Taylor asked me yesterday what are five things I did during the decade that is coming to a close that made it worth it.

Before I begin a formal list, I’ll say the overreaching concept that made the decade worth it was the sheer enjoyment of as many moments as possible during the said decade. Being that a moment can be regarded as an infinetesimal span of time, I had the possibility to experience infinite enjoyable moments, causing death by cerebral hemorrhage in several infinities of parallel quantum universes.

1. I started seriously composing and playing music again.

The dearth of music years were between 2002 and 2008, more or less. During that time, I tossed away any aspiration of even picking up my guitar, much less letting it speak into the antiquated tape machines I still held on to for years. I certainly didn’t give up listening intently to music, however, and attended many concerts. Those are other stories that may or may not be told in this or some other member of some other infinity of parallel quantum universes. I don’t encourage you to wait for their telling, though you may do so, if you so wish. I will not be held responsible, however, if you wither and dessicate during the process.

In 2010, when I lived in New Cross Gate, I earnestly dabbled with electronic music for the first time. Ironically, now that I’ve incorporated modular synth and whimsical Supercollider forays into my compositions, none of that original dabbling has seen the light. One piece, The Fen, will eventually be resurrected.

Tony and I created a collection of improvisations, some of which I’m afraid to relisten to, during the following year. We also worked on some crudities I wrote in 2008 whilst living in Hůrka. Fold is a “modern” version of one of those crudities. I plan to pull Union and Reduction from their tombs, as well.

(Fold)

Most importantly, I composed Cycle, a seventeen minute or so piece deeply set in a ravine of minimalism. A version exists purely as midi. This template can be expanded and mechanically fleshed by electronics, guitar and gargling voices set bringing an end to the plague that is the “American” way of life and that has poisoned so much of Europe. Fuck um.

Another few dead years followed during which I frittered about in Boston and tampered with the destiny of Mustelids in Spain. Whilst remaning in Spain I bought a utter trozo de hovno kytara Pignose and started practising again. I didn’t at first consider composing or revising past glories, but just practising. I practised until my fingers bled. I practised until my liver drooped from my abdomen. I practised until the Heat Death of a few infinities of parallel quantum universes.

I spent 2017 and the first few months of 2018 playing in a duo. As little as I cared for the humour or attitute of my partner in this venture, my point of view expanded and those dank days flowered into whatever sort of monstrosities one could describe the first few Flavigula albums as. I dumped the duo and the rancid individual I was strung up with, tossed away my noose and dove into the psychedelic maelstrom.

2. I became better at letting go / not obsessing about anything.

Fixations take up chunks of time in the lives of many people I know. Not only are they fixations, but fixations on things that do absolutely nothing to further their intellectual or creative (or both) pursuits. I’ve gone to great lengths to dissolve an obsessive compulsive disorder I had. Best is the ability to concentrate on what I want to concentrate without some mental module I have no control of sucking away my time and energy.

Or, one might say, I became more of a sociopath. That would be the correct perception since I have become Catholic and therefore see all life in discreet blocks of black and white.

My oversensitive persona of youth and 20s had been fading for some time, in any case. The road to a firmer self realization and self esteem had already been tread. The decade simply saw these facets become more prominent. Marisa calls it Aspergers. Whatever one wants to call it, I find it a blessing from the almighty Baal itself. Yes - I will speak my mind. Yes - I will care little of what you think of me (unless I know you very well). But also I’ll listen to your reasoned discourse. Put away your mannered ravings. They do not appeal to me.

3. I narrowed my fields of concentration.

Following in the footsteps of my desensitization to the majority of humanity, I felt mortality encroaching from a vague distance. The realization that time is limited is something most are not willing to approach during their youths, or if so, only in a bombastic or melodramatic way.

I used to be happy being a mustelid of broad knowledge. Now my objective is to be a mustelid of profound knowledge in a limited number of areas. Ok, knowledge may be too specific a word here. Simply put, I limit my concetration to fields that interest me most, such as music, programming and worshipping goats.

In stark contrast to these self-absorbed pursuits, I tasked myself with opening myself to empathy that I’d rejected so long. Having been raised in the hellish entorno of Fort Stockton, it’s been a arduous journey recuperating genuine compassion for humanity. I believe my love for animal life and mustelidae in specific assisted this eternal work in progress. Constant observation of ignorance and stupidity in every village square has not done much to assist this eternal work in progress.

4 & 5. I’ll have to think of other abstractions that have been important to me in the receding decade. Perhaps I’ll come up with something soon, but, as I wrote earlier, don’t dessicate waiting for me to do it.

