i've never released this in it's entirety. i was cycling it around bush' election campaign, hoping to get it done right before the election. unfortunately, i lost most of the source files in a hard drive crash that summer. must have been nsa. i thought i had lost the song altogether until i found a cd-r with this 90% done version on it after i moved in the fall. the only things missing were the vocals and a bass part that i never recorded.
as i'm being comprehensive, i'm going to throw it up as an ep.
musically, it's actually an arena rock song sandwiched between two lengthy sections of experimental electronic music.
--
so, i was absolutely mortified of george w. bush considerably before it was cool.
clinton had some problems, and gore was, at the time, a cartoon character; if you want to blame it on something other than the rain (and the moon and the stars), you should blame it on low turnout - something that was largely probably spurred on by the assumption that bush couldn't possibly actually win. well, maybe it was a fitting way to end the 90s. here's your apathy, kids. served cold. ice cold. cold as the blood of a shape-shifting lizard person...and cold as the blood on it's hands.
of course, standing in the spring of 2000, i had no way of knowing what was about to be unleashed. i was mostly still just pissed at clinton for bombing medicine factories in the sudan. i mean, the level of assholery underlying it was just.....the threat of "terrorism" could hardly justify that kind of indiscriminate bombing....fucking medicine factories...
the way i interpreted it was something more along the lines of this half-evolved hominid of undisclosed type slowly riding into town on horseback (with cronies in tow, including one with a yellow hat). it felt like you could see him coming days in the distance. it was unclear what was going to happen when he got to town, but it felt ominous. there was nothing to do but just wait, maybe prepare a little and ultimately hope for the best, even while bracing for the worst.
so, i did what i do - i wrote a conceptual piece about it with the intent of raising awareness. even just amongst friends would help, if they'd talk. etc.
...or, well, i sort of did, anyways. see, i lost a hard drive around this period, and most of the song along with it. what is posted here is a 90% done version that i thought i had lost completely but stumbled upon a few months after the election, after i had moved. given the circumstances, i'm lucky that i found this at all. however, it's remained unreleased as a cohesive piece all of these years.
well, the election was over. it was no longer worthwhile to finish it. i suppose that if i was operating on a profit motive, or a desire for control, i would have finished it. instead, i just felt like i failed to warn people, and it actually put me into a pretty deep depression for a while. it was too late, i blew it, we're fucking doomed....finishing it wouldn't matter....nothing mattered anymore...
listening to it now, it could maybe use a bass part. all this was really missing, though, were the vocals - which were also lost on the hard drive. i have no recollection of them at all at this point and don't see the value in making new ones up.
i did have the first and second section put aside somewhere, on a cd-r. i was able to fill that up with samples and get it out just before the election, and it also ended up sequenced into deny everything. so, it wasn't a total loss.
as for this suite, though? i present it as i've recovered it, with no further comment than that it accurately represents the deep, foreboding fear of the future that was in the air around the period that bush was elected.
this is a song cycle.
i'm almost entirely certain that at least a few of the members of gybe! were aware of my curious george project a considerable amount of time before they released their own sound art sample project, but i don't hold it against them (it was released as an outtake, and one may note that they're a large influence on my recordings in this period. mutual influence is fully permitted.).
recorded in spring, 2000. released, unmodified, in jan, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, synth, drums, drum programming, sequencing, sound design, loops, digital wave editing, production
released may 10, 2000
1) i can date this well, and report that this was the initial idea of the track. if you read the books (and i'd advise against reading these to your kids), there's actually a fairly graphic section at the beginning where george is captured from the jungle by the man with the yellow hat.
the man with the yellow hat really comes off as a dick.
anyways, that's what's going on here with this.
the cd-r i found has an early version of acidosis followed by this suite. over time, i began to interpret the jungle sounds as being more connected to acidosis than to this suite and this did end up there, in modified form, as 'life goes on'. that being said, the version attached to acidosis was reconstructed from the initial samples because i lost this collage when my hard drive crashed...
the source files (along with the files for part 2) are dated to the end of april, which seems roughly right.
what i did was get a bunch of jungle sounds together and let sound raider mess with them. i then created a file in audiomulch that produced some exotic drum effects and adds in some unusual noises.
it's an atmospheric track in either context.
2) this section was augmented with samples:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/curious-george-2
it was also released on deny everything:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/deny-everything
(https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/curious-george)
musically, the track is a combination of an experiment with an idea. i should note that this suite together is maybe the first original track in the style that dominates my output over the next few years, even if it's incomplete (albeit hereby decreed complete). the idea was about creating "guitar symphonies" (and while i was aware of the work of oldfield and fripp, and of sonic youth and gybe!, branca was a black hole for me at the time) in a minimalist, electronic framework that most readily draws to mind the work of trent reznor. this is the first of many expressions and evolutions of that idea. the experiment was with a program called "leaf drums", which is a fairly basic drum machine except in it's ability to manipulate samples with effects in realtime (remember that this is the spring of 2000). once i had that loop running, i started playing some of the riffs i had put aside for the guitar symphony, mostly just to play around with them. it stuck far better than i expected....and that's really the extent of the track.
the bush sample at the beginning is a constructed loop rather than a direct quote. he was talking about gore - "this guy would say anything to get elected, i'd...". that was flipped around to "i'd say anything to get elected" and looped. well, at this point i don't think anybody is going to stand up for bush' honesty or credibility. regardless, the way i looped it purposefully pans it to make it obvious that it's not a direct quote.
the lost version was built up considerably further than this; this version has three guitar parts, the lost version had closer to ten. i was too focused on getting the samples together to worry about re-recording the guitar parts. i don't remember them at this point and will not make up new ones. to be honest, this is far easier to listen to, and, while i mourn the loss of the completed version, i'm actually happy that i kept a more stripped down one.
3) if i could find a source for the "people who are going to commit crimes shouldn't have guns" quote, i could maybe date this better. unfortunately, i suspect google has done some scrubbing for the bush family, which is a scary thought. i think it was early may, but it may be a little later.
i can't remember if i finished most of this, put it aside for later, recorded acidosis and then lost the hard drive OR if i finished the very beginning of this, recorded acidosis, then recorded the second half of this and then lost the drive. meaning, this is either early may or it's mid-september.
there's a number of reasons to lean towards may, though. the drums, firstly. there are not live drum parts in any of the material recorded from mid-may forwards. that indicates that they weren't available to play. second, i remember the early summer sun hitting me when recording the fourth part - and specifically in the hilliard basement, rather than the lexington basement i'd move to over the fall. there's a kind of nausea attached to the mid-season sun that only occurs in april/may and sept/oct.
musically, this extends out of the previous experiment, but it's easy to hear that that is an introduction to this, that this was meant to be the song that that leads into. as the big, ridiculous arena-rock tune it is? it holds up well. note that the aim was to push a message, and the arena rock theme wasn't an accident. this was supposed to be the take-away, the radio play, the thing that got stuck in your head.
i never added a bass track and don't see a point in doing so now. however, what is actually lost is really solely a heavily vocoded vocal track. i won't re-do it. i'll explain it a little. the theme underlying the curious george analogy was one of seeing bush as a corporate puppet. wherever george went, the man in the yellow hat would follow - to oversee, influence and ultimately dominate. i wasn't taking the analogy very far, i was simply drawing it with the aim of hoping that people would educate themselves about the dangers that he posed.
4) this was meant to be instrumental, and wouldn't have been modified in any way except maybe to embiggen the end part. i didn't expect to ever release this, so i raided the track for inclusion in ftaa:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/through-the-looking-glass
Friday, January 10, 2014
Thursday, January 9, 2014
entropy (replaced album mix)
this is an augmented experiment with a program called "sounder" that takes advantage of some obscure midi qualities to transport the act of triggering a note into the physical world. imagine a midi tennis ball that triggers at different intensities based on how hard the ball is thrown at a wall. now, imagine a frictionless space where that ball can bounce around indefinitely. sounder virtualizes this reality.
the experiment was augmented with synthesizer and guitar parts, and a sample of garry trudeau posing as a political candidate and being interviewed by larry king. i first interacted with that sample early in the morning in a deeply altered state and came to attach certain feelings to it that are difficult to describe. while it's clearly parody, it hit me as being frighteningly representative of reality. i suppose that all effective parody has this quality. perhaps my reaction speaks more of where i was at this point than anything else. i wasn't reacting well to the return of republicanism; i was very much dreading the future that i had no control in preventing. the absurd truth, here, cut me right down.
i was fucking baked.
eventually, i decided that the sample is just not worth listening to repeatedly and removed it from the track. the initial version, with doonesbury sample, is available here:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/entropy-original-mix
initially recorded in late 1999. reconstructed to remove the sample on sept 17, 2006.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/entropy
the experiment was augmented with synthesizer and guitar parts, and a sample of garry trudeau posing as a political candidate and being interviewed by larry king. i first interacted with that sample early in the morning in a deeply altered state and came to attach certain feelings to it that are difficult to describe. while it's clearly parody, it hit me as being frighteningly representative of reality. i suppose that all effective parody has this quality. perhaps my reaction speaks more of where i was at this point than anything else. i wasn't reacting well to the return of republicanism; i was very much dreading the future that i had no control in preventing. the absurd truth, here, cut me right down.
i was fucking baked.
eventually, i decided that the sample is just not worth listening to repeatedly and removed it from the track. the initial version, with doonesbury sample, is available here:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/entropy-original-mix
initially recorded in late 1999. reconstructed to remove the sample on sept 17, 2006.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/entropy
gravity’s rainbow (original album mix)
reading pynchon, smoking pot, listening to floyd, watching star trek re-runs: must be the mid 70s. naw. early 00s....
"the real war is always there. the dying tapers off now and then, but the war is still killing lots of people. only right now it is killing them in more subtle ways, often in ways that are too subtle, even for us, at this level, to trace."
i have very clear memories of tripping out pretty hard into audiomulch programs as the sun appeared through some frosty february mornings. these were fun sounds to program through the bright winter dawn.
the concept came to me while reading the opening sections of the novel of the same title. "gravity's rainbow", itself, is a technical term that refers to the period of time that occurred between a rocket strike and the sound of it coming in. as they were able to move faster than sound, this happened in a way that was non-intuitive: the explosion would happen *first*, and the sound would come after. the inability to hear the rockets come in made life just a wee bit stressful in london during the war.
specifically, the opening scene narrates a movement of people into the london subway system, which was used as a system of bunkers during attacks. we're so far removed from this that it's hard to imagine: sirens going off, perhaps in the middle of the night, followed by waves of working class english scrambling for cover by the trains...
there was a point where it came to me fairly lucidly. i just needed to orchestrate it. it's a famously difficult text, but one can get the idea of the song by merely reading the first chapter.
the star trek sample came later. there were re-runs on around 4:00 in the morning; there probably still are, but i turned the tv off permanently shortly after this song was constructed. we all know what else happens around twenty minutes past 4:00 AM. it was a ritual over that winter. the episode precedes the novel, so it couldn't have been influenced by it, but it is strangely topical in the way that it relates the organians to the pynchonian "counterforce". yet, as mentioned, i was smoking a lot of pot at the time....
musically, the track is dual-layered. i've had it described as "an indescribable mixture of conventional and unconventional music" (paraphrase), which is an exaggeration that i'll take as a compliment. the song itself has a sort of an acoustic prog feel that some may compare to porcupine tree or radiohead but was in truth heavily influenced by john lennon and pink floyd (i like early radiohead, but i think porcupine tree is pretentious garbage). the effects underneath the track were constructed using a number of 16-bit sound design programs and unusual approaches to synthesis.
as mentioned, the memories are with the sun coming up. maybe you can get a bit of a sense of that.
recorded in spring, 2000.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/gravitys-rainbow
"the real war is always there. the dying tapers off now and then, but the war is still killing lots of people. only right now it is killing them in more subtle ways, often in ways that are too subtle, even for us, at this level, to trace."
i have very clear memories of tripping out pretty hard into audiomulch programs as the sun appeared through some frosty february mornings. these were fun sounds to program through the bright winter dawn.
the concept came to me while reading the opening sections of the novel of the same title. "gravity's rainbow", itself, is a technical term that refers to the period of time that occurred between a rocket strike and the sound of it coming in. as they were able to move faster than sound, this happened in a way that was non-intuitive: the explosion would happen *first*, and the sound would come after. the inability to hear the rockets come in made life just a wee bit stressful in london during the war.
specifically, the opening scene narrates a movement of people into the london subway system, which was used as a system of bunkers during attacks. we're so far removed from this that it's hard to imagine: sirens going off, perhaps in the middle of the night, followed by waves of working class english scrambling for cover by the trains...
there was a point where it came to me fairly lucidly. i just needed to orchestrate it. it's a famously difficult text, but one can get the idea of the song by merely reading the first chapter.
the star trek sample came later. there were re-runs on around 4:00 in the morning; there probably still are, but i turned the tv off permanently shortly after this song was constructed. we all know what else happens around twenty minutes past 4:00 AM. it was a ritual over that winter. the episode precedes the novel, so it couldn't have been influenced by it, but it is strangely topical in the way that it relates the organians to the pynchonian "counterforce". yet, as mentioned, i was smoking a lot of pot at the time....
musically, the track is dual-layered. i've had it described as "an indescribable mixture of conventional and unconventional music" (paraphrase), which is an exaggeration that i'll take as a compliment. the song itself has a sort of an acoustic prog feel that some may compare to porcupine tree or radiohead but was in truth heavily influenced by john lennon and pink floyd (i like early radiohead, but i think porcupine tree is pretentious garbage). the effects underneath the track were constructed using a number of 16-bit sound design programs and unusual approaches to synthesis.
as mentioned, the memories are with the sun coming up. maybe you can get a bit of a sense of that.
recorded in spring, 2000.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/gravitys-rainbow
actually, i completely disagree. well, let me clarify what i disagree about.
