Chlöe Herington’s new album pulses from the Fairphone. Yeah - I know I should be more audiophile oriented, but it is early morning in the universe and all my senses are so blunt that you could easily bash a Mennonite’s skull in with them. Not that I have anything particularly against Mennonites. I just chose the word because it was the first thing that came to mind and because Seminole is full of them. Most likely, a good number of people, arbitrarily chosen, would find me crass, insensitive and possibly even offensive for writing such a thing.

I’ll repeat that I don’t have anything against Mennonites. Or, more specifically, against any particular Mennonite. I do have issues with ideologies and cultures that have traditions that repress education, encouraging a swath of its adherents (read: all in the case of Mennonites in Seminole) to not partake in schooling and to instead get themselves out to the farm or workshop if they are males and to instead get themselves out to childbearing if they are females.

Anyone who reads my blog or has been around me for any miniscule flotilla of time knows that I have a very dark sense of humour. Basically, nothing is out of bounds - even Christian’s delicate little female sobrina, who will not escape from the harem I am gathering eight years hence. Again, some may find me crass, insensitive and possibly even offensive. Truthfully, the idea of political correctness has always made me physically ill. It’s a form of superficial judgement that allows one to pass over others from impressions. It precludes actually understanding someone else’s motivation, beliefs and quirks. It is effectively an instant eidolon creation device. And whilst the person represented by said eidolon may be profound and multi-faceted, the representation is a pastel facade.

There is a current plague that infects communication methods on the internet. The infected have extreme reactions to anything they don’t find politically correct. They negate their ability to understand fundamentally intriguing swaths of humanity. For most, it’s simply their problem. I can ignore their surface judgements. There exist, however, the infected that have much to offer intellectually and / or artistically. I don’t have a solution. Fuck um.

I strolled through Pagan Park this morning. In fact, I just arrived. I sat on a PINK several times and wrote with Nextcloud Notes. Now, I am a big fan of Nextcloud and its synchronization with Joplin has been flawless to date, but the app that is for simply thurking notes failed whilst trying to save my writings to the cloud. Also, said writings cannot be found anywhere on the telephone. I assume them to be lost as logging into Nextcloud (or, rather, OWNCLOUD) Notes simply gives me an error and I cannot proceed further.

Such is live, vole.

I wrote various absurdities about writing itself. Specifically about the fact that I do neglect my writings for swaths of time then come back to them and write that I have neglected my writings for swaths of time. It’s a repetition that appeals to me. Neglecting my writing, however, does not appeal to me. It clarifies my thoughts. It, like my mumbling strums on the guitar, is a type of meditation.

Pagan Park served as a type of idea pit during various epochs of my life. I am especially fond of the 2009-2012 epoch. I made myriad notes of random phenomena, both physical and psychological, that occurred to me as I walked and sat on those benches. Pink means bench in Estonian. I no longer remember how to pluralize. I have a mindmap somewhere, if it is not also lost in the stasis I’ll soon write about, with thoughts organized according to which pink I had them on. I used to choose one at random and have it spawn an entire journal entry. I’ve always needed impetus to begin the creative process, even if it is my own, somehow external, impetus. I’m just that kind of mustelid.

The other topic I addressed in Pagan Park was the idea Christian and I talked about yesteryear or yesterday or yestersecond. I don’t recall exactly. It’s a concept that comes up time and again. It is this: Peasant-folk watch their compatriots vanish from their lives. This vanishment is temporary. These peasant-folk consider those that have vanished in a type of stasis. When they return, they are the same as 20 years before, 20 months before, 20 days before, 20 abelochs before. Whathaveyou. I come back to that old silly song time and again by Michelle Shocked. Their lives ran in circles so small. They thought they’d seen it all. They couldn’t make a place for a girl who’d seen the ocean. Or something along those lines. The lives of the peasant-folk drift along slowly. Little changes. Thus, they thrust their experience upon the images they have of the vanished. Of those in stasis. So, of course those that left have not changed! They are the exact same people as they were when they took to the road. They were in stasis.

