i am totally nocturnal...

got your mail...

From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: grandmother’s email address

things are ok here. glad to hear things are better with leo.

my fancy, high end headphones broke but they're easy to fix (the cord is replaceable), so i should be able to send a check out on the first of december for them.

i kind of forgot about the mail. i've updated the address at the banks and odsp, so there shouldn't be any more bank stuff coming. the student loan people are going to want me to send them a form and update the address. i should update my address at carleton, too, as well as with cra. thanks.

i'm going to go with an internet phone that will be very cheap, but the number is just for local calls. really, i just need the phone so that i can get documents to cross the border with. otherwise, i wouldn't bother.

i've been working on uploading a lot of music i wrote in the 90s, and getting back to a website i've been working on. the goal is to get that done before the new year, then finish the projects i've left half done. i'm going to start looking for something part-time in the spring, as i'm going to be running up against an odsp review in the fall that i'm not certain will be renewed.

everything i've been doing is accessible from here:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/

i'm spending all my time alone, but i think i've needed the space, and i think i'm going to need a bit more.

i'll try to get that stuff cleared up on monday.

j

publishing eat my fuck (inri016)

this is something i did between inri demos. i needed a break from structured writing. just wanted to make some noise...

i suppose this is the biggest sample collage of them all, but it's best not to take it too seriously. the idea here eventually morphed into a project called "fuel true anarchy in the americas" (jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa), a play on the ftaa trade agreement, which itself got toned down in scope.

there's everything from science docs to hitler in here. it's meant to be a passive trip through real and imaginary time that is experienced with the aid of psychedelic drugs, rather than any kind of political statement. it's quite consciously absurd, often juxtaposing ironic statements with their contradictions.

the core of the ambience was produced by a program called sound raider. i then took the sound it created and shaped it by adding in vocal samples, looping certain parts, running things through effects, sequencing the noise into a more melodic shape, etc. it's consequently a sort of a collaboration between myself and the machine, rather than the work of the machine itself.

no sane person could really listen to this passively. you basically *need* drugs to get anything out of this at all.

...and i think i'm probably the only person that ever experienced it properly. hey, it's never too late...

created in the summer of 1998. released as a standalone ep on nov 16, 2013. as always, please use headphones.

this track also appears on my third record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous

credits

j - sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, flute
gauntk9 - anti-social quip

released july 1, 1998

ignorance is bliss (cynicide mix)

this was never meant to be recorded like this, only played live, usually drunk, but a friend of mine talked me into recording it for inclusion in a radio rock project we were hatching up. well, he was hatching up. i didn't really have much of an artistic investment in it, i just agreed to play bass, because my friend needed a bassist more than any other reason. he wanted this to be a "hidden song". i obliged.

however, he was a little taken aback by the result. he wanted it to be twangy and country, which indicated a misunderstanding of the content. it's comical on a surreal level, but it's not a cheap comedy skit. his ideas would have devalued it and that sort of pissed me off; my refusal to redo it pissed him off. this was part of the reason that the project never went anywhere, except to spark rabit iz wolf:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/rabit-iz-wolf

recorded in the spring of 2001. 

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/ignorance-is-bliss-cynicide-mix

hexonxonx (remix/cover for inrimake)

i put together a skinny puppy tribute disc over the summer of 1998 called 'the souls that create'. this was my contribution to that disc. the original version is found on skinny puppy's 1989 record 'rabies', which is better known as 'the one that al jourgenson fuckered up'.

it's based on a combination of reconstruction and sampling, with the vocals performed by a text-to-speech program.

for those curious, the walk/ogre version of dig it with the text-to-speech vocals was released a few weeks after this, and it's hard to think i had nothing to do with that.

recorded in july, 1998.   

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/hexonxonx

eat my fuck (original album mix)

this is something i did between inri demos. i needed a break from structured writing. just wanted to make some noise...

i suppose this is the biggest sample collage of them all, but it's best not to take it too seriously. the idea here eventually morphed into a project called "fuel true anarchy in the americas" (jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa), a play on the ftaa trade agreement, which itself got toned down in scope.

there's everything from science docs to hitler in here. it's meant to be a passive trip through real and imaginary time that is experienced with the aid of psychedelic drugs, rather than any kind of political statement. it's quite consciously absurd, often juxtaposing ironic statements with their contradictions.

the core of the ambience was produced by a program called sound raider. i then took the sound it created and shaped it by adding in vocal samples, looping certain parts, running things through effects, sequencing the noise into a more melodic shape, etc. it's consequently a sort of a collaboration between myself and the machine, rather than the work of the machine itself.

no sane person could really listen to this passively. you basically *need* drugs to get anything out of this at all.