A list of discreet occurances that pivoted my life during the receding decade (or ones that I feel could be pivot points influencing the encroaching decade):

• Meeting Lisa Kammerud (December, 2009, actually)
• Tuzla, as a discreet, three month point
• Metting Jeremy Croteau
• Starting a company with James
• Connecting with my biological son
• Meeting Matthew Walsh
• Meeting Daniel García
• Two short films with Dani (as discreet points)
• Meeting Tiit Maran
• Meeting Marisa

In brief conversation with Marisa’s mother, Ilu, I encountered an ingrained form of response, or so it seemed to me. I stated We are leaving within an hour. (Marcharemos dentro de una hora.) and she immediately came back with Or even sooner! (O incluso más pronto!). I immediately correct her, as I am wont to do. Some call me a pedant for such behaviours. Fuck um. Nothing against Ilu, but I find such responses a symptom of sloppy thinking.

I like to hang back a bit with my thoughts before coming out with the first phrase that tingles my tongue. I’m unsure if I am among the majority that perform this way. I’m all for saying what’s on one’s mind, but when those thoughts come out in dichos or stock phrases, I wonder about the precision of expression.

Thus the central point of this entry. As I grow towards decrepitude, shrinking further into the groaning corporeal husk that houses my hara, I find myself surrounded more and more frequently by people who, instead of discursive conversation, resort to retorting in phrases which seem carved into their mental language tablets as if into stone. Certain stock phrases recur, recited in various orders to achieve various level of vagary. I’m aware that I am suppose to sense the meaning behind each black box after black bundle of words. I should interperet them in context just like a set a gesticulations. However, this process leaves me deeply dissatisfied. I don’t want to talk to a magician who has a bag containing a set number of stock phrases. He pulls one after another from said bag, sorts and assembles them as quickly as possible.

An interesting assement of dichos, as they are called in Spanish, is that they tend to create tighter bonds between community members, especially of those dichos are particularly local. They toughen the skin of the bubble. In other words, they further isolate the community from the outside with a barrier of impenetrable phrasiology. An outsider will have a harder time integrating when they don’t know the inner significance of three noses to the wind or he buried a pumkin near the ravine.

One could argue that such dichos give a particular bubble (community) flavour of its own, differentiating it from multitudinous other bubbles wielding their own stock phrases. My view is that this tendency is a barrier to fluid communications between bubbles and a barrier to globalism. It’s a small step towards culture-centrism, nationalism and a type of fundamentalism that irks me.

I spent a few months on and off, that is to say, not very consistently, attempting to get this blog Activity Pub Sensitive. There were many false starts, many moments where I gave up, many spilled comestibles and one or two plagues of sentient lice. In the end, my implementation is far from perfect or finished, but it does what I need it to do for now.

I’m in metaphysical debt to the following:

• Activity Pub as it has Been Understood
• How to Read the Activity Pub Specification
• Activty Streams Vocabulary
• Activity Pub Specification

My code is here: https://github.com/inhortte/martenblog-elixir

(Activity Pub as...)
(How to Read...)
(Activty Streams Vocabulary)
(Activity Pub Specification)

Martenblog is a single user federated app, so, unlike #mastodon or Pleroma. This single user is the manifestation of the blog, perhaps, were it sentient. Perhaps it is. I’m not sure. Whereas Actors on Mastodon are indicated by https://instance/users/username (I’m https://sonomu.club/users/flavigula on Mastodon), my singular actor is https://flavigula.net/ap/actor. I didn’t come up with this genericism myself, but by stealing the idea from … well, it seems I cannot find the repository any longer. I am also in metaphysical debt to this human who did a Node.js implementation for his own blog.

curl -k https://flavigula.net/ap/actor will show you my actor.

Backtracking slightly, I found it necessary to implement webfinger so that other servers could see me. My initial testing goal was to be able to type @martenblog@flavigula.net into the search field on Mastodon and find the manifestation of Martenblog.

(webfinger)

  def webfinger do
    json = %{
      aliases: [
        "https://#{@domain}/ap/actor"
      ],
      links: [
        %{
          href: "https://#{@domain}/ap/actor",
          rel: "self",
          type: "application/activity+json"
        }
      ],
      subject: "acct:martenblog@#{@domain}"
    }
    json
  end

I suppose that’s pretty self explanatory. You can see the result at https://flavigula.net/.well-known/webfinger

While I was at it, I added the https://flavigula.net/.well-known/host-meta endpoint:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<XRD xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/ns/xri/xrd-1.0">
  <Link rel="lrdd" template="https://flavigula.net/.well-known/webfinger?resource={uri}" type="application/xrd+xml"/>
</XRD>

Also, the https://flavigula.net/.well-known/nodeinfo endpoint:

