feb 18th, 2019:
so, i've now got all of those boxes properly organized and put away. there's one stack of cds and one box of books left out for easy access, which is very specifically books and cds from the period up to mid-1997, which is the next period i'll be working on in the alter-reality.
the last run through the main pc (i keep calling it that, but it is now merely the 32-bit box) is now done, as well. this included a final browse through the directory structure for loose files, as well as an attempt to undelete any files sitting on the drive.
and, in the process, i found something i thought i had lost - a file called archive.pst, dated to late 2011. it was hiding in the virtual machine, and had to be brought back using a file recovery utility. this might be my missing email. or, it might be corrupted beyond readability. i'll find out over the next few days.
i found a few other large psts as well, with dcxx file names, indicating they're likely unreadable. we'll find out...
that means i'm back to the email process this week.
there's two things left to do before i can get back to sitting on the laptop and organizing files for the rebuild. i want to run the same file recovery process on my old quantum fireball, in the hopes that i can find some old thunderbird boxes. i suspect they're there; the question is if they're readable. i'm also still running an undelete process on two relatively old hard drives that don't have vista/7 drivers and can only be read from inside xp, but that i can't get my 32-bit box to read, either (because i broke the plug and play on purpose). so, this is running on the 90s laptop - and is slow. it's getting there.
a day or two, tops. i think.
i also took the opportunity to do some organizing and general cleaning. i can't remember how i described this basement apartment; i know there are neither pictures nor video up yet, which is quite conscious. but, it's organized in such a way that there are two bedroom-like enclaves (with sliding doors that are kept always open), but no dining room or eat-in kitchen (there is of course a kitchen, with the luxury of laundry in it, and a bathroom). the way i have it set up is that i'm using one of these enclaves as a bedroom and the other as a dining/living room, then using the main area as a studio. something you'll note is that the only thing i actually do in the "living" room is eat - i spend almost all of my time in my bedroom or in the studio. i guess this is a function of the fact that i neither watch tv nor have any friends. my "living room" is really the studio. i think i was over this a few times last year - the actual functions of the spaces i need are to sleep/type/read, to record and to eat. so, i need three rooms, organized in some capacity. the last basement had four rooms, with the fourth being a big eat-in kitchen, but i didn't actually use it for anything other than to store garbage; i ate in the living room. the smoky apartment had two rooms, and i consequently found it a little cramped, as i had to force everything into one space. three is a better number, here - even if the total floor space is technically somewhat smaller (it's a negligible difference).
for the last several months, i've just had everything piled into the other room, waiting for it to be cleaned - loose plastic recyclables, receipts, user manuals, books, cds, bills, documents, old school work, etc. i've finally got all of this cleaned up and organized, which has converted the area into an actual liveable space. the studio is still messy, but it is at least in order - although i need to caution that it could be a while before i get back into there. even keeping in mind that i will need to catch up in the alter-reality before i get back to working on the discography, the material from 2003-2004 is actually entirely completed (a rarity in my discography), meaning the next projects to reconstruct actually date to late 2004 and early 2005. the next major project i'm going to be actually working on is a matlab project, and is going to be about programming, rather than recording - i'm going to be writing an entire record using mathematics and physical modelling. i've got about 15 minutes to start with and a handful of loose ideas to base sounds around. expect this to be exceedingly abstract. i may even use it as an excuse to finally get into reaktor or whatever passes for it nowadays; the point is that i'm not going to be getting back to actual note-based music composition until i delve well more than a year back into the discography.
i'm still hesitant about planning around this basement, but my best option may be to wait for a spot in a subsidized building. the air quality comes up and down, but seems to be workable so long as the fan is on. i've done a few extra caulking layers and think i've reached the endpoint of what i can do with that. i still just can't figure out if there's a teenager upstairs smoking, or the air in the neighbourhood is just bad, all around...and, if i can figure out the answer to this, i'll be able to plan the future a little better.
i think i can get a few shelves, regardless - one for cds and one for books. the plan will be to fill these shelves as i work through the alter-reality. i don't need to commit to this basement long-term to spend $40-50 on some relevant general utility shelving. but, i'll need to wait until the spring before i start thinking about hauling shelves around; that's fine, it'll be a few weeks, at least, before i get there. i'm not building custom shelves like i wanted to in the other space, and am glad i didn't.
i think the primary concern once i get these files aligned is actually going to be fixing the broken laptop, one way or the other. i bought parts for it, only to have the processor finally fry. if i can't find a way to bring it back, i'm hoping i can find a cheap replacement and swap out the parts. this is an hp pavillion that was manufactured in the 2010-2012 period. you'd think i could find a replacement that can take similar parts for less than $200, and that's fine - i still have cash my grandmother gave me for that explicit purpose. the price has just come down since then. i'll be using such a laptop - with 8 gb of ram - as a video editing machine, kept offline, and connected to one of the other machines via a local network. i'll have to transfer the files to the internet gateway via some kind of flash device.
so, that's my update for the last few days - i'm kind of turning a corner on some things, and getting closer to getting back to the rebuild. so long as things unfold as planned, this will be worth it in the long run.
now, regarding these court cases...
still no response from the cops. this was day 108 of the 120-day statutory period. they're running out of time. so, i sent them a note.
i'm still waiting for the privacy commissioner, but will give them until the end of the month.
the file destruction request, on the other hand, is something i'm getting impatient about - i should have heard a response by now and will need to get on the phone shortly.
i'm waiting for the report from the cops before i decide on what to do regarding the court audio. you have to understand that i could sue this woman and win, then never see the cash, so i'm better off suing the cops under a charter breach. but, the thing is that there's no time frame on a charter case, and about a year-long time frame regarding a human rights case. so, i can wait for the cops to drag the charter case out, but i can't wait for them to drag the human rights case out.
if it starts to look like the cops are just stalling - and it's getting close to that point - then i'm going to have to move forward on the human rights case. but, if i get a good report, i might skip it.
the point is that i'm waiting for the report before i make my next move, whatever it is.
mar 2, 2019:
so, i've finally reached a pivot point, and there's going to be a slight change of plans.
i have now copied every file that i can find - from laptops, external drives, usb keys, cds, dvds, etc - on to the new external drive, and organized everything by year. it's very rough, and there's a lot of overlap, but it is all in roughly the correct place. so, the next thing ought to be to restart on the rebuild, and quickly run through 2013-2016, with the intent to get back to where i was.