These ideas are tightly related to the eidolons we all have of the people that surround us (whether they are the vanished or not). In a way, we are all peasant-folk, to one degree or another.

Today is a day for toil. I differentiate toil from work as the former is usually unpleasant. Of course, the border between one and the other is wide and blurry, as most borders must be, though it seems that some need a computing device the size of a small moon to come to that conclusion - especially those with a black and white work vs vacation mentality are susceptible, though that is another, if related, topic altogether.

Anyhow, today is a day of toil. I differentiate toil from work as the former is mostly unpleasant. As I mentioned somewhere, the border between these is fuzzy and today’s so-called toil will trod within that fuzziness. I shall convert my VdnaAdTracker to VdnaRegistry. In fact, it may not be must of a toil at all, as I mostly just need to do a global search and replace, yarg? It’d probably also be wise to consolidate the database migration files from VdnaAdTracker and VdnaRedisToPostgres. THAT part will be toil.

THEN, I can happily begin the polling apparatus in Elixir. The process will be involved because I have to translate from Node.js hovno into a proper programming language. Toil will be involved, but more of my time will be spent in the blurry borderlands, even wandering wholly into the region of work from time to time.

I set out beginning yesterday to write SOMETHING each morning, as I have neglected the Martenblog since June or so. Even before, the time between entries were as wide as the ravines in God’s apathetic gaze. This particular entry has been plagued by Neovim errors. Loading a markdown file suddenly throws up multitudinous errors referring tofiletype.lua. Most likely, it is but a single error and I am not adept at interpreting the wash of red text. Surely I could solve it myself with a bit of digging and code review, but that distracts from the task in palm: writing. The semi-solution is, naturally, to write of my frustration, which, as any confounded mustelid can see, I am now doing.

I have also neglected my morning math. I shall continue my morning with it immediately. Since Yak is down, I’ll be revising each of these morning entries in cualquier caso, lepton-boy.

When I am in the homeland (I laughingly call West Texas the homeland), I am truly a morning person. My mind collapses late in the evening, circa 20.45 or 21.00. By 22.00, I’m a corpse, breathing out its last fumes of the day. I rise from the spongy tomb at 6 the next morning, head throbbing but ready to create whatever chaos comes to synaptic majesty.

I just checked and found that Yak is down. I’ll have Marisa check on that tiny but ostensibly resilient machine when she returns to Logroño later today. Yak hosts the Martenblog. It should not be down. Ever.

Upon awakening, I pursued a task I should be doing every morning. What task is that? Mental calculations, of course! They wake up the mind quickly. I have a proliferation of ancient Number Sense tests as pdfs synced across my so-called “devices”. Solving 20 problems every morning is an excellent exercise. I’ve neglected my mental math skills over the last six months or so and I was balked by noticing it two days ago at the casino. Usually, I can do assorted arithmetic almost automatically. I could not two days ago. Whilst winning burrito after burrito on a so-called “slot” machine at the casino to which my parents dragged me in chains, I failed at instantly translating from 5¢ to 1¢ (or even dollars). The process is simple. Even Christian could do it (given a computational device the size of Greenland, of course). If you begin with 100 burritos and you are playing with a denomination of 1¢, your number of so-called “credits” are obvious even to Christian (given a computational device the size of Iceland). You’d have 10000 so-called credits! Yes! Playing at 5¢ and starting with 100 burritos gives you 2000 credits. What’s 10000 divided by five, my scruffy friend? It’s 2000. What normally doesn’t but did stump me two days ago (being that I was not given a computational device the size of Eros) was when I had, say 2647 credits, how many burritos did I have? Normally, and automatically, my mind would multiply by ten and divide by two, giving me 13235, or 132.35 burritos. The obvious problem is that my mind did not perform this calculation automatically, or even with a bit of effort. It was as if I had stubbed my forebrain. And perhaps I had, as I had drunk an unhealthy quantity of coffee by that point. On the other hand, I may have interminable brain fog caused by decrepitude and inhaling paint fumes for fifty-seven years, two months and seventeen days straight.