{
  "links": [
    {
      "rel": "https://nodeinfo.diaspora.software/ns/schema/2.0",
      "href": "https://flavigula.net/.well-known/nodeinfo/2.0.json"
    },
    {
      "rel": "https://nodeinfo.diaspora.software/ns/schema/2.1",
      "href": "https://flavigula.net/.well-known/nodeinfo/2.1.json"
    }
  ]
}

And the two endpoints referenced within nodeinfo:

{
  "version": "2.0",
  "usage": {
    "users": {
      "total": 1,
      "activeMonth": 1,
      "activeHalfyear": 1
    },
    "localPosts": 419
  },
  "software": {
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "name": "Martenblog"
  },
  "services": {
    "outbound": [],
    "inbound": []
  },
  "protocols": [
    "activitypub"
  ],
  "openRegistrations": false
}

{
  "version": "2.1",
  "usage": {
    "users": {
      "total": 1,
      "activeMonth": 1,
      "activeHalfyear": 1
    },
    "localPosts": 419
  },
  "software": {
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "repository": "https://github.com/inhortte/martenblog-elixir.git",
    "name": "Martenblog"
  },
  "services": {
    "outbound": [],
    "inbound": []
  },
  "protocols": [
    "activitypub"
  ],
  "openRegistrations": false
}

The code for those are in https://github.com/inhortte/martenblog-elixir/blob/master/lib/martenblog/router.ex along with every endpoint of my website.

I only want to federate blog entries to people who follow me from other regions of the Fediverse. An api endpoint exists for this, appropriately named followers. (https://flavigula.net/ap/actor/followers) Though I implemented the endpoint and find it likely that it is required to do so to have a functioning server, the resulting collection didn’t serve as I thought it should according to my interpretation of the specifications. I’ll come back to that later, however.

One must accrue followers. That is, I’m not going to send blog entries arbitrarily out to fediverse entities. So, when someone follows Martenblog, it receives something along these lines to the inbox (that’s https://flavigula.net/ap/actor/inbox):

{
  "type": "Follow",
  "object": "https://flavigula.net/ap/actor",
  "id": "https://sonomu.club/94904728-1d32-4a51-b422-0373323ec61c",
  "actor": "https://sonomu.club/users/flavigula",
  "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams"
  }

The code takes this json and wraps it in an accept activity:

{
  "type": "Accept",
  "object": {
    "type": "Follow",
    "object": "https://flavigula.net/ap/actor",
    "id": "https://sonomu.club/94904728-1d32-4a51-b422-0373323ec61c",
    "actor": "https://sonomu.club/users/flavigula",
    "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams"
  },
  "id": "https://flavigula.net/ap/48394fc9-114a-4849-86e4-3b78226915d9",
  "actor": "https://flavigula.net/ap/actor",
  "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams"
}

and sends it on its way, which will be explained next, as it is the most complex bit. The inbox endpoint in https://github.com/inhortte/martenblog-elixir/blob/master/lib/martenblog/router.ex sends the follow activity to the inbox function in https://github.com/inhortte/martenblog-elixir/blob/master/lib/martenblog/activitypub.ex, which calls the accept function in the same file.

Implementing the sending an activity to another Fediverse server part was like excoriating myself with a rusty spanner, mainly because I couldn’t find a clear way to test during development, so I was, as it were, programming blind, deaf, motionless and possibly without appendages whatsoever.

def sign_and_send(activity, inbox) do
  target_domain = Fuzzyurl.from_string(inbox).hostname
  inbox_fragment = String.replace(inbox, "https://#{target_domain}", "")
  date_str = Utils.rfc2616_now 
  Logger.info "Reading private key..."
  {:ok, priv_key} = File.read("/home/polaris/keys/martenblog.pem")
  Logger.info "priv_key: #{priv_key}"
  string_to_sign = "(request-target): post #{inbox_fragment}\nhost: #{target_domain}\ndate: #{date_str}"
  [ rsa_entry | _ ] = :public_key.pem_decode(priv_key)
  decoded_key = :public_key.pem_entry_decode(rsa_entry)
  sign_me = :public_key.sign(string_to_sign, :sha256, decoded_key)
  signature = :base64.encode(sign_me)
  sig_header = "keyId=\"https://#{@domain}/ap/actor#main-key\",headers=\"(request-target) host date\",algorithm=\"rsa-sha256\",signature=\"#{signature}\""
  case Poison.encode activity do
    {:ok, json_activity} -> 
      Logger.info "sign_and_send -> activity: #{json_activity}"
      Logger.info "string_to_sign: #{string_to_sign}"
      Logger.info "signature header: #{sig_header}"
      Logger.info "date_str: #{date_str}"
      case :hackney.post(inbox, [
          Host: target_domain, 
          Date: date_str, 
          Signature: sig_header, 
          "Content-Type": "application/ld+json; profile=\"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams\"",
          Accept: "application/activity+json, application/ld+json" 
        ], json_activity) do
        {:ok, res} -> res
        error -> error
      end
    error -> error
  end 
end

This function is invoked with the activity to be sent and the inbox of its recipient. In this case, said recipient would be the actor from another federated site that sent me a follow activity. I extract the inbox of the actor who wants to follow me by grabbing the actor and extracting its inbox field. The remote_actor and fetch_actor functions do this. You may want to take a look at https://github.com/inhortte/martenblog-elixir/blob/master/lib/martenblog/ap_resolver.ex, also, which handles actors cached in the database.

