real life things happened less this week than i was expecting.

things i got done:

1) groceries.
2) set a dr's apt
3) cleaned
4) laundry
*5) attend dr's apt

* tomorrow. no, our public health insurance up here isn't so outstanding that you get an appointment in a day, i happen to have been playing phone tag and she'd already pencilled me in because she couldn't get a hold of me. well, i don't actually have a phone, so reaching me in real time with a phone number is actually impossible at the moment. yeah, how's that for being a hipster? no phone. ahahaha...

i honestly don't want to pay for the phone. that's really the crux of it. i pay roughly $20/yr for a mailbox. i will eventually get a phone and connect it to the voip service; for now, i'm using the leave-a-message-i'll-call-back approach, which creates problems when the other side is always busy.

the other thing is that i don't trust phones. i'm in the "harmless, but monitored out of interest" category. i don't need the cia following my gps around. it's just unsettling. i don't know how so many people can just shrug it off.

things i didn't get done:

1) buying wood. i can't; the bus is on detour. in a few weeks.

2) compost dropoff. i would have had to go this morning, but i slept-in. i leave my compost in the freezer until it builds up, then drop it off to some kids that use it to feed hungry people. i think it's technically a muslim group, but i don't get the impression that they're proselytizing. i'm solely interested in the feeding hungry people part. yeah, the state should do it, but if you've been in a food bank you know that items like fresh vegetables aren't actually there. it's mostly about dumping near expired goods. i don't like it, but i understand that the thatcher-reagan system is designed for religious groups to fill this void. given that reality, i'd much rather support a minority muslim group than a dominant christian group. balances of power and whatnot. so, i've got these giant bags of frozen banana peels and stuff and i need to walk 2-3 km to get them to there. leaky banana peel juice is kind of nasty, so i tend to prefer to go in the spring and fall when it's close to 0 to minimize the melt. i'll take this out next week, when the temperature gets back down to 3 or 4.

anyways....that means i've got all day to record, and i will! some kind of clarity something or other should be up before midnight...

got some student loan mail, today.

minimum payment: $1100 month. right. ahahahahaha....

i qualify as very low income, it's not really a serious concern. i'm actually not sure if the best thing to do is to ignore it or to apply for further loan forgiveness, but i'm going to ignore it for now. i mean, they can try to debit my account if they want, but they're going to get nsf every single time.

obviously, if i catch them doing that, i'll have to call them. until then? meh...

i'm in the "zero chance of paying back a dime" category.

if it comes down to it, i'm more likely to nail gun my forehead to the cra building in protest, kind of thing.

i didn't want to get in this mess and did a lot of juggling a few years ago to avoid it. what happened was my father pleaded with me to go back to school around '08. i really, really didn't want to, because i didn't want to take on more loans for more useless schooling. i was aware at the time that it wasn't going to get me any closer to accomplishing my goals in life. however, he convinced me to go back by telling me he'd pay tuition and rent. that gave me the following choice:

1) work bullshit jobs to pay rent and do music in spare time
2) go to school and have rent paid for and do music in spare time

school doesn't have strict schedules. nobody yells at you for showing up late. you don't have to deal with people. it's a better choice....so long as you don't have to pay for it.

so, i took him up on his offer.

about a month before classes started, he tells me the market crashed (this is the infamous '08 crash - it's true, it did crash, and pretty badly) and he can't pay for it in real time, but if i take out a loan then he'll pay it back later. at this point, i'm kind of screwed. i need to make a quick choice - find *immediate* employment, or take out a loan. i'd been living off a few thousand dollars i had put away for the previous few months, waiting for the rent money to start coming in in september.

finding immediate employment didn't work, so i took out a loan under the promise that he'd pay it back when i was done school.

now, he's dead (and left me basically nothing) and i have a $50K student loan that i'm never going to pay back.

i can blame myself on some level. i did make an error. i sort of had little choice but to take the loan by the time september came around, as it was the only option i had to pay rent. however, i shouldn't have put myself in a situation where i was so reliant on money coming in. in my defence, my father was always very reliable in the past. i had little doubt in believing him.

unfortunately, he badly misjudged his financial situation and lead me around by the nose a little, convincing me that he'd eventually be able to pay it down for me when the market recovered. as we all know, the market never really recovered. i held on to some resentment about this for quite a while, but in hindsight i have to come to terms with the fact that it was a function of bad planning and i'm as much at fault (moreso for not taking control of the situation for myself) as he is.

that doesn't change the fact that i can't pay this back, and i knew i was never going to pay it back as i was signing up for it.

i'll let them do the work in really tracking me down....

i'm not exactly up to date on the letter of loan forgiveness legislation, but it will no doubt kick in eventually.

don't worry - i'll check out what's offered at the university of windsor before i start nail gunning myself anywhere.

but for now, i'm ignoring it...

if i can get enough music finished before they find me, that might be what i want to end up doing, anyways.

i mean, i realize going to school isn't going to help me accomplish any of my current life goals, but there's going to be a point where these things are going to be more aligned. maybe around the age of 40 or so. i wouldn't mind living the last thirty years of my life as an associate prof somewhere, but if i don't get the music out of my system then i'm never going to have my head focused there enough to delve into it.

i'm an A+ student when i want to be. the problem is i've historically usually wanted to spend my time doing something else. the idea of advancing through these departments has really not appealed to me. but i'm well aware that i will eventually reach a point where i do want to be an A+ student because i will want to get somewhere in some department..

conversely, i don't see any future in an employment role whatsoever. there's nothing worthwhile to it. no goals, no aspirations...just a waste of time.

at this point, considering the size of the existing debt, i don't care how old i am, or how much debt it produces, i'll always pick school over employment so long as the option exists.

just another thing to point out - it's rather obvious that that guy "matt" is working from the inside, and his job is to eat up time with dumb questions. he may even be prompting at points.

there may be little thought or desire put into really masking it. but, if you're curious, this is also very obvious,.

lol. actually, no.

there's construction on the main street about a block from my place. normally, the bus would go right through there, but it's detoured quite a ways around due to the construction.

i'm going to be carrying a significant amount of wood home. i could handle a block or two, but it's simply too far to walk.

so, i guess i'll have to wait until the construction is done. it should only be a week or two.

guess i'll do laundry.

i mean, this shelf is going to hold nearly 2000 cds. i don't have that many anymore, but i'm thinking ahead. there's five lengthy pieces of wood and 22 shelves involved. i can't be walking over a kilometre back with it.

doing real life things this week.

today, i got some serious groceries done. still have to clean, and finalize the schematics for the cd shelf. i also set a doctor's appointment.

tomorrow, i get the wood for the cd shelf. i'll probably also do laundry.

thursday morning, i'll be transporting compost out to the compost people. they're some kids that grow tomatoes and give it away to hungry people. it's better than dumping the coffee grinds and tomato ends in the dumpster, where the organic material simply becomes useless.

friday, i have a doctor's appointment.

seems trivial. but i actually have a hard time making sure i'm doing things like this regularly. they tend to sit. forever.

i might get a mix of clarity done over the next few days, but that's uncertain.

i'm still not clear what i'm doing about drilling.

i'm kind of hoping home depot has a drill bit where i can just get them to do the holes. even if it's a buck a hole or something, it's better and probably even cheaper in the long run.

if not, something i'll want to check when i'm there is the price of bits. there are $20 drills in the pawn shops, but they don't have bits. i only really need the one bit. there's consequently basically no chance i'm going to buy a drill set. if i can just get one bit there at a reasonable price, i probably will and then get the $20 drill.

if i can't get the one bit? at the moment, i'm leaning towards finding some kind of co-op as a preferable option. surely, there's somewhere around here where i can just take a few pieces of wood in and drill some holes in them.

the other stuff i built is just screwing screws into particle board. yes, it's cracked a little, but it's the kind of thing where it's like "who cares?" - so long as it's sturdy. a makeup shelf doesn't take a lot of force. the stove is holding up the piece with the coffee maker. the little table i'm going to make is likely going to be lodged between a chair and a wall. these are items that don't need to be particularly sturdy, so long as they're handled intelligently.

