Author: Ridley

I Wish It Would Rain Down

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What an interesting day. Dry, oppressively hot, and a lot going on. In case you weren’t aware, today is the (most recent) day that Twitter imploded like an ill-designed submarine. Mr. Musk decided that he didn’t want to pay Google for hosting but failed to plan accordingly thus things went pear-shaped in a hurry. He decided to frame it as a conscious decision to limit user access to tweets, which is sort of Twitter’s core functionality, as an effort to combat “data scraping.” No one believed him because, among other things, it obviously wasn’t true. To make matters worse, the Twitter app, which is now the only mobile app for Twitter since they nuked the API, didn’t handle the new limitations gracefully. Instead of just failing, it failed and retried…infinitely. The net of this is a self-induced DDOS which is hilarious and wholly in keeping with the way the site is being run these days. By the way, I’m on Mastodon. I may give Bluesky a spin because but I’m skeptical. While it is owned and run by someone who understands the microblogging space, the biggest difference between Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk is competence. They’re both right-wing billionaires and thus not to be trusted. Not that left-wing billionaires are great, but you get the idea. Maybe I don’t need that kind of social media in my life anymore. This is the Venus Theory visual album documenting Cameron’s road trip to NAMM. He’s one of the best sound designers out there and he makes good stuff. This is always on when I commute to the office (~70 miles or so). My creativity failed to fire today. A lovely day off and I just didn’t have anything. Instead, I went through my old Reaper projects to see if there was anything salvageable in there. I (almost) never delete the projects because, if I got far enough to record something, then maybe there was an idea there that I could use or that would at least inspire me. It was a, being generous, a mixed bag. There were more good bits than I expected, but their cringe quotient was pretty high. This may sound weird, but there was more cringe in the projects I completed than the ones I abandoned. I spent months doing a glitch cover of Genesis’ “Afterglow” using samples recorded at an empty, decaying warehouse. Conceptually, I love the idea, but my reach exceeded my grasp by several miles. I leaned waaaaaay too hard into the glitchiness and the weird percussion samples and the result was plodding, dull, and deeply disappointing. Nicole made a suggestion: “What if you back off the glitch by, say, 50, make it less sparse (i.e. more musical), and sped it up a bit?” So, OK, can’t hurt to try, right? It’s already a failure, so what do I have to lose? What’s the most important element of the original? It’s got to be the swirling organ pad, right? So, I dial up a convincing organ sound (Tony used a Prophet 5; I ain’t got a Prophet 5), and got a decent take on the first try. And, suddenly? The whole thing works a zillion times better. I’m going to remix the whole thing and I feel confident something decent will come out of it. The lesson? Oh, there are several:-If something isn’t working, maybe set it aside for a long while and come back to it.-Listen to feedback. If it isn’t working the way I originally did it, then maybe I don’t have all the answers.-Unless you really know what you’re doing, carving out the core of a song is probably not a great idea. Oh, and another lesson is “keep your notebooks.” When I’m writing, I’m not nearly as good about keeping the failed bits around to reference at a later date. So, even a day when my imagination is busted can be productive and fun. Speaking of “imagination is busted,” this is one of the Brothers Chaps’ greatest moments. It helps that They Might Be Giants contributed the song. And speaking of learning, I may have some new insight into Why My Back Turned Into A Giant Burning Red Wasteland – The Musical! I’m on blood pressure meds and water pills to mitigate the blood pressure meds and potassium pills to mitigate the water pills. My back broke out in a rash right at the end of the last refill of my prescriptions, which was a pretty lousy thing. The urgent care doctor and the local dermo put me on prednisone, which makes sense given the symptoms. But, being on prednisone meant that I couldn’t get any meaningful bloodwork done, which meant my GP didn’t want to refill the blood pressure scrips. After almost three weeks, my back calmed down enough to go off the prednisone, get the bloodwork, talk to my doctor, and refill my scrips. I started back on the meds again today and…my back immediately reverted to the hot, prickly awfulness of three weeks ago. So, unless I’m missing something, what we have here is a reaction to one of the three meds. My money is on the potassium pills. I should talk to my doctor about it, but I’m incredibly uncomfortable and he’s not going to be around until the middle of next week, so I’m going to stop the potassium pill and see if that gets me back to normal. This is probably loosely related to the scientific method, or at least my misunderstanding of it, right? Wish me luck on this one. This is a cruddy thing to deal with in the middle of a heatwave (and a heatwave that’s a heatwave by Texas standards is a Heatwave). Also, I am afraid that this is a glimpse of the future: A lot of medication that may or may not play nicely with my other meds. Everything will be a compromise from here on out which I don’t look forward to but, you know, beats the alternative. That’s it for tonight. Nicole made popcorn and I don’t want to get it on the keyboard of this laptop. My beloved Chromebook is still kaput, so I’m using an ancient Dell E5530 that I threw Linux on to extend its life. This thing has the best keyboard of any laptop I’ve ever used, but…