I diverged from the main point a bit. sign_and_send receives the activity to send and the inbox of the remote actor to send it to. First, it calculates the inbox_fragment from the remote inbox. That’d be, say /users/flavigula/inbox. Next, the date, which HAS to be in this format: Thu, 26 Dec 2019 15:25:21 GMT - the rfc2616 format. If you do not use that format, you will instantly be beheaded.

(rfc2616)

It seems that Pleroma is more flexible concerning the format of the date it receives. Mastodon is not. It must be RFC2616. Take a look at the function rfc2616_now at https://github.com/inhortte/martenblog-elixir/blob/master/lib/martenblog/utils.ex. Notice that I manually append GMT at the end. Since I use DateTime.utc_now, the time zone is not relevant, but be warned that if you use a conversion tool that gives you UTC as the time zone, your signature will be rejected by Mastodon servers. Tacking on GMT is my solution.

Mastodon uses this bit of Ruby to verify the date:

def matches_time_window?
  begin
    time_sent = Time.httpdate(request.headers['Date'])
  rescue ArgumentError
    return false
  end
  (Time.now.utc - time_sent).abs <= 12.hours
end

I recall reading that the window for submitting a response is +/- 30 seconds. Obviously, Mastodon thinks otherwise.

Sometime before you get to this point, you need to have generated a public / private key pair. If you don’t know how to perform these duties, check out the following url: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/06/how-to-implement-a-basic-activitypub-server/. It also complements several processes I’ve already described, so is generally helpful.

So, Herr sign_and_send fetches my private key and constructs the so called string_to_sign, which his this aspect:

(request-target): post /users/flavigula/inbox
host: sonomu.club
date: Thu, 26 Dec 2019 15:25:21 GMT

The function continues by decoding my private key, signing the key via sha256, and encoding the result via base64. Of course, the tools you use to perform these three steps will vary depending on your language. I’m hanging out with Elixir at the moment and the procedure is carried out by functions from the underlying Erlang system (note they all start with :). The aforementioned blog.joinmastodon.org url details the same steps in Ruby.

The sig_header, an amalgam of the preceeding steps, comes out similar to this:

keyId="https://flavigula.net/ap/actor#main-key",headers="(request-target) host date",algorithm="rsa-sha256",signature="VHYpjLbjhxwsVwOQTPzsbzzSkqCHXRtnhUp3CYYJsXRcdosKAeSHKShm3OuwCLlyx7iLvsU7y+jN2i4zrf2nLfAi6ujXqUBxsfrtHXBaLkjMyypRZ6eYwprZvZsDgWQ0v+M1E2KsWowlLINpAWGG9Nydh4wCa37RB7sAhqv/Ccdp57FACT5O9DQFUccgko93Yns4Amo7ZWtKth0QAR4H5bILe8lLGa0E6IfgyX1SSuitXRMqVsd8RDPY9ARKUl7arge6mPNl9WFtxPjNzhfXIiEYn7VHIt1WA82ungMnNUy6+aOOrBwJWu8BDYOlZT+Sl5/qN91ggjjtgq7vT+qjrA==

Now, you can POST the activity to the foreign inbox. Again, I’m using Erlang - hackney to be exact. Set the Content-Type to be application/ld+json; profile=\"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams\" or be beheaded once again.

On to sending actual blog entries.

Wrapping an entry into an article, I get the following:

(article)

%{
  "@context": ["https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams"],
  attributedTo: "https://flavigula.net/ap/actor",
  cc: [],
  content: "<p>Strange how these days remind me...</p>\n",
  id: "https://flavigula.net/entry/by-id/4",
  name: "Winter eve",
  published: "Thu, 26 Dec 2019 15:25:21 GMT",
  to: ["https://sonomu.club/users/flavigula"],
  type: "Article",
  url: "https://flavigula.net/#/blog/2006/12/8"
}

… constructed by the article function in activitypub.ex. Though I didn’t find reference to it in documentation anywhere (but I honestly didn’t look for more than twenty six seconds), the url field provides a nice link using the name at the beginning of an article federated to Pleroma. Mastodon ends up with the contents of the name field followed by the url.