....except that i'm deciding that the process is incomplete, in the greater context, and want to rewind back to 1993. 1993!? yes - 1993. and, why 1993?
i started in mid-1996 for a couple of reasons. it was early 2016 when i decided to switch directions, my first demos were from the summer of 1996 and my earliest memories of internet access were from mid-1996. a lot of things added up with that. but, at the same time, i was picking up a story halfway, one that had undefined bounds. now that the bounds are better defined - the current story begins in mid-2013 when i moved to windsor, meaning the alter-reality ends in mid-2013, with an intended completion date of mid-2033 - it makes sense to pull the alter-reality back to 1993, to allow for some symmetry in the process.
that would mean the alter-reality will run from the summer of 1993 to the summer of 2013, in the end.
there's some other reasons for this. the earliest files i have are dated to 1995, but i have pictures going back to the 80s, and i wanted to find some way to work some of these things in to the story. starting in 1993 lets me do that. i also wanted to do reviews of records and books from 1993-1996, which was actually the most formative years of my life - starting over again in mid 1993 means i'm starting in the summer between grade 6 and 7, which is of course right before i went to junior high school. if we're going to do a portrait of this artist, that's a better place to start.
but, if i didn't get online until 1996, at the earliest, how am i going to have a journal from 1993?
what i'm going to do is split it off into a separate blog that will run strictly from 1993-1996. i will be sorting through some papers over the christmas break of 1996 and find an old journal and decide it would be neat to put it online. so, the mechanism is that i'll be typing in a journal that i had already written up by hand. when it's done, it will exist in a standalone file.
what that means is that i'm going to be thrusting myself back into the alter-reality almost immediately; i just need to spend another day or two organizing all of these files, first, before i get to posting to the new journal, dated to july 15, 1993. i'll push forward with this as i push forward with the rebuild, until it connects back together in early 1996.
i'm going to try and be as honest as i can as i run through this. i have the benefit of a lot of hindsight, and i'm not going to pretend i can be a 12 year-old again, but people go through a lot at that age, and i'm going to try and get down as much as i can. some of these things will no doubt surprise you. it's been so long, that i may even end up surprising myself.
i am obviously a different person today than i was then, as we all are.
but, in a lot of surface ways, not much has changed - i spent most of the summer between grades six and seven awake at odd hours, in my room reading, specifically through the stephen king catalogue, iirc. i had no friends at all over this period, as i prepared to go to a new school that none of them were going to go to. i'll have to start off with a broad statement around that. i was living with my mother during this period, which is something i haven't talked much about. i played some guitar, but was not really into alternative rock music yet - i listened to a lot of what was called "college rock" during those years, as well as a lot of pop music. there was no computer around, but i had a big tv in my room that was either tuned to muchmusic or to conan. we'll have to go through the process of moving from mom to dad in mid '94. so, that was life and how to live it, and where we're starting over again with this...
i wouldn't be doing this if i didn't think it was going to be worthwhile.
and, we'll say that dad got a scanner for christmas.
(some further posts....)
mar 3, 2019:
you know, i'm racking my brain for actual books that i read in grades 7 and 8 - and even 9 - and i'm not able to come up with anything. i remember being given photographed handouts and asked questions around an ability to prove very basic comprehension, or being asked to read short texts and then produce an opinion piece around it. but, i don't think anybody ever handed out books to us and told us to read them.
i went to both elementary school and high school under the rae/peterson curriculum (harris won when i was in high school, and didn't succeed in changing the curriculum until the year after i'd left), and i'm learning just now that it was kind of an experiment. i did not receive any actual marks until grade 10; my high school transcript, which i still have, simply states "completed" for grade 9. i have records of standardized testing where i scored in the 95th-99th percentile, but i don't have grades for these years.
what i remember about the report cards is that they had a long list of criteria, and you'd be evaluated on a points system, with 1 the highest and i think 6 the lowest. this was just the teacher's arbitrary, completely subjective opinion. i remember getting lots of 1s in english and math, 2s or 3s in phys ed and some pretty low marks in the "shows respect for authority" and "works well with others" categories. even my university profs would have scrawled "does not work well with others" on my report cards if given the chance, and i'm not particularly embarrassed about it - i don't work well with others, and i don't want to, either.
i'm not even sure i can pick out much of anything of shape in these years really at all. we were split into classes that taught core subjects, and then shipped into different rooms for specific topics. so, i remember having a science teacher, a french teacher, a geography teacher, a music teacher, a phys ed teacher, a home ec teacher, a history teacher and then a kind of general "grade 7 teacher" that was tasked with everything else, which i guess is math, religion and english. but, that really meant that the curriculum was focused on the peripheral subjects due to the more rigid scheduling, and that math & english were largely unstructured babysitting periods with a lot of pointless busy work. when we went to geography class, or phys ed, we were there for a short period with a defined curriculum; when we went back to the general class room, the teacher could organize it any way they wanted to, or not at all, which was often the actual reality.