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Long Weekend

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Nicole made it her mission to ensure that this holiday weekend was more memorable and relaxing than the last one and, spoiler alert, she aced the assignment. This is despite the fact that my skin is stubbornly refusing to respond to any prescription medication and I find being outside in this heat intolerable beyond “getting in and out of the car.” Friday evening we had what I think were the best hamburgers I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. She spent all afternoon making a mushroom/truffle spread, a homemade garlic aioli, and baking some french “fries” in such a way that you didn’t really notice that they were baked. Once you’ve added entirely too much brie, the burger itself is almost beside the point. It was really good, but everything else was transcendent. Not at all a bad start. On Saturday, we did some exploring around town. We started by hitting up a local apiary called The Beeswax Department over on the west side of town. They sell honey from their bees and those of other local folks, as well as beeswax candles and other goodies, and even beekeeping equipment. Mark spent a good twenty minutes chatting with us which was awfully generous of him. They’re good folks, and we wound up leaving with far more than we’d intended to buy. Since we were almost literally across the street from ’em, we stopped by Granzin’s Meat Market as well. The only reason we didn’t pick up any of their wares was that they were so busy that we wanted to come back later when we’d have more of an opportunity to check them out without inconveniencing anyone else. The dried goods and the pre-packaged cuts looked great, but it was the meat counter itself that deserved closer inspection. Sunday morning we drove into San Antonio to visit the Alamo. You may say “Gee Ridley. You’ve been in Texas for a long time. Have you never visited the Alamo before?” Well, yes, of course, I have. But what I have not done is see the Phil Collins collection. Yes, the famous drummer/singer/producer is also one of the world’s foremost Alamo buffs. His private collection of memorabilia was considered the largest and most important of any on the planet, and he donated it all to the Alamo. He also narrated the story of the battle in the room with the diorama: Given my unabashed fandom, this was kind of thrilling to me. I mean, there are only so many old guns and documents and such you can look at before your eyes start to glaze over, but the fact that one of my favorite musicians just gave it all away made me smile. Totally worth it to me; your mileage might vary. This morning, we popped over to the local theater to see Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. My expectations were high given how much I enjoyed the original, but this was another level of awesome. Instead of just stretching the visual limits of cinema, this film (damned if I’m typing the full name again) absolutely destroyed those boundaries. The things they do with frame rates as a storytelling device are unreal and must have been incredibly expensive. Oh, and the story was pretty great too. Hobie Brown is the best representation of “punk rock” I’ve seen in a film. It was all just awesome. Also, going to a local cinema at 11:00 AM on a Monday sometimes means you have the auditorium to yourself, and that doesn’t suck. So yeah, #$%$%^ great weekend. Thank you, Nicole. Somehow, you made a 3-day weekend feel like a lot more. Hope y’all are doing well and keeping cool (109 here today), -RK

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Believe The Hype: Five Things That Were As Good As Advertised

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If you’re anything like me, you may have a deep resistance to anything that has received a little too much hype. “You’d love this! It’s just your sort of thing! It’s a classic!” and so forth. Perhaps it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it’s been my experience that most things that have been pumped up that much will disappoint. It’s all about managing expectations. Side note: I think this is the genius of Mike Myers movies. The previews are among the most leaden advertisements I’ve ever seen for comedy films. However, I usually find myself enjoying his movies to some degree, and I suspect this is due to the fact that my expectations were so low. There are exceptions. So, in the interest of positivity, I thought I’d share some of the things I was told I would love and I did, in fact, wind up loving them. Watchmen (comic book) Along with Frank Miller and Klaus Jansen’s The Dark Knight Returns, this Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons book was immediately recognized as an event that would change comics forever. I was primarily reading funny indy comics like Flaming Carrot Comics, The Trouble with Girls, Normalman, and The Tick at the time and had no interest in checking out a (relatively) mainstream book featuring characters I’d never heard of. I don’t remember why Sean suggested I read it (probably because he’d just introduced me to the Grant Morrison run on Doom Patrol and I was suddenly very into this sort of thing), but I plopped down and read them all back to back. Given the density of the writing and the long prose sections, this took a while. Then I read ’em again because…oh my. It’s unfortunate that Watchmen really did change comics because the approach of treating the heroes not as selfless do-gooders or mustache-twirling villains was unique. The “heroes” were just people, which was much worse. The deconstruction of the idea of “hero” was so complete that comics didn’t really recover it until Morrison’s All-Star Superman. OK, so it was influential, but was it good? Yeah, it was riveting. If you can get past the trademark Moore rape scene (don’t care if that gets spoiled), it’s a fantastic mystery/thriller from page one and, more than any other book, works as a “graphic novel” in that it is a completely realized story over a limited number of issues. It was every bit as good as advertised. Portal (video game) I never played any of the Half-Life games, so I was only vaguely aware that this existed when it was released. But, on the forums, you couldn’t get away from it. Imagine the worst of the Monty Python and Rick and Morty fans tossing references back and forth and you’re still nowhere near it. “Instantly meme-able” is great for pop culture awareness, but was the game as good as the quotes? According to literally everyone, the answer was “yes.” So, I looked into it a little. It was a nice short game with lots of interesting physics puzzles based around the idea of pairs of portals that allow you to step through one and emerge through the other while conserving momentum. It’s just you and perhaps the most deeply unreliable narrator in the history of narration, trying to complete a series of tests. Neat! And then, you complete the last one and…well, there’s more and that’s all I’m going to say. The puzzles start simple and turn diabolic as the game goes on. The sense of humor makes “dark” look like a Sanrio character. And holy cow, the end credits. Anyway, Yahtzee Crenshaw of Zero Punctuation, who rather famously hates everything, reviewed it and wound up with rather strong feelings about it: I’d heard it was good. I honestly think it’s the best game I’ve ever played. The Good Place (television) I don’t watch a lot of broadcast TV and haven’t for a long time. That’s not a statement meant to convey any superiority; I engage in plenty of screen entertainment but it’s just not normally network television. So, I hadn’t seen any of the ads for The Good Place when I started hearing about how I very much needed to watch it. Nicole bought season one on one of the streaming services and we plopped down for the pilot. My first reaction was “how the #$%%^ did this get made?” The setup was so far from any sitcom I’ve seen before or since, and it was pretty irreverent for a network show. Kristen Bell and Ted Danson were obviously having a blast doing setting the stage for what was an absolutely genius twist at the end of the pilot. So, now we have a mystery that’s also a screwball comedy with additional random silliness flying everywhere because, with this tableau, you can do pretty much anything you want. Season one was all about trying to figure out what the heck had happened and the payoff is absolutely stunning. In fact, it was so perfect that I haven’t watched seasons 2-4. This is partially due to what we’ll call “the Arrested Development effect” and partially down to just how complete and self-contained season one was. It didn’t need any expansion. My understanding is that they do stick the landing in season 4 and I’m sure I’ll get around to it at some point, but for now, I’m just going to bask in the memory of one perfect season of television. The Matrix (film) This was always in my wheelhouse. There was no way I wasn’t going to see it. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t absolutely sick to death of people telling me how awesome it was. It would “change my whole view of reality,” said people who hadn’t read Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. It was dark! It was cool! It had martial arts, gunplay, leather, sunglasses, hacking, and something approaching a philosophy. It had HUGO WEAVING DOING A CARL SAGAN IMPRESSION! Yes, I recognize that the whole world was built on one of the most ridiculous ideas you could possibly imagine. Let’s move past that, please. Thus, I had an awful lot of built-in resistance when I finally went to see it. All of which crumbled in the first ten minutes. Everything I’d been told was right, but what they hadn’t conveyed was just how tight…

