their music:
review:
event listing:
https://www.facebook.com/events/954857924720602/
link:
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
so, i'm in toronto, at the opera house grill, a small coffee shop directly beside/below the venue in toronto.
i believe that i'm listening to the drum tech doing sound check upstairs, and it's pretty intense in it's monotony.
the ride in was fairly uneventful, if a little bit cramped and a tad long. but, i spent the ride evaluating the band's discography, and i think there's a chance that this is their most substantive record so far, which is not to say it's their best necessarily, but that it is their most mature and consistent one. there were very strong tracks on both of their first two records, but they had different levels of inconsistency - there are some plodding hardcore tracks on their first record, although the vocals are really next-level throughout; the second record is bloated by lyrical filler that probably should have been cut off as bsides, if done at all. the first record needs to stand as it is, regardless of any flaws; it's too unique as a cohesive whole to split up. but, the second record could have been cut in half.
i think that the third largely missed the mark on both fronts.
this new record is a movement in a different direction, musically, if not too radically so, as the pieces of it already existed. but, it is for the first time a record that doesn't have some cringey tracks on it. not only is this so, but the lyricist seems to have returned to the kind of flow that existed on the first record. it's really a huge step forward for the band, and i'm excited about hearing them develop what they're doing further.
something else i'm noticing is that la dispute is in some ways very similar to my own dead project, rabit is wolf. sean didn't have the chance to write anything profound as la dispute, and i don't know if he could, but he has a very similar voice to the singer for the band, whose name i am not entirely sure of. jordan something, i think. i'm not going to look it up. but, some of the more plaintive guitar & vocal work strikes me as a very plausible end goal for rabbit, should it have carried forwads. and, it's interesting to me that you can hear sean and i play around with the same ideas that la dispute do/did, but way back in 2002. the record is too musically different, but you could probably trick somebody into thinking that acoustic demo ep was a lost la dispute demo.
i actually felt a little sick for much of the bus ride. stale air combined with third hand smoke and little bit of vodka in my stomach combined to get me a little oozy. the person that sat down beside me then added to that by eating an oiniony sub and a bag of doritos, which just had me on the verging of vomiting. it wasn't one thing but all of them...but i made it through....
i got off the bus and walked in the wrong direction, then corrected myself after a block. i had the map memorized, but i had to properly orient myself first. first stop was the marijuana store.
am i feeling over the permabuzz enough to get back to moderate use again? well, i want to go to the show, and that's what i do at the show, so it's like i have to move on with life, regardless. i may run the risk of imagining a more coherent state of existence than is realistic; i don't have a control, in the question of measuring the coherence of consciousness. it shouldn't take this long to wear off. this is probably as good as it gets.
but, my habits are likely to change now that i'm not worried about getting it out of the house. i'll likely hang on to the small amount that i bought for quite a while, just bringing it out occasionally.
i was there at about 1:30 on a cloudy, grey tuesday afternoon, and they were lined up around the corner, and carding people at the door. patrons were allowed in slowly, and asked to meet with a "budtender" who was supposed to help you find what you wanted. i knew that i was in search of a high thc:cbd ratio at the lowest price on offer, and informed the "budtender" of this fact. he proceeded to bring me to the sativa area, and sell me on a 15:9 ratio hybrid. i asked him repeatedly if that he was the highest ratio he had, and he said it was. this seemed unlikely to me, but he insisted. he then sold me an 1/8th, told me to go to the counter to buy it and said "but, feel free to look around". i then walked into the indica section and found what i actually wanted.
i'm not sure what the purpose of the detour was, but it's of little concern in the end, other than to put out a warning to be careful about these so-called budtenders. if he works on commission, he may have been trying to squeeze out a sativa sale; if true, the misdirection would be management's fault. but, i should have looked at a menu coming in, and will next time.
i picked one of the cheapest options, and it was still at the highest end of an acceptable price. when you buy in bulk from your friend, it's $5-7/gram. when you make a business transaction with your dealer, the expected price is $10/gram. and, when you're forced to find a pusher on the street, you pay $12/g for something you're afraid to actually smoke.
the cheapest option in the store was $11.99. to me, that is a warning shot to what should now be called independent growers - the corporate growers aren't planning on competing with them over a free market. when the government charges you $12/gram, that broadcasts that they're planning on enforcing the laws.
fulton street blaring at me from next door.
the transaction took roughly an hour, in total, and it was then less than an hour's walk up queen street to the venue, which is where i am right now, having a coffee. i of course made a detour to try out the product.
i'm kind of fried right now, regardless. i had a restless weekend, with little solid sleep. i then caught yamantaka // sonic titan and the acid mothers temple at phog last night, after having barely slept all weekend. this experience was at least enough to stimulate some actual sleep in me early this morning, but i was up at 5:30 to catch the bus for 8:00, and then sat on the bus for almost six hours. but, i bought a high thc strain because i like an uplifting buzz rather than a draining stone, and because i like to smoke pinners, infrequently - a small amount should last a long time. i may have sampled slightly too much. i'll be fine soon enough.
i think doors are at 7:00, so i've got some time to waste...
i believe that i'm listening to the drum tech doing sound check upstairs, and it's pretty intense in it's monotony.
the ride in was fairly uneventful, if a little bit cramped and a tad long. but, i spent the ride evaluating the band's discography, and i think there's a chance that this is their most substantive record so far, which is not to say it's their best necessarily, but that it is their most mature and consistent one. there were very strong tracks on both of their first two records, but they had different levels of inconsistency - there are some plodding hardcore tracks on their first record, although the vocals are really next-level throughout; the second record is bloated by lyrical filler that probably should have been cut off as bsides, if done at all. the first record needs to stand as it is, regardless of any flaws; it's too unique as a cohesive whole to split up. but, the second record could have been cut in half.
i think that the third largely missed the mark on both fronts.
this new record is a movement in a different direction, musically, if not too radically so, as the pieces of it already existed. but, it is for the first time a record that doesn't have some cringey tracks on it. not only is this so, but the lyricist seems to have returned to the kind of flow that existed on the first record. it's really a huge step forward for the band, and i'm excited about hearing them develop what they're doing further.
something else i'm noticing is that la dispute is in some ways very similar to my own dead project, rabit is wolf. sean didn't have the chance to write anything profound as la dispute, and i don't know if he could, but he has a very similar voice to the singer for the band, whose name i am not entirely sure of. jordan something, i think. i'm not going to look it up. but, some of the more plaintive guitar & vocal work strikes me as a very plausible end goal for rabbit, should it have carried forwads. and, it's interesting to me that you can hear sean and i play around with the same ideas that la dispute do/did, but way back in 2002. the record is too musically different, but you could probably trick somebody into thinking that acoustic demo ep was a lost la dispute demo.
i actually felt a little sick for much of the bus ride. stale air combined with third hand smoke and little bit of vodka in my stomach combined to get me a little oozy. the person that sat down beside me then added to that by eating an oiniony sub and a bag of doritos, which just had me on the verging of vomiting. it wasn't one thing but all of them...but i made it through....
i got off the bus and walked in the wrong direction, then corrected myself after a block. i had the map memorized, but i had to properly orient myself first. first stop was the marijuana store.
am i feeling over the permabuzz enough to get back to moderate use again? well, i want to go to the show, and that's what i do at the show, so it's like i have to move on with life, regardless. i may run the risk of imagining a more coherent state of existence than is realistic; i don't have a control, in the question of measuring the coherence of consciousness. it shouldn't take this long to wear off. this is probably as good as it gets.
but, my habits are likely to change now that i'm not worried about getting it out of the house. i'll likely hang on to the small amount that i bought for quite a while, just bringing it out occasionally.
