"Art"

Unrealistic and random... but not too random! And depending on the medium can't be too unrealistic either...

Simply pretending....

Waiting for Arturia's MinimoogV... Got a condenser mic. Maybe it's enough of an improvement to really begin... maybe.

Not good enough though. Will continue to experiment.



My music is really vocally driven which sucks considering the voice I'm stuck with.

For plugins I actually spent money on: Pentagon is good. ($125) Nice drums. Waldorf Attack seems pretty unimpressive... the Waldorf bundle seems awful ($85). VNV nation used Attack though... not that I've ever heard them. (retarded smiley here).

This is nice:
http://ann.sounds.free.fr/

I have the money to buy a bunch of hardware and stuff. But the socialist in me wants to see true equality. I want everyone to be able to write music and as such I want to get this Done as cheap as possible. The need for a computer can't be helped... Did I need East West Silver ($200)? Squidfont Orchestra (free) has a nice sound but just doesn't do enough. Arturia Minimoog is the most expensive thing I've bought at $280. :( Just sounded too good. (waiting to receive it in the mail). It really inspired me. By 'inspired' I mean the sounds hit my synethesia; they sounded like they were alive. IOW they sounded like they came from creatures actually living. They inspired me quite a bit more than all others. They say it's "warm" or "fat". As opposed to tinny, there's a fullness. Which is again like it's coming from something alive. And it reminded me of Skinny Puppy stuff.

So I've spent over $600 dollars on plugins that I think were probably actually worth it. Oh well. A few more years and if we all still have electricity to run computers maybe it will be all free.

I suspect though even now I could have managed it. SFZ (free sampler)... Oatmeal (free), Crystal (free), Synth1 (free), Helix (free), actually getting good at making sounds instead of just tweaking presets...

I have to completely not promote my music for a few years (while I write 50, 60 more songs). Otherwise perfectly good music is feeling like failure just because the chittering monkeys aren't impressed.

To write stories

So I must finish the majority of songs that I start. Even though they may not be all that special. I must finish them, lest failure takes over, and in general just get bored with any given song.

Eventually I hope to write stories and I guess the same idea will have to hold. It will have to hold even more so because otherwise I could just become paralyzed with the endless potential directions I could go in and the understanding that no matter what, I'm doing something less than perfection. But then the problem is that it's a lot worse to write bad stories than it is to write... "bad" music. I can write this so so music and still get enjoyment out of it. It can just be in the background; revisited on rare occasions. The stories have to be somewhat better. They can't be so random; full of nonessential stuff.

With my music it's not true that it's 100% selfish. It's not so black and white. But it is at least 90% just for me. To be 100% just for me would be too depressing. (A world of perfect isolation where creativity really has no value.) With writing it simply has to potentially be a lot more for other people.

It has to be pretty decent quality, yet I have to have the same mindset of finishing the majority of started stories.

So, this here, is something to try to help that; something to stop it from becoming just random and useless. But this has barely begun I think.

So I recorded that song I mentioned in the last post yesterday in about 20 minutes.

From one POV it sounds like crap. It's just straight up me playing the midi notes on a keyboard. Not playing very well. Especially my left hand. But the song sat in my head for 20 years. So what the hell, record the damm thing. Put it somewhere to sit, try to pretend there's magic. I don't feel any at the moment though.

Even played well Kundera would call it kitsch I think. Which is that so bad..? Don't know.

The good person tries being good to a group of monkey demons. This idealist, his mind full of good thoughts, reaches out with charity and good will and is taught not to act that way, his attempt at good met with derision, contempt, etc, if not much worse. This most generalized idea is implanted in my head and when real life events resemble it in one way or another it strikes a chord with me.

The beginner of Toxic Avenger was horrible but in such a fascinating way.
That character in the holy grail, the wimpy one who keeps trying to go off into song.
A song completed in my head which I'll record later today...

