i don't think it's useful to look too deep into it as a precise metaphor - it's just general cultural propaganda, of life in a starkly hobbessian reality. as a viewer, you're meant to internalize that.
i mean, i get that hobbes is pretty widely misunderstood. he was actually some kind of proto-fascist, advocating total control in the hands of the state in order to stop people from getting at each other like they are in the show. his description of "human nature" was presented as an obstacle to overcome, rather than an ideal or even an unavoidable truth.
but, a certain misunderstanding of hobbes is very useful for the kind of casino capitalism that the elites in the united states desire, and want us to live by. what hobbes saw as a tragedy is their ideal order, and they've been actively seeking to influence public behaviour to align with this kind of social darwinism for quite a while now, as a reaction to the perceived threat of communalism that hobbes half advocated. i mean, trust me - nobody with good sense thinks hobbes had good solutions. but he at least realized that some kind of collective action was necessary to present a sustainable future.
what the elite have been saying for decades now is "we agree that hobbes was wrong, but we also agree that marx (and locke and rousseau...) was right. which means that our order is not a total failure, because people are malleable and programmable. so, through propaganda, we can create the hobbesian world that doesn't really exist. we can brainwash people into violent, if not always rational, self-interest. then, we can apply the social theories that have been debunked."
it would be insane, if it wasn't so diabolical.
does anybody know what the actual turnover in writers is expected to be?
i mean, fallon is just a bad imitation of leno, really. i was never a leno fan, but i have to give him points for improv that fallon just does not have. besides that, they're more or less interchangeable, and one needs to wonder if it's basically because the writing team stayed put.
it's an honest question, though. colbert made a big point about him leaving his character behind, and i can't help but think that also means leaving his writers behind. meaning, it seems like he's moving into a furnished apartment...
he might slowly get his own furniture over time. but i'm not sure it's wise to expect that much of a departure.
i see he's brought his writing team with him...
that's a positive.
FortyNineHudson +deathtokoalas Since they're not constricted to writing for his "character", they might actually get to stretch out some more.
Jake Marsing
Colbert brought a number of his writers from the. "Report" including head writer Opus Moreschi. He's also brought on some new faces who're familiar with the format. One particularly promising hire is Brian Stack, who wrote for Conan from 1996 till this year and created some great characters like "The Interruptor," "The NBC Crooner," and "WikiBear." Colbert's hires tell me a lot about what he's planning. Expect if to follow the traditional 6 act Carson structure (monologue, comedy bit, guest 1, guest 1 again or another comedy bit, guest 2, music act or stand up comic, roll credits) it's an old format, but I still think it works. Colbert's show will feel like a more intellectual version of Conan. He'll do topical jones that Fallon can't, and he'll do stronger interviews. I really expect the show to push back against the prom king comedy we've seen in late night over the last two years.
deathtokoalas +Jake Marsing i think you bring up a good point - colbert's not really competing against fallon. i couldn't imagine there's really much overlap in potential audience; it's almost a clean partition in the possible viewer demographic. colbert is really going to be competing with conan.
i haven't watched late night in a long time; i haven't had a tv in a long time. but, i always preferred conan to the other carson formula shows by a large margin. the reason was that conan was actually funny, and the two mainstays were just bland observationalists - seinfeld without the knack for the surreal, which both stewart and colbert have always had. for some reason, though, tv executives seem to hate him, and it kind of brings up some questions about how colbert is going to get along with head office kind of thing....
but, i mean, it's not like cbs didn't know who they were hiring, and their expectations had to be something a little edgier. i'm curious as to how this will work out...or, rather, how long it takes for colbert to get himself in trouble.
i'll be honest: my immediate thought was that the power structure was trying to shut him down before the next election by offering him a plush job, then canning him after a month. i hope that's conspiratorial logic. but, if it works out that way...well..
Jake Marsing
There are few things more fascinating to me than late night tv. It's the only genre in pop culture really about one person being funny. I think Colbert's got the chops to pull it off. But, you're right, he and Fallon will be doing different shows. Jimmy's will have mass appeal (like Leno's did) and Stephen will play to a more niche audience (like Letterman did). Colbert will be competitive, but I think his goal isn't to be #1. His goal is be a strong #2 with a young audience.
deathtokoalas +Jake Marsing it's just that one of the things that killed conan was his refusal to pander to sarah palin. conan didn't want to alienate his liberal-leaning viewing base by doing the network's bidding in sucking up to a right-wing demagogue. it's hard to think that these situations aren't going to show up with colbert in this time slot - who is perpetually in an even worse quandary than conan could ever be in. there's all kinds of people that cbs is going to have to scratch off the list of potential guests, because they're not going to go anywhere near him. and, he's going to have to watch his mouth, which is going to upset long time viewers. i can't see how this isn't going to be an issue.
and i suspect it might be purposefully engineered as one.
schwarzeneggar. first week. wait for it.
argumentativeindian +Jake Marsing Oh, is Brian Stack now writing for Colbert? That's wonderful! I used to love his segments, and was sad to see him leave Conan.
see, this is bullshit. some of it is just being a slob. but it's actually mostly signs that you're dating somebody you're not compatible with. it's more like "signs you need to break up".
- if you'd rather read instagram than listen to your partner? if the person you're supposed to care more about than anybody else bores you to that level? it's time to break up.
- if you understand your partner so poorly that you jump to menstruation as an explanation for discomfort? if your communication level is that bad? it's time to break up.
- if you can't be bothered to figure out birthdays, anniversaries or other special dates? if you really care that little? it's time to break up.
- if you'd rather watch the idiot box by yourself? if your partner's company is that worthless to you? it's time to break up...
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Ranita Devonr
I don't get transgender and I don't hate them..what I don't get is why do they get all these surgery to feel like something their not..ur DNA will always be male and to be a real woman u have to have the blood of a woman..not fake boobs and surgery!!! its a psychological identity issue! if he wants to be a woman have a period and get overies or have a baby!! I believe the media praises these mental issues so they can get paid! all those doctors and .photographers get money off of ppl sickness!!
Auzeus
One does not identify their gender by body parts, you sort of know it in the brain. This isn't a mental disorder, read a book.
deathtokoalas +Ranita Devonr i don't think this is the right argument, but i don't blame you because it's the way the issue has been framed to you and the way things are generally framed to us in a binary-thinking society. black or white. right or wrong. male or female.
to really understand this, you need to acknowledge (at least) five categories here.
1) cis men
2) cis women
these are genetic men & women.
3) transvestites (people comfortable in their birth sex, but who like to role play as the opposite gender from time to time)
these are a sub category of cis men and cis women. i believe this is the correct category for bruce jenner, and that he's acting on impulse in a way that a doctor should have intervened to prevent.