i was there at about 1:30 on a cloudy, grey tuesday afternoon, and they were lined up around the corner, and carding people at the door. patrons were allowed in slowly, and asked to meet with a "budtender" who was supposed to help you find what you wanted. i knew that i was in search of a high thc:cbd ratio at the lowest price on offer, and informed the "budtender" of this fact. he proceeded to bring me to the sativa area, and sell me on a 15:9 ratio hybrid. i asked him repeatedly if that he was the highest ratio he had, and he said it was. this seemed unlikely to me, but he insisted. he then sold me an 1/8th, told me to go to the counter to buy it and said "but, feel free to look around". i then walked into the indica section and found what i actually wanted.
i'm not sure what the purpose of the detour was, but it's of little concern in the end, other than to put out a warning to be careful about these so-called budtenders. if he works on commission, he may have been trying to squeeze out a sativa sale; if true, the misdirection would be management's fault. but, i should have looked at a menu coming in, and will next time.
i picked one of the cheapest options, and it was still at the highest end of an acceptable price. when you buy in bulk from your friend, it's $5-7/gram. when you make a business transaction with your dealer, the expected price is $10/gram. and, when you're forced to find a pusher on the street, you pay $12/g for something you're afraid to actually smoke.
the cheapest option in the store was $11.99. to me, that is a warning shot to what should now be called independent growers - the corporate growers aren't planning on competing with them over a free market. when the government charges you $12/gram, that broadcasts that they're planning on enforcing the laws.
fulton street blaring at me from next door.
the transaction took roughly an hour, in total, and it was then less than an hour's walk up queen street to the venue, which is where i am right now, having a coffee. i of course made a detour to try out the product.
i'm kind of fried right now, regardless. i had a restless weekend, with little solid sleep. i then caught yamantaka // sonic titan and the acid mothers temple at phog last night, after having barely slept all weekend. this experience was at least enough to stimulate some actual sleep in me early this morning, but i was up at 5:30 to catch the bus for 8:00, and then sat on the bus for almost six hours. but, i bought a high thc strain because i like an uplifting buzz rather than a draining stone, and because i like to smoke pinners, infrequently - a small amount should last a long time. i may have sampled slightly too much. i'll be fine soon enough.
i think doors are at 7:00, so i've got some time to waste...
Monday, April 15, 2019
Sunday, April 14, 2019
and, here is the noise trade smashwords link for the july archive of this blog.
https://books.noisetrade.com/j/072013-music-journal-22
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026388
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026388
i first
decided to remove myself from facebook some time around the end of 2013,
not due to any kind of security concern but due to being fed up by the
terrible interface and incredibly slow servers. a few years later, i
found myself with a similar desire to extricate myself from the youtube
comments section, as the interface changes made it almost impossible to
actually use. but, old habits die hard, and it took several attempts
before i could really pry myself off, not having any kind of permanent
success until i designated the migration as a time-wasting tactic while i
successfully kicked the tobacco addiction, in the first half of 2016.
this left me with thousands of pages of writing that i was going to need
to eventually repost to a more user-friendly platform, which ended up
being the blogger interface on google. faced with the need to build
liner notes for my very first recording at the end of 1996, it was at
the beginning of 2017 that i first sat down with the intent to rebuild
my music journal as a singular whole, with the eventual plan of cutting
it up and appending it in installments within the discography.
my life hit a roadblock in the middle of 2017 as a consequence of a shift in ownership of the building i was living in, which led to multiple legal battles (still ongoing) and two separate moves. the situation eventually worked itself out for the better, but it slowed me down dramatically and left me with a very large back log in working through the loose ends around closing my first two period discs that i am only finally beginning to clear in the spring of 2019. this added period of reflection has allowed me to think this through over and over, and add increasing levels of detail to the journal, and subsequent pending liner notes. while not every month is going to be equally exciting, the level of detail in what was initially a journal is now more like a series of novellas. the first entry, which is only the second half of july, is 222 pages long.
i am not going to summarize the story, but it is available on the web over here: musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2013/07/.
this is a compilation of written correspondences that includes facebook posts, messenger chats and emails with friends and family members, in an attempt to build the context around my move from ottawa to windsor in early august, 2013. this was a pretty heavy two weeks, and the narrative consequently has an arc of it's own, but the story being told here is how i rebuilt my studio over the second half of 2013. the contents of this download are the dummy track, a word doc file and a pdf file, both written in a more readable, chronological ordering. i've also added the respective files for my other three blogs, for general interest.
the events documented in this journal occurred in july, 2013 and were compiled into a narrative in several stages over the years 2014-2019. journal completed on mar 31, 2019. released and finalized in doc and pdf format on april 14, 2019. doc0713.
my life hit a roadblock in the middle of 2017 as a consequence of a shift in ownership of the building i was living in, which led to multiple legal battles (still ongoing) and two separate moves. the situation eventually worked itself out for the better, but it slowed me down dramatically and left me with a very large back log in working through the loose ends around closing my first two period discs that i am only finally beginning to clear in the spring of 2019. this added period of reflection has allowed me to think this through over and over, and add increasing levels of detail to the journal, and subsequent pending liner notes. while not every month is going to be equally exciting, the level of detail in what was initially a journal is now more like a series of novellas. the first entry, which is only the second half of july, is 222 pages long.
i am not going to summarize the story, but it is available on the web over here: musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2013/07/.
this is a compilation of written correspondences that includes facebook posts, messenger chats and emails with friends and family members, in an attempt to build the context around my move from ottawa to windsor in early august, 2013. this was a pretty heavy two weeks, and the narrative consequently has an arc of it's own, but the story being told here is how i rebuilt my studio over the second half of 2013. the contents of this download are the dummy track, a word doc file and a pdf file, both written in a more readable, chronological ordering. i've also added the respective files for my other three blogs, for general interest.
the events documented in this journal occurred in july, 2013 and were compiled into a narrative in several stages over the years 2014-2019. journal completed on mar 31, 2019. released and finalized in doc and pdf format on april 14, 2019. doc0713.
credits
released August 1, 2013
j - editing, participant
esa - participant
illuminous - participant
mom - participant
sister - participant
nana - participant
step-mother - participant
the youngest aunt - participant
jeff - participant
dad - participant
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/07-2013-music-journal-2-2
j - editing, participant
esa - participant
illuminous - participant
mom - participant
sister - participant
nana - participant
step-mother - participant
the youngest aunt - participant
jeff - participant
dad - participant
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/07-2013-music-journal-2-2
unfortunately, noise trade did not work out as a hosting solution, and i never got a clear answer as to why. but, i decided in the end that the site was full of ads and unworkable, anyways.
readable archives are now at the following sites:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/deathtokoalashttps://www.lulu.com/search?contributor=jessica+murray
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NI_sEi1t9NxTeOB9Es3A2Ge8ji4iTXit?usp=sharing
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Thursday, March 21, 2019
i decided that i couldn't avoid this any longer.
as i retrace through the rebuild, i'll be reconstructing the music review blog, as well, which is now here:
https://deathtokoalas.blogspot.com/
that makes the rebuild & alter-reality comprehensive, so i won't have to go back again later to retrace - this is final.
as i retrace through the rebuild, i'll be reconstructing the music review blog, as well, which is now here:
https://deathtokoalas.blogspot.com/
that makes the rebuild & alter-reality comprehensive, so i won't have to go back again later to retrace - this is final.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
so, i've carefully filed this properly, backwards, to may, 2003, which is the point where things get messy, as everything for the two-three years previously dates to those burns from before i left. i will need to go through the may folder - which includes thousands of genealogical records - and pull out as much stuff from before it as possible.
i stopped to run a scandisk on the drive, just in case. it's a 2 tb drive; that's going to take the rest of the night.
i've also decided that i'm going to create that music blog after all. i think i really don't have another option at this point, as i'm going to need to cross-reference too much data, and it's the only remaining piece.
in terms of how to do this, i'm also going to move in terms of semesters, anchored by the alter-reality. if i try to do this day-by-day or even week-by-week, it will get impossible. so, i'll start with the second half of 2013, then go back and do the second half of 1993. that just extends the journal launch date that much more, but not by much - this is already done, i'm really just double-checking it. with the music blog - reviews, comments - it should become comprehensive. and, i know that's what people actually want...
my robot book should be here in the morning.
still 403s on the tripod site :(
and, i'm otherwise going to nap.
i stopped to run a scandisk on the drive, just in case. it's a 2 tb drive; that's going to take the rest of the night.
i've also decided that i'm going to create that music blog after all. i think i really don't have another option at this point, as i'm going to need to cross-reference too much data, and it's the only remaining piece.
in terms of how to do this, i'm also going to move in terms of semesters, anchored by the alter-reality. if i try to do this day-by-day or even week-by-week, it will get impossible. so, i'll start with the second half of 2013, then go back and do the second half of 1993. that just extends the journal launch date that much more, but not by much - this is already done, i'm really just double-checking it. with the music blog - reviews, comments - it should become comprehensive. and, i know that's what people actually want...
my robot book should be here in the morning.
still 403s on the tripod site :(
and, i'm otherwise going to nap.
