For the record it is 27 October 2005 and me and the Missus have been walking around in our T-shirts. The weather is warm and sunny and dry. If this is the result of global warming, then so be it. So surprising has the change of climate been that we took a few snaps while walking Alex the Wonderdog to capture the day.
View from the hill
Using a biscuit as a bribe
Me & the Dude – nice hat!
Biscuit hunting…
Meanwhile, back home the shredder is a big success!
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While the Missus was out at a swanky press junket at the Tower of London, looking at the Crown Jewels (insert joke about my privates here), I found myself noodling at the various instruments in my “studio”. Whenever I listen to ambient music like the recent Fripp soundscapes CD, I often blow the dust off my looping device and decide to capture a feeling in the same vein.
The idea was simple last night. Set up a short loop of around 30 seconds and just noodle with a piano patch. The initial results were completely wrong, too busy and just awful. There was no spirit in the recording. There can be a number of aims when producing ambient music and in this instance I was interesting in building up single notes to produce patterns, random tunes. I wasn’t interested in musicality as such (because I never am and I don’t profess to actually know anything about music itself) but more interested in creating something simple out of a handful of notes. This next piece is the result of that. It’s working title is “Pianoscape 2” but it could easily be titled something evocative as “Still Crane Lake” or “The Widow’s Memories”.
An example of a pianoscape
I recorded a number of these short pieces last night, jumping from instrument to instrument. I have a really interesting acoustic guitar piece that came out of it, but I need to fine tune it and record it again because I was getting tired and my fingers started to misbehave. I think that if I can produce enough “pure” ideas for this, I might even have a quick CD out of this. But I just love the idea of using loops in this abstract way. It is almost like subconscious music making and when I play back am started by the results.
In the post: Phil Manzanera – 50 Minutes Later. I have a quick listen to this and it begins well before a succession of slow, dreamy songs make you feel like your wading through treacle…in a good way. A proper review soon.
Just arrived: the shredder. Oh yeah, baby! I am gonna have some fun shredding today. I am going to see if I can shred a T-shirt with this thing. Oh yeah…
Quick entry before I forget it. I hate remembering dreams at the best of times, but I had a really heavy sleep last night and my dreaming was depressing to say the least. It concerned euthanasing a dog. I am not sure if the dog was meant to be Alex or not, but the dream was filled with misery, upset and grief: all the emotions that go hand in hand with loss. When I woke, the dream and the feelings were still with me and I’m still feeling a bit upset by the dream.
Pull yourself together man, you big pansy!
Woah! Apparently there’s some mystery surrounding the recent death of the wife of the Nigerian President. Mr Ralph Idoko wants to fill me in with the details if I contact him. Should I? Should?
Here’s the email:
Dear Sir/Madam
I am Mr.Ralph idoko The very close Aid to wife of nigerain president who died on sunday 23 october 2005 shotly After she undergoing surgery in spanish hospital
The storry behind the death of The Nigerian first lady Stella Olusegun Obasanjo is yet made known to the puplic because of the sin behind it. But right now, If you can assure me that no one will know about this sin behind it i am ready to tell you the full storry.Because right now am scared of whom am contacting.
If you are interested to hear me out.Please feel free to contact me on the above Email address as am still in Spain. I have less than 14 days to fly back to nigeria.
What I really need is your trust, honest ,and Confidential so that I will Tell you the full storry of her death and the opportunity her death has create to me as her very close Aids.
Please our correspondence should be on email only. for confidential reasons.Once i hear from you i will give you a telephone number to reach me here in spain.Please is very Urgent. Ralphidoko@excite.com
Thanks
Mr ralph idoko
Remember kids, never trust emails from friendly Nigerians, no matter how friendly they appear to be!
You can download this from here:
A while ago we decided to invest in a shredder. This was as a result of all those scare stories going around telling us how easy it is for identity theft to occur and so we could shred all our sensitive information into homemade confetti. Our first shredder stopped working after 10 minutes of use. I got the blame for the malfunction. I had been cramming too much paper into the shredder with gay abandon and boyish excitement. Not true, I protest, but the Missus is insistent that I knackered the shredder. So we returned the faulty item and got a replacement. Lo and behold this unit did the same thing and burnt-out in about 10 minutes. Proving my innocence, I did a little victory dance until the Missus had apologised for the slur on my character.
Anyway, the upshot of this was that I ordered a new shredder at the weekend. In fact, in the same order I’d ordered some padded envelopes to ship off all the DVDs I sold on eBay recently. Well today the delivery man arrived with the order and there were my envelopes, but duh…duh…duh…there was NO SHREDDER. The curse of the shredder has struck again. Three times we’ve been denied a shredder…three times the curse has struck. How can we break the spell? How can we end this nightmare. Hopefully the shredder will arrive tomorrow.
In the post: KTU – 8 Armed Monkey purchased from Riverman. Thanks, Geno!
Phil Spector in court on a murder charge.
In that position, I guess the last thing you worry about is your hair!