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British Library scanned children's book image, a black and white drawing of 7 people in a row.

Small Victories

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In which I overcome 30+ years of muscle memory As is usually the case, the gaps between posts this time around are the result of a perfect storm of health concerns, stress, a little despondency about how the world seems to be spinning, more stress, work, and stress. These factors are all too intertwined to try to untangle, but I paralyze myself with them from time to time. Thanks for sticking around. So, here’s one thing I want to start doing more often: Writing about making music. This is primarily for my own benefit. Writing about it means I have to think about it and I’m hoping that this will help me retain a little more of what I learn. Having to consider what I was doing, what worked, what didn’t, what frustrated me, etc. seems like a useful exercise. We’ll see. That brings us to the point of tonight’s post: I finally learned how to play Genesis’ “Follow You Follow Me” properly on keyboards. Let me explain why that feels like a big win to me. I’ve been playing that song in a somewhat half-assed way since my early 20s. I never had any trouble picking out the organ chords. I’ve known how to play the solo correctly the whole time, even if the performance wasn’t always there. However, I’ve never managed to play the correct lead line during the verse. My ears aren’t very good and I’ve never been able to hear what Tony Banks was doing relative to the vocal line. So, I’ve always just played the vocal line with the right hand. That’s great for just solo playing, but if you’re trying to do it right, it’s really annoying. How long have I failed at this? I remember one night at Bob’s house when the guys were generously letting me play along with them. I’d brought my SH101 over and was sort of fumbling through the solo (37 keys aren’t enough and I’m not quick enough with the transpose switch). During the verse, I just echoed the vocal line and I knew it wasn’t right but I also couldn’t pick out the correct notes. And I’ve been playing it that way for decades. Last night, I was in a relaxed frame of mind and decided I’d just fight through it. I still couldn’t really hear it clearly, but I could hear it just enough to kind of pick it out. After more tries than I’d care to admit, I had it. And, let’s be honest here: It’s not a difficult bit at all. The first phrase does follow the vocals, which is why kept getting hung up. The second phrase stays the same while the melody doesn’t. The last two phrases are simple, single-note harmonies that (mostly) stay in the same chord as the organ and complement the vocals. So easy, but so satisfying! Victory… …or maybe not. I could now play the lead properly. However, I’d been playing very specific notes over specific chords for a very long time and I found I could no longer play the organ parts along with it. This was frustrating. This was really frustrating. But, this was a problem that was within my grasp. After several playthroughs, I slowly got back to syncing the chords with the lead and even nailed the solo. Huzzah! Thinking about it, there was probably a better way to learn it. For example, a good DAW should allow me to get most of the vocals out of the way with EQ. There are probably “vocal removal” sites for making karaoke videos. Heck, someone has probably already posted one on YouTube. Let me go check. Yep, there was. That would have saved a lot of time. At least it was only posted a month ago so I don’t have to sit here thinking “Why didn’t I look for this 10 years ago?” Anyway, this felt huge. I’ve always been low-key ashamed that, while I could play the song, I knew I wasn’t playing it right. It felt great to overcome that and to stomp on a bad habit while I was at it. There’s no “lesson” beyond “It’s fun to confront old roadblocks and discover that you now have the skills to overcome them.” Which is a pretty good lesson, I suppose. In other news, things are trending well in these parts. Some potentially scary medical stuff turned out to have been a false alarm, the house is clean, the cats are happy, and I may have purchased a new toy that I absolutely did not need and it is glorious. I hope things are good in your neck of the woods. -RK