this article has been written a thousand times over the last ten years. it's not that the ideas haven't been tried, it's that they haven't worked. i like naomi klein on an idealistic level, but she's hopelessly wrong on this point. well, except that if you read between the lines you see quickly that she's being sarcastic, ironic and more or less just putting workers on. what naomi klein is really saying is that the union movement is a horrendous failure, in a way that allows the listener/reader to construct it themselves.
we need to realize that malatesta was right: unions are and forever will be horrifically co-opted by capital. the climate crisis isn't just an indictment of capitalism, it ought to also be the last nail in the coffin for centralized labour.
i agree that the nature of production needs to change. this is obvious. i don't agree that there's any hope at all that workers will stimulate that change, and think the left should stop wasting it's time with fantasies that they will.
meaning, naomi klein is right - once you cut through her haze of sardonic cheekiness and get to what she's actually saying.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/toward-cyborg-socialism/
dave
Lol, everytime I follow one of those Jacobin links, it leaves me shaking my head. Fortunately, I would never be alive to live under their ideas.
dgkfgkdjdgkhyffa
generally, i find them sort of refreshing, especially regarding their perception of work (and i do agree with the general crux of the article that ecology + technology is where to place effort for the future of urban civilization) but they share a general problem on the left of being far too attached to theory. it's a fairly quick process to realize that marx actually doesn't make any sense, except under conditions where capitalism is basically reduced to feudalism. you can apply marx reasonably to current conditions in bangladesh or china, for example - it's not "like" slavery, it *is* slavery and there's consequently a breaking point of revolt. but as soon as you get the slightest veneer of comfort, the whole thing falls apart. to think that the luxury of advanced capitalism will lead to increasing levels of revolt is just incoherent. and all the anarchists, from bakunin on, all realized how blatantly obvious that is, to the point of realizing that not realizing it is just really sort of stupid. why there are so many marxists, today, 150 years later, i don't understand.
when bakunin was like "ok, but it's going to be the starving unemployed that are going to organize, not the well-fed employed" that was a correction that should have been made central to all further socialist thought. and to the early socialists' credit, they did try. but then this cult of personality developed, and his writings became canonized and blah blah.....
on some level, it's easy to understand. if you realize the obvious truth that workers must behave in the interests of capital, rather than work against it, it makes sense to think that they'd collaborate with their bosses in order to keep wages high for themselves. and fuck everybody else.
but i don't understand why the academics, with no motives to not be objective, haven't understood this. i know there's a tradition towards turning every canonical text into a new bible, but that's a weak explanation to me. it just leaves me scratching my head.
this article has been written a thousand times over the last ten years. it's not that the ideas haven't been tried, it's that they haven't worked. i like naomi klein on an idealistic level, but she's hopelessly wrong on this point. well, except that if you read between the lines you see quickly that she's being sarcastic, ironic and more or less just putting workers on. what naomi klein is really saying is that the union movement is a horrendous failure, in a way that allows the listener/reader to construct it themselves.
we need to realize that malatesta was right: unions are and forever will be horrifically co-opted by capital. the climate crisis isn't just an indictment of capitalism, it ought to also be the last nail in the coffin for centralized labour.
i agree that the nature of production needs to change. this is obvious. i don't agree that there's any hope at all that workers will stimulate that change, and think the left should stop wasting it's time with fantasies that they will.
meaning, naomi klein is right - once you cut through her haze of sardonic cheekiness and get to what she's actually saying.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/toward-cyborg-socialism/
dave
Lol, everytime I follow one of those Jacobin links, it leaves me shaking my head. Fortunately, I would never be alive to live under their ideas.
dgkfgkdjdgkhyffa
generally, i find them sort of refreshing, especially regarding their perception of work (and i do agree with the general crux of the article that ecology + technology is where to place effort for the future of urban civilization) but they share a general problem on the left of being far too attached to theory. it's a fairly quick process to realize that marx actually doesn't make any sense, except under conditions where capitalism is basically reduced to feudalism. you can apply marx reasonably to current conditions in bangladesh or china, for example - it's not "like" slavery, it *is* slavery and there's consequently a breaking point of revolt. but as soon as you get the slightest veneer of comfort, the whole thing falls apart. to think that the luxury of advanced capitalism will lead to increasing levels of revolt is just incoherent. and all the anarchists, from bakunin on, all realized how blatantly obvious that is, to the point of realizing that not realizing it is just really sort of stupid. why there are so many marxists, today, 150 years later, i don't understand.
when bakunin was like "ok, but it's going to be the starving unemployed that are going to organize, not the well-fed employed" that was a correction that should have been made central to all further socialist thought. and to the early socialists' credit, they did try. but then this cult of personality developed, and his writings became canonized and blah blah.....
on some level, it's easy to understand. if you realize the obvious truth that workers must behave in the interests of capital, rather than work against it, it makes sense to think that they'd collaborate with their bosses in order to keep wages high for themselves. and fuck everybody else.
but i don't understand why the academics, with no motives to not be objective, haven't understood this. i know there's a tradition towards turning every canonical text into a new bible, but that's a weak explanation to me. it just leaves me scratching my head.
classic essay. if you never read it, you should.
as an aside, it's really disturbing how bad salon has gotten. this used to be one of the better sites on the internet. now, it's basically cosmopolitan for iphones.
http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/
as an aside, it's really disturbing how bad salon has gotten. this used to be one of the better sites on the internet. now, it's basically cosmopolitan for iphones.
http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
publishing let freedom ring (inri036)
this is a collection of three tracks that were recorded in late '99 and early '00 with the intent of being included on record number three ('trinri') but were either discarded or stripped of samples on the way there.
more detailed stories for each track are found on the track pages.
trinri eventually became deny everything (inri041):
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/deny-everything
recorded in late 1999 and early 2000. sequenced in jan, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
more detailed stories for each track are found on the track pages.
trinri eventually became deny everything (inri041):
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/deny-everything
recorded in late 1999 and early 2000. sequenced in jan, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, synth, drumkit, drum programming, sequencing, sampling, digital wave manipulation, treatments, production
released january 25, 2000
released january 25, 2000
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
publishing inricycled b
i initially wanted to sequence this at the end of the inri period,
but i've changed my mind. the inricycled concept is about reclaiming
interesting sections of songs that my immaturity ruined. however, this
idea simply doesn't need to be extended over the full range of the inri
period. inri material after the inriched demo (which was just after my
18th birthday) is strong enough to hold up on it's own. this would
include the inrimake and inridiculous demoes, as well as associated
singles...
the inricycled concept only needs to be applied to the inri/inriched demoes, and i can even really hone in to about a five month period at the beginning of 1998 where some less than great decisions were applied to material i was rerecording (and in some cases had written as young as 13). despite that period being short, it's consequences extended right up until early '99.
that defines the boundaries of this inricycled period: jan '98 to feb '99.
i've tried to make the tracks short to fulfill the medley concept, but that sort of breaks about halfway through. i simply wasn't writing songs in late '98. i was experimenting with sound effects and doing weird remixes. the last song in this collection was the first proper "song" i'd recorded in months, and it really represents a dramatic change in sound. so, it's more reasonable to end the period there for that reason, too.
==
i've released a dozen different things with the title "inricycled", making it more of a concept than a release. it's not just the material i'm recycling, now, it's the idea of recycling material.
i hope this is the final iteration. the difference, here, is that i'm trying to isolate segments of songs that people interested in my more recent compositions would find interesting. these fragments aren't entirely void of lyrics, but they're very minimal. they're also quite short; for the B volume, i've enforced a very strict two minute time limit on the fragments (which is not applicable to a few full tracks). i've also retitled most of the tracks to get a feel of what the music sounds like and/or what i was thinking as i was writing it. well...some of it is just silly.
the material here stems from recordings that were completed in 1998 and very early 1999. it is constructed in a way that maintains the recording chronology, which means it captures a level of increasing complexity. it does not, however, include the material on inrisampled because it's from 1997 and comprehensively dealt with there. nor does it include the material on warning or inrimake because i feel these are sufficient ways to recombine that material. finally, material after march, 1999 has been deemed sufficiently fit to stand on it's own; this only glosses over the inri/inriched period, and related eps.
generally, the goal here is to reclaim instrumental versions of vocal tracks. i've mentioned repeatedly that my lyrics and vocals in this period were not impressive, but there are instrumental sections that stand well on their own. hence, this medley.
one can accurately read deeply into the few lyrics i've salvaged.
looking back at the period between may '98 and feb '99 produces a large deficit of songwriting. i was working through experiments, doing remixes and other fun things, but the only thing approaching a song produced during that period is 'idiotic'. tracks 14-16, here, were finalized over late '98 but mostly recorded in very early '98. when i finally broke the slump with "too cold", i had something entirely different in front of me. it represents the beginning of something entirely new.....
sequenced and mildly modified in jan, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, synth, drum programming, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, production.
released mar 1, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled-b-deleted-mix-tape
1) fragments mega-mix.
2) 2013 remaster. the dialogue is from the x-files.
3) 2013 remaster.
4) 2014 remaster & re-edit, from the inricycled b compilation.
the inricycled concept only needs to be applied to the inri/inriched demoes, and i can even really hone in to about a five month period at the beginning of 1998 where some less than great decisions were applied to material i was rerecording (and in some cases had written as young as 13). despite that period being short, it's consequences extended right up until early '99.
that defines the boundaries of this inricycled period: jan '98 to feb '99.
i've tried to make the tracks short to fulfill the medley concept, but that sort of breaks about halfway through. i simply wasn't writing songs in late '98. i was experimenting with sound effects and doing weird remixes. the last song in this collection was the first proper "song" i'd recorded in months, and it really represents a dramatic change in sound. so, it's more reasonable to end the period there for that reason, too.
==
i've released a dozen different things with the title "inricycled", making it more of a concept than a release. it's not just the material i'm recycling, now, it's the idea of recycling material.
i hope this is the final iteration. the difference, here, is that i'm trying to isolate segments of songs that people interested in my more recent compositions would find interesting. these fragments aren't entirely void of lyrics, but they're very minimal. they're also quite short; for the B volume, i've enforced a very strict two minute time limit on the fragments (which is not applicable to a few full tracks). i've also retitled most of the tracks to get a feel of what the music sounds like and/or what i was thinking as i was writing it. well...some of it is just silly.
the material here stems from recordings that were completed in 1998 and very early 1999. it is constructed in a way that maintains the recording chronology, which means it captures a level of increasing complexity. it does not, however, include the material on inrisampled because it's from 1997 and comprehensively dealt with there. nor does it include the material on warning or inrimake because i feel these are sufficient ways to recombine that material. finally, material after march, 1999 has been deemed sufficiently fit to stand on it's own; this only glosses over the inri/inriched period, and related eps.
generally, the goal here is to reclaim instrumental versions of vocal tracks. i've mentioned repeatedly that my lyrics and vocals in this period were not impressive, but there are instrumental sections that stand well on their own. hence, this medley.
one can accurately read deeply into the few lyrics i've salvaged.
looking back at the period between may '98 and feb '99 produces a large deficit of songwriting. i was working through experiments, doing remixes and other fun things, but the only thing approaching a song produced during that period is 'idiotic'. tracks 14-16, here, were finalized over late '98 but mostly recorded in very early '98. when i finally broke the slump with "too cold", i had something entirely different in front of me. it represents the beginning of something entirely new.....
sequenced and mildly modified in jan, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, synth, drum programming, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, production.
released mar 1, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled-b-deleted-mix-tape
1) fragments mega-mix.
2) 2013 remaster. the dialogue is from the x-files.
3) 2013 remaster.
4) 2014 remaster & re-edit, from the inricycled b compilation.
you know....
....just because it's become clear that you can't exploit me further in the future (i'm sorry about that, but i sort of see responsibility as slavery, so your bourgeois shit just ain't gonna fly with me, sister) doesn't mean there's no longer any reason to communicate with me.
unless you're evil, basically.
which i'm trying to hold out hope against. it's just that, by continually being evil, you're not helping your case.
i know: the world is evil. you're basically screwed unless you conform to it. see, that's why it's so important to avoid evil people, though. there's basically two options: conform to the evil society around us, or avoid evil by becoming a hermit. i instantly fail at the first choice, so i'm left with the second.
see, its not that i'm blaming people, though. not exactly. i don't have the time, energy or interest to blame people. i just can't risk dealing with the consequences of their behaviour any further. evil people can go be evil far away from me...
so, yeah. ignoring me because you can't gain anything from me is positively evil. no, it is. it's pretty normal, maybe. fine. it's still evil. and you're supposed to be better than that.
j
unless you're evil, basically.
which i'm trying to hold out hope against. it's just that, by continually being evil, you're not helping your case.
i know: the world is evil. you're basically screwed unless you conform to it. see, that's why it's so important to avoid evil people, though. there's basically two options: conform to the evil society around us, or avoid evil by becoming a hermit. i instantly fail at the first choice, so i'm left with the second.
see, its not that i'm blaming people, though. not exactly. i don't have the time, energy or interest to blame people. i just can't risk dealing with the consequences of their behaviour any further. evil people can go be evil far away from me...
so, yeah. ignoring me because you can't gain anything from me is positively evil. no, it is. it's pretty normal, maybe. fine. it's still evil. and you're supposed to be better than that.
j
flashback.
"you know, if you're really not interested then you could always drop out."
"no, actually, i can't."
"parents?"
"sort of. not really. it's either school or work, and i can't find a job so i'm stuck at university until...."
"....well, if your interest level doesn't pick up..."
"...actually, i'm hoping i'll finally get a call back from one of the local coffee shops, soon."
*pause*
"who is paying for this?"
"the state, mostly."
"do you think that's..."
"i told you what my options are. right now, it reduces to school or homelessness. i'd rather be in a government training program for something working class than solving algebraic equations because it's about the only thing i can find in this place that i don't think is absolute bullshit. take it up with the government. it's their policies that put a massive focus on education."
"yeah. i see what you mean. i've just never seen anything like this, or at least anybody so honest about it."
