and a very different DIY attitude.
i may be being overly optimistic, but it seems like we're on the cusp of a big change from an industrial economy to a technological economy, and it's coming packaged with a generational shift that has a legit desire to fuck some things up. the haliburtons and standard oils are being phased out for microsofts and googles and ebays.
what i'm getting at is that there is some hope that they may have an interest in finally fulfilling the promise of technology, as seen in the science fiction paperbacks and blockbuster films that they grew up reading and watching.
it's a narrative i'm going to keep an eye on.
well, actually, maybe the window may not be so short.
millennials have fuck-all, opportunity wise.
about the best a millennial can hope for is to climb it's way up a technology firm...
this is hopefully just a start. first, take on the media:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/19/pierre-omidyar-first-50m-media-venture-glenn-greenwald
i mean, i'm not naive enough that i don't realize this is big money with big money interests, but it's precisely because i'm not naive that i realize that media follows the directives of it's founders - see fox news, for example. it's not the end of history. murdoch's empire will be replaced with something else.
...and i think there's some hope, here, with a generational shift, that different principles will be thrust to the forefront.
i mean, there's a reason there was a liberal shift in the middle of the last century, and the popular movements we saw were a *result* of it rather than the cause of it. there used to be a class of wealthy british and american liberals that sought to manipulate public opinion through media. they just died out, and were replaced with something much more conservative.
excerpt from ‘soul of man under socialism’
we need less anarchist writing by economists and philosophers and more anarchist writing by artists. i know. i'll get to it.
i've posted this a few times. i don't absolutely identify with any single strain of anarchist thought, but this is really the closest thing i've seen to articulating my own viewpoints.
" Now as the State is not to govern, it may be asked what the State is to do. The State is to be a voluntary association that will organise labour, and be the manufacturer and distributor of necessary commodities. The State is to make what is useful. The individual is to make what is beautiful. And as I have mentioned the word labour, I cannot help saying that a great deal of nonsense is being written and talked nowadays about the dignity of manual labour. There is nothing necessarily dignified about manual labour at all, and most of it is absolutely degrading. It is mentally and morally injurious to man to do anything in which he does not find pleasure, and many forms of labour are quite pleasureless activities, and should be regarded as such. To sweep a slushy crossing for eight hours, on a day when the east wind is blowing is a disgusting occupation. To sweep it with mental, moral, or physical dignity seems to me to be impossible. To sweep it with joy would be appalling. Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt. All work of that kind should be done by a machine.
And I have no doubt that it will be so. Up to the present, man has been, to a certain extent, the slave of machinery, and there is something tragic in the fact that as soon as man had invented a machine to do his work he began to starve. This, however, is, of course, the result of our property system and our system of competition. One man owns a machine which does the work of five hundred men. Five hundred men are, in consequence, thrown out of employment, and, having no work to do, become hungry and take to thieving. The one man secures the produce of the machine and keeps it, and has five hundred times as much as he should have, and probably, which is of much more importance, a great deal more than he really wants. Were that machine the property of all, every one would benefit by it. It would be an immense advantage to the community. All unintellectual labour, all monotonous, dull labour, all labour that deals with dreadful things, and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery. Machinery must work for us in coal mines, and do all sanitary services, and be the stoker of steamers, and clean the streets, and run messages on wet days, and do anything that is tedious or distressing. At present machinery competes against man. Under proper conditions machinery will serve man. There is no doubt at all that this is the future of machinery, and just as trees grow while the country gentleman is asleep, so while Humanity will be amusing itself, or enjoying cultivated leisure – which, and not labour, is the aim of man – or making beautiful things, or reading beautiful things, or simply contemplating the world with admiration and delight, machinery will be doing all the necessary and unpleasant work. The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralising. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. And when scientific men are no longer called upon to go down to a depressing East End and distribute bad cocoa and worse blankets to starving people, they will have delightful leisure in which to devise wonderful and marvellous things for their own joy and the joy of everyone else. There will be great storages of force for every city, and for every house if required, and this force man will convert into heat, light, or motion, according to his needs. Is this Utopian? A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.
Now, I have said that the community by means of organisation of machinery will supply the useful things, and that the beautiful things will be made by the individual. This is not merely necessary, but it is the only possible way by which we can get either the one or the other. An individual who has to make things for the use of others, and with reference to their wants and their wishes, does not work with interest, and consequently cannot put into his work what is best in him. Upon the other hand, whenever a community or a powerful section of a community, or a government of any kind, attempts to dictate to the artist what he is to do, Art either entirely vanishes, or becomes stereotyped, or degenerates into a low and ignoble form of craft. A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist. Art is the most intense mode of Individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of Individualism that the world has known. Crime, which, under certain conditions, may seem to have created Individualism, must take cognisance of other people and interfere with them. It belongs to the sphere of action. But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.
And it is to be noted that it is the fact that Art is this intense form of Individualism that makes the public try to exercise over it in an authority that is as immoral as it is ridiculous, and as corrupting as it is contemptible. It is not quite their fault. The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic. There is a very wide difference. If a man of science were told that the results of his experiments, and the conclusions that he arrived at, should be of such a character that they would not upset the received popular notions on the subject, or disturb popular prejudice, or hurt the sensibilities of people who knew nothing about science; if a philosopher were told that he had a perfect right to speculate in the highest spheres of thought, provided that he arrived at the same conclusions as were held by those who had never thought in any sphere at all – well, nowadays the man of science and the philosopher would be considerably amused. Yet it is really a very few years since both philosophy and science were subjected to brutal popular control, to authority – in fact the authority of either the general ignorance of the community, or the terror and greed for power of an ecclesiastical or governmental class. Of course, we have to a very great extent got rid of any attempt on the part of the community, or the Church, or the Government, to interfere with the individualism of speculative thought, but the attempt to interfere with the individualism of imaginative art still lingers. In fact, it does more than linger; it is aggressive, offensive, and brutalising.