so, the system put more of a priority on learning french or geography than it did on learning math or english. we did regular spelling bees in grade 8 english class. and, i don't really remember taking math in grade 7 at all. grade 9 was more structured, in the sense that there were separate math and english classes, but i still didn't get graded, and i still don't remember reading any actual books. i explicitly remember reading shakespeare, but we read it orally in the classroom. and, there's a text called the chrysalids that i can't otherwise place that i might drop into grade 9.
of course, there's some possibility that i don't remember any reading projects because i was so efficient with them. there's a few texts from later in high school that i remember putting off until the last minute and then reading through in an afternoon. there's certainly some possibility that i just devoured it so violently that it never really got digested. but, the thing is that i liked reading, so i don't know why that would have been true.
i think the truth is that i was mostly baby sat all the way to the end of grade 9, and consequently don't have a lot to report on.
if i remember something, i'll insert it, but i think the way we're going to do this is that i'll be doing independent reading over these years, instead.
i've otherwise got the media i have organized, which is not a lot - a couple of king books, some arthur c. clarke and a few records from u2, rem, bryan adams, peter gabriel, gowan, genesis and the barenaked ladies.
i left a lot of books at my mom's place when i moved out, and sold a bunch more before i went to bc. as i've now sorted through everything, the only thing left is to hope i can get something from the carleton archives, or a fortunecity mirror or something. i know there was a list, i just don't have it.
if i'm going to rebuild the books, i'll need to go through the king, pick up a bunch of science fiction (a fair amount of asimov, a bunch of clarke, some bradbury), some tom clancy, some dean koontz, some mark twain and, yes, some ayn rand. my dead uncle is responsible for that. they told me they found him in the bathroom of a hostel in victoria, dead of an apparent aneurysm; i assumed it was drug related, but that was never confirmed, and i never asked. he was in his early 40s. selfishness as a virtue can bite you in the end, huh?
i'm sure i'll remember some more...
music wise, i'll need to get some michael jackson. what's the status on buying a michael jackson record in 2019? is it alright if it's just going to his...well, it's not even actually his kid, is it? i dunno. see, i got into mj through weird al, though. and, i lost interest after dangerous, for obvious reasons. but, my ten-year old self was really much more interested in black or white than nirvana. we grow quickly at that age, though.
i also had a bit of a bon jovi phase, which i'll defend on the basis that they weren't as bad as their peers. if the criticism is that bon jovi were hair metal, it's actually a bit off the mark - they weren't this pompous, ridiculous, materialistic, nihilistic marketing behemoth, but rather a kind of working class band from new jersey, with a contemporary sound. they were at least as punk rock as springsteen, anyways. and, they actually had a kind of synth pop center, too, which is where i really came from - tears for fears, gabriel, genesis.
i guess that's the missing part of it, stuff my dad or uncle dubbed me. i had a cassette with a day at the races on one side and a night at the opera on the other. i had beatles tapes, genesis tapes, and an out of place dub of animals that it took me years to get into, because it wasn't what i was looking for. i was very young - 8 or 9 - when somebody at chez decided to toss on one of these days for a lark, at like 2:00 am, while i was in the car on the way back from a road trip with my step-father. i was pretty instantly intrigued. the announcer mentioned it was floyd, but didn't elaborate - it was presumably not necessary. tony, to his immense discredit, couldn't identify the track, either. there was a copy of delicate sound of thunder around, but it was missing the second side. so, i asked around for years trying to figure out what the song was. the dead uncle decided i was describing the vocal effects in sheep and dubbed me a copy of animals, which i just found a little too meandering at that age - it hit me like a grateful dead record, just not enough movement for a young mind. my dad never had a copy of meddle, either. it wasn't for years that i found it in a torrent...
"aha! there's that crazy bass part!"
anyways. i have my work for the next little while set aside. it's time to start doing it.
the first post is going to be in the "dear diary, so much has happened..." format. and, we'll go from there. i might be back into the stand by the end of the night.....
i left a lot of books at my mom's place when i moved out, and sold a bunch more before i went to bc. as i've now sorted through everything, the only thing left is to hope i can get something from the carleton archives, or a fortunecity mirror or something. i know there was a list, i just don't have it.
if i'm going to rebuild the books, i'll need to go through the king, pick up a bunch of science fiction (a fair amount of asimov, a bunch of clarke, some bradbury), some tom clancy, some dean koontz, some mark twain and, yes, some ayn rand. my dead uncle is responsible for that. they told me they found him in the bathroom of a hostel in victoria, dead of an apparent aneurysm; i assumed it was drug related, but that was never confirmed, and i never asked. he was in his early 40s. selfishness as a virtue can bite you in the end, huh?
i'm sure i'll remember some more...
music wise, i'll need to get some michael jackson. what's the status on buying a michael jackson record in 2019? is it alright if it's just going to his...well, it's not even actually his kid, is it? i dunno. see, i got into mj through weird al, though. and, i lost interest after dangerous, for obvious reasons. but, my ten-year old self was really much more interested in black or white than nirvana. we grow quickly at that age, though.
i also had a bit of a bon jovi phase, which i'll defend on the basis that they weren't as bad as their peers. if the criticism is that bon jovi were hair metal, it's actually a bit off the mark - they weren't this pompous, ridiculous, materialistic, nihilistic marketing behemoth, but rather a kind of working class band from new jersey, with a contemporary sound. they were at least as punk rock as springsteen, anyways. and, they actually had a kind of synth pop center, too, which is where i really came from - tears for fears, gabriel, genesis.
i guess that's the missing part of it, stuff my dad or uncle dubbed me. i had a cassette with a day at the races on one side and a night at the opera on the other. i had beatles tapes, genesis tapes, and an out of place dub of animals that it took me years to get into, because it wasn't what i was looking for. i was very young - 8 or 9 - when somebody at chez decided to toss on one of these days for a lark, at like 2:00 am, while i was in the car on the way back from a road trip with my step-father. i was pretty instantly intrigued. the announcer mentioned it was floyd, but didn't elaborate - it was presumably not necessary. tony, to his immense discredit, couldn't identify the track, either. there was a copy of delicate sound of thunder around, but it was missing the second side. so, i asked around for years trying to figure out what the song was. the dead uncle decided i was describing the vocal effects in sheep and dubbed me a copy of animals, which i just found a little too meandering at that age - it hit me like a grateful dead record, just not enough movement for a young mind. my dad never had a copy of meddle, either. it wasn't for years that i found it in a torrent...