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Homework

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Venus Theory is one of my favorite YouTube channels these days. I’ve been devouring some of the older content after finally subscribing, and I came across this little gem: At the risk of over-simplifying it, the idea is to take a simple lick, and then copy it and mess around with variations of it (keeping the notes the same): Stretch it out, change octaves, change instruments, reverse the directions, etc. Rinse, lather, repeat. I’m not doing it justice and Cameron is a droll dude and well worth watching, so if you want a better idea of what the video’s about, you should probably watch the video. There’s a reason why he’s a successful music and video guy and I’m…not. Anyway, he ends it with a “try it out for yourself” and, seeing as this sort of thing is just barely within my technical and musical skills, I figured I’d give it a go. So, I did. And I learned a lot, and I thought I’d share it. Some of this gets pretty hard into the weeds, so if it’s not your jam, I get it. My first thought was “Simple lick? Nah, let’s get a little spicier with it!” Instead of a single arpeggio, I tried a descending run of three arpeggios, going from F to Ab sus 2 to Bb*. It sounded really nice, so I copied it to three other tracks: One stretching the two bars over four bars, one doing the same but with the note order reverse, and the last one stretching it to eight bars. I played it back and…yikes. It was very, very bad. In retrospect, I can see why. I probably should have seen it before I tried it. What went wrong was, in single note lines, you don’t have to worry about the intervals, the relationships between the notes. By using notes from three chords, including a passing chord that doesn’t really relate to the other two (the Ab sus2) and stretching and/or reversing the notes, I lost control over which notes hit at the same time. This gave me some very sour intervals (the A in the F chord and the Ab in the Ab sus 2 did not play nicely). You don’t have this problem if the lick is just using notes from a single chord because all of your intervals going to be relatively consonant. So, the score so far: Ridley: 0, Actually Following The Instructions: 1. The next thing I tried that seemed clever but wasn’t was build everything on an odd number of bars. Seventeen measures ensured that the stretching and chopping and reversing were going to get wonky. That seemed really cool, and I suspect there’s something there if I were better at music, but for me? Nope nope nope. It just didn’t work at all and my loop points were not nearly as smooth as I wanted. Keeping it nice and even might be less “interesting” in theory, but in practice, it sort of defeated the exercise. So, I settled on a little noodling using the notes of an Fm7 chord and kept the stretching to 2x and 4x the original length. When I did this, it sounded pretty good. But…the note timing was all kinds of cruddy. When Cameron says to quantize your MIDI notes, believe him. Latching everything to a grid is your friend for this kind of exercise. I wound up using seven tracks based on the original, each with a different instrument as well as some effects. Here’s what made the final version, and by “final” I mean “I have more ideas, but I think I’m done with this particular bit of homework.” It’s meant to be looped, so the beginning and end aren’t really beginnings or endings.** What else might I do with this in the future? I could certainly get more creative with the effects. This method seems perfect for granular stuff. I could try to make a real “song” out by having parts drop in and out, playing with the dynamics more, adding more instruments, etc. That really wouldn’t be that much work, but I think I’m done for now. I’ve learned not just about the how of something like this works, but I’ve got some new tricks to use in my DAW and another tool in the toolkit when I’m stuck for ideas. All in all? I’d say it was a worthwhile use of time. My time, at least. YMMV. I do recommend the Venus Theory channel. I’m very much an amateur and I get a lot of enjoyment out of it and even enjoy the non-musical stuff when he waxes philosophical. That’s one of my favorite ways to wax. -RK * Yes those are the opening three chords of Michael McDonald’s “Sweet Freedom.” I regret nothing. #RodTemperton4Eva ** I’m have almost no hearing in one of my ears, so I understand the panning may be wonky. I try to use the levels to figure out what it would sound like with balanced hearing, but there’s some guesswork in there.

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British Library scan of a violin on top of a skull