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
a man for all seasons / thomas more's utopia. grade 8. that's clear. but, it was handed out in loose leaf, i think. i also vaguely recall some kind of shakespeare for grade 8. i guess we did shakespeare every year almost - hamlet, macbeth, merchant of venice, romeo & juliet, henry viiii, a mid...yeah. that was eight. midsummer night's dream. i remember the plays relatively well, but i always took shakespeare as a chore, and it's not well-ordered in time in my mind. i think the merchant was 9, romeo & juliet was 10, macbeth was 11 and hamlet was 12, but that could be completely wrong. i have a vague recollection of something atwood as well. and some sherlock holmes, too....
well, that's something, anyways.
it's the old english, that was my issue with shakespeare. i know a lot of people like it for that reason, but, to me, shakespeare should be catalogued with chaucer - it's a mild degree of separation, and well past the point of incomprehension; it's far enough back in time, now, that a translator really ought to be deployed. it just struck me as needlessly frustrating. but, i was a kid that liked to read, so i think i would have enjoyed it much more had they just translated it for me. we'll see how i react to it the second time over...
grade seven is still a dead block, but my teacher got fired early in the year and the class kind of fell through the cracks. after five or six substitutes that were sequentially brought in as babysitters, they finally hired one. we lost at least half the year. but, i'm remembering a grade 7 "english textbook" that was all highlightered up from previous use, and a really boring story by a gordon something that was in the textbook. this was just painful to trudge through - enough to make a kid hate reading for life. this is the consequence of the "canadian content" requirements, and a teacher that didn't really give a fuck. so, i think what i need to find is the textbook. english class at that point no doubt had an actual language component, which was no doubt the focus of the textbook.
was there a grade eight "english textbook" with excerpts in it? i'm thinking that's the answer, and why my memories are so dismal around it. my grade eight teacher was a rather finicky old woman, and she may have photocopied the textbook out of fears we'd spill juice on it.
i wouldn't mind trying to track down the math & science textbooks from high school, while i'm at it.
that just randomly vomited up on me, which is how this often works. i've been offline for the last few days, because i've had difficulties staying awake. i'm still filing; it should be done, but i've been sleeping 20 hours a day. the air quality in here has just collapsed, but it's only in the one room, leading me to wonder if it's mostly the window, after all.
i'm going to get some more coal the next time i'm out and see if it helps a little.
the first asimov text is here from the uk, but dhl made a scan error and is trying to charge me customs on a purchase under $20. it should be here as soon as that is ironed out, so i could in theory get started this week.
but, not with the air quality like this, i won't. i'm going to have to get to the bottom of this - as of right now, i'm basically in the same problem i was in before.
i can't and don't want to live the life of a lethargic drug addict.
well, that's something, anyways.
it's the old english, that was my issue with shakespeare. i know a lot of people like it for that reason, but, to me, shakespeare should be catalogued with chaucer - it's a mild degree of separation, and well past the point of incomprehension; it's far enough back in time, now, that a translator really ought to be deployed. it just struck me as needlessly frustrating. but, i was a kid that liked to read, so i think i would have enjoyed it much more had they just translated it for me. we'll see how i react to it the second time over...
grade seven is still a dead block, but my teacher got fired early in the year and the class kind of fell through the cracks. after five or six substitutes that were sequentially brought in as babysitters, they finally hired one. we lost at least half the year. but, i'm remembering a grade 7 "english textbook" that was all highlightered up from previous use, and a really boring story by a gordon something that was in the textbook. this was just painful to trudge through - enough to make a kid hate reading for life. this is the consequence of the "canadian content" requirements, and a teacher that didn't really give a fuck. so, i think what i need to find is the textbook. english class at that point no doubt had an actual language component, which was no doubt the focus of the textbook.
was there a grade eight "english textbook" with excerpts in it? i'm thinking that's the answer, and why my memories are so dismal around it. my grade eight teacher was a rather finicky old woman, and she may have photocopied the textbook out of fears we'd spill juice on it.
i wouldn't mind trying to track down the math & science textbooks from high school, while i'm at it.
that just randomly vomited up on me, which is how this often works. i've been offline for the last few days, because i've had difficulties staying awake. i'm still filing; it should be done, but i've been sleeping 20 hours a day. the air quality in here has just collapsed, but it's only in the one room, leading me to wonder if it's mostly the window, after all.
i'm going to get some more coal the next time i'm out and see if it helps a little.
the first asimov text is here from the uk, but dhl made a scan error and is trying to charge me customs on a purchase under $20. it should be here as soon as that is ironed out, so i could in theory get started this week.
but, not with the air quality like this, i won't. i'm going to have to get to the bottom of this - as of right now, i'm basically in the same problem i was in before.
i can't and don't want to live the life of a lethargic drug addict.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
well, it cost me $212.79, which works out to $15.10/book, but it should all be here by monday, with the exception of the complete robot, which should be here within three weeks.
the complete robot was $36, and i got tricked - i had my default address set to the ups store in detroit, which would have been free shipping. i agreed to the transaction, then got dinged on shipping into canada, which ended up as $15. you'll note it would cost me $10 to get back and forth anyways, but i might have found a cheaper seller. this particular text appears to be scarce in canada, but i could have probably taken it down a little. $5-7 or something.
so, if you take that one out, the average is more like $13.65, which is reasonable, considering everything is shipping.
and, the way we'll do this is that i'll have just read through the asimov texts - that will be the starting point of the blog, a total review of the greater foundation series.
the complete robot was $36, and i got tricked - i had my default address set to the ups store in detroit, which would have been free shipping. i agreed to the transaction, then got dinged on shipping into canada, which ended up as $15. you'll note it would cost me $10 to get back and forth anyways, but i might have found a cheaper seller. this particular text appears to be scarce in canada, but i could have probably taken it down a little. $5-7 or something.
so, if you take that one out, the average is more like $13.65, which is reasonable, considering everything is shipping.
and, the way we'll do this is that i'll have just read through the asimov texts - that will be the starting point of the blog, a total review of the greater foundation series.
so, should i be buying physical books in 2019?
well, i still like to hold a book, and part of the point of this is to rebuild the shelf, after years of neglect. i'm not sure that this overpowers the unnecessary environmental effects of actually buying books at this stage in history, though.
i should probably look at this the same way that i look at clothes, and am increasingly looking at cds: i should be looking towards used books almost exclusively.
am i apprehensive about buying used books online? yeah. it's easy to lose a few pages. and, i should also be seeking to minimize transportation costs.
it's been a while since i've hit the used book stores in windsor.
it looks like it may be nice on sunday.
well, i still like to hold a book, and part of the point of this is to rebuild the shelf, after years of neglect. i'm not sure that this overpowers the unnecessary environmental effects of actually buying books at this stage in history, though.
i should probably look at this the same way that i look at clothes, and am increasingly looking at cds: i should be looking towards used books almost exclusively.
am i apprehensive about buying used books online? yeah. it's easy to lose a few pages. and, i should also be seeking to minimize transportation costs.
it's been a while since i've hit the used book stores in windsor.
it looks like it may be nice on sunday.
i only have three stephen king books left on my shelf.