"aha! there's that crazy bass part!"
anyways. i have my work for the next little while set aside. it's time to start doing it.
the first post is going to be in the "dear diary, so much has happened..." format. and, we'll go from there. i might be back into the stand by the end of the night.....
mar 6, 2019:
i only have three stephen king books left on my shelf.
1) the tommyknockers
2) the bachman books (rage, the long walk, roadwork, the running man)
3) the stand (complete & uncut)
but, i had a big list of them, which also included:
- carrie
- salem's lot
- the shining
- night shift (short stories)
- the dead zone
- firestarter
- cujo
- danse macabre
- different seasons (shawshank redemption, apt pupil, the body, the breathing method)
- pet semetary
- the talisman
- thinner
- skeleton crew (short stories)
- it
- misery
- the dark half
- four past midnight (the langoliers, secret window secret garden, the library policeman, the sun dog)
- needful things
- gerald's game
- dolores clairborne
- nightmares & dreamscapes
i never read christine, and regretted it. the only other thing that's missing here is the dark tower series, which i skipped on purpose. that is otherwise an almost entirely complete stephen king bibliography, up to the end of 1993.
i'm not exaggerating - i went through all of this stuff over the years 92-94. that's like 10,000 pages of stephen king, mostly in the middle of the night. the move from my mom's to my dad's was the summer of 1994, and while there were some perks attached to it, i initially had to give up my all night reading habit because he would actually storm downstairs and tell me go to fucking sleep, whereas my mom was herself usually up all night chain smoking and watching tv. i also became much more interested in the guitar after mid-94.
am i going to buy all of those books? yeah. and, i'm going to move through this sequentially.
i don't know how much these cost, nowadays. you used to be able to get them at the drug store for $5. let's see what i can get shipped to me. and, i'll have to hit the local used stores afterwards.
but, i'm going to start with asimov, because that's more primordial for me. even as i'm pointing out that i don't remember doing a single book report from grades 7-9, i know i did a book report on the foundation series in grade five. i was in a split 5/6 class, so i didn't have english class in grade six (and didn't have math class in grade five). in hindisght, it is baffling, but my mom freely sent me to that school solely because it had a large yard. yeah. the foundation series was recommended to me by the teacher, and i ended up reading a bunch of his other stuff. asimov died in 1992 with a massive bibliography, but i remember these specifically:
- the complete robot
- caves of steel
- naked sun
- robots of dawn
- robots and empire
- the stars, like dust
- currents of space
- pebble in the sky
- prelude to foundation
- forward the foundation <----did not read this one
- foundation
- foundation and empire
- second foundation
- foundations edge <----- that was the book report
- foundation and earth
so, i read through that over 1992-1993. i should collect it all, and review it all as a starting point. all i have right now is foundation and empire, and a book of short stories called the martian way.
what else did i mention?
arthur c. clarke.
i had:
- 2001: a space odyssey
- 2010: odyssey two
- 2061: odyssey three
- songs of distant earth
- tales from planet earth
my grandmother bought me these books by accident, starting around 91. she was trying to buy me greek mythology, to have me understand my name sake. i don't think she ever read any homer herself, nor had my mother, but she was trying to give me a story about jason and the argonauts, by giving me what she thought was the odyssey. d'oh? well, i enjoyed them, nonetheless, so she kept buying them. i eventually read both some plato and homer in high school, as well as some aristophanes in first year. fuck aristotle.
the only one i have left is songs of distant earth, which helpfully is dated to the christmas of 1993. so, we can go through that one together for an early '94 post.
bradbury.
- the martian chronicles
- farenheit 451 <----- not actually, but if i'm going to do this...
- a medicine for melancholy
- r is for rocket
- i sing the body electric
- dinosaur tales
i remember the bradbury a lot less. i know i at least flipped through these ones.
i do remember some specific hg wells:
- time machine
- island of dr moreau
- war of the worlds
and also some jules verne:
- journey to the centre of the earth
- twenty thousand leagues under the sea
the wells & verne were probably the result of the influence of my aunt on my mother and grandmother, who was an english major at mcgill in this period.
i'm going to push the clancy, koontz & rand forward a few years, because my memory of it is specifically connected to my dad's house. there was some crichton, too.
there would have also been some twain read over this period, again thanks to nana:
- tom sawyer (daa-da da-daaaa)
- prince & pauper
- huck finn
what else?
we'll skip the shell silverstein. that sidewalk has ended.
i was given a copy of james and the giant peach, but i...i want to say i was too old for it, but i actually probably wasn't. i felt too old for it. frankly, i thought it was a stupid thing to waste one's time with, and didn't bother with it very far. i remember reading through about half of it one night when held physically hostage by my grandmother due to a babysitting task due to not having anything else to do, and i just found myself ridiculing roald dahl at the age of, like, 9. i never found myself immersed in fantasy novels - never went for the tolkien or the lucas or really any of that stuff. as soon as you started bringing in, like, elves and shit, i lost interest.
the purpose of this post is to build a list, and we will probably leave a lot of this behind. i'm going to start with asimov, check prices, and move from there.
