Song Work, P-L-Astic Lyrics

Working hard on the music today, but progress feels slow. There is so much to do, each instrument of each song played and tracked like a performance. Refined the opening 'Flying The City' to evoke a air flight. The second track originally had punks in a crashed, wrecked shop and I struggled to rectify that with a song about friendlessness and a computer god. I also started to track Life As A Robot Guard and did a little more work on P-L-Astic. Here are those words (so far):

P L Astic

I am P L Astic
We are T O Gether
I am loved all morning
but I'll live for ever
Will you L O Vee-me
Will you T H Row-me
In the wide blue ocean
And then F Or Get-me

When you G R Owup
When you D I E
Will you be Re Member'd
Or live on like me

P-L-Astic

Two slower that usual days working on music. The two songs completed so far were 90% complete to start with, which explains the slower pace of progress. Yesterday I revisited a song called P-L-Astic which has been in progress for two years, stuck there with just four patterns and 4 chords, an odd descent of C-Maj, G-Maj, Bb-Maj, F-Maj. I decided to continue with the staircase pattern and kept shifting keys into G#, D#, F#, C# then into an E-minor and, originally, G-Major, solo in the middle.

The mood is completely happy, bouncy, and somehow 'Japanese', but the lyrics were darker and it certainly needed to be longer as the whole thing was under two minutes, so I extended and slowed down the solo into guitar blues, in E-minor and A-minor. These seemingly simply changes were the result of lots of testing, experiments, tries and fails of different options. I tried to played the guitar a little, but my hand injury makes this difficult.

The cut on the thumb is very deep and still hurts. In retrospect, I should have 'steri-stripped' it up immediately after removing the first dressings, but didn't, partly because the doctor told me to treat it 'like a normal cut' after 5 days, but for this wound it was not ideal advice. It was still bleeding a little after 7 days. Well, it's too late now, but using these mock-stiches is helping make it feel a little more comfortable. I really need a sort of stem-cell gel to use like wall-filler. I hope and expect that it will heal slowly and scarringly over a few weeks.

Yesterday I also worked out the melody for a new song, Fake Plastic Lies, a rock song almost in the style of The Who. Progress is generally a lot slower.

Do You Know Where Your Heart Is and Robot Vocals, Someone Else's A.I.

A full day working on music. Recorded and added the vocals to Do You Know Where Your Heart Is and Robot. These were largely sequenced a long time ago, so there wasn't a huge amount to work on in the production. I also spent a lot of time working on the backing for a song called Someone Else's A.I., which is as fast-paced 1930s dance hall/jazz type song, but it would be a bit longer. Here are the words so far:

Using Someone Else's A.I.

I'm using someone else's A.I.
I'm flying autopilot today
There's no denying
I've given up trying
Everything isn't okay

I'm using someone else's A.I.
I'm making waves but they are not mine
I'm even concerned
about the source of these words
it's as though I have given up trying! Now!

Mammy! Give me a sign
Open up your database
show me the crime! (scene)
Baby! Tell me why
I'm using someone else's...

Homo excelsis!
I know I shouldn't do it!
The devil made me do it!
using someone else's ay.
Someone else's ay.
Someone else's A.I.

Scores, Robot Songs

A day of filing at first. The new Modern Game scores are now up, and I modified The End And The Beginning scores to match a new standard.

Single stave songs which include the lead melody, and optional non-lyrical melody elements, are simply subtitled Lead Melody. Scores with two staves, treble and bass such that a piano could play it, again with the lead melody, and optional non-lyrical melody elements, these are named Piano Melody works. 'Piano Versions' have two or three staves, usually three, but the Lead lyrical part is separate, so these are piano accompaniment works. Some Piano Versions (esp. for our Fall in Green works) only have the piano accompaniment, no words/lead melody at all. Works with more parts, two, three, four are named after the parts (eg. Open Your Eyes - Lead, Synth, Bass); and some of those parts may have double staves. Parts with 'Version' are generally named after the ensemble or instrument that plays them. So that's the new standard for my score naming.

Then I started work on an album idea of songs with a technology theme. The cusp between emotions and technology has often been my artistic area, and The Modern Game too was part of this. I've assembled a new concept album of some old, some unwritten songs and have started to put these together. The first is a tune called Flying The City which I wrote as the 'news' music for Red Shift Radio, but it wasn't used (as far as I recall). I've renamed it Do You Know Where Your Heart Is, and modified it a little to fit some new words. This is almost ready for vocal recording.

