Archive for June, 2007

Moved. Moving? Maybe “Moveding…”

Published at June 30, 2007 in Inane and Personal. 0 Comments

It’s happened, finally.  I have seen the light at the end of the tunnel. In this case, “the tunnel” is the layout of my apartment, and “the light” is the solitary permanently-sealed window at one end.  Fortunately, I live in the 21st century, so I can use my choice of Kerosene, Incandescent, or Fluorescent illumination - though I think people might complain were I to use an arc lamp. Pity, that; I’ve had a great deal of fun with those over the years.

So, yes, the lighting situation is less than ideal, and there’s work still left to be done, but I’m in the apartment!

Overall, I’m happy with the place. It’s a step down in size, but a step up in various features - I turned on the AC for a test run when I left to bring stuff, and when I came back I walked into - I kid you not - a solid wall of cool. Hell - if it had been any cooler, I’d have guessed I was in a paradoxical time-travel situation. (See, that’s a joke about how cool I am, since I travelled back in time, and met myself, and it’s not just the arrival in the DeLorean that makes me cool - I swear!)

The big thing, though, is that little detail of, you know, actually having my own place again. I can spread out my stuff, work on my things, and do all that stuff I do with things. And stuff. And you know what else? I can shower whenever I damned well please. Sure, I’ll probably occasionally “forget” to shower for a week, but that’s not the point. The point is I can shower. Hell, I can shower with the door open, with a transparent shower curtain and sing “Stayin’ Alive” if I want. Falsetto, baby.

Oh, and there’s that matter of the 90 second commute - that’s a good thing too - because until I have 1,200,00 daily viewers and sponsorships from Jolt Cola and Adidas, well, that whole Work Thing is kind of a Big Deal.

Some stuff is in, some stuff isn’t - and regardless of the in/out state, it’s boxed. It’s funny - I don’t remember what’s in those boxes. I have this feeling that I’m dealing with Shroedinger’s Clutter. Until I open the boxes, the probability won’t resolve itself, and there’s no real answer to what’s in those things.

This moving process means there will likely be a pretty high percentage of “this is my life and how it is going” posts, but I assure you - it’s worth it. When I don’t have a space of my own (even if it’s a space that redefines itself daily, like during a distance hike), things start to get… scattered. You don’t want to be sharing my headspace when it’s too scattered, because otherwise the frog train into flashing makes finger’s seven forks spinning. Obviously.

Unappealing IP Addresses

Published at June 28, 2007 in Inane and Personal. 0 Comments

Warning: Completely inane post follows.

I’m still waiting for my realtor to tell me I can move in.  The realtor is waiting for the landlord, the landlord is waiting for the builders, who are in turn waiting for their supplier to deliver the last few things that need to go into the apartment before I move in.  So, given my uncomfortable situation, I’ll share some unrelated discomfort.

I’m looking through server logs, and I’m seeing a lot of different IP addresses.  That’s not surprising.  Actually, if you’re surprised to see IP addresses in your logs, something is clearly horribly wrong - but I digress.  What surprised me is the difference in aesthetic appeal of various IP addresses.  I don’t like IP addresses that start with 3 digit numbers - 173.42.8.113 would be an ugly IP address, where was 64.171.83.203 would be nice.

I know there’s more at play here than just lengths of sections - I have a feeling that even vs. odd is in play, etc.  And that’s it for tonight’s inane screen/brain bandwidth usage.  Things will be so much better I can get back to typing on my Model M and not on a 12″ laptop, during the brief non-work, non-move, non-too-tired-to-do-anything moments.

Moving.

Published at June 26, 2007 in Asides and Personal. 0 Comments

I’m moving, and I’m working. These two things have cut into my blog/personal time seriously, so this has taken a back page. Once I’m settled at my new place (which will hopefully be in a few days) I’ll be on a roll again - and the change in commute from 1 hour to 2 minutes should help matters a great deal as well.

I’m sure you’ve read this sort of thing before, but it’s important for me to keep you up to date… right?

Oh.. and a minor detail - once I’m moved in, I’ll be able to write music again!

Art, Concerts, and Shared Experience

Published at June 22, 2007 in Creation, Mind and Noise. 0 Comments

I call this blog “Shared Headspace” because that’s something important to me - trying to occupy space in each other’s minds, sharing each other’s context. I think that’s one of the best effects of art - not just the “wow” or “that’s beautiful” moment, but the newfound insight into the mind and world of the artist.