Friendship Is Musical

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I mess around with making music. I’m proud-ish of the progress I’ve made, but let’s be honest: My day job is pretty safe. On the other hand, I am fortunate to have a fistful o’ friends who are very talented and motivated enough to finish and release their work. So, I thought I’d give them a little shout-out here. Stuart Uncertainty, then Finalty is Stuart’s first album. It’s a single piece, a reverb-drenched soundscape that takes its time unfolding. I hesitate to use the term “shoegaze” but…wait, no I don’t. The influence is all over this album. Best played in the dark. https://stuartchilton.bandcamp.com/album/uncertainty-then-finality Matt (Larvae) Matt’s been making music for ages and, letting my bias here show, I own ’em all. I’ve heard his work described as “Intelligent EBM” which is both weirdly specific and oddly accurate. The new record may be my favorite, but I love the video for “Exit Strategy” so there ya go. https://theonetruelarvae.bandcamp.com/ Keith (Tanith and much, much more) Keith’s a pro. I’ve known him since grade school but kinda lost touch. I’ve tried to keep up on social but he’s a prolific dude. This project, Tanith, has very Sabbath/Hawkwind early seventies heavy rock vibes that I really dig. https://www.keithrobinsonondrums.com/thestory Jim (Jim/John Make Noise) Jim is the best. If it’s creative, Jim can do it. He’s sort of David Byrne but with a better suitmaker. Tony (Deserts of Mars) Tony’s a dude I met fairly recently. He’s the most unrelentingly positive guy around, and that’s a rare thing these days. His band, Deserts of Mars, makes…desert rock? That’s a thing. I just looked it up, and that’s very much a thing. Big Kyuss vibes here. https://desertsofmars.bandcamp.com/ Blade (Griefloss) Blade’s another fucking awesome dude. Never met him in person, but we worked on a doomed (work) project together for too long. His taste in music is absolutely not mine, but he’s very, very good at what he does. https://griefloss.bandcamp.com/album/griefloss I’m very sorry for any omissions. This was kind of a spur of the moment thing I came up with listening to Stuart’s new record. Anyway, support your friends, support artists, and enjoy what these folks have made (I’m pretty sure the majority were working day jobs at the time as well). I’m impressed with anyone who actually makes things, and doubly so of those who make stuff this good (and all of them are that).

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A black and white scan of a book illustration featuring a goddess riding a chariot on top of clouds with ghosts chasing her and a background featuring stars, the moon, and owls.

Orinda and Six Points of Light

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Worlds can contain worlds, which, in turn, can contain worlds, and so on. It may not be an easy thing to wrap one’s head around, but it is true nonetheless. So it was with the world known as Orinda. The world in which Orinda resided was a cruel, indifferent one. Orinda’s world, which we will just call “the world,” separated Orinda from her sisters and brothers and beset her with maladies. She was alone and without friends when she became aware of six points of light, six potential new worlds, within her. This is the story of those lights. PART I At their inception, the lights were faint and frail, as is often the case when a new world is conceived. The six were so small and indistinct that their combined light amounted to the faintest of glows. Their glow was precarious and weak, but all six of the lights were persistent and each proved strong because their world, Orinda, was imperilled. In time, they grew bright enough to be seen individually. Still without form, they took names: Wilder, Knickerbocker, Glorietta, Alice, Tilden, and Wagner. In the world of Orinda, the six of them grew and flourished. They began to speak among themselves in the way that new worlds do. Wilder, the oldest, spoke the least, but the others listened when he did. Knickerbocker was the dreamer, who imagined a future for the six of them. Glorietta didn’t dream, but she planned and considered things from all angles. Alice was the explorer, and she knew the most about the world of Orinda. Tilden and Wagner were brothers. All six of them were siblings, but Tilden and Wagner were inseparable and, while the two were the weakest of the lights, their combined glow rivalled that of Wilder. One day, in the dark and warm world, the six heard a seventh voice. At first they thought it was the world itself speaking to them, but Alice assured them that this was not Orinda’s voice. She asked the voice its name and it said it had none. They decided to call this new voice “Chabot” as it seemed to fit. Chabot was almost like one of them, and they grew to love and trust Chabot. So, when Chabot told them that he had terrible news, they all gathered to listen. Chabot said that there was something different about the world. Orinda was struggling and weak, and, in order to save the world and themselves, they would need to find a way out of the world. The six were silent. Alice nodded as if to confirm that the world seemed to be changing. Knickerbocker’s eyes were distant and sad, but he nodded as well. Tilden and Wagner held each other, and Glorietta’s mind was racing. Finally, after a long silence, Wagner spoke. “Then we must leave.” PART II When Wagner spoke, they all felt a shared certainty that he was right. For the sake of Orinda, they would have to find a way out. “I knew it would come to this…someday,” said Knickerbocker. “Chabot, do you know how we can do this? We’ve never left the world before and we could use a guide.” “I don’t know,” said Chabot, “and I’m sorry. I will accompany you for as long as I can, but I cannot go where you’re going.” “How do we even go,” asked Tilden. “We’ve never been anywhere but here.” Without missing a beat, Glorietta spoke up. “I have been thinking about this, and I think I know how we can do it. We must all take shapes that will allow us to travel. We will need to have legs to walk, eyes to see, ears to hear…” “And hearts to dream,” said Knickerbocker. “I don’t think we will get very far otherwise.” Wagner stretched and stretched and stretch until he had four legs and ears and eyes. He had a heart as well, but he kept it deep inside where no one else could see. He was well pleased with himself until he slipped and fell. “Perhaps,” Tilden said with concern in his voice, “something to help us keep a grip would be good. Claws?” “Yes! And a coat to keep us warm,” said Annie. “I have found cold places and breezy places when I was exploring.” They all tried to stretch into shapes like Wagner’s, but with claws and furry coats, and they decided that these would be excellent travelling shapes. They practised standing and sitting running and jumping and found that balance was a problem, so Tilden suggested a tail might help. And it did. Once they all became comfortable in their new shape, Chabot spoke up. “The world is aware of your moving around. She is ready for you to start your journey. Are you ready?” The former points of light, which now resembled kittens, were silent. Even if they were ready, which way should they go? At long last, Wil asked “Annie, you know the area better than any of us. Have you found anything that seemed like an exit?” Annie thought for a moment and said “I have. There is a cave. It is small and very narrow, but it feels different from the rest of the world. I am certain that it leads somewhere else.” Wilder smiled. “I am certain as well. Perhaps whiskers on our faces would help us navigate in tight spaces?” Everyone agreed, even Chabot, who had no shape, and they agreed that they were now equipped for a journey. Annie, as always took the first step and her brothers and sisters followed. PART III The six of them lined up, Annie at the front, then Glorietta, Knickerbocker, Tilden, Wagner, and Wilder. Even in the tight confines of the cave, Tilden and Wagner travelled side by side. This was in part because they were the smallest of the group, and in part because they would have it no other way. At the first turn in the cave, Knickerbocker said “This is the right way. If I close my eyes and try to pay attention, it feels as though Orinda is urging us along this path.” Chabot, who remained with them, agreed. “This is a very difficult time for the world. She is very sick and scared, but also, she is warm for the first time in many…