a cd shelf is a different animal because it has to be standalone and has to keep up quite a bit of weight. so, i need to be drilling cleaner holes into bigger pieces of actual wood. i'll probably use particle board for the shelves, but i want solid wood for the bases. i'm probably simply not going to be able to screw the pieces together by hand.

i might try, though, if it comes down to spending $100 on a drill and bit set that i'm going to use a handful of times and then toss in a closet for twenty years.

actually, i'm going to need to drill holes for the pegs, too...

hrmmn.

i don't even know what size they are. i should figure that out before i go.

those shoes are also dead, the rain exposed holes in the bottom of both shoes, but i wasn't expecting them to last long, with the amount of walking that i do. these were very cheaply made shoes. i'm going to let them dry out and keep them for short in/out use, but they're useless for going more than a block.

i got a pair of pink cons about the same time, but i haven't been wearing them much because i tend to get stuck in one pair. those are now the main shoes, but i want to keep them out of the wet, too. so i'm mostly moving to those children's rain boots i got for the fall/winter/spring.

the cheap shoes were actually 2 for 1 so i already have another pair of cheap shoes that i can wear down to nothing for next year....

the usb card works, so i really did get a functioning usb 2.0 card from china for $4. it's not fixing the problem i hoped it would, though.

i have a really old motherboard with usb 1.0 slots on it. this is expanded with a 2.0 hub. i want to connect a 3.0 external drive to that hub. it works, but it's very slow through the hub - much slower than it is directly connecting it to the 1.0. it's a tb drive. now, the 1.1 is workable, but it means i have to leave the drive in an unheated area. the point of the exercise is to bring the drive into the living room, where i don't have to worry about it possibly freezing. i checked the temperature in there last winter and it's not actually that cold but i'm uneasy about it - even though it may even be better to leave it in a chilled environment.

i knew it was the hub the whole time, but i was hoping that upgrading to a 2.0 card would make it a little better as it would need to convert one fewer times. that didn't work out, which leads me to believe it's a model problem rather than a speed problem. in other words, i need to try a new hub.

for the $4, i can't complain, though. it's a valid upgrade and it may find a use before the motherboard crashes.

there's an added annoyance, though, which is that it doesn't read the wireless mouse or keyboard through the pci card until windows launches. it reads them on bootup when plugged directly into the motherboard. so, if i do get another hub, i'll probably leave them both active - the old one through the motherboard and the new one through the 2.0 card.

regardless, the actual pc in there is now built to it's maximum specs. there's nothing else the motherboard can take besides a negligible increase in clock speed. as old as the machine is, i have little reason to think it's going to die any time soon. it's still useful a backup pc, so it's still useful to have the 2.0 card in there. besides a little table that i plan on building in the next week, that's the last thing i wanted to do in that room...

heat's on earlier this year than i can remember in quite a while. i'm used to turning it on mid october or early november. i actually don't think i've ever turned it on the first week of october....

*shrug*. there was an abrupt shift rather than a slow cool down. it's just not going to hold over 21 in here very long when it's below ten degrees outside. and it doesn't look like it's warming back up to the point that i can get the heat back off.

it might not be on very strong for the next few weeks, but it's definitely triggered itself at 21 degrees. hopefully it's off early.

it's optics, right. the pentagon yells "cut our budget!", and the house rejects their request. that way, they have a mandate from the people. it's absurd, but most of the political theatre that we're asked to take seriously is no less absurd. this is the concept of "democracy" that rings hollow through the elites.

but, again, it brings up the important question: is the government in charge of the pentagon, or is the pentagon in charge of the government?

it's hard to know what's going on here.

i have a grandmother who's not much younger than the woman in the video and who nobody doubts will live to be 100. she worked her whole life as a bank teller and retired with a sufficient pension. however, inflation has eaten into the pension and she now also gets government money. she's doing ok right now, but the longer she lives the more likely she is to find herself in a situation where she has to choose between rent and food.

is it that out of the blue to think her son bought her the car but won't or can't give her a monthly check? well, the answer to that may actually lie in the accounting laws of the state - the "tough on welfare" laws that have become exceedingly strict since the late 90s. i live in ontario, which is ridiculously progressive with public subsidies compared to almost anywhere else on the continent, and i can tell you that, here, a monthly amount would be treated as income and deducted from assistance. however, a gift can get around that problem.

so, let's say she needs $1000 to pay her monthly expenses (rent, food, rx, utilities. etc) and only gets $700 from combined pension and government assistance. that scenario is extremely common and absolutely reasonable to assume is probably the cause of her panhandling. if her son were to give her $300 a month, they'd probably reduce the government part of her pension by almost as much. this is a result of the "tough on welfare" approach; the assumption is that if she's getting money from another source, she must be ripping off the system. in order for her to get the $1000, she'd basically have to get off assistance altogether. however, there's a huge difference between giving your elderly mother $300/month and giving her $1000/month. the latter could very well be outside of the son's actual budget.

a new car is probably over the yearly limit for gifts, which is probably less than $5000. however, buying a car and leaving it in the son's name and letting her drive it (and then maybe giving it to a teenager a few years down the road) is entirely legal.

i'm reading into things a lot, but this guy should have given her the opportunity to explain before he started yelling at her. the system that elderly people have to wade through to generate enough money to pay for the things they need is full of ridiculous amounts of bureaucracy (made far more restrictive by welfare reform) that are designed with the assumption that everybody is a cheat. she might be able to live comfortably with the state and her son splitting the cost, but the state makes it very difficult for that kind of arrangement to happen.

deathtokoalas
ok.

was there any specific reason they picked the performance to disrupt, though? were there specific authorities present?

generally, patrons of the arts tend to be rather liberal - and i mean liberal in the actual meaning of the word. even the self-identified conservatives in the audience would mostly fit any reasonable definition of the word "liberal" - and especially when it comes to the issue of race. so, it's kind of singing to the choir, if you see what i'm saying.

...unless they were targeting somebody, specifically, that they knew was in attendance. that's a different action.

if this is just a pr stunt...it's just a pr stunt. they'll get their ten minutes, think they're raising serious awareness and then be otherwise ignored.

if they're following somebody around, on the other hand, and there's going to be more of this, there's a chance it could get to that person.

Jimmy 
I think they just saw an orchestral performance as something "white". And they've been twisted by the media into divisive action. If anyone sees this as brave or inspiring, they should do some research into real protest. This is a real-life extension of so-called 'hashtag activists'. In this age social protests last all of 15 minutes.

deathtokoalas
see, that's a big problem but i would recognize it as a corollary of the current dominance of identity politics on the so-called "left". it's really bogging things down very badly. i mean, if they were expecting to walk in there and find a bunch of racist big money white supremacist dixiecrats, i hope they were sorely disappointed. if that's what they were looking for, in st. louis, i'd suggest a strip club, not a place for the arts. despite maybe being a little irritated by the interruption, i'd suspect most people in the audience probably agree with them that black lives aren't worthless. the perception that a symphony is a place to find people that will disagree is strange and worrying, as it implies a lack of communication and understanding across a stratifying class divide.

my interpretation of socialism looks at symphonic music as something everybody should have the time and education to be able to enjoy, not something that should be vilified as a class marker. i'm not sure where, on the left, that kind of attitude would be coming from. like so much of what passes as leftism nowadays, that strikes me as something characteristic of the reactionary right.

on the other hand, nobody should be surprised about a return to gilded era economics producing a return to a gilded-era type of politics.

history doesn't end.

but if you repeat the same mistakes, you will produce the same consequences.

virgil
yeah they associate classical music with rich white people

deathtokoalas
again: that seems outlandish, but i've spent enough time with protest groups to realize that it's actually probably true. it's very sad, but it's reflective of our collective decision to stop funding public education.

Ishmael
It wasn't a PR stunt, it was a protest done to raise awareness and support for the cause. Protests have been held all across the city. Parks, government buildings, police stations, concerts, highways, sporting events and now the symphony. Most of the protesters at the symphony were white. The organizer is white. Yet many Youtube commenters claim they were racist for disturbing the nice people who paid money to see they symphony. There is a serious problem in America if somebody's right to watch a symphony in peace is more important that someone's right to live or right to due process from the legal system. The protest's organizers have never said or suggested they picked the symphony because "rich white people" would be there as +virgil starkwell and +Jimmy Kelly suggest. That's something the "conservatives" have made up to discredit the protest.