1) the tommyknockers
2) the bachman books (rage, the long walk, roadwork, the running man)
3) the stand (complete & uncut)
but, i had a big list of them, which also included:
- carrie
- salem's lot
- the shining
- night shift (short stories)
- the dead zone
- firestarter
- cujo
- danse macabre
- different seasons (shawshank redemption, apt pupil, the body, the breathing method)
- pet semetary
- the talisman
- thinner
- skeleton crew (short stories)
- it
- misery
- the dark half
- four past midnight (the langoliers, secret window secret garden, the library policeman, the sun dog)
- needful things
- gerald's game
- dolores clairborne
- nightmares & dreamscapes
i never read christine, and regretted it. the only other thing that's missing here is the dark tower series, which i skipped on purpose. that is otherwise an almost entirely complete stephen king bibliography, up to the end of 1993.
i'm not exaggerating - i went through all of this stuff over the years 92-94. that's like 10,000 pages of stephen king, mostly in the middle of the night. the move from my mom's to my dad's was the summer of 1994, and while there were some perks attached to it, i initially had to give up my all night reading habit because he would actually storm downstairs and tell me go to fucking sleep, whereas my mom was herself usually up all night chain smoking and watching tv. i also became much more interested in the guitar after mid-94.
am i going to buy all of those books? yeah. and, i'm going to move through this sequentially.
i don't know how much these cost, nowadays. you used to be able to get them at the drug store for $5. let's see what i can get shipped to me. and, i'll have to hit the local used stores afterwards.
but, i'm going to start with asimov, because that's more primordial for me. even as i'm pointing out that i don't remember doing a single book report from grades 7-9, i know i did a book report on the foundation series in grade five. i was in a split 5/6 class, so i didn't have english class in grade six (and didn't have math class in grade five). in hindisght, it is baffling, but my mom freely sent me to that school solely because it had a large yard. yeah. the foundation series was recommended to me by the teacher, and i ended up reading a bunch of his other stuff. asimov died in 1992 with a massive bibliography, but i remember these specifically:
- the complete robot
- caves of steel
- naked sun
- robots of dawn
- robots and empire
- the stars, like dust
- currents of space
- pebble in the sky
- prelude to foundation
- forward the foundation <----did not read this one
- foundation
- foundation and empire
- second foundation
- foundations edge <----- that was the book report
- foundation and earth
so, i read through that over 1992-1993. i should collect it all, and review it all as a starting point. all i have right now is foundation and empire, and a book of short stories called the martian way.
what else did i mention?
arthur c. clarke.
i had:
- 2001: a space odyssey
- 2010: odyssey two
- 2061: odyssey three
- songs of distant earth
- tales from planet earth
my grandmother bought me these books by accident, starting around 91. she was trying to buy me greek mythology, to have me understand my name sake. i don't think she ever read any homer herself, nor had my mother, but she was trying to give me a story about jason and the argonauts, by giving me what she thought was the odyssey. d'oh? well, i enjoyed them, nonetheless, so she kept buying them. i eventually read both some plato and homer in high school, as well as some aristophanes in first year. fuck aristotle.
the only one i have left is songs of distant earth, which helpfully is dated to the christmas of 1993. so, we can go through that one together for an early '94 post.
bradbury.
- the martian chronicles
- farenheit 451 <----- not actually, but if i'm going to do this...
- a medicine for melancholy
- r is for rocket
- i sing the body electric
- dinosaur tales
i remember the bradbury a lot less. i know i at least flipped through these ones.
i do remember some specific hg wells:
- time machine
- island of dr moreau
- war of the worlds
and also some jules verne:
- journey to the centre of the earth
- twenty thousand leagues under the sea
the wells & verne were probably the result of the influence of my aunt on my mother and grandmother, who was an english major at mcgill in this period.
i'm going to push the clancy, koontz & rand forward a few years, because my memory of it is specifically connected to my dad's house. there was some crichton, too.
there would have also been some twain read over this period, again thanks to nana:
- tom sawyer (daa-da da-daaaa)
- prince & pauper
- huck finn
what else?
we'll skip the shell silverstein. that sidewalk has ended.
i was given a copy of james and the giant peach, but i...i want to say i was too old for it, but i actually probably wasn't. i felt too old for it. frankly, i thought it was a stupid thing to waste one's time with, and didn't bother with it very far. i remember reading through about half of it one night when held physically hostage by my grandmother due to a babysitting task due to not having anything else to do, and i just found myself ridiculing roald dahl at the age of, like, 9. i never found myself immersed in fantasy novels - never went for the tolkien or the lucas or really any of that stuff. as soon as you started bringing in, like, elves and shit, i lost interest.
the purpose of this post is to build a list, and we will probably leave a lot of this behind. i'm going to start with asimov, check prices, and move from there.
1) the tommyknockers
2) the bachman books (rage, the long walk, roadwork, the running man)
3) the stand (complete & uncut)
but, i had a big list of them, which also included:
- carrie
- salem's lot
- the shining
- night shift (short stories)
- the dead zone
- firestarter
- cujo
- danse macabre
- different seasons (shawshank redemption, apt pupil, the body, the breathing method)
- pet semetary
- the talisman
- thinner
- skeleton crew (short stories)
- it
- misery
- the dark half
- four past midnight (the langoliers, secret window secret garden, the library policeman, the sun dog)
- needful things
- gerald's game
- dolores clairborne
- nightmares & dreamscapes
i never read christine, and regretted it. the only other thing that's missing here is the dark tower series, which i skipped on purpose. that is otherwise an almost entirely complete stephen king bibliography, up to the end of 1993.
i'm not exaggerating - i went through all of this stuff over the years 92-94. that's like 10,000 pages of stephen king, mostly in the middle of the night. the move from my mom's to my dad's was the summer of 1994, and while there were some perks attached to it, i initially had to give up my all night reading habit because he would actually storm downstairs and tell me go to fucking sleep, whereas my mom was herself usually up all night chain smoking and watching tv. i also became much more interested in the guitar after mid-94.
am i going to buy all of those books? yeah. and, i'm going to move through this sequentially.
i don't know how much these cost, nowadays. you used to be able to get them at the drug store for $5. let's see what i can get shipped to me. and, i'll have to hit the local used stores afterwards.
but, i'm going to start with asimov, because that's more primordial for me. even as i'm pointing out that i don't remember doing a single book report from grades 7-9, i know i did a book report on the foundation series in grade five. i was in a split 5/6 class, so i didn't have english class in grade six (and didn't have math class in grade five). in hindisght, it is baffling, but my mom freely sent me to that school solely because it had a large yard. yeah. the foundation series was recommended to me by the teacher, and i ended up reading a bunch of his other stuff. asimov died in 1992 with a massive bibliography, but i remember these specifically:
- the complete robot
- caves of steel
- naked sun
- robots of dawn
- robots and empire
- the stars, like dust
- currents of space
- pebble in the sky
- prelude to foundation
- forward the foundation <----did not read this one
- foundation
- foundation and empire
- second foundation
- foundations edge <----- that was the book report
- foundation and earth
so, i read through that over 1992-1993. i should collect it all, and review it all as a starting point. all i have right now is foundation and empire, and a book of short stories called the martian way.
what else did i mention?
arthur c. clarke.
i had:
- 2001: a space odyssey
- 2010: odyssey two
- 2061: odyssey three
- songs of distant earth
- tales from planet earth
my grandmother bought me these books by accident, starting around 91. she was trying to buy me greek mythology, to have me understand my name sake. i don't think she ever read any homer herself, nor had my mother, but she was trying to give me a story about jason and the argonauts, by giving me what she thought was the odyssey. d'oh? well, i enjoyed them, nonetheless, so she kept buying them. i eventually read both some plato and homer in high school, as well as some aristophanes in first year. fuck aristotle.
the only one i have left is songs of distant earth, which helpfully is dated to the christmas of 1993. so, we can go through that one together for an early '94 post.
bradbury.