In any case, I shall resume a bit of mathematically practise every morning.

Often, I’ve thought about the move towards discrete forms of communication. The idea of all the pertinent points of a certain conversation context being apparent within the discrete conversation itself fascinates me. To achieve such a thing, all or most exterior information would need to be reiterated. By reiterated, I mean that whereas many points would be known from a context outside of the discrete conversation, such as from past conversations, hearsay, gossip or even cultural myth, all would need to be concretely reiterated.

In most conversation, contextual clues are omitted. Events that are ostensibly known to participants are glossed over or unspoken. Contrastingly, a discrete conversation could be packaged up as its own entity and be understood once again in any future context. In the current epoch of communication via messages which are “eternally” saved in some clunky server apparatus sitting in a damp basement in České Budějovice, forcing participants to remain within bounds of discrete conversation would simplify comprehension for anyone caring to take a look in the future.

Nothing would be left for a participant to guess at or assume. The chance of miscommunication is diminished, or perhaps entirely avoided.

The idea comes from interaction with individuals I work with, who assume that parts of our technical discussion are somehow common knowledge and that said common knowledge is somehow a shared common knowledge. Omissions become the source of implementation schisms. The idea abstracts to conversation not just concerning tech work, but even in conversation in the artistic realm. I’d even insist that conversation within the artistic realm should stay as discrete as possible. When trying to communicate to another how one’s self expression should be interpreted, every detail of information should be captured in each discrete exchange. This includes the case where what is “expected” is purposely vague. In fact, that is another discrete point to be made.

The idea also comes from my irritation at those who leave out vast swaths of information in conversation supposing that others will understand because said information is ostensibly common. The Spanish are particularly criminal concerning this. But sure - all cultures are unequally guilty. The fact that the bulk of information is assumed to be known helps facilitate fluidity in conversation. It also helps facilitate miscommunication, misplaced attribution, accusation, hostility and death.

Best will be to have all humans “chipped” at birth. Those who’ve already been born will be forcibly “chipped”. I’ll write the software that monitors each human and understands their subconscious minds divvying the masses into miniature hordes. Conversation within these dollops of human weed will be endlessly analyzed for extra-contextual content and perpetrators of each violation punished according to the degree of non-discreteness.

The “chips” will interact directly with the genetic makeup of each “chipped” individual. Violations will result in progressive genetic degeneration, effectively making it more and more difficult for each perpetrator to adhere to the new rules of conversation, causing feedback loops that reduce humans to lumps that can only speak in combinations of tired dichos and platitudes. Such a state of humanity is basically equal to the end of the species itself. Fuck um.

Drone Day proceeds glowingly. I place my headphones over my ears to hear and the combination of Purpll + Draume delights. Is anyone else listening? That relates to a topic I’ll address later in this meandering essay (I laughingly call it an essay). The short answer is that Flavigula’s Drone Day broadcast has had at this moment of writing a peak of 29 simultaneous listeners. How does that make me feel? It doesn’t, really. More on this later in the essay. For now - back to Purpll + Draume! A lovely combination! Perhaps one to win universal acclaim! I guffaw. Soon Draume will be in other hands. I sold it to attain a more gentle yet more controllable reverb - Red Panda Context. Honestly, though, it may house hidden madness like its cousins 2.7182818 times removed, Tensor and Raster. Draume has one timbrel quality I will miss. At least I have the unique overdriven reverb that spews from its innards encased in stone, never to be struck from the earth. Not that the earth will be around for much longer - or so I hear. Fuck um.

In other realms of thought, my alimentary allergy (since I haven’t been properly tested, I’m not entirely sure it is an allergy) has plagued me the last few days in Fresneda. Here, I am not as careful with my meal planning and apt to succumb to various carbohydrate-filled morsels. Also, carbohydrates may not be the sole thing that affect me. I’ll soon give in and go to a specialist. I can no longer eat simply anything I like, and this apparent eventuality reveals the scars of age, which solidify in my mind. The drift into decrepitude is similar to the drift of tectonic plates - sluggish but inevitable. Strangely, this knowledge has lit a fire under my buttocks. When I was a languid youth, all the time of the universe was before me. I didn’t think of deadlines for my creative endeavours. These days, every moment wasted in idleness seems a crime. Those who value so-called quality (there is no universal aesthetic) over myriad creative output are wrong. However, that’s another topic entirely. Fuck um.