In England, the arts that have escaped best are the arts in which the public take no interest. Poetry is an instance of what I mean. We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it. The public like to insult poets because they are individual, but once they have insulted them, they leave them alone. In the case of the novel and the drama, arts in which the public do take an interest, the result of the exercise of popular authority has been absolutely ridiculous. No country produces such badly-written fiction, such tedious, common work in the novel form, such silly, vulgar plays as England. It must necessarily be so. The popular standard is of such a character that no artist can get to it. It is at once too easy and too difficult to be a popular novelist. It is too easy, because the requirements of the public as far as plot, style, psychology, treatment of life, and treatment of literature are concerned are within the reach of the very meanest capacity and the most uncultivated mind. It is too difficult, because to meet such requirements the artist would have to do violence to his temperament, would have to write not for the artistic joy of writing, but for the amusement of half-educated people, and so would have to suppress his individualism, forget his culture, annihilate his style, and surrender everything that is valuable in him. In the case of the drama, things are a little better: the theatre-going public like the obvious, it is true, but they do not like the tedious; and burlesque and farcical comedy, the two most popular forms, are distinct forms of art. Delightful work may be produced under burlesque and farcical conditions, and in work of this kind the artist in England is allowed very great freedom. It is when one comes to the higher forms of the drama that the result of popular control is seen. The one thing that the public dislike is novelty. Any attempt to extend the subject-matter of art is extremely distasteful to the public; and yet the vitality and progress of art depend in a large measure on the continual extension of subject-matter. The public dislike novelty because they are afraid of it. It represents to them a mode of Individualism, an assertion on the part of the artist that he selects his own subject, and treats it as he chooses. The public are quite right in their attitude. Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine. In Art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them. They endure them as the inevitable, and as they cannot mar them, they mouth about them. Strangely enough, or not strangely, according to one’s own views, this acceptance of the classics does a great deal of harm. The uncritical admiration of the Bible and Shakespeare in England is an instance of what I mean. With regard to the Bible, considerations of ecclesiastical authority enter into the matter, so that I need not dwell upon the point. But in the case of Shakespeare it is quite obvious that the public really see neither the beauties nor the defects of his plays. If they saw the beauties, they would not object to the development of the drama; and if they saw the defects, they would not object to the development of the drama either. The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms. They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint like somebody else, quite oblivious of the fact that if either of them did anything of the kind he would cease to be an artist. A fresh mode of Beauty is absolutely distasteful to them, and whenever it appears they get so angry, and bewildered that they always use two stupid expressions – one is that the work of art is grossly unintelligible; the other, that the work of art is grossly immoral. What they mean by these words seems to me to be this. When they say a work is grossly unintelligible, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is true. The former expression has reference to style; the latter to subject-matter. But they probably use the words very vaguely, as an ordinary mob will use ready-made paving-stones. There is not a single real poet or prose-writer of this century, for instance, on whom the British public have not solemnly conferred diplomas of immorality, and these diplomas practically take the place, with us, of what in France, is the formal recognition of an Academy of Letters, and fortunately make the establishment of such an institution quite unnecessary in England. Of course, the public are very reckless in their use of the word. That they should have called Wordsworth an immoral poet, was only to be expected. Wordsworth was a poet. But that they should have called Charles Kingsley an immoral novelist is extraordinary. Kingsley’s prose was not of a very fine quality. Still, there is the word, and they use it as best they can. An artist is, of course, not disturbed by it. The true artist is a man who believes absolutely in himself, because he is absolutely himself. But I can fancy that if an artist produced a work of art in England that immediately on its appearance was recognised by the public, through their medium, which is the public press, as a work that was quite intelligible and highly moral, he would begin to seriously question whether in its creation he had really been himself at all, and consequently whether the work was not quite unworthy of him, and either of a thoroughly second-rate order, or of no artistic value whatsoever."
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/
i've posted this a few times. i don't absolutely identify with any single strain of anarchist thought, but this is really the closest thing i've seen to articulating my own viewpoints.
" Now as the State is not to govern, it may be asked what the State is to do. The State is to be a voluntary association that will organise labour, and be the manufacturer and distributor of necessary commodities. The State is to make what is useful. The individual is to make what is beautiful. And as I have mentioned the word labour, I cannot help saying that a great deal of nonsense is being written and talked nowadays about the dignity of manual labour. There is nothing necessarily dignified about manual labour at all, and most of it is absolutely degrading. It is mentally and morally injurious to man to do anything in which he does not find pleasure, and many forms of labour are quite pleasureless activities, and should be regarded as such. To sweep a slushy crossing for eight hours, on a day when the east wind is blowing is a disgusting occupation. To sweep it with mental, moral, or physical dignity seems to me to be impossible. To sweep it with joy would be appalling. Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt. All work of that kind should be done by a machine.
And I have no doubt that it will be so. Up to the present, man has been, to a certain extent, the slave of machinery, and there is something tragic in the fact that as soon as man had invented a machine to do his work he began to starve. This, however, is, of course, the result of our property system and our system of competition. One man owns a machine which does the work of five hundred men. Five hundred men are, in consequence, thrown out of employment, and, having no work to do, become hungry and take to thieving. The one man secures the produce of the machine and keeps it, and has five hundred times as much as he should have, and probably, which is of much more importance, a great deal more than he really wants. Were that machine the property of all, every one would benefit by it. It would be an immense advantage to the community. All unintellectual labour, all monotonous, dull labour, all labour that deals with dreadful things, and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery. Machinery must work for us in coal mines, and do all sanitary services, and be the stoker of steamers, and clean the streets, and run messages on wet days, and do anything that is tedious or distressing. At present machinery competes against man. Under proper conditions machinery will serve man. There is no doubt at all that this is the future of machinery, and just as trees grow while the country gentleman is asleep, so while Humanity will be amusing itself, or enjoying cultivated leisure – which, and not labour, is the aim of man – or making beautiful things, or reading beautiful things, or simply contemplating the world with admiration and delight, machinery will be doing all the necessary and unpleasant work. The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralising. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. And when scientific men are no longer called upon to go down to a depressing East End and distribute bad cocoa and worse blankets to starving people, they will have delightful leisure in which to devise wonderful and marvellous things for their own joy and the joy of everyone else. There will be great storages of force for every city, and for every house if required, and this force man will convert into heat, light, or motion, according to his needs. Is this Utopian? A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.