- the martian chronicles
- farenheit 451 <----- not actually, but if i'm going to do this...
- a medicine for melancholy
- r is for rocket
- i sing the body electric
- dinosaur tales
i remember the bradbury a lot less. i know i at least flipped through these ones.
i do remember some specific hg wells:
- time machine
- island of dr moreau
- war of the worlds
and also some jules verne:
- journey to the centre of the earth
- twenty thousand leagues under the sea
the wells & verne were probably the result of the influence of my aunt on my mother and grandmother, who was an english major at mcgill in this period.
i'm going to push the clancy, koontz & rand forward a few years, because my memory of it is specifically connected to my dad's house. there was some crichton, too.
there would have also been some twain read over this period, again thanks to nana:
- tom sawyer (daa-da da-daaaa)
- prince & pauper
- huck finn
what else?
we'll skip the shell silverstein. that sidewalk has ended.
i was given a copy of james and the giant peach, but i...i want to say i was too old for it, but i actually probably wasn't. i felt too old for it. frankly, i thought it was a stupid thing to waste one's time with, and didn't bother with it very far. i remember reading through about half of it one night when held physically hostage by my grandmother due to a babysitting task due to not having anything else to do, and i just found myself ridiculing roald dahl at the age of, like, 9. i never found myself immersed in fantasy novels - never went for the tolkien or the lucas or really any of that stuff. as soon as you started bringing in, like, elves and shit, i lost interest.
the purpose of this post is to build a list, and we will probably leave a lot of this behind. i'm going to start with asimov, check prices, and move from there.
Sunday, March 3, 2019
i've otherwise got the media i have organized, which is not a lot - a couple of king books, some arthur c. clarke and a few records from u2, rem, bryan adams, peter gabriel, gowan, genesis and the barenaked ladies.
i left a lot of books at my mom's place when i moved out, and sold a bunch more before i went to bc. as i've now sorted through everything, the only thing left is to hope i can get something from the carleton archives, or a fortunecity mirror or something. i know there was a list, i just don't have it.
if i'm going to rebuild the books, i'll need to go through the king, pick up a bunch of science fiction (a fair amount of asimov, a bunch of clarke, some bradbury), some tom clancy, some dean koontz, some mark twain and, yes, some ayn rand. my dead uncle is responsible for that. they told me they found him in the bathroom of a hostel in victoria, dead of an apparent aneurysm; i assumed it was drug related, but that was never confirmed, and i never asked. he was in his early 40s. selfishness as a virtue can bite you in the end, huh?
i'm sure i'll remember some more...
music wise, i'll need to get some michael jackson. what's the status on buying a michael jackson record in 2019? is it alright if it's just going to his...well, it's not even actually his kid, is it? i dunno. see, i got into mj through weird al, though. and, i lost interest after dangerous, for obvious reasons. but, my ten-year old self was really much more interested in black or white than nirvana. we grow quickly at that age, though.
i also had a bit of a bon jovi phase, which i'll defend on the basis that they weren't as bad as their peers. if the criticism is that bon jovi were hair metal, it's actually a bit off the mark - they weren't this pompous, ridiculous, materialistic, nihilistic marketing behemoth, but rather a kind of working class band from new jersey, with a contemporary sound. they were at least as punk rock as springsteen, anyways. and, they actually had a kind of synth pop center, too, which is where i really came from - tears for fears, gabriel, genesis.
i guess that's the missing part of it, stuff my dad or uncle dubbed me. i had a cassette with a day at the races on one side and a night at the opera on the other. i had beatles tapes, genesis tapes, and an out of place dub of animals that it took me years to get into, because it wasn't what i was looking for. i was very young - 8 or 9 - when somebody at chez decided to toss on one of these days for a lark, at like 2:00 am, while i was in the car on the way back from a road trip with my step-father. i was pretty instantly intrigued. the announcer mentioned it was floyd, but didn't elaborate - it was presumably not necessary. tony, to his immense discredit, couldn't identify the track, either. there was a copy of delicate sound of thunder around, but it was missing the second side. so, i asked around for years trying to figure out what the song was. the dead uncle decided i was describing the vocal effects in sheep and dubbed me a copy of animals, which i just found a little too meandering at that age - it hit me like a grateful dead record, just not enough movement for a young mind. my dad never had a copy of meddle, either. it wasn't for years that i found it in a torrent...
"aha! there's that crazy bass part!"
anyways. i have my work for the next little while set aside. it's time to start doing it.
the first post is going to be in the "dear diary, so much has happened..." format. and, we'll go from there. i might be back into the stand by the end of the night.....
i left a lot of books at my mom's place when i moved out, and sold a bunch more before i went to bc. as i've now sorted through everything, the only thing left is to hope i can get something from the carleton archives, or a fortunecity mirror or something. i know there was a list, i just don't have it.
if i'm going to rebuild the books, i'll need to go through the king, pick up a bunch of science fiction (a fair amount of asimov, a bunch of clarke, some bradbury), some tom clancy, some dean koontz, some mark twain and, yes, some ayn rand. my dead uncle is responsible for that. they told me they found him in the bathroom of a hostel in victoria, dead of an apparent aneurysm; i assumed it was drug related, but that was never confirmed, and i never asked. he was in his early 40s. selfishness as a virtue can bite you in the end, huh?
i'm sure i'll remember some more...
music wise, i'll need to get some michael jackson. what's the status on buying a michael jackson record in 2019? is it alright if it's just going to his...well, it's not even actually his kid, is it? i dunno. see, i got into mj through weird al, though. and, i lost interest after dangerous, for obvious reasons. but, my ten-year old self was really much more interested in black or white than nirvana. we grow quickly at that age, though.
i also had a bit of a bon jovi phase, which i'll defend on the basis that they weren't as bad as their peers. if the criticism is that bon jovi were hair metal, it's actually a bit off the mark - they weren't this pompous, ridiculous, materialistic, nihilistic marketing behemoth, but rather a kind of working class band from new jersey, with a contemporary sound. they were at least as punk rock as springsteen, anyways. and, they actually had a kind of synth pop center, too, which is where i really came from - tears for fears, gabriel, genesis.
i guess that's the missing part of it, stuff my dad or uncle dubbed me. i had a cassette with a day at the races on one side and a night at the opera on the other. i had beatles tapes, genesis tapes, and an out of place dub of animals that it took me years to get into, because it wasn't what i was looking for. i was very young - 8 or 9 - when somebody at chez decided to toss on one of these days for a lark, at like 2:00 am, while i was in the car on the way back from a road trip with my step-father. i was pretty instantly intrigued. the announcer mentioned it was floyd, but didn't elaborate - it was presumably not necessary. tony, to his immense discredit, couldn't identify the track, either. there was a copy of delicate sound of thunder around, but it was missing the second side. so, i asked around for years trying to figure out what the song was. the dead uncle decided i was describing the vocal effects in sheep and dubbed me a copy of animals, which i just found a little too meandering at that age - it hit me like a grateful dead record, just not enough movement for a young mind. my dad never had a copy of meddle, either. it wasn't for years that i found it in a torrent...
