Apathy

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// | // .-=""=-. | unmitigated v\ -|--, /v---|---|- |\ // .'\__/ \_\ | irrelevant / \\ || / // \ || || | \ // /__/ \__/ \__.oo | anti-news /___\\ ||_/ //___\ || ||__| V/ ._/___\__/__\__(____/ | episodic / \\|| // \|| || | // /__|/ \|__\ ` | orchard / V' // ' ' // ______________________|_____________________//________________// //////////////////// what? / older / email / feedback / links // ________________________________________// ////////////////////////////////////////// __________________________________________________________ a musical | | diagramme | 2--. .--1 | log below | Pajo |.'.| McMahon | | 1-.' '.-2 | | .' .'. '. | | 2-.' .' . '. '.-1 | | Patton |--: .:!:. :--| Grubbs | | 1-'. '. .' .'-2 | | '. | | .' | | 2-'. .'-1 | | Zorn |'.'| Fahey | | 1--' '--2 | | | | David Grubbs - Potato Lettuce.mp3 [10.6mb] | day 1 | vs. | | John Fahey - Charles A. Lee.mp3 [4.3mb] | | | | John Fahey - Requiem for Molly (p3).mp3 [2.0mb] | day 2 | vs. | | John Zorn - Cartoon Music.mp3 [15.8mb] | | | | John Zorn - Saigon Pickup.mp3 [4.1mb] | day 3 | vs. | | Mr. Bungle - Ars Moriendi.mp3 [4.3mb] | | | | Mr. Bungle - The Holy Filament.mp3 [4.3mb] | day 4a | vs. | | Aerial M - Skrag Theme.mp3 [3.4mb] | | | | Papa M - I Am Not Lonely w/ Cricket.mp3 [7.9mb] | day 4b | vs. | | The For Carnation - Salo.mp3 [4.9mb] | | | | Squirrel Bait - Sun God.mp3 [2.8mb] | day 5 | vs. | | Bastro - I Come From a Long Line.mp3 [3.4mb] | | (of Shipbuilders) | |__________________________________________________________| __________________________________________________________ | | 02/05/2000 | Traffic crossing paths with plans | |__________________________________________________________| | | | | stand there | | on your | Tools for scratching your head. | forehead | | | | bzz zzz zzz | | zzz bzz | MAV -- Micro Air Vehicle | ZZT | *blink* Holy mackerel. Science and technology | | rule. What are the implications of tiny 6-inch | | flying delivery systems? Bees that smell TNT, | | that's what! | | | | | a fun story | | by punchy | I wear pants. Often I wear the same comfortable | friday me | ones, mostly because I can't buy pants that fit. [as | | mentioned in the past] I put lots of things in my | | pockets, like keys and pens and coins and my | | harmonica and steak knives. Lately, my spare change | | has been disappearing and magickally reappearing | | inside my shoe. This is strange because I stopped | | wearing the ankle magnets a few weeks ago. | | | | Turns out There's a Hole in Me Pocket, Mate! I have | | repaired the damage, but I miss the clank clank of | | the shoe as it bends. | | | | While we speak of pants, is Mr Pants the same person | | as Mister Pants? | | | | | the last of | | the mp3 | Today's entries are more standard fare for me, being | cycle | riff-based guitar rock. Squirrel Bait was that one | | mediocre band that had both McMahon and Grubbs on | | guitar, and their song is short but to the point. | | They have conviction. Afterwards, Grubbs did | | continue to rock with John McEntire in Bastro. The | | shipbuilding song hits the vague connecting point in | | this circle; what makes repetition enjoyable, and | | what sort of trickery can the artist play on your | | expectations? | reciprocity | | | Western Homes has reviewed both the | | original Squirrel Bait LP and the Bastro one. | technical | | junk | Apologies if your transfers have been cut off. The | | mp3s are being served from my one and only machine, | | and if I manage to mangle things a reboot slices you | | downloaders off. | | | |__________________________________________________________| __________________________________________________________ | | 02/04/2000 | May stunt growth and learning | |__________________________________________________________| psa | | | Pokey is back, with two new strips in the past two | | days. I heartily recommend Spyonit for tracking | | sites which update irregularly, as it's the first | | one to correctly and speedily do what it sets out to | | accomplish. Cleans mildew and logs too. | | | | | cribbed | | from the | Oriland is the only page that attracted any of my | purpley | attention away from Mindstorms, possibly because it | brew | is in that same creative engineering vein. Except | | with very pretty paper; if you don't usually click | | links, follow this one or else! | | | | | still | | confused | LG pointed me to some more modern interpretations of | but not as | yesterday's mysticism: Lone Star Kabbalah, with CG | dim | art and an article relating the ideas of Kabbalah to | | superstring theory. Warning, bad "puns". | | | | | leftover | | grid | Raster's Wozzle | | | | | leftover | | carroll | Puzzookies - Puzzles You Can Eat | | Actually, they're tangrams. How can you actually | | market a right triangle cookie cutter like this? | | (Dodgson had some really neat Alice tangrams.) | | | | | bisquick is | | funny | Onion: Area Man Consults Internet Whenever Possible | | This sort of article wasn't quite as powerful seen | | as a web page as it was in print, due to the subject | | matter. I laugh both ways; the actual text of | | articles has been improving of late. Point: | | | | "'Let's face it,' he added, 'Bisquick boxes are a | | dead medium.'" | | | | | today and | | the mp3 | If I frightened anyone away with yesterday's | music | glorious battle, that's too bad. Everything today | | is a mellow fight, so you should not be scared if | | bandwidth is available. | 4a | | | I wanted to get this done by Sunday, so here are 4 | | songs comprising a very soft part of the cycle. Mr. | | Bungle calms down somewhat for an operatic tune laid | | up against David Pajo's early Aerial M guitar | | twisting. | 4b | | | Then, Pajo (as Papa M) slices and dices expectations | | in the big old minimalist drone of Cricket. Brian | | McMahon (also of our beloved Slint) drops by with a | | very proper song along the same lines, quiet singing | | delineated by echoing beeps. These two songs aren't | | really at war; they approach tone and the space | | between notes from much the same angle, but each | | with their own little twists. | | | | Oddly, Salo is the first song thus far that actually | | has sensible lyrics. | | | | | | Hug someone you don't know today. Greet a stranger | | on the street. Spasm with epilepsy. Then hug them. | | | |__________________________________________________________| __________________________________________________________ | | 02/03/2000 | Fumbling at hours | |__________________________________________________________| famous | | comedy | Mitch Hedberg's revised schedule [warning: popups] | | takes him to the ?? Theater, here in Madison. | | | | Who's this Mitch character, you ask? Likely the | | funniest of the slacker comics, he always twists | | things around and it's impossible to see it coming. | | Observational humor that's actually funny, as done | | by a slightly more excited Stephen Wright. | | | | "You can never play tennis better than a wall plays | | tennis." | | | | It's really all in the delivery, which you can check | | out in the media clips section. | | | | | everybody | | loves | While on the comedy tip, and because "everybody else | timothy | is doing it", I give you my favorite McSweeney's | | article of the past month. Had to stop between | | paragraphs, the style and quips buried me that | | badly. | | | | The Gravity Foundation Addresses Merge/Sort Junior | | High School | | | | "I like to think of gravity as a jack of all | | trades.... [It's] what makes your eye able to | | differentiate colors." | | | | | this is no | | great loss | Visual qualities of URLs: | | http://anm8.8m.com/aaa.html | | (actual content questionable) | | | | | invented | | problems | Reading Confusion, Part I: El Hero | | Every time I saw the "riothero" entry show up on an | | updated list, I read it as "Rio Thero", assumed it | | was some sort of Spanish or Portuguese log, and | | ignored it. Guh. | | | | He posts hatemail. I want hatemail too! I want to | | be loved! Aww, forget it. | inventive | | conclusions | Reading Confusion, Part II: Diagramme | | LG read my margin as being a "mystical" diagram, and | | thought it bore some resemblance to | | the Sefiroth. Whatever this stuff is [I won't | | pretend to get it], the pictures are unbelievable. | | Go. | | | | (Remotely related to John Zorn's Tzadik project, in | | that it has some sort of tie to the Jewish | | religion.) | | | | I would love to see one of those web-filters enhance | | this process. Somehow mix connotations and closely | | spelled English words... hmm. | | | | | the eagled | | eye | On that note, Mo Nickels (which I originally read as | | No Nickels) writes a vertigo-inducing journal which | | replaces everyday happenings with thrilling, | | somewhat conceptual commentary. | | | | Earlier in January, Mo covered shifty tricks in the | | form of carnivals and three-card monte. | | | | Also, his microbiography is another superb piece of | | fiction. | | | | | mp3s today | | | John Zorn's Naked City project tries to feel out the | | boundaries of standard rock instrumentation and | | ideals. I love Bill Frisell's work on their debut | | disc in particular. If noise jazz fused with good | | old rock and roll, that might be just the thing. | | They're up against Mike Patton and the crew of Mr. | | Bungle, bringing the pain with a rocking track from | | their recent triumph. Though Zorn is more all- | | encompassing, Patton brings crazy vocal stylings | | that offset the jumping genres nicely. | | | | Note how the saxophone squawk of Cartoon Music leads | | nicely into this part of the cycle. The transitions | | will be murky and counter-intuitive from here. | | | | The cover songs on the Naked City disc are great | | fun. Here's Zorn's interpretation of the James Bond | | theme, with Frisell doing some very fine bullet | | richochet effects and ripping the main melody. | | | | John Zorn/Naked City - The James Bond Theme.mp3 | | | | Normal rock after this little cycle finishes | | rotating, I promise. | | | | | awkward | | moments | Every time I talk to my parents over the phone, | | during the conversation I get that sinking feeling | | like I told them something that they're going to get | | all worried about. They have no