Well - creative output. Since talking to Stephan at Sonomu and to a lesser extent, reading the possibly semi-serious quips of Christián over the epochs, I think from time to time about the connection between the creation of music and the thoughts of its consumers - the audience. Is there a connection at all that’s not solely a hindrance or even trauma? Stephan is plagued by his memories of being in a group that had an audience actively consuming and responding to his music. I don’t know the details and don’t need to. I read his self-doubt in every post he makes to Sonomu. Whether he writes it outright or not, within him is the need to be recognised. Or, rather, within him in the need to have his music recognised. Even more simply put, he wants to be a pop star, and perhaps because he tasted on some level the life of a pop star, he cannot let it go. This affects every note he puts to page. Always in the back of his noggin is a hypothetical reaction by a hypothetical audience. Hindrance? Trauma? Barrier, certainly. That being said, I submitted the gush of his more long-winded, instrumental offerings to Rob, who responded positively.

I’m content that I have not had the same experience. Sure, I’ve gained recognition and accolades from many for my creations, but these compliments are always put in their proper box. They are a bonus. My desire is to create music that is out of any context, and especially out of any particular emotional context. It must stand on its own without historical or cultural bindings. I understand this can be very alienating to some. Most humans (and certain mustelids) I’ve encountered in my meandering existence always grip onto the familiar. They are simile driven. Ah! This music is like when my auntie bashed my cousin 2.7182818 removed over the head with a viola!. Extra-contextual music has no handles on which to grip. I’m detailing the idea a bit hyperbolically, of course, as it is clear that Flavigula has influences. No art lives in a vacuum. But hybridisation of myriad influences can feel extra-contextual. Nevertheless, one thing is always clear: the music must appeal to me. I have to be able to listen to it, to enjoy it, and especially after time has passed. Therefore, nothing is a mere academic exercise.

Moreover, the music is not bereft of emotions. Instead of extra-contextual, it’s better to name it bare music. This is my objective. The emotions garnered from listening are not necessarily inherent to the music itself. Instead, there is a seed of emotional flowering within. In different contexts, one can listen to it and those seeds bear distinct fruits.

My so-called bare music isn’t unique to Flavigula. I’ve encountered the idea subtly in many places - most recently in the music of Blaer and historically in the music of Guapo and perhaps Tangerine Dream. The music is not forcing emotions placed by its authors down one’s throat. One is given the opportunity to explore new emotions that arise with every listen.

This morning I submitted to listening to The Shutov Assembly by Brian Eno once again. I chose to enjoy it, though I didn’t follow it in depth for very long. It got me thinking about the concept of hero worship.

As a quick aside, I typed I chose to enjoy it on purpose in the previous paragraph. This is a concept I’ll attempt to write about in depth in a blog entry during a not too distant epoch. Anyhow -

In the ambient music community, Mr Eno can be thought as a sort of pioneer (especially if one ignores the countless German artists and ensembles before him). I’m sure many of his works are revered by ordinary dudes like me who make ambient music from time to time and by other ordinary dudes who create goopy drones every single moment of their waking lives. Sure, like The Shutov Assembly, the works are revered. But are they preferred?

At this moment, I’m listening to another ambient work by an artist that is very far from being revered. In fact, he is practically unknown. I’m enjoying the music just as I enjoyed The Shutov Assembly. I’m also choosing to enjoy it. At this moment, I prefer it. An important question to me is this: Do listeners in general place the works of those revered in a genre of music above works by people less known simply because the former artists are revered? Another way to state this would be: Do the works of revered artists have more value than the works of lesser known artists simply because the artist himself is revered?