"it's right out of a kafka novel. but if things don't change, i think it might become normal. university is quickly becoming the place that apathetic young people are forced to go to when they're not able to find a job, rather than a place people go to to advance their goals and ambitions. it's on the brink of becoming a form of social welfare. that kind of dystopia serves nobody."
"you won't reconsider?"
"i have no future here."
"ok"
*end phone call from academic adviser*
i'm sort of a space cadet. that just got thrown back at me while splicing some wave files.
"you know, if you're really not interested then you could always drop out."
"no, actually, i can't."
"parents?"
"sort of. not really. it's either school or work, and i can't find a job so i'm stuck at university until...."
"....well, if your interest level doesn't pick up..."
"...actually, i'm hoping i'll finally get a call back from one of the local coffee shops, soon."
*pause*
"who is paying for this?"
"the state, mostly."
"do you think that's..."
"i told you what my options are. right now, it reduces to school or homelessness. i'd rather be in a government training program for something working class than solving algebraic equations because it's about the only thing i can find in this place that i don't think is absolute bullshit. take it up with the government. it's their policies that put a massive focus on education."
"yeah. i see what you mean. i've just never seen anything like this, or at least anybody so honest about it."
"it's right out of a kafka novel. but if things don't change, i think it might become normal. university is quickly becoming the place that apathetic young people are forced to go to when they're not able to find a job, rather than a place people go to to advance their goals and ambitions. it's on the brink of becoming a form of social welfare. that kind of dystopia serves nobody."
"you won't reconsider?"
"i have no future here."
"ok"
*end phone call from academic adviser*
i'm sort of a space cadet. that just got thrown back at me while splicing some wave files.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
this is absolute rubbish. we've reached the point where the information the news gives us is literally the opposite of what's actually happening.
isis is the same group that the americans and saudis have been funding in syria. these are "our guys". we're paying them to fight. and they're carrying out our goals in the area.
it was bad enough when we were at war with al qaeda in one theatre and aligned with them in another. now, content that that went over with people just fine, that it wasn't dissonant enough, they've got the official narrative set so that we're simultaneously aligned and at war with the same group in the same theatre.
well, why not. when you're basing your entire foreign policy on elaborate and transparent lies, what's the use in bothering with consistency or logic?
here's the actual deal: the americans want maliki out of there. the idea of the invasion was to create a shiite region that would compete with iran, mostly to appease the saudis. shiites are numerically more populous in iraq, so it's majority rule. the hope was that the american backed shiite regime would dominate the iranian one. in other words, regime change in iraq was a tactic to facilitate regime change in iran.
however, it's backfired. instead, iraq has become closely aligned with iran. one of the talking points that isn't a lie is that iraq is co-operating with iran to get weapons into syria. "a shiite crescent" has developed that places iraq in a regional alliance that includes syria and iraq (and hezbollah). the saudis aren't impressed...
....so they're going in with their guys (and with american support) to take him out. why now? because it's a part of the push by the saudis to take control of syria. they had to take syria out to contain iran. and it turns out they have to take iraq out to take syria out.
you'll see a few articles pop up over the next few weeks at sites like counterpunch that explain this. i'm not breaking any news, i'm just explaining the context. people that have been paying attention to this have actually been expecting it. some people were actually talking about us airstrikes to remove maliki.
the state and corporate media will state nothing of it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25611034
it really amplifies the question: just what are the saudis (and i say "saudis", but it's really a coalition of gulf states of which the saudis are the leading state, a coalition that's increasingly including israel as a junior partner) angling for? i mean, we know they want to contain iran, but it only answers half the question. why the obsession with containing iran?
the usual answer is that they fear the spread of democracy in the region and want to do everything to stamp it out. they see iran as an existential threat not due to the religious difference (although it plays a role on some level) but because they see iran's representative democracy as a threat to their theocracy. compare that to the official narrative about iran. there's nothing approaching a convergence. but i didn't just make it up. it's been widely extrapolated out of the saudi aristocracy's own statements going back a number of years. it's on a firm footing.
and, if you look at the saudi reaction to the arab spring uprisings, it provides quite a bit of evidence for this. they were personally involved in suppressing uprisings in bahrain and yemen. they co-opted the uprising in syria, and have now turned it into a sort of dual invasion of syria and iraq. they also orchestrated the coup in egypt, and have since become it's dominant donor. that's a notable event in itself. for years, the americans have been pumping money into egypt in order to "maintain order", which means uphold the peace treaty with israel. the saudis have taken over this responsibility. they were also instrumental in the destruction of libya, although the west had it's own motives on that one.
when you put it together, it seems as though the saudis are trying to assert themselves as a regional hegemon, backed by american power. words like caliphate and empire seem natural in context, but i don't expect to see any annexations. rather, the outcome is probably going to look something more like a theocratic european union, enforced by hard power from riyadh.
of course, a lot of people are going to have to die to see that new (old) order take hold in the region. and to what extent it's sustainable by force, and without reform, is a difficult - but open - question.
there's a side of me though that could see a pax arabia as a benefit. it's just hard to stomach the road to get there.
tl;dr - decolonization.
but, just from a sort of captain obvious perspective - the west has been selling billions of dollars worth of weapons to the saudis (one of the most oppressive regimes on earth) for years. it shouldn't come as a shock that they're using them to control the areas surrounding them, or that their sphere of influence has expanded as a function of their investments (itself a function of their wealth). as simple-minded an analysis as it is, the fact is that money is power.
isis is the same group that the americans and saudis have been funding in syria. these are "our guys". we're paying them to fight. and they're carrying out our goals in the area.
it was bad enough when we were at war with al qaeda in one theatre and aligned with them in another. now, content that that went over with people just fine, that it wasn't dissonant enough, they've got the official narrative set so that we're simultaneously aligned and at war with the same group in the same theatre.
well, why not. when you're basing your entire foreign policy on elaborate and transparent lies, what's the use in bothering with consistency or logic?
here's the actual deal: the americans want maliki out of there. the idea of the invasion was to create a shiite region that would compete with iran, mostly to appease the saudis. shiites are numerically more populous in iraq, so it's majority rule. the hope was that the american backed shiite regime would dominate the iranian one. in other words, regime change in iraq was a tactic to facilitate regime change in iran.
however, it's backfired. instead, iraq has become closely aligned with iran. one of the talking points that isn't a lie is that iraq is co-operating with iran to get weapons into syria. "a shiite crescent" has developed that places iraq in a regional alliance that includes syria and iraq (and hezbollah). the saudis aren't impressed...
....so they're going in with their guys (and with american support) to take him out. why now? because it's a part of the push by the saudis to take control of syria. they had to take syria out to contain iran. and it turns out they have to take iraq out to take syria out.
you'll see a few articles pop up over the next few weeks at sites like counterpunch that explain this. i'm not breaking any news, i'm just explaining the context. people that have been paying attention to this have actually been expecting it. some people were actually talking about us airstrikes to remove maliki.
the state and corporate media will state nothing of it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25611034
it really amplifies the question: just what are the saudis (and i say "saudis", but it's really a coalition of gulf states of which the saudis are the leading state, a coalition that's increasingly including israel as a junior partner) angling for? i mean, we know they want to contain iran, but it only answers half the question. why the obsession with containing iran?
the usual answer is that they fear the spread of democracy in the region and want to do everything to stamp it out. they see iran as an existential threat not due to the religious difference (although it plays a role on some level) but because they see iran's representative democracy as a threat to their theocracy. compare that to the official narrative about iran. there's nothing approaching a convergence. but i didn't just make it up. it's been widely extrapolated out of the saudi aristocracy's own statements going back a number of years. it's on a firm footing.
and, if you look at the saudi reaction to the arab spring uprisings, it provides quite a bit of evidence for this. they were personally involved in suppressing uprisings in bahrain and yemen. they co-opted the uprising in syria, and have now turned it into a sort of dual invasion of syria and iraq. they also orchestrated the coup in egypt, and have since become it's dominant donor. that's a notable event in itself. for years, the americans have been pumping money into egypt in order to "maintain order", which means uphold the peace treaty with israel. the saudis have taken over this responsibility. they were also instrumental in the destruction of libya, although the west had it's own motives on that one.
when you put it together, it seems as though the saudis are trying to assert themselves as a regional hegemon, backed by american power. words like caliphate and empire seem natural in context, but i don't expect to see any annexations. rather, the outcome is probably going to look something more like a theocratic european union, enforced by hard power from riyadh.
of course, a lot of people are going to have to die to see that new (old) order take hold in the region. and to what extent it's sustainable by force, and without reform, is a difficult - but open - question.
there's a side of me though that could see a pax arabia as a benefit. it's just hard to stomach the road to get there.
tl;dr - decolonization.
but, just from a sort of captain obvious perspective - the west has been selling billions of dollars worth of weapons to the saudis (one of the most oppressive regimes on earth) for years. it shouldn't come as a shock that they're using them to control the areas surrounding them, or that their sphere of influence has expanded as a function of their investments (itself a function of their wealth). as simple-minded an analysis as it is, the fact is that money is power.
timed out near 80. ugh. i'm only going to try it one more time before i give a reinstall a try.
....and now it just rebooted, so here comes an attempt at a reinstall....
i don't want to delete the partition yet. it would be nice to recover my open tabs. yeah. lol. well, it would. i don't see why a reinstall would wipe them out...
....and now it just rebooted, so here comes an attempt at a reinstall....
i don't want to delete the partition yet. it would be nice to recover my open tabs. yeah. lol. well, it would. i don't see why a reinstall would wipe them out...
on
the other hand, it just jumped very quickly through 30,000 segments - a
quarter of the partition. it went from 50% to 75% in a flash. so, it
may still balance out. and 5% of the partition is still less than 1% of
the drive....
(i'm also making the error of attaching file segments to physical segments, which i know is an error, but can't really be applied like that)
which is to say i'm talking about the percentage of the mft, rather than the percentage of the disc. i'll probably keep doing that. intuition. but knowing that 5-10% of the file records are unreadable doesn't *actually* tell me how much of the disc is "bad". and knowing this is a drive with a windows os, office and other programs with lots of little files means it really honestly might not be as bad as it looks. i mean, it could be 5000 corrupt 10K files. no, it could. an optimistic projection, but it could.
...and that's why we run the utilities.
(i'm also making the error of attaching file segments to physical segments, which i know is an error, but can't really be applied like that)
which is to say i'm talking about the percentage of the mft, rather than the percentage of the disc. i'll probably keep doing that. intuition. but knowing that 5-10% of the file records are unreadable doesn't *actually* tell me how much of the disc is "bad". and knowing this is a drive with a windows os, office and other programs with lots of little files means it really honestly might not be as bad as it looks. i mean, it could be 5000 corrupt 10K files. no, it could. an optimistic projection, but it could.
...and that's why we run the utilities.
i
don't know whether it's normal or not, but it's a little relieving to
realize that 3% means 30%, 4% means 40%, etc. seems like a bug in the
program.
so, i'm at a little over 40% after 18 hours, indicating it should be done by this time tomorrow.
well, the first pass anyways.
of the first partition. i'm really hoping i don't need to do this for the second partition. it's roughly 10x the size. yeah. but size isn't the only factor. in fact, i'll try a reinstall before i do it. i'm kind of still hoping it's just the boot sector.
it's kind of got me wondering if i should defrag the fucker from time to time. the conventional wisdom is not to defrag large drives. but is a 50 gb partition that big?
there were a lot of errors at the front of the mft, but now i'm going 10-20K sectors between problems.
see, it never told me it couldn't find a hard drive, or there wasn't an os. the hard drive test failed, but that's not the same thing as "no hd" or "no os". it bootstrapped itself into a 100 MB startup utility partition - on the hd. yet, it couldn't find the boot database thing (whatever it is now, i should know this, i went over it in vista support training, but in practice all i ever had to tell anybody was to run the utility, which i can't get to start because i can't read the partition). that says dead partition, meaning dead database shit, not dead disc.
i just can't parse randomly dying drives. but i've seen mbrs evaporate.
it hit a rough spot around when i fell asleep this afternoon and may even still be in it. its still hard to say if its salvageable, but the damage report is going to be bad. upwards of 5% of the partition, even, maybe.
it's a big drive. as mentioned, i could halve it and still have too much space. but that indicates imminent mass failure.
so, i'm at a little over 40% after 18 hours, indicating it should be done by this time tomorrow.
well, the first pass anyways.
of the first partition. i'm really hoping i don't need to do this for the second partition. it's roughly 10x the size. yeah. but size isn't the only factor. in fact, i'll try a reinstall before i do it. i'm kind of still hoping it's just the boot sector.
it's kind of got me wondering if i should defrag the fucker from time to time. the conventional wisdom is not to defrag large drives. but is a 50 gb partition that big?
there were a lot of errors at the front of the mft, but now i'm going 10-20K sectors between problems.
see, it never told me it couldn't find a hard drive, or there wasn't an os. the hard drive test failed, but that's not the same thing as "no hd" or "no os". it bootstrapped itself into a 100 MB startup utility partition - on the hd. yet, it couldn't find the boot database thing (whatever it is now, i should know this, i went over it in vista support training, but in practice all i ever had to tell anybody was to run the utility, which i can't get to start because i can't read the partition). that says dead partition, meaning dead database shit, not dead disc.
i just can't parse randomly dying drives. but i've seen mbrs evaporate.
it hit a rough spot around when i fell asleep this afternoon and may even still be in it. its still hard to say if its salvageable, but the damage report is going to be bad. upwards of 5% of the partition, even, maybe.
it's a big drive. as mentioned, i could halve it and still have too much space. but that indicates imminent mass failure.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
1% after 10 hours. 1000 hours is 42 days. and that's just the os partition. it'd better pick up.
it doesn't look unusable, so far. even if i can just get what's there off...