"aha! there's that crazy bass part!"
anyways. i have my work for the next little while set aside. it's time to start doing it.
the first post is going to be in the "dear diary, so much has happened..." format. and, we'll go from there. i might be back into the stand by the end of the night.....
you know, i'm racking my brain for actual books that i read in grades 7 and 8 - and even 9 - and i'm not able to come up with anything. i remember being given photographed handouts and asked questions around an ability to prove very basic comprehension, or being asked to read short texts and then produce an opinion piece around it. but, i don't think anybody ever handed out books to us and told us to read them.
i went to both elementary school and high school under the rae/peterson curriculum (harris won when i was in high school, and didn't succeed in changing the curriculum until the year after i'd left), and i'm learning just now that it was kind of an experiment. i did not receive any actual marks until grade 10; my high school transcript, which i still have, simply states "completed" for grade 9. i have records of standardized testing where i scored in the 95th-99th percentile, but i don't have grades for these years.
what i remember about the report cards is that they had a long list of criteria, and you'd be evaluated on a points system, with 1 the highest and i think 6 the lowest. this was just the teacher's arbitrary, completely subjective opinion. i remember getting lots of 1s in english and math, 2s or 3s in phys ed and some pretty low marks in the "shows respect for authority" and "works well with others" categories. even my university profs would have scrawled "does not work well with others" on my report cards if given the chance, and i'm not particularly embarrassed about it - i don't work well with others, and i don't want to, either.
i'm not even sure i can pick out much of anything of shape in these years really at all. we were split into classes that taught core subjects, and then shipped into different rooms for specific topics. so, i remember having a science teacher, a french teacher, a geography teacher, a music teacher, a phys ed teacher, a home ec teacher, a history teacher and then a kind of general "grade 7 teacher" that was tasked with everything else, which i guess is math, religion and english. but, that really meant that the curriculum was focused on the peripheral subjects due to the more rigid scheduling, and that math & english were largely unstructured babysitting periods with a lot of pointless busy work. when we went to geography class, or phys ed, we were there for a short period with a defined curriculum; when we went back to the general class room, the teacher could organize it any way they wanted to, or not at all, which was often the actual reality.
so, the system put more of a priority on learning french or geography than it did on learning math or english. we did regular spelling bees in grade 8 english class. and, i don't really remember taking math in grade 7 at all. grade 9 was more structured, in the sense that there were separate math and english classes, but i still didn't get graded, and i still don't remember reading any actual books. i explicitly remember reading shakespeare, but we read it orally in the classroom. and, there's a text called the chrysalids that i can't otherwise place that i might drop into grade 9.
of course, there's some possibility that i don't remember any reading projects because i was so efficient with them. there's a few texts from later in high school that i remember putting off until the last minute and then reading through in an afternoon. there's certainly some possibility that i just devoured it so violently that it never really got digested. but, the thing is that i liked reading, so i don't know why that would have been true.
i think the truth is that i was mostly baby sat all the way to the end of grade 9, and consequently don't have a lot to report on.
if i remember something, i'll insert it, but i think the way we're going to do this is that i'll be doing independent reading over these years, instead.
i went to both elementary school and high school under the rae/peterson curriculum (harris won when i was in high school, and didn't succeed in changing the curriculum until the year after i'd left), and i'm learning just now that it was kind of an experiment. i did not receive any actual marks until grade 10; my high school transcript, which i still have, simply states "completed" for grade 9. i have records of standardized testing where i scored in the 95th-99th percentile, but i don't have grades for these years.
what i remember about the report cards is that they had a long list of criteria, and you'd be evaluated on a points system, with 1 the highest and i think 6 the lowest. this was just the teacher's arbitrary, completely subjective opinion. i remember getting lots of 1s in english and math, 2s or 3s in phys ed and some pretty low marks in the "shows respect for authority" and "works well with others" categories. even my university profs would have scrawled "does not work well with others" on my report cards if given the chance, and i'm not particularly embarrassed about it - i don't work well with others, and i don't want to, either.
i'm not even sure i can pick out much of anything of shape in these years really at all. we were split into classes that taught core subjects, and then shipped into different rooms for specific topics. so, i remember having a science teacher, a french teacher, a geography teacher, a music teacher, a phys ed teacher, a home ec teacher, a history teacher and then a kind of general "grade 7 teacher" that was tasked with everything else, which i guess is math, religion and english. but, that really meant that the curriculum was focused on the peripheral subjects due to the more rigid scheduling, and that math & english were largely unstructured babysitting periods with a lot of pointless busy work. when we went to geography class, or phys ed, we were there for a short period with a defined curriculum; when we went back to the general class room, the teacher could organize it any way they wanted to, or not at all, which was often the actual reality.
so, the system put more of a priority on learning french or geography than it did on learning math or english. we did regular spelling bees in grade 8 english class. and, i don't really remember taking math in grade 7 at all. grade 9 was more structured, in the sense that there were separate math and english classes, but i still didn't get graded, and i still don't remember reading any actual books. i explicitly remember reading shakespeare, but we read it orally in the classroom. and, there's a text called the chrysalids that i can't otherwise place that i might drop into grade 9.
of course, there's some possibility that i don't remember any reading projects because i was so efficient with them. there's a few texts from later in high school that i remember putting off until the last minute and then reading through in an afternoon. there's certainly some possibility that i just devoured it so violently that it never really got digested. but, the thing is that i liked reading, so i don't know why that would have been true.
i think the truth is that i was mostly baby sat all the way to the end of grade 9, and consequently don't have a lot to report on.
if i remember something, i'll insert it, but i think the way we're going to do this is that i'll be doing independent reading over these years, instead.
Saturday, March 2, 2019
so, i've finally reached a pivot point, and there's going to be a slight change of plans.
i have now copied every file that i can find - from laptops, external drives, usb keys, cds, dvds, etc - on to the new external drive, and organized everything by year. it's very rough, and there's a lot of overlap, but it is all in roughly the correct place. so, the next thing ought to be to restart on the rebuild, and quickly run through 2013-2016, with the intent to get back to where i was.
....except that i'm deciding that the process is incomplete, in the greater context, and want to rewind back to 1993. 1993!? yes - 1993. and, why 1993?
i started in mid-1996 for a couple of reasons. it was early 2016 when i decided to switch directions, my first demos were from the summer of 1996 and my earliest memories of internet access were from mid-1996. a lot of things added up with that. but, at the same time, i was picking up a story halfway, one that had undefined bounds. now that the bounds are better defined - the current story begins in mid-2013 when i moved to windsor, meaning the alter-reality ends in mid-2013, with an intended completion date of mid-2033 - it makes sense to pull the alter-reality back to 1993, to allow for some symmetry in the process.
that would mean the alter-reality will run from the summer of 1993 to the summer of 2013, in the end.
there's some other reasons for this. the earliest files i have are dated to 1995, but i have pictures going back to the 80s, and i wanted to find some way to work some of these things in to the story. starting in 1993 lets me do that. i also wanted to do reviews of records and books from 1993-1996, which was actually the most formative years of my life - starting over again in mid 1993 means i'm starting in the summer between grade 6 and 7, which is of course right before i went to junior high school. if we're going to do a portrait of this artist, that's a better place to start.
but, if i didn't get online until 1996, at the earliest, how am i going to have a journal from 1993?
what i'm going to do is split it off into a separate blog that will run strictly from 1993-1996. i will be sorting through some papers over the christmas break of 1996 and find an old journal and decide it would be neat to put it online. so, the mechanism is that i'll be typing in a journal that i had already written up by hand. when it's done, it will exist in a standalone file.
what that means is that i'm going to be thrusting myself back into the alter-reality almost immediately; i just need to spend another day or two organizing all of these files, first, before i get to posting to the new journal, dated to july 15, 1993. i'll push forward with this as i push forward with the rebuild, until it connects back together in early 1996.
i'm going to try and be as honest as i can as i run through this. i have the benefit of a lot of hindsight, and i'm not going to pretend i can be a 12 year-old again, but people go through a lot at that age, and i'm going to try and get down as much as i can. some of these things will no doubt surprise you. it's been so long, that i may even end up surprising myself.
i am obviously a different person today than i was then, as we all are.
but, in a lot of surface ways, not much has changed - i spent most of the summer between grades six and seven awake at odd hours, in my room reading, specifically through the stephen king catalogue, iirc. i had no friends at all over this period, as i prepared to go to a new school that none of them were going to go to. i'll have to start off with a broad statement around that. i was living with my mother during this period, which is something i haven't talked much about. i played some guitar, but was not really into alternative rock music yet - i listened to a lot of what was called "college rock" during those years, as well as a lot of pop music. there was no computer around, but i had a big tv in my room that was either tuned to muchmusic or to conan. we'll have to go through the process of moving from mom to dad in mid '94. so, that was life and how to live it, and where we're starting over again with this...
i wouldn't be doing this if i didn't think it was going to be worthwhile.
i have now copied every file that i can find - from laptops, external drives, usb keys, cds, dvds, etc - on to the new external drive, and organized everything by year. it's very rough, and there's a lot of overlap, but it is all in roughly the correct place. so, the next thing ought to be to restart on the rebuild, and quickly run through 2013-2016, with the intent to get back to where i was.