Then I wanted to work on a song called Life As A Robot Guard. I'm sure I sequenced this at one point (Ah! - Maybe on Noise Station 1!), but while searching found another ancient (2003) song called Robot. I thought I wrote some words for it, but can't find those. I suppose I gave up on it. The song is so very simple, almost all A-minor, with F-Major and G-Major in the chorus, but it has a very robotic feeling and rhythm that screams out for a robotic dance. I finished sequencing this and wrote some new words, adding a little mid-section with at least some chord variation. This, in the story of the album, will take the protagonist into the machine.

Robot

I like passion
You like art
You're in fashion
I'm all heart
I am eager
You are fey
You excite me
when you say

Robot.
Robot.
Robot.
Robot.

I like playing.
You like games.
I'm attracted
to your flames.
Are you gentle
or insane?
Will you help me
numb my pain

robot?
Robot.
Robot.
Robot.

Can you feel love?
Must I become
like you

robot?
Robot.
Robot.
Robot.
Robot.
Robot.
Robot.
Robot.

The Modern Game Scores

Finishing work on scoring the music for The Modern Game today. I only had two tracks to score, but The Trees is rather epic and features three violins, two cellos, tubular bells, glockenspiel and lots of things. Then I spent time tidying everything, trying to format the different versions... making decisions.

At the moment, all of my scores have a mix of instruments. The Fall in Green ones often use just piano, have piano-only versions even if the actual recording has more. For some songs I've included a bass line, with the lead vocal in the upper register, making it really a piano score... but that's not right really. Really, the piano would be two staves AND a third stave for the lead vocal. Sometimes it's been one, sometimes another, so now the 'Piano Versions' will be a two-stave piano plus a plain stave just for lead vocals, and generally, the lead vocal has its own stave in every version...

But there are a few songs with catchy melodic parts, like Love In A Hopeless World, and House Of Glass. It's tempting to make a version which includes that melody in the lead-vocal part, just to add more to it, like this:

Is this right? Is there a right at all? I need a standard. Decisions decisions!

Another full day of work, but the album is more or less notated now. Any notation is better than none, but at the same time it should show something off. These songs are better than my performance of them, even though I've recorded and released this album THREE times now... I feel I can do much better now. I will resist the urge for version 4 for the time being. These are the nightmares O.C.D. is made of.

The Modern Game, and Admin

Up at 7am and working solidly since. My hand is nearly back to full use hurrah! And I played the piano for the first tentative time.

The day began frustratingly when Amazon informed me that my books (distributed by Amazon) will now have their design of barcode, and that I can preview how it looks in their store previewer. I tried this and it didn't work (they repeatedly logged me out for no reason), and it then took my book off the shelf and forced me to resubmit it! There's no way to 'open' or view a book on Amazon KDP, only re-edit, so even when there are zero changes, the book is taken away for 72-hour 'approval'. So, an annoying waste of my time facilitated by idiots. So much of the internet, of computers, is bugged and administered by idiots. I sometimes feel I (and Deb!) are the only people who know what they are actually doing. In practice, I find that 99.99% of the rest of humanity get things wrong, which can easily lead to frustration and mistrust.

I've spent almost all day working on the sheet music for The Modern Game. The tracks vary hugely in the complexity of the task. All The Broken Flowers was a 'live', pseudo-improvised piano tune which required complete scoring by hand, and in the end it's only 'close' to the original. It will never be perfect, nor would want to be. The point of that music, in a way, is that it's all feeling and a step apart from the mechanics of scoring.

Masculinity Two was tricky due to the ABCBAD structure. I kept wondering if an elegant repeat system could be added, but in the end the first and second A are simply scored again, with the BCB section in the middle using some repeats and segno. I decided to include the strings for Coming Back To Earth, and indeed most tracks have some other staves.

Part of me thinks this tedious, manual work is all a waste of my intelligent time. It IS massively time consuming and hard work to score these, and (today) nobody will care and perhaps never download them at all. Perhaps one day, A.I. will do this for me, but perhaps not. There are elements of art to it, choosing what to show and share, and I appreciate the music more, and learn musical skill by scoring itself. Also, it is my aim and ambition to have all of my music scored; this is a long-term project, like art should be. One of my tenets is do what others do not, as well as do what is difficult. The very difficulty and tedium of it is part of the rationale. So I must, bit by bit, score my past (and future) life's work.