The protesters are saying "Black Lives Matter" not b/c white lives don't, but because if you look at statistics or the recently rash of videos showing unarmed black men being killed by police, or simply browse the comments left on this video, it's not clear that society believes this is true. If I say that McDonald's is delicious, does that mean I think Burger King is repulsive? Absolutely not. Then why should anybody believe that someone saying Black Lives Matter is insinuating that other lives don't? It's a foolish argument that people make to take our attention off the actual issue at hand. Don't fall into that trap.

deathtokoalas 
well, there's not much danger i'm going to fall into that trap. that's not really what i'm concerned about.

i'm just wondering if you could build a causal relationship for me between disrupting a symphony and having your concerns taken seriously. was there somebody in attendance that you were hoping to gain the attention of? because, otherwise, i don't really grasp the tactic very well.

lednerg
The organizer and another woman had previously done a small protest at a Cardinals game, holding a couple signs, and they were shouted down by angry fans. The St Louis Symphony seemed to be a more welcoming venue and they were correct.

Getting my info from http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_d3d4e0b0-4c48-11e4-bc55-275aa0a96f33.html

deathtokoalas
it's not really a question of trying to play off "listening rights" (and i guess there's a personal property rights argument hidden in there somewhere) against "the right to exist". that's the same kind of dumb argument as "black matters--->white doesn't".

it's more a question as to determining the relevancy of the target.

i have to be honest that i don't really see the relevancy of the target, and that the association of symphonies with white upper class music suggestion is the only thing that really does make sense to me - other than there not being much thought put into it at all.

i mean, while they were protesting the audience of the symphony, they could have been doing something more productive, right? that's obvious, right? so, why weren't they?

again: my time spent in protest movements suggests there is something to the idea of the symphony being targeted due to class and race concerns. it's not "racist", i'm not going to throw that around, it's more....stupid.

in the interview, she basically states she's going after the white upper class of st. louis, as if she honestly thinks that a bunch of doctors and engineers have any ability to stop police brutality, probably by all thinking positively together really hard. hey, did you hear about that experiment at the university that doesn't actually exist where a bunch of people thought positive thoughts and it actually happened?

stupidity is the right word. utter naivete; no systemic analysis. these people have no power. it doesn't matter if they know what's going on or not, you have to get to the systems of power. it's just disturbing the peace.

the civil rights movement wasn't half successful because it disrupted symphonies.

the civil rights movement was half successful because of open carry laws that had black people walking around the streets with assault rifles, which scared the fuck out of white people and got the feds to step in before another civil war happened.

here's an idea: instead of disrupting symphonies, why don't you interrupt a city hall meeting? crash a legislature? blockade a police station?

because you'd get arrested. exactly. the moment you do anything that disrupts any actual power, you end up in jail. so, instead, you go and waste your time pissing people off, thinking it's some kind of compromise.

but it's not a compromise. it's really simply a waste of time. it's counterproductive in the way that you're perceived. and, instead of grasping that, you further your isolation by attacking the dominant perspective.

it's not fucked up that people reacted badly. it was a stupid thing to do, and you're rightfully being called out for it. get it, learn from it, stop doing it, move on.

it's really remarkable. you do an action to try and influence public opinion, public opinion attacks you for it and then you say you're outraged by the public's reaction. if you really cared so much about the public opinion, you'd take the time to alter your behaviour when the public rejects your tactics. you'd actually do things that you think would influence the public opinion, rather than just irk people. yet, you don't. so, really, why don't you just tie yourself to a battering ram and slam yourself against a concrete wall over and over again, then? you might start to like it after a while, it just takes some time to get used to.

in order for anything to change on this continent, the most important realization that must be come to is that there is no democracy on this continent. the more you feed into this lie, the more you divide each other in ways that makes you easier to conquer, the more you uphold the status quo.

i don't expect you to get it, i've been over this ad nauseum, i know i'm talking to the wall.

like, honestly.

1. convince wealthy people racism is bad.
2. ?????
3. equality

that's basically what's going on.

Ishmael
Protesters have interrupted city hall meetings. They've also interrupted a city council meeting. They've marched in Clayton, which is where the St. Louis County government is located. They've also protested outside a police station...and Ferguson city hall.

The civil rights movement would not have been successful without white supporters (in both the public and in political office), without thousands marching in unity, without sit-ins, without the show of force you mentioned, etc. The movement would've been an abysmal failure.and black Americans would've continued to be attacked, killed, lynched, hung, fed to ravenous dogs, if it was just black Americans with guns. Hell, in Ferguson, the government showed they are willing to bring in the military to protect THE POLICE. When police were the aggressors in nearly every confrontation. So in order to foster any change, the protests have to come in several forms.

This can't simply a black/white issue. It's an issue for all Americans. Allow one group to have their rights and freedoms trampled, and it won't be very long before it expands to other groups. So yes, wealthy people need to be told that racism is bad b/c some are so comfortable in their own bubbles that they don't know what's going on. The protests are about awareness. Sure, plenty of irked and aggravated by the protests. But society rarely changes when everybody is comfortable and cozy.

deathtokoalas
that's right, and they'll bomb you from the sky if the military asks for it, too - whether people are aware of it or not. the way they think is that the more aware you are of the threat of being bombed, the more frightened you'll be of it. you probably know this, you're just not willing to come to terms with it. there were complex power relations in the civil rights struggle, but the reality is that white solidarity had almost nothing to do with it - unless you're talking about white solidarity in the north. dixiecrats, and whatnot.

there's no future in "building awareness" through the kinds of actions that isolate and marginalize your position, and you'd agree that this is obvious if you weren't so blinded by reactionary right-wing self-righteousness. i have to go back to the previous point, in pointing out that it's really curious how you can state that

1) The protests are about awareness.
2) Sure, plenty of irked and aggravated by the protests.

without realizing that you're contradicting yourself.

but, again, i've been through this enough to know there's no use....

dammit john, you're going to get the patriots all worked up in a way that's hard to argue with - because they'd be right if they were to point out that a revolution was fought to prevent pretty much exactly this.

deathtokoalas
this is really not surprising, unfortunately. it is just more glaring evidence that the united states has crossed the line and is now a culturally fascist nation. the time when we could speak of americans as peace-loving citizens trapped under the control of the american government is past us. the culture, the society, the prevailing norms, the system of morals - it's all become utterly fascist in character.

the fascist states of the past all collapsed (or were destroyed) before they got to this point.

i would tell america to take a good look in the mirror, but it's too late. america does not see itself as the monster that it is, it sees itself as a pinnacle of power that constructs the right to do as it pleases from it's immense strength.

Adolf
Agreed. The fact that we hero-worship murderers, rapists and thugs that are too naive to see what they are doing and instead just bow down to lick the boot of the politician, who in turn bows down to lick the boot of the CEO, is despicable. The United States has always been fairly fascistic in nature, but it is becoming more and more openly fascist.

deathtokoalas 
fascism is notoriously difficult to define, but i think something that comes pretty clear from it's definition as a society that works like a corporation is that the body politic has to uphold it on some level. that is, because fascism is a total ordering of the state, a truly fascist society has to actually reflect fascist social values rather than merely be the enforcement of those values from the top down. none of the actual fascist states (and america was not organized as anything approaching fascism before the 1930s) were able to reach this point through gramscian conditioning. by unfolding it slowly over several generations, america has really reached the breaking point and tipped over to the other side. 

Adolf
I'd have to agree, completely. To be legitimately fascist any given state has to uphold fascistic values. With the U.S you can clearly see corporate ownership of the media, the state meddling in religious affairs (perhaps not as much as the state would in say, Nazi Germany, but that's because the U.S  has learnt to hide it's more fascistic elements under a bipartisan dichotomy meant to distract the public and consumerism), a near-militarized police force, an extremely ingrained nationalist mentality within the populace, we have to stand up and say the pledge in high schools, c'mon (this is another example of how the U.S's particular strand of fascism is more mental than overt; rather than having your head beat in whilst you are hauled off to jail for defacing "American values", you have an extremely propagandized society that will defend, tooth and nail, there corporate overlords), an institutionally racist police force (whether racism is or is not a facet of fascism in it's non Nazi forms is debatable, but that's a very serious point worth bringing up), propagandized school systems based off a model of schooling SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to make WORKING CLASS INDIVIDUALS NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY, so on and so forth.