3) trans men (genetic women who have transitioned to living as men)
4) trans women (genetic men who have transitioned to living as women)
these are transgendered people.
there are categories of people in between with extra chromosomes and unusual combinations of organs and stuff, but these are legitimate birth defects and should not be included in discussions of transgender identity.
i am a trans woman. i am not a cis woman. i do not have a uterus. i do not go through cycles. i'll never have an unwanted pregnancy. there are plenty of things of this nature that i'll never understand, and i don't pretend i ever will. i will not speak as a cis female at public events, represent cis women or attempt to tell stories from the perspective of a cis woman.
suggesting that transwomen identify as cis-female and then tearing them down for it is a strawman argument. again: the media has spread mass ignorance on the point. but, in truth, you will meet very few transgendered people that will not differentiate between cis and trans; most fully acknowledge the difference and are very careful in clarifying it. the few that don't have a clear understanding of the difference have either transitioned extraordinarily well (and probably quite young...) or suffer from schizo-affective disorders. and, you're right: you'd have to be a little off your rocker to not realize there's a difference.
but, that does not mean that not(female) = male. there's a wide spectrum in between, and it includes people entirely cognizant of their birth gender that have made an entirely conscious and autonomous decision to modify it, without pretending to identify as cis-gendered members of the sex they weren't born as.
it's complicated. but just understand this: generally speaking, transwomen do not claim to be cis women. we understand that we're transwomen.
Auzeus
Hmmm, I guess that came out a bit wrong. Yes, males have penises, women have vaginas and all that jazz. But your brain is your core. You wouldn't know penis associated with male unless you were told about it, right?
deathtokoalas
well, it's kind of intuitive. i don't think the male/female physical distinction is a consequence of agricultural society. i think this is a base biological distinction, and we can mostly figure it out without being taught.
what's a little more true is that we need to be taught that certain mental traits are associated with gender. we wouldn't know being tough is associated with being male unless we were told, or being compassionate is associated with being female unless we were told.
the physical aspect is biology; it's the mental aspect that is a social construct. falling somewhere in the middle or off to the "wrong side" of this spectrum is partly a result of conditioning, and partly just a result of natural human variation.
but, recognizing that doesn't change the reality of the situation - which is that if you're born with a penis and happen to end up with a very "effeminate" personality, then you're going to have difficulty identifying with what society teaches you to identify with, have difficulty succeeding relative to social expectations of you and try to seek a way out of it, in order to align the physical and mental and reconnect the body with the mind. pointing out that it's a social construct doesn't abolish the social construct, or make it easier to adjust to it.
i'm fairly sympathetic with the feminist position that argues that gender identity issues are essentially the same thing as gender roles, and that abolishing gender roles will mostly abolish gender identity issues, in the sense that letting people adopt the roles of the "opposite sex" will mostly alleviate the desire to actually physically alter themselves. it's a function of the polarized nature of our extreme gender roles and how hard it's pushed down on us to conform to one extreme or the other. it's just that getting past this as a medical procedure is really on the extreme end of that emancipation. and, the biological aspect may be too strong to ever really abandon to the point where gender transitions ever disappear.
again, it's complicated. the literature refers to genitalia as sex and gender as mental. and that's a useful distinction to make if you're writing an essay because it allows you to differentiate between the two different ideas you mean. but, it's entirely ad hoc, shouldn't be interpreted at the level of a scientific definition and ultimately kind of gets the causality a little messed up.
i actually like the roman analogy, but this is a bad interpretation of it. rather, rome is london - and the british empire was the roman empire. the revolution is the partition into "east" and "west" - not a revolution at all, in fact, but a civil war within the british empire that resulted in partition and eventual usurpation. if america is rome, it is byzantine rome; washington is more comparable to constantinople.
now, here's the funny twist: byzantine rome is known to history as the collapse of greek culture into christian ignorance. the same people that invented philosophy and science were reduced to arguing over icons and launching holy wars against the persians, and then the muslims. revolutions were based on minor and irrelevant details in jewish scripture. and, in the end, they stood down and let the city fall - because they truly believed it would put the apocalypse in motion, and they preferred that outcome over the horrible conditions that puritanism places on existence.
america is indeed the new rome. but it's the new new rome. the rome that lost itself to fundamentalist christianity....
for those that aren't aware, this is a psychological test (of somewhat dubious value) to determine self-awareness. it clearly demonstrates what is becoming a widely held consensus: elephants are smarter than chimps. beside that, it's pretty much expected behaviour, with the exception of the gorilla, who would actually be expected to "get it" pretty fast. but gorillas demonstrate variation like every other species. it looks like this particular gorilla is not the hardest chest in the forest.
you're making a very subtle argument, and you're correct on the semantic detail that "gender nonconformity" is not a mental illness - it's just personal expression. but, i think what you're likely coming up against (i haven't read your comments...) is an inability to distinguish between the identity and the dysphoria. and, in truth the difference is pretty blurry having lived through it, to the point that i couldn't imagine somebody with no experience being able to actually understand it. the point of confusion is really quite understandable.
i think it's disingenuous to try and argue that 100% of the negative aspects of dysphoria are from outside sources. a big part of it comes from the reality that the person looking back at you in the mirror is not the person you want it to be, and that's entirely self-perpetuating. the actual medical argument that justifies medical treatment is to prevent depression, which is seen as otherwise unavoidable. one of the primary causes of the dysphoria is the identity mismatch. people that don't have that dysphoria can likely live happy lives as occasional crossdressers, meaning you're dealing with a different issue; the transgendered condition is explicitly defined by the dysphoria caused by the mismatch in perceived and actual identity, which to me sounds an awful lot like a mental disorder.
if there's not a disorder underlying it, it becomes a mere cosmetic procedure, and "gender dysphoria" becomes just another kind of teen angst. i think it's imperative that "i'm in the wrong body" is not understood as the same thing as "this dress makes me look fat".
obviously, it doesn't follow that there's a "cure", or at least not on the terms presented by the right. logically speaking, there are two answers: you can either try and stamp out the mismatched identity, or you can facilitate transition. the general perception is that the latter is usually more successful, and generally preferable, in an ethical sense. but, it doesn't negate the possibility of the first option - although it would require pretty heavy tactics, leaning towards an implementation of the brainwashing scenes in a clockwork orange or some other horrific shock tactics.
but, on a semantic level, the argument presented here is accurate. playing with gender is not a mental illness. rather, gender dysphoria is a type of depression with transition as it's only known (and ethical) solution.
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
"what i'm saying is that if we support the dictatorship of the two-party system then, eventually, through enough reform brought on by that very dictatorship, it will in time whither away."
is it still a farce, after thirty-seven repetitions? how does that work, exactly?
also, the kind of candidate you envision would be dead faster than you can say "bobby kennedy". don't worry - it will be the action of an islamic extremist.