...and this ancient 90s compaq actually isn't bad once it got tweaked to a bigger pagefile. it can only handle a few tabs, sure. but it's at least as functional as an iphone...
if you want to run a 90s computer on the existing internet, you'd better get used to adblock. i don't need more RAM, websites need to stop loading their pages with crap. seriously.
as an aside, i get why i need to block twitter. i think its useless, but it's popular. why, though, do i need to block aol? why are websites still linking to aol? who uses aol? it's a 90s computer, not a time machine back there...
bonus: one can block entire commenting systems.
it doesn't look unusable, so far. even if i can just get what's there off...
...and this ancient 90s compaq actually isn't bad once it got tweaked to a bigger pagefile. it can only handle a few tabs, sure. but it's at least as functional as an iphone...
if you want to run a 90s computer on the existing internet, you'd better get used to adblock. i don't need more RAM, websites need to stop loading their pages with crap. seriously.
as an aside, i get why i need to block twitter. i think its useless, but it's popular. why, though, do i need to block aol? why are websites still linking to aol? who uses aol? it's a 90s computer, not a time machine back there...
bonus: one can block entire commenting systems.
(it turns out it won't be necessary to actually partition anything
out because chkdsk does that in the mft. i did know how mfts work, but i
wasn't clear on whether the information coming at me related to the
physical sectors or the mft; it's the latter. which makes things easier.
a chkdsk is enough; the file system will take it from there. and,
thankfully, it does seem, right now, that the corruption is just at the
front of the mft.)
i should point out that i've got the disc split into a small operating system partition and a large file partition. it seems like that's going to save my data, even as the os needs a fresh install. which is why i did it like that.
i should point out that i've got the disc split into a small operating system partition and a large file partition. it seems like that's going to save my data, even as the os needs a fresh install. which is why i did it like that.
i've had a lot of bad luck with storage over the last few days and
it's probably going to be a few days, if not longer, before it gets
entirely fixed. i'm typing this from a compaq evo that was manufactured
in the 90s, that's missing half it's keys and in all honesty probably
belongs in a museum.
but note that it still boots. that's better than i can say for two far newer laptops that are even made by the same company. proof that everything was better in the 90s? fuck, this thing has *rust* on it. laptops with rust is a weird idea, but think of it like a reliable old chevy. it was probably actually even manufactured on this continent.
i even have an old quantum fireball drive that came with windows '98 on it that still boots. yet, the hard drive in the fancy windows 7 machine that my dad left me imploded after less than a year. it's not that we can't do better than this, it's that it isn't profitable to make electronics that don't break after a year. it's fucking pathetic, really.
it started yesterday when one of my usb drives just snapped. nothing out of the ordinary happened, it just disintegrated - almost as though it was timed to fritz out after the first. it might actually have been designed that way. engineers actually take full credit courses in a concept called "forced obsolescence". they spend as much time designing things to break as they do designing things to work. because profit. it's fucking pathetic.
i snapped the plastic off and the solder just gave way. nothing complicated about it, no fault on my behalf - it was just designed to break. just cheap garbage.
this morning, i take the laptop out of sleep (as mentioned, it's practically brand new) and the video spazzes out into static to reveal a blank screen. wait. fuck. reboot. nothing. memory is fine, but the hard drive test is failing. again, there was no strain on the device. worse, it came with no warning - it wasn't clicking or whirring or buzzing. it's almost like it has a timer in it....
i'm running it through a chkdsk right now, which should hopefully be done by the end of the week, and it looks like, in the end, i may get away with a corrupt boot sector and a reinstall; hard to say at this point, but it appears like i may be able to partition out the bad part. but, there's no reason for this. it's just badly designed (accidentally on purpose) garbage.
the laptop is sort of gravy. it was a gift, to replace one that came to me on a grant (another compaq with another dead hard drive). if i can't get it back up, it just means i'll have to get that router fixed sooner than later. it's not devastating.
in the mean time, it's this museum piece with 650 MB of obsolete RAM that is the one that's still kicking - rusty joints and all. and hp/compaq should be fucking embarrassed about that. except not. 'cause profit.
but note that it still boots. that's better than i can say for two far newer laptops that are even made by the same company. proof that everything was better in the 90s? fuck, this thing has *rust* on it. laptops with rust is a weird idea, but think of it like a reliable old chevy. it was probably actually even manufactured on this continent.
i even have an old quantum fireball drive that came with windows '98 on it that still boots. yet, the hard drive in the fancy windows 7 machine that my dad left me imploded after less than a year. it's not that we can't do better than this, it's that it isn't profitable to make electronics that don't break after a year. it's fucking pathetic, really.
it started yesterday when one of my usb drives just snapped. nothing out of the ordinary happened, it just disintegrated - almost as though it was timed to fritz out after the first. it might actually have been designed that way. engineers actually take full credit courses in a concept called "forced obsolescence". they spend as much time designing things to break as they do designing things to work. because profit. it's fucking pathetic.
i snapped the plastic off and the solder just gave way. nothing complicated about it, no fault on my behalf - it was just designed to break. just cheap garbage.
this morning, i take the laptop out of sleep (as mentioned, it's practically brand new) and the video spazzes out into static to reveal a blank screen. wait. fuck. reboot. nothing. memory is fine, but the hard drive test is failing. again, there was no strain on the device. worse, it came with no warning - it wasn't clicking or whirring or buzzing. it's almost like it has a timer in it....
i'm running it through a chkdsk right now, which should hopefully be done by the end of the week, and it looks like, in the end, i may get away with a corrupt boot sector and a reinstall; hard to say at this point, but it appears like i may be able to partition out the bad part. but, there's no reason for this. it's just badly designed (accidentally on purpose) garbage.
the laptop is sort of gravy. it was a gift, to replace one that came to me on a grant (another compaq with another dead hard drive). if i can't get it back up, it just means i'll have to get that router fixed sooner than later. it's not devastating.
in the mean time, it's this museum piece with 650 MB of obsolete RAM that is the one that's still kicking - rusty joints and all. and hp/compaq should be fucking embarrassed about that. except not. 'cause profit.
excited about new mt zion record
i'm actually pretty excited about this. the last really amazing one was back in '08. they're due for something consciousness-altering. you can't take this band out of context, but the excerpt sounds focused.
actually, it seems to have been leaked.
(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnpQFjefXCRPozHrQgQnQ4_djW51IA_fk)
little borrowed melody from ka-spel to start things off. gotta keep things clean, clean, clean....
you can almost instantly tell if they're "on" or not. they're on. the recording quality on the youtube up is not so good, though. and that matters for this band.
(wait)
wow. as always, this is going to require some disassembling. not the kind of thing that you can listen to once or twice. i'm impressed on first listen, though.
actually, it seems to have been leaked.
(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnpQFjefXCRPozHrQgQnQ4_djW51IA_fk)
little borrowed melody from ka-spel to start things off. gotta keep things clean, clean, clean....
you can almost instantly tell if they're "on" or not. they're on. the recording quality on the youtube up is not so good, though. and that matters for this band.
(wait)
wow. as always, this is going to require some disassembling. not the kind of thing that you can listen to once or twice. i'm impressed on first listen, though.
Friday, January 3, 2014
publishing inridiculous (inri033)
except to split out the last track as a single, i've decided not to alter this in any way.
i was moving, conceptually, to more serious styles of music. i wanted to write these epic 20-minute trips that reached into every genre imaginable. you can hear that shift over the last few things i posted, and it really accelerates moving into the year 2000. this is my last kiddy recording...but it isn't really a kiddy recording.....
see, i had a bunch of noise tracks that i'd been putting aside for a third demo, trinri, that was meant to carry on with the same concept as the first two: "songs" and "collages" would alternate over 19 tracks. the problem i ran up against with trinri was that i was no longer interested in writing songs. what was coming out, instead, were these fifteen minute journeys. that's ultimately the driving reason that i switched things up: the format had worn itself thin.
so, i pulled the noise collages together (along with some older collages that i had pulled from various sources as far back as my first demo tape) into this thing. i became aware at some point, very suddenly, that the whole idea and product was sort of ridiculous. hence the title.
this recording is consequently void of actual songs. it isn't easy to listen to, and offers few reprieves, but if you're a fan of the genre that includes bands like coil, psychic tv, dvoa, nurse with wound and hafler trio (i hesitate to use the i word in context) then you may find something of enjoyment here.
cover art is from 1999. how the hell did the greeks think mesopotamia was an ocean, anyways? surely, they had contact with babylonians, if not indians. that's never made sense to me.
the last track just got tagged on as an afterthought. it never really fit the theme. so, i've removed it (as of january, 2014) and placed it here: http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/book-it.
recorded from 1996-1999. this is my third record. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, keyboards, tapes, synthesizers, live drums, drum programming, hammerhead (909 emulator), sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, loops, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, flute
released december 10, 1999
the track i've split off into a single:
AND THAT COMPLETES MY INRI RUN THROUGH.
well, i have an inricycled to construct, still. that should be fun. but it's a different thing.
i was moving, conceptually, to more serious styles of music. i wanted to write these epic 20-minute trips that reached into every genre imaginable. you can hear that shift over the last few things i posted, and it really accelerates moving into the year 2000. this is my last kiddy recording...but it isn't really a kiddy recording.....
see, i had a bunch of noise tracks that i'd been putting aside for a third demo, trinri, that was meant to carry on with the same concept as the first two: "songs" and "collages" would alternate over 19 tracks. the problem i ran up against with trinri was that i was no longer interested in writing songs. what was coming out, instead, were these fifteen minute journeys. that's ultimately the driving reason that i switched things up: the format had worn itself thin.
so, i pulled the noise collages together (along with some older collages that i had pulled from various sources as far back as my first demo tape) into this thing. i became aware at some point, very suddenly, that the whole idea and product was sort of ridiculous. hence the title.
this recording is consequently void of actual songs. it isn't easy to listen to, and offers few reprieves, but if you're a fan of the genre that includes bands like coil, psychic tv, dvoa, nurse with wound and hafler trio (i hesitate to use the i word in context) then you may find something of enjoyment here.
cover art is from 1999. how the hell did the greeks think mesopotamia was an ocean, anyways? surely, they had contact with babylonians, if not indians. that's never made sense to me.
the last track just got tagged on as an afterthought. it never really fit the theme. so, i've removed it (as of january, 2014) and placed it here: http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/book-it.
recorded from 1996-1999. this is my third record. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, keyboards, tapes, synthesizers, live drums, drum programming, hammerhead (909 emulator), sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, loops, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, flute
released december 10, 1999
the track i've split off into a single:
AND THAT COMPLETES MY INRI RUN THROUGH.
well, i have an inricycled to construct, still. that should be fun. but it's a different thing.
publishing inrimake (inri032)
....and that closes this down.
it's weird how this represents such a segue. it's on the ass-end of my kiddy releases, but it's reaching towards something more mature and realized. on that note, i need to be clear that, while these are technically remixes and/or covers and/or reinterpretations, they often differ so far from the source material that the connection is barely discernible. the ones that are instrumental are really original compositions in the style of something like the art of noise.
if you're going to listen to this, it absolutely requires headphones and some serious focus. pretty much all these songs are built around very dramatic and very hard panning effects. it's not just a little sci-fi kind of gimmicky sort of thing, the disorientation that the panning creates is really key to interacting with this.
as with most of my more extensive releases, this touches on a wide array of outsider genres: 60s garage-psych, experimental trip-hop, idm, prog, jazz fusion, psychedelia, synth pop, skate punk and several others. at it's core, though, this is both on the art rock fringe of the experimental/industrial genre and on the electronic fringe of the psychedelic genre. that's how to interpret this.
==
something that happened in the late 90s, when fans of bands started getting together and talking on the internet, was the phenomena of the unauthorized remix. schemes were hatched all over the internet to create remix records, tribute discs, fan collaborations and whatnot. in hindsight, given what the internet turned into, it was actually a refreshingly productive use of networking.
different artists have reacted in different ways. i got yelled at by the now deceased singer of god lives underwater for one of these. trent reznor, on the other hand, eventually went so far as to set up a competition (which i didn't take part in, as i'd moved beyond the idea by that point).
once i'd put a few remixes/recreations together, and received more positive feedback doing it than with any of my own songs, i began to realize that if i could get somebody's attention then i could construct myself a launching pad. it seems like that's what a lot of people were thinking; it didn't work out, but i did end up with a number of remixes.
unfortunately, i've lost a lot of them. about a third of them ended up on a cd-r i threw together at the end of 1999. a third just sat on my hard drive, and a third disappeared into the internet. i'm putting them all together here under the title of the 1999 release, 'inrimake'. the initial release ended after "the day inri messed the world up"; the last five songs are 'bonus tracks'. i've further split off the first two tracks to a standalone ep, liquify (inri031), partially because they never fit here properly and partially because it pares the augmented version down to under 80 minutes.
now, i should point out that i was very much going for the *abstract* remix sound rather than the club-friendly mix. you can't really dance to these. you're not supposed to. you're supposed to blare them through headphones and trip out into them.
in terms of my own work, this record very much extends a bridge from the inri period into the deny everything period, to the extent that it arguably realizes the goals of both phases better than either phase does.
recorded sporadically, and without cohesive intent, over '98 and '99. originally compiled in the fall of '99. augmented and minimally altered in january, 2014.
HEADPHONES ARE MANDATORY TO EXPERIENCE THIS AS INTENDED.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, drum programming, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencers, loops, remixes, reconstructions, reinterpretations
released october 15, 1999
it's weird how this represents such a segue. it's on the ass-end of my kiddy releases, but it's reaching towards something more mature and realized. on that note, i need to be clear that, while these are technically remixes and/or covers and/or reinterpretations, they often differ so far from the source material that the connection is barely discernible. the ones that are instrumental are really original compositions in the style of something like the art of noise.
if you're going to listen to this, it absolutely requires headphones and some serious focus. pretty much all these songs are built around very dramatic and very hard panning effects. it's not just a little sci-fi kind of gimmicky sort of thing, the disorientation that the panning creates is really key to interacting with this.
as with most of my more extensive releases, this touches on a wide array of outsider genres: 60s garage-psych, experimental trip-hop, idm, prog, jazz fusion, psychedelia, synth pop, skate punk and several others. at it's core, though, this is both on the art rock fringe of the experimental/industrial genre and on the electronic fringe of the psychedelic genre. that's how to interpret this.