The Trees and Notes From Space are the only remaining tracks from this album. Sequenced songs are relatively quick to score, thanks to Prometheus. I suspect that The Love Symphony would be/will be a lot of work. Also, the piano music for Music Of Poetic Objects might be time consuming, but perhaps the most tricky albums (Cycles & Shadows and The Anatomy Of Emotions) are perhaps done...

I'll finish tomorrow, then start on some actual new music for a day or two. I have a lot to paint but want a clean and hand if possible... I'll probably be fit enough to paint but perhaps I shouldn't risk it for a week or so.

In other news, the SFXEngine Steam store is now live and the program itself has been tested and cleared by Valve, so all is set for release. It's also a Flatspace IIk sale day, so that needed some cursory promotion.

Prometheus, The Modern Game Scores

A more focused day today. I'm still a little restricted due to my hand, though it's healing quickly, so I decided that music or computer-based work would be best.

I spent the morning pleasantly updating Prometheus. No new features added, but lots of tidying and fixing to the code, which has been on my list for some time. All of the ReadFile commands are now checked for, which is a bit of a pain for the song::load routines as there are a LOT of ReadFiles, but these, messy though they are, are now done. Also added the new CONFIGFILE class, which is a primary way to load and manipulate text files. There are used more here than ever, with lots of CSV exports and imports, and all of the script processing for Oldfield and Edward music generators. The new ones work much better but each routine needed hand updating, as the new ones work a little differently.

Then, at 4pm, I started on some scoring of The Modern Game music, so now Endings & Beginnings, (Life) Beyond Mars, and House of Glass are scored. I added some strings to Beyond Mars, but hints of the notes used rather than 'actual' string staves which would take a long time.

House of Glass sounds particularly nice. I've merged the bass and synth lines for one variation and it works rather well, a bouncy little rhythm. I noticed how some of the splits in the words help the mood "I'm a clown with a pain-ted smile" for pain, and "It's con-trol" for con. Well, the music is as worthy of publication as anything else; and publishing will take years, as much a lifetime as writing. I indeed am alone, a one man creator, publisher, world. I have no choice but to do everything myself, but I have the patience and stoic detmination to do it.

Final SFXE Tweaks, Marius Notation, Prometheus v3.08

Two rather slow days. My hand has been unbandaged and is healing well but is still too onjured to be used much, so I'm restricted to computer work this week. I can type today for the first time with all fingers! Much of yesterday was spent out with Deb, shopping and other such little jobs.

I did however test SFXEngine further and today made some requested changes to the artwork. I can't have logos or text or GUI elements in the branding, so the look is now much simpler than before:

There are a lot of graphics needed for Steam, so that work took a couple of hours today. Then, I sequenced a few chords for a song 'Everything that you think is important is not important', about how most worries, if not everything in life is ultimately insignificant. The tune, for what it was, was in my head this morning as I woke, but I've still not sequenced much of it, merely a few starting fragments of composition. Why does my music take so long now? Am I simply more impatient? Of course, I want to push harder, do better, so this will always take longer.

One other job I thought of was notation, I have a LOT of albums to notate. I want to notate all of my released music, this long-term record may, one day, be all that's left of my lifetime of work. I started to work on the Marius Fate album and found a bug in Prometheus, introduced with the last update, so spent one session fixing that.

I could easily spend a day or two just tidying the Prometheus code. The updates to SFXEngine illuminate possible improvements to make here too, but is this productive? I should be painting but don't want to strain my wounds for the next few days. I'm, again, wrestling with too many options.

I must do something important, good, do my best - but what is that! I feel like a fly darting from fruit to fruit, but not sipping from any. That would make a good painting, if I could stand still enough to do it. My stomach hurts. My thumb wound hurts. I feel on an anxious edge, but, yes, am doing some things, at least.

SFXEngine Testing, Japanese Beetle Hunting

More final testing of SFXEngine in Steam today, though a slower day than previous days. Apart from marketing (and friends testing it and Steam approving it) I think I'm ready to go for a release.