The way Mary
http://www.veganfitness.net/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=21
was treated on the veganfitness discussion board; ignored by the owner and his yes men for a few thousand posts then banned when she finally got angry, ultimately because she is the good person; not completely conformed to this sick society except for being vegan as is the case with that typical group. Even more so than usual as I suspect it's a part of the spirit of activism. IOW, see how perfectly normal we are? Veganism isn't extreme, we're perfectly, utterly normal. Fake smiles to the bone.

A story I kept trying to write about; a D&D setting/medieval setting; a boy in a village who thanks to not being properly assimilated to the high school zoo way; not being "tough/cold"; ... instead acting in a manner which if everyone followed would make this world a much better place, is attacked/treated in a horrible manner+with embarrassment, like in the Toxic Avenger.

He goes to that place where people never go as a result and... it's an old story.

A few are physically pushed in a battle there in a 100 year old story (The Hollow Land). In mine he goes there partly because he doesn't care... yet unlike to the typical drug user mentality which doesn't care for their life and goes there and dies a grisly death, it turns out his life matter to him A LOT. To the point that he will continue to exist no matter the circumstances, no matter what a monstrosity he turns into. No matter how far he goes beyond the point where life makes any sense............

Did Tesla destroy Tunguska?

I like writing music from an intellectual POV. Anyone can make a 20 second piece of music. What is interesting is finding a way to develop that into a "song". I had a period where I started worrying about not inundating the internet with more badly produced crap that no one will listen to anyway and thus I started making little bits that I quit bothering to try to finish. This became failure, again and again. And it took away the fun, the intellectual challenge (like Sudoku) of writing music. Also sitting on a song much longer to make it better... you get so sick of hearing the song... really takes away the enjoyment.

It's a matter of being selfish; just doing this for myself versus worrying about pleasing others. It's really dumb to worry about pleasing others anyway considering the state of music. And it's no fun in general.

Music

Every instrument within music represents a living creature. Every progression of notes represents the expression of some sort of feeling on the part of that creature. As these different creatures express their different feelings within a coherent interaction with one another, the listener gets a momentary wisdom which in effect is the ability to understand multiple different viewpoints simultaneously.

The thing is, virtually none of these instruments represent creatures that actually live in the real world. They represent magical creatures not of this world. They don't actually exist but to really enjoy the music you must pretend otherwise; you must act in an illogical way. You must be somewhat mystical and to the extent you can enjoy music you are a mystical person. When you like it so much you start writing your own, you're an especially mystical person. If you write a song repudiating mysticism, well that's kind of funny. Of course it's just art. I'd write a song myself screaming against god if I had the voice, even despite not actually really holding that opinion. But it's damm fine art.

It is funny these people who consider it only real music if synths haven't been used. An actual string vibrating is really only representing a mystical creature exactly the same as any synth vibration. It comes down to people complaining about seeing a zipper on a old Dr. Who monster. It comes down to a lack of imagination.

Anyway this mysticism within music is ultimately the same thing as believing in flying sky fairies and invisible pink unicorns. Although it's probably a lot less harmful than believing in any organized religion.

Sorry Kafka

I think this Kafka book--the trial--is probably not very special at all. Haphazard symbols thrown together as in dreams. I was thinking it's silly for me to bother trying to find meaning in it. Of course some think dreams have great meaning. I don't really think so. Occasionally though I do pretend.

One can make a huge amount of meaning out of tea leaves. One can make a huge amount of meaning out of Kafka's The Trial. One can make a huge amount of meaning out of the movie The Unbearable Lightness of Being. In truth it's a total crap movie; some high brow sex and anti-communism to ensure the funding to make it during the Reagen era.

Kundera was appalled. As a result of this movie, that had not really much of anything to do with his (rather subpar) book, he refused to ever allow any adaptation of anything he created ever again.

