Flavigula

Yesterday, I reached an impasse with the Think Like A Mink programming project. I hit a wall with ember.js and was either too frustrated or too lethargic to deal with it. In the past, especially in a employment environment, such frustrations have led to stress. I am further carried upon the stream to unproductive agitation when this occurs. I have found that stepping back from a project for even a few days is the best solution. I shall do that now.

Of course, when pondering this topic, Stonecrop and Steve come to mind. I’m all for planning and creativity, but Steve took it to an extreme. I believe others had the same problem I did with his methodology. As far as I know, he carries on this very day with the same hovno.

Research and design can only come so far. Perpetual research and design is ultimately distructive to productivity. If the end goal is to vomit out ideas but never implement them, I’d not be typing this on this very fine piece of word processing software called Vim. The denizens of Stonecrop, however, could not stop. Thus - the product was sloppy, irresponsive and ultimately a lumbering hunk of machinery without any aesthetic form.

When Jeremy and I decided to do something about the hack process, we were shot down over and over again by the quick and dirty attitude that pervaded the company (I laughingly call it that). Idealists to the marrow, we soldiered on and created the basis for a product that could flexibly expand to greatness. Fruition did not happen. The Mountain Weasel is dormant. I suspect she is only hibernating.

Think Like A Mink is wholly different. I am just stepping back for a day or two. My first goal when stepping forward again will be to deal with these few issues:

• Ember Data Store and its Promise mechanism.
• Pluralization rules gone awry (User model).
• Returning the current user via authorization key.
• Breeding Palm Civets in a fossilized Ground Sloth’s bladder.

Since Think Like A Mink is on hold for today, I shall carry on with the Flavigula musical project. The next piece will not follow directly from The Fen and Hela…, but will contain vocals. Yes, I must convince Christián to sing it.

If this will be the case, there is the consideration of lyrics. After reading the liner notes to Le Poison Qui Rend Fou two days ago, I’m going to go with Roger Trigaux’s premise that any sufficiently meaningful lyrics will take away from the composition itself. They will readjust the focus to something that is not my intention. So, whether I create the words or I just hand that job over to Christián (him willing, samozřejmě), their nature is to be whimsical.

I only have a vague notion of how the piece will run. As with every piece of music I have ever created, its shape will contort into something previously unimagined during the composition process. Another element I need to pay more attention to is the actual timbral variety and mixing. I am decidedly sloppy at especially the latter. Improvement is needed or punishment involving cysts on my uvula. Perhaps I can have my pyloric sphyncter bifurcated. Humans are in need of another path of excretion. I’ll lead the way into a new age of hominid morphology.

Having listened many times to Richard Pinhas’s new album Desolation Row, I shall opt for a moog-like sequence percolating behind what will most probably come to be chord sequences. I may toy with creating a melody over no chord sequence, but am unsure how that would turn out. Linear counterpoint is fun, but not really in the spirit of these Flavigula sessions.

What is that spirit?

It is the spirit of aleatoric composition.

As most humans have, I also have boxes full of hovno in various places. Well, I’d suspect that most humans don’t have their boxes of hovno in various places, but rather in one place. As we are taught to accumulate from a very young age, most humans I know are various degrees of packrat. I’ve tried to shed the tendency, but cannot fully.

I have boxes of hovno in Seminole, Praha and München. Those in München are most likely forever lost, however. Qué lastima. Two handwritten journals were in that stash. The contents of the boxes here in Seminole were distributed between dilapidated containers originally used to mail them from various places. Ok - from just two places: London and Tallinn. I went through the hovno, scouring my hands thoroughly afterwards, of course, a few days ago. I found a few nostalgic items. Most I just repacked. The rest I left in plain view so I wouldn’t forget to allow their inclusion here.

In 2010, I lived in London. I rented a room from a large house wherein lived seven or so other humans. I suspect other animals lived there, as well, including spiders, wasps, and squirrels. In fact, a particular squirrel used to visit me through my open bedroom (I laughingly say bedroom where actually the whole room encompassed everything - bedroom / living space / office / kitchen / vomitorium). I lived here. That cretin Christián even visited me once. Miracles do happen (said the gleeful executioner).