Aleksandra Markovic
I just have one question for those who are openly in support of Bruce changing into Caitlyn - if your arguments (being true to yourself, acceptance, not living a lie, etc) happen to be used for incest, pedophilia or something like that, would you support that too? That siblings could say that by fucking one another is them being true to themselves and having relations outside the family is them living a lie, same could say pedophiles or those who prefer having sex with animals! Or those groups can demand their rights now that LBGT community is fighting for their rights. Where does it end? Will everything no matter how weird it may seem be accepted cause of the same arguments about tolerance, acceptance etc. I can understand LGBT community, but I can't understand incest or pedophiles. I just can't. But how to differentiate one from another, give rights to one community and not to others who can use the arguments that LGBT uses? Should rights be given to everyone then?
deathtokoalas +Aleksandra Markovic polygamy is legal in lots of places in the world, especially in areas where mormon and muslim cultures dominate. these are also some of the most oppressive places for queers to live. incest hit it's highest point of acceptance during the religious fundamentalism of the middle ages, when queers were routinely burned in public - often, as witches when they were female. pedophilia has come in and out of acceptance, and hit a high point of acceptance during the moral outrage of the victorian era. further, fluid concepts of sexuality were quite common in the ancient european world, entirely independently of any of these things.
the issue is obviously one of consent and how we define it. but, the reality is that there's no causal connection between any of these issues. mormons can hate guys and have multiple partners at the same time, and don't see a contradiction in it. the hapsburgs had no problem interbreeding themselves into sterility, while enforcing catholic doctrine.
the more reasonable way to understand the issue is by looking at the way society measures it's focus on reproduction. societies facing negative population pressures tend to legislate rules that attack sexual freedom, whereas societies that don't tend to be more open. the united states is not currently facing negative population pressures.
but, if you're curious, i don't personally see anything wrong with polygamy or incest - so long as birth control is used in incest, and then the issue isn't the sexual act itself but the consequences of it. i don't think the state has any business legislating rules that tell siblings not to have sex with each other. i think fetal alcohol syndrome and the effects of nicotine are much larger public health issues. animals and kids can't reasonably consent, but i think the age of consent should be flexible depending on various considerations and shouldn't be enforced to the letter of the law.
the question of whether it's "weird" or not is none of your business. the meaningful question is whether it's harmful.
i mean, those darned muslims. first polygamy - next they'll be....not stoning gays....? letting women drive?
Joshua Pace +Mili Fernandez Where's the difference? If someone feels like they're a guy or girl, as long as what they do doesn't hurt someone it's fine, so you should be fine with bestiality. If someone feels like they're an animal too, and they want to have sex with animals, then you should be fine and even support it. If it's not hurting anyone, and it's how they really feel, you should approve of it.
Ben Tahash +Joshua Pace You'd be hurting the animal, dumbfuck.
Joshua Pace +Ben Tahash The argument still stands, the animal isn't human. If someone owns a dog and wants to hurt it, you could argue that it's their dog, and they can do what they want with it.
deathtokoalas +Joshua Pace if you could find me talking animals that can express consent, i'd agree with you. the issue is not the act, it's the inability to produce consent. and, no, parrots don't count.
and, no you can't argue that you can beat your dog because it's your property. the fuck is that?
Aleksandra Markovic
Hurtful argument , which was mostly used in this discussion is a relative term because it is hard to tell what is hurtful to others. Pedophilia obviously is, that's not the question. But everything abnormal is hurtful in the beginning, in the sense of adjustment and coming into terms of this new situation.
If you say the argument of not causing harm to someone else, be careful. Incest practitioners can say that in particular if they have no intention of having children, which in their case is the main argument contra given possible health problems, or those who willingly participate in polygamy, given that they chose to live that way and they all are adults completely in charge of their life.
deathtokoalas +Aleksandra Markovic again: what about people having sex under the influence of alcohol? what about pregnant mothers that drink and smoke and do crack cocaine? or walk through polluted cities, or live near factories? or don't wear sunscreen? or expose themselves to harmful radiation from tv sets and microwaves? when will we pass laws that ban all of this?
it seems like the focus on incest is rather arbitrary, when so many children are already born into so many terrible situations.
siblings have an obligation to use contraception - or get an abortion, if they forget. otherwise, i couldn't care less what they do, so long as it is consensual.
(deleted response)
odisy64
but just like transgender people pedophilia is not a physical disorder but a mental one so is incest, pedophilia doesn't have to hurt someone but it can and transgenders are not immune to the terrible nature of humans , pedophilia hurts the child and transgender people could hurt there parents due to them not being ale to have grand children.
deathtokoalas +odisy64 it's not my responsibility to please my parents. sorry.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
man, i can't even make sense of the idea of transgendered rights implying a global sharia dictatorship. it's like a grab bag of state created villains, randomly pieced together in a completely contradictory, totally nonsensical way. the only rational response i can fathom is that they'd be too busy stoning each other to take away your guns, or be communists. i think i need a meme of gargamel right now...
if that idea has the slightest bit of traction anywhere at all, i might agree with you that the end is probably near.
if anybody...
.....even one person.....
"secretly, the gay islamists are in kahoots with the nazi russian communists and the irs to redistribute your guns to starving kids in africa"
run with that. i dare you.
(deleted response)
Aleksandra Markovic +MyMrCookies what about incest then, especially if they do not want to have children and they are both voluntary involved? Would you give incest the same rights then given the criteria you mentioned? That's what I am concerned about and the topic of my comment. deathtokoalas +Aleksandra Markovic why are you concerned about who other people have consensual sex with? this isn't an issue where the state or general population has the prerogative to grant rights. it's a tyranny of the majority situation, where constitutions exist to prevent the mob from getting involved in people's private affairs. it's not up to you or anybody else to give or take away rights in this circumstance.
charlene mitchell +Aleksandra Markovic NWO: "The Course of Tolerance" is what its all about. This is a prepartory for pedophile, incest, and transhuman intercourse. People need to be condition for this well in advance of the actual international organizational shift.
deathtokoalas +charlene mitchell when bush defined the new world order, he defined a system where america gets to rule unopposed because there weren't any pesky communist russians around anymore. this has been accomplished through international financial bodies, multinational trade agreements and liberal interventionist arguments for imperial wars. what, exactly, do you think that these interests have to gain from the slow process of sexual liberation? do you expect them to monopolize the market in horse pornography?
"our evil plan has worked! mwahahahaha! soon, we will have absolute control over...
wait. what is this internet you speak of?"
this guy is an attention whore transvestite, and his enforcement of anachronistic stereotypes is not helping.
Monday, June 1, 2015
you'll never get the right to support "handouts". and, even the left is leaning pretty anarchist nowadays.
there's a big difference between obama saying "i'm going to do this and this and this" and then not doing any of it, and somebody being specifically selected by a committee and then abandoning it. i think the point was kind of danced around: it's a last straw for democracy. if candidates are willing to be contemptuous on such a brazen level, it's time to grab the pitchforks.
but, i don't think this is the answer.
there's the old jeffersonian cliche about an educated electorate, and it's really exactly what you're coming up against here. those lies don't fool me. they don't fool either of the people in the video. why do they fool so many?
but, this is a really fundamental issue. the reality is that if our voters can't be bothered to run a fact check in the internet era then we simply can't have a democracy. the masses should be able to look at the propaganda and scream "bollocks!". and, that's why i actually don't believe in restricting financing: if this is the determinant, the society can't be a democracy, anyways.
you should be focusing more on reforming the education system. you do that, this negates itself on it's own - and we can start talking about democracy as more than a naive abstraction.
i'm just wondering if maybe you might want to take a step back and ask yourself the question of what a convention like this is. there's a bit of a generational disconnect (when i was your age, this stuff was just barely getting off the ground); the comparable attraction when i was young was raves.
some guys were into the music, and i'm sure there's plenty of dudes that are actually into the anime. but, if you asked an average male rave party goer in the early 00s why they were showing up to these parties, the answer would be "it's full of half naked women". then, they'd go home and listen to tool.
it's an old story. consider bars that throw "ladies nights" where drinks are half price. they do that because they have difficulty attracting women, and they know that guys want to go to the bars where the women are.
what i'm getting at is that the industry is likely focused much less around the topic of the convention and much more around the idea of doing things that they think will attract women for guys to ogle. you're likely actually the product.
it's just another reason to not show up. but maybe it's a bit of a perspective shift to kind of realize that and get your head around it.
if these conventions are really important to you, you're probably better off starting your own than expecting any kind of serious reaction from the organizers, who are no doubt aware that their entire business model collapses if they try and stand up for you with anything more than empty language.