As for the U.S not approaching fascism until the 1930's. I also agree with that. My "it has always been fascistic in nature" comment was painting with a broad brush.

West Kagle 
IDK........I think I'll take Cultural Fascism over the Cultural Marxism we've been being force feed the last 20 years.

deathtokoalas 
the perverted vulgar marxism of converted troskyite neo-conservatism that you're referring to is fascism. it was vulgar marxism in germany, and it was vulgar marxism underlying the new deal.

vulgar marxism, as i'm using the term, means "capital using marxist insights into class analysis to further it's own aims". i'm roughly pulling it out of sutton, as it's where i first saw the idea. it's been demonstrated that the bolsheviks were also essentially vulgar marxists. further, various socialists of the period predicted the phenomenon.

the idea of fascism is actually older than this - hobbes describes it pretty much perfectly in leviathan, and he may have been drawing on italian renaissance sources that i'm not aware of. it's not a twentieth century idea, although the technology and economic organization required to actually construct such a system is a product of the industrial era, much as marxism, itself, is.

as an intellectual thing, socialism is largely the exact opposite of fascism. but, in practice, both "fascist" and "socialist" states (with few exceptions) have followed this kind of hegelian path of perverted marxism in seeking absolute state dominance. trying to separate them into distinct strains of thought is likely to produce more confusion than trying to properly understand them as two expressions of the same set of ideas.

but in terms of these colloquial discussions? we're talking about the same thing.

Daniel
you should try decaf, and probably lay off the halucinagens.

deathtokoalas
i only just woke up. i haven't even finished my first cup yet.

"cultural marxism" is a weird term that misunderstands the situation. it comes out of some kind of john birch society penned narrative of the world being secretly run by communists, which is probably the most ridiculous conspiracy theory out there. it's pretty obvious that jfk wasn't shot by a lone nut, even if we're not entirely sure who actually did it. aliens? more likely than not, really. but, the idea that the world is secretly run by communists is just patently ridiculous, as we watch these superpowers butcher millions of people in competition for control over natural resources. it's not cognitive dissonance, it's pure fantasy.

you're not dealing with actual egalitarians, you're dealing with smart capitalists that realize that marx was a smart guy himself and that he made a lot of valid observations that could be used against the working class. engels himself was arguably the first person that realized this. it's led them to engaging in a conscious class war from the top. there's been plenty written about this.

"vulgar marxism" gets the idea across better.

.....but, again, we're talking about the same thing.

West Kagle 
Not really. Simply put, I'm referring to the Cultural Marxism that is prevalent in every corner of our society in this country at the present. It's just an out growth of the dialogue killing political correctness that has held this country hostage for most of my adult life.         ........unless that's what you are calling Cultural Fascism. Then we're on the same page and just differ in what we're calling it (as you refer to at the end of your comment).

deathtokoalas 
it's a small part of it. i've spent some time in activist circles, and i'm willing to concede that there's some valid points brought up by right-wing criticisms of what you're calling "political correctness", although i'm not sure if you're aware of the actual extent this runs to nowadays on the ground in terms of a set of ideas that can be roughly grouped together under the term "critical race theory". there's plenty of like-minded criticism on the left, but it's fighting against something that's becoming rather engrained and borderline systemic. in the sense that it's an idea that is intellectually rooted on the left, but in practice used to uphold a right-wing agenda, it's a type of "vulgar socialism".

the way i've interacted with the term "cultural marxism" (and that i'd prefer be called "vulgar marxism") is a lot bigger than this, though. you're talking of a limited, specific aspect of it.

forzaazzurri101 
You look like a fucking pelican, bitch.

deathtokoalas 
careful, i might bite your head off. 

Adolf
Define political correctness? There's a difference between being socially conscious and supporting liberation movements and being an upright reactionary liberal perpetuating systematic violence with  "politically correct" dialogue (that, in a stroke of sadistically hilarious irony actually worsens the conditions of the people they have a savior-complex over) and typical bullshittery. (Note, I'm using the contemporary American definition of liberal, obviously, not talking about an economic liberal.)

deathtokoalas 
what i said was this:

i've spent some time in activist circles, and i'm willing to concede that there's some valid points brought up by right-wing criticisms of what you're calling "political correctness", although i'm not sure if you're aware of the actual extent this runs to nowadays on the ground in terms of a set of ideas that can be roughly grouped together under the term "critical race theory".

it's often used to stifle debate. it's a trump card. but, that's just the obvious part. i'd argue the problem runs much deeper.

the way activists seem to want to construct organizing is to immediately introduce a racial and gender hierarchy (class is mostly invisible in these situations, except in some extreme cases, like the homeless guy that wants to take part in the assembly) and then actively police it. so you begin by assuming the thing you claim to not want to exist exists, and then go about trying to compensate for it. the problem that creates is that, in context, the assumption that it exists is what actually creates it. once it's created, it does exist, and people start falling in line to it. i mean, you're dealing with a bunch of egalitarian anarchists that explicitly define themselves in opposition to these sorts of things. that hierarchy wouldn't exist if the organizers didn't create it - but they do create it, and then it does end up existing.

all of a sudden, the black woman is defined by her race and gender. she is identifiable that way. she speaks uniquely for other people of her race and gender. she represents her race and gender in the assembly. she needs white men to speak to her more carefully, or even to speak on her behalf, because the system of white oppression makes her unable to speak for herself. it is her identity, and she cannot escape it.

the muslim is defined by his religion. the indigenous activist is defined by her ethnicity. the transgendered person is defined by their gender identification. all represent and speak for their groups analogously.

people become segmented into racial and gender types, expected to express the characteristics of their groups (i.e., hold up to stereotypes), expected to organize with their own because they "share experiences" (self-segregation) and expected to display the weaknesses that the hierarchy places upon them.

that is, it is the enforcement of white hetero-patriarchy on a movement that has come together to combat and abolish it.

of course, when you point that out, you're accused of being blind to privilege. the more cogent and rational your points are, the more blind you are.

the error is of course in constructing a hierarchy of systemic oppression out of a bunch of 20 year-olds that have known each other for a matter of hours and decided to meet in a park to talk about things. that structure doesn't naturally exist, it has to be created and enforced. dude that calls a ga isn't holding a salary or a gun over anybody's head. but, pointing that out is, again, merely denying that it exists.

after you've been through these kafkaesque debates enough, you start to realize you're really dealing with a belief system and you'd might as well be talking to yourself.

it's a problem. a big problem. and it needs some serious academic discourse, because that's where these ideas are ultimately coming from.

Tico o
Death-to-Koalas ? Anything else you want killed ?

deathtokoalas
it'd be nice to get rid of bon jovi once and for all.

John A
are you on acid?

deathtokoalas
it's been a very long time since i've done hallucinogens. it's the kind of thing you mostly grow out of - or become a vegetable on, i suppose.

i'm just going to state the obvious: if you want to respect people that were fighting for freedom (and ultimately lost), you should be spitting in the face of these soldiers (fighting for the interests of the upper classes) and standing on the side of the union activists they slaughtered.

it's true throughout history. workers and soldiers are never on the same side. they can't be.

the soldiers aren't there to protect your freedom, they're there to make sure you never win it.

Timothy
Sport and war have always been connected in some sense. The stadium is the new coliseum. Team sports particularly are ideal screening stations for soldiers. Every cog has a role within the unit, and they drill extensively and create an environment conducive to that soldierly mentality that does as it is commanded without hesitation and eagerly pursues the "honors" and benefits attached to obedience.

deathtokoalas
i think that sports (or games) have historically been more of an alternative to conflict. one could argue that this is the basis of the british parliamentary system.