The Elixir map (that’s the construction you see above that begins with %{ and ends with } which is certaily not json yet) is piped through the create_activity function and another map emerges:

%{
  "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
  actor: "https://flavigula.net/ap/actor",
  cc: [],
  id: "https://flavigula.net/ap/20a8f2d0-8f14-42bf-ab4f-c4d5a98c7c5a",
  object: %{
    # The article above
  },
  published: "Thu, 26 Dec 2019 15:25:21 GMT",
  to: ["https://sonomu.club/users/flavigula"],
  type: "Create"
}

As I noted earlier, and also to prevent yourself from being beheaded a third time, make sure the published field in the article (represented in the object field in the create activity), the published field in the create activity itself and the date that goes into the sign_and_send apparatus are all within thirty seconds of each other. Edit: The Ruby code I quoted above and which comes straight from the Mastodon source seems to think 12 hours is good enough. Regardless, playing it safe is better.

Identical to sending the accept activity previously, this create activity, along with every follower’s inbox goes to sign_and_send. I loop through each inbox, calling sign_and_send repeatedly, and certainly realize this is not particularly efficient. I’ll get around to improving this and other laxnesses soon.

As I mentioned near the beginning of this spiel, though, I could not get the send to followers functionality of Activitypub to work. Therefore, instead of having https://flavigula.net/ap/actor/followers in the to or cc fields, I directly add an array of the followers’ inboxes. The issue needs more investigation.

So, there you have it. I possibly missed a few steps and / or parts are misaligned and inexact. Having stated that caveat, I hope what I’ve written is of help to some of those humans I keep hearing about who are ostensibly wandering around on the face of the planet. If so, said humans should relax, celebrate, take some ketamine or whatever suits their fancy. I know I would were I a human instead of a mere mustelid.

When it comes to #music, any piece that doesn’t contain an underlying current of melancholy or a smattering of anxiety isn’t ever going to be regarded as great in my inked book. I consider the two emotions the basis of quality art, or, translated into more humble terms, art that appeals to the inner goat.

I quickly lose interest in pieces that ooze what some would call joy or ecstasy. Their surface is too transparent. There is usually little beneath. Thus, club or dance music, in the modern sense, doesn’t appeal to me. In fact, it fills me with a rage that teeters on the edge of genocidal mania. As far as transparency goes, neither does folk music do much for the inner goat. At times lyrics and melodies may pull on the hara’s firmament, but the inner emptiness of the music always overwhelms.

An exception to the first paragraph is droning, mostly harmonically static, ambient music. The deference to an emotionless morass is appealing to my cruder, Taoist sensibilities.

My goal, apart from what I’ve typewritten with a hunk of dirt bashed against the skull of a goat, is to create bare music. Its relation to droning, mostly harmonically static music is most apparent in that it is not defined by any emotion that I, its creator, am oozing during the moment of creation (or any other moments in its temporal vicinity). Any #emotion conjured from a piece is incidental, created by the ooze of chemicals within the listener.

Of course, I have hopes that the primary emotion that surges from an active or passive listener is unbridled RAGE. They transform into their interior GOAT and viciously butt passerbys into metaphorical cunetas.

The ostensible connotation is that none of my music will be, by my former definition, great in my inked book. In that my satisfaction is more with the journey of creating than in the finished product, I’m not bothered. My goat hara is complex enough and infused with enough modular history that I’m sure a mixture of varying emotional material will flow into a piece no matter my intention. I’ll be the “judge” of whether anything is great later in life by the impressions the pieces leave on my later self.

Yesterday, I asked Christián for his opinion of the percussion in a short piece I’d written for Dani’s short film. At one point, he asked me, What are you trying to accomplish? I made up some bullshit about a statue of the Buddha with a pistol on a beach on the Baltic Sea, waves lapping at its base. A module in my collective mind reacted before my more mature modules could stop it. It feared that without an initial #narrative to back the piece of music up, the whole process was meaningless. Even after other #modules caught up, I didn’t back up and correct myself. Only later in the evening did I write something pertaining to my more mature thoughts on the subject.

From far back in my cultural education, I was progressively etched. If there is no compelling narrative as the impetus for a piece of #music, then it has no substance. Why? Why can’t a piece of art stand on its own without a story to back it? I respect Abstract Expressionists in this regard. And, in fact, for myriad works I have completed and are in the process of completion, no underlying narrative exists.

Many of my modules carry this cultural etching. The ones that do not, or on which the etchings are fading, become more and more dominant.

I think it is inevitable that for music humans bother to delve into, narratives are created, sourced from personal experiences and from emotions that surface during immersion. These pieces of art do not require an initial narrative, though. No #meaning is necessary. They can be personal sounding boards. They can be spaces where reverberations create unique narratives.