Now, I have said that the community by means of organisation of machinery will supply the useful things, and that the beautiful things will be made by the individual. This is not merely necessary, but it is the only possible way by which we can get either the one or the other. An individual who has to make things for the use of others, and with reference to their wants and their wishes, does not work with interest, and consequently cannot put into his work what is best in him. Upon the other hand, whenever a community or a powerful section of a community, or a government of any kind, attempts to dictate to the artist what he is to do, Art either entirely vanishes, or becomes stereotyped, or degenerates into a low and ignoble form of craft. A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist. Art is the most intense mode of Individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of Individualism that the world has known. Crime, which, under certain conditions, may seem to have created Individualism, must take cognisance of other people and interfere with them. It belongs to the sphere of action. But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.
And it is to be noted that it is the fact that Art is this intense form of Individualism that makes the public try to exercise over it in an authority that is as immoral as it is ridiculous, and as corrupting as it is contemptible. It is not quite their fault. The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic. There is a very wide difference. If a man of science were told that the results of his experiments, and the conclusions that he arrived at, should be of such a character that they would not upset the received popular notions on the subject, or disturb popular prejudice, or hurt the sensibilities of people who knew nothing about science; if a philosopher were told that he had a perfect right to speculate in the highest spheres of thought, provided that he arrived at the same conclusions as were held by those who had never thought in any sphere at all – well, nowadays the man of science and the philosopher would be considerably amused. Yet it is really a very few years since both philosophy and science were subjected to brutal popular control, to authority – in fact the authority of either the general ignorance of the community, or the terror and greed for power of an ecclesiastical or governmental class. Of course, we have to a very great extent got rid of any attempt on the part of the community, or the Church, or the Government, to interfere with the individualism of speculative thought, but the attempt to interfere with the individualism of imaginative art still lingers. In fact, it does more than linger; it is aggressive, offensive, and brutalising.
In England, the arts that have escaped best are the arts in which the public take no interest. Poetry is an instance of what I mean. We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it. The public like to insult poets because they are individual, but once they have insulted them, they leave them alone. In the case of the novel and the drama, arts in which the public do take an interest, the result of the exercise of popular authority has been absolutely ridiculous. No country produces such badly-written fiction, such tedious, common work in the novel form, such silly, vulgar plays as England. It must necessarily be so. The popular standard is of such a character that no artist can get to it. It is at once too easy and too difficult to be a popular novelist. It is too easy, because the requirements of the public as far as plot, style, psychology, treatment of life, and treatment of literature are concerned are within the reach of the very meanest capacity and the most uncultivated mind. It is too difficult, because to meet such requirements the artist would have to do violence to his temperament, would have to write not for the artistic joy of writing, but for the amusement of half-educated people, and so would have to suppress his individualism, forget his culture, annihilate his style, and surrender everything that is valuable in him. In the case of the drama, things are a little better: the theatre-going public like the obvious, it is true, but they do not like the tedious; and burlesque and farcical comedy, the two most popular forms, are distinct forms of art. Delightful work may be produced under burlesque and farcical conditions, and in work of this kind the artist in England is allowed very great freedom. It is when one comes to the higher forms of the drama that the result of popular control is seen. The one thing that the public dislike is novelty. Any attempt to extend the subject-matter of art is extremely distasteful to the public; and yet the vitality and progress of art depend in a large measure on the continual extension of subject-matter. The public dislike novelty because they are afraid of it. It represents to them a mode of Individualism, an assertion on the part of the artist that he selects his own subject, and treats it as he chooses. The public are quite right in their attitude. Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine. In Art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them. They endure them as the inevitable, and as they cannot mar them, they mouth about them. Strangely enough, or not strangely, according to one’s own views, this acceptance of the classics does a great deal of harm. The uncritical admiration of the Bible and Shakespeare in England is an instance of what I mean. With regard to the Bible, considerations of ecclesiastical authority enter into the matter, so that I need not dwell upon the point. But in the case of Shakespeare it is quite obvious that the public really see neither the beauties nor the defects of his plays. If they saw the beauties, they would not object to the development of the drama; and if they saw the defects, they would not object to the development of the drama either. The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms. They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint like somebody else, quite oblivious of the fact that if either of them did anything of the kind he would cease to be an artist. A fresh mode of Beauty is absolutely distasteful to them, and whenever it appears they get so angry, and bewildered that they always use two stupid expressions – one is that the work of art is grossly unintelligible; the other, that the work of art is grossly immoral. What they mean by these words seems to me to be this. When they say a work is grossly unintelligible, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is true. The former expression has reference to style; the latter to subject-matter. But they probably use the words very vaguely, as an ordinary mob will use ready-made paving-stones. There is not a single real poet or prose-writer of this century, for instance, on whom the British public have not solemnly conferred diplomas of immorality, and these diplomas practically take the place, with us, of what in France, is the formal recognition of an Academy of Letters, and fortunately make the establishment of such an institution quite unnecessary in England. Of course, the public are very reckless in their use of the word. That they should have called Wordsworth an immoral poet, was only to be expected. Wordsworth was a poet. But that they should have called Charles Kingsley an immoral novelist is extraordinary. Kingsley’s prose was not of a very fine quality. Still, there is the word, and they use it as best they can. An artist is, of course, not disturbed by it. The true artist is a man who believes absolutely in himself, because he is absolutely himself. But I can fancy that if an artist produced a work of art in England that immediately on its appearance was recognised by the public, through their medium, which is the public press, as a work that was quite intelligible and highly moral, he would begin to seriously question whether in its creation he had really been himself at all, and consequently whether the work was not quite unworthy of him, and either of a thoroughly second-rate order, or of no artistic value whatsoever."
