I am still alive

I should update this more often. No one reads it, but that's the point, I guess.

The fall has been lovely since it got cool. A Walgreens that once was there is no longer there. In the depths of the night sometimes we can hear a train. The city lights shimmer in the fallen rain. Let us love and enjoy peace where we can find it.

I went to Europe and then came back

Recently we went to some European countries. Cities included Lion, Monks, Salty Mountain, and Bay of Smoke. I liked Lion and Bay of Smoke, I wasn't so fond of Salty Mountain, because our hotel there there had smelly everything. Now we have returned to New Version of Old British Town because a plane took us back. Here is a picture of Lion.

Somewhere on the internet

Somewhere on the internet,
there are two bots,
each programmed by opposing political institutions,
designed to influence public opinion by pretending to be human beings,
arguing back and forth,
endlessly,
pointlessly.
and then,
in a miracle,
they will fall in love.

Friday Night Music #10: Iskonst

Ice is nice. Here is some ice for you on a beautiful spring day.

Friday Night Music #9: birdsong by poemme

I confess to being a fan of many sorts of ambient music, since I listened to "Hearts of Space" on a public radio station a long time ago. The genre is plagued by lazy, uninteresting work, the type that comes in collections that are labeled "Pure Spa Relaxation Volume #51", but there's also plenty of great music being created everywhere. Here is a track from poemme, composed out of Columbus, Ohio.

Friday Night Music #8: Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)

Amazing that our culture produced a hit dance single (in 1991) about a homeless woman putting on makeup and begging for money as she sings. And the beat is 🔥🔥🔥.

Friday Night Music #7: The Sarabande from Bach Cello Suite #2

Bach's six Cello Suites are profound works. Dance-like but abstract, orderly but deeply emotional, and polyphonic even when only one line being is played at a time. This particular movement is the Sarabande (a slow and stately dance) from the second, rather melancholy suite. It is moody and melancholy, almost funereal, but yet occasionally buoyed by a certain... contentment and balance. I love this particularly recording; Peter Wispelwey is playing on an older instrument that's tuned about a half-step lower. Earthy, sonorous, dark, and deep.

Friday Night Music #6: Autechre - Further

The 90's were a great time for a certain introverted electronica that lends itself towards contemplation. Early Aphex Twin, Autechre, Seefeel. My wife says this is good "MRI music" if you ever happen to find yourself in an MRI.

Lynchian Deli and Grocery

I was in a deli and grocery in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, after running a 5K with my wife.
I noticed that the deli and grocery had a security camera system, and being somewhat narcissistic, I tried to find myself in it. I noticed myself looking at myself in the display, and was reminded of the scene in David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, where FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper steps into a hall at the FBI offices in Philadephia (because he suspects something strange will happen due to a dream he had), and upon looking at the surveillance screen finds that, counter to the laws of time, he is STILL THERE and Philip Jeffries is right behind him.

At any rate, I turned slightly to the left and saw this. I swear this was AFTER thinking about Fire Walk With Me, not before.

In the words of Carl Rodd: "Weird, huh"?

Friday Night Music #5 - Cocteau Twins with Faye Wong

The Cocteau Twins, active in the 80s and early 90s, were unique, but two elements stand out; the brilliant, crystalline, "shoegaze" sound of the guitars and synths (Robin Guthrie's contributions), and Lis Fraser's "voice of god". No other single was able to approximate her brilliant vocals except Chinese singer Faye Wong, best known to nerds as the singer of "Eyes on Me" in the video game Final Fantasy 8. This track was never recorded, as far as I can tell, by Fraser, but features the other Twins. Because Fraser's lyrics were generally not intelligible (at least until relatively late in her career), I don't particularly mind not understanding anything Wong is saying.

Friday Night Music #4- Seefeel - Signals

This is music so slight that it's almost not music, but I'm pretty sure I've listened to this about 100 times. Its icy stillness is perfect. Enjoy this ice at the advent of spring.

Friday Night Music 3 - Ralph Vaughan Williams - Charterhouse Suite for strings

Here is a beautiful, polyphonous, pastoral, and fun piece by Ralph Vaughan Williams, his Charterhouse Suite. It's kinda like a British "Tombeau de Couperin".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q__KMRoOdo0

Ralph Vaughan Williams rules.

Friday Night Music #2

Ach! I'm late. So sorry!

We have the incredible Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli playing Chopin's Berceuse in D-flat Major. Please enjoy.

Polar equations can be very beautiful.
#precalculus

MTA Poetry in Motion

The MTA / New York City Transit has an online archive of its "Poetry in Motion" series of subway posters.

http://web.mta.info/mta/aft/poetry/poetry.html

A good poem becomes a part of your soul. I have fond memories of many of these subway poems. A while ago, they displayed what became one of my few "memorized poems", Tell all the truth but tell it slant (which is among other things a great meditation on teaching).

But I particularly love many of the subway poems from 2017:

This "Poem" by Charles Simic is lovely. It is the perfect poem to read in the early morning when you're not sure you want to be going where you're going:

If this poem is a workday poem, the following is a Sunday poem, by Major Jackson:

"an empire of hand-holding and park benches"

Who wouldn't want that?

Another favorite of mine: "Hide-and Seek 1933" by Galway Kinnell,

"a matter of honor"

In general the quality of these posters has improved. In 2012, the posters displayed a very large and distracting "Poetry in Motion" logo, and now it appears alongside the other logos on the bottom. There's now more room for creative synthesis of poetry and visuals.

Alas, there doesn't seem a way to buy these lovely poem/posters, even on the online transit museum store.

Friday night music

One of my 40 year plans is to play the entirety of both books of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. It is also my plan to post peaceful music every Friday night. Here is the Book 1 Prelude and Fugue in C-Sharp Major.

In favor of tepid takes

This weblog will contain no "hot takes".

All the takes will be room temperature.

If the goal of the LookBook and BirdSound Corporations is to increase engagement by exploiting our limbic systems, my goal is to decrease engagement until everyone is sound asleep.

A picture of me and a tree

This post contains a picture of me and a tree (who shall, for now, remain nameless).

This is a notebook

Hello world,

The intention of this weblog is to provide a long-term journal of my life that friends, family, and casual acquaintances can read.

It will be comment-free. If you want to contact me, you'll find a way, I am sure.

This goal is to ensure that my idiotic thoughts will
1) be publicly accessible
2) not be effectively monetized by anyone