What remains, in my mind, in the soundtrack to Dani’s newest short film, austerely entitled Sheriff, is one more short piece. I’m not counting the two #SirAlfredIV remakes that still have to be done. Forcing Christián to sing A House of Strength and Love will be a chore. Oh, he’ll sing it well and be willing, but he is anything but timely when collaborating on #music. His main problem, obviously, is that he has no access to Romanian Prostitutes in South Carolina (subsequently known as The Pit). Being of the ignorant farmboy type, he’d not notice the Guress Jewel inside each Romanian Prostitute, sense nothing of the underlying richness of Elixir or its regular expression syntax, and simply toss her to the dogs (or to his brother) after profaning her.

Actally, Christián is the Sheriff in Dani’s newest short #film. And a fine sheriff he is, untimely imp or not.

The latest piece and the remaining one are both based on melodies I wrote for Insensetez, the July tune in my Jazz course. The melodies are wholly original, though other parts of my arrangement were based on the original melody of the piece. As I showered earlier, I put on Rain Tree Crow at a volume that created an ambience, as it should be. In specific, New Moon at Red Deer Wallow struck me as the sort of environment I’d like. The pace is hollow. The synth rolls like moonbeams made to dapple a forest floor in vaguely geometic abstractions. The melody itself drifts in and out almost as if it were peeking occasionlly around a stone but mostly keeping to itself. I’ll keep this all in mind for my recitation (as Robert Calvert would say, were he not dispersed into the roots of various vegetables).

The initial purpose of this entry is to test a new #blog functionality. An astute reader will notice the hash symbol in front of the word blog in the previous sentence. After reading about the Linux / MacOS command line application JRNL, I decided that dispensing with my ubiquitous topic header shall be done today. The original format of these entries, all written in either Emacs or Vim, of course, since I am old school, is a series of headers terminated by newlines. One of them is Topic, after which is listed a comma delimited list of topics an entry pertains to. I’ve come to realize that being old school, though attractive to all the Romanian Prostitutes roving these parts, isn’t always the ideal state of being. Indeed, the ideal state of being is ever changing, or progressive, if you will.

Speaking of Romanian Prostitues, I’ve been made aware that they may be of help with #Elixir regular expresions. Growing up in Romania, especially in the cluttered berg of Deva, has its advantages, you see. Young girls are raised to be one thing or another. That’s an inclusive or. The first, as the peruser of Martenblog may have guessed, and given its references in this and the previous paragraph, is a Romanian Prostitute. The second, as the peruser of Martenblog, being swift in mental capacities, should have assumed by now, is a Elixir Regular Expression Guress. Guress is the feminine of Guru. As their male counterparts swelter on mountainsides and in Slivovice distilleries, these soon to be defouled innocents are schooled rigorously in both trades.

Returning to the topic, absolutely no pun intended because I despise puns and find them the lowest, peasanty humour available, bubble-like and crude, is that a #hashtag in the body of an entry creates a topic much like the aforementioned comma delimited list. Now to test. Go fetch yourself a Romanian Prostitute.

Whilst chatting with Herr Neumann earlier today, I was reminded of something I used to think about often: Relationships fail when they begin with the partners pretending to be something other than they will be in every day life later on.

Christián’s current obsession with Isa reminds me of this truth - a truth that is evident when one steps outside of the circumstance. Many people go into the dating game, which is just a shortcut to saying an entraceway into a romantic relationship acting utterly unlike they are in every day life. They try to impress. They take pains to cater to every need of the potential mate.

When such a situation does develop into a routine, and then it escalates into living together, and then proceeds to other morbid rituals, the flashy sheen that was so apparent at the beginning of the dating process fades - sometimes quickly. They are left with another human different from the eidolon they first encountered. Dissolution ensues.

The most successuful relatioships I’ve seen began with the pair in situations mirroring their normal habits. They were part of the same group of friends, all knowing intimate details about each other, before romantic notions developed. Or, they worked together and saw many sides of one another before feelings escalated. Later in life, there are fewer surprises. Isa doesn’t disembowel Christián with a kitchen utensil when he begins spouting rubbish about how granting women equal rights was the beginning of the downfall of mankind, for example.

Yesterday, as the baleful sun began its descent across the jagged horizon, I walked with Marisa along the dusty road to Tres Aguas. She’s been preoccupied lately because one of her tenants in the apartment on Madre de Dios has lost his job and thus is expelling himself from Logroño. Worry eats at her. She fixates on worry. It’s a genetic burr in her family, methinks. I doubt it can be removed and in any case, I’m done with trying to alter peoples’ personalities. That was the Bobbus of fifteen or more years ago. Fuck um.