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
publishing first remaster & re-release of inriched (inri021)
and here it is, finally - done.
the editing here was much deeper than the first cd demo. while i was initially less excited about this one, the end result is comparable - there's one specific track, the 6th, that i just wish didn't exist.
in every way, it's a bit more extreme. the bad decisions were worse; in the sense that i've removed them, it doesn't matter, but in the sense that they remain they're painful. it's mostly related to vocal tracks. but where the first failed on content, this one fails more often on singing. thankfully, there's only two or three tracks that are painful.
the rest of it is actually pretty good. the noisy/experimental/glitch sections are more extreme. the techy parts are more elaborate. the ambient sections are thicker. the silliness is sillier...
as before, the record/demo bounces back and forth between "songs" and "experiments". on this demo, though, the songs are no less interesting than the noise.
the problem with the sixth track is explained on the page. i was being ironic, but not obviously, and it's kind of left me in the awkward position of identifying as queer and yet having a queer-bashing song. *shrug*. it's not queer-bashing, but it would be easier if it just didn't exist...
for the rest of it, i need to reiterate that it is valid, even when it's trite, because it's real. that is to say that it sounds like i'm 18 and less than well-adjusted. if it could be better than it is, it would lack the authenticity of being a demo produced by a troubled teenager. i might not articulate my feelings of being ignored at a very high level of thought or with much compelling poetry, but i'm certainly feeling them and that feeling certainly gets across in my unique and goofy sort of way. likewise, when i go into juvenile shock rock i am actually convincingly juvenile and convincingly shocking (unless i'm trying to be ridiculous, in which case i pull that off just as well).
that means you have to listen to it from a certain distance because a big part of what you're listening to is the spectacle of a demented child being demented, but when you do that it comes off as some of the most idiosyncratic leftfield synth pop i'm aware of. you've never heard anything quite like this.
so, if i could remove the 6th track without killing the flow of the disc, i would. beyond that, the edits that i've made have left me comfortable with throwing this out there as it is - under the existing caveats.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-lp
==
this is very much a follow-up to the previous demo (there's a pun, here) and in fact is largely constructed of "leftover tracks" from that period. this demo may be a bit glitchier/noisier than the last one, jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-lp.
some of these songs are reworked versions of tracks i had recorded previously. in almost all cases, i consider the versions here (and on the previous demo, inri) to be the authoritative versions of these tracks.
the demo is consciously constructed to alternate between "conventional songs" and "experimental pieces", although both definitions are stretched. it generally takes the form of connecting passages. it's meant to give the record the feel of a cohesive work rather than a collection of songs.
lyrically, i'm still a teenager, but i'm starting to grow into myself a little more. there are some points of significant embarrassment on this recording, but it's really only the sixth track that makes me cringe to the point of regret. i was also experimenting with an "ironic distance" type of spoken word style that, in hindsight, doesn't come off so well.
the guitar work is one of the things that separates the sound from a typical industrial aesthetic. i've never been a fan of heavy metal and largely shied away from creating that kind of thing. yet, i found myself connecting more with psychedelic guitar at this point than punk rock. industrial psych generally implies something like trance, but it need not to. industrial hendrix? well, maybe it ends up sounding more like synth pop, which has historical roots in psychedelic music and progressive rock. the point is that the music does manage to carve out a unique space between industrial music and synth pop that i don't know of any clear comparisons to. people have suggested mid-period swans, the legendary pink dots and nine inch nails - only the last of which was a significant influence, and none of which are really that close. a better comparison, although still not a significant influence at this time, would be joy division - who would become a significant influence after this phase. my actual influences at the time would have been more like brian eno (through his 70s and 90s work with david bowie, as well as his work with u2), early prog (genesis/floyd/crimson), peter gabriel, the beatles, radiohead, the smashing pumpkins, REM, sonic youth, the tea party and a bit of contemporary electronic music (prodigy, nin, coil, foetus, autechre, nitzer ebb, ministry, econoline crush, gravity kills, stabbing westward, skinny puppy and side projects). the sense of humour is coming from frank zappa and matt groening, if they are not actually the same person. i wasn't listening to much tears for fears, i don't think, but you can hear them lurking underneath everything.
this material was recorded throughout 1998 and the very beginning of 1999, but some of it was written as far back as 1994. unfortunately, i decided that the songs sounded better in mp3 and consequently compressed everything before burning. i understand now that i was hobbling together a crude mastering process, but it means (unfortunately) that the closest thing i have to the finished tracks are low quality mp3s and a cd-r. these tracks were taken off of a cd-r and run through digital post-production in dec, 2013 in a process that also included minimal editing (mostly the removal of badly placed samples, but also the removal of some vocal sections where it was possible). as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, drum programming, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, vocals, cool edit synthesis, production, found sounds, strategies
released feb 10, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-lp
the editing here was much deeper than the first cd demo. while i was initially less excited about this one, the end result is comparable - there's one specific track, the 6th, that i just wish didn't exist.
in every way, it's a bit more extreme. the bad decisions were worse; in the sense that i've removed them, it doesn't matter, but in the sense that they remain they're painful. it's mostly related to vocal tracks. but where the first failed on content, this one fails more often on singing. thankfully, there's only two or three tracks that are painful.