....except that i'm deciding that the process is incomplete, in the greater context, and want to rewind back to 1993. 1993!? yes - 1993. and, why 1993?
i started in mid-1996 for a couple of reasons. it was early 2016 when i decided to switch directions, my first demos were from the summer of 1996 and my earliest memories of internet access were from mid-1996. a lot of things added up with that. but, at the same time, i was picking up a story halfway, one that had undefined bounds. now that the bounds are better defined - the current story begins in mid-2013 when i moved to windsor, meaning the alter-reality ends in mid-2013, with an intended completion date of mid-2033 - it makes sense to pull the alter-reality back to 1993, to allow for some symmetry in the process.
that would mean the alter-reality will run from the summer of 1993 to the summer of 2013, in the end.
there's some other reasons for this. the earliest files i have are dated to 1995, but i have pictures going back to the 80s, and i wanted to find some way to work some of these things in to the story. starting in 1993 lets me do that. i also wanted to do reviews of records and books from 1993-1996, which was actually the most formative years of my life - starting over again in mid 1993 means i'm starting in the summer between grade 6 and 7, which is of course right before i went to junior high school. if we're going to do a portrait of this artist, that's a better place to start.
but, if i didn't get online until 1996, at the earliest, how am i going to have a journal from 1993?
what i'm going to do is split it off into a separate blog that will run strictly from 1993-1996. i will be sorting through some papers over the christmas break of 1996 and find an old journal and decide it would be neat to put it online. so, the mechanism is that i'll be typing in a journal that i had already written up by hand. when it's done, it will exist in a standalone file.
what that means is that i'm going to be thrusting myself back into the alter-reality almost immediately; i just need to spend another day or two organizing all of these files, first, before i get to posting to the new journal, dated to july 15, 1993. i'll push forward with this as i push forward with the rebuild, until it connects back together in early 1996.
i'm going to try and be as honest as i can as i run through this. i have the benefit of a lot of hindsight, and i'm not going to pretend i can be a 12 year-old again, but people go through a lot at that age, and i'm going to try and get down as much as i can. some of these things will no doubt surprise you. it's been so long, that i may even end up surprising myself.
i am obviously a different person today than i was then, as we all are.
but, in a lot of surface ways, not much has changed - i spent most of the summer between grades six and seven awake at odd hours, in my room reading, specifically through the stephen king catalogue, iirc. i had no friends at all over this period, as i prepared to go to a new school that none of them were going to go to. i'll have to start off with a broad statement around that. i was living with my mother during this period, which is something i haven't talked much about. i played some guitar, but was not really into alternative rock music yet - i listened to a lot of what was called "college rock" during those years, as well as a lot of pop music. there was no computer around, but i had a big tv in my room that was either tuned to muchmusic or to conan. we'll have to go through the process of moving from mom to dad in mid '94. so, that was life and how to live it, and where we're starting over again with this...
i wouldn't be doing this if i didn't think it was going to be worthwhile.
Monday, February 18, 2019
so, i've now got all of those boxes properly organized and put away. there's one stack of cds and one box of books left out for easy access, which is very specifically books and cds from the period up to mid-1997, which is the next period i'll be working on in the alter-reality.
the last run through the main pc (i keep calling it that, but it is now merely the 32-bit box) is now done, as well. this included a final browse through the directory structure for loose files, as well as an attempt to undelete any files sitting on the drive.
and, in the process, i found something i thought i had lost - a file called archive.pst, dated to late 2011. it was hiding in the virtual machine, and had to be brought back using a file recovery utility. this might be my missing email. or, it might be corrupted beyond readability. i'll find out over the next few days.
i found a few other large psts as well, with dcxx file names, indicating they're likely unreadable. we'll find out...
that means i'm back to the email process this week.
there's two things left to do before i can get back to sitting on the laptop and organizing files for the rebuild. i want to run the same file recovery process on my old quantum fireball, in the hopes that i can find some old thunderbird boxes. i suspect they're there; the question is if they're readable. i'm also still running an undelete process on two relatively old hard drives that don't have vista/7 drivers and can only be read from inside xp, but that i can't get my 32-bit box to read, either (because i broke the plug and play on purpose). so, this is running on the 90s laptop - and is slow. it's getting there.
a day or two, tops. i think.
i also took the opportunity to do some organizing and general cleaning. i can't remember how i described this basement apartment; i know there are neither pictures nor video up yet, which is quite conscious. but, it's organized in such a way that there are two bedroom-like enclaves (with sliding doors that are kept always open), but no dining room or eat-in kitchen (there is of course a kitchen, with the luxury of laundry in it, and a bathroom). the way i have it set up is that i'm using one of these enclaves as a bedroom and the other as a dining/living room, then using the main area as a studio. something you'll note is that the only thing i actually do in the "living" room is eat - i spend almost all of my time in my bedroom or in the studio. i guess this is a function of the fact that i neither watch tv nor have any friends. my "living room" is really the studio. i think i was over this a few times last year - the actual functions of the spaces i need are to sleep/type/read, to record and to eat. so, i need three rooms, organized in some capacity. the last basement had four rooms, with the fourth being a big eat-in kitchen, but i didn't actually use it for anything other than to store garbage; i ate in the living room. the smoky apartment had two rooms, and i consequently found it a little cramped, as i had to force everything into one space. three is a better number, here - even if the total floor space is technically somewhat smaller (it's a negligible difference).
for the last several months, i've just had everything piled into the other room, waiting for it to be cleaned - loose plastic recyclables, receipts, user manuals, books, cds, bills, documents, old school work, etc. i've finally got all of this cleaned up and organized, which has converted the area into an actual liveable space. the studio is still messy, but it is at least in order - although i need to caution that it could be a while before i get back into there. even keeping in mind that i will need to catch up in the alter-reality before i get back to working on the discography, the material from 2003-2004 is actually entirely completed (a rarity in my discography), meaning the next projects to reconstruct actually date to late 2004 and early 2005. the next major project i'm going to be actually working on is a matlab project, and is going to be about programming, rather than recording - i'm going to be writing an entire record using mathematics and physical modelling. i've got about 15 minutes to start with and a handful of loose ideas to base sounds around. expect this to be exceedingly abstract. i may even use it as an excuse to finally get into reaktor or whatever passes for it nowadays; the point is that i'm not going to be getting back to actual note-based music composition until i delve well more than a year back into the discography.
i'm still hesitant about planning around this basement, but my best option may be to wait for a spot in a subsidized building. the air quality comes up and down, but seems to be workable so long as the fan is on. i've done a few extra caulking layers and think i've reached the endpoint of what i can do with that. i still just can't figure out if there's a teenager upstairs smoking, or the air in the neighbourhood is just bad, all around...and, if i can figure out the answer to this, i'll be able to plan the future a little better.
i think i can get a few shelves, regardless - one for cds and one for books. the plan will be to fill these shelves as i work through the alter-reality. i don't need to commit to this basement long-term to spend $40-50 on some relevant general utility shelving. but, i'll need to wait until the spring before i start thinking about hauling shelves around; that's fine, it'll be a few weeks, at least, before i get there. i'm not building custom shelves like i wanted to in the other space, and am glad i didn't.
i think the primary concern once i get these files aligned is actually going to be fixing the broken laptop, one way or the other. i bought parts for it, only to have the processor finally fry. if i can't find a way to bring it back, i'm hoping i can find a cheap replacement and swap out the parts. this is an hp pavillion that was manufactured in the 2010-2012 period. you'd think i could find a replacement that can take similar parts for less than $200, and that's fine - i still have cash my grandmother gave me for that explicit purpose. the price has just come down since then. i'll be using such a laptop - with 8 gb of ram - as a video editing machine, kept offline, and connected to one of the other machines via a local network. i'll have to transfer the files to the internet gateway via some kind of flash device.