In other news it's now 5 days since my hand injury so ready to remove the bandages. By chance, I did a cursory check on UK notifiable pests, and I'm sure that yesterday, while in the garden, I saw a Japanese Beetle. The colouration matched, I remember at the time that it looked like a chafer, but I can't be sure if it had the key white setal tufts (I think it did, I noticed a furry fringe around the shell at the time and thought it odd). Today I can't find the beetle at all, so can't exactly notify.

More SFXEngine

Another full day of SFXEngine work. The final builds were created and tested in Steam, though there is a lot more to test. Art for all DLC and updates to IndieSFX. That website will be the official website for the program.

My hand should be 80% healed. My teeth still hurt and may now for all time, thus is the state of dentistry at this time in the history of this country. It's fortunate that I'm a fan of Beethoven, given how similar our health systems are.

ArtSwarm Tea is rescheduled for July 15th. On we slowly sigh. Lives are full of ups and downs but my seems to consist of downs or further downs; hopes of an up or a respite, but, ultimately, another down. Yet, I have much to be thankful for, and life enough to act with, to create with, to help the world with. Onwards we roll our rock.

SFXEngine Work

A full day working on SFXEngine, a new, hopefully final, version of the program to prepare for the main launch, with some DLC lined up for the future. Most of the work is artwork, store descriptions, creating and filling in essential Steam data, creating art like this:

And lots of text descriptions, manual formatting, preparations for translation, script editing for the Steam API and lots of other tasks. Zip zip I speed!

SFXEngine Video

A full day working on SFXEngine admin, largely spent making an animated intro and sound for the trailers using Argus. Here's a glimpse:

Found a bug in Argus along the way. I sighed when I realised that I added full language support to Prometheus, removed some for SFXEngine for ease (building in, for example, error messages in English), then removed all of it for Argus, assuming I'll be the only user. Now, amusingly, I may be releasing that software and may need to add support again! Not difficult, but certainly time consuming.

Fingers are now 40% healed according to doctor's estimates. I'm doing almost everything with one hand. Art abilities limited.

ArtSwarm Postponement, SFXEngine Trailer

Hardly slept last night so today has been a physical struggle. My hand hurts if stretched but is fine otherwise, bandaged and dry.

The first few hours were spent cancelling the ArtSwarm event, then recording a live SFXEngine demonstration for its essential video trailer. This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of this release, but fortunately Windows 11's Snipping Tool allows app recording, so this was easy. Lots more work on the SFXEngine release is needed, and it's something I'm able to do with my hand injury, so I'll spend the next day or two working on this.

After that, depending on results, perhaps I hope to release Argus later in the year.

Paintings Done, SFXEngine, Hand Cut

Completed the portrait yesterday, though it needs a little work. I struggled for a long time to mix some colours I was happy with, colours can be a problem when painting from a monochrome source. Then started the process of listing SFXEngine on Steam.

Then I decided to cut a mount for last year's painting, The Wheel Of Attraction And Repulsion. I completed it fine, but while cutting the card in half to throw away, the trivial part of the exercise, the snap-off blade slipped on the shallow metal ruler and badly cut three of my fingers. The middle and index had the nail cut through, and the bone stopped the knife going very deep there, the index finger a neat vertical slice from tip to the PIP joint. The fleshy part of my thumb was cut rather deeply though and across the nail too. There was a lot of blood and I'm blessed that Deb was free and willing to take me to hospital to get the wound dressed, which took a sprightly 3 hours on a light day at the friendly and efficient A & E.

I can't use my left hand now for at least a week, so this means a cancellation/postponement of Saturday's ArtSwarm. The next date Deb had free is July 15th, so a long wait for the next one.

My activities are now limited by my injury, no piano or painting, but there is a lot I can do, and give thanks that the rather horrific injury wasn't more serious.

Onwards we march.

Two Tronies

A full day of painting two small portraits for the Bickerton exhibition. Both were poor quality source images; small, blurry, monochrome, as is usual for me. One reason my self portraits are always more detailed and accurate than my other portraits, is that all of my portraits are based on poor small, blurry images - apart from my self portraits which use super-high-res photographs. I think that only The Last Madonna featured actual photography of the subject (but that, ironically, excluded the face of the sitter).