Art goes beyond this one-on-one interaction between artist and observer, though, and I think this is one of the things that might be easy to miss out on. Obviously no two people will experience an individual piece of art in the same way - but when watching a crowd of people at a concert, it’s obvious they’re sharing something. That group of people becomes linked not only to the performers, but through the performance they become linked to each other. For the length of the concert, they’ll all be focused on the same thing, and to varying degrees (depending on the insight of the listener and the talent of the musicians, I would imagine) experience the same internal landscape. The individual bits of reflection they might have will be different, but everyone listening will walk out of the concert a slightly different individual than they were upon entry - and they’ll all be a tiny bit closer together.

I think that some kinds of music encourage this sort of interlinking, certain mental states, and certain conclusions more than others, but I think all good art can do this for us. Even seeing things differently, we’re still seeing aspects of some single truth - the very essence of what the artist created, something almost impossible to define.

Writing is an art as well, and as such can also bring our minds into similar places. Unsurprisingly, one of my goals for this blog is to help us establish one of these shared headspaces. I’m out of practice, but as I grow and stretch, I hope our common context does as well.

Quest for a musical scratchpad, love of the Casio SK-5

Published at June 20, 2007 in Music. 3 Comments

Something I’ve wanted for a long time is a sort of ’scratchpad’ for music. As a writer, it’s easy to jot down ideas in a notebook, or on a laptop. As a musician, I find this to be a lot tougher. (This is, of course, for ‘normal’ music - the noise thing is completely different, and very little of this post will apply).

I’ve always loved the Casio SK-5 for its insane immediacy - it’s very portable, runs on batteries, and of course has that lovely sampling feature with the built-in mic. I’ve used my SK-5 on a number of songs, true, but it’s gotten far more use as something I can bounce ideas off, practically anywhere. Tonight I put together a 15 second bit of music, a few notes, a chord progression - and realized the major shortcoming of the SK-5.

After I’d been playing for a few minutes, I decided my idea was worth keeping. Unfortunately, I’m hopelessly poor at remembering bits of music that I come up with. So, I did what made the most sense - I grabbed my laptop, opened it up, fired up Audacity (not my favorite, but it was there), and recorded using the built-in mic. Sounds like crap, of course, but it was just a scratchpad.

There has to be a better way than this! Laptops are great, and so are little Casio keyboards, but this SK-5 was built in the 80s. With the technology available now, someone could replicate each feature of this SK-5,  have enough room left over for audio and midi recording, and still be able to make a profit selling them around $200 USD.  Of course, in the grand tradition of ‘lots of stuff packed into a small space’ there’s the serious likelihood of Bad User Interface - and that would render the whole thing pointless.

Am I hoping for something crazy, here? Part of the charm of the SK-5 is how little it does- and how easy it is to get access to that limited feature set. The more features you add to something, the more difficult it is to use- just look at someone struggling with their PocketPC phone some time to get an idea of what I’m talking about. Things need not go so poorly, of course, and some smart minds like Alan Cooper have said more, more eloquently on this subject than I could ever hope to.

I still want a better way to ‘think’ music into a form that I can replay and edit later, though.

Introduction and Summary

Published at June 18, 2007 in Personal. 0 Comments

Hi. My name is Overand and I write “Noise Music.”

I like to imagine that introductions are simple, that there’s some way we can convey, in just a few words or sentences, something about who we actually are. I’ve written a lot of profiles for a lot of internet sites - professional, personal, and “personal ad.” It doesn’t get easier- part of that is, I’m sure, because I’m not the writer I want to be. Every few years I start again, saying to myself “This time, I’m going to write - this time, I’m going to make it good.”

Hi. My name is Overand, and I wish I were a writer - not just a musician.

That’s better, isn’t it? I’ve started to say something about what I do, and what I *wish* I could do - so now we have an introduction that’s 4th dimensional. A past, present, and future.

Hi. My name is Overand, and I want to think in more dimensions than I’m allowed to. I want to mathematically represent the ’spiritual,’ and viscerally experience the hyperdimensional. I want to use ‘noise’ to help you see this way, because shared context is ultra-happy important to me.

Oh - and I don’t edit, yet. So… I’m Overand, and I’m a blogger.

Hello, metaverse.

Published at June 18, 2007 in Meta. 0 Comments

So this is my ‘hello world’ post, on my ‘actual blog,’ finally -but tentatively- configured. Here’s to hoping I’ll actually put some effort into this…