An aside:

Marisa just rose from her pained slumberous morning malaise to introduce me to the phrase que te den morcilla, which is equivalent to vete a la mierda. The phrase toots my muffin.

The soon to be ex-tenant is a lawyer of sorts, or has aspirations to be one, and of the technology variety. I’m unsure if his knowledge of the ways of specific TCP and UDP ports on his laptop is profound, but I’m sure his heart is in the right place - that is, pumping circulatory fluid throughout his living corpse. Apparently, he wants to advise Spanish companies and individuals in EU law regarding various transactions across the internet. Somehow (I’m not completely clear on this point), his employer, another of these lawyers, dismissed him from his position. This jefe specializes in what the youth - I’ll call him Aitor from here on out - aspires to. So he’s fucked, eh?

I’m also not completely clear on the next point. To be placed in a pool of humans who could be selected for a position given his credentials, an authority informed him that he has to have some sort of technology certification to accompany the pretty paper that declares him a lawyer. He applied to a program in the University of La Rioja to take a degree / certificate / whatever of this sort and was rejected. Universities in Spain have a limited number of agujeros open in any given field of study. He was not inserted into one of said agujeros because, I paraphrase, the agujeros are reserved for humans who do not already hold another degree / certificate / whatever.

Aitor has multiple paths from which he can now choose. Unfortunately for Marisa, none coincide with him being anything other than an ex-tenant. The central bulb of our communication yesterday sprang from my insistence that Aitor abandon attempts to find his passion in a small city / region like Logroño / La Rioja and migrate to Madrid or Barcelona, both hubs for tech activity in Spain. I regurgitated my repetitive theme to discard the hunt for university credentials and to forge one’s own path. Learning is a personal, intimate affair, especially in the realm of technologies. My experience certainly tells me so.

Here we almost reached an impasse. I came up against the nearly impenetrable wall of Spanish rootedness. She described to me what seemed like folklore but that she assured me still ran deep in Spanish mentality. The son who stays rooted in place and thus grows family fields into abundance is a success. He is rich. The son who departs onto paths leading him away from the home patch is a failure. Obviously, this mentality doesn’t sit well with me. I have no want or need for roots. I am a spirit of the air, not of the earth. We did not hit an actual impasse because we both agreed that Aitor should strike out if his intention is to explore all possibilities of “success”. Marisa is simply insistant that because of Spanish rootedness, he is unlikely to do so.

Pegado.

The word is used often. A human is stuck to a place. A human is rooted to his past and to his surroundings. A human is likely only to search for possibilities within this bubble. A human is unlikely to stray outside of it. A human who does stray outside of it is regarded odd.

The mentality isn’t unique to Spanish culture. It is a seed within all pueblo culture, worldwide. Bubbles vary in sizes, of course, but they are always there. It touches on a duscussion that Monsieur Bender and I had time and again contrasting those who stay within pueblo culture to see it grow and those who flee from a pueblo culture to take seed in other parts (usually bringing along facets of the origin culture). Even in this simplification, a third option is obvious. Spirits of the air may not take seed anywhere. They drift, finally never taking root in any locale except their tomb.

The question the idea begs is this: Is it really important to take seed anywhere? Is it necessary? Or is it just human nature or, further, animal nature to biologically and psychologically repopulate one’s bubble? I feel no pressure to do so. I posit that it is a freedom that few have. Perhaps that is a lofty or elitist proclamation. Fuck um.

As I mentioned, I’m finished with attempting to change peoples’ fundamental natures, so the case of Aitor is in his own hands. Actually, it’s most likely in the hands of not only Aitor, but of his family and closest friends - that is, the ones what make most of our decisions for us. Aitor’s bubble will make the descision for him. But, like Monsieur Bender and like myself, spirits of the air thrive in reduced, yet highly permeable bubbles. I shall continue to thrive in my own.

Perhaps the subject of this entry should be An Ever Enveloping Cage instead of An Ever Expanding Cage. The latter, an unfortunate mistake that I could easily reach up and change with my agile cursor and typing skills but shall not since it would eliminate the need for this sentence, signifies the same as what scientists of the modern age bark when they refer to the expansion of the universe. It’s stretchy. If my cage is also stretchy, then it doesn’t move to accompany other philosophies, ideals and lumps of garbage left by so-called neighbours who have trundled along. No! It stretches like our universe, becoming larger but keeping the same contents. Its contextual surroundings never change.

I’d like to think that my mind is not estrecho like that of a pueblo-bound palurdo. I’d also like to think that as the universe stretches, it becomes so diffuse that each of my neurons becomes an individual Boltzmann Brain. Oh, they will, Herr Cynic! By that time, however, the stretch will have rendered the concept of distance useless and each of those brains will be its own universe, divorced from contact with any other. Fuck um.