==
something that happened in the late 90s, when fans of bands started getting together and talking on the internet, was the phenomena of the unauthorized remix. schemes were hatched all over the internet to create remix records, tribute discs, fan collaborations and whatnot. in hindsight, given what the internet turned into, it was actually a refreshingly productive use of networking.
different artists have reacted in different ways. i got yelled at by the now deceased singer of god lives underwater for one of these. trent reznor, on the other hand, eventually went so far as to set up a competition (which i didn't take part in, as i'd moved beyond the idea by that point).
once i'd put a few remixes/recreations together, and received more positive feedback doing it than with any of my own songs, i began to realize that if i could get somebody's attention then i could construct myself a launching pad. it seems like that's what a lot of people were thinking; it didn't work out, but i did end up with a number of remixes.
unfortunately, i've lost a lot of them. about a third of them ended up on a cd-r i threw together at the end of 1999. a third just sat on my hard drive, and a third disappeared into the internet. i'm putting them all together here under the title of the 1999 release, 'inrimake'. the initial release ended after "the day inri messed the world up"; the last five songs are 'bonus tracks'. i've further split off the first two tracks to a standalone ep, liquify (inri031), partially because they never fit here properly and partially because it pares the augmented version down to under 80 minutes.
now, i should point out that i was very much going for the *abstract* remix sound rather than the club-friendly mix. you can't really dance to these. you're not supposed to. you're supposed to blare them through headphones and trip out into them.
in terms of my own work, this record very much extends a bridge from the inri period into the deny everything period, to the extent that it arguably realizes the goals of both phases better than either phase does.
recorded sporadically, and without cohesive intent, over '98 and '99. originally compiled in the fall of '99. augmented and minimally altered in january, 2014.
HEADPHONES ARE MANDATORY TO EXPERIENCE THIS AS INTENDED.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, drum programming, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencers, loops, remixes, reconstructions, reinterpretations
released october 15, 1999
publishing book it! (inri034)
this is another lost track that exists in a sort of an ill-defined alter-reality. the track mixes idm, new age, jazz fusion and progressive rock into a ridiculous, hyperfruity masterpiece. it's a mash-up of return to forever and mike oldfield, as remixed by coil.
it came out of a jam in my basement that fall. i was feeling a little more lonely than usual. see, i was quite literally the only person in my social group that bothered doing grade 13. so, school was converted from my only real social grounding (and i was always an extremely introverted loner) into a place of isolation and alienation. i skipped a lot of classes, actually, in a desire to escape the people. looking back, i sort of regret not reaching out to the people around me a bit more; it would have helped in more than just a social context. but, in hindsight, i'm also able to understand the separation better as one of class; as much as i regret keeping myself isolated, i think i would have been better off not carrying on with school at all.
i mean, i did well. my average was over 90. but i felt hopelessly out of place. i knew i didn't belong there....that they would never accept me unless i became the kind of pretentious jerk i despised. nor did i want anything to do with them, anyways. i really hated the superior attitude that i found myself immersed within. so, i just kept my physical distance and my mouth shut, hoping the condition was temporary (it wasn't).
the flip side of this is that i was also working a part-time job in a fast-food restaurant and i hated it just as much. i didn't fit in any better there, amongst the kids with no aspirations in life except to work in order to exist.
so, i found myself stuck between worlds, not wanting anything to do with either. in both cases, though, what i found the problem was was the people. "i don't mind the job, but i'm repulsed by the staff".
what i really wanted was just to be able to lock myself in a room and never have to engage with anybody ever again. i think that i'm the only person that could have written this. it exudes my idiosyncrasies in surreal, tongue-in-cheek humour. but it's also dead serious.
"i'd rather have a book than a friend.
it's loyalty will never end,
doesn't succumb to fashion or trend,
and all the information it sends,
will never get lost along the way.
when things get as tough as they may,
it will always know exactly what to say,
'cause books don't hurt...
...or do they?"
musically, there's some fancy playing here. everything is completely live: no loops (except the drums, programmed into a 909 emulator). that guitar part is sort of tricky. and check the bass part in the breakdown.
the thing i really like about this the most, though, is the gorgeous kosmische ending section, which is built up on overlapping sixths and is just the most dreamy thing to escape into ever. dramatic ending chord care/of a day in the life.
and, indeed, this is the dramatic ending chord for inri.
recorded in the fall of 1999. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, sequencers, drum programming, flute, digital wave editing, vocals, production
released december 15, 1999
it came out of a jam in my basement that fall. i was feeling a little more lonely than usual. see, i was quite literally the only person in my social group that bothered doing grade 13. so, school was converted from my only real social grounding (and i was always an extremely introverted loner) into a place of isolation and alienation. i skipped a lot of classes, actually, in a desire to escape the people. looking back, i sort of regret not reaching out to the people around me a bit more; it would have helped in more than just a social context. but, in hindsight, i'm also able to understand the separation better as one of class; as much as i regret keeping myself isolated, i think i would have been better off not carrying on with school at all.
i mean, i did well. my average was over 90. but i felt hopelessly out of place. i knew i didn't belong there....that they would never accept me unless i became the kind of pretentious jerk i despised. nor did i want anything to do with them, anyways. i really hated the superior attitude that i found myself immersed within. so, i just kept my physical distance and my mouth shut, hoping the condition was temporary (it wasn't).
the flip side of this is that i was also working a part-time job in a fast-food restaurant and i hated it just as much. i didn't fit in any better there, amongst the kids with no aspirations in life except to work in order to exist.
so, i found myself stuck between worlds, not wanting anything to do with either. in both cases, though, what i found the problem was was the people. "i don't mind the job, but i'm repulsed by the staff".
what i really wanted was just to be able to lock myself in a room and never have to engage with anybody ever again. i think that i'm the only person that could have written this. it exudes my idiosyncrasies in surreal, tongue-in-cheek humour. but it's also dead serious.
"i'd rather have a book than a friend.
it's loyalty will never end,
doesn't succumb to fashion or trend,
and all the information it sends,
will never get lost along the way.
when things get as tough as they may,
it will always know exactly what to say,
'cause books don't hurt...
...or do they?"
musically, there's some fancy playing here. everything is completely live: no loops (except the drums, programmed into a 909 emulator). that guitar part is sort of tricky. and check the bass part in the breakdown.
the thing i really like about this the most, though, is the gorgeous kosmische ending section, which is built up on overlapping sixths and is just the most dreamy thing to escape into ever. dramatic ending chord care/of a day in the life.
and, indeed, this is the dramatic ending chord for inri.
recorded in the fall of 1999. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, sequencers, drum programming, flute, digital wave editing, vocals, production
released december 15, 1999
Thursday, January 2, 2014
publishing liquify (inri031)
i've split this ep off from inrimake. it never really belonged there in the first place. that's a remix/cover album, and this is two forgotten experiments. it makes more sense to spin it off here. it also pulls the augmented version of inrimake back under 80 minutes. inrimake is now solely remixes and covers.
i should clarify, actually, that this 20-minute burst would be labelled progressive rock by most people. it takes in ideas from industrial and related types (post-punk, generally), jazz fusion and minimalism but it's really very much prog to the core - whether prog in an electro-branca sense (first track) or prog in a zappa-meets-genesis sense (second track).
HEADPHONES ARE MANDATORY TO EXPERIENCE THIS AS INTENDED
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, synths, loops, drum programming, vocals, samples, cool edit synthesis, sequencing, digital wave editing, production
released august 1, 1999
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/liquify
i should clarify, actually, that this 20-minute burst would be labelled progressive rock by most people. it takes in ideas from industrial and related types (post-punk, generally), jazz fusion and minimalism but it's really very much prog to the core - whether prog in an electro-branca sense (first track) or prog in a zappa-meets-genesis sense (second track).
recorded in the spring and summer of 1999. originally
released on inrimake in october, 1999. minimally altered and split into it's
own ep in january, 2014.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, synths, loops, drum programming, vocals, samples, cool edit synthesis, sequencing, digital wave editing, production
released august 1, 1999
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/liquify
liquify (original album mix)
this is the headache track for this disc. filtering is actually going to be minimal for inrimake and most projects from here on in. the source has moved to digital. i've left this as is, except to fade the track out about a minute early. there's no use in taking the truman show ending to it's conclusion on each listen.
in truth, this is an impressively thick, warped and very messy piece of music. it'd be nice if i could turn the vocals down a tad and the lead guitars up just a bit in a few places, but the mix isn't going to allow that.
1) i've hinted at my mixing method being a type of synthesis. usually, one records parts separately and allows the interference to develop on playback. i've recorded the parts separately and electronically synthesized the interference, which creates secondary interference on playback. that creates a unique sound that is, overall, an asset to the track (and others), but it makes separating out fundamental frequencies virtually impossible. it also just flat out swallows entire sections. the depth on the bass is devoured by the guitar distortion and it's never, ever separating itself out (my only theoretical hope is something like (but not exactly) de-convolving it, but i don't have the right signal to use).
2) the bizarre vocal effects i used here (and note this is mid 99, before the early 00s vocal sampling craze) saturate the frequency spectrum. there's no way to cut them without cutting something else - the best option is to hollow them by zeroing out a series and it just doesn't sound good. boosting any frequency at all is going to boost the vocals. it's a total gloss.
3) the tactic i was using to fatten the bass cannot be used for the tracks on this record because it blurs the stereo separation and the extreme panning in these tracks is a part of what they are, on the level of the compositions themselves.
4) the above, combined with the saturation on the track, suggests that any modification is ultimately arbitrary. see, here's the thing: this needs to be listened to carefully through headphones, anyways. any attempt to actually do that is going to order the sound. so, regardless of whether i actually can isolate the frequencies i want to isolate, the reasons i want to isolate them collapse when the required listening approach is contemplated.
5) through repeated listening, i've reminded myself how weird this is anyways. ultimately, this is a weird song that is hard to digest on first listen, but it needs to be deconstructed by the listener, not cleaned up by the composer/engineer. the drums, for example, are constructed out of low quality samples for most of it. i can't pull out a bass drum because there isn't one. instead, there's a deep tom that's ultimately in the middle of the spectrum. etc.
i have to recommend this, though. there's a further lengthy write-up on the page that explains why the vocals caused me grief. musically, though, the track is very lush prog. it really explodes through a pair of headphones around 7:00 in.
recorded in the summer of 1999. edited jan 2, 2014.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/liquify-2014-edit
in truth, this is an impressively thick, warped and very messy piece of music. it'd be nice if i could turn the vocals down a tad and the lead guitars up just a bit in a few places, but the mix isn't going to allow that.
1) i've hinted at my mixing method being a type of synthesis. usually, one records parts separately and allows the interference to develop on playback. i've recorded the parts separately and electronically synthesized the interference, which creates secondary interference on playback. that creates a unique sound that is, overall, an asset to the track (and others), but it makes separating out fundamental frequencies virtually impossible. it also just flat out swallows entire sections. the depth on the bass is devoured by the guitar distortion and it's never, ever separating itself out (my only theoretical hope is something like (but not exactly) de-convolving it, but i don't have the right signal to use).
2) the bizarre vocal effects i used here (and note this is mid 99, before the early 00s vocal sampling craze) saturate the frequency spectrum. there's no way to cut them without cutting something else - the best option is to hollow them by zeroing out a series and it just doesn't sound good. boosting any frequency at all is going to boost the vocals. it's a total gloss.
3) the tactic i was using to fatten the bass cannot be used for the tracks on this record because it blurs the stereo separation and the extreme panning in these tracks is a part of what they are, on the level of the compositions themselves.
4) the above, combined with the saturation on the track, suggests that any modification is ultimately arbitrary. see, here's the thing: this needs to be listened to carefully through headphones, anyways. any attempt to actually do that is going to order the sound. so, regardless of whether i actually can isolate the frequencies i want to isolate, the reasons i want to isolate them collapse when the required listening approach is contemplated.
5) through repeated listening, i've reminded myself how weird this is anyways. ultimately, this is a weird song that is hard to digest on first listen, but it needs to be deconstructed by the listener, not cleaned up by the composer/engineer. the drums, for example, are constructed out of low quality samples for most of it. i can't pull out a bass drum because there isn't one. instead, there's a deep tom that's ultimately in the middle of the spectrum. etc.
i have to recommend this, though. there's a further lengthy write-up on the page that explains why the vocals caused me grief. musically, though, the track is very lush prog. it really explodes through a pair of headphones around 7:00 in.
recorded in the summer of 1999. edited jan 2, 2014.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/liquify-2014-edit
in search of hibernation genes
you know, i have to wonder sometimes if you humans (and, by extension, the species i am) haven't flirted with hibernation at some point in your evolutionary past. i would think it unlikely we're evolving towards it, but did we experience it in the recent past? i have "northern genes" from a variety of sources (norse, finnish, cree (siberian)) and definitely get sleepy in the core of the winter.