----
so, should i be buying physical books in 2019?
well, i still like to hold a book, and part of the point of this is to rebuild the shelf, after years of neglect. i'm not sure that this overpowers the unnecessary environmental effects of actually buying books at this stage in history, though.
i should probably look at this the same way that i look at clothes, and am increasingly looking at cds: i should be looking towards used books almost exclusively.
am i apprehensive about buying used books online? yeah. it's easy to lose a few pages. and, i should also be seeking to minimize transportation costs.
it's been a while since i've hit the used book stores in windsor.
it looks like it may be nice on sunday.
-----
well, it cost me $212.79, which works out to $15.10/book, but it should all be here by monday, with the exception of the complete robot, which should be here within three weeks.
the complete robot was $36, and i got tricked - i had my default address set to the ups store in detroit, which would have been free shipping. i agreed to the transaction, then got dinged on shipping into canada, which ended up as $15. you'll note it would cost me $10 to get back and forth anyways, but i might have found a cheaper seller. this particular text appears to be scarce in canada, but i could have probably taken it down a little. $5-7 or something.
so, if you take that one out, the average is more like $13.65, which is reasonable, considering everything is shipping.
and, the way we'll do this is that i'll have just read through the asimov texts - that will be the starting point of the blog, a total review of the greater foundation series.
+ more posts:
mar 13, 2019
a man for all seasons / thomas more's utopia. grade 8. that's clear. but, it was handed out in loose leaf, i think. i also vaguely recall some kind of shakespeare for grade 8. i guess we did shakespeare every year almost - hamlet, macbeth, merchant of venice, romeo & juliet, henry viiii, a mid...yeah. that was eight. midsummer night's dream. i remember the plays relatively well, but i always took shakespeare as a chore, and it's not well-ordered in time in my mind. i think the merchant was 9, romeo & juliet was 10, macbeth was 11 and hamlet was 12, but that could be completely wrong. i have a vague recollection of something atwood as well. and some sherlock holmes, too....
well, that's something, anyways.
it's the old english, that was my issue with shakespeare. i know a lot of people like it for that reason, but, to me, shakespeare should be catalogued with chaucer - it's a mild degree of separation, and well past the point of incomprehension; it's far enough back in time, now, that a translator really ought to be deployed. it just struck me as needlessly frustrating. but, i was a kid that liked to read, so i think i would have enjoyed it much more had they just translated it for me. we'll see how i react to it the second time over...
grade seven is still a dead block, but my teacher got fired early in the year and the class kind of fell through the cracks. after five or six substitutes that were sequentially brought in as babysitters, they finally hired one. we lost at least half the year. but, i'm remembering a grade 7 "english textbook" that was all highlightered up from previous use, and a really boring story by a gordon something that was in the textbook. this was just painful to trudge through - enough to make a kid hate reading for life. this is the consequence of the "canadian content" requirements, and a teacher that didn't really give a fuck. so, i think what i need to find is the textbook. english class at that point no doubt had an actual language component, which was no doubt the focus of the textbook.
was there a grade eight "english textbook" with excerpts in it? i'm thinking that's the answer, and why my memories are so dismal around it. my grade eight teacher was a rather finicky old woman, and she may have photocopied the textbook out of fears we'd spill juice on it.
i wouldn't mind trying to track down the math & science textbooks from high school, while i'm at it.
that just randomly vomited up on me, which is how this often works. i've been offline for the last few days, because i've had difficulties staying awake. i'm still filing; it should be done, but i've been sleeping 20 hours a day. the air quality in here has just collapsed, but it's only in the one room, leading me to wonder if it's mostly the window, after all.
i'm going to get some more coal the next time i'm out and see if it helps a little.
the first asimov text is here from the uk, but dhl made a scan error and is trying to charge me customs on a purchase under $20. it should be here as soon as that is ironed out, so i could in theory get started this week.
but, not with the air quality like this, i won't. i'm going to have to get to the bottom of this - as of right now, i'm basically in the same problem i was in before.
i can't and don't want to live the life of a lethargic drug addict.
mar 14, 2019
so, i've carefully filed this properly, backwards, to may, 2003, which is the point where things get messy, as everything for the two-three years previously dates to those burns from before i left. i will need to go through the may folder - which includes thousands of genealogical records - and pull out as much stuff from before it as possible.
i stopped to run a scandisk on the drive, just in case. it's a 2 tb drive; that's going to take the rest of the night.
i've also decided that i'm going to create that music blog after all. i think i really don't have another option at this point, as i'm going to need to cross-reference too much data, and it's the only remaining piece.
in terms of how to do this, i'm also going to move in terms of semesters, anchored by the alter-reality. if i try to do this day-by-day or even week-by-week, it will get impossible. so, i'll start with the second half of 2013, then go back and do the second half of 1993. that just extends the journal launch date that much more, but not by much - this is already done, i'm really just double-checking it. with the music blog - reviews, comments - it should become comprehensive. and, i know that's what people actually want...
my robot book should be here in the morning.
still 403s on the tripod site :(
and, i'm otherwise going to nap.
july 14, 2019
so, i'm getting itchy and getting impatient and wanting to move on. if i move in periods, and i know i do, i'm getting ready to move to the next one after somewhat of a break.
my plans to have an alter-reality staggered over twenty years have been essentially ruined by legal battles that are of little fault of my own. i left off at the end of 1996, and would have to run through three years at this point. this really defeats the purpose of actually doing it; the purpose was to run through in real time.
that said, i do not want to permanently close these releases until the journal is written. that is, i don't want to discard the concept. so, what do i do?
i'm going to change the time frame, again. i don't have any other choice, really.
so, the alter-reality is now staggered by thirty years instead of twenty, meaning it's mid-1989 in the alter-reality, and i'm only eight years old. i was neither writing in a journal, nor reading books, nor playing guitar at that point. so, there won't be any further entries for a few more years, at least.
but, what that means is that i'll be able to run through the entire 90s in one piece as it comes up, in real-time. and then the 00s. the cut-off point remains mid-2013.
i'm going to continue pushing forward with the blog from that point forward, in the format i've been pushing. so, expect me to fill out entries from 2013 to noow and release them over noise trade in the format i have been releasing them in.
and, then i'm going to get back to actually recording.
this week, i need to write some legal papers. if i'm lucky, this process should get me on the right step forwards to having the conditions required to finish the discography.
