Vincente Amigo warbles from my Motorola phone. I’d transmit his warblings to my headsets, but I don’t really feel like it. I’ll enjoy his acoustic bumblings from a bit of a distance. As my amigo, Christián, is obsessed with Flamenco, the genre of music that Vincente “belongs” to, I choose to listen and (attempt to) absorb such artists time and again. I haven’t been too successful, truthfully, though on third listen, elements pattering around me during these moments do have their moments. That is, Herr Vincente is more interesting to me than most have been. I recall that Manuel Molina also had a tight and well formed gulag to imprison oneself in for the duration of an album, but somehow, the details of his music escape my remembrance at the moment.

And my theory as to why the details of Manuel’s music escape me is that his, Vincente’s and the music of Flamenco in general has very little intellectual slant to it. One should not be surprised as it is a folk music and had origins in rhythm and especially dance. It’s attractiveness to most, I’d imagine, is on a visceral level. Christián would argue that the technical aspect of the (guitar) playing represents an intellectual facet and he’d be partially right, though I could argue that most of it consists of patterns hammered into muscle memory over years, decades, centuries, epochs. In the future, they’ll be injected directly into the cerebellums of gitano infants - and into the cerebellums of anyone else who might be interested, including into the cerebellums of the Mennonites strung up in Pagan Park. Those guys and gals get Flamenco. Or they will. Fuck um.

In any case, a vast swath of music that appeals to me (and by vast, I mean fucking vast, vole) does appeal on a visceral level. It must. It is music. But the intellectual element - the ability to dissect it especially harmonically and texturally - is present in a degree that is (mostly) wholly absent in Flamenco and folk musics in general.

As I scribed the last paragraph, inevitably, a piece trickles from my Motorola phone in which Vincente has placed an excellent alto saxophone part. You see? Perhaps this will be the most memorable Flamenco album for me of the epoch. Vincente uses a bit more extended harmonic language in his guitar thwakkin, as well, greasing up the air with several scents of ancient jazz. Familiarity is also a factor. Sure, it’s only the third time I’ve listened to this, and this time only semi-actively, but truthfully, and in most cases, one tends to enjoy what one listens to most by choice.

Listening choice brings me back round to thoughts about bare music. I still haven’t gotten around to writing a treatise on the subject. My original notes are virtually lying around somewhere. I’ll revisit when the wind is at my back, the sun is high in the sky and my destination is once again unknown.

Insomnia. It must be either something that I ate or an interior psychological taint that awakened me at four and leaves me sleepless. So, instead of moping or stringing up more Mennonites, I’m sitting in my bed in Seminole and writing. Thus, my morning routine begins early.

On the topic of routines, the deadline for the new Disquiet Junto is today and it is all about routine. Specifically, the resultant composition should follow a daily routine, or, rather, be an interpretation of a daily routine. That was my first impression. Scrolling downwards, however, in their instructions, they give more detail. I am told to break the chore into phases and record a bit of audio as each part of the chore is re-enacted. Then, I am told to combine the sounds, supposedly in sequence, to create the composition.

I have a few of my own ideas.

First, I shall grab the KO Pocket Operator and sample myself typing into Pennanti. KO has been fetched. Now to record. aeoueo.oeuo.poaeuopoeaeueuoeuou.afuduieeuouoeueuoeu and now with the other hand, honeybuničko: ththcstrlhchnthssssththrcgddd hhr rtnh -nthnhr nhrsnth Fantastico! I have two samples of the typing into Pennanti now and shall place them arbitrarily into the composition.

My overall strategy is somewhat different than the actual instructions. My morning routines are intertwined in my mind and therefore should be intertwined within the music.

• Journal entry (typing)
• Exercise (crunches and arm thurks)
• Mathematics

In addition to the samples I just recorded, I want to create a patch on Herr Argon that simulates typing and one that, with a slightly rising decay on the amplitude envelope, will transform into melodic material. I create a sequence based on the quartal harmony I’ve been hallucinating over for epochs. It floats in a pool of simplicity. The pool is rarely troubled by ripples. The sequence is triggered by gates from a midi stream I demurely ask Python to create, semi-random. It could morph into a more stable rhythm. I’m not sure yet.

As for exercise, I’m not going to sample anything, as all music created from samples is false music, made by posers who can only approach the ecstasy of oscillation through empty pseudo-spiritual dream-like rituals involving underhanded hogbuffery. Exercise is naturally a repetitive chore, so a sort of beat should emerge, though perhaps not one of precision. The chug of the ukulele may handle this metaphor. Can a ukulele chug? You bet your finest Pelt of Polish Prostitute that it can, leper-boy. A ukulele in sync with a increasingly swelling and somewhat dirty synth chugs even better.

I shall fetch my tea.

Duly fetched.