I try to imbibe art out of context as much as possible. That is, I want to affect me in whichever way it may without outside influence. Thus, at least consciously (who knows what my bastard subconscious does?), I don’t differentiate a piece of ambient music by Mr Eno from a piece of ambient music by the hobo living under bridge on Taborská Ulice in Praha in regard to who made the piece. I believe I do good job not having prejudice in this manner (but, again, who knows what my bastard subconscious does?).

But there is this: Were I to remark that a piece by Flavigula - say, any drone piece from Hap Jaum Sima Liz - is a preferable piece of music than The Shutov Assembly by the revered Herr Eno (yes - I’m aware they are not necessarily very similar in intent), I know myriad people who would guffaw before even listening to the former piece. I selected myself as an example, but I am sure it applies to multitudinous lesser known artists. The culprit here is a fading cultural hangover everyone knows as Hero Worship. Eno has had the “good fortune” to exist as a media highlight for decades and to work with a number of other high profile artists doing atmospheric soundscaping. His cultural value seems higher. I emphasize the word “seems”.

Personally, I do like Eno’s music quite a bit. I also have the good fortune to know of and know personally many lesser known artists that I listen to voraciously. Thus, I discard the idea of cultural value and go back to my personal favourite listening philosophy: each piece stands on its own and what I’m listening to at the moment is the preferred piece, be it The Shutov Assembly, a drone piece by an acquaintance from the fediverse or a sprawling ambient epic by the hobo living under the bridge on Taborská Ulice in Praha.

Over the last few epochs, I’ve noticed a tendency in people to go to great lengths to justify the things they do, be those things hobbies, work, ways of thinking or even the amount of Leche de Cabra Semidesnatada they place in their English Breakfast tea in the morning. I ask myself why. I suspect it has to do with one of the greatest contradictions of occidental culture I’ve noted. As an infant, I was taught, as I am sure many others are, that we are innocent of any crime until proven guilty. I’ll abstract the word crime here to any action that one goes to lengths to rationalize TO OTHERS. Seemingly, as our infancy peters out, we grow into a culture that pushes us to justify our every preference, our every move.

Does this spring from the idea of currency? We live in a society of currency. Perhaps it is impressed on us that our deeds must have a sort of value and since most hobbies, ideologies and tea additive preferences are not compensated by a lump of cash, we feel they must be justified in some other way. So we babble on and on about why we do what we do.

One goal I’ve set for myself over the last said epochs is to not give excuses for my actions, preferences and especially hobbies. If something makes me happy and it is not impinging on another’s well-being or happiness, why do I have to elaborate? I don’t. And I’d rather not hear your drawn out elaboration, either. Let’s raise our hands to the sky together and chant the mantra: fuck um.

As I mentioned in one or another of my past lives, I recently completed An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro. It is a fine tome and I recommend it to all. Of course, I use the word tome here in a virtual sense, as I did not hold the actual weight of the book in my hand. Rather, I held the weight of the apparatus that contained a digital version of the book in my hand. It did not once slip, despite its weight and its multitudinous contents.

Before I write a bit more about the contents of the digital version of the tome that forms a small portion of the contents of the apparatus on which I read, I’d mention that I’ve been in a rather nostalgic mood of late. Perhaps this is because of dreams that have recently haunted me. One thing that I’ve repeatedly escaped from in my life, much to my folly, is a stable lump of camaraderie. By this I mean a gaggle of humans I can relate to and thus spend time with mucking about with no particular objective in mind. Why have I repeatedly escaped? Many times, it’s been following a woman or even employment. Other times it’s been because of one silliness or another that came to my head to do that caused a rift in the posse. I now choose the word posse en vez de gaggle as it was (is?) John’s preferred word.

I can’t help but admit that this emptiness has been partially spawned by my intermittent communication with Loyal over the past epoch. Our personal rift, of which I regret possibly infinitely, happened because of a woman, partially. That woman had nothing to do with it, however. My personal obsession with her had everything to do with it. That and a “need” for a constant non-clarity of my senses, exponentiating the situation. What’s done is done, naturally, as they say, but regret is the bog one drifts in ever afterwards. Do they say that? Who are these they, anyway, and why do I speak of them? That is a discussion for another time, or for never, possibly.