Luna Lanie +deathtokoalas While I appreciate your input I don't agree since I've been to other cons and there wasn't this problem. Maybe it's the fact they aggressively marketed this con to the general public but it has changed and I have many people saying the exact same thing about this years environment
deathtokoalas +Luna Lanie it's just that there's a pattern that comes up if you look at these counter-cultural generational trends - raves, punk rock, hippie festivals. they start off being meeting places for people trying to live alternative lifestyles. but, that turns the attendants into the product, as a market develops. each generation ends up struggling to reassert the foundational principles that were initially present and inevitably fails in the end.
something that worked for a little while when punk rock went hardcore bro in the early 90s was the riot grrrl movement, which attempted to reclaim a female-friendly space through a diy ethic.
as time continues, the continued commercialization is likely to overpower any attempts to reassert foundational principles, and the issue is likely to get worse. if you really want to reclaim the space, you're likely going to have to re-organize alternative structures away from that commercialization in order to do it. Luna Lanie +deathtokoalas I totally understand now what you are saying. Time to start planning LunaCon!
they're really inaudible in four of the five mixes unless you're listening specifically for them, and they're sparse at that, but i've updated the string mix to be click free. it was mostly noticeable over the end section. i'd have to do this for the chamber mix comp, anyways.
inri031 has been updated and permanently finalized.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/existence
Sunday, May 31, 2015
inri031 is going to require some careful thought, specifically with
the string orchestra version. if i update it, it will probably be to
replace it.
the weather here was really nice all week,
but went to shit last night. the drop in temperature gives me an
opportunity to get some compost out tomorrow morning. but i've otherwise
committed to zero packs of cigarettes over june - and am absolutely
serious about enforcing it. i was almost cold turkey in february, but
the weather helped. june is going to be a bit tougher, but i'm not
cracking. this should hopefully overlap with the web site push, once i
get through this clean-up and push through to completed material up to
mid 2004, putting aside incomplete material over late 2003 and 2004 for a
few weeks.
i have a final appointment on the 16th and
will be mailing my odsp on the 16th or 17th, for analysis some time
around the beginning of july. i will either be granted a few more years
or have three months to get a reaction. i've already decided to appeal,
which will probably give me a few more months. but if i have to do that,
i will have to drop the website idea and get back to production,
because i will be in a race against time at that point. i've already
decided that i don't have a future post-odsp. i haven't decided on an
exact path, which will probably depend on the nature of the denial, if
it happens.
i'm thinking about hitting three shows this
month for sure and a few more are maybes, but a lot of it is going to
depend on how focused i am on what i'm doing. i could very well not want
to go to any at all, depending on factors like the weather, my
disposition and whether i think i can get through it without buying
smokes. i've previously prioritized the show and said "i'll quit the
next day". i'm reversing that priority. if i'm convinced i'm going to
crack, i'm going to stay in.
so, this is an important few
months for me coming up. by the end of june, i should get through a lot
of loose ends and have an entire period of my music career behind me,
and i should have a better understanding of how likely it is that i'm
going to be able to plan around disability.
no society is really clear on their separation of church and state. i'd argue the state should deal with certain things that the reaganites dumped into the realm of the church. but, all western countries would agree that war is the exclusive domain of the state. the church cannot declare war.
but, in the past the church did declare war. these wars were called crusades.
i'm not sure that the collapse of the iraqi army is possible for westerners to understand without making a number of mental cultural adjustments. it seems to me that islamic cultures tend to lean towards the idea of war being an issue to be dealt with by religious authorities, rather than state authorities. saddam may have pushed a different perspective, but he was some kind of weird totalitarian marxist - his system was alien to arab culture.
so, when you see the iraq army collapse like this, i think a big part of what you're seeing is the cultural rejection of the state's perceived usurpation over fundamentally religious concerns. this is an issue for fatwas, not for parliaments. and, the fatwa is more legitimate than the parliament is on this issue. the state is seen as overstepping it's bounds.
that may be a large part of the reason these militias were targeted for disassembly. but the failure of this policy may necessitate the realization that imperially constructing an iraq that follows western standards of parliamentary centralization is, in truth, a cultural impossibility.
there's a level of irony. militia movements are integral to the framework erected in the united states constitution.
it's easy to come up with conspiracy theories, especially when you're pretty sure that almost everybody is lying to you, but the reality remains that only one group ever took responsibility for the kidnapping of the israeli teens, and it was neither hamas nor netanyahu. it was isis.
sometimes things are as plain as the facts in front of us suggest.
"literacy levels have fallen, life expectancy is down 10%, vaccinations are down 5%, long term palliative care has suffered dramatically and infant mortality rates are up 20%. we're especially proud of that last one. who won the cold war, here, bitch? yeah, that's what i thought..."
inri028 has been updated and permanently finalized.
===
ok...
so, to understand this piece, it's necessary to go back to 1998.
i was working out primitive sequencer parts for the first inri demo and it just sort of crossed my mind that there was really nothing stopping me from composing symphonies except for a lot of music theory. well, if i could write electronic music without training, why couldn't i write symphonies without training? i mean, the score writing program exists in front of me. it was just a question of experimenting with it. i could do it myself...
...but i actually already had a pretty hefty disdain for music theory by the age of 17. i'd managed to come across a music history textbook that traced the deconstruction of western theory from beethoven through to schoenberg and this, combined with my experiences as a guitarist, was enough to prevent me from taking it seriously. the perception i had was of modern composers viewing music theory sort of like how biologists viewed creationism. i use that analogy fairly frequently. it just didn't strike me as relevant.
now, i've softened a bit over time to a view that music theory is best understood in terms of the underlying physics. this renders the theory useless, but upholds the basic relationships between tones as physical, mathematical realities. the thing is the next step of abstraction is understanding that these mathematical objects can be arranged and analyzed in any arbitrary way, and the conventional theory really *is* a fallacy akin to creationism. so, i still hold to the general thesis. this is actually the first serious example of me putting that disdain for the idea that music should have a theory into real action. i remain adamantly of the view that art is not a realm where theories should exist or be viewed with anything other than scorn. theories are rigid, formal things; art is informal, chaotic.
so, it's 1998. i have a scorewriter and a very basic soundcard and i want to bullshit a symphony out of it. i did this by composing a single brief melody by randomly mashing notes into a scorewriter. i then took that melody and pasted it over top of itself at differing speeds (64th, 32nd, 16th, 8th, quarter, half, whole notes). i then took that, cut it off near the end of the half notes and pasted it over itself, backwards.
that might sound like it's going to sound awful, but it actually sounds quite lovely. one could analyze it quite easily, but it's creation is beyond the realm of any rules of construction.
which is where art belongs.
