Month: January 2021

Song-a-Day Sisyphus

Soundtracky stuff – the actual folk song style has a chorus like this (below) and a BPM of about 80-90, so very very different.

And I know that I can lift it

and I know that I can carry it

and I know that I’m going to push

that boulder up this hill

and I know someone will help me

if I do it with a whole heart

and I do it with a whole heart

and I do it

and I will

 

So I’ve diarized to re-record it if I can’t find the original recording from Toronto and the dawn of time.

Officially a pensioner

As of this month I am collecting a pension. I certainly FEEL old enough to be collecting a pension, and I’m pleased and somewhat proud to have managed to get this old. THANKS FOR THE AWESOME EPIGENETICS FoLKS

Today I have a long, long to do list but I’ll keep it to myself, since I likely won’t get to half of it. Three letters stamped and ready to go, including an extra-long whiny one with bonus ART in it for mOm.

I think today I will be more household chore oriented and a little less on the creative side – wrote four soundtrack chunks yesterday with names like KOI POND IN RAIN, SUSPICIOUS FUNERAL MUSIC, TELECOM #2 and THE REALIZATION. If I can figure out how to record them – Anthony will likely help if I can’t arrange it – they will end up on this site in the fullnews (nice typo!!) of time.

Twitter this morning was so full of white people being assholes that I quit doomscrolling early to come here to complain.

Clem’s Walk

Ah. Clem, an ex of Sandra’s, of many past posts, has a beautiful property close to Barry’s Bay Ontario. Walking around it was one of the most glorious things that ever happened to me. I mean what kind of a crazy ass dude plants 5 acres of milkweed for the butterflies??? Yes. And there were geese, and a lake full of water lilies and loons calling, and gardens, and weathered barns, and weathered local painted advertising signs, and weathered farm equipment lavished round the joint. It was honestly like a tourist trap with a thousand exquisite views for painting and photography, except there were no tourists and it wasn’t a trap.

Although Sandra and I are no longer on speaking terms and likely could not be reconciled (racism and conspiracy theories and me being a stuck up jerk, among other things, divide us) I have a very happy recollection of her just leaving me be and making supper while I composed this in her living room. I have very rarely been as happy with an instrumental composition as I was when I wrote it, and nothing that’s happened since has changed my mind.

Entertainingly I have ANOTHER song with the name Clem in it, but it’s a Buffy filk, and that comes later. Anthony recorded this on the 4th of January inst.

Site’s slow

Not sure why but everything is taking forever to load.

11568 on “Roommate”.

@janecoaston on twitter this morning “If I sigh any harder I will break something” and what a mood that is. Between her comments about college football, her political savvy and her writing ability she is someone whose tweets have been entertaining and informative above and beyond normal tweetage. She’s Black; her restrained and informed opinions about American racism have been my friends as I keep to the path of anti-racism.

Letters to Jan G and Dave D this am, well, if I ever finish his now that the internet’s up after the 4-7 am blackout period. FINITO yes now I have to roll down the hill to the mailbox.

Today: restringing Smokey so it stays in tune on Monday, calling the EEG clinic AGAIN… this time with my care card number, and planning pre-posts for Maudlin Monday, and marking down what songs got posted on what day so I don’t forget or duplicate one. Flower roll dough is in the breadmaker. Borscht from yesterday is marinating in its own excellence in the fridge.

I need my fucking ADD medication to deal with this, but until the EEG is read I can’t make a doctor’s appointment to get them, so that’s disappearing into the fog.

We got vegan breakfast cookies on our minisupplyrun yesterday and now I’m thinking I want to make them, they’re really surprisingly good.

Trained Buster this morning. As always he’s a lot more interested in run

chase

eat

the

treat oh Give me another one! than paw claps, but I got a respectable 6 paw claps out of him this morning.

words and music and pictures

Conflikt Frog

(c)Onflikt is this weekend. All the filking will be done on Zoom. I hope to see the Talis Kimberly concert at least, although I’ll likely need a nap for the hour it’s at.

11179 on Best Roommate. Hug scene today if I can deal with it (this is only going to mean anything to my faithful readermOm.)

Made flower rolls yesterday (and pork patties) and the flower rolls are ALL GONE.

Letters will go off to Mary and Jan M and someone else, can’t now remember, so I’ll probably do a small shopping expotition while I’m out getting sufficient postage on Jan’s package, since I’m almost out of milk.

Effective immediately, no more cloth masks, only N95 or K95 while I’m out. The new variant is incredibly contagious and even if I got COVID in March I can still likely catch and carry it.

I see that some of my pre-posted stuff popped up already, and I don’t really understand how that happened, but I’m going to tuck them back in where they belong if I can.

I’LL BE ABLE TO CONVERT MY MIDI FILES. That is an IMMENSE relief because without that I’d have a hard time filling the entire year of tunes.

I need to review my list of songs again. It’s like an amorphous blob of pulsating weirdness how I don’t actually have a grip on the number.