Loyal:

What do you think of the idea that happiness is a by-product of fulfillment?

He asked me that in an email sometime in 1997. I was, unbeknownst to me at the time, about to drown in the bog of my relationship with Brynn. I only searched superficially, but could not find my reply to him back then. My reply now is immediate, however. I think that happiness for me is directly related to fulfillment. In an effort to achieve happiness, I constantly create small projects for myself to arrive at the sensation of fulfillment. These projects don’t need to be in any way complex, involved, or with greater purpose. Simply writing a blog entry is one. Going through an old document about programming my old HP calculator to re-learn part of the process is another. Setting up a patch on the modular synth that isn’t simply grating. Doing an ambient improv with Uruqi and its accompaniments. Worshipping goats symbolically by adding their precious lactate to my coffee.

I do get quite a bit of fulfillment from interactions online, and especially discussions about music, writing, literature, programming and worshipping goats. I cannot know whether it is a product of what I grew old being accustomed to or if it is something inherently natural, but I always feel more fulfilled when I interact with people I can relate to in person. I’d guess it is the former and that online interaction will eventually take the place of face to face communication for humans in even the most intimate contexts - but that is a discussion for another time, or for never, perhaps. During these somewhat desultory dreams, my subconscious is reminding me that I miss interaction with FRIENDS in small groups around cluttered tables filled with drained coffee cups. Unfortunately for me, these FRIENDS are scattered across several continents. Bastards.

When you are young, there are many things which appear dull and lifeless. But as you grow older, you will find these are the very things that are most important to you.

So I’ve reached the point in the entry where the Ishiguro quote arbitrarily appears. I must fit it in context. The first connection I espy is that appear dull and lifeless can be synonymous with are taken for granted. The hara of those things does not radiate the sort of capturing aura for youth that entices. I may be reaching here, but I perhaps took for granted my circle of friends. For a certain mental health, I relied on them much more than I thought. Were they dull and lifeless? No - so my analogy doesn’t exactly hold. But they were, in a way, taken for granted and sorely missed now.

What may have been seen as dull and lifeless were the seemingly insipid days whiled away with those humans. To have moments that I could while away similarly now that I’ve grown into decrepitude would be a treasure. To have the sensation of fulfillment simply from languid days would be a treasure. Was it the presence of the humans around me that made that time so special? Or was it that time itself moved differently? Or that I didn’t think about the passing of moments much at all (not necessarily true - but that is a discussion for another time, or for never, perhaps). Maybe the key to the Ishiguro quote is time, itself, and my perception of it. In this epoch, I’m always in a “rush” to fill ALL of the time with events that give me the sensation of fulfillment. If I’m idle, I feel a certain uneasiness. It’s true that IN A WAY, I’ve always been like this, but, as decrepitude encroached and engulfed, it became a way of life.

Where are the languid days passed with (or without?) laughing, petulant friends that resulted in fulfillment? Sure, they exist in a hospoda here or a café there with Michal or Dani, or even walking in Pagan Park whilst talking on the phone with that shattered husk of a human, Christian. I’m guessing it’s more the sloshy chemicals in my brain creating a sensation than it is reality, but the frequency of these languid moments of fulfillment have decreased. They’ve become a diminished speck.

I read the book Behold the Man by Michael Moorcork possibly twice when I was approximately 21 years old. I recall suggesting it to various friends. They also read it, though most likely only once. One friend was Raun, and he told me that it was not to his taste. Those were not his exact words. He related that the style of the novel didn’t emulsify his gravy. The style is indeed choppy, but so is life, in my opinion. In any case, it works for me.

In specific, this morning and yesterday, I was thinking about Karl and his short time with the Essenes. Though their ways were meditative and peaceful, he considered them “clinically” insane. Their belief that God’s kingdom was soon to be again on earth is startlingly similar to that of sects that spring up again and again in the modern world. Those sects, of course, and especially after any act of extremism, are considered to be at least led by a madman.