...excepting the algorithm i used, of course. i suppose it's more reich than schoenberg, but kind of more xenakis than either.
the initial version ended up subsumed underneath a messy noise collage that i created independently and have lost the source material for. that messy noise collage was eliminated from the track for the 1999 version, which was reconstructed by reproducing the algorithm. these are tracks 19 and 20 on this systematic exploration of the theme.
in 2001, i ran the midi file through my soundblaster live!, which as primitive as it is, has a much nicer wavetable in it than the primitive soundcard i used in 1998 and 1999 (i don't remember what it was). this is track 21. i also slowed it down by about 20 bpm and allowed the full file to "intersect", which let it breathe more. i've previously not done anything with this mix other than append it to some mix cds. the guitars on the soundblaster are notoriously bad, so there wasn't a lot to do with it....
why? well, i was writing a lot with scorewriters at the time and was just experimenting with the old file, really. but i was also finishing up what would be the only year i would spend in the math-physics department, and thought it sounded like i would imagine intersecting particles *should* sound like. i was generally interested in finding ways to combine science with music then - an interest that is present in older tracks as well and that has stuck with me. i may explore these themes further in time. one of the ideas i really wanted to accomplish was a physical modelling of the universe, to actually simulate the music of the spheres, as pythagoras imagined it. i think i underestimated the complexity of such a task....
of course, i never expected the music of the spheres to be tonal. and i wouldn't expect the sound of particles intersecting to be musical, either. but, we can take some artistic license. if intersecting particles are to make a sound, it OUGHT to be something like this!
now, the place to work out the actual intersection is rather arbitrary. i had initially cut off the entire section of pure whole notes, back in '98. what i wanted to do in '01 was create a sequence where it's cut off incrementally, creating shorter and shorter pieces. i didn't actually do that then, but i did do it in july of 2014.
as for the piece, i haven't changed it much. i've doubled the guitar with a pizzicato string section, and put it through a better guitar synthesizer (and amp simulator, and effects). the sound fonts are otherwise identical, just updated mildly to a better synthesizer.
a string orchestra mix was added at the end of may, 2015.
i've included the midi files of the original composition, if you'd like to mess with it on your own.
written june, 1998. reimagined june, 2001. slightly rearranged and re-rendered at the end of july, 2014. the renders here are from june 1998, june 1999, june 2001 and july 2014. intially released on july 25, 2014. re-released with a new string orchestra mix & finalized on may 30, 2015. as always, please headphones.
credits:
j - programming, digital effects & treatments, digital wave editing, composition.
the rendered electronic orchestras variously include piano, electric guitar, orchestra hit, synth pads, pizzicato strings, violin, viola, cello and pc card.
written one day in june, 1998. re-created on another day in june, 1999. reimagined on yet another day in june, 2001. a failed remaster occurred at the end of 2013. slightly rearranged and re-rendered at the end of july, 2014. rearranged again at the end of may, 2015.
inri027 has been updated and permanently finalized.
==
the core of this was written in my parent's basement in the spring of 2001. planning on going to a rave that weekend, i had previously purchased a large amount of drugs; i was, however, forced to stay in due to having a calculus test that sunday (the rave was out of town). well, my parents were gone for the weekend, most of my friends were out of town and i had a massive stash of drugs...
it is quite literally a symphony of psilocybin induced madness and was written directly into an ancient, hacked score-writing program. while it has been labelled as a symphony of drunken confusion in certain contexts to get around certain social stigmas, this is inaccurate.
around 2006 or so, i took a course in electronic music design that had a recorded component and pulled the score off of my hard drive with the intent of finally recording it properly. the dx7 i had available to me greatly improved the synth patches, enough that i'm willing to let the track rest that way.
i've included midi files of the original composition, if you'd like to mess with it on your own.
written in the spring of 2001. lent out for a different project in jan, 2004. reconstructed in the first quarter of 2006, especially over march. released as a one track single on april 1, 2006. expanded with alternate mixes and re-released on july 23, 2014. the vst mix was added on jan 10, 2015 and the two guitar mixes were added on may 29, 2015. re-released & finalized on may 29, 2015. as always, please use headphones.
credits
j - electric guitars, programming, digital effects & treatments, sampling, composition, production.
the rendered electronic orchestras variously include synthesizers, clavinet, kalimba, nylon guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar, piano, banjo, electronic drums, pc card, violin, cello, bamboo flute, flute, viola, soprano saxophone, tuba, trumpet, organ and music box.
however, it's going to be a backwards guitar mix that will appear on the atmospheres disc. it's a good way to close the ep, with a wash of backwards effects.
==
this is the previous mix, backwards.
written early 2001. reconstructed in the first quarter of 2006, especially over march. this version was rendered from the existing source files on may 29, 2015.
i've been playing with ways to get this to work in a guitar-only context for the last several hours, and have concluded it needs to be cut. the atmospheric component of the track is based on overlapping loops that unfold in a process; this is supplemented with a romantic-style piano part and a rising orchestra, along with a number of other loops. separating out the guitars creates something with a "mad" aesthetic, which was the intent. but, it requires the melodic content to actually be compelling to listen to. i've cut this down for 18 to 13 and finally to 3 minutes - it's just enough to get the idea across, without beating you over the head with it.
==
this is a cut guitar-only version. it's cut to ensure that each of the guitar loops is heard, but not to drag the process on. the atmospheric portion of the track is in fact mostly guitars - as demonstrated by this edit - but it was intended to create an atmosphere of jumbled thoughts and general madness, not to be listened to on it's own. this edit gets that point across without dragging it on.
written early 2001. reconstructed in the first quarter of 2006, especially over march. this version was rendered from the existing source files on may 29, 2015.
systemic racism is systemic. racial profiling. a culture of supremacism. the policies are by design, and the results are intended. it's not a few shitty cops that need further education.
there was a case a while ago when a cop was excluded from the force because his iq tests came back too high, and the court system upheld the rights of the force to exclude him on that basis. smart people are more likely to act independently in the face of clear injustice. cops are literally singled out for their ability to be dumb enforcers, and then instructed to interpret people through a racial filter. it's design.
and, if you understand that the role of the police is to protect property, it's an inescapable necessity from the elite's perspective. it's rational. if you want to maintain the status quo of racial based inequality, you need a system of extreme force to do so and you need it thinking in racist terms.
one of the core issues is the continued existence of prison labour. this is basically unheard of anywhere else in the developed world. a constitutional amendment to ban prison labour would be a huge step forward.
but the only way to really overturn this kind of system is to tear it down.
of course, looting the 7/11 is not a useful tactic. but, the videos i saw exposed an average age of around 17. on some level, these are the people that have the most at stake. on another, they're not old enough to vote.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
the choice thing is pretty key. but, here's another key point: iraqi jews were in exile. they'd been there once before; maybe it was starting to feel like home. but, the culture maintained the fact that it was not home. palestinians are the hebrews that weren't exiled - the hebrews that converted to islam when the region was conquered. they didn't come from egypt or jordan or syria or the arabian peninsula - or even iraq. they're the indigenous, hebrew population of the region; they don't have a home to go to, because israel is their home.