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Tornado, Landing

Posted on by Ridley

At the risk of indulging in both vaguebooking and hyperbole, everything has been too much lately. Just. So. Much. I’m spending too much time on broken social media. There’s a lot of good, wholesome stuff, but that doesn’t pay the bills and them that are running the whole mess have a lot of bills to pay. So, it’s the stuff that provokes that keeps coming and I can’t block it fast enough. That ain’t helping. Money’s tight, one of the cats is sick, I somehow managed to kill my lawnmower, work remains work, only more so. I made the mistake of checking my income history (via the IRS) vs. the cost of living changes and, whoa boy, that knocked me down for a week. Nicole and I have dusted off one of our projects, but it’s a pretty high risk endeavor that gives me the jibblies just thinking about it. Being away from home for the weekend may help. The change of scenery, the distance from my distractions and my worries, stuff like that. Let’s see if we can recenter a little bit. Maybe I can sift the good stuff out of the pile and focus on that and not the fact that the whole damn world feels broken right now (which may well be true, but there’s approximately fuck-all I can do about it). My current playlist is a lot of smaller, less polished stuff that is hitting just right today. But, before I get to that, I’m going to inflict something that’s the polar opposite of that because I’ve been obsessed with it: Michael McDonald’s “Sweet Freedom.” It’s a Rod Temperton song and if you don’t know who he is, well, pardner, let’s fix that. Rod simply owned a big chunk of the radio for a while. He wrote Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights,” Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” “Off The Wall,” George Benson’s “Give Me The Night,” James Ingram’s “Yah Mo Be There,” and so much more. Slick, simple, and a total earworm, right? Here’s the thing: I don’t understand it at all. My grasp of music theory is incomplete, but just the opening progression is something that I don’t get. F (I)Absus2 (flat III sus 2)Bb (IV)F (I)That first F may be an F9, but it doesn’t really matter. What the hell harmonic function does that Absus2 serve. “Oh, it’s really an Ebsus4!” First of all, no it’s not because you can hear the bass walk up to the Bb, and second, that just raises more questions. But…it works. It’s perfect. It couldn’t be anything else. I just can’t explain why it works. Any nerds out there have any ideas? Don’t make me ask one of those YouTube types. OK, now the fun stuff. Here’s “Janitor” by Suburban Lawns. They’re first-wave new wave, before the genre’s conventions smoothed into something that could be summed up on a “Now That’s What I Call New Wave!” collection. Thanks to the greatness that is A.C. Newman for bringing them to my attention. Next up are Young Marble Giants and their amazing record Colossal Youth: I think it was the Phonogram comic that first exposed me to them. It’s a stunning quiet thing that has so much space in it…really fits my mood today. I saw that Vivian Trimble of Luscious Jackson passed this week, which is awful and way too soon. I went down a rabbit hole and saw that she’d recorded an album with Josephine Wiggs under the name of Dusty Trails, who is probably best known as the bassist for The Breeders and a complete badass in her own right. Dig that Rhodes! Very “Stereolab” in the vibe department. Now things get a little weird. I saw that Wiggs had also recorded an album with a band called Ladies Who Lunch along with Kate Schellenbach, the drummer from Luscious Jackson. Yes, that’s a Buzzcocks cover. Let’s stay with Wiggs for one more because she was also in Kostars, along with Jill Cunniff (also of Luscious Jackson) and Ms. Trimble. Let’s get extremely lo-fi with it: I have no idea if that’s interesting to any of you or even why I find it so interesting. It’s just another thread running through the weave that I didn’t know was there. The Nerves are one of those bands like Big Star that didn’t get much love during their (brief) time, but their impact all over the early 80s. That’s Peter Case of the Plimsouls on bass, Paul Collins of the Beat on drums, and Jack Lee, whose “Come Back and Stay” became a huge hit for Paul Young. Oh, and wrote and performed the original version of Blondie’s “Hanging on the Telephone,” but I’ll make you go check that one out. This is so Melancholy-with-a-capital-M, but it’s lovely, it fits a gray day around old women who are only getting older, and Jason’s just a good dude. Really good dude. Thank you, Shadow. This one’s you’re fault. A little slicker and a little shoegazier, but a great mood tune nonetheless. While I will gladly admit that Usher’s “Yeah” is the song of the millennium so far, this remains my favorite record. Also, fuck predatory record labels all to hell. And, we close it with some chamber pop and a nod to the aforementioned Mr. Newman. Someday the New Pornographers will make a record that is less than perfect. Hasn’t happened yet, but time makes fools of us. “Hey Ridley, that’s not a playlist; that’s just some linked videos.” Fair enough. Here’s the playlist. It’s been that kinda afternoon.