Transferring the abstraction of doing multiplication of double digit numbers (and various other operations) in my head to the sonic palette is more problematic. A benign melody, slow and sparse, quickens, becomes more dense and dissonant and painstakingly resolves, or perhaps even suddenly resolves. Mathematics, after all, is bliss.

I awaken from slumber thinking about Jazz Standards and analyzing their chord progressions with reference to their melodies. I’ve spent a good amount of time doing such things, though not in a while. When I was writing much of Jēmaraz, I was highly influenced my my studies of different Jazz Standards. Since then, I’ve drifted into a modal territory that is wholly my own. It’s time to take a step back and see how my new methods line up with studies of Jazz Standards. So I’ll put some time aside to go through a few of them now and again.

On the other simpering face of my personal block of sod, I have contrasting ideas about how to proceed with the forthcoming so-called electronic album. Apart from the three and a third pieces that are more or less written, I’m going to try something I’ve been aching and pining to try for at least a few epochs or a few hours. It is thus: Every progression is a series of chromatic dyads. They are all be descending. The time between each is brief in the context of both geologic and insectile age. These dyads form a part of four or five note chords that encompass the harmonic movement. During composition, the dyadic notes most likely fall on the outer edges of where I move my hands along the neck of Henderson or Uruqi. They are the (if open strings are not used in the middle) upper and lower notes of a chord. For now, the kind of chords are not defined. Let’s call the notes that are not of the dyads, and therefore in the middle of where I move my hands along the neck of Henderson or Uruqi, melodic peculiarities. These melodic peculiarities, as the name implies, supply a melodic dimension to the composition.

The harmonic idea is stated. I shall try to stick with it for the remainder of the pieces on the album. The composed three and a third, apart from The Fen, may benefit from mild adjusting partially into such dyadic chromaticism.

Molecules swarm about my face, like geologic insects. I bat them away.

Unique timbre in the electronic realm forms an aspect of each composition. Let’s try to focus on one particular aspect of timbre for each composition. The first that I envision is made up wholly of hits from low pass gates. Is that limiting? No, because the rhythm, speed and placement of these hits create an infinity of textures. I begin with static harmony as the textures evolve, then suddenly lurch into dyadic chromaticism. The listener, imprisoned in a two square meter cube (one has to give one’s prisoner room to stretch itself, of course - I’m not a monster), is enveloped in texture and gently descending harmony. This captive will forget completely about being a captive as bliss becomes the only constant.

Following this “model”, each electronic composition, apart from the actual notes and timbres, writes itself. Funny how that works, eh? I sit on the aforementioned simpering block of sod, which has solidified into an edifice, and I laugh and laugh.

The synthesist known as grüm~pé sings in my ears. Well, he doesn’t actually sing. His synthesizers sing. This is a preferable state of affairs as whoever said the human voice is the most beautiful instrument was a moron. He / she / it clearly knew nothing of synths. grüm~pé is an inspiration to listen to. Most of his music is done on Modular and his use of timbre encourages me to fiddle with the modulation parameters of my Argon8 until the pads of my paws are raw and running, and especially fiddle with them before activating the sequencer. Oouh, baby. On the other hand, I adore the Tangerine Dream approach from the late 70s where they obviously didn’t have as many (or ANY) automation options, so they modulated as the sequence ran whilst adding other layers. As usual, there is a middle road. That middle road is fuck um.

My mother gave me a box and a plastic bag on jewelry to give to Marisa. I recall some of it from epochs long past. My mother has always had an affinity for turquoise, and a slightly lesser affinity for red jasper. Plenty of both are in the box and plastic bag. Most are entwined with silver. None are really Marisa’s style, but in the end, that’s not important. The heat death of the universe approaches. It’s best to melt down any “precious” metal and sell it to the gitanos. While I’m at it, I can kidnap a few gitano children and put them to work on the plantation. Fuck um.

This morning’s walk beckons me. Has my morning writing run its course? Unless I begin writing about writing, I would suppose so. The dearth of ideas this morning contrasts my physical wellness. In fact, yesternight I felt I was on the cusp of illness. Part of me knew I’d awaken with a new course of Covid. Oouh, baby. Wouldn’t that be fun? I’d be sprawled in the bed for a week watching movies and basking in lethargy. Apart from the nothing I’d do, I’d possibly eat from time to time. I’d most likely urinate time and again. Programming would cross my mind. I’d not strap on the guitar and ROCK, however. There the tragedy’d lie.

On the subject of ROCK, my drift away from that sacred genre soothes me, in fact. As a child and teen, I had distant aspirations of playing in a ROCK band. They were pipe dreams, of course, and when University arrived and Tony and I did play in a ROCK band, it was done badly more than goodly over the years, though much of the writing / composing itself was strong. As Tony once famously intoned: If we could play our instruments, we’d take over the world. So - now I can play my instrument(s). Have I taken over the world, Tone Tone? Indeed I have. To prove it, I’m going to string up a few Mennonites on my walk in a few minutes. They’ll hang in Pagan Park until they rot and are consumed by coyotes. I’ll laugh and laugh.