I’ll start again.

I’d like to think that my mind is not estrecho like that of a pueblo-bound palurdo. An expanding mind only becomes bloated on its own feces and beliefs. An enveloping mind absorbs new concepts, has the ability to create abstractions between disperate elements of ideology, philosophy and culture.

This brings me to the primary topic of this entry. I appreciate art more when it is can be decontextualized without damaging its meaning. As a unit of art, it can stand apart and shine, like a Boltzmann Brain out of contact with any other so-called sentient cloud of vapour. If, in other palmistry rites, an obra is steeped in its context to the extent that it cannot be separated from it to be appreciated, it will be diminished for me. I will not appreciate it. It becomes a painting hung on the outer wall of a stone bubble. I have to travel to that bubble’s whereabouts, observe the lines and swirls, then enter the bubble itself and glean ideas about what’s going on inside, re-emerge, consider the coloured forms once again, possibly repeat, etc.

I think and deal in abstractions more and more as I inch towards decrepitude. One of my greatest ex-loves, lyrical and poetic forms, don’t entice me like they used to unless they are also floating in an abstract mist. Specifics ruin the experience. I used to be a big fan of musical storytelling. I was into Harry Chapin and such ilk. Perhaps my ever enveloping cage has enveloped too much. To appreciate art, I wish its context dismissed. I realize that is more difficult with narrative oriented poetry / lyrics. Thus, I distance myself from them. I float in an abstract mist. Music, being a more abstract form itself than language, fares better for me when its context is not immediately apparent or if it is a hybrid of many contexts all referring to one another in complex ways. When it can only be appreciated fully within one of the aforementioned stone bubbles, it’s not going to get my attention.

For me, art that has to be contextualized for appreciation is not arte puro. It cannot transcend its origins. I have to use a modifyer to name it accurately - folk art, pop art, or whatever. The age of complete decontextualization shall come, and it will be beauty puro.

I once wrote:

Regularity and routine and especially in the same small town makes memory monolithic, blurring similar situations from diverse times - the dragonflies tell me.

Dragonflies are known to be cerebral creatures, especially in pueblos dotted with drying puddles of foreign interference. The footprints of travellers fade quickly. Memory remains monolithic, steeped in cultural immobility.

These days, I find regularity and routine to be tools to various ends. My music making’s graph that was flatlined for years, or even decades, has taken on a mountainous nature once again. Regularity and routine are culprits in this enterprise. When I wrote the above quote, however, I was an observer of the quiet circular stitches made by the inhabitants of Seminole, Texas.

Monolithic memory in a way is like sedimentary stone. Layer upon layer are piled and atop is the culture. It’s also unlike sedimentary stone because the lowest layers still permeate the nature of those more exposed to the air. They both support and invade anything that builds upon them. They are despotic bastards. But aren’t all cultural mores, in a sense?

Monolithic cultural memory also inflicts what I call hearsay knowledge upon inhabitants that roam atop the outermost layer. Hearsay knowledge is in contrast with common knowledge and fundamental knowledge. It’s a set of customs and old wives tales based on myths and traditions. Some may scrape truths and realities in a shallow sense, but most are followed simply by sheer force of their cultural history. Examples would be closing the closet door before gonig to sleep at night or never placing a hot dish in a modern refrigerator. Both cannot be verified to be true in our modern age. The first springs from childhood fears, solidifies into unthinking habit. The second was moderately realistic at some point in the past, but has no bearing on recent appliances.

The pueblo mind and its monolithic memory is slow to change, almost immobile.

In contrast to hearsay knowledge, common knowledge is a grey area between easily proven facts (given our current technological and scientific state) and pure myth. It varies from culture to culture, though there normally is overalp. It varies more widely between bubbles. The group of friends I had in university and beyond (Tony, Jayson, Jeff, Christopher …) had a more erudite common knowledge than the fratboy ’sgitabeer types down the hall, though their common knowledge may have had facets we were unaware of, as well, to play the fucking abogado del diablo.

As an aside, it was always thrilling to find other small cultural bubbles (that I usually called shibboleths) that were regionally or socially disconnected but shared these erudite common knowledges. Bonding was usually quicker, like with the social groups I found in Praha after my eternal exile from the states.

Hearsay knowledge, in spite of its kinship with astrological, starry-eyed pseudo-religious hovno, does provide an almost endless wellspring for fictional interpretation. In fact, the impetus of this journal entry was my perusal after over a decade of Lovecraft’s tales. He took primal hearsay knowledge from recessed, haunted cultural memory and costructed a vivid, frightening universe. Most common knowledges state to not take such stories at face value. I’d imagine, however, even given their extreme, fantastical nature, there exist peasants who do.