luxury — parallel love

Near as I can tell, this song isn't based on Only Revolutions. But it might as well be.

I'm thinking too much about how it's been 20 years since I was 16. That songs about love used to move me, movement implying a future location different from this one. You can make an argument for a present tense of movement, dancing, but I didn't re-learn to dance until I was 30 and then 3 years later the dance halls closed and we can't breathe each other anymore, sweaty in the glimlight of a bar going gone. Brief bloom of youth out of season. So now love is a word in a song that fits anywhere and refers only to a feeling a human body used to be able to have, that motivated so many long days and nights, but also ultimately served primarily as an anchor in both good and bad measure, while my mind flayed itself against the shore repeatedly seeking somehow to both swim and stand, never ceasing, never happy, never full.

Nilüfer Yanya - Safety Net

you'll never believe it, but I think this is: a great album!!!

I'll never be a safety net. It doesn't matter what you get, go!
So go on and place a bet. I'll never be a winner, babe, I know

I'm not trying to be someone
I'm not trying to be someone
I'm not trying to be someone I'm not

Jony Ive:

Ive is quick to look ahead. “Success is the enemy of curiosity,” he says. And for Ive, curiosity has taken on an almost moral or religious quality. “I am terrified and disgusted when people are absolutely without curiosity,” he says. “It’s at the root of so much social dysfunction and conflict…. Part of why I get so furious when people dismiss creativity is that [when] it’s an activity practiced in its most noble and collaborative form, it means a bunch of people who come together in an empathic and selfless way. What I have come to realize is that the process of creating with large groups of people is really hard and is also unbelievably powerful.”

I think all the time about what leads people to be not just incurious, but proudly so. We have a world wherein simply surviving can take up all of your available energy. People need room and rest to be willingly curious. I've always had a curious bent that won't let me rest even when I'm exhausted from work. But it's gotten harder and harder to feel it's worth the energy to learn things for their own sake.

But then there's the inverse, where people who have an easy life, with surplus resources and time to spare, also tend to be incurious. Because they don't need to be? Is a lack of curiosity something that emerges from lack and from luxury? Is there something else within people that trends one way or the other, and if so, why? Then there's also the power structure angle wherein people are ready to be assured that the answers are already known, fundamentalism of all kinds.

... But then why are the people most likely to say "do your own research" on topics also the most likely to believe the least-plausible, conspiratorial explanation? Here I am, winding down too many paths, literally not even realizing until now that I guess I'm illustrating my point.

Anyway. As an extension, I'm too tired to dig any deeper. Especially on big questions there's just literally no answer to.

But collaborative creativity is one of the most beautiful experiences we can have. I don't always agree with what I know about Ive, but I really appreciate this emphasis.

jarn damyell:

The word creativity, for most of my life, referred to its end product, to a book or poem or song or painting. I’ve changed the way I’ve thought about it. The creative state itself is this eternal state of communion with something much greater than any work it can leave behind. It’s this energy space inside everyone. Maybe books and songs aren’t your thing, but when you understand that it’s in there and that you’re infinitely free within it, then you can take that anywhere you’re going. You can put your creativity into your run or weight lifting. You can put it into flipping burgers. I’ve done this by mowing the lawn. When you’re doing that, no matter what you’re doing, you’re in a state of bliss because you’re not doing it for yourself and you’re not doing it for the results of what you’re doing. You’re doing it to honor the state of being, to honor that process inside yourself.

I believe strongly in everyone’s creative capacity.

There’s not a counter argument to that. If you have spent any time with children under five, you know some of them are expressing their creativity in the sandbox, some are expressing it by sitting by themselves singing. Some by swinging or climbing. It’s not about the arts. Creativity is infinite. It’s as much a part of the human being as vision, smelling, or any of your senses. Everybody is born with that creativity. Where it goes is sort of an accident of time, space, and circumstance, but creativity is your birthright.

I experience enormous pain because of the distance between me and my natural, ebullient, playful, overwrought, creative state. I need it. And I have sacrificed my access to it in order to survive, which is an extremely common thing and not in itself shameful, because surviving is important and has been made very difficult by the gluttons and cowards who run our infrastructure.

But I feel its pulse and lack constantly. It takes a lot for me to try to enter the blissful state of timelessness John talks about in the interview. We all deserve the space to breathe and play. I cannot say how painful it is to have clung to and maintained that access in diminishing quantities for over 3 decades, and to finally have given up trying, the strain too great, and then to finally stumble into making more than a poverty wage and all I want to do with my non-labor time is rest. No side projects. No creative play, even within myself. It’s all dried up. It’s bizarre.

Circumstances nearly destroyed me. I refused. But it has cost me so much, to become the kind of person they’ll pay for.

20 years since I heard this for the first time. I have never, ever gotten tired of this album, or any of The Velvet Teen's music. Unparalleled depth and texture, and a combination of artists who have made so many things I love. The young man who etched the cover art into copper, played such nuanced drums, and harmonized ethereally throughout this album, died a few years later. I don't know anything about legacy, but I'm really grateful for the art he left behind.

It's Halloween, so in addition to the Disney gloss of silly witches, I take a moment to reflect on Death.