Timothy
I certainly agree that they may have often been an alternative, or that at least it could be a medium that those same aggressive, competitive energies could be channeled through without bloodshed, but the parallels of say, American football to war are difficult to ignore. They appeal to martial values (regimentation, physical toughness and courage, dogged determination in the face of superior opposition, sacrifice of the self for the benefit of the group, etc. etc.)

I'm not suggesting that team sports are causally linked to war making, but the the correlation of values and psychology is readily observable. 

deathtokoalas
on some level. i remember watching a niners game in the fall of '01 with my dad and having D-FENCE, D-FENCE take on some disturbingly jingoist connotations.

but, might the parallels possibly be used to the advantage of peoples seeking peaceful conflict resolution?

i mean, even the basic historical example of the reds and the blues back in the days of the roman empire is able to demonstrate the possibilities of using sports to diffuse tensions. once in a while, they ended up rioting. but, overall, it kept a level of peace. this is often presented as a distraction tactic, and it's no doubt true that it was, but it's not clear to me that civil war over icons or some other triviality is a better outcome than letting the bastards work it out over kick ball.

ZedNova
We're not fascists, we're warmongers.

This is just typical a sporting event, the stadium is full of rednecks so it's not surprising that they're disturbingly "Patriotic".

deathtokoalas
dammit. you used to be warmongers, now you're fascists...

Adolf
"it's often used to stifle debate. it's a trump card. but, that's just the obvious part. i'd argue the problem runs much deeper."

I agree completely. It seems that in most political conversations I have people get on my case and call me a "social justice warrior," or "over-sensitive freak preaching political correctness," in the U.S being "politically correct" is apparently a bad thing, which is why I tried to distance myself from it in that statement; it seems, like you said, phrases such as "social justice warrior," or "political correctness," are just one size fits all phrases used to throw individuals into convenient little boxes and stifle any and all debate about serious systematic problems; "socially constructed hierarchies and their systematic violence getting on your nerves? you must be a social justice warrior! go back to Tumblr, ya' stupid hipster!"

deathtokoalas 
well, no. what happens - often - is that somebody of colour pulls "privilege" as a trump card to reverse a debate they're losing when they're otherwise obviously wrong, and everybody in attendance realizes it. i've seen it used to silence homeless whites, on a class basis - i've seen homeless whites told by upper class asians that could be hanging out on a golf course to be quiet because they're taking up too much time with their white privilege. it sounds absurd, but racism isn't white; when you give people that kind of power, you shouldn't be surprised when they abuse it.

there's a kernel of ideas in there that have limited applicability in isolated areas, but, like any other tool of power based on characteristics, it gets badly abused in practice.

humans are going to make errors, and we're going to need to learn from them as we do.

what bothers me about the organizing approaches coming out of crt is how obviously predictable the abuses of power that have come out of them should have been. this should have never taken off.

Connor O
im assuming you are from England...

deathtokoalas
canada.

Connor O
Basically the same ideals though... We love guns, and we openly display our love for so. If YOU want to get America to give up its aggressive ways then get Russia and China and the terrorist factions out of the picture. We then will have no need to be so blunt and "cold"

deathtokoalas
in actuality, america always was and still remains the aggressor. i think you've got the right idea, though: america will not stop trying to take over the world until it is conquered and dismantled.

Connor O
not necessarily conquered, but either not aggressing or in a state of indefinite truce. I can assure you that the media portrays all Americans as fat, gun toting Republicans that cant point out Africa on a map. BUT, the majority of us actually don't want war, we just are naturally entertained by the prospect. If we are attacked due to the actions of the few foolish in power, then that is their fault, yet to preserve the way of life that I have today I will do what many seem as a warmongering move to protect MY country.

deathtokoalas
i wouldn't deny you the legitimate right to self defense. unfortunately, if you reciprocate, you're justifying the world's right to gang up on you and tear you down.

there's a certain point where you can't just withdraw and say "ok. you're right. i'm sorry. i'll behave.".

Connor O
The U.S does have an ego, but with certain conflicts in the Middle East etc. Canada, Brittan, France and the majority of NATO did the exact same. The only reason I have guns is to defend myself from the 250 lb. black bears that are on my front porch. The only reason the U.S has guns is to defend its self from the "Black Bears" in our society today. We do not want to be aggressive, but it seems that nobody wants to stop after it has started. Because the train of thought is "then what was all that for?" (By the way, in case you were wondering I am of no political party. I am a Christian Conservative in morals)

deathtokoalas
i don't think the facts support the idea that the united states acts anywhere out of self defense. rather, the united states is an aggressive and militaristic nation that seeks to control the rest of the world for it's own interest, and lashes out at anything that questions it's hegemony.

Connor O
I don't think that the U.S has any intentions of conquering the world :)

deathtokoalas
it's pretty hard to look at their foreign policy and conclude otherwise. it's willful ignorance - in front of you, clear as day, but you choose to ignore it.

Connor O
It may not be ignorance as it is insensitivity  to foreign opinion. America doesn't like to change, but when it does it will be groundbreaking. Unfortunately, with the Second Cold War starting the only way for us to make our foreign policy less aggravating is to seclude ourselves from the world. Frankly when it comes to foreign policy America is edgy and may seem to be immoral sometimes and lenient other times. America has ALWAYS had a tendency of "Invading to prevent invasion" It is not that we don't care or have no concern for those that the foreign policy applies to, but as most nations do, the American government prioritizes its own countries security over that of foreign powers. this is seen as an obtrusive, insensitive act but it needed/needs to happen so that America can continue. It is a problem that ignorance is almost guaranteed in American foreign policy and nobody has changed it. But it is a bigger problem as to what removing all foreign interaction.

deathtokoalas
preemptive invasion has always happened, now. interesting.

american military action has always been expansionist: imperialist. the slave trade and genocide of natives weren't defensive. they weren't defending themselves when they attacked canada, or mexico, with the intent of annexation. their policies in central and south america have never been defensive, but have always been imperialistic. and so it goes in africa, east asia, the middle east - all of it designed to control resources (including humans) and none of it designed as defense.

the cold war was really never about ideology, it was the extension of an anglo-british conflict that went past the great game and crimea all the way back to the napoleonic era, and even further. years and years ago, british writers referred to the issue as "russophobia", which was defined as the fear that the barbaric (translation: half-mongolian) russians would conquer all of europe and send it back to the asiatic dark ages. but, the cold war itself was a conflict over independence, rather than one over ideology. on one side, you had a lot of countries seeking autonomy and sovereignty, and a russian state willing to aid them - sometimes for nefarious reasons, but nonetheless. on the other side, you had an american state willing to use extreme force to uphold it's empire, even while it's allies were moving away from that and accepting the collapse of their empires.

when the soviet union collapsed, the american elite never saw it as the end of anything. they immediately saw it as an opportunity to attack and destroy it's enemy. and, nobody should have expected otherwise - although yeltsin did, to his great discredit and naive foolishness. a pack of wolves does not see the collapsing caribou as the end of the conflict; rather, this is seen as the beginning of the feast.

but, they did not act quickly enough or with enough violence to complete the mission in the time they had before russia could get back on it's feet. worse, they managed to demonstrate that the barbarians are, in fact, they themselves. america is heading towards isolation whether they like it or not. their outbursts on russia are the desperate attempts of an angry mother to scold a teenage son that is much larger than her.

but, america will not accept parity. they will not be merely another voice in a multipolar world. so, they will continue to be excluded from the things that matter as a result of it - which will just further resort them to the use of force.

Connor O
It sounds like you are saying the Russians are going to win the eventual war and that they are better and just. Am I wrong?

deathtokoalas
that's not what i'm saying at all. what i'm saying is that nobody else wants this war that you claim is inevitable, and wouldn't be if it weren't for america's insistence on global domination.