Fuck um.

My alimentary habits have left my brain soggy this morning. I know there are certain things I should not eat, yet a voice from one of my internal modules tells another internal module that something would taste good. Or, and in the case of yesterday, that whispering module mentions to other modules that I should go with the flow and eat what everyone else is eating - join the crowd - be a part! So I accompanied my mother to Dairy Queen after our stint at the casino to procure three Hungr-Busters and two large fries. My Hungr-Buster also contained jalapeños and bacon, though it was obvious that the latter was largely missing from the finished product. With my parents, I consumed the food. Even before my plunge into the death-like state that is slumber, I felt the results of my folly. Mental acuity was muffled. Tingling sensations carpeted my living corpse. Were I a rat, I’d never eat a Hungr-Buster or anything resembling a Hungr-Buster again. Rats learn. Obviously, I do not.

Olšanské Hřbitovy is more or less done. By more or less done I mean that the current iteration is more or less done. I already know several parts will be updated again after said iteration is finished. These updates will be minor, however, in comparison to the work I’ve done over the last days. I write more or less done because there is a final part that needs revamping. It’s a problematic one because it is the climax of the first half of the piece and involves interlocking melodic structures and therefore must be done convincingly (to me and to the alien archaeologists who eventually find the remains of our species and come across the only piece of art left in existence - the very piece of music I’m writing about). A further complication is that my brain is used to hearing it as it is now. Familiarity tells me that’s the way it should be. I know otherwise. Most probably I’ll decompose the whole thing and replay it all with additions, subtractions and pummelling. Though I may appear to complain, I shall enjoy the process. Immensely.

The mist that occupies my forebrain bids this entry farewell. Fuck um.

Today’s morning music has been Tangerine Dream from their boxed set In Search of Hades. At the moment, a concert from the Royal Albert Hall burbles from my telephone. Since I am neglecting my audiophile tendencies listening via the immaculate telephone speaker, I shall cast the music through the aether to my headphones whilst I write. Ah! Now the burbles of synths caresses me stereophonically. As I began a mini-Tangerine Dream journey whilst working with Force Majeure, I sorted a bit through the so-called interwebs to find which synthesizer(s) they were using. The result was the Korg PS-3100. Surely there exists a website somewhere on the so-called interwebs that shows which synthesizer(s) were played on any arbitrary album from the 70s and early 80s. The existence of such a page seems fundamental to the firmament of the so-called interwebs. I wouldn’t mind making it myself had I the time or volition. I’ll make a note in Joplin. Right now, it’ll have one entry: Force Majeure: Korg PS-3100. If the note fills to any relevant extent, I’ll turn it into an informational page on the so-called interwebs. Fuck um.

Christián’s family drama is an interesting phenomenon? Why? What is the drama? Well - his brother is being emotionally abusive to the rest of the family because he and his ex-prostitute wife (Dobruszka) are leaving soon for Poland to attend a wedding and indulge in various other debaucheries. They want their three children “cared for” during the span. I place “cared for” in quotes because, from Christián’s descriptions, the welfare of his brother’s children doesn’t seem a very high priority. His brother nor his ex-prostitute wife have made no effort to dictate a schedule for the various schools the children must attend, for example, not to mention activities beyond simple schooling. Instead, they are using manipulation tactics (emotional blackmail) to convince Christián and his father to arrange and care for all of the details themselves. Furthermore, Christián’s brother is a narcissistic zealot who is convinced he is right about any moral quandary. Because Christián and their father are family, they are obliged to do their part whilst he and his ex-prostitute wife are out merrymaking. My opinion of this can easily be guessed. Fuck um. Hopefully Christián will not get roped into the affairs.

My morning routine has stabilized, if one could say that four or five days of doing the same thing every morning makes a stable routine. The paramecium infecting the open sore of my hideous face details to all willing to listen that I awaken between six and six thirty. I do crunches and various arm exercises. I go through at least twenty math problems, calculated wholly in the brain that lies behind the open sore of my hideous face. Most of the problems are multiplication related. I study Spanish vocabulary. I write hovno here, as the paramecium infecting the open sore of my hideous face can confirm. I arise, shower and go out into the world. That is, I go to Pagan Park and listen to the newest iteration of Olšanské Hřbitovy on the way (and Christián’s Molju-Pony Ride transition) for evaluation and note-taking purposes.

Portions of this routine will be impossible to keep after I return to the homeland. I savor them whilst here in outworld.

The paramecium infecting the open sore of my hideous face thrusts its cilia into a tender spot to remind me to relate that I also successfully compiled Zrythm yesterevening and shall experiment with it briefly today. My objective with this alternative DAW is to create an “electronic” album in it to experience the workflow of a piece of software other than Ardour. Perhaps it will give me new creative perspectives. Or perhaps the open sore of my hideous face will expand to engulf the universe.

One never knows.

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.