*yawn*...
see, i'm a good test subject because i avoid the sun most of the year. i can rule out vitamin d and light-sensitivity by pointing out i don't get much less sun in the winter.
these guys hibernate:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/2012/06/18/the-mysterious-brain-of-the-fat-tailed-dwarf-lemur-the-worlds-only-hibernating-primate/
...which suggests to me that hibernation is probably something our distant, pre-primate ancestors actually did do. further, we're more related to lemurs than might be obvious by looking at us side by side. we probably do have dormant "hibernation genes" that could be switched on in a lab.
did they get switched on at some point in the last ice age? and is it why vikings, siberians, natives and other descendants of northern ice age people get sleepy in the winter?
http://mentalfloss.com/article/30616/could-humans-hibernate
"For instance, a gene called PDK-4 becomes more active during squirrel hibernation, controlling their cardiac function and allowing them to sleep for extended periods. Most of these "hibernation genes" are highly conserved in species that don't hibernate - humans also possess the PDK-4 gene, for instance. Taken together, the evolutionary profiles of hibernation suggests that we humans may well still carry the genetic mechanisms needed to hibernate."
http://io9.com/5857754/your-hibernation-pod-is-ready
i was actually thinking of tarsiers, who (believe it or not) are our closest non-simian relatives:
*yawn*...
see, i'm a good test subject because i avoid the sun most of the year. i can rule out vitamin d and light-sensitivity by pointing out i don't get much less sun in the winter.
these guys hibernate:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/2012/06/18/the-mysterious-brain-of-the-fat-tailed-dwarf-lemur-the-worlds-only-hibernating-primate/
...which suggests to me that hibernation is probably something our distant, pre-primate ancestors actually did do. further, we're more related to lemurs than might be obvious by looking at us side by side. we probably do have dormant "hibernation genes" that could be switched on in a lab.
did they get switched on at some point in the last ice age? and is it why vikings, siberians, natives and other descendants of northern ice age people get sleepy in the winter?
http://mentalfloss.com/article/30616/could-humans-hibernate
"For instance, a gene called PDK-4 becomes more active during squirrel hibernation, controlling their cardiac function and allowing them to sleep for extended periods. Most of these "hibernation genes" are highly conserved in species that don't hibernate - humans also possess the PDK-4 gene, for instance. Taken together, the evolutionary profiles of hibernation suggests that we humans may well still carry the genetic mechanisms needed to hibernate."
http://io9.com/5857754/your-hibernation-pod-is-ready
i was actually thinking of tarsiers, who (believe it or not) are our closest non-simian relatives:
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
if sports are a distraction floated by the elite, just who is being distracted by them?
deathtokoalas
he's mostly right, but he's usually mostly right. what he's drawing on is historical imperial policy. there was a time in the history of rome when sports teams didn't just function as a distraction but were controlled by the state specifically as a distraction. there was some blowback to that. the nika riots. but the idea of "bread and circuses" was very entrenched imperial policy for hundreds of years.
what he's missing is a sort of bigger context of people that are obsessed with sports largely having a lot of boredom to pass over due to the trivial nature of modern existence. if there weren't sports to distract the disinterested middle class with, then they would invent them. worse, if they lacked the imagination to invent sports then they'd drink themselves into criminality. there's no need to distract people when they're already oblivious. there is, however, a need to keep them occupied, in order and in line with the proper work ethic. the focus on the myth that hard work has results strikes me as the primary propaganda purpose of sports culture.
if they were hungry, it would be a different issue, but walk into a sports bar some time and get an eyeful of what these people actually eat. chomsky, the muted optimist, wants to believe that people would take a greater interest if they weren't so deeply controlled, but misses that the real basis of their disinterest is that they're well-fed.
but, he's mostly right.
i remember seeing images of this after 9/11:
DEFENSE. DEFENSE. DEFENSE.
...and almost barfing.
james
i would disagree, to a degree. many people are slaving away, day after day, leading lives that are hardly trivial but more hand to mouth and on the edge. sports, celebrity culture, tv and movies (the latter two to a lesser extent, since people are nowhere as passionate about them) are all diverting peoples attention from the absurd lifestyles and endless greed of the rich. at the same time these distractions could be a form of coping. regarding your food analogy, it truly hope that isnt what motivates people because when in 50/100 years we wont have anything to eat it will probably be too late
deathtokoalas
what i've noticed is that if you go to a soup kitchen then the people eating there don't have time for trivialities like baseball. yet, if you go to a software company where the janitor makes 60K, you can't go five minutes without hearing about the "local sports team". the idea that people that ought not be distracted are being distracted doesn't seem right; it's not the poor that are distracted by sports, or that could benefit from spending less time fawning over idiots, but rather the upper middle classes that fuel the obsession.
and, take a look at ticket prices or the cost of memorabilia or even the price of cable. the poor cannot afford to be sports fans.
perhaps things were different fifty years ago, but sports, today, are out of the reach of the poor that people suppose are being distracted by them.
what the people you're describing are actually distracted by are the three jobs they need to pay their bills.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
umm, i think the massive protests against the world cup demonstrate my correction rather profoundly. as the wealthy glue national flags on to their suvs, the poor carry out massive, popular revolts and endure incredible police violence.
the thing is that the people that are supposedly being "distracted" have approximately zero revolutionary potential in the first place. i didn't say that there's no reason to distract the poor, i said there's no reason to distract the wealthy (or "middle class") because they benefit from the exploitation. the poor, on the other hand, do need to be distracted - but cannot be by something so trivial as sports.
he's mostly right, but he's usually mostly right. what he's drawing on is historical imperial policy. there was a time in the history of rome when sports teams didn't just function as a distraction but were controlled by the state specifically as a distraction. there was some blowback to that. the nika riots. but the idea of "bread and circuses" was very entrenched imperial policy for hundreds of years.
what he's missing is a sort of bigger context of people that are obsessed with sports largely having a lot of boredom to pass over due to the trivial nature of modern existence. if there weren't sports to distract the disinterested middle class with, then they would invent them. worse, if they lacked the imagination to invent sports then they'd drink themselves into criminality. there's no need to distract people when they're already oblivious. there is, however, a need to keep them occupied, in order and in line with the proper work ethic. the focus on the myth that hard work has results strikes me as the primary propaganda purpose of sports culture.
if they were hungry, it would be a different issue, but walk into a sports bar some time and get an eyeful of what these people actually eat. chomsky, the muted optimist, wants to believe that people would take a greater interest if they weren't so deeply controlled, but misses that the real basis of their disinterest is that they're well-fed.
but, he's mostly right.
i remember seeing images of this after 9/11:
DEFENSE. DEFENSE. DEFENSE.
...and almost barfing.
james
i would disagree, to a degree. many people are slaving away, day after day, leading lives that are hardly trivial but more hand to mouth and on the edge. sports, celebrity culture, tv and movies (the latter two to a lesser extent, since people are nowhere as passionate about them) are all diverting peoples attention from the absurd lifestyles and endless greed of the rich. at the same time these distractions could be a form of coping. regarding your food analogy, it truly hope that isnt what motivates people because when in 50/100 years we wont have anything to eat it will probably be too late
deathtokoalas
what i've noticed is that if you go to a soup kitchen then the people eating there don't have time for trivialities like baseball. yet, if you go to a software company where the janitor makes 60K, you can't go five minutes without hearing about the "local sports team". the idea that people that ought not be distracted are being distracted doesn't seem right; it's not the poor that are distracted by sports, or that could benefit from spending less time fawning over idiots, but rather the upper middle classes that fuel the obsession.
and, take a look at ticket prices or the cost of memorabilia or even the price of cable. the poor cannot afford to be sports fans.
perhaps things were different fifty years ago, but sports, today, are out of the reach of the poor that people suppose are being distracted by them.
what the people you're describing are actually distracted by are the three jobs they need to pay their bills.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
umm, i think the massive protests against the world cup demonstrate my correction rather profoundly. as the wealthy glue national flags on to their suvs, the poor carry out massive, popular revolts and endure incredible police violence.
the thing is that the people that are supposedly being "distracted" have approximately zero revolutionary potential in the first place. i didn't say that there's no reason to distract the poor, i said there's no reason to distract the wealthy (or "middle class") because they benefit from the exploitation. the poor, on the other hand, do need to be distracted - but cannot be by something so trivial as sports.
i'm going to lay this down.
something i want to change this year (and i don't usually do that, but i've been thinking about this for a bit and it's kind of a coincidence with the time of year) is minimizing the amount of time i spend arguing on the internet. that's not the amount of time i spend reading, or discussing, or conversing or even debating - it's arguing, with people that i don't agree with and that i'm never going to agree with.
i've wasted a lot of time doing this in the past. not just here on facebook, but on forums and newsgroups. i mean, this goes back almost twenty years now. what it actually is is a bad habit, bordering into an addiction. when i say the time is wasted, i mean that quite literally. yet, i felt i had more time to waste in the past than i feel i do now.
i've actually taken a number of steps over the last few months that are slowly converting this into a one-way flow of information. i'm not there yet, and don't want to push myself there; it might even reverse. yet, i feel it's given me back some time to spend on music and reading things that aren't related to debating or trolling.
why do we debate on the internet, anyways? i have three answers that i think are true in varying amounts:
(1) it helps us form our own opinions. for me, that's actually the dominant thing. and it's not really about challenging myself, it's more about going over the same points over and over and working out the bugs. in the sense that the debate is a challenge, it's a challenge to see the ideas from different input variables. for the most part, i'm talking over the person i'm debating with. those that have debated with me or seen me debate know this is true. there's no real consideration on my behalf that i might actually be wrong. (well, if i make a factual error, i'm known to correct myself, but that's not what i mean).
(2) it's an opportunity to learn. that is to say that it directs research topics in a way that is lively and organic. it's not a reading list somebody is pushing down from above. i find this does drive me, but it's also the biggest reason i want to reclaim the time. at this point, i've constructed a reading list for myself and the debating is getting in the way...
(3) ego. but, believe it or not, it's not that strong a force for me. my debating tone can be brutally condescending, but that's far less about how i interpret myself than may be initially apparent (and those who know me know my ego is not powerful. i'm actually driven by a super-ego that seems to be extra-terrestrial in origin.).
i just feel i've exhausted the possibilities with (1). i've had every debate that the internet offers so many times that i'm no longer working things out. it's consequently become sort of boring for me. in conjunction with the feeling that it's getting in the way of my productivity, that presents the aforementioned context of feeling as though i'm engaging in a bad habit that needs to be corrected.
i dunno. maybe i'll switch it around. maybe i'll be the nicest person ever on the internet and an impossible tyrant irl. maybe i'll lose my release. or maybe i'll channel it back into my guitar. who knows...
what i know is that this is not the beginning of this slow winding down. i'm several months into a process that will likely accelerate with the new year.
something i want to change this year (and i don't usually do that, but i've been thinking about this for a bit and it's kind of a coincidence with the time of year) is minimizing the amount of time i spend arguing on the internet. that's not the amount of time i spend reading, or discussing, or conversing or even debating - it's arguing, with people that i don't agree with and that i'm never going to agree with.
i've wasted a lot of time doing this in the past. not just here on facebook, but on forums and newsgroups. i mean, this goes back almost twenty years now. what it actually is is a bad habit, bordering into an addiction. when i say the time is wasted, i mean that quite literally. yet, i felt i had more time to waste in the past than i feel i do now.
i've actually taken a number of steps over the last few months that are slowly converting this into a one-way flow of information. i'm not there yet, and don't want to push myself there; it might even reverse. yet, i feel it's given me back some time to spend on music and reading things that aren't related to debating or trolling.
why do we debate on the internet, anyways? i have three answers that i think are true in varying amounts:
(1) it helps us form our own opinions. for me, that's actually the dominant thing. and it's not really about challenging myself, it's more about going over the same points over and over and working out the bugs. in the sense that the debate is a challenge, it's a challenge to see the ideas from different input variables. for the most part, i'm talking over the person i'm debating with. those that have debated with me or seen me debate know this is true. there's no real consideration on my behalf that i might actually be wrong. (well, if i make a factual error, i'm known to correct myself, but that's not what i mean).
(2) it's an opportunity to learn. that is to say that it directs research topics in a way that is lively and organic. it's not a reading list somebody is pushing down from above. i find this does drive me, but it's also the biggest reason i want to reclaim the time. at this point, i've constructed a reading list for myself and the debating is getting in the way...
(3) ego. but, believe it or not, it's not that strong a force for me. my debating tone can be brutally condescending, but that's far less about how i interpret myself than may be initially apparent (and those who know me know my ego is not powerful. i'm actually driven by a super-ego that seems to be extra-terrestrial in origin.).
i just feel i've exhausted the possibilities with (1). i've had every debate that the internet offers so many times that i'm no longer working things out. it's consequently become sort of boring for me. in conjunction with the feeling that it's getting in the way of my productivity, that presents the aforementioned context of feeling as though i'm engaging in a bad habit that needs to be corrected.
i dunno. maybe i'll switch it around. maybe i'll be the nicest person ever on the internet and an impossible tyrant irl. maybe i'll lose my release. or maybe i'll channel it back into my guitar. who knows...
what i know is that this is not the beginning of this slow winding down. i'm several months into a process that will likely accelerate with the new year.
i'm not somebody that's lived a lunch pail life. i've tried to make things interesting, which has meant taking some chances. it's meant uncertainties in things most of us take for granted. it's meant sleeping in some weird places. it's meant that you win some and...
that was probably the most intense year of my life so far. it feels like a decade of time went by; i can barely even contemplate where i was this time last year, except as part of a past existence. i'm 800 km away in space and even further in mind. if i'm not a decade older physically, i feel like i'm a decade older, mentally.
taking it from the context of 2011 as a rock bottom, and 2012 as a needed recovery followed by a slow crawl out, i feel i turned a corner on a lot of things over 2013 - and not just things that had carried on since 2011 but things that had carried on longer than that. everything seemed to go wrong all at once at the end of 2011, and it all seemed to pass all at once in the middle of 2013. it's remarkable, really, how total and sudden both events were. so, there's a lot of legitimate newness for me in the new year. if things continue on the same trajectory, it looks positive.
that was probably the most intense year of my life so far. it feels like a decade of time went by; i can barely even contemplate where i was this time last year, except as part of a past existence. i'm 800 km away in space and even further in mind. if i'm not a decade older physically, i feel like i'm a decade older, mentally.
taking it from the context of 2011 as a rock bottom, and 2012 as a needed recovery followed by a slow crawl out, i feel i turned a corner on a lot of things over 2013 - and not just things that had carried on since 2011 but things that had carried on longer than that. everything seemed to go wrong all at once at the end of 2011, and it all seemed to pass all at once in the middle of 2013. it's remarkable, really, how total and sudden both events were. so, there's a lot of legitimate newness for me in the new year. if things continue on the same trajectory, it looks positive.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
well, they predicted a ridiculously cold winter this year and got it right. the mainstream forecasts were in the same neighbourhood, but not as extreme. for example, they predicted it would be cold in the upper midwest but warm in the southern midwest (it has been cold in both places) and cold in ontario but warm on the coast (it has been cold in both places).