Still, it's perfectly valid to find worthwhile meanings in it. Same with Kafka's The Trial, which I suspect I'm giving much more attention than it deserves. Kafka said he only actually wrote three stories that were worth bothering. I don't remember if The Trial was one of them. I remember one was The Hunger Artist. Which I did like, but just for being so strange.

So what the hell I'll look at Kafka's tea leaves some more. It's completely inferior to say Flaubert, but strangely more interesting.

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I love that James Bond movie where they're at the top of the (I think) Golden gate bridge and the bad guy loses his grip and as he's about to fall, starts laughing.

I find someone online who seems a really good person. I try to have an intelligent conversation with the person. I dare to give a nuanced political view of Cuba and the witchhunt begins.
I've seen it so many times before that I just find myself humming this:



I spent a week at a hospital for the truly too far gone (not as a patient). I talked for many hours to a manic-depressive who had a jacket with the name 'Gitler' written on it with masking tape. He was flying high, having a ball, going on about those wonderful nazis, etc. Very annoying to talk to as he was basically doing what I described above every 30 seconds or so. But then he came on back to reality one day and oh my is he better off elsewhere.

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Although I say I don't believe in dreams, it's comical of me to say that. Because at times I've really loved to believe that the songs I made up in my sleep came from other worlds that really exist. For that matter while awake I've managed just a tiny bit to write music that I liked to think that of.... Although I find it really really hard at times to hold on to that "faith".

I love this song in that respect:

It's a song screaming there's no god while it's overflowing with mysticism itself. The singer might as well be standing on a mountain top screaming right at a huge god looming over him. It seems to me a perfect example of Logic butting it's head hard against Mysticism/Creativity/some other thing?.

Milan Kundera is comically obsessed with being misunderstood. He will not allow interviews unless they are by writing and he can dictate exactly what is included. Which is ridiculous.

It is not possible to do what he is doing and not be misunderstood. For that matter, it is not possible to write this little blog and (assuming anyone were reading) not be misunderstood. It's refreshing to for once not worry about such things; not let such things slow me down or distract me.

On the one hand this stuff here reduces human experience to something very cold and dead and I could logically speaking call myself an atheist. On the other I wrote over 40 songs last year and have so much mysticism in me it can get dangerous.

To breathe is to be misunderstood. I'd be shocked if I ever wasn't.