the rest of it is actually pretty good. the noisy/experimental/glitch sections are more extreme. the techy parts are more elaborate. the ambient sections are thicker. the silliness is sillier...
as before, the record/demo bounces back and forth between "songs" and "experiments". on this demo, though, the songs are no less interesting than the noise.
the problem with the sixth track is explained on the page. i was being ironic, but not obviously, and it's kind of left me in the awkward position of identifying as queer and yet having a queer-bashing song. *shrug*. it's not queer-bashing, but it would be easier if it just didn't exist...
for the rest of it, i need to reiterate that it is valid, even when it's trite, because it's real. that is to say that it sounds like i'm 18 and less than well-adjusted. if it could be better than it is, it would lack the authenticity of being a demo produced by a troubled teenager. i might not articulate my feelings of being ignored at a very high level of thought or with much compelling poetry, but i'm certainly feeling them and that feeling certainly gets across in my unique and goofy sort of way. likewise, when i go into juvenile shock rock i am actually convincingly juvenile and convincingly shocking (unless i'm trying to be ridiculous, in which case i pull that off just as well).
that means you have to listen to it from a certain distance because a big part of what you're listening to is the spectacle of a demented child being demented, but when you do that it comes off as some of the most idiosyncratic leftfield synth pop i'm aware of. you've never heard anything quite like this.
so, if i could remove the 6th track without killing the flow of the disc, i would. beyond that, the edits that i've made have left me comfortable with throwing this out there as it is - under the existing caveats.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-lp
==
this is very much a follow-up to the previous demo (there's a pun, here) and in fact is largely constructed of "leftover tracks" from that period. this demo may be a bit glitchier/noisier than the last one, jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-lp.
some of these songs are reworked versions of tracks i had recorded previously. in almost all cases, i consider the versions here (and on the previous demo, inri) to be the authoritative versions of these tracks.
the demo is consciously constructed to alternate between "conventional songs" and "experimental pieces", although both definitions are stretched. it generally takes the form of connecting passages. it's meant to give the record the feel of a cohesive work rather than a collection of songs.
lyrically, i'm still a teenager, but i'm starting to grow into myself a little more. there are some points of significant embarrassment on this recording, but it's really only the sixth track that makes me cringe to the point of regret. i was also experimenting with an "ironic distance" type of spoken word style that, in hindsight, doesn't come off so well.
the guitar work is one of the things that separates the sound from a typical industrial aesthetic. i've never been a fan of heavy metal and largely shied away from creating that kind of thing. yet, i found myself connecting more with psychedelic guitar at this point than punk rock. industrial psych generally implies something like trance, but it need not to. industrial hendrix? well, maybe it ends up sounding more like synth pop, which has historical roots in psychedelic music and progressive rock. the point is that the music does manage to carve out a unique space between industrial music and synth pop that i don't know of any clear comparisons to. people have suggested mid-period swans, the legendary pink dots and nine inch nails - only the last of which was a significant influence, and none of which are really that close. a better comparison, although still not a significant influence at this time, would be joy division - who would become a significant influence after this phase. my actual influences at the time would have been more like brian eno (through his 70s and 90s work with david bowie, as well as his work with u2), early prog (genesis/floyd/crimson), peter gabriel, the beatles, radiohead, the smashing pumpkins, REM, sonic youth, the tea party and a bit of contemporary electronic music (prodigy, nin, coil, foetus, autechre, nitzer ebb, ministry, econoline crush, gravity kills, stabbing westward, skinny puppy and side projects). the sense of humour is coming from frank zappa and matt groening, if they are not actually the same person. i wasn't listening to much tears for fears, i don't think, but you can hear them lurking underneath everything.
this material was recorded throughout 1998 and the very beginning of 1999, but some of it was written as far back as 1994. unfortunately, i decided that the songs sounded better in mp3 and consequently compressed everything before burning. i understand now that i was hobbling together a crude mastering process, but it means (unfortunately) that the closest thing i have to the finished tracks are low quality mp3s and a cd-r. these tracks were taken off of a cd-r and run through digital post-production in dec, 2013 in a process that also included minimal editing (mostly the removal of badly placed samples, but also the removal of some vocal sections where it was possible). as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, drum programming, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, vocals, cool edit synthesis, production, found sounds, strategies
released feb 10, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-lp
(this was a rant posted in response to somebody pondering a nuclear holocaust)
a concept developed out of the 60s, called mutually assured destruction, pointed out that any future large scale war would be against the interests of virtually everybody. if you accept the idea that war is economic, it follows that that kind of war isn't likely.
the one caveat to that is the idea of population control, particularly in the developing world, but climate change may make that unnecessary.
in short, i don't think there's a serious threat of anything blowing out of proportion. obama buckling to russian pressure on syria just enforces that point. that doesn't mean people shouldn't take the idea seriously; specifically, it doesn't mean that "decision makers" shouldn't behave as though the threat is real. it just means realizing that we're actually not that stupid.
again, the way that that analysis could be flawed is the threat of extremist movements, which could be religious or political - anything ideological. just groups that actually are that stupid. looking at the world, the greatest threat is religious. the americans have pakistan under control, but india is persistently on the brink of hindu extremism. the jews are currently actually pretty prudent but there's a sector of their ruling class that is very frightening. and the saudis are flat out insane.
there's also the republican right in the united states, but they're subservient to the military-industrial complex. the americans can't be too destructive because it would be bad for business. it's a balancing act between ensuring the flow of profits and cutting them off entirely.
i think it's worth cautiously acknowledging that the political situation in russia is somewhat fragile and that, despite western perceptions to the contrary, the most likely successor to putin - at this point - exists on the hard, pro-nationalist right. putin is reacting to populist forces that are further right than him in an attempt to maintain power, not pushing right-wing policies out of his own desire. if elections in russia lead to a shift to a fascist government, the whole calculus of power in asia changes. conflict instantly develops with china, to begin with. that's a wild card, but it's a threat at the moment rather than a reality.