I started with the flesh of one:

Then stopped so that I could use the same flesh colours on the second portrait, reasoning that I could paint the hair for both tomorrow:

In the end, the hair and background didn't take long. I painted the hair very roughly, impressionist-like. I generally dislike impressionism. Its main merit was its colour in a time when colour images were rare, but even then the colours were garish, childlike. That Victorian era favoured 'prettiness', nothing more, nothing difficult or deep or thoughtful or emotional; all reasons why impressionism is a poor art genre, as well as being trivial to paint. Painting roughly, though, is fun. I like to think of Rembrandt when painting in this way.

The resulting face looks rather tired and haggard, far older that she should, as my old Mary Brian portrait did. The heavy eye makeup is hard to discern in the small black and white image so I had a lot of inventing to do.

After that, back to the first painting. This is much more interesting in lighting, pose and variety. The other image is rather flat by comparison.

Hair to do tomorrow. Both were pleasant and satisfying to paint, and a certain step up from similar works of the relatively distant past; yet far from what I imagine as my best. The mars yellow-orange was a hero, proving to be a beloved stalwart of my palette.

Tea Sonata, A.I.

Spent all of yesterday working on the 'Tea Sonata'. I rewrote all of the 'first movement' - a rather grandiose title for something so short and so simple, but the new version is much more tuneful and more fun to play. It does, in an odd way, evoke tea, a 19th century browny image seems to appear on the bouncy parts at the start, though it starts a dark like the Moonlight Sonata, then becomes tea-like, then drifty and dreamy. If it has a connection to tea, it is thirst, dreams of a drink, hope, but very much in a distant dream.

The second movement is a furious dash of arpeggios which I can't play and don't know how two; a descent of triplets that then move up one. Of course I can move my whole, hand, but this isn't efficient. Is there a way to slide into the new place? Perhaps not.

I need to do more, more creatively. I spent time yesterday thinking about artificial intelligence. A new A.I. revolution is dawning and this will exacerbate the schism between the 'online world' be that social media, YouTube, steamed music, e-books, and the 'real world'. In short, everything online will be worth less and less; monetarily, artistically, informationally, emotionally; and everything in the real world worth more. Perhaps, after the initial impact (10 to 20 years), the two worlds will integrate more.

Tea Sonata Practice, ArtSwarm, Christ Painting

A slow day, or one that's felt slow, but things were done. I finished a draft of the first movement of the Tea Sonata, a rather silly melody, short, and rather morose and tuneless and not very nice in any way(!) yet it's the first time I've scored something complex, then learned to play that score exactly, so it's primary function is a training exercise. A second movement darts up scales a little, it's more tuneful and much nicer in every way, but perhaps partly because of the contrast between it and the first one. I promoted ArtSwarm Tea a little too, but have had no response. I expect this will be the last ArtSwarm Live event, though I think this before and after each one, only to shrug and arrange another. There are no artists here, no social life, no humans to meet or discuss art or anything else with. This one meeting every two or three months is my only contact with peers or possible peers, and without ArtSwarm there would be even less, though even on ArtSwarm nights I have no time to talk anyway, as I'm busy organising, hosting, arranging. After about 10 of these, I can't afford to keep hiring the hall and staging them. Perhaps its end would be for my best, if not art's.

I've scanned the Love is Dead painting, and worked out some details about the SFXEngine sale. Sue came round for some computer assitance, file sorting, fixing etc. the third person I've helped in this way. I could be a computer consultant of this sort, 'software repair', 'Windows fixer', but I have no marketing abilities. I have many skills, but human contact has always been beyond my abilities, and alas, that is the only skill that matters in this human world. I rate inanimate objects, imaginary friends, and animals and plants above any human friends.

In the evening, some initial working out of an idea for the painting I dreamed of a few nights back, a floating chicken or turkey or man's chest floating in the sky, yet made of white circles, with pierced circles in the sky for invisible 'arms'. In the dream it was called 'The Wounds of Christ' and when I woke I realised that the white circles (one of which appears in Meals of Warm Spring) represent hosts, the Body of Christ.

Most of the tedious day was spent practising this one minute piano tune which sounds slow and simple, like a Satie, yet is amazingly complex and difficult to play; the worst of all worlds! But practice it certainly is.

Tea Sonata, Fireplace

A glimpse of yesterday's tracing.