meaning that it probably comes down to a variable or two and that, for whatever reason, the almanac was able to predict that the arctic air masses would overpower the probably maritime factors that the mainstream forecasts thought would overpower the arctic air masses.
it would be really nice to actually see how they came to that conclusion, but they won't publish.
i mean, it's easy to write it off as pseudo-science, but the truth is that we can't analyze the method because it's not public. sure, that obviously justifies some healthy skepticism. but it seems foolish to write something off without even knowing what it is.
http://www.ibtimes.com/farmers-almanac-winter-2014-forecast-draws-skepticism-weathermen-1401939
the last question is sort of silly, though. it's widely acknowledged that sunspots and planetary position have an effect. the problem is that the argument often comes up in the context of people arguing against anthropogenic climate change - and the overwhelming evidence that sunspot activity isn't even correlated with the increases in temperatures we've seen. but denying a link between climate change and sunspots doesn't negate the sun's effect on the earth's weather (weather, here, being contrasted with climate). we can connect all kinds of weather phenomena to sunspots. and with positioning, this is a real thing that's widely accepted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
but if they won't publish, there's no way to scrutinize what they're doing. from where you or i are standing, it's as good as magic. but if we knew what they were doing, we might be able to pull something of value out of it.
it's been widely published in wonky sources (and less wonky sources) that sunspot activity recently slowed down to almost nothing, leading up to a magnetic pole reversal that finally happened (after a longer than expected wait) a few days ago. even though the source of the cold is arctic air moving south, you don't have to take an obscure, gw-denying position to acknowledge that that might have had an effect on the cold winter we've had.
it would just be nice to see their calculations opened up so that that could be examined.
the recent magnetic reversal dismisses the fears in the article, but it gets to the point i'm making:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24512-solar-activity-heads-for-lowest-low-in-four-centuries.html
right. but it could give us a nasty winter or two.
then again, the current "nasty winter" would have been normal 30 years ago.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/11/solar-activity-and-the-so-called-%E2%80%9Clittle-ice-age%E2%80%9D/
btw, an interesting question that i've explored a little on this page going way back is whether there may be a way to connect volcanic activity to "space weather". i'm mostly thinking in terms of gravity. there's a really intuitive example with tides being caused by the moon. could all the gravity floating around us, from the sun and jupiter and whatever else, have an effect on the way continents interact, thereby affecting volcanic activity? if so, there's not a contradiction in the two ideas.
meaning that it probably comes down to a variable or two and that, for whatever reason, the almanac was able to predict that the arctic air masses would overpower the probably maritime factors that the mainstream forecasts thought would overpower the arctic air masses.
it would be really nice to actually see how they came to that conclusion, but they won't publish.
i mean, it's easy to write it off as pseudo-science, but the truth is that we can't analyze the method because it's not public. sure, that obviously justifies some healthy skepticism. but it seems foolish to write something off without even knowing what it is.
http://www.ibtimes.com/farmers-almanac-winter-2014-forecast-draws-skepticism-weathermen-1401939
the last question is sort of silly, though. it's widely acknowledged that sunspots and planetary position have an effect. the problem is that the argument often comes up in the context of people arguing against anthropogenic climate change - and the overwhelming evidence that sunspot activity isn't even correlated with the increases in temperatures we've seen. but denying a link between climate change and sunspots doesn't negate the sun's effect on the earth's weather (weather, here, being contrasted with climate). we can connect all kinds of weather phenomena to sunspots. and with positioning, this is a real thing that's widely accepted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
but if they won't publish, there's no way to scrutinize what they're doing. from where you or i are standing, it's as good as magic. but if we knew what they were doing, we might be able to pull something of value out of it.
it's been widely published in wonky sources (and less wonky sources) that sunspot activity recently slowed down to almost nothing, leading up to a magnetic pole reversal that finally happened (after a longer than expected wait) a few days ago. even though the source of the cold is arctic air moving south, you don't have to take an obscure, gw-denying position to acknowledge that that might have had an effect on the cold winter we've had.
it would just be nice to see their calculations opened up so that that could be examined.
the recent magnetic reversal dismisses the fears in the article, but it gets to the point i'm making:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24512-solar-activity-heads-for-lowest-low-in-four-centuries.html
right. but it could give us a nasty winter or two.
then again, the current "nasty winter" would have been normal 30 years ago.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/11/solar-activity-and-the-so-called-%E2%80%9Clittle-ice-age%E2%80%9D/
btw, an interesting question that i've explored a little on this page going way back is whether there may be a way to connect volcanic activity to "space weather". i'm mostly thinking in terms of gravity. there's a really intuitive example with tides being caused by the moon. could all the gravity floating around us, from the sun and jupiter and whatever else, have an effect on the way continents interact, thereby affecting volcanic activity? if so, there's not a contradiction in the two ideas.
i've posted about coywolves and hybrids here.
this is informative. and remember: nature will not simply roll over as we destroy it.
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/meet-the-coywolf
this is informative. and remember: nature will not simply roll over as we destroy it.
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/meet-the-coywolf
Monday, December 30, 2013
careful with this. sounds like austerity politics to me.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/23/if_the_risk_is_low_let
there's been several examples now of authorities using may day vandalism as an excuse to hold people. putting the politics aside, it seems to be me like the pragmatic thing is for activists to stay away from thugs.
http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2013/12/23/grand-jury-resistor-jerry-koch-bids-for-freedom/
no sane person thinks we should freeze in the dark to make an ideological point.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/24/christmas_for_many_wont_be_the_same_wynne.html
http://libcom.org/blog/pussy-riot-released-pr-stunt-olympic-proportions-24122013
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20835-food-security-can-come-in-tiny-wiggly-packages
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/11/17/pentagon_reverses_position_and_admits_u
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11244
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/beyond-cute-and-cuddly/story-e6frg8gf-1111114841214
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/23/if_the_risk_is_low_let
there's been several examples now of authorities using may day vandalism as an excuse to hold people. putting the politics aside, it seems to be me like the pragmatic thing is for activists to stay away from thugs.
http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2013/12/23/grand-jury-resistor-jerry-koch-bids-for-freedom/
no sane person thinks we should freeze in the dark to make an ideological point.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/24/christmas_for_many_wont_be_the_same_wynne.html
http://libcom.org/blog/pussy-riot-released-pr-stunt-olympic-proportions-24122013
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20835-food-security-can-come-in-tiny-wiggly-packages
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/11/17/pentagon_reverses_position_and_admits_u
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11244
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/beyond-cute-and-cuddly/story-e6frg8gf-1111114841214
there has been talk of a reinvasion of iraq for a little while now.
there's a clear comparison in palestine. they ran elections. the americans didn't like the results, so the elections didn't count.
it's sort if the same thing. this maliki guy is a bit of an authoritarian, but the bigger problem is that he's aligned with iran. but of course he is. he's shia. this hypothetical "shia power to replace iran" thing was always a pipe dream, because the threat of oppression by saudi arabia is too great. iran is the lesser evil from a shia perspective and nothing can be done to change the calculus besides take the saudis out of the equation, which would defeat the point in the first place.
so, this shouldn't surprise anybody.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/27/iraq-d27.html
there's a clear comparison in palestine. they ran elections. the americans didn't like the results, so the elections didn't count.
it's sort if the same thing. this maliki guy is a bit of an authoritarian, but the bigger problem is that he's aligned with iran. but of course he is. he's shia. this hypothetical "shia power to replace iran" thing was always a pipe dream, because the threat of oppression by saudi arabia is too great. iran is the lesser evil from a shia perspective and nothing can be done to change the calculus besides take the saudis out of the equation, which would defeat the point in the first place.
so, this shouldn't surprise anybody.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/27/iraq-d27.html
Sunday, December 29, 2013
that seems about right
rural ontarians would vote for a statue of jesus if you put a jersey with an embroidered C on it. it doesn't matter how bad hudak is. the only way to break that block is for the liberals to prop up the CHP. which is always dangerous...
what's important is that the provincial liberals don't make the same mistake the feds did, which is giving up on leftward pressure (rather than giving into it). there's no votes in the pc/liberal swing. the conservatives represent a frighteningly large block of ideological extremists; the true swing vote is on the center-left.
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2013/12/23/ontario_headed_toward_another_minority_government_poll.html
rural ontarians would vote for a statue of jesus if you put a jersey with an embroidered C on it. it doesn't matter how bad hudak is. the only way to break that block is for the liberals to prop up the CHP. which is always dangerous...
what's important is that the provincial liberals don't make the same mistake the feds did, which is giving up on leftward pressure (rather than giving into it). there's no votes in the pc/liberal swing. the conservatives represent a frighteningly large block of ideological extremists; the true swing vote is on the center-left.
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2013/12/23/ontario_headed_toward_another_minority_government_poll.html
https://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/3d-printed-artificial-reefs-bring-back-sea-life-persian-gulf.html
see, this is the kind of thing that could be used in conjunction with indoor growing tactics to maximize yield while minimizing environmental impact.
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-genetic-discovery-bigger-yields-tomato.html
even the early brain signals don't make a lot of sense: what are they reacting to? clearly, our brains don't just make things up, that's preposterous. the only way to make sense of it is to bring in an independent entity, like a parasite, that is in control.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-apple-court-samsung-tablets.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/solar-variability-has-a-small-effect-on-climate-change/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/syrian-rebels-have-taken-iconoclasm-to-new-depths-with-shrines-statues-and-even-a-tree-destroyed--but-to-what-end-9021017.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-solar-key-climate.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/thorium-put-to-use-kills-a-few-more-versions-of-supersymmetry/
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-carbon-dioxide-picture-global.html
https://phys.org/news/2013-12-scientists-closer-rna.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/21/amaz-d21.html
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/20/why_obamas_hints_at_intel_reform_are_mostly_window_dressing
http://fpif.org/u-s-determined-re-freeze-thaw-relations-iran/
http://fpif.org/bluster-blowback-beirut/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/23/pers-d23.html
http://libcom.org/blog/protesters-clash-police-rote-flora-social-centre-eviction-hamburg-22122013
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11237
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20604-detroits-dan-gilbert-henry-ford-or-henry-potter
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11225
http://libcom.org/gallery/1932-ford-hunger-march-massacre
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/19/the_political_science_of_syria_s_war
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/23/the-last-chance-for-peace-in-syria/
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20803-inequality-government-is-a-perp-not-a-bystander
http://intercontinentalcry.org/guatemalas-high-court-affirms-right-of-consent-for-indigenous-and-rural-communities-21455/
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/10/bushs_shrinking_world_george_w_bush
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/23/suda-d23.html
http://phys.org/news307038787.html
see, this is the kind of thing that could be used in conjunction with indoor growing tactics to maximize yield while minimizing environmental impact.
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-genetic-discovery-bigger-yields-tomato.html
even the early brain signals don't make a lot of sense: what are they reacting to? clearly, our brains don't just make things up, that's preposterous. the only way to make sense of it is to bring in an independent entity, like a parasite, that is in control.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-apple-court-samsung-tablets.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/solar-variability-has-a-small-effect-on-climate-change/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/syrian-rebels-have-taken-iconoclasm-to-new-depths-with-shrines-statues-and-even-a-tree-destroyed--but-to-what-end-9021017.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-solar-key-climate.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/thorium-put-to-use-kills-a-few-more-versions-of-supersymmetry/
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-carbon-dioxide-picture-global.html
https://phys.org/news/2013-12-scientists-closer-rna.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/21/amaz-d21.html
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/20/why_obamas_hints_at_intel_reform_are_mostly_window_dressing
http://fpif.org/u-s-determined-re-freeze-thaw-relations-iran/
http://fpif.org/bluster-blowback-beirut/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/23/pers-d23.html
http://libcom.org/blog/protesters-clash-police-rote-flora-social-centre-eviction-hamburg-22122013
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11237
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20604-detroits-dan-gilbert-henry-ford-or-henry-potter
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11225
http://libcom.org/gallery/1932-ford-hunger-march-massacre
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/19/the_political_science_of_syria_s_war
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/23/the-last-chance-for-peace-in-syria/
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20803-inequality-government-is-a-perp-not-a-bystander
http://intercontinentalcry.org/guatemalas-high-court-affirms-right-of-consent-for-indigenous-and-rural-communities-21455/
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/10/bushs_shrinking_world_george_w_bush
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/23/suda-d23.html
http://phys.org/news307038787.html
Saturday, December 28, 2013
music video for ‘inertia’
i'm sure this won't be the last traditional music video i put
together, although i don't have much respect for the medium and have no
interest in doing it as something mandatory.
this footage just struck me as very powerful, and fitting to the track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjPvgGh2qw
original video taken from here without requesting permission:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS_oLmWlG8s
this footage just struck me as very powerful, and fitting to the track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjPvgGh2qw
original video taken from here without requesting permission:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS_oLmWlG8s
i'm basically convinced that free will doesn't exist, because parasites.
^ that is legitimately chilling though, albeit sort of touching. the parasite does this long dance that ends with it caressing the dead roach, sort of hugging it goodbye.
and, perhaps my empathy is pathogenic.
hrmmmn.
yeah, yeah. i know. not everybody can appreciate the beauty in this.
so, back to the jennifer aniston romcoms with ya, then.
^ that is legitimately chilling though, albeit sort of touching. the parasite does this long dance that ends with it caressing the dead roach, sort of hugging it goodbye.
and, perhaps my empathy is pathogenic.
hrmmmn.
yeah, yeah. i know. not everybody can appreciate the beauty in this.
so, back to the jennifer aniston romcoms with ya, then.