china's expanding nationalism looks scary, but it's hard to see how anything can break in the region, except by accident. it's more just an excuse to build arms. again: it's scary, and if anybody fucks up it could be lethal. but even if such a flare-up did accidentally happen, it's hard to see why it wouldn't be glossed over quickly. well...there might be a proxy war in southeast asia. vietnam II.
the series of proxy wars that we're fighting right now in the middle east and africa - which is between nato, israel, japan (and allies) and the gulf monarchies on one side and iran, russia and china on the other, with india and south america wavering as neutral - is the closest thing to a world war that we're likely to see any time soon. which isn't to say it isn't a world war, so much as to point out that it's been the state of normalcy for roughly 70 years.
this explains the world war that currently is being fought:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
...but it's just an extension of the cold war. and the same basic ideas of MAD apply, even when extrapolated to missile defense.
btw, for those that are all like "that's old news, it died with bush", behold:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_a_New_American_Security
(i put the see also link in wiki. no comment on other wiki entries i've written :P)
and, creepier, the "new american" thing seems to come from a periodical by these fuckers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society
....which is to say that the americans are still trapped in the cold war.
except the cold war is older than the cold war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Japanese_Alliance
this is apparently the actual source of anglo-russian hostilities, driven by the russian tzar being sneaky and the british developing a distrust of dealing with russian officials:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Russian_War_%281807%E2%80%9312%29
yeah. that source doesn't discuss it. but apparently the tsar signed a secret agreement with napoleon that was uncovered by british intelligence, and the british have refused to trust them (except when they had to, like in wwii) ever since.
"Alexander agreed to join Napoleon's Continental Blockade against Great Britain, and in a secret addition to the treaty, Europe were divided into an eastern and a western part, the eastern Russian part including Sweden. Europe was thereby and in this way, divided between the two great empires."
^ that, there:
http://www.multi.fi/~goranfri/bioalexander.html
a concept developed out of the 60s, called mutually assured destruction, pointed out that any future large scale war would be against the interests of virtually everybody. if you accept the idea that war is economic, it follows that that kind of war isn't likely.
the one caveat to that is the idea of population control, particularly in the developing world, but climate change may make that unnecessary.
in short, i don't think there's a serious threat of anything blowing out of proportion. obama buckling to russian pressure on syria just enforces that point. that doesn't mean people shouldn't take the idea seriously; specifically, it doesn't mean that "decision makers" shouldn't behave as though the threat is real. it just means realizing that we're actually not that stupid.
again, the way that that analysis could be flawed is the threat of extremist movements, which could be religious or political - anything ideological. just groups that actually are that stupid. looking at the world, the greatest threat is religious. the americans have pakistan under control, but india is persistently on the brink of hindu extremism. the jews are currently actually pretty prudent but there's a sector of their ruling class that is very frightening. and the saudis are flat out insane.
there's also the republican right in the united states, but they're subservient to the military-industrial complex. the americans can't be too destructive because it would be bad for business. it's a balancing act between ensuring the flow of profits and cutting them off entirely.
i think it's worth cautiously acknowledging that the political situation in russia is somewhat fragile and that, despite western perceptions to the contrary, the most likely successor to putin - at this point - exists on the hard, pro-nationalist right. putin is reacting to populist forces that are further right than him in an attempt to maintain power, not pushing right-wing policies out of his own desire. if elections in russia lead to a shift to a fascist government, the whole calculus of power in asia changes. conflict instantly develops with china, to begin with. that's a wild card, but it's a threat at the moment rather than a reality.
china's expanding nationalism looks scary, but it's hard to see how anything can break in the region, except by accident. it's more just an excuse to build arms. again: it's scary, and if anybody fucks up it could be lethal. but even if such a flare-up did accidentally happen, it's hard to see why it wouldn't be glossed over quickly. well...there might be a proxy war in southeast asia. vietnam II.
the series of proxy wars that we're fighting right now in the middle east and africa - which is between nato, israel, japan (and allies) and the gulf monarchies on one side and iran, russia and china on the other, with india and south america wavering as neutral - is the closest thing to a world war that we're likely to see any time soon. which isn't to say it isn't a world war, so much as to point out that it's been the state of normalcy for roughly 70 years.
this explains the world war that currently is being fought:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
...but it's just an extension of the cold war. and the same basic ideas of MAD apply, even when extrapolated to missile defense.
btw, for those that are all like "that's old news, it died with bush", behold:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_a_New_American_Security
(i put the see also link in wiki. no comment on other wiki entries i've written :P)
and, creepier, the "new american" thing seems to come from a periodical by these fuckers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society
....which is to say that the americans are still trapped in the cold war.
except the cold war is older than the cold war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Japanese_Alliance
this is apparently the actual source of anglo-russian hostilities, driven by the russian tzar being sneaky and the british developing a distrust of dealing with russian officials:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Russian_War_%281807%E2%80%9312%29
yeah. that source doesn't discuss it. but apparently the tsar signed a secret agreement with napoleon that was uncovered by british intelligence, and the british have refused to trust them (except when they had to, like in wwii) ever since.
"Alexander agreed to join Napoleon's Continental Blockade against Great Britain, and in a secret addition to the treaty, Europe were divided into an eastern and a western part, the eastern Russian part including Sweden. Europe was thereby and in this way, divided between the two great empires."