They're all waiting for me
These eyes, these hands, let them wash over me
And all the words we said, all the words we said, have a way of rubbing off
I said them so your courage could come back and run to your room while you're weeping
I'll see you in your bed while you're sleeping

Well, farewell
I won't hold you down
No, I'll heal cracks in your head
Heal the cracks in your head

Stay back

tegan and sara — i'm not your hero

Hanging on to parts of me, hanging on at all, I was used to seeing no future in my sight line. Sometimes it feels like they wanna remind me, send all those villains after me. It's so hard to know I'm not what they want

I think the last time I really enjoyed using a computer was 2013, give or take! Things coasted for a few years after that, but right now the only reason I can use a computer is because my job provides me with one. However, it's locked down and frustrating in too many ways to count.

Things I had in 2013–2017 that all worked smoothly together, that I no longer have:

• My own functioning laptop, with ports that work with hardware that I own!
• Reason for music and podcast production, before forced Mac updates caused the interface to lag exponentially the longer a project was open. I'm not gonna subscribe to this shit just to find out if I can make it work again. I haven't made an effort to learn Reaper yet, because I don't own a computer I'm allowed to install it on, and don't have hardware for inputs!
• Reliable XLR interface for microphones. I had one that worked for like 10 years, a firewire 800 interface that eventually I dongled into 2.0, and then died. The next one I bought with USB 2.0 didn't have external power, and the 2012 Macbook I have doesn't consistently provide USB power. So when I try to use it, periodically all the software freaks out because it loses connection. When I try connecting it to a USB-C hub into my newer work macbook, it freaks out intermittently in a different way, because USB-C hubs are bullshit
• same with USB MIDI interface. I have a USB 2.0 midi adapter with a bunch of knobs that I bought in ~2006, and really loved using! can't get it to work with a computer anymore
• Photoshop! Motherfucking Photoshop!!!!!! I AM VERY GOOD AT USING PHOTOSHOP AND I CANNOT / WILL NOT PAY A MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION FOR IT AND I HATE THEM SO MUCH NOW. When I did try subscribing, it ran worse every 6 months on my aging hardware. Maybe I could get my job to pay for a subscription, but fuck Adobe.
• Acoustic guitar, because the one my dad gave me at age 15, he made my brother take back 15 years later when I cut ties after they voted for Trump and finally broke the illusion that I was getting anything out of our relationship but pain. Fuck him, too.
• A fucking car

... I could keep on. I acquired all these pieces at considerable personal cost, and slowly they died while I didn't make enough money to replace them. I'm making more money this year than I ever have, but I'm also paying greater expenses than ever, and paying off debt that accumulated while I struggled to survive. Or, if they didn't die, irresponsible software developers and ignorant hardware designers gradually made my shit stop working even when it was physically fine.

I really, really want access to tools I'm comfortable using, so I can think less about the tools and more about the work. I don't like Affinity Photo, it literally can't do some of the things I like doing most. I don't like Reaper's interface, though I'm going to try to learn it whenever I can save enough to try replacing some of this hardware. But fundamentally I have to buy myself a new computer, which is so fucking expensive, and none of the computers I could stand to use have the old ports that will work with my old shit. So I have to buy all that stuff again, too. Thousands and thousands of dollars I don't have. Years and years of experience and knowledge, obsoleted and inaccessible.

It's horrific how expensive it is just to live in this stupid country. And how unreliable our expensive tools are. And how much of what I enjoy doing depends on these commercial objects. I truly hate it!!!!!!

But I sure would like to be able to make some music again.

now, now — set it free

this is one the best-sounding grooves ever produced!!!!!! what the fuck

I want to (a) be able to make music for more than hour without feeling like shit, (b) have a computer that can run music software again, and (c) figure out how to make a song that sounds like this

On Long COVID: A population survey of 3,000 U.S adults found that 7% of all respondents reported Long COVID (using the UK definition). Long COVID was less common – but not eliminated – among those who were boosted.

“Long COVID is now the country’s 3rd leading neurological disorder” the American Academy of Neurology declared in July. Severity & lasting effect on the brain may not be related: people with cold-like symptoms are developing issues with cognition, anxiety, depression & sleep.

Deaths: From September 8th through September 14th, 2,503 people died of COVID nationally.

From The People’s CDC weekly report.

I don’t know what the answer is. But please don’t give me a hard time about not wanting to gather with people indoors. I hate it, so much. But not more than I want to prevent me and as many other people as possible from dealing with avoidable chronic health issues or death!!!!!!!!!

as a masculine-presenting person, I have been regarded in public as a distasteful and probably-threatening person my whole adult life, and while I’ve never really gotten used to it, I can accept it.

anyway I dunno if it’s the 15 pounds I put on when I couldn’t exercise during the first year of covid, all the stress and age finally hitting my face, or what, but lately I’ve been gettin a real homunculus stink eye from strangers in public. Maybe it’s partly because I keep wearing a mask to go in buildings. maybe it’s my energy, which has not been particularly high.

about five years ago I had managed to be more fit, more energetic, had some good vibes going even though financially I was always one step from doom. crossing the threshold into 2020 took an awful lot from me, including all that stuff. now I’ve got steady work but it’s no fun / not responsible(!!!!) going out to places, all my favorite spots in this city are gone anyway, annnnnd time is just matching me on further and further from ever having had a chance to really embrace a life I could have loved.

anyway, I sure do hate my body and the way it seems like most people perceive me through it!!!!! i am not an enemy, and i sure as shit didn’t ask to look like this