Kafka's The Trial

On entering he almost stumbled, for behind the door was an extra step. "They don't show much consideration for the public," he said. "They show no consideration of any kind," replied the usher. "Just look at this waiting room," It was a long passage, a lobby communicating by ill-fitting doors with the different offices on the floor. Although there was no window to admit light, it was not entirely dark, for some of the offices were not properly boarded off from the passage but had an open frontage of wooden rails, reaching, however, to the roof, through which a little light penetrated and through which one could see a few officials as well, some writing at their desks, and some standing close to the rails peering through the interstices at the people in the lobby. There were only a few people in the lobby, probably because it was Sunday. They made a very modest showing. At almost regular intervals they were sitting singly along a row of wooden benches fixed to either side of the passage. All of them were carelessly dressed, though to judge from the expression of their faces, their bearing, the cut of their beards, and many almost imperceptible little details, they obviously belonged to the upper classes. As there was no hat-rack in the passage, they had placed their hats under the benches, in this probably following each other's example. When those who were sitting nearest the door caught sight of K. and the usher , they rose politely, followed in turn by their neighbors, who also seemed to think it necessary to rise, so that everyone stood as the two men passed. They did not stand quite erect, their backs remained bowed, their knees bent, they stood like street beggars. K. waited for the usher, who kept slightly behind him, and said: "How humbled they must be!" "Yes," said the usher, "these are the accused men, all of them are defendants." "Indeed!" said K. "Then they're colleagues of mine." And he turned to the nearest, a tall, slender, almost gray-haired man. "What are you waiting here for?" asked K. courteously. But this unexpected question confused the man, which was the more deeply embarrassing as he was obviously a man of the world who would have known how to comport himself anywhere else and would not lightly have renounced his natural superioritiy. Yet in this place he did not know even how to reply to a simple question and gazed at the others as if it were their duty to help him, as if no one could expect him to answer should help not be forthcoming. Then the usher stepped up and said, to reassure the man and encourage him: "This gentleman merely asked what you are waiting for. Come, give him an answer." The familar voice of the usher had its effect: "I'm waiting---" the man started to say, but could get out no more. He had obviously begun by intending to make an exact reply to the question, but did not know how to go on. Some of the other clients had drifted up and now clustered round, and the usher said to them: "Off with you, keep the passage clear." They drew back a little , but not to their former places. Meanwhile the man had collected himself and actually replied with a faint smile: "A month ago I handed in several affidavits concerning my case and I am waiting for the result." "You seem to put yourself to a great deal of trouble," said K. "Yes," said the man, "for it is my case." "Everyone doesn't think as you do," said K. "For example, I am under arrest too, but as sure as i stand here I have neither put in any affidavit nor attempted anything whatever of the kind. Do you consider such things necessary, then?" "I can't exactly say," replied the man, once more deprived of all assurance; he evidently thought that K. was making fun of him, appeared to be on the point of repeating his first answer all over again for fear of making a new mistake, but unde K.'s impatient eye he merely said: "Anyhow, I have handed in my affidavits." "Perhaps you don't believe that I'm under arrest?" asked K. "Oh, yes, certainly," said the man, stepping somewhat aside, but there was no belief in his answer, merely apprehension. "So you don't really believe me?" asked K. and, provoked without knowing it by the man's humility, he seized him by the arm as if to compel him to believe. He had no wish to hurt him, and besides had grasped him quite loosely, yet the man cried out as if K. had gripped him him with glowing pincers instead of with two fingers. That ridiculous outcry was too much for K.; if the man would not believe that he was unde arrest, so much the better; perhaps he actually took him for a Judge. As a parting gesture he gripped the man with real force, flung him back on the bench, and went on his way.

These people being arrested including K. are all relatively well off. This would suggest some kind of class war; communists arresting the rich; and on no real charges as no one including K. has any idea what they've actually done.

But it's not some powerful establishment doing the arresting.

The Examining Magistrate surely could not be sitting waiting in a garret. The little wooden stairway did not reveal anthing, no matter how long one regarded it. But K. noticed a small card pinned up beside it, and crossing over he read in childish, unpracticed handwriting: "Law Court Offices upstairs," So the Law Court offices were up in the attics of this tenement? That was not an arrangement likely to inspire much respect, andfor an accused man it was reassuring to reckon how little money this Court could have at its disposal when it housed its offices in a part of the building where the tenants, who themselves belonged to the poorest of the poor, flung their useless lumber.

And it's shown over and over again that K. practically goes out of his way to take part despite the complete and utter lack of force directed against him. He shows up this Sunday despite not being asked for at all and isn't even wanted that weekend. (This after walking out the week before refusing to take part.)

What is it actually that is persecuting K. and these other people? Is it just themselves? Is this pretty tame shadow organization just something they've vaguely put together in the back of there minds... constantly accusing them of... what? Just constantly persecuting them in general?

Considering his other work Kafka may have meant more than that. I don't know.

I hate to say it... but it looks a lot like Kafka is saying it's the poor persecuting the rich for no justifiable reason. And that furthermore these poor are kind of idiotic. And that furthermore, oh those rich people, wonderful souls that they are, are even helping and persecuting themselves possibly... willingly going along with the show when they need not do so.

Hope that isn't what he's saying.

I know who the monster is!

The two fundamental problems of this world are indifference to suffering and the misperception of indifference to suffering.

This video (or at least the original Twilight Zone episode) is an example of how little it takes to ruin things through the latter.

How much of this hell is a result of the former as opposed to the latter?