---
that means that when the alter-reality comes up in 2021 or 2022, it should come up over here:
https://thejournalofj.blogspot.com/
and, i'll want to actually stick to it this time.
---
...and, in the mean-time, let's hope i can get through 2003-2006, at least.
---
the nice thing about bandcamp is that you can always redownload an album once you buy it, even if i add tracks to it.
so, i'm going to build the liner notes and leave them in progress, meaning that if you buy the download you'll get the notes that exist, until they're done. that means that i should be able to start closing them in real-time starting in 2026.
events. shit happens. this is what it is.
i just don't want to sit down and do a memoir off the top of my head; i'm going to forget things, it won't be organic, etc. doing it in real-time means i'll have time to work it out, plan it through, etc.
so, i was going to flip back to the journal i found over christmas break, 1996, which would have started in mid-1993, between grades 6 and 7. i switched schools at the time, as is normal to do. but, now i can maybe start between grades two and three, which is when i switched elementary schools on the recommendation of my very silly mother, who was obsessed about there being a playground (even though i tended to spend my recesses in the library). what year is that?
summer of 1993 --->7
1992--->6
1991--->5
1990--->4
1989---->3
so, i'd have to start in the fall, i guess.
that's not so crazy. it won't be my main focus, but it'll give me some more time to read through all these old books and write these old reviews.
so.
1) legal documents.
2) rebuild and organize from 2013-2017. i keep pointing out that this should be a relatively quick process, i just haven't been back at it for a few months, now. soon.
3) back to recording, including getting right into the alter-reality, it seems.
http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019_07_14_archive.html
august 1, 2019
so, where am i on the rebuild?
i've posted all of the damaged cds. there's a few more days of setting the apartment up, but a lot of what is left is the scripts, so i think i should run through it a little quicker when i get back to it. i start reposting inri000 at the end of the month, so i should get some liner notes up for the october and november journals, and when that happens i hope you'll see what the actual point of this is.
as mentioned previously, i'm rebooting the alter-reality, so the notes that come up for now will just be for 2013-2018. it wasn't initially clear how i was going to do this, but it now makes sense for me to say that i can and will stop this process, for now, at the beginning of 2018, with the end of the fifth reconstruction phase. i guess i'll want to do a quick archive, but i can stop the rebuild there, until i get done the next phase.
i'm going to get through this before i start making more calls about the report, which should be in the mail.
for right now, i'm going to get something to eat, watch the debates when i'm eating and take a hot shower to warm the place up a little bit.
sept 27, 2019
what did i even to today? this was a bad month, in terms of productivity, really.
i can't get it back.
but, i need to pivot dramatically and really focus. i've been scatter-brained far too long, now. let's see if i can order myself a little....
there's not any use in finishing up the legal stuff for tomorrow, i'd might as well wait until monday.
i did want to start the alter-reality when i got through the rebuild. i wanted to start it for mid-1989. i guess it's not so bad if i do catch up, but i wanted to be done the rebuild by now. i don't want to juggle that - let's just pick up the pace on the rebuild.
i can plan around cleaning in here tomorrow or the next day. the p-trap seems to have held since this morning. i think it had something to do with his air conditioning, and it's actually getting cold tonight, so maybe i've put that off for a bit.
and, i'll see what i want to do this weekend when i find out oif the cash has come ino r not.
is that everything?
i wanted to publish the 10/2013 documents before the end of september, so that's what i'll be doing tonight. i have eaten. i may have to shower later, if it gets cold in here (and the heat doesn't turn on, which it maybe should).
i'm just banging my head against the wall on the political file - we're not in a revolutionary moment, we're in a reactionary moment, and it's just a question of navigating through it.
i can't be too hard on myself, or i'll get apathetic. the uploads and planning last week weren't awful; it had to be done, at some point, and i wasn't feeling well. i got some documents filed at the beginning of the week. yesterday was largely about the gas leak, and i'm just starting today, really. it's not so bad....
i just get upset with myself, sometimes. you might imagine that i'm mad at myself for other reasons, but i actually wish i had more writing and more music available. i can't get depressed, i just need to pivot.
so, i'll have to run these files through spell checks, cross-reference everything and clean them up. hopefully, they'll be published by sunrise, or so.
oct 19. 2019
yeah, i'm in tonight. it's a combination of things - i am actually feeling a tad better (i'm at like 95%, now), but it didn't warm up quite as much as forecast, and, despite feeling a little better, i still don't really feel like smoking anything at all tonight.
i'm kind of happy in my blanket tonight, actually, and don't really want to leave it. it happens. i'm more interested in getting through 2013 - as it will be final when i do. like, that's the end of that. forever.
i wanted to start the journal off in mid-1989, as well, and was hoping i'd already be there. but, i'm going to wait until christmas before i get antsy about it. i may do the full six months at once, and start off in 1990. or, i may get a journal for christmas and reflect back a little, just starting fresh in 1990.
i don't think i can put aside the time to live full time in my 9 year old self, so i think i'm looking at infrequent alter-reality updates for a bit, anyways. i will need to plan this out by looking at things like release dates, and trying to figure out specific life events. christmas...
i could be done november by monday, anyways. really.
for right now, the update is that the master document is entirely synced and finished. and ready to cut up. it's 350 pages, smaller than the last few, and will shrink even more because a lot of it is email relics. there's 70 html files to deal with, but i think this is the last month like that for a good while.