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I’m really going to regret this…Ukraine

Posted on by Ridley

One of the lessons I learned as a wee one back during the Iran hostage crisis and later the first Iraq war is that most leaders and nation-states operate from their own perceived self-interest. That might sound obvious, but you may have seen foreign leaders painted as “madmen” and other similar epithets that make it sound as though their actions are irrational and unpredictable. This is almost never the case. Their motivations may be at odds with what we want them to be, they may even seem…puzzling…but the actions are almost consistent with what they perceive as their best interest. The other thing that can confuse the issue is that the stated interest is not always (or even “seldom”) the same as the real interest. Fortunately, you usually don’t have to be a mind reader to come up with a pretty good guess. When the U.S. invaded Iraq the first time, it probably had very little to do with “defending the freedom-loving people of Kuwait” and more about “increasing U.S. access to Iraqi oil and trying to stabilize the region for U.S. businesses.” This makes sense, as the former is a an altruistic platitude and the latter is in what might reasonably be perceived as “national interest.” So, with that out of the way, I’m going to lay out my best understanding of the interests of some of the parties involved. I’ve read and watched a lot of information from many, many different sources, but I won’t pretend like I know everything there is to know on the subject. I will, however, try my best to divorce my assessments from what I want the answers to be. Let’s get started: Russia I’ve edited this on account of having missed the most-important point: This is about natural gas. I should have mentioned this in the previous paragraph, but the other lesson from those older conflicts is that it’s almost always about resources. Now that the Black Sea is the new Baltic Sea, having access to the natural gas deposits is the primary goal. You may say “Well, Russia has already taken Crimea and the port of Sevastopol, why invade the rest of Ukraine?” There are a couple of reasons. The Ukrainians have smashed a dam upstream of the peninsula, emptying some of the canals that provide water for agriculture. In addition, the southern edge of Ukraine has a lot of Black Sea-facing shoreline, and that means access to the gas. What are almost certainly not key considerations: De-satanization, de-nazification, and creating a Russian ethnostate (those last two are comical when taken in tandem). Fear of a western invasion through Ukraine probably has some currency, but it is very unlikely that this is a key driving factor when compared to the economic concerns. Ukraine Again, this one’s easy: Survival as a nation. Like any nation that’s been invaded, that’s the main goal. Survive by any means necessary. If the west is sending you aid, then put on a very pro-western face. If the far-right extremists* are fighting the baddies, you look the other way. You say and do anything to keep your country afloat. Zelenskyy is literally doing what any leader on the planet would do. “Survival as a nation” is tougher than it looks, and not just for the obvious reasons. Yes, Russia is much bigger and stronger and dislodging them from the conquered territory will be difficult. The problems at the bargaining table are almost as difficult. A “peace” where Russia retains the areas they have conquered is just a cease-fire until they can retool, reload, and have a third bite at the apple. Another obstacle is that many of the peace proposals have included a clause that requires Ukraine to remain neutral with respect to Russia and the West. Any such agreement nullifies national sovereignty as a country that isn’t free to make deals with whoever they like isn’t a country. An agreement that neuters Ukraine in this fashion is the end of Ukraine as an independent nation. * Yes, some of them are actual, Hugo-Boss-Cosplay nazis. No point in pretending otherwise. They have absolutely minimal impact on Ukrainian politics. The far-right party, of which the nazis are a minority, never achieved the electoral success of the BNP in the United Kingdom. I am not comfortable supporting nazis. I am perfectly comfortable supporting a country in which they are an inconsequential minority like, say, the U.S. I’m certainly more comfortable with that than, say, twisting my head around justifying an invasion. U.S. The U.S., obviously, is on the side of freedom and democra…just kidding. As far as I can tell, the U.S. has two primary and one secondary interest in this war. The first is to keep Russia bogged down in a war of attrition. Washington sees Russia as a problem, as they are a) very cash-poor with an economy about the size of Italy’s, and b) in possession of a huge military with a lot of modern weapons. A war of attrition isn’t at all what Ukraine wants, but they’ll take what support they can get. In addition, ensuring access to the Black Sea gas for American companies is certainly going to be an American goal. It’s almost certain that Ukraine has made some promises in this regard in exchange for support, but we don’t have any visible evidence. This would be consistent the goals of both parties. Of course, that support comes in the form of American goods and weapons, and those are making some well-connected people a lot of money at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer. That’s goal #2 if I’m correct in my guesses: Funnel a lot of money into the hands of certain wealthy Americans with a minimum of accountability. The secondary goal is simply to support the U.S.’s European allies, who have a considerably greater interest in curtailing Russia’s expansion. The U.S. burned a lot of bridges in Europe a few years ago, and this is an opportunity to mend them a little. I don’t think this is the primary driver. It’s more like a nice side-effect. The EU Unlike the U.S., the Europeans have a lot to fear from a war in eastern Europe. It is not at all in their interests to keep things simmering along; they would prefer to see the war ended which…