...and i think i'm probably the only person that ever experienced it properly. hey, it's never too late...

recorded in june, 1998. 

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/eat-my-fuck-2

the phantom of the opera (remix/cover for inrimake)

recorded in june, 1998.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-phantom-of-the-opera-3  

wish (r2d2 mix)

i ran the track through a digital noise reduction and it came out sounding like this.

recorded in may, 1998.  

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/wish-r2d2-mix

the phantom of the washing machine

glitchy phantom backing tracks, with basement sounds.

recorded in may, 1998.  

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-phantom-of-the-washing-machine

slipping away (remix/cover for inrimake)

this is a reconstruction of a stabbing westward song that was meant for inclusion on a fan-made compilation that i'm not sure ever came together or not. it received positive feedback on the mailing list. it's not very similar to the original; really, this is so dramatically different from the original that it's reasonable to say something like that it's "inspired by" the original rather than a remix or a cover. it does contain creatively reinterpreted samples of the original.

recorded in may, 1998.  

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/slipping-away

why (wtf mix)

this is a glitchy, instrumental remix of the track 'why' that i only vaguely recall putting together.

recorded in april, 1998.  

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-wtf-mix

karl marx - critique of the gotha program

meh

you'll be forgiven for not knowing who ferdinand lassalle is, but i have to briefly explain who he is in order for you to understand what this is all about. lassalle was a shady character in the german labour movement that marx appears to have believed was a secret agent in the employ of the prussian government, and there is indeed evidence of covert communication between lassalle and no lower a junker than bismarck himself. marx seems to think his purpose was to align the labour movement with a docile form of liberalism that ultimately posed the prussian state no serious threat rather than with marx' socialist international, which most certainly did. as it interestingly turns out, lassalle became one of the primary philosophical guiding forces of the social democratic party of germany (sdp), which to this day remains the largest centre-left political force in germany. the text in question is a short, and very scathing, critique of the sdp's initial party constitution.

there are a couple of things underlying the rebuke. first, it's rather obvious that marx was trying to assert some influence over the new party. second, he appears to be trying to explain to the poor, brainwashed fools that what they're advocating, social democracy, is a liberal form of capitalism and not something that can be identified with socialism. his approach is to go through the five-point constitution, point by point, and offer clarifications, corrections, modifications and additions. it's almost like he's acting as an unwanted editor; as scathing as the criticism is, it's constructive.

unfortunately, it doesn't come off today as substantive. large portions of the short text deal with semantics and "corrections" of points that were almost certainly consciously worded as they are. given that marx' clear motive was not clarification but to take control of the process of writing the constitution, these semanticisms come off as as silly as they are, not to mention entirely void of integrity.

there are, however, a few points to take note of. the first is marx' approach to the concepts of equal rights and equal wages. marx claims that, when applied to a system built on inequality, equal rights will further that existing inequality. he also claims that equal wages will lead to inequality because everybody has different expense levels; some have several children, some have none, and to pay them equally would be to enforce a division. the conclusion is that in order to ensure true equality workers should be compensated at different levels relative to what they require and not at the same pay rate; "to each according to his needs.". the second is marx' clear opposition to state-run education, which many may find surprising but shouldn't given marx' views on the purpose of the state: "Government and church should rather be equally excluded from any influence on the school.".

in the essay, marx asks what a "free state" is and, while i recognize that he's being purposefully difficult, the reader may want to look up the history of a city such as lubeck to understand the context of the term as it was initially used before falling into marx' trap.

in the end, it may be worth noting that, as loudly as marx may pontificate, he is truly the one that should be taking notes; for every society that languishes under the tyranny of the dictatorship of the proletariat, there exists a democratic socialist near utopia.

additional notes:

- "one sees that such hollow phrases can be twisted and turned as desired". indeed, that's what marx is doing here. as mentioned, marx is primarily upset that he is not the author of the text - that the text takes in the ideas of a multitude of leftist thinkers, rather than merely his own. it's worth restating that this reaction is primarily about marx' ego, rather than the contents of the gotha program. he often attacks points merely for the purpose of attacking the points, simply because they aren't *his* points; the result is often trivial, when it isn't banal or even taking things completely out of context in order to "twist and turn". when the program *does* legitimately disagree with marx, he takes on a deeply condescending professorial sort of tone. rather than accept disagreement at face value, he treats dissent as a type of ignorance. a critical analysis of marx' critique should consequently begin with the primary intent of deconstructing his ego, leaving political analysis as a secondary concern.

