we need to look at the gai, more generally. what i'm providing is an argument in favour of guaranteed income, explicitly from an artists' perspective.
Thursday, March 25, 2021
so, don't tell me that the value of what i do is determined by how much i sell; i'll take the exact opposite position, and argue that any art that can be commodified to the point of being successful in this economy isn't worth the cost to produce it.
the only art worth bothering with in this culture is that which is permanently and inherently unmarketable.
as zappa would say, it would necessarily have "no commercial potential" to be worthwhile.
look at the type of musicians that do well in this society. how many of them are talented? like, at all, in any way?
they tend to be attractive, yes. talented? no...
now, spend some time in the underground looking for actually talented musicians, and tell me how many of them are able to survive without an alternate source of income. in case after case you'll find that they come from wealthy families and don't have to work, or they have some other job that pays the bills.
the connection between talent and income is non-existent - it's a scatter-plot, with no discernible relationship in any direction at all, except maybe a weak inverse relationship.
and, that holds for virtually every other art form, as well, with the possible exception of film, which requires massive startup costs to exist.
if everybody loves you, and you're able to make lots of money on the free market as an artist, you're not challenging the status quo very much are you?
art is impossible in a market society, because it has to be commodified to exist.
so, you'll hear people say things like "well, if people agreed with them, and liked their art, they'd be able to survive." - and they think that's an argument against the artist, rather than an argument against the market. and, to an extent they're right - it's an anti-artist position, one that is roughly in line with somebody like ayn rand and that rejects the concept of art on it's face.
artists need a way to escape the market, by definition - because if they're actually able to survive in the market without any sort of subsidies, they're not producing anything substantive.
in years past, we solved this problem by having artists seek commissions from the aristocracy. you can imagine i don't like that much, but it's at least better than telling me to go sell a product in order to survive.
i don't need or want wealth, i want enough stability to exist to create. and, we'll let the future determine the value of the product - because the market is incompetent.
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
i was posting this yesterday evening before i crashed...
this is just a reminder as to what is coming up directly, soon. if you've forgotten, or never knew. i need to set the pc back up first to review my notes and make sure everything is in order, but...
1) inri075. this was written in kelowna in 2003. it ends up as the start of the interplanetary isomorphism, but the purpose of inri075 will be to collect the sound created in mid to late 2003. this will mostly be posted as is.
2) inri076. the lost symphony. this was written over 2003 while waiting around in various disparate places - bus shelters, back alleys, wilderness escapes, apartments, etc. it will segue between reflections and the interplanetary isomorphism, finishing my eighth record. this is going to be a major recording project and will probably take much of the summer.
3) inri077. this is an ep of cassette demos recorded in sarah's bedroom. i will mostly post it as is.
4) inri078. this is a demo that is already uploaded as is.
5) inri079 needs to be checked for current data, but is otherwise my completed 7th record.
6) inri080 & inri081 are listed on my hard drive. there may be an 'inri records' compilation in there, and perhaps a second compilation, as well. or, was it something to do with impressionist jazz punk? there are some tracks from inri086 that were written in the summer of 2004, and i think i wanted to
take note of that.
7) inri082. the interplanetary isomorphism, itself, which is mostly done:
8) inri083 is listed on my hard drive. it may be the previous impressionist jazz punk disc. or it may be the cycles per second disc, but this would be mislabeled.
9) inri084 is the first cycles per second ep. this is done.:
10) this is likely inri085, and will be a serious recording project:
11) inri086. these are demos, and they're being released as is:
12) inri087 is the next symphony, xenophanes, and is mostly done:
13) inri088 will then be done,which is my 9th & 10th lps.
if i can get this done, i'll want to stop and refocus.
Thursday, March 18, 2021
so, i got some rest.
i'm supposed to be doing alter-reality right now, but i'm obviously not going to. i at least finished the thought in getting the two sites set up, but it sidetracked me and i don't want to get stuck in these recursions - i want to enforce a stricter division of labour on my time. i need to start getting back to having completed tasks in front of me.
so, i'm going to finish the thought before i close some tabs and get back to it on monday.
i will spend most of the night and morning putting final touches on cleaning.
so, what am i up to?
i crashed yesterday afternoon and was up in the evening. i fell asleep while updating this page and it ended up taking me until the morning to finish it:
i'm under cyberattack by some fascist muslims that want to launch a jihad against me for saying mean things about their idol. you know you're all going to hell for idolatry, right? so, i'm trying to reduce the number of cookies...
i actually don't think it's google, at this point. google always takes my side, and they've shown me what they do if they want to remove something. it's ordered and predictable; it's not this kind of primitive hack on my internet. this is some vigilantes that don't care about civilized law, and want to barbarically take things into their own hands. but, they're just fucking swimming in cash, remember. it's easy to get what you want when you're a millionaire...or a billionaire....
i don't know the extent of it, but i seem to have gotten the attention of some powerful zealots....
i was specifically doubling the prices of everything physical, and otherwise verifying that everything was correct with the new pricing. this is a relatively important update to do if i'm going to be uploading isos to the payhip site.
i understand that people don't really want to buy physical media anymore. i have to admit that i'd still be buying it if i wasn't broke, because i like it; i like the cd shelf. it's a mark of obscurity. and, if you have disposable income, you spend it on art...
so, what do i do, as an artist? it's not economical. i want the option available, but i understand that i'm selling torrents...