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Kitty Cat Roll Call

Posted on by Ridley

My creative muscles have creative flu or something. I haven’t had the compulsion to make anything in a while, so in an epic attempt to kick-start my drive, I’m going to…write about cats. There’s not much of that on the internet, right? Being cat people, we have several cats. Exactly how many we have is difficult to measure, sort of like trying to measure how many objects orbit the sun. There are the nine (or eight if you’re a joyless but technically correct pedant like Neil DeGrasse Tyson) primary objects that we can all agree on. There are, of course, rather a lot more than that. There are the moons…do they count? Comets? Asteroids? Weird alien constructs from the dawn of the universe? Where do you draw the line? It’s complicated. The same is true of cats. So, let’s take a look at our cats, the cats who are perhaps de facto ours if not officially so, and the others in the penumbra of our orbits. Dunno where all the solar system stuff came from today. Maybe it’s because I’m watching a video on making Stranger Things-style music. The Big Three: Red Velvet (AKA Red Velvetron, Velvetron, Tron, Tronbutt, RV, Redly Deadly, Lady Redlington, World’s Naughtiest) Red Velvet is the senior member of our household trio. She was dropped off with all of her siblings at the clinic Nicole used to work at. She’s the only one who gets to go outside from time to time as she used to get to go out on the porch at our apartments. She requires a lot of supervision because she will disappear in a flash. Tron is very much Nicole’s cat and sleeps on the pillow behind her head every night. She does not like interacting with other kittehs but now that we’re back up to three, she doesn’t have to very much as the two idiots occupy each other. Definitely not a lap cat, Redlington likes to have her back patted right at the tail. Ramza (AKA Ramza Charles Soyuncu, Ramza Charles, Charo, Dingus, The Ultimate Baby) Ramza is the middle child, but still very much a child. He’s not even two yet but he’s a very big boy. Ramza is Nicole’s baby; she saw his picture at the shelter and fell in love immediately. He was so tiny when we got him; we didn’t dare let him sleep with us for fear we’d squish him. Ramza doesn’t really meow, so it’s super cute when he tries to and squeaks. He loves to be carried around in Nicole’s arms and likes to jump on our backs. Charo is very sharp and we do not like it when he jumps on our backs. He can jump very, very high. At night, he sleeps on my legs which is nice in the winter. It is less so in the summer. Aymeric (AKA Aymeric Leonard Bitingway Vardy, Wingus, Microdingus) Aymeric is my boy. He looked so sad at the shelter. He is not sad anymore. He has squinty eyes like Aymeric in Final Fantasy XIV, and he has a little meow that is super cute. He hates that I close my office door when I’m working and he always runs over when I open it. He insists I play with him with the little wand toy that he invariably destroys. He gets along super well with Ramza, who took over the role of big brother so very well. Aymeric cannot jump like his brother, and he’s not as sharp in the “drawing blood from your veins” sense, but he’s 100% energy except when he’s not. Then he sleeps on me. He purrs louder than any cat I’ve ever had. My mission is to make sure he purrs a lot. The Other Kitties: This group spend a lot of time on our porch. Probably because we often leave a bowl of food out, we have a cat friendly hidey-hole, and lots of shelter from the cold. So, yeah, we did it to ourselves but the alternative is just letting Panthro fend for himself and he looks so cold sometimes. That was never really an option. Panthro Panthro is a tom with a huge neck who sometimes lives on our porch and sometimes under our house and sometimes he is very mysterious and we don’t know where he goes. We’re pretty sure he was another family’s cat, and we’re pretty sure we found the family, but they didn’t seem interested in getting him back and that is very sad. Panthro, being wild now, doesn’t let us come too close to him, but he is not as scared as he used to be and usually stays on the porch when we leave the house. He’s a very handsome boy. We made all the porch accommodations for him for when it was very cold. Millie Millie probably belongs to one of our neighbors, but we’re not sure who. She’s very majestic and very territorial and doesn’t get along with everyone else. She used to come over a lot more often. She doesn’t let us pet her which is probably for the best as she seems very pettable and our other cats would get jealous. Fancy Fancy is such a ham. She lives across the street from us and had a litter of kittens super young, but she’s since been fixed and she’s very healthy. She comes over to see us even when she isn’t hungry, but especially when she is. She loves to rub against our legs and lets us pet her. She drives Red Velvet nuts. We love Fancy. Willie Willie looks like a goofball, with crossed blue eyes and long white(ish) fur. He’s an infrequent visitor, and he doesn’t seem to like Panthro. He likes to sit in our garden or our back yard and roll around in the grass or dirt. He does not let us near. Domino Domino is a fairly new visitor and she is super friendly, so she probably has a home. She let us pet her almost immediately. I suspect she’s one of Fancy’s kittens, but we don’t know for sure. Black Stripe (official name still pending) This is our newest visitor and he or she is very skittish. They are comfortable around Domino but not around us. This cat looks a lot like Panthro and…

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