One evening, most likely in early August, Wayne and I sat in my room after fetching a horde of pivo from probably Sainsbury, just down the road. By down I actually mean down the hill since Telegraph Hill Park (the park nearest the point on the map indicated) is at the top of a hill (hence the name). Most every day, I had to walk down and back up that God-Rotted thing. Were I the deity that some lowly humans make me out to be, I’d have sand-blasted the whole of it.

Anyhow, most likely in early August, Wayne and I sat in my room after fetching a horde of pivo from probably Sainsbury. Sainsbury was (and most likely still is) the local supermarket. I shopped there often. I purchased litres and litres of alcohol there. I gave up rational comforts to do so. I splurged.

During my stint in London, I also shopped at two smaller potraviny up towards the park a bit and to the left. They were run by Indian folk who were always bemused at my purchases that usually consisted of microwave heatable Indian lunches, various greasy snacks, and a bottle of vodka.

Anyhow, most likely in early August, Wayne and I sat in a room after fetching a horde of pivo from probably Sainsbury. Wayne was also an avid pot smoker. I wouldn’t call myself an avid pot smoker, but I have been known to indulge.

As on many occasions, in my state of consciousness, I elected to write haikus and also insist that my companion join me in the process. I had recently returned from Cornwall with a sheaf of postcards. I intended these postcards for others. The haikus were to be messages sent thousands of kilometres to unsuspecting victims to riddle their minds with a confustion concerning the state of existence, a frustration regarding the fabric of their lives, and a judicious joy of the absurd. Unfortunately, they remained unmailed.

I am not sure when I stopped my absurd practise of sending bizarre postcards to friends and acquaintences. I suspect early to mid 2000s. I remember John Feldmann telling me about his grandmother’s reactions to oddities I sent him from various locales. He used to live atop his grandmother’s flat in Queens. That place knew many throbbing weirdnesses involving myself, John, Christopher, Loyal, Nataša and others. I’m quite sure many postcards could have been regarded as messages from a mentally dysfunctional miscreant. In truth, they probably were.

Anyhow, most likely in early August, Wayne and I were drinking pivo and smoking spliffs in my room in the house called Cranbrook near Telegraph Hill Park in New Cross Gate, London.

I miss that guy.

The remnants of my time in London are many incomplete recordings. The Fen was one. I’ll try to translate the remainder into coherent wholes during the next weeks. Perhaps I can even finish the sequence that can be the first Flavigula album.

I still think of music in chunks known as albums.

As in most places I have lived alone, my time alone was the most poignant. I recall episodes with Wayne and with that cretin Christián at the Cranbrook house, but mostly I was alone. I wrote, I drew, I composed, I read, and I drank there. I even made sandwiches on occasion. Pretty good sandwiches, I might add.

Alone time is creative time. When I press inwards, it becomes harder and harder to probe when my mental tentacles close in on the centre. Therefore, I’ll never completely know the whole of my being. Well, perhaps whole is a bad term there. I’ll never know the fundamental of my being. That dark singularity is unreachable. My tentacles never pass the event horizon. Instead of being sucked in or absorbed, they are repelled. My core is repellent! Imagine that.

Imagine that.

Alone time is creative time. I try to press inwards and I only reach a certain point. From there I can dig no deeper. So I dredge from that point and lift up what some call inspiration or substance from naught. It probably spurts up erratically from the fundamental and refuses to be dragged back to oblivion. Instead, I use those molten chunks to form a melody, a fragment of prose, or a drinking binge. It’s a dice roll to choose which.

• 1 or 6: melody
• 2 or 5: fragment of prose
• 3 or 4: drinking binge

Equal odds.

I’ve always enjoyed the haiku form because it forces one to crush a complex idea into a formal shape. Each word must contain a broad scope of feeling. Or, simplicity can result in vague feelings of natural phenomena. Or, you can just write stoner hovno.

Regardless … I miss that guy.