^ that, there:
http://www.multi.fi/~goranfri/bioalexander.html
lol.
i can't compute this one. is google censoring on behalf of the cia or is the moscow times (a legit and big moscow paper) working with the kgb?
http://www.google.ca/interstitial?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.themoscowtimes.com%2Fnews%2Farticle%2Fraids-on-german-ngos-may-harm-ties-berlin-says%2F477544.html
i can't compute this one. is google censoring on behalf of the cia or is the moscow times (a legit and big moscow paper) working with the kgb?
http://www.google.ca/interstitial?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.themoscowtimes.com%2Fnews%2Farticle%2Fraids-on-german-ngos-may-harm-ties-berlin-says%2F477544.html
what i was looking for was this.
apparently, the americans have (unsurprisingly) rejected the proposal.
but, see, it's a cynical ploy in the first place. the russians are trying to build international sympathy in the face of blatant american aggression against them, from containment strategies in the middle east to ops in the ukraine to ballistic missiles hovering over them....
http://rt.com/business/russia-usa-trade-shuvalov-111/
i've laughed at them for being naive, but it's become clear that it's a strategy: every time the americans act belligerent, they respond with fig leaves.
they know it's not going to get a response, but their options are limited. and one gets the impression that they mostly mean it, in the sense that they don't want to fight.
to an extent, i think it seems to be working. we'll have to see in the upcoming months how effective it is.
apparently, the americans have (unsurprisingly) rejected the proposal.
but, see, it's a cynical ploy in the first place. the russians are trying to build international sympathy in the face of blatant american aggression against them, from containment strategies in the middle east to ops in the ukraine to ballistic missiles hovering over them....
http://rt.com/business/russia-usa-trade-shuvalov-111/
i've laughed at them for being naive, but it's become clear that it's a strategy: every time the americans act belligerent, they respond with fig leaves.
they know it's not going to get a response, but their options are limited. and one gets the impression that they mostly mean it, in the sense that they don't want to fight.
to an extent, i think it seems to be working. we'll have to see in the upcoming months how effective it is.
it's nice to realize that my bedroom is perfectly positioned to take maximum advantage of the winter's mid-afternoon sunlight. the last few places i've occupied have been less ideal, to say the least.
it's also sort of neat to realize this right after the solstice.
place must have been built by druids...
it's also sort of neat to realize this right after the solstice.
place must have been built by druids...
jessica amber murray
....and, now, to attempt to have a few drinks without smoking any cigarettes. considering the temperature outside (along with my absolute aversion to indoor smoking), i think i'm likely to do well. we'll see.
regarding the smoking thing...
the packs have been almost entirely cut out. i've bought probably around ten packs, total, since the beginning of september. what i've been doing instead is falling back to these single cigars that can be picked up at the corner store for around $1 whenever i'm about to crack. it's a little more costly on the face of it, but it's a good shot of nicotine so it works for a while. one of the problems quitters will run into is that when they crack once they want another one almost right away; the cigars seem to mitigate that. more importantly, it has broken me of a lot of routines, like smoking after meals. to me, that's the harder part. i know nicotine is a physical addiction (meaning that coming off of it will produce physical effects, like drowsiness) but i don't really feel hooked on that level. it's more about breaking routine...
...and not drinking. i've always been a social drinker, so no people has meant no drinking. i mean, i spend most of my time reading, and i'd rather be sober for that. i prefer marijuana as a creative aid. what i'm about to do is uncharacteristic.
so, i can't claim i'm nicotine-free. but i *have* broken the routine, to the point where i can honestly state that i'm not a habitual smoker anymore.
which is all i really wanted to accomplish in the first place. i don't mind being a social smoker that specifically smokes around alcohol and marijuana. what i no longer wanted to be was a solo smoker. on that point, mission accomplished.
(meaning i'm not going to get too mad at myself if i buy a pack on christmas, just like i didn't get too mad when i bought a pack a few weeks ago when it was over 10 degrees, just as an excuse to hang out outside for the day. stuff like that is enjoying the drug, not being a slave to it.)
mom
Wow! That's Great!...Wish, I could have that much self-control!
jessica amber murray
i don't think it's a question of self-control so much as it's a question of doing what one wants. i kind of strongly believe that smokers smoke because they want to, not because they're zombies. the physical withdrawals are coercive, no doubt, but it comes down to wanting or not wanting to quit.
mom
Addiction Stinks!....And in the end it WILL TAKE CONTROL!.....DENIAL is an addicts BEST FRIEND.
jessica amber murray
well, sure. but the semantics break down when you speak of control. what i'm really doing is giving myself permission to indulge, not controlling myself from indulging.
i guess i have a level of broad consistency in my concept of "self-control" that goes into a lot of areas and that my perspective regarding drugs is more of a consequence of how i see things more broadly. consider governments and this idea that their laws dissuade anti-social behaviour, the idea that laws act as disincentives to control people's desires. this is an idea that is, i think, very wrong. sure, on the one hand, you have the logic of poverty that often triumphs over the laws of social order. circumstances where property crimes exist are often circumstances where it's logical for an impoverished person to steal something or otherwise break property laws. governments can produce laws to catch people when they do this, but the laws don't actually succeed in preventing property crime. they merely succeed in criminalizing poverty. rather, eliminating that sort of crime requires a lot of social work to both eliminate the conditions that lead to it as logical and to create a populace that sees it as morally wrong. once you get to that ideal point, preventing crime is less of a process of people controlling themselves from committing crimes and more of a process of people choosing not to behave in a way that is anti-social. that's the ideal.
the way we treat addiction is sort of a cop-out. i mean, i'm not denying that addicts need to admit their addictions. i agree that acknowledgement is the first step. but actually working through it is a process of transcending the desire, not repressing it.
i think it's possible to use drugs without abusing them.
with alcoholism (and for random readers, that's not something i feel i have a problem with), the way to get beyond it is not to have the "self-control" to avoid it but to develop a desire to be sober.