Connor O
America does not want war or global domination. We do want peace but somehow through events things escalate into war.

deathtokoalas 
see, this is clearly the point we disagree on, but i don't think it's a point of opinion. the american strategy is quite clearly to dominate areas it can and create divisions in the areas it can't. it's been the strategy all along. and, i find it hard to believe informed observers can't see it - the orwellian conversion of the department of war to the department of peace is truly mostly wilful ignorance.

the examples are too many to cite, but one of the most obvious ones is this missile shield pointing missiles at moscow. a country truly interested in peace doesn't build offensive weapons directed at the capitals of it's rivals. at best, this system is designed to intimidate; in truth, it's preparation for invasion and dismantlement.

regarding the russians. for a while, it seemed like their certain future was a two way american backed invasion - a nato attack through the ukraine on one side, and a delayed chinese invasion from the other. russian-chinese trade is quite strong. but, it seemed more likely that china would take advantage of a russian collapse than come to it's aid. why trade for oil when you can take it?

the calculation has shifted with the "pacific pivot", which played american cards too quickly. arrogance can be devastating. china has understandably grown distant, and india has rejected plans for it to be a us military base, instead shifting closer to the sco. even australia is uncomfortable with these plans to contain the chinese. and, the us-pushed rearming of japan is a pretty big problem - not just for the chinese, but also for the koreans.

unfortunately, barring an extreme shift in american thinking, this is going to lead to strengthening anti-american alliances. even the germans seem to want out, now. and america is likely to respond the only way it seems to know how to, to ensure it's continued dominance.

the only way out is for america to accept a less dominant position - to reform institutions to be more democratic, to integrate further with the un, etc. but, the elite has been doing the exact opposite, and has shown absolutely no signs of stepping back.

it's come to the point where the russians have enough confidence to step in and stand up for iran. that would have been unthinkable even five years ago. but, they have nobody to blame but their own short-sighted, overly aggressive policies...

deathtokoalas
this entire discussion needs to put "liberal" in quotes. ben affleck isn't defending anything approaching "liberalism", and would probably be unable to even define the term properly if pressed upon it.

i spend more time arguing with liberals than agreeing with them, so please don't call me a liberal (i'm a socialist), but my views with this are somewhat rooted in historical liberalism. i would disagree that liberals don't consider these to be pressing issues in the first place, it's just a difference of opinion as to how to go about dealing with the issue. i think the historical record has been very clear that there is no authoritarian way to eliminate religion. that's really the actually liberal perspective on this - religion is oppressive, backwards and regressive, but it cannot be eliminated by backwards, oppressive or regressive approaches (consider the soviet union). it's not the view that there aren't problems, or that they shouldn't be addressed, but the view that taking a confrontational approach is counter-productive. we've seen how counterproductive this approach is in this region.

if you want to talk about supporting secular institutions (which already exist in some muslim countries) and increasing dialogue, that's one thing, and i can get behind that. if you want to talk about imposing economic sanctions that are going to adversely affect the identified victims or bombing people to accept our morals, that's another issue.

i don't think that's the argument, as ben sees it. the argument, as ben sees it, is that it's not fair to accuse your dark-skinned neighbour that hangs out in the mosque of wanting to blow up the world because he happens to have the same ethnicity or religion as some other people that do. it would be even more unfair (and counter-productive, as well) to deny him a job or place other social ramifications as a consequence of his ethnicity or religion. that's one point, and it's valid, and we have constitutions and other laws across the continent that agree with the point. people consequently need to be careful about the language they use, so they're not carrying on prejudices that negatively affect people.

it's a just position, but that's not really the issue being discussed. whether the religion is the cause of the instability that does exist is another question. it's complicated. state institutions foster the religion, and are probably the actual root cause. but the religion is being wielded by them as a very negative tool of control. would they find another way to create this if you took away the religion? probably.

but the fundamental debate (with liberals and libertarians on one side and trotskyist liberal interventionists and neo-cons on the other) is not whether it's a serious issue, it's how to respond to it in a way that is effective, fair and upholds everybody's rights. bill knows that. it's an easily deconstructed, intellectually bereft strawman...

publishing the wave (inri053)

symphony 3.

this came out of a two-person psychedelic folk project i was working in over late 2001 and into mid 2002. we had brainstormed the idea of a piece that slowly built itself up, like a wave, and that had sporadic pieces of poetry interspersed as it did so. of the two of us, i was the musician, and he was the poet; i generally produced the music by myself. however, my vision of the track proved to be much larger than his, to the point that the two ideas could not be effectively reconciled given the deficit of technology available to us (i simply couldn't find a way to get enough resources to condense the track to under ten minutes). that left me with this seventy minute ambient piece that has mostly stayed hidden in my closet over the last twelve years.

in 2014, i strongly contemplated reconstructing the short version out of existing material, but it would have required a rethink of the process that i felt would be invasive to the poet involved.

this is very much process music. it's built on 36 distinct loops of identical length (just under 57 seconds) that assemble the collage up on a loop by loop basis, hitting it's full point only in the 35th loop. the 36th loop does not fit into any of the patterns that define the first 35, but is nonetheless the climax of the piece. this is followed by a disassembling process that is precisely the reverse of the assembling process. together, this produces the effect of a long wave of sound washing over the listener.

aesthetically, it's likely clear that i had been listening to a lot of "kosmische" style synthesizer music of european origin. it's actually a key part of my musical style, so a bigger exploration of it's themes is not at all out of place. however, i generally prefer to take ideas from the genre and recontextualize them rather than delve into a full exploration. this is somewhat unique in my discography as being an album-length analog synthesizer work.

either as ambient or kosmische or process music, this is mostly meant as background music.

written late 2001 and early 2002. this file is ripped from a cd-r that was burnt around 2002, as that was the option that would produce the most accurate reproduction of the original composition. republished without modification in 2014. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - synthesizers, guitar, bass, digital wave editing, production, composition

released january 15, 2002

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-wave

well, i got my $4 usb 2.0 card in the mail. looks like a brand new card to me. hopefully it works.

but i wanted to note that there was no extraneous packaging, just a pc card in a electrostatic shield in bubble wrap. that's another all around benefit, both in terms of cost (on both ends) and in terms of waste.

this could be done very efficiently if we were smarter about it.

zen

this was constructed purposefully as a slice of absolute absurdity, and it's really the only way to make sense of it.

the core of the mix was created mid december, 2001. it was slightly remixed on october 5, 2014.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/zen

clarity (redone original demo) (initial upload)

i'm actually temporarily stopping with clarity, because i didn't finish it until a little later.

the next thing up will be that #9 monstrosity. it's likely that i'll upload without modifying it, but i want to listen with a nonsleepy set of ears to determine if there's any way to finish it.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/redone-original-demo

uploading existence (choir mix) to youtube

clarity (rabit is wolf version)

right now, i need some rest. but i'm going to be working on stripping clarity down to an instrumental when i wake up.

that is this clarity...

recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. track completed on march 2, 2002.

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

publishing jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj (inri052)

with that piece, i also finally finish off my fifth record, which happens to be inri033 (i posted inri032 a few weeks ago). it's been a long time since i've finished a full record; i've been recording fragments and compiling unfinished ideas for a full fourteen years. i came out here to get some work done, and i'm proud to say i've accomplished something. i'm dating the disc to december, 2001 because that's when the ideas were completed.

my fourth record (deny everything, late 2000) was a giant jump forward for me, in moving beyond the synth pop i was recording as a teenager. if somebody ever goes through this stuff and sorts it all out, they're going to draw a pretty big line in the sand there. the third record (inridiculous, 1999) was moving beyond it, but it somewhat purposefully lacked any kind of cohesion. it was, after all, *ridiculous*. deny everything is still fundamentally electronic music, but it's leaning towards something bigger.

this fifth disc jumps head first into modern classical music, while utilizing a lot of electronic textures. there's really very little that ties this into any kind of "rock" or "pop" tradition. i'd have to argue it's a fairly difficult listen, but i like it that way.

it's the full 80 minutes, shy a few seconds of it.

it won't be fourteen years until the sixth disc. in fact, it should require a lot less effort because the pieces are in a more complete state. it will be retreating substantially from the kind of formal pieces that are present here; it's more of a "rock" record. i'm hoping to get it up by the end of the year.