How the actions of a small group of insane individuals led to an extreme result (the crucifixion) and furthermore to a mythos surrounding said crucifixion isn’t really what I was thinking about, however. At the point in history when the Essenes existed, there didn’t exist (ostensibly) organizations or institutions to contain those afflicted by such insanities. The unchecked spread of their actions, therefore, and extreme acts and subsequent mythos, were more widespread.

The cultures in which we live have created measures to make sure such things no longer happen, I suppose squelching the birth of further mythos. I’ve not been known to be a big fan of mythos in general, anyhow. So fuck um.

I recently finished An Artist in a Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro. It was the only novel I’d never read by him. I’ve read others multiple times, especially The Unconsoled, which remains one of my favourite pieces of literature.

How so much more honourable is such a contest, in which one’s moral conduct and achievement are brought as witnesses rather than the size of one’s purse.

I’m reminded of the film Ghost Dog where characters often remark that ancient Japan must have been a strange place or somesuch. I posit that the mentality stated in the above quote would be out of place in much of the modern world. I’ve lived in a universe where one’s place is established by either financial success or a type of success created from a vague sort of social status obtained in various manners rarely relating to ethics. My attitude, even though (or possibly because) I am a rebel, has been wholly tainted by this “ideology”. People on Mastodon write again and again about late capitalism and that’s as good a name for the financial part of it as any. As for the other part - that vague social status - its ranks are filled with obsequious crowd pleasers, to be generous (and very general).

There are rare occasions where works of artists, artisans and scientists grant their makers positions of status, but mostly if the results, in the end, make money. I’ll put this down to late capitalism.

There is rarely an occasion, however, when those achievements walk alongside the ethical behaviour of said artists, artisans or scientists. The only glaring examples are the retroactive destruction of the career of an artist, artisan or scientist when some moral foible is publicly brought to light.

The Ishiguro quote, especially in context, is more concerned with one who rises above the surface scum because of comparative analysis of how one has lived ethically. My father used to talk about integrity during my childhood and adolescence. Only later did I find out that he had a double standard. I suppose that’s not abnormal, though that’s a discussion for another epoch. Integrity, in the sense he used to use, is close to what Ishiguro is referring to here.

One must note that Ishiguro is not attempting to impress his ethical views on the reader. He is just an observer of how cultural customs rule and adherence to them can destroy one’s life.

I was pretty bad at integrity as an adolescent. As a rebel, I discarded any advice my father handed out (and there was much) and followed my own ideologies, cobbled together from lyrics, literature and my limited view of the universe from Fort Stockton, Texas. Were there a contest at the time based on ethical behaviour, I would not have risen above the surface scum. Though I doubt the drug addled alcoholics and religious zealots alike surrounding me at the time would have fared much better. But who am I to judge? I never liked hierarchies anyway. Let’s all be surface scum.

During that time of integrity, it was still the ones that came from families with money who were regarded as la creme de la creme. In concentric circles moving away from the tantalising centre, were the athletes, then the academically successful. The amount of social interaction, another indicator of success, waned with distance from the centre, or existed because of that distance. Or were in balance.

Besides my father’s ramblings about integrity, the only other moral centerpiece I grew up with was religion. In specific, Presbyterian upbringing and being surrounded by other protestant denominations during daily life. However, their ethics seemed more like lines in pages in a rulebook that could be discarded if it interfered with social status.

That was my culture. How was it like the one Ishiguro described in An Artist in a Floating World? The microcosm that produced the contest of moral conduct and achievement invented (or not) by Ishiguro couldn’t have existed in West Texas in the 80s. Moral codes taught by protestants were flimsy. Status was inevitably achieved by familial position (dinero, honeyboničko), athletic prowess, or - a distant third - academic achievement in school. Though I may have ended up seething with the rest of the scum on the surface, or even sinking below at the time, a West Texan world evolving from such alien ideology is an intriguing hallucination.