(and i think i'm being a little bit buddhist, but it's something i connect to accidentally and intuitively rather than consciously)
in a moral sense, i find buddhism more rational than western religion. in the west, we've fallen into a sort of false dichotomy between "master morality" and "slave morality". the irony is that the dude that developed that false dichotomy is also the dude that transferred a lot of eastern ideas into the western sphere. he completely missed the obvious synthesis that was sitting right in front of him.
you need to be careful studying buddhism in the west, though, because most of the literature is misinterpreted hippie nonsense. there's a danger of turning into a new age weirdo.
for example, avoid anything that tries to connect buddhism with science.
i kind of like the idea that "only lost people require religion". which is to say that walking into a church or a temple or a synagogue isn't likely to find you people that understand how to behave morally on an intuitive level, but people that are struggling with it. people that "get it" find the whole thing boring and trivial.
not to put myself above it or anything. not declaring myself perfect. but there's a lot of truth to it. and if one can separate the social help from the control and brainwashing [which is difficult, especially for people in fragile states], i'll accept it could have some value.
what i'd rather see, though, is a resurgence of secular social institutions that strip out the brainwashing. i think there's a really open space here for socialist thinkers to walk into and am not really sure why they haven't, given that it connects quite well to the idea that "the social revolution must come first".
....and, now, to attempt to have a few drinks without smoking any cigarettes. considering the temperature outside (along with my absolute aversion to indoor smoking), i think i'm likely to do well. we'll see.
regarding the smoking thing...
the packs have been almost entirely cut out. i've bought probably around ten packs, total, since the beginning of september. what i've been doing instead is falling back to these single cigars that can be picked up at the corner store for around $1 whenever i'm about to crack. it's a little more costly on the face of it, but it's a good shot of nicotine so it works for a while. one of the problems quitters will run into is that when they crack once they want another one almost right away; the cigars seem to mitigate that. more importantly, it has broken me of a lot of routines, like smoking after meals. to me, that's the harder part. i know nicotine is a physical addiction (meaning that coming off of it will produce physical effects, like drowsiness) but i don't really feel hooked on that level. it's more about breaking routine...
...and not drinking. i've always been a social drinker, so no people has meant no drinking. i mean, i spend most of my time reading, and i'd rather be sober for that. i prefer marijuana as a creative aid. what i'm about to do is uncharacteristic.
so, i can't claim i'm nicotine-free. but i *have* broken the routine, to the point where i can honestly state that i'm not a habitual smoker anymore.
which is all i really wanted to accomplish in the first place. i don't mind being a social smoker that specifically smokes around alcohol and marijuana. what i no longer wanted to be was a solo smoker. on that point, mission accomplished.
(meaning i'm not going to get too mad at myself if i buy a pack on christmas, just like i didn't get too mad when i bought a pack a few weeks ago when it was over 10 degrees, just as an excuse to hang out outside for the day. stuff like that is enjoying the drug, not being a slave to it.)
mom
Wow! That's Great!...Wish, I could have that much self-control!
jessica amber murray
i don't think it's a question of self-control so much as it's a question of doing what one wants. i kind of strongly believe that smokers smoke because they want to, not because they're zombies. the physical withdrawals are coercive, no doubt, but it comes down to wanting or not wanting to quit.
mom
Addiction Stinks!....And in the end it WILL TAKE CONTROL!.....DENIAL is an addicts BEST FRIEND.
jessica amber murray
well, sure. but the semantics break down when you speak of control. what i'm really doing is giving myself permission to indulge, not controlling myself from indulging.
i guess i have a level of broad consistency in my concept of "self-control" that goes into a lot of areas and that my perspective regarding drugs is more of a consequence of how i see things more broadly. consider governments and this idea that their laws dissuade anti-social behaviour, the idea that laws act as disincentives to control people's desires. this is an idea that is, i think, very wrong. sure, on the one hand, you have the logic of poverty that often triumphs over the laws of social order. circumstances where property crimes exist are often circumstances where it's logical for an impoverished person to steal something or otherwise break property laws. governments can produce laws to catch people when they do this, but the laws don't actually succeed in preventing property crime. they merely succeed in criminalizing poverty. rather, eliminating that sort of crime requires a lot of social work to both eliminate the conditions that lead to it as logical and to create a populace that sees it as morally wrong. once you get to that ideal point, preventing crime is less of a process of people controlling themselves from committing crimes and more of a process of people choosing not to behave in a way that is anti-social. that's the ideal.
the way we treat addiction is sort of a cop-out. i mean, i'm not denying that addicts need to admit their addictions. i agree that acknowledgement is the first step. but actually working through it is a process of transcending the desire, not repressing it.
i think it's possible to use drugs without abusing them.
with alcoholism (and for random readers, that's not something i feel i have a problem with), the way to get beyond it is not to have the "self-control" to avoid it but to develop a desire to be sober.
(and i think i'm being a little bit buddhist, but it's something i connect to accidentally and intuitively rather than consciously)
in a moral sense, i find buddhism more rational than western religion. in the west, we've fallen into a sort of false dichotomy between "master morality" and "slave morality". the irony is that the dude that developed that false dichotomy is also the dude that transferred a lot of eastern ideas into the western sphere. he completely missed the obvious synthesis that was sitting right in front of him.
you need to be careful studying buddhism in the west, though, because most of the literature is misinterpreted hippie nonsense. there's a danger of turning into a new age weirdo.
for example, avoid anything that tries to connect buddhism with science.
i kind of like the idea that "only lost people require religion". which is to say that walking into a church or a temple or a synagogue isn't likely to find you people that understand how to behave morally on an intuitive level, but people that are struggling with it. people that "get it" find the whole thing boring and trivial.
not to put myself above it or anything. not declaring myself perfect. but there's a lot of truth to it. and if one can separate the social help from the control and brainwashing [which is difficult, especially for people in fragile states], i'll accept it could have some value.
what i'd rather see, though, is a resurgence of secular social institutions that strip out the brainwashing. i think there's a really open space here for socialist thinkers to walk into and am not really sure why they haven't, given that it connects quite well to the idea that "the social revolution must come first".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)