(no subject)
well, then.
happy things. merry stuff.
weirdness prevails.
hey, check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjPvgGh2qw
those images hit me sort of deeply, so i orchestrated them. there's such an ambiguous overlap between love and parasitism....the video wasn't shot with this is mind, but the exploration it presents of that overlap is just sort of wow.
i cried making it. are the images as powerful as i see them, or am i just insane?
wait, don't answer.
you should come visit.
j
happy things. merry stuff.
weirdness prevails.
hey, check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjPvgGh2qw
those images hit me sort of deeply, so i orchestrated them. there's such an ambiguous overlap between love and parasitism....the video wasn't shot with this is mind, but the exploration it presents of that overlap is just sort of wow.
i cried making it. are the images as powerful as i see them, or am i just insane?
wait, don't answer.
you should come visit.
j
re: roach situation
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord
actually, i got one right away. it's in a plastic baggie - i guess i can bring this upstairs...?
i'm no entomologist, but it sure looks like a roach to me. again, it seems to have come out of the wall looking for water; i caught it near the shower. also, given the pattern i've seen, i suspect it may be the same one i saw a few days ago and let get away into the crack. i really don't think there's an infestation in the unit, but rather a high number near by. when one gets in, it runs around for a few days until i catch it and then i don't see another for weeks....
j
To: the initial landlord
actually, i got one right away. it's in a plastic baggie - i guess i can bring this upstairs...?
i'm no entomologist, but it sure looks like a roach to me. again, it seems to have come out of the wall looking for water; i caught it near the shower. also, given the pattern i've seen, i suspect it may be the same one i saw a few days ago and let get away into the crack. i really don't think there's an infestation in the unit, but rather a high number near by. when one gets in, it runs around for a few days until i catch it and then i don't see another for weeks....
j
ugh. if you must rot your brain with the garbage they call "film" nowadays, can you please have the common fucking courtesy to not monopolize the entire block's bandwidth for hours at a time?
BAN NETFLIX.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/15/bittorrent-says-netflix-is-hogging-bandwidth-not-beating-it
when you contemplate what this technology could be doing, it's flat out revolting to think it's being wasted on middle aged bureaucrats watching jennifer aniston romcoms - to the point that it's starting to strangle service. that's the kind of imagery that makes me yearn for the consequences of nuclear warfare.
i'm pretty sure my upstairs neighbours got netflix for christmas, and i'm going to have to move to dsl as a result. i'll give it a few more days...
BAN NETFLIX.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/15/bittorrent-says-netflix-is-hogging-bandwidth-not-beating-it
when you contemplate what this technology could be doing, it's flat out revolting to think it's being wasted on middle aged bureaucrats watching jennifer aniston romcoms - to the point that it's starting to strangle service. that's the kind of imagery that makes me yearn for the consequences of nuclear warfare.
i'm pretty sure my upstairs neighbours got netflix for christmas, and i'm going to have to move to dsl as a result. i'll give it a few more days...
Friday, December 27, 2013
re: roach situation
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord
they're easy to kill by hitting them with a kleenex box, they don't seem to react to humans at all until they're attacked, but it may be a while before i see another one. as mentioned, they seem to be in the walls rather than in the unit. they never stray far from the hole they came from and try to go back in the hole if you don't get them the first time. when i blocked them off in the bedroom, they went away for months. now that i've blocked the dead radiator, i haven't seen another. i'm not sure what other entry points might exist, but i'll keep an eye out.
j
To: the initial landlord
they're easy to kill by hitting them with a kleenex box, they don't seem to react to humans at all until they're attacked, but it may be a while before i see another one. as mentioned, they seem to be in the walls rather than in the unit. they never stray far from the hole they came from and try to go back in the hole if you don't get them the first time. when i blocked them off in the bedroom, they went away for months. now that i've blocked the dead radiator, i haven't seen another. i'm not sure what other entry points might exist, but i'll keep an eye out.
j
re: roach situation
From: the initial landlord
To: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Happy Holiday, we have never had roaches but have had occasionally had bugs that are similar. They had appeared briefly from time to time and had originated from the storm sewer drain . I will contact my brother and he can use some product we might still have from a few years ago when we had a few bugs appear. Please try to capture one of the them so we can make a determination of what the bug is.
To: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Happy Holiday, we have never had roaches but have had occasionally had bugs that are similar. They had appeared briefly from time to time and had originated from the storm sewer drain . I will contact my brother and he can use some product we might still have from a few years ago when we had a few bugs appear. Please try to capture one of the them so we can make a determination of what the bug is.
publishing inrijected (inri022)
this is a collection of rejected tracks from the inri/inriched period. it's just chronologically sequenced.
recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth, drum programming, lyrics, samples, loops, cool edit synthesis, digital wave editing
released feb 27, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrijected
recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth, drum programming, lyrics, samples, loops, cool edit synthesis, digital wave editing
released feb 27, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrijected
publishing inrimixed (inri023)
this is a collection of weird, glitchy remixes from the inri/inriched period that i meant to do something with and just never did.
the cover art is actually the waveform for track 2; similarities to the mirror reflection of the cover of any seminal eponymous records from the late 60s are purely coincidental.
constructed over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, synths, bass, drum programming, vocals, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencing, loops
released feb 28, 1999
the cover art is actually the waveform for track 2; similarities to the mirror reflection of the cover of any seminal eponymous records from the late 60s are purely coincidental.
constructed over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, synths, bass, drum programming, vocals, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencing, loops
released feb 28, 1999
yup. headphones cleaned and as good as new. in the end, i'm going to prove these things are indestructible.
mixes passed through multiple listening tests and the result is acceptable if not always perfect. minor existing problems are source related, and in tracks i'm not as attached to. moving on. finally....
i hope to have the reject cd done by the day, and maybe move into inrimake.
mixes passed through multiple listening tests and the result is acceptable if not always perfect. minor existing problems are source related, and in tracks i'm not as attached to. moving on. finally....
i hope to have the reject cd done by the day, and maybe move into inrimake.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
ugh. i just spent the last several days trying to figure out what the
factors were around certain tracks buzzing only on the laptop, to
realize they buzzed out of the pc, now, too - because the buzz is coming
from the headphones. autechre and htda and even asmz are also buzzing,
albeit at different levels. it's definitely the phones.
these are my beloved phones that i've had since i was a kid and that i just replaced the cord on. and was very excited about having in working order again...
on the one hand, i seem to recall them buzzing like this in the past. yet, they weren't doing this recently up until this week. it sounds like i blew a speaker and i'm sort of blaming myself for it. i was really blaring them.
there's an off chance it could be dirty, but i'm not really sure what to do if the speaker is actually blown. that's twice, now, that i've run up against these headphones being out of order. but i don't have $800 to blow on a pair of phones that are comparable. i don't even have $300 to blow on a downgrade.
the only other pair i have to mix on are a pair of "noise-cancelling" phones that designed for ipods, and they're just too synthetic to get a useful signal from. they're just not useful for this purpose. unfortunately, my previous backups (aiwas) seem to have gotten damaged in the move.
i'm going to try and clean them and let them sit for the night and go from there. it seems bad, though...
even blaring them is...i blared them for years...
i'm wondering if the cord had too strong a signal for the speakers, a different impedance. these phones are 20+ years old, the cord is for newer models. i used the cord support told me to use, but that doesn't really say much..
these are my beloved phones that i've had since i was a kid and that i just replaced the cord on. and was very excited about having in working order again...
on the one hand, i seem to recall them buzzing like this in the past. yet, they weren't doing this recently up until this week. it sounds like i blew a speaker and i'm sort of blaming myself for it. i was really blaring them.
there's an off chance it could be dirty, but i'm not really sure what to do if the speaker is actually blown. that's twice, now, that i've run up against these headphones being out of order. but i don't have $800 to blow on a pair of phones that are comparable. i don't even have $300 to blow on a downgrade.
the only other pair i have to mix on are a pair of "noise-cancelling" phones that designed for ipods, and they're just too synthetic to get a useful signal from. they're just not useful for this purpose. unfortunately, my previous backups (aiwas) seem to have gotten damaged in the move.
i'm going to try and clean them and let them sit for the night and go from there. it seems bad, though...
even blaring them is...i blared them for years...
i'm wondering if the cord had too strong a signal for the speakers, a different impedance. these phones are 20+ years old, the cord is for newer models. i used the cord support told me to use, but that doesn't really say much..
there's a young lady in the neighbourhood that's been bumping into me repeatedly and coming up with excuses to try and start a conversation with me. nervous hands, giggly voice. obvious; annoying, really. unfortunately, anybody that is displaying any interest in any type of interaction that is less than completely random and spontaneous is going to instantly be put in my perpetual ignore filter. see, anybody that is going out of their way to try and get to know me better is making a gigantic mistake, the proportions of which they really have no grasp of. it demonstrates bad judgment. to begin with, my first assumption is cia, and that assumption isn't going to recede quickly. but, i'm ultimately not willing to waste my time when the conclusion is predetermined. it's better if others get the point quickly rather than waste their own time. that's just time i could have spent by myself, doing something i'm more interested in.
it got me thinking, though, as i was turning the corner a block early to avoid crossing paths. it's actually been almost 8 years, now, since i last had any kind of sexual activity. that's probably longer than most people in convents and monasteries (i don't really think most of them take those oaths all that seriously). practically speaking, i think i've revirginized myself.
i don't really think about it, or even really care. my level of cynicism about sex is probably clinical. like, in need of deep psychiatry - or so people would claim. whatever. the reality is probably that i'm absolutely right and the rest of the world is totally naive. i think i'm more likely to convince a shrink than the other way around. it's just a question of coming to terms with the futility of existence. maybe i'm being a little bit buddhist again; again, whatever.
but eight years is really impressive, considering it's just out of absolute disinterest rather than anything ideological or philosophical. i see no reason to think i won't go another eight...
it got me thinking, though, as i was turning the corner a block early to avoid crossing paths. it's actually been almost 8 years, now, since i last had any kind of sexual activity. that's probably longer than most people in convents and monasteries (i don't really think most of them take those oaths all that seriously). practically speaking, i think i've revirginized myself.
i don't really think about it, or even really care. my level of cynicism about sex is probably clinical. like, in need of deep psychiatry - or so people would claim. whatever. the reality is probably that i'm absolutely right and the rest of the world is totally naive. i think i'm more likely to convince a shrink than the other way around. it's just a question of coming to terms with the futility of existence. maybe i'm being a little bit buddhist again; again, whatever.
but eight years is really impressive, considering it's just out of absolute disinterest rather than anything ideological or philosophical. i see no reason to think i won't go another eight...
jessica amber murray
this has been going on for a while now.
1) don't believe the conservatives when they question the validity of climate science. clearly, they're accepting it.
2) there's a big problem with the permafrost melting insofar as it will release absurd amounts of carbon. but if you follow their politics, they see that as beneficial - despite the global consequences.
3) it's not just the russians. the americans don't accept canadian claims over the region, either. any canadian-american alliance on the issue to reject russian claims is american pragmatism that is going to serve the interests of american capital in the long run.
4) the area actually legally belongs to the indigenous people of the region. for all chretien's faults, give him credit for explicitly taking that legally correct position.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11170
a related issue that's going to develop is the question of letting ships pass through the region. there was a bit of a hullabaloo a few years ago when it was discovered that china was sending icebreakers to "explore" the region, completely ignoring canadian claims. in reality, canadian claims over the arctic don't seem to be regarded amongst other nations - again, that includes the americans. the conservatives have made a nationalistic show of the whole thing. but the americans and others see the "northwest passage" as international waters.
eventually, what's going to have to happen is something like this, that allows free passage of merchant ships and restricts military vessels. but our current government, at the least, is likely to fight against it pretty hard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits
dave
State claims over totally undeveloped areas of the world is ludicrious and usually abusive
The very best people who would have a claim over the region are the people who live there and have developed it, and that would be inuit peoples in some regions, and nobody in other regions
jessica amber murray
i tend to agree with that. it seems to rarely be even contemplated inside of canada, but outside of canada the water is generally viewed as an international strait. our government is wrong to assert sovereignty, especially considering that almost the entire area is in the boundaries of nunavut.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nunavut-irked-by-arctic-sovereignty-talk-1.881954
(of course, clinton was really pushing the american perspective of the area being an international waterway)
this has been going on for a while now.
1) don't believe the conservatives when they question the validity of climate science. clearly, they're accepting it.
2) there's a big problem with the permafrost melting insofar as it will release absurd amounts of carbon. but if you follow their politics, they see that as beneficial - despite the global consequences.
3) it's not just the russians. the americans don't accept canadian claims over the region, either. any canadian-american alliance on the issue to reject russian claims is american pragmatism that is going to serve the interests of american capital in the long run.
4) the area actually legally belongs to the indigenous people of the region. for all chretien's faults, give him credit for explicitly taking that legally correct position.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11170
a related issue that's going to develop is the question of letting ships pass through the region. there was a bit of a hullabaloo a few years ago when it was discovered that china was sending icebreakers to "explore" the region, completely ignoring canadian claims. in reality, canadian claims over the arctic don't seem to be regarded amongst other nations - again, that includes the americans. the conservatives have made a nationalistic show of the whole thing. but the americans and others see the "northwest passage" as international waters.
eventually, what's going to have to happen is something like this, that allows free passage of merchant ships and restricts military vessels. but our current government, at the least, is likely to fight against it pretty hard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits
dave
State claims over totally undeveloped areas of the world is ludicrious and usually abusive
The very best people who would have a claim over the region are the people who live there and have developed it, and that would be inuit peoples in some regions, and nobody in other regions
jessica amber murray
i tend to agree with that. it seems to rarely be even contemplated inside of canada, but outside of canada the water is generally viewed as an international strait. our government is wrong to assert sovereignty, especially considering that almost the entire area is in the boundaries of nunavut.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nunavut-irked-by-arctic-sovereignty-talk-1.881954
(of course, clinton was really pushing the american perspective of the area being an international waterway)
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