Mira Furlan has passed at 65 of complications of West Nile Virus. Her role as Delenn was iconic and amazing and she was a hero to both kids, when the grandparents exposed them to B5. Rest in power, Ambassador.

Blues Bag Song-a-day

Get your own blues bag baby x 3

now ya got it/don’t ya drop it/don’t ya drop it baby x 2

Get your own sweet thing baby x 3

I blew the chorus, whatever….

long time local fans will recognize the instrument line as the same one ALMOST for ‘Spinal Clinic’ and if anyone wants to give me a hard time let’s think about how many revisionings of here comes the rain that the cult did LOLOLOL

 

anthony recorded it but I’m responsible for how shitty it is

The list is long

That’s a quote from Eric Frank Russell’s “WASP”.

Anyway, today:

11149 words so far on Best Roommate

Jeff cleaned 25 gigs of crap off my hard disk, so I can reinstall Finale FINALLY.
Isn’t English hilarious?

I will also try to update my OS PRAY FOR ME NOW SINNERS

I drank coffee. I POOOOOOOOOOPED and pooped again. I feel so light and free although I should probably put up a biohazard sign.

And I trained Buster, who was not having any. He has his little ways to let me know he’d prefer to run and chase treats than beg for them.

I wrote a letter to my pOp and one to Alex. There’s a little card with artwork on it in pOp’s letter, and Alex’s letter is covered in garish watercolour pencil art. Tomorrow I’ll write a letter to Mary and send some fabric from mOm’s stash along to Jan Maxwell, who already has a ton of fabric BUT DOES NOT HAVE the last little bit of sexy raygun SF fabric and will likely turn it into comfy masks in the fullness of time, whereas I won’t, likely. Although I do have a fabric project for the spring – I’m going to put a floor length door drape on my bedroom door, with black lace fabric at the bottom to let the cold air in from the air con.

Last night:

Composed three instrumentals (soundtrack style stuff) on the Kaossilator. With luck I will record them on the 1st with Anthony. One of the instrumentals is entitled: Unicorn Farts. It’s plausible….

Slept 8 hours solid. Haven’t done that in an age. No recollection of waking up until I had to pee at 4:30. Amazing how a little exercise gives me better rest, surprise surprise.

Yesterday:

Jeff dropped me off at Planet Bachelor that was (Keith is teasing me to come up with a new name, which will be some variant on “The Bachelor System” or “Bachelor Villa” or “Villa Planet” or “Larval Harpi” which is an anagram of what it says out front… yup, the house has a name. “Planet Bachelor II – The Rehoming” is also in play. We shall find out soon enough.) I helped Keith and Katie clean for a couple of hours (polishing chrome in the bathroom, taking a duster to all the cobwebs, a little bit with counters in the kitchen, throwing stuff in the trash), then mailed some letters and walked to the butcher shop and got meat and a couple of blueberry handpies for Jeff. Walking home nearly killed me. I had to stop to catch my breath three times, although I didn’t get into that heart pounding thing. (later…. Caspell Junction it is, according to K&K)

Much pedicurage, following a nice warming bath. I have to keep an eye on my left great toe, I trimmed the nail too much and I’m looking at much pain if I don’t manage how it grows out.

Recently:

Preposted 15 songs. Most are in January and February but I’ve posted well into the year when the song is associated with a particular date. I’m now up to the middle of February and so I have a little breathing room before I have to really start shaking out the oeuvre to keep up the numbers. Still have more MP3s sitting on the media drive, but now the real pressure is to record more. And more yet. I’m one tenth done. This is a bastarding huge project.

Watched Ammonite. Loved it. If you don’t like the idea of watching Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet make out at night in a miniscule bed while collecting and cleaning fossils during the day in Victorian costume including a magnificent rendition of full mourning, stay the hell away from this movie.

Rewatched King Arthur (Owen/Knightley version) again, after watching the King Arthur Time Team Special. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that movie. It’s not the best historical movie ever made, but it’s so good hearted and solid and there are so many wonderful actors in it that it’s just a treat. It’s going on the ‘watch anytime’ list.

Most recent episode of the Expanse has one of the best human vs space sequences I’ve ever seen. Dominique Tipper is absolutely amazing as she battles time, vacuum, gravity, CO2, betrayal, her own physical weakness after a trauma, and the complete sabotage of her ship, in order to prevent the death of her loved ones. The sequence went on for so long I started crying along with her frustration.

Continue to feed crows in the morning if they sit in the dogwood and caw at me. 1 to 4 birds usually show up. Watched them chase off a raven yesterday. The rest of the day it’s canoodly crow couples pitching woo in the tree, it’s quite funny…

It was supposed to start snowing last night. Nada. It’s bucketing snow down now; the world’s gone quiet because it’s Sunday morning and snowing. Now, if I really loved my brother I’d get off my ass, clear the kitchen counters and make him some whole wheat flower rolls. And I’m thinking of making little pork meatballs in spaghetti sauce for hot sammiches using those rolls.