--

this is a full record of material documenting tracks written in 2001 that were in a more "serious" style and completed from 2001-2014.

the intent with the core of the material (1,3,6,7,8) was for it to be performed by live musicians one day. in early 2014, i came to the conclusion that this was not going to ever happen and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the technology had improved enough for a realistic presentation of the material using sequencers. these versions of (1,3,6) also include live guitars.

tracks 2 and 5 were salvaged from an aborted project meant to reinterpret classical guitar music as modern noise. the project was permanently aborted due to the loss of the sheet music that was necessary to finish it. more information here:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/js-adventures-in-guitarland

track 4 is an electric folk tune with heavy counterpoint that i was playing live as a party trick at the time.

the ordering is roughly chronological, based on the date the track took the form it exists in. tracks 1, 3 and 8 were written in 2001 and reinterpreted and completed in 2014. tracks 2 and 5 were interpreted and completed in 2001. track 4 was written in 2000 and reinterpreted and recorded in 2001. track 6 was written in 2001 and completed in 2006. track 7 was written in 1998, reinterpreted in 2001 and rendered in 2014. tracks 1-7 were sequenced on sept 9, 2014. final completion date is oct 3, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - electric piano, programming, classical & acoustic & electric guitars, ebow, digital & analog effects & treatments, organ, synthesizers, sound design, sampling, vocals, digital wave editing, loops, production, composition.

the various rendered electronic orchestras include acoustic bass, electric bass, synth bass, distorted electric guitar, clean electric guitar, steel string acoustic guitar, nylon guitar, trumpet, trombone, brass ensemble, orchestra hit, violin, cello, viola, contrabass, piano, synthesizers, mellotron, organ, bamboo flute, clarinet, flute, voice, music box, bells, clavinet, kalimba, drum kit, hand drums, drum machines and electronic drums.

released december 1, 2001
 
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

publishing existence (inri050)

that completes inri031.

i was going to do a sped up version, but it just sounded goofy. that leaves five versions of this. it's a heavy piece - is 70 minutes of this too much? that's your decision...

==

this was a piece i wrote up in the fall of 2001. i can't remember exactly what the root of it was, but it had something to do with a voice-leading assignment for what was the equivalent of a course in music theory 101. the root of the piece may consequently come from what was presented to me. i can't recall exactly - but i believe the assignment was to build the different voices up.

my negative relationship with music theory is stated throughout this page and was well established well before the end of 2001. i had an interest in the music theory course for the purposes of deconstructing the theory - in the context of writing, specifically, and not performing. i actually have one of those classic stories - i failed this course. it is actually the only course i have ever legitimately received an F in. hey, if einstein can fail math, i can fail music theory.

the story actually revolves around sight-reading aspect of the course, and specifically it's vocal content. there were three aspects of the course (theory, vocal sight-reading and african drumming which i'm thinking was meant to be a rhythmic component but was really just a ridiculous waste of time). i really wish they would have let me sight read on a guitar, or even a piano, because i'm just simply not a talented singer; i've never had aspirations to become one, and i had a lot of problems controlling my vocals. even with that being said, the reality is that i had a very low level of interest in this. i probably could have passed the course if i spent less time on abstract algebra and more time singing in the mirror, but i just couldn't be bothered...

i really disapprove of the way the course was designed. i was interested in learning about music theory, and needed the course as a pre-req for more advanced courses, which i never ended up taking. i still don't fully understand why i had to pass a singing exam to take further composition courses. the best answer i got was that the school didn't want graduates who couldn't pass a singing exam, but i was at no point enrolled in a b. music so it's a pretty weak response.

anyways, this was a voice-leading assignment that i perverted into something mildly atonal and then built up into something else. you can hear it if you listen, except that it's all "wrong". i'd have to sit down and analyze it to come to a more detailed exposition on it's "wrongness", and i'm not going to, but it's not hard to hear how "wrong" it is, either.

i was clearly listening to a lot of glass at the time, but this goes beyond his medievalism. i'm using so many "wrong" notes that it's ultimately just chromatic - although there's no tone rows or anything that's formally serialist about it. it's not meant to abolish the structure so much as it's meant to just flaunt the rules. that gives it an almost satanic feel, in the context of a vocal piece using "forbidden" intervals.

but, looking back, i think that what the piece really explores is existential anguish. i was in the second year of a math degree (after switching from physics after switching from software engineering) and really had little idea where i was going with it. i was considering switching into music and probably would have had i not failed the singing exam. the thing is i actually knew i was going to fail the course at that point, and was just feeling lost as a result of it. i ended up in math as this sort of default choice, vaguely thinking i might end up teaching somewhere but not having any real interest in it...

so much choice, so few options. i suppose that this is how i expressed what i was feeling about this reality at the time.

i can't remember the exact way this happened, but i believe the piece was initially written for voice (as a voice-leading assignment) and then expanded into further voices and then converted into a composition for nine instruments. i believe the primary reason i converted it from a vocal piece is that i ended up writing well outside a realistic vocal range, but i've kept the electronic choir parts as they are because i'm not really restricted to reality in this way. i've picked halloween as the date, but that's symbolic - it was around then, anyway. it would have been around december that it was put aside, because i don't remember working on it after i moved.

i've included the midi files of the original composition, if you'd like to mess with it on your own.

written in the fall of 2001. rendered, remastered and remixed in late september and early october, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

credits

j - programming, effects, mixing, production, composition.

the various rendered electronic orchestras include voice, piano, bells, synthesizer, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, electric bass and guitar.

released october 31, 2001

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/existence

1) so, the root of the track comes out of a voice leading assignment for choir, but i do remember why i split it into multiple voices, now - i was writing way outside the range for voice. the result is that the higher pitches aren't really realistic, and more or less can't be. this is something close to what i wanted it to sound like, before i realized that. considering it's electronic, there's not really any good reason to conform to reality in this respect. written in the fall of 2001. rendered, remastered and remixed in late september and early october, 2014. this render is from october 3, 2014.


2) this version merely connects the 9 voices to the proper string instrument, based on register. i suppose it's a chamber piece. this simplicity and homogeneity of tone allows for a clearer exploration of the voice leading. written in the fall of 2001. rendered, remastered and remixed in late september and early october, 2014. this render is from october 3, 2014.


3) this is the arrangement i developed in 2001 after i determined the choir was infeasible, but upgraded from the soundblaster to vst instruments. written in the fall of 2001. rendered, remastered and remixed in late september and early october, 2014. this render is from october 3, 2014.


4) the final version of this track is a mix of tracks 2, 3 and 4 on this record. written in the fall of 2001. rendered, remastered and remixed in late september and early october, 2014. this render is from october 3, 2014.

there are two ways to interpret this idea of a "multipolar world".

there is the naive way - as reflected in the un charter - where states work together to oversee the world in harmony. this necessarily implies genetically engineered unicorns.

there is also the realistic way, which is probably best articulated in orwell, where you have states competing against each other in such a way that maintains a balance of power.

despite some rhetoric to the contrary, the united states has never been naive. china has never been naive. russia, on the other hand, has often been naive.

that is all.

existence (soundblaster mix)

written in the fall of 2001. rendered, remastered and remixed in late september and early october, 2014. this render is from october 1, 2014

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/soundblaster-mix-6


http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/existence


(bandcamp is being weird with me with the upload. they're identical. the single version is working; hopefully, the thru version will be up shortly.

that was actually the time consuming part. the next five vst mixes should be rapidly constructed. there will be one for voice, one arranged the way i had arranged it, one for stings, one that is a combination of those three and one that is sped up a little.)

i somehow lost my original render of this, which was spliced from two soundcards and put through some pre-amps, so it's not exactly as it was back in 2001, when i initially constructed it. it captures the idea, though.

there's a longer write up on the page.

this is the last midi-oriented piece in the archives for a little while - about six months.

as others have stated, this is a demonstration of patriarchy rather than a refutation of it.

the response driving a male to "protect" an abused female is itself a controlling response. men will step in under the hopes that they can take control of a submissive female. there's no such drive to protect a male (that is competition) from a dominant female.

the error underlying the experiment is the assumption that people are stepping in to "help" out of altruism, rather than to further their own aims.

the guy they picked was a little scrawny - small enough that he could be easily beat down and "his" girl could be "stolen" from him with little effort. do it again with a bigger, more alpha dude and you'll see a different response.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cywQhs_6iC4

caulking gun

hi.