i also wanted to get january, 2014 done before i fire up the music pc, so let's hope i can get through this by the end of the week.
and, if i'm in for most of the winter, let's hope 2-3 days turnover time is realistic for most months. can i get to the end of 2017 by christmas?
nov 3, 2019
i had to crash this morning, but i did get the facebook stuff synced properly. so, all i have left to do is the liner notes for 000, 001, 003, 016, 027, 028 and 030.
but, it hit me last night - what am i even doing?
i tend to get stuck in things and lose track of reality. where am i going with this? what are my actual goals, here?
i wanted to get this done by 2020 because the aleph disc was closing. but, now i've put the aleph disc off to 2030 - and the first demo until 2026. so, there's no longer any hurry at all...
so, what's the point of spending the winter rebuilding these blogs, if i'm not up against a deadline (that i'll never meet)?
i just feel like i'm wasting time. i feel like i'm running out of time. if it was faster, great, but it's just taking forever. i'm lost in my own world, and spinning in circles within it.
let me get through the first reconstruction phase, which is two more months. and, then i think i'm going to want to put this aside completely, for a good while. i've got the data put aside for later. there's no rush. let me get back to real work.
which means...
1) alter-reality, starting in late 1989 or early 1990. that's 30 years ago. that will be my writing project. and, i can get this journal process moving in that direction, instead.
2) period 3. let's get to it.
i have legal stuff to do this week, first. november was slow, when i wanted it to be fast, but let's hope i can pivot and get through the last two months for december 1st. these could both end up being ~50 page music archives.
what about the smell? it's better since i woke up, but i noticed it was bad on the other side of the apartment, last night. i'm starting to think that what capping the line has done is push the gas back up through the lines in the bathroom and kitchen, and i'm wondering if that's going to balance itself out. like, does it need to find a new equilibrium point, now?
is there an issue with the fixtures in the bathroom?
but, why is the gas pulling up in the first place? i think it's crystal clear that the lines need to be snaked. and, that's probably going to be what the court date ends up being about. we'll see if it betters itself or not....
right now, it seems like i'm waiting for the system to rebalance, and i'll have to go from there. no, i don't know - i'm trying to figure this out. but, that's my deduction based on what i've observed.
when can i get back to this rebuilding process, then?
why don't i get through period 3 and see. 2025, maybe?
or, maybe i'll chip away at it here and there.
but, i need to pivot out of this. i need to do something more constructive.
right now, i need to finish these liner notes and get to the legal stuff for a few more days. so, expect reposts for the 2013 releases up this afternoon.
-----
so, i'm making a conscious attempt to refocus. i've been stuck in a rut and want to get back to work. so, i want to make a few notes on the condition of the various sites i have running, here, before i shift gears rather dramatically.
i think it's clear at this point that i can't do all of these things at once, that i need to do one or two at a time. attempts to do everything all at once have merely left me unable to finish anything at all. so, what am i going to be focusing on?
my focus for quite some time now has been rebuilding blogs. first, it was the politics blog and the music journal, which i had running recurrently. i spent a large amount of 2016-2017 pulling data down from the internet into a set of word documents, and almost all of 2018 rebuilding these two blogs from those word documents. these would grow to take in the vlog and other things that developed over the last few years, creating a narrative of my musical output from 2013-2017 (as well as some cursory and largely unimportant political rambling). then, i expanded these to include a review site and a travel blog, so that i was rebuilding four blogs instead of two. as an addendum to this, there were two alter-reality blogs put aside - one that would end in mid-1996 and one that would start in mid-1996. but, the actual focus - the actual thing i was doing - was building liner notes for the music site. all of the 6 blogs i have running are essentially intended as commentary for the music. they have no meaningful context, otherwise, and mean nothing to me when separated from it.
i wanted this all to converge into a period disc that i would release at the end of 2019 (on the 20 year anniversary of the end of inri, 1996-1999) and that would include final versions of my first 37 releases, the corresponding sections of each of the six blogs (but mostly the music journal + the two alter-reality blogs) and vlogs that were relevant to the construction, interspersed. this would be repeated for period 3 (the next 39 releases), to be released in mid-2023. this would be intended as a comprehensive historical document, in the form of an electronic journal. don't call it a memoir - i'm not important enough for that. but, remember - as an artist, i basically die at 30. everything since that age has been documentation. there has been and will be no new original recordings past the year 2011. so, don't call it a memoir....but call it one if you really want. i'm not upset about not having a meaningful existence past the age of 30, because i never wanted to live past 30, anyways; most people get exceedingly lame in their 30s, and downright awful in their 40s, so i'm happy enough to avoid becoming that.
unfortunately, a series of necessary legal issues around the security of my housing that have largely been outside of my control have slowed me down dramatically, and forced me to extend the release date of the period disc by an extra ten years. i do not currently have a clear resolution as to how to get over this and get back to a stable recording situation, but i'll have to get by with what i can. i really see little recourse but to try and extend the legal battles to my eventual advantage. this will allow me the space to build the alter-reality from 1989-1996 in real time, and then let me click back into what has already been written for mid-2027. so, the period one disc is now scheduled for release at the end of 2029, the period two disc is scheduled for release at the end of 2033, the period three disc will be scheduled for release sometime in mid 2037 and the period four disc will be scheduled for release around 2041. if i make it there, i'll be 60 years old. and, no - i don't plan on actually doing much concrete over the next twenty years, except finishing the documentation of the work (and the work itself...) that i created over the first thirty.
i want to publish two more journals - 12/2013 and 01/2014 - and am hoping to have this completed by dec 1, 2019 at the latest. this will bring me to the end of the "first reconstruction period", which will produce an eventual aleph (to be unnamed and unpublished until the material from 07/2003-07/2013 is fully completed).
at that point, i will be focusing on two primary projects:
1) the alter-reality, starting in late 1989. i will have to get a journal for christmas, it seems, for me to write in, and then spend the next six years typing out. this journal will include reflections of events that i experienced over the ages of 8-15, including book reports and music reviews. all attempts will be made to be as honest as i can. but, i obviously can't revert to that state (if i ever grew past it...), and i don't want to get neurotic about it. i'm going to get neurotic about it...but i have to finally start with this.