modern genetics is an amazing thing, and the data is in and has been for a while. the arabization of this area was cultural. the lebanese are not arabs, but lebanese. and likewise with syrians and iraqis - and israelis. the population did not disperse, or otherwise evaporate. some jews fled, no doubt. but the broad base of the population is hebrew. this has been their home for many centuries, they just changed religions along the way. why? for good reasons - economic, cultural, social. and, it's not like there's really that big of a difference in the first place.
the romans changed the name of the province to palestine, with the intent of erasing jewish identity. but they didn't carry out a full genocide, like they did in carthage. and the dna makes it apparent that the dominant population group in the region did remain jewish right up until the british mandate and beyond, regardless of (what is now clear is) great exaggeration in the exile stories.
if the role of media is as important as he claims, it stands to reason that the death of the tv generation (and replacement by the internet generation) should have some serious implications.
it's easy to agree with him that investment in jobs is important. but it's more important to create them than it is to invest in them. let's be careful not to fall into the trap of supply-side economics, here.
barring some extreme change in turkish policy, the precondition for an independent kurdish state is for turkey to leave nato. so long as turkey is in nato, this cannot happen. but, here's the thing: this is less unlikely today than it ever has been, and not at all outside the boundaries of possibility.
however, there is essentially no situation where a turkish invasion is avoidable. it's stated that the turkish kurds might get ideas. rather, the more likely outcome is that the north of iraq becomes a turkish province.
the key arbiter here is of course the americans, and there are several reasons why they do not want kurdish independence. to begin with, it keeps the kurds as an ally. blowback is likely at some point, but so long as it works these perpetual promises are likely to continue, with no end point. second, it gives the west indirect control in iraq. third, it continues the kind of instability that the americans desire to maintain divisions in the region. this constant "kurdish problem" in turkey is actually useful for american policy, in restricting their ambitions to the south and maintaining a buffer zone between the turks and the saudis. the americans do not want a hot war there - it's why they're bombing isis.
it's almost impossible. they'd need the turkish-american alliance to collapse, and then need to win a war against turkey. it would be a kink in american foreign policy for them to have to pick a side (and they'd probably fund both with the intent to create stalemate, requiring one (likely the kurds) to seek outside help), enough that the kurds will continue to be successively talked out of it.
of course, it's stuff like this that is the underlying reason for the west's vilification of putin. he's not buying into the existing order, and not willing to do what he's told.
however, i think it's naive to look too deeply into this as much of a real game changer, for two reasons:
1) western capital will inevitably buy into what it can. and, you give them a foot in the door, they run the room.
2) these countries do not have interests that are fundamentally different. if they float lower interest rates, it's to be competitive in the short term.
is a market for development banks good for "consumers"? in the short run, maybe. but all markets eventually collude, and i wouldn't expect this to be different.
it may give the russians and chinese a more powerful bargaining position on certain issues. that's about the extent of it, i'd guess.
i've added six more mixes to inri025: two techno mixes, three for solo instruments and an arrangement for string orchestra. this was initially a classical guitar piece, but it is unplayable on a standard 19-fret classical and i do not currently have access to an extended board. there is a placeholder for a final performance on a suitably constructed instrument. but, for now, it is otherwise closed.
inri025 has been updated and semi-permanently finalized.
==
regarding this piece, my memory is blurry; yet, i have a vivid recollection of playing parts of it for my guitar teacher on a sunny day, where there was still snow on the ground. it's funny how we remember seemingly irrelevant details, but i guess the atmosphere of the performance is important because the performance is. that would date it to roughly march, 2001.
i switched the piece from classical guitar to piano halfway through writing it, and vaguely remember thinking that an impossible interval had something to do with it (a specific c# cannot be hit on a standard classical). yet, that doesn't change the fact that it's guitar music. the counterpoint is very guitar.
to further complicate things, i've long wanted to turn the piece into a jazzy idm romp. it has a kind of a jingly feel to it that belongs in the warp records sphere.
so, what is this? a classical guitar piece? a jazzy piano piece? a techno tune? all of the above! as with other pieces from this period, this is presented here in multiple formats: several rendered midi tracks, live guitar versions, a vst version and a "full band" version - as well as multiple remixes.
i have included the original midi file (and sheet music in pdf) as a bonus item in the download, if you want to play with it on your own.
conceptually, the time machine aspect referred simply to the slowed down guitar chords at the beginning of the song. if you play it a certain way, it sounds like time is collapsing in on itself. or, so i thought, anyways. the various versions i have created here have made an attempt to take that idea to it's logical conclusion. it's a mix of the vision i had at the time and a bit of hindsight.
six further mixes were added at the end of may, 2015. two of these are "techno" mixes of the song, three are interpretations of the piece on a solo instrument and one is a rearrangement for a full string orchestra. i've decided to present the material in a way that is really two eps combined together, with the first being arrangements for multiple instruments and the second being arrangements for solo instruments. note that there is a placeholder for the track as it was initially written for a 21-fret classical guitar.
written early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. rendered, arranged and performed over june and july, 2014. released on july 21, 2014. six new mixes were added in late may, 2015. re-released & put on indefinite hold as to status on may 28, 2015 as always, please use headphones.
credits
j - electric guitar, programming, digital effects & treatments, digital wave editing, loops, production, composition
the various rendered electronic orchestras include acoustic bass, synth bass, electric bass, upright bass, brass section, orchestra hit, drum machine, electronic drum kit, nylon guitar, electric guitar, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, french horn, trumpet, tuba, trombone, synthesizers, synthesizer effects, harp, music box, detuned piano, piano, bells, flute, hammered percussion, vibraphone, marimba and mellotron. it also includes choir.
so, the update is now complete, i just have to finalize a tracklisting.
written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. further remixed over july, 2014 and again in may, 2015. this version of the track was completed on may 27th, 2015.
here is the midi classical guitar mix, with a more listenable sample-based sound font.
i gotta be clear: i don't like doing this. i'm a guitarist. this is a computer. my teeth are grating a little.
but, the reason i moved the track from guitar to piano (and then abandoned it, until this year when i turned it into a jazzy techno thing) is that you need a 21-fret classical to play it. there's a live electric guitar mix - because electric guitars have 21 frets, minimum (mine are 23 and 24). but i just don't have a 21 fret classical. i can't even fudge the harmonic; all i have is a miniature 19-fret thing, and it just can't do it.
but here's the thing: maybe i should have a 21-fret or more classical. and i will, eventually. i'd even go so far as to suggest that, when i get done the discography, classical guitar music may be the only music i keep making. that means i can't permanently close this - in fact i can virtually guarantee that i will eventually add a live classical mix to the ep.
but, i won't remove this one, because it's a different slant on it. so, here it is...
this evening, i'm going to do a full drum and bass techno romp mix with crunchy synths in replace of guitars. as of this moment, i'm thinking it will probably finish this off, but i'll need o give it a good listen before i get to that conclusion. i'm also not entirely sure about the tracklisting yet...
when i initially uploaded this, i had the silly idea that it would be a bad idea to change the sound font, for the reason that it was important to maintain the sound of the piece as i had written it, for historical reasons. but...who wants to listen to a lonely sequenced piano through a budget 90s soundcard....
i've kept the initial files up, because, hey, why not? but, i've updated the font to sound considerably better.
the piano wasn't so bad to begin with - i've used the soundcard for plenty of piano parts, but it sounds a lot better near the higher end of the register, and with a little reverb. it's worth it on an a/b but it wasn't really terrible. i'm going to be updating the guitar part as well, which is going to be a much more noticeable update.