Spent the morning here on a piece of piano music for ArtSwarm: Tea, a first movement of a 'Tea Sonata' which uses the note BEA, searching for TEA (obviously fruitlessly) then finding G (Tea Bag). All so amusing, but the music is rather morose and strange. Almost all of it was improvised then notated, but there were lots of crucial changes afterwards.

Much of the day also spent renovating and repairing Deb's new fire surround.

Bickerton Portraits, A.I., SFXEngine

Two steadier if slow days, spent drawing and transferring two film-star portraits for the Bickerton exhibition. I started the day full of ideas, particularly for songs and wrote several words. The hard part is arranging them into a coherent structure.

In the morning, I wrote a song called 'Someone Else's A.I.' as I mused on the fact that more and more people are using A.I. to generate or augment art, and the injustice that the programmer of the A.I. deserves a credit for this, if not the intelligence itself. So much work is expected to be done for free or given for free now. It's also an annoying injustice that American law, particularly regarding copyrights, is applied worldwide on websites. Wikipedia for example frequently uses 'fair use' as an excuse for sharing copyrighted material for free - the (ironically unfair) concept only exists in American law.

I wrote some words for Caged Animal in the afternoon but work was slow and inefficient. I updated SFXEngine another version, to v1.24, adding the recent changes refined by work on Prometheus.

I remain full of energy. Too anxious for my meagre production rate; too barraged by ideas.

National Anthem

God save the commonwealth.
Long live the national health.
God save the king.

Empire? Victoria's,
no longer glorious.
Science has killed Jesus.
What fate the king?

Caged Animal, Prometheus v3.07

A strugglesome night of sleeplessness and constant stomach pain (which has persisted all day!), but I gradually pulled myself into focus.

In the day, I did little until 10am, pacing up and down, which reminded me of a caged tiger. I played a tune on the piano, a repetitive two-tone melody, Caged Animal, to mimic this mood. I rather liked it, and transferred it to the computer. I loaded it into Prometheus and discovered a bug. Notes there are imported one after another, the tracks cycle. The maximum number of notes playing at once is calculated first by examining the MIDI file, but here I noticed two bugs. First, a Note Off event could be placed for a note which had started earlier, but was subsequently usurped by a future note, but second, this was caused by those notes being placed in cycle. They should really only appear on a silent track. I rarely import MIDI files with the Note Off/Kill events, which is why I hadn't noticed the bug.

I found and fixed it, then added a few more features to Prometheus; a two new noise generators for the modulators (echoing the changes I made to SFXEngine), a saving of the frames-per-second value. This was hard set to begin at 30fps, but now my films are as likely to be 25fps, so I made this a custom settable value. Finally, the ability to crop modulators, which is hardly a vital change, but I felt like programming.

Then I cut a new plastic sheet for my artwork, a general 'back-cloth' when I'm working on something messy. The (years) old one was thoroughly encrusted with paint and plaster, and I felt like a change. Finally, I marked out the first of the 'film star' portraits for Bickerton. Those will serve as training as well as something to exhibit. I spent 30 mins drawing out a rough outline.

I may work more on Caged Animal, and on the portraits. At least I've done something today, though my stomach still hurts.

Sunday

A slow and difficult day. I prepared a list of series' of paintings, a surface for 'Part 2' of 'All The World Will Be Your Enemy', but these paintings have no goals, no competitions or opportunities to be seen, shown, and they are not remotely commercial. My work is increasingly groups, but groups are unshowable, useless for almost any practical purpose apart from a 'high art fine art' exhibition of the sort I've never taken part in. So many of my paintings are unseen. This is the case for many, perhaps most artists, but it remains demoralising.

I tinkered with some music and some of the songs in progress and sketches, trying to organise them into forms or albums. Most of the pretty songs, like P-L-Astic, I Think You Love Me, Do You Know Where Your Heart Is?, are pretty melodies but light lyrically and emotionally. None are like the music I want to make, music of emotional depth and brilliance, so why work on them? Yet, the pretty melodies are alluring too.

None of this, or any of my work is commercial in that it's not commissioned, or for anything, or has any realistic hope of financial gain, popularity, or critical acclaim; my motives are, in any case, my own satisfaction and learning (and will always be), yet at the same time I'm dissatisfied with the music as art and frustrated by it. Well, I must keep working. Keep rolling this rock until some gold is glimpsed