i got a third coat in today, then ran out of caulk. it *looks* like it could use another coat, but, putting my hand up against it, i no longer feel a draft. so i'm content to leave it like that, but the truth is that i don't really know if it's enough. i'll check again tonight when the temperature comes down a bit, but it really seems tight. clearly, the gap was pretty deep to need three coats and still look like it needs more. but i think you can take your caulking gun back when you want.

j

the pacific ring of fire is very active right now. earthquakes. volcanoes. there's every reason to think it's just about to explode. i'd stay away from it if you can...

that's the area up the west coast, around alaska and down the east coast of asia, through japan and indonesia.

i know i came off as unbelievably nerdy sometimes, but i did a project on plate tectonics in high school...

we know the ring of fire is connected. when stuff starts to move in one place, the whole thing shifts. an earthquake in alaska could erupt a volcano in japan, sort of thing (which appears to have just happened).

but there's been some very deep earthquakes and some volcanic activity recently in some dead volcanoes, indicating that the activity is pretty substantial and could produce some very large shocks - both in terms of the ground moving and in terms of volcanoes coming up. so, not a good place to be right now...

not only is that a bad tackle, it's an illegal tackle. way too high. that's 15 yards...

deathtokoalas
this is fake, that dog's been trained. even if it was used to having the door closed when it appeared at it, it would have pawed.

that's what the treat on the floor is for...

xwinger15
are you an alien?

deathtokoalas
hard to say. sort of, but it's not quite the language i'd use.

Thiwakorn F.
It seems the dog has been trained. Not for playing fake door, I think. But for it to wait until someone give permission to enter the house.

deathtokoalas
it was given permission to enter the house - it's being called. the little spin around stuff indicates there's more than that going on.

dogs do tend to spin around like that and look up towards the handle when somebody comes to the door. but i remain convinced this is not spontaneous, and rather the result of weeks of training.

EvilWiffles
If you look closely at 1:02 you can clearly see Illuminati trying to communicate to doggy.

deathtokoalas
dogs are pretty smart. this wouldn't be difficult...

Zakk
Mmmmm yes I saw that. Good eye...maybe to good...ILLUMINATI!

RedcapCreations
Holy crap your profile picture scares me! D: Looks like you were half way through an exorcism! D: D: D:

deathtokoalas
i was a little hungover, and not drinking nearly enough for it to be an exorcism...

Rebekah 
The dog was trained to ignore the command to come?

deathtokoalas
until he waved his wand, yeah.

it didn't go to the person calling, it picked up the treat and walked off.

Cheesy Ben
IRRUMINATI HAS TRAINED DOGS

deathtokoalas
if this was an illuminati dog, it would have triangulated rather than circled.

Cheesy Ben
ze irruminati is everywhere

deathtokoalas
perhaps, but it is easy to identify. this dog can't even talk, it's clearly not possessed...

again: that's obviously a syrian military installation...

who are these people, and why should i care?

this is a different angle i hadn't previously heard articulated, but it's a good reminder about class. but, you'll note that the israelis were more interested in dumping the chicken in gaza than in using gaza to produce the chicken. that's simply not a system of apartheid. reducing crop yields like that isn't about competition, either, it's about starvation.

i think the reason people have such a hard time understanding that the israeli policy is extermination is due to how ghastly it is. even with so much evidence directly in front of so many experts, few seem to be willing to take that leap and see it for what it really is.

i've been pushing this point for a while - what's happening there is a slow motion genocide, and there are time frames involved in stopping it that are starting to run out.

i'm not going to suggest that he doesn't get it because his statements suggest he clearly does, but there seems to be a level of cognitive dissonance and sort of wilful blindness in how he's interpreting the situation. he clearly realizes that we're in a fight with the bacteria, but he seems to want to think it's a fight we can win.

the bacteria is going to evolve. the question is how fast it's going to evolve. there's a sort of logical error attached to the idea that more antibiotic use creates more resistant bacteria. in fact, the mutations are going to be random. reducing use certainly isn't going to stop the bacteria from evolving altogether, and it's really questionable that it's going to reduce it's rate of evolution. it's about random mutations, not lamarckian adjustments. i'm not accusing him of lamarckianism exactly (and somebody will throw the epigenetics at me, anyways), but the point is valid - it's not really established that reducing use is actually going to help.

now, how do you create antibiotics for bacteria that hasn't evolved to be resistant yet? it's impossible.

fighting bacteria is a dynamic problem, and we're going to have to constantly adjust for it for....ever, basically. the bacteria will win a few rounds, too. such is life in a constantly changing, evolutionary system.

i'll say this, though: i'd rather see a war against bacteria than a war against drugs (eek.) or a war against terrorism.

see, what you don't realize is that they're trying to avoid being photographed in the "seig heil" position...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bBzlOnGvXY

deathtokoalas
he should really have to pay twice the busfare if he's going to take up twice the space.

as it is, he paid for one seat and is consequently required to give the seat up to whomever requests it.

it's a nice try, but it's ultimately just yet another mra fail...

(deleted response)

deathtokoalas
it's first come, first serve. she paid, so she's entitled to the seat - so long as somebody else hasn't claimed it first.

there are a lot of larger people on the bus that are going to require multiple seats, and they should be paying for as many seats as they take up, as well. i don't really see what difference it makes if it's somebody's baggage or somebody's ass.

nor do i think the "social upheaval" here warrants any kind of punishment other than a stern talking to. it's clear that the guy doesn't at all understand that she is in fact entitled to a seat - and not due to her gender but because she paid for one.

(deleted response)

deathtokoalas
i wouldn't expect a judge to accept that argument. sorry.

Art V
As a 5'1 368 lb Strong Beautiful Woman, I find it highly offensive that you feel someone should pay twice as much if they take up twice the space. I am sick and tired of the media and "skinny is beautiful" lobbyists who feel the need to spread their fatphobic logic and hatred online by saying things like this...

Shane
Skinny is not beautiful but neither is fat. Are you healthy? Does the doctor say your are in good health? Honestly? You can be whatever weight you want and I hope you are happy but you cannot say that being 368lbs is healthy.

deathtokoalas
it's not a question of media images, it's just a fact that you need two seats.

can you provide me with a rational argument as to why you shouldn't pay for two seats if you actually require two seats?

fwiw, your offense is of no concern to me and will not have any effect on my opinions or the way i express them. if you're just going to complain that you're offended, and that's the extent of your argument, then you can kindly fuck off.

i'm scawed.

roach update - good news

hi.

i just want to give an update on the roach situation because it's the end of the summer and proper communication on the subject is a lease obligation on my behalf.

i guess it would have been  the end of may or the beginning of june that i blocked the holes up and did a significant amount of spraying around areas that i thought they might be considering nesting. as mentioned, i didn't ever get the impression the nest was in the apartment, but that they were coming through holes in the wall from somewhere else. the concern was to stop them from nesting. i have not seen an adult roach in the apartment since the beginning of june, so this has been mostly successful.

i think what i did eliminated everything except any possible egg populations, which i couldn't get at (there may have been some deep under the sink) and which the spray would not be effective against. so, the concern was that they would repopulate as they hatch,

however, that doesn't seem to have happened. i've seen a handful of baby roaches in odd places that probably were hatched in the apartment, but they've mostly been found dead.

i also noticed a spike in the centipede population after i sprayed, but this is probably a function of them coming out looking for food. when you see a lot of centipedes, it means you probably have roaches near by; certainly, there is a source of insects for them to eat. that also indicates that the roach population was dwindling or gone. note that the centipedes will also eat the egg sacs. based on what i can observe, it seems like they may have gotten almost all of them.

the next thing i noticed was that the spiders started disappearing. i'd rather have a few spiders near the windows than flies floating around, so i prefer not to kill them, but the centipedes must have been eating the spiders. now i've got more flies than i'd like, but hopefully the spiders come back...

the centipedes then mostly disappeared altogether, indicating the food source had been exhausted.

it's still too early to declare them gone. i think they must be around somewhere, not too far from here, but they don't seem to be present in the apartment right now.

we'll find out in the next few weeks if they have another entry point, as the temperature begins to fall and they seek refuge indoors for the winter.

j