written in early 2001. reinterpreted in july, 2014; this version of the track was initially completed on july 21st. remixed to include background atmospheres on may 27, 2015.
inri025 is being overhauled, and almost doubled in length. that's fine, it's why i'm doing this run through.
when i did this last summer, i was thinking less comprehensively than i came to think over the course of the year. in truth, there's quite a few ideas to work out further, and a few that were kind of not the most interesting thing to begin with. this is going to be all digital; the tracks are down and done.
so, this is the second of what i'm thinking will be at least six additions to the single.
i kind of want to get all the "ep-singles" up over 40 minutes, as well. eps are usually conceptual, and subject to different requirements; singles are singles. but i consider the ep-single to be a sort of mini-record. that's what i grew up with - it's what i'd want, as a consumer. the releases are currently priced to sell (*ahem*...hint...), but if i get to a certain number of homemade sales i'd like to press some of them. what i press will depend on what sells - the magic number is 5000, which should pay for a pressing of any specific disc, if i get to that point. so, ensuring these are all "mini records" makes them a bit more worthwhile as possible physical items. i guess it's also worth pointing out that everything is designed for instant printing, should a label decide to pick me up on terms i'm willing to accept...
i don't want to just upload crap, though, either. what's coming is largely based around compilation ideas that actually work. i'm a little skeptical about a chamber works of synthesized string music, but we'll see what comes up.
it's often stated that a song is really good when it sounds good on just an acoustic guitar. i can't agree with that - but i've never been a fan of folk music, either, so it's partially an issue of defining what is "really good".
i think a better metric is "if it sounds good when arranged purely for strings". decide for yourself, i guess...but this isn't going to be the last one of these...
written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. further remixed over july, 2014 and may, 2015. this version of the track was completed on may 27th, 2015.
you know, it really is remarkable just how difficult a concept the press finds the idea that you can't just drop a nicaraguan in mexico. it really exposes an "us v them" mentality that is just unshakable by appeals to basic reason.
would you expect the mexicans to just release canadians into texas? does that make it easier to understand?
yeesh.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
in societies with social-leaning health care systems, it's a legitimate social issue because it drains resources. and, no, i don't think the answer is to move to private sector health care. poor kids shouldn't lose access to health care so overweight rich people can hog the resources. fat people should stop hogging the resources.
social theorists refer to peer pressure as an "informal control mechanism". i think you're getting at something a little deeper, involving things like individualism v collectivism, and statism v anarchism. i don't see a problem with the idea of using exclusion and mockery as a method to try and alter antisocial behaviour. i would maybe question the efficacy of certain tactics, but not the general idea.
and i have to be blunt in stating it: if it makes you uncomfortable, that's the point. the next step is to stop making excuses and do something about it.
but the thing that really bothers me is the air conditioning. especially up here in canada, where we only get a few weeks of weather over 30 degrees. i want to enjoy that, not be running the heater in june because the fat guy upstairs breaks a sweat at 20 degrees.
this article treats a research topic as a closed book. plate tectonics are not currently well understood - there's vague ideas that are probably mostly right, but acting like we're certain about something we're only beginning to understand is a type of arrogance that only the internet is capable of. there's plenty of published, peer-reviewed material out there that considers tidal drag to be a primary force in plate movement, and the movement in the field is towards a greater acceptance of this, not a lesser acceptance of it.
regarding the issue of gravity in planetary alignments, the "too far away" rebuttal simply misunderstands the argument - and is mostly flat out wrong. it's not about the "creation of new gravity", or something, but about offsetting an equilibrium. if it weren't for jupiter, the earth would fall into the sun. the larger bodies in our system have effects on our orbit that we can calculate quite easily if we know a little about celestial mechanics. the idea about the alignments having an effect on tectonic movement is that it "blocks" the gravity that we already know has an effect for a few moments in a sudden manner, creating a shock.
you also have to keep in mind that small planets can block out large ones if they are much closer. and i'm not going to present an opinion on whether there's actually an alignment on the date in question, because i don't feel like doing the math, because there's nothing that could be done about it.
the ancients kept very detailed seasonal and astronomical records. they were very interested in the topic. after a few centuries of record keeping, it's reasonable to think a few correlations could be pulled out of the data using crude identification tactics. and, they were pretty good at arithmetic, too. what we see coming down to us as astrological mumbo jumbo is partly a preservation of this, in the face of barbarian destruction horizons. it needs modern methods to confirm. but it's not inherently absurd.
so, take heed: viral rebuttals are often as bad or worse than the nonsense they claim to debunk.
brad - Jessica's fist post states that 'plate tectonics are not currently well understood'. Really, I always thought the geology was pretty advanced, as mankind has been studying the earth for a long time, and they have a solid understanding of what makes earthquakes and volcanoes.
jessica murray - the theory of plate tectonics did not develop until the 1960s, and there's still a lot of kinks to work out. it's pretty clear that there are giant slabs of rock moving around on the earth, but exactly what makes them work is not at all clear. if we understood this well, we'd be able to predict earthquakes and volcanoes. when alfred wegener initially made the proposal that continents move around (around 1910), he was written off as a fringe lunatic and more or less ignored until after he died. and he actually initially proposed tidal drag as the dominant factor.
jeremy - Jessica, one planet passing in front of another does not block the gravity. The force of gravity passes through mass without being hindered. There would be no shock effect during a planetary alignment. There would be a very tiny, very gradual rise in the magnitude of gravitational force acting in that particular direction. Tidal forces and the moon may well have some sort of effect on plate tectonics. But gravity drops off rapidly as distance increases. So the gravity we feel from the moon is so much greater than the gravity we feel from the other planets that it would totally dominate the effect, and the gravity from the other planets would be insignificant when compared to the moons.
jessica murray - it's not true that gravity passes through without hindrance. i put "block" in quotes for a reason. it's more of an interference issue, that can create amplification (+ or -). nor is it true that we don't feel the effects of gravity from another planet. i actually looked this up, and the argument you're presenting comes from a rebuttal to the idea that pluto could affect human weightlessness - an obvious farce. but, you weigh much less than the earth's crust does, and pluto is very far way, so it's consequently a very bad argument.
as mentioned: jupiter has a measurable effect on our orbit. this understanding is a consequence of relativity, which calculates the center of mass differently than newton did. nor does gravity from the moon "overpower" gravity from jupiter based on distance. rather, both forces continue to act.
as mentioned, the idea is that a disturbance in the gravitational field would put the balance of existing forces out of whack. jupiter and the earth are already pulling on each other in a measurable way. any disturbance of this would necessarily create a shock, by definition - the question is whether that shock (and it's countershock) is big enough to have an effect. and, as i mentioned, this is currently an open research topic.
this is a "drum and bass" mix, with pitched percussion for the melodic parts.
written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. further remixed over july, 2014 and may, 2015. this version of the track was completed on may 26th, 2015.
i've been in the process of closing down my second artistic phase for longer than i'd like, but i'm really getting to the final points on it, which means taking one last run through everything and making final decisions on it. this is the fourth mix i've appended to this single over the last week, but it is now final. closed.
so, behold inri024, which is now a 90 minute 12-track "single" of reinterpretations of this track.
inri024 has been updated and permanently finalized.