2) i'm going to get back to work on period 3, which is going to mostly involve republishing a lot of already existing records from 2003-2007. there will, however, also be some major projects worked on - a lost symphony from 2003, a matlab project from 2004, an imaginary straight-up rock record from 2005, a groundbreaking mix of electronic noise and jazz guitar from early 2006 and some foundational new demos for early 2007, to move into period 4. i do not want to plan past the completion of period 3, at this point, which is defined as the period of time between when i got back from bc in mid-2003 and when i moved into a new apartment on bronson ave in early 2007.
period 1 is from 05/96-12/99 (3.5 years), period 2 is from 01/00-05/03 (3.5 years) and period 3 is from 08/03-02/07 (3.5 years). period 4 will run until the middle of 2011, but it is not like the first three, as there were long spaces with no recording activity at all. i was 27 in january, 2008; to an extent, period 4 is a period of slow death, even if it has some major works in it. i will be approaching the narrative from this perspective, as it occurs. and, given that my maximum expected lifespan is around 60, i may be nearing my actual death, as i get there. there was no meaningful musical activity from the middle of 2011 until the middle of 2013; i was struggling badly with existing living arrangements, as i was trying to figure out how to rebuild my studio.
so, i have the rest of my life planned out, anyways. and, these are the two things i'll be focusing on - getting the alter-realty rolling and finishing period 3. if i get back to publishing the journals from 2014 forwards, it will be in spurts, and because i'm sick or some other such thing. well, until i get close in 2025-2026, anyways. i'm actually fully confident that i'll be done period 3 by then, at least.
i don't feel the time has been wasted. i've figured out a lot of things, and i've got a process in order. this needed to eventually be done, and i'll need to eventually get back to it. the time i've wasted has been wasted fighting court battles, and that's going to continue until i can find a safe, smoke-free living arrangement. this isn't it, either.
what about all these other sites?
1) as mentioned, the bandcamp site should see the most activity in the next little while; that is my primary site, and always has been.
2) the noise trade site will see decreasing levels of activity, and that activity will be mostly related to the alter-reality, for the next long while. expect journals from 1990-1996 to be the primary uploads for the next several years. i hope they allow me to reorganize the front page, soon.
3) the patreon site is still there. if you want me to stop wasting time in court and get more productive in my art, that's the way to do it. i have yet to receive a single donation over patreon.
4) the music journal will pick up with increased activity at the bandcamp site.
5) j's journal will be the primary journal site, and will start in late 1989.
6) the alter-reality will stay dormant until mid-2027, when i pick up where i left off.
7) i'm still vlogging. i haven't stopped. i have video to edit going back to mid-2017, and will need to get to it to buiild the aleph discs. but, the focus of the vlogs was to act as a set of ads for the bandcamp site, which i drew attention to through trolling, and that didn't work out (because they shadow-banned me for being an anti-american communist). i never had any interest in vlogging for the sake of vlogging, it was always meant as a gateway. my focus on the vlogs, moving forwards, is going to be for the aleph discs, rather than for youtube. yes, things will get uploaded eventually, but probably in large chunks, and it could be a very, very long time. i wouldn't expect anything to get uploaded here until i'm done period 3, at least - it could be after 2025.
8) the koala central command will continue to try to bring their fugitive to justice, but it's not clear exactly what that means. there will be music related uploads here, as they become meaningful.
9) i don't expect to spend a lot of time on music or book reviews in the near future, and may never get to it at all. my focus on reviews is mostly a 2011-2013 thing, when i had no studio to work in. so, this is at the bottom of the list, in terms of priorities. but, review information will come up in the alter-realty.
10) the travel blog was mostly a joke to start with, and it's utilization will depend on how often i'm actually posting from a distance. anything posted to this blog will end up somewhere else, in time.
11) i'm sure i'll continue to find reasons to rant.
12) my facebook pages will continue to be useful as update lists, but little else.
13) the appspot site is not dead, but it's sleeping.
14) the viability of the soundcloud site depends on whether i can get people to let me spin or not.
15) i don't and have never used twitter. i'm not going to start.
and, let's try to get the liner notes up by the end of the day.
feb 28, 2021
i've decided that i want to try to reconstruct some kind of concept of normality in here, even if it's going to be a while.
so, i've moved the chrome book from the bed to the desk, i've got the tunes running through the receiver and i'm going to reboot directly into the alter-reality.
i'm trying to rewind here and remember what year is what. i'm pretty sure that mellon collie and the infinite sadness was released in grade 9, so that sets grade 9 to starting in the fall of 1995.
uni 3 - 02/03 <--- that is a reference point i'm certain is correct
uni 2- 01/02
uni 1- 00/01
13 - 99/00
12 - 98/99
11 - 97/98
10 - 96/97
9 - 95/96
8 - 94/95 -
7 - 93/94 -
6 - 92/93 -
5 - 91/92 -
4 - 90/91 - <----this is what i need to catch up to, and then stay caught up with. it's currently march, 1991 in the alter-reality.
3 - 89/90 -
i wanted to start the alter-reality journal in the summer of 1989, because i switched schools to start grade 3.
the mechanism, in the end, will be that i'll find the journal somewhere and scan it. but, for now i need to produce a portrait of the artist as a young trans woman, and work this out as it comes up.
i wanted to do this in 2019, but i got bogged down and i need to stop getting bogged down and get to fucking work.