i mean, i'm not a pop star. i don't write jingles. i'm not a singer-songwriter. i'm not a sex idol pretending to be a musician. i'm kind of an old-fashioned thing at this point - i'm a musician with a large, album-oriented discography. so, it's easy to tell me to sign up for a streaming service, but it's really not the universe i live within. i mean, i'm a consumer too, and i wouldn't have the slightest interest in something like spotify - it's just a bunch of major label crap. if i'm anything, i'm an independent artist. but the technology is crowding me out because the fuckers have monopolized the means of production.
but, i'm more pissed off about the market. frankly, as hard as it is to sell things on the internet, it's even harder to sell them in real life. i'd be nowhere at all without a website. but, consumers expect everything to be free, nowadays, and i'm guilty of that, too.
so, i'm not selling singles to tweens. i'm not trying to go viral on youtube (although i was at one point, and think i did a few times - it didn't translate to much). and, i'd like to sell you a cd, but nobody's buying. that's not my universe, it's not my market, it's not the world i live and breathe in.
what people in my universe want is full discography torrents. they want to download twenty records at a time. and, i've done that - i did it with cardiacs in the 00s, i did it with swans in the 90s. these were artists before my time that i was happy to find and benefited dramatically from finding. and, that is my audience - people looking for music that exists beyond the image, that is real and interesting to listen to. it's a small potential audience, but if you click into it...
i've got the dvds for sale, but kids nowadays don't even have optical drives.
this is why i'm setting up the payhip site - i'm trying to give the people, my people, my audience, what they actually want.
in the process, i created a sequence of physical companions to the existing dvd sequence with the intent of building a one click option to purchase all cds:
unfortunately, bandcamp wouldn't allow for a price that high. so, we got what exists, instead.
and, that was my night - not what i planned, but a little progress.
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
so, i've set up a payhip site:
that site will be digital downloads only - and will house isos for data cds, dvds and bds, which i can't upload to bandcamp, unfortunately. so, the payhip site will be comprehensive. but, the bandcamp site is still central.
i'm also doubling the price of all physical items at the bandcamp site.
nobody wants to buy a physical cd anymore - i get it. i don't want to, either. so, i'm making a cd here and there, and i've been losing money in the process. i don't want to eliminate the option, but the economics are what they are, and the cost of manufacturing cds on demand like this is pretty high, nowadays. it's just what it is.
the cost of the downloads will stay the same.
so, i'm going to upload one item to payhip every day, as i post it here, until it's filled up. i should have inri000, inri001 and inri002 up soon.
Monday, March 15, 2021
so, the place is almost as clean as it was when i brought those shelves in last week. almost.
the 16-bit pc has been placed in the space on a bookend table, beside one of the speakers. the kvm is sitting on top of it, and i'll need to connect it the next time i turn it on. it's a shame it takes power, but whatever.
i've moved the 32-bit pc back where it was, which is close to but not in it's resting spot. i need to rebuild it, first - and i'm currently rebuilding it temporarily.
one of the two bookshelves had a back, but the nails were mostly missing. i ran around the back with some finishing nails. while you can see crumbly particleboard if you look, it's almost as good as new - i just need to screw the wobbly top piece back in place by rescrewing it beside the old broken screw. so, yeah - you'll be able to tell if you look at it. but, who cares? it's been scrubbed down, and it's otherwise ready to put some books and cds on it....as soon as it gets some shelves.
i finally took apart that old chest thing that i had converted into a headboard, and has since just flat out broken. by my account, i should get roughly 6 shelves out of it, and could potentially get a few other things out of it. these walls are full of pre-existing holes. it'll make it easy to screw a couple of pieces of wood in as loose shelves, and i might need it.
the table is in kitchener, apparently. that's about a three hour drive. so, i'll need to set the two tables up when it gets here, and then have space to set things back up on that side of the apartment, as well.
for now, i'm going to eat....
and, then we're back to this, hopefully quickly - the last update was actually not february but back on january 30th:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vdvEPJ8NtNUbuPItFour9gJdFa4Yy0gE/view?usp=sharing
so, that was absolutely the right install disc - it picked up the drivers and even installed the old software i remembered. perfect.
i was able to get the network card installed by pointing it to the e:\win98 directory when it asked - simple but not obvious.
there was a root usb hub that wouldn't install, and i think i just went over the max number of installable hubs. it hardly matters, because windows 98 can't pick up flash drives, pretty much at all.
but, the partition is essentially perfectly installed at this point - i just need recording software. and, what i'll be using is cool edit as the crux.
i'll get back to it in a few days. for now, i want to clean a little in here before it gets to 7:00 and then shift to the diet writeup, as i left it off last month. that's my task this week - to get as much of that done as i can. and, it's an easier process.
that will let me finish the posts i left off with.
in order to restart in 2013 and move forwards, i need to get the recording pc running again. for now. what i need is some way to boot into a functional windows xp....the version on the 9x machine won't be it.
in order to do that, i had to setup the xp machine first.
and, i still have tons of cleaning to do, too. the table should be here today,....
i'm going to want to compile some extra exe files for specific sound applications that only run on this platform and in the end burn everything to a single dvd for backup, but once i get the video card installed i'm going to put this way until next friday because i'm serious about splitting my time up and sticking to it and i need to shift back to finishing up the food blog before i can get back to 2013.
put another way, i have a series of half-written posts and need to finish them before i move on.
Sunday, March 14, 2021
this thing has an ati all in wonder in it, which was a high end video card at the time. i can plug a cable line directly into it, and used to use it to watch tv sometimes. i hardly want to pay for cable in 2021, but i could conceivably do that if i really wanted to.
the 98 disc doesn't have the drivers, but the xp disc does.
let me try that, maybe it's that easy.
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