Cold days. The temperature in here yesterday morning was 12.4, slightly warmer than the morning before but only because the night before began with a room of 17 degrees (vs. 13 before). This morning it was 11.5 here, a record low. The windows are getting draughty with age. When we first moved in here, when I was a teenager, I remember waking up in the night for a drink to find my bedside water frozen on top, so it's not as cold as it was, though my older bones feel it more.
So, yesterday. I realised in the night that I'd missed something in my Prometheus upgrades, from 5 to 10 octaves. Song and sample pitches are updated (effectively this turns them up by 3-octaves), but there are some plugins which use the note number. PitchPan is an example: there are two note numbers, each corresponding to a pan direction, so C1 might be far left, C2 far right. When the songs are suddenly higher notes, these pan settings are wrong, so I had to program an auto-import for these older songs so that these 'note number' plugins are auto-upgraded too. This is a bit of a pain, I'm reminded that these sort of song format and file upgrades lead to more complexity with each new version, but it's now done and Prometheus is at v3.00. It started at v2.00, so this marks exactly 100 updates since Oct 2002 and the first version.
After that, it was time to get ready and pack for the Crewe Library performance. We left at 13:45 or so, and drove to the back, but this temporary loading area was full. This is technically a loading area for the Acorn Day Centre. The library itself has no loading area, no car park, and minimal facilities. Angus, the manager, said that it 'should be okay' to park temporarily for unloading, and hand-wrote an 'unloading for library business' sign for the car, literally in crayon on a torn piece of paper. Deb had to re-park in the civic car park afterwards. I didn't particularly feel like a valued special guest at this point.
And now, a polemic diversion. Crewe (well, Cheshire) council now want to (will) demolish the old library and this car park, leaving the new library, the theatre and much of the town with no parking at all. The new library is one of the worst in Cheshire, out-sized and out-classed by every village library that surrounds it. It replaced an old library, old swimming pool, and old sports and education centre complex - three huge venues; now all fitted into an ugly small box with inadequate facilities. This complaint, I must make clear, is inspired by a recent announcement of a £75 million 'history centre', when looking backwards is Crewe's exact problem. The 'Memorial Square' is literally a memorial to a past Crewe, an homage to death which fixates politicians who dream of a mock-golden-age of dangerous and dirty factory jobs. This disease of probably common to much of the North West of England, but here is of religious proportions. I'd prefer a bigger library, bigger swimming pool, and bigger sports centre; a future and absolutely not anything historical.
The show itself started at 4pm as planned. There were 10 to 20 people in the audience. A couple of friends came but at least 75% of the audience were new, which was nice; and perhaps thanks to the library staff, the good posters, leaflets and organisation before the event. As a mid-day event, perhaps half of the people there came and/or went during the show itself, so maybe 30 or 40 people heard a part of it.
Peter, my piano student, came at the start and was a help during setting up, and his usual enthusiasm (including pressing every piano key many times). The sound quality was brilliant, one of our best shows, and everything went to plan. It was one of our best performances in that everything went to plan, almost all(!) notes and words correct. The vocoder sounded better than it ever has before. The lighting and atmosphere was poor, something like performing in an office, as the image shows. A darker space would have been better; but Crewe has no control over the lights which remain on at all times.
We packed up and I got home before 7pm. We were handed a pile of change by Angus, £27 for our troubles, and he said that he'd taken off the money for the refreshments, which, though reasonable, felt rather mean. Again, I didn't feel like a valued special guest at this point, more like Oliver Twist being handed his gruel by Mr Bumble.
It's a slow day today. I feel physically and mentally tired. Art is production... I need to create more. I've worked more on the painters album and played a simple (morose - and lovely!) melody for the Cotán song. The album feels, already, a little like my Burning Circus collection. In poetry terms, The Burning Circus is probably my best published work, my best poems after 40 years of writing, yet it's sold zero copies, never been reviewed or, beyond my closest friends, read. A themed collection, no matter how good aesthetically is difficult for people to gain attachment to, but perhaps much of the best art is. Of all her albums, I love Kate Bush's The Dreaming best, yet it remains her least popular. I think she could have gone further in several experimental areas, but she chose, for whatever reason, to backtrack and become more mainstream.