so, that's my update for the last few days - i'm kind of turning a corner on some things, and getting closer to getting back to the rebuild. so long as things unfold as planned, this will be worth it in the long run.
now, regarding these court cases...
still no response from the cops. this was day 108 of the 120-day statutory period. they're running out of time. so, i sent them a note.
i'm still waiting for the privacy commissioner, but will give them until the end of the month.
the file destruction request, on the other hand, is something i'm getting impatient about - i should have heard a response by now and will need to get on the phone shortly.
i'm waiting for the report from the cops before i decide on what to do regarding the court audio. you have to understand that i could sue this woman and win, then never see the cash, so i'm better off suing the cops under a charter breach. but, the thing is that there's no time frame on a charter case, and about a year-long time frame regarding a human rights case. so, i can wait for the cops to drag the charter case out, but i can't wait for them to drag the human rights case out.
if it starts to look like the cops are just stalling - and it's getting close to that point - then i'm going to have to move forward on the human rights case. but, if i get a good report, i might skip it.
the point is that i'm waiting for the report before i make my next move, whatever it is.
the last run through the main pc (i keep calling it that, but it is now merely the 32-bit box) is now done, as well. this included a final browse through the directory structure for loose files, as well as an attempt to undelete any files sitting on the drive.
and, in the process, i found something i thought i had lost - a file called archive.pst, dated to late 2011. it was hiding in the virtual machine, and had to be brought back using a file recovery utility. this might be my missing email. or, it might be corrupted beyond readability. i'll find out over the next few days.
i found a few other large psts as well, with dcxx file names, indicating they're likely unreadable. we'll find out...
that means i'm back to the email process this week.
there's two things left to do before i can get back to sitting on the laptop and organizing files for the rebuild. i want to run the same file recovery process on my old quantum fireball, in the hopes that i can find some old thunderbird boxes. i suspect they're there; the question is if they're readable. i'm also still running an undelete process on two relatively old hard drives that don't have vista/7 drivers and can only be read from inside xp, but that i can't get my 32-bit box to read, either (because i broke the plug and play on purpose). so, this is running on the 90s laptop - and is slow. it's getting there.
a day or two, tops. i think.
i also took the opportunity to do some organizing and general cleaning. i can't remember how i described this basement apartment; i know there are neither pictures nor video up yet, which is quite conscious. but, it's organized in such a way that there are two bedroom-like enclaves (with sliding doors that are kept always open), but no dining room or eat-in kitchen (there is of course a kitchen, with the luxury of laundry in it, and a bathroom). the way i have it set up is that i'm using one of these enclaves as a bedroom and the other as a dining/living room, then using the main area as a studio. something you'll note is that the only thing i actually do in the "living" room is eat - i spend almost all of my time in my bedroom or in the studio. i guess this is a function of the fact that i neither watch tv nor have any friends. my "living room" is really the studio. i think i was over this a few times last year - the actual functions of the spaces i need are to sleep/type/read, to record and to eat. so, i need three rooms, organized in some capacity. the last basement had four rooms, with the fourth being a big eat-in kitchen, but i didn't actually use it for anything other than to store garbage; i ate in the living room. the smoky apartment had two rooms, and i consequently found it a little cramped, as i had to force everything into one space. three is a better number, here - even if the total floor space is technically somewhat smaller (it's a negligible difference).
for the last several months, i've just had everything piled into the other room, waiting for it to be cleaned - loose plastic recyclables, receipts, user manuals, books, cds, bills, documents, old school work, etc. i've finally got all of this cleaned up and organized, which has converted the area into an actual liveable space. the studio is still messy, but it is at least in order - although i need to caution that it could be a while before i get back into there. even keeping in mind that i will need to catch up in the alter-reality before i get back to working on the discography, the material from 2003-2004 is actually entirely completed (a rarity in my discography), meaning the next projects to reconstruct actually date to late 2004 and early 2005. the next major project i'm going to be actually working on is a matlab project, and is going to be about programming, rather than recording - i'm going to be writing an entire record using mathematics and physical modelling. i've got about 15 minutes to start with and a handful of loose ideas to base sounds around. expect this to be exceedingly abstract. i may even use it as an excuse to finally get into reaktor or whatever passes for it nowadays; the point is that i'm not going to be getting back to actual note-based music composition until i delve well more than a year back into the discography.
i'm still hesitant about planning around this basement, but my best option may be to wait for a spot in a subsidized building. the air quality comes up and down, but seems to be workable so long as the fan is on. i've done a few extra caulking layers and think i've reached the endpoint of what i can do with that. i still just can't figure out if there's a teenager upstairs smoking, or the air in the neighbourhood is just bad, all around...and, if i can figure out the answer to this, i'll be able to plan the future a little better.
i think i can get a few shelves, regardless - one for cds and one for books. the plan will be to fill these shelves as i work through the alter-reality. i don't need to commit to this basement long-term to spend $40-50 on some relevant general utility shelving. but, i'll need to wait until the spring before i start thinking about hauling shelves around; that's fine, it'll be a few weeks, at least, before i get there. i'm not building custom shelves like i wanted to in the other space, and am glad i didn't.
i think the primary concern once i get these files aligned is actually going to be fixing the broken laptop, one way or the other. i bought parts for it, only to have the processor finally fry. if i can't find a way to bring it back, i'm hoping i can find a cheap replacement and swap out the parts. this is an hp pavillion that was manufactured in the 2010-2012 period. you'd think i could find a replacement that can take similar parts for less than $200, and that's fine - i still have cash my grandmother gave me for that explicit purpose. the price has just come down since then. i'll be using such a laptop - with 8 gb of ram - as a video editing machine, kept offline, and connected to one of the other machines via a local network. i'll have to transfer the files to the internet gateway via some kind of flash device.
so, that's my update for the last few days - i'm kind of turning a corner on some things, and getting closer to getting back to the rebuild. so long as things unfold as planned, this will be worth it in the long run.
now, regarding these court cases...
still no response from the cops. this was day 108 of the 120-day statutory period. they're running out of time. so, i sent them a note.
i'm still waiting for the privacy commissioner, but will give them until the end of the month.
the file destruction request, on the other hand, is something i'm getting impatient about - i should have heard a response by now and will need to get on the phone shortly.
i'm waiting for the report from the cops before i decide on what to do regarding the court audio. you have to understand that i could sue this woman and win, then never see the cash, so i'm better off suing the cops under a charter breach. but, the thing is that there's no time frame on a charter case, and about a year-long time frame regarding a human rights case. so, i can wait for the cops to drag the charter case out, but i can't wait for them to drag the human rights case out.
if it starts to look like the cops are just stalling - and it's getting close to that point - then i'm going to have to move forward on the human rights case. but, if i get a good report, i might skip it.
the point is that i'm waiting for the report before i make my next move, whatever it is.
Saturday, November 17, 2018
if you're finding that the slow progress through what is now a considerable back log of work is frustrating, perhaps you should have thought about that before you decided to waste so much of my time.
i have been crystal fucking clear that what i need to be productive in my art is a stable, drug-free environment. i do all of my work in a completely sober state. i always have. the introduction of any kind of drugs, alcohol or nicotine into my workplace environment is going to have the effect of severely retarding my productivity levels.
as it is, i have a very large backlog and it is going to take a long time to work through it.
i will not be skipping over it.
i will not be moving on.
i have been crystal fucking clear that what i need to be productive in my art is a stable, drug-free environment. i do all of my work in a completely sober state. i always have. the introduction of any kind of drugs, alcohol or nicotine into my workplace environment is going to have the effect of severely retarding my productivity levels.
as it is, i have a very large backlog and it is going to take a long time to work through it.
i will not be skipping over it.
i will not be moving on.
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