facebook post:

i'm going to need to clean this space up over the next few hours, but the story is that...

i've spent the last year and a bit converting old blogs into pdf files, which sounds like a waste of time, but is tied into the process of building liner notes for rereleases from when i first moved to windsor. i'm almost done the first phase of this, and am going to put the second phase on hold for a later time.

i've been hosting these files in two places: bandcamp (in the form of music journals that you can buy) and noise trade (which offered the files for free, and let you donate an amount, if you want).

bandcamp is very reliable, and i thank them for it. but, within hours of finishing the last major journal update, the noise trade site just up and disappeared. the account continues to exist, and i can change the password, but i can't log into it. it's very weird.

when i signed up for noise trade a few years ago, it was an independent site that allowed for free file sharing. that was my attraction to it. up until now, the only other site that i've had on the internet with a paywall has been bandcamp, which is just a necessity in this awful economic system we exist in - i have to try to sell you something, whether i like it or not. but i try to make everything freely available, as i find ways to try to navigate through the contradictions in our day-to-day lives. i want you to pay me, but i don't. it's frustrating for everybody, but it's unavoidable. i mean, the other option is that i get a job (that is, that i sell my labour, instead) and give my art away for free, but that's kind of giving up on life, in my estimation.

what i want is for you to donate. i want grants, i want benefactors - because i want artistic freedom. i have to deal with the vulgarity of market interactions, i have to reduce things to commodities, because i don't truly have the freedom not to. but, i hate that fact, and i want to find creative ways around it.

noise trade was attractive to me for that reason - it allowed me to sort of escape the commodification of the process, and let you decide if you want to throw money at me in support, or just take the end result for free. it was a good compromise, while it lasted.

shortly after i set the site up, it got bought out by paste magazine and shifted it's hosting to the increasingly dominant amazon. the amount of ads has steadily increased, since, to the point that the site is almost unusable. and, now the site has disappeared, leaving me without an option for free dissemination. i initially sought some kind of explanation before acting further, but, after some reflection, have decided that it doesn't matter - i'd rather separate my art from that kind of profit making machinery, anyways. the site has become gross, to me.

you'll note that i don't tend to post to sites that are ad-supported, facebook being the major exception because it's so ubiquitous. but, i do almost all of my posting at blogs that are ad-free. facebook is just a necessary evil. for now. noise trade snuck the ads in on me while i was distracted, and it's time to get away and burn what was and forget it ever existed.

so, i don't know why the site evaporated, but i don't care - i don't want to interact with a site that is supported by invasive ads, anyways. it's a shame, but whatever. death to paste magazine!

i've spent the last few days trying to figure out how to react and have come to the following solutions.

1) the bandcamp site is sill there, but you can't read books on bandcamp the same way you can stream music. i wish you could - that would be the best answer. you can't, for now. so, i need to put the files up somewhere else, as well.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com

2) i want something more interactive than the google drive share, although i'm going to keep this up for the biggest files. these are just the full blogs for the period i was reconstructing:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NI_sEi1t9NxTeOB9Es3A2Ge8ji4iTXit?usp=sharing

3) i want a way to buy the whole thing, and don't want the overlap on bandcamp, which will hold strictly to the monthly journal format. that's going to be here, at lulu, where there are no file size restrictions:
https://www.lulu.com/search?contributor=jessica+murray

4) i'm going to use smashwords (which has strict file size and other restrictions) for free hosting of smaller files and make use of the interactive features, but i can't use it as a medium to facilitate donations, at least not until they relax their approach a little. i explain a little about this at the profile page.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/deathtokoalas

5) the best way to donate me money is to avoid these kinds of sites, anyways. i like bandcamp for what it is and would encourage you to support it so we don't lose it; i don't want a future of spotifies and google plays, that would kill off independent music. a site like bandcamp must continue to exist. but, if you share my aversion to market economics and want to just be a benefactor then the best thing to do is just send a donation to death.to.koalas@gmail.com, either over paypal or (even better) or interac. this is how i *really* want this to work - you send me money as a grant, and i put the thing up for free.

i will need to spend the next day or two updating these sites as replacements for the deleted noise trade site, and replacing noise trade links with lulu or smashwords links, as is appropriate.

i don't know what happened, but fuck them and their ads anyways.