reason to worry, | | and neither do I, but it's like that one Lagwagon | | song. "Delivering psychosis, over the phone to | | you..." | meta | | journal | I don't want to turn this into a journal, but I just | | got me some Mindstorm action. Intense time-sucking | | fun so far, so you can expect a smattering of Lego | | links this weekend and a bit of a slowdown in | | logging as I geek out. | |__________________________________________________________| __________________________________________________________ | | 02/02/2000 | "I feel I am free, but I know I am not." | |__________________________________________________________| romanian | | opera | JY has introduced me to the works of E.M. Cioran, | | and the happy above quotation. An outwardly | | pessimistic friend of Beckett's, he writes in a | | battle with the tide of positive thought. Hilarity | | ensues. Net resources are slim, I only found one | | article in a cursory search: Spike Magazine - E.M. | | Cioran - To Infinity and Beyond | | | | I'm through some of his collected writings, which | | are extremely fragmentary. Favorites so far: | | | | "I react like everyone else, even like those I most | | despise; but I make up for it by deploring every | | action I commit, good or bad." | | | | "A passion for music is in itself an avowal. We | | know more about a stranger who yields himself up to | | it than about someone who is deaf to music and whom | | we see every day." | | | | | refusal and | | gift | W3C says "Avoid ascii art". I say, I'm obsessed and | | can't stop! Let's hit a few old destinations. | | | | Pictext Service turns an image into ASCII. | | | | Spatquant can output ASCII images, but what is it? | | Who cares, it's called Spatquant! | mirror | | please | Really need to start delving into that Aalib [site | | disappeared] so I can produce images with contrast, | | like this face. Of course, it would be even better | | if I could somehow hack it to maintain hue as well. | | | | Obligatory Quake Aalib screen | | | | | stickum | | power | Amazing when things line up. Mike o' Lark points | | out This to That, an engine for figuring adhesives. | | Glass + Ceramic requires Loctite 349 Impruv, a | | highly toxic substance. Maybe it shall have to stay | | broken. | | | | | random mini | | sugar | Antinews: Watchlinks Pita / Meepzorp | frosted | | crispy bits | Please, no beatings! I'm too young to die. | | | | Break the chain, eat bacon at work. | | | | Four and twenty years ago, baked in a pie. | | | | Along those darker lines, sad pita. | | | | "With the untimely demise of the Mafia in the United | | States..." [This will probably offend you, it | | offends me... these are the joys of anarchy.] | | | | | under where | | now? | Don't really understand D Chess's Nomic exercise? | | Can't say I do yet. Check the Nomic FAQ. Look at | | all the leetle Nomics dashing hither and thither, | | this way and that. | the signal | | between the | My favorite card game is mentioned in the FAQ: | math | Eleusis, sometimes dubbed a simulation of research. | | It has something to do with the Nomic rule-changing | | scheme making the rounds, but is mainly an exercise | | in sequence induction. | kill the | | oracle | Sometimes quite fun played without the Prophet in | | these New Eleusis rules. Just God versus the | | Scientists. | you know | | not how we | Eleusis works grandly combined with Hofstadter's | love | Mediocrity game alteration. Then one can't be too | mediocrity | obvious about knowing the rules; of course, the game | | often goes forever. The research ceases when | | someone is forced to continue the sequence | | correctly, and win. I always posit that Mediocrity | | extends the fun factor of just about anything... | | including life. | | | | | | | day 2 mp3 | Today John Fahey returns for his final bout with a | | rather experimental segment from Requiem for Molly, | | and he's up against John Zorn this round. From the | | Classic Guide to Strategy, Mr. Zorn pipes in some | | cartoon music, swapping between sax, reed | | mouthpieces, and game calls. It's an unbelievable | | string of fun sounds from another world. Even | | though most folks wouldn't classify it as musical | | per se, download a minute of it and see if it | | doesn't make you grin. | | | made an | BAAAD reporting, Dan. *smak* "Dry Bones in the | oops | Valley" is covered at the close of Upgrade and | | Afterlife, not on Crookt. Guess I was too tired to | | wheel around to the CD wall when writing that pile | | of garbage yesterday. Crookt ends with the wholly | | original "The Wrong Soundings", another favorite | | epic track that progresses through ambient banging | | of pots and pans to full-fledged rhythmic strum- | | rock. The riff makes me hear invisible notes and | | hammered frets that are only in-between the actual | | galloping. | | | | Gastr del Sol - The Wrong Soundings.mp3 [14.4mb] | | | |__________________________________________________________| __________________________________________________________ | | 02/01/2000 | Article preposition, pronoun past tense verb | |__________________________________________________________| | | too late | | for retreat | Going south? | | | | | relent | | lesson | Cribbed from Pete: | | Ptypes is running a personality-type poll of log- | | type-people. Because Ptypes is a log, too. | so many | | different | Personality types interest me in the same vein as | kinds | game theory and decision ethics. It's great when | | humanity attempts to simplify something terrifyingly | | complex, don't you think? | because i | | am intp? | The Ptypes site also attempts to tie traits | | psychologists like to call disorders to personality. | | You might want to use a chart to line up the | | different personality regulators, if you have seen | rhyme on | some in the past. | | | | | bonnie | | prince | New Aiding and Abetting music review set fills me | sound track | in: there's a new Will Oldham release out on Drag | | City. Apparently a soundtrack to a movie entitled | | "Ode". Billions says he's only touring the east | | coast -- rats. | | | | | further | | server | IIS 5 Stability Class with... Bob Carver! | explosion | This is some crazy Microsoft online training | | material, I was attempting to watch it before work | | today. Loads of browser interaction, definitely | | requires IE. | | | | | moments of | | passing | Croon.org is a nifty archive of prose based around | sacrifice | songs. Bunches of snappy writing, with some iffy | | material between the cracks. [prol rocks] | | | | | transfer | | the state | Game Networking 101 - Jake Simpson | of the | Decent article covering TCP/IP and other methods of | universe | networking, and how they relate to games. | down the | Understood. | wire | | | "The Internet was designed to be robust, in real | | time, but not instant. It's a shame, but Quake | | wasn't on their minds at design time." | | | | Since I linked a HeadHunters interview last week, it | | only makes sense to point at Demiurge Studio's | | Headhunters for Unreal Tournament -- collect your | | thoughts and someone else's brain. Unfortunately | | after giving it a go, it doesn't have the high class | | of the original. | | | | | this week's | | mp3 cycle | Today: John Fahey, bluegrass guitar visionary vs. | | David Grubbs, high concept pretentious rocker / | | jazzercize / minimalist | | | | The connection here? Grubbs and O'Rourke covered | | Fahey's "Dry Bones in the Valley" to polish off the | | old "Crookt, Crackt, or Fly". | | | | | begin: the | | finality of | Anyone know how or why an internal Ford newsgroup | entral | message would be linking to this here page? Gave me | | a good laugh. | | | Q. | "With Drew Carey, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, | | and the Indians, is Cleveland cool?" [anonymous | | feedback] | | | A. | No, it has nothing to do with Drew Carey who is | | funny once in a while. And for a place that should | | lay down the rock in thick swathes, the hall of fame | | is rather boring. Their net presence is useless, | | now that I look at it; a Bob Dylan photographic | | tribute went up but no pictures are provided. As | | for the last part, what are the Indians? | | | | After that rant you might think there is no reason | | left to believe Cleveland is cool. You would be | | wrong. Teen pop sensation Craw calls Cleveland | | home. Rock on, Clevelandites. | | | |__________________________________________________________| __________________________________________________________ | | eh? | This is the log of a faceless entity. Me. I wander | | around the web, and point out what are most likely | | completely useless things for you to visit. It's | | where I have been, what I learned there, and what I | | plan to figure out in the future. All in the palm | | of your hand. | | | the daily | Technically speaking, this is a "weblog". There are | surfing | many weblogs. You can probably find one that suits | tools | your tastes pretty closely in the morass below, but | | if not, use the pitas system to track yourself. | | | contact | Dan Fitch dgfitch@yahoo.com / ICQ 363803 | |__________________________________________________________| /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// old archives: dots are interstitial weekly posts grid puzzles: waste time with boxes and their brethren . chip music: listen to the sound of the FUUUUUTURE . lewis carroll: charles dodgson wrote some happy tales . opinionation: how do you do, capitalism? how do you? ........ defunct rock: amf, grammatrain, jawbox, poor old lu, roadside .. ascii games: to quote salon, @ <- you are here . voicemail: automated telephone systems . bach and tone: the endlessly rising canon of links . eigenspace: eigen wha? ... /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// possible subjects: feel free to suggest or help out falling pod: zoooooming through the earth's crust . occam's razor: computational reflection . bad art: clean up old gallery . demoart: art disks, ansi conversion, zoomscope . WFMU hunt: scavenge a radio site . cardboardic: disposable release . collage: photographic and non, preferably non-digital . stupid cartoons: sg, c+c, r+s, brak . pita wrapper: perl posting app to hide/change interfaces ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////