- "this is the law of all history hitherto.". marx is trying to enforce his silly pseudo-scientific theory of "historical materialism" as though it is a natural law. it's kind of funny, really. see, improving society through reformist approaches like democratic socialism is impossible because of the natural law of historical materialism, which states that workers-->poverty as t-->infinity. never mind empirical study. scandinavia? yeah, i bet you think unicorns exist, too. pshaw. marx has spoken, and it is good.

- marx reacts badly to terms like "useful labour" and "proceeds of labour", fearful that lassalle's junker-penned hidden agenda may be to set up a sort of producerist state that divides the proletariat into a conflict between "workers" and "non-workers". i hope my precise choice of language does not upset karl's ego. now, in hindsight, considering nazism and stalinism, it may seem like he had a point that's worth listening to. however, it seems to me as though the distinction is made to clarify that certain types of labour, such as art, are not social in nature and ought not to be socialized. i think this discussion is better had in german than in english as any subtleties in the language would be clarified; i can't meaningfully have this discussion with myself through a haze of translation, and this is partly why i avoided discussing the critique in more depth in the first place. the critique is based on subtleties of language that likely did not make it through translation....although i suspect it would come off as more rather than less banal in it's original german. anyways, this is a real distinction that needs to be met with head on. i believe that karl stated on numerous occasions that artists are not members of the proletariat - by definition, it is clear that they are not, because they do not sell their labour. yet, is art not a creation of labour? in a worker's state, might there be a fear that art may be cast aside as useless labour, that artists may be forced to work in factories? would it not be valuable to state otherwise in the party constitution so that the matter is settled and artists are not attacked as bourgeois idlers? to be clear: marx makes a compelling argument against the dangers of producerism. reaching the text's highest points of banality, he carefully fills in the accounting holes that the program obviously assumes will be dealt with later on. however mundane it may be, it's at least a valid addition to the program. however, the rhetoric justifying this addition reads off like the ravings of an outlandish conspiracy theorist when compared to the translation i have in front of me, which seems designed to uphold artistic freedom rather than to stigmatize "useless eaters" as a waste of resources.

- marx also goes on a tirade about how the program does not incorporate the concept of a dictatorship of the proletariat. rather than consider that the authors of the program may not want to live in a worker's dictatorship, he accuses them of not understanding the natural science of historical materialism. once again, the modern reader has no option but to snicker; it's enough to write marx off as a fringe lunatic.

- marx interestingly suggests that switzerland - then and now a bastion of anarcho-capitalism - is the model for the state of the future. lassalle's vision is responsible for the modern-day social democracies in scandinavia. it opens an interesting question: if marx were alive today, would he still prefer the swiss model over the scandinavian one? is this an example of marx' liberal individualism dominating his thought, or is it just horrifically bad foresight?

- i must admit that marx does make a good point when he argues against the 'bourgeois' freedom of conscience. why it's 'bourgeois' isn't stated. it would be more consistent for him to write it off as 'aristocratic' - but now i'm guilty of the same thing marx is in this polemic. he suggests that socialists should focus on the goal of 'liberating the conscience from the witchery of religion' and leave 'freedom of conscience' to the liberals. he's unquestionably right; so long as religion exists, it will continue to prevent us from reaching communism. this is something that the left ought to remember as it reconstructs itself.

- one of the better examples of how marx' ego is blinding his brain, here, is his argument that a prohibition on child labour is not just impossible due to it being against the interests of capital (and, yet, most countries today ban child labour...) but would be reactionary if it were possible.

- there's a scary part at the end of the text, where marx suggests that labour should not be "deprived" of criminals, but rather used as a means of their "betterment". one wonders if marx had prison camps in mind.

full text:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/index.htm

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/books/congress/HX/276.M283/index.html