===
this is one of the tracks that i can't date well. i do, however, remember working on it during the winter, which means it must have been late '00 or early '01. i'm going to consequently deduce that it must have been what i was working on over the 2000 christmas break and date it coming out right after it.
actually, i have another reason to date it in early '01 rather than late '00: the introductory piano part was recorded live into my notation program on my dx100, which i was given over christmas (maybe a little before; it was a cheap garage sale pickup) to act as a controller for my recently broken jx-8p, that i had tried to take apart over the summer to clean a sticky key (a common problem with mid-80s roland analog synths) but failed and left keyless. it's still keyless. yet, the dx still drives it....
that introductory piano part formed the basis of the track, which built itself up fairly quickly. somewhere, i lost the nwc file by saving it as midi, which ruined all the formatting. it's been sitting on my drive ever since.
why put together seven different midi versions of the same track, and sequence them after a polished recorded version? well, this was never actually meant to be computer music. i was just composing something the old fashioned way with the intent of later giving it to some musicians to play. that never happened. what did happen was that i found myself playing it back on multiple sound cards over many years, trying to make it sound as good as possible in the short run - until i could finally get the chance to sit down and actually record it. while each of the different renders has it's strong and weak points, i ultimately don't feel that they form a total order. something i thought about doing was recording tracks independently on different cards and then pasting them together, but that would have just created another dozen incomparable mixes. rather than arbitrarily pick one, i decided to just upload all of them.
in hindsight, i think the format is interesting in itself in terms of it being a psychological experiment with sound. the differences from track to track are sometimes inaudible and sometimes extremely noticeable. stringing it all together in a row like this is challenging to any listener in the sense that it rips apart the process of becoming familiar with a piece. it means listening to exactly the same song through multiple different sound libraries. i think your brain would have to interpret that as a sort of a trip, especially when it comes to trying to build associations in sound within tracks that are both similar and different sounding, soundcard wise. i think that might be part of the reason i had so much difficulty isolating tracks in the first place.
so, listening to the ep through all the way is likely to be a bit disorienting and might ultimately be a strange experience. however, if you like the track for what it is as a collection of overlapping sequences of notes then i hope you get something out of the process of comparing and contrasting the renders together.
i have included the original midi file as a bonus item in the download, if you want to play with it on your own. the added guitar sections in the final version are recent additions and have not been written out.
thematically, the track is meant to orchestrate a feeling of claustrophobia with society pushing down on you too hard. it's meant to transmit a feeling of existential dread. at the time, i really felt stuck with life in general and not sure how i was going to get out of it.
four further remixes were added at the end of may, 2015, which has forced me to move two of the midi renders to 'download only'.
written late 2000 & early 2001. the renders present here are all from after 2013. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may, 2014. initially released on june 7, 2014. four new orchestral mixes were added in late may, 2015. re-released & finalized on may 26, 2015. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - electric piano, programming, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals, vocoders, digital effects & treatments, digital wave editing, composition.
the rendered electronic orchestras variously include piano, bass, synth bass, distorted electric guitar, clean electric guitar, other guitar effects, steel string acoustic guitar, nylon string classical guitar, sitar, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, french horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, oboe, english horn, bassoon, synthesizers, clarinet, flute, piccolo, xylophone, glockenspiel, woodblock, tubular bells, orchestra hit, jazz drum kit, hand drums, melodic toms, orchestral drum kit, hammered percussion, marimba, taiko drum, synthetic percussion and electronic drum kit.
crazy glen beck is actually on to something here. but he's still crazy.
it's not taught because it's extremely speculative. there's a hodge podge of random evidence, and if you interpret it a specific way it becomes compelling. but...
the phoenician writing - if it's not a hoax - is probably carthaginian. we know that carthage was pretty special in the ancient world, but we have a deficit of their history for the specific reason that the romans wrote them out of history by carrying out a genocide against them and literally tearing down every building in the city to it's foundation, then paving over it. look that up some time - it's dark reading. they were probably more important than egypt or greece, in their era, but they've been wiped out by an act of violence.
we can prove that they had large trading networks all the way around africa (not emulated by a european power until the portugese went out looking to get around the arabs), and north at least as far as ireland. beyond that, it gets sketchy, but it's long been speculated that they did find their way to america. the small amounts of evidence that exist are intriguing, but there's nothing strong enough to rewrite history...
this is in the list of "if they found it, they wouldn't believe it" type theories. but, i think it's very likely. we went through this with the vikings. and it's increasingly clear that the chinese made their own voyages from the other side. give it time.
but to answer the question: why haven't you heard of this? because the evidence isn't powerful enough. at least not yet, anyways.
have you considered sending a correspondent to the white house? i know: costs, and what's the point, it's propaganda, right? but i think this is actually quite important - if not from democracy now, then from some other independent and left-leaning organization.
i've been watching the white house press briefings for a few months now, and there's nothing even approaching a centrist position from much of anywhere. you'll get some ethnic groups standing up for their own from time to time, but it's all very one-dimensional. it's just right-wing journalist after right-wing journalist asking questions that seem framed around fox news coverage. i'm sure there's somebody at the show that watches these things and will agree how painful they are to watch. the closest thing i've seen to somebody asking about the humanitarian issue on the border was a trick question to try and get the secretary to admit that the administration was trying to weaken border security - when anybody aware of the facts knows how deport-happy the administration is.
what that creates is a situation where the only press pressure that the president is getting is from the right and the extreme right. there is still a facade of democracy in the united states, enough that the president needs to react to the press, for political reasons. the absolute deficit in the press corps of anybody approaching anything left wing means he has zero pressure to hold on policies, or move in a more progressive direction. it follows that getting somebody in there that's asking less outrageous questions is likely to actually have a policy effect, in allowing him to stand still or forcing him to moderate a little.
again: it's easier said than done. limited resources. i get it. but even a single, indignant voice can turn a room enough to turn up the heat. and, if it's not within the abilities of democracy now, i still think it's something you can float around to like-minded organizations.
watching the press conferences, you'd think obama set the dream act up to create an overground railroad to smuggle in illegals, and his secretary is doing a bad job in distracting from it. and yet we see here what's really happening.
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Rachel Golem
Yes, of course. All the problems in Honduras are the fault of white people who have never been there!!!!!!
NeoGeo12
CIA coups, Corrupt trade deals and the heinous drug war are the major reasons why America government is responsible for all this mass immigration.
deathtokoalas
the trade deals are key. this was predicted in the 90s.
russia invades crimea: it's a terrible breach in international law.
israel invades gaza: it's a sovereign right of nations to undertake military action.
i'm not taking a position here on which position is correct. i'm just pointing out that the united states merely uses international law as a tool of propaganda, and in truth hasn't the slightest interest in it's enforcement.
something has changed, though. this used to be a right-wing position - all the fear mongering about the nwo and the totalitarian order at the un is a calculated disinformation campaign to build popular support against the united nations, to stop it from being able to restrict american actions. the democrats, from roosevelt on, generally sought to uphold the legitimacy of the institution.
then, iraq happened. and the governing party has adopted a uniform position on the matter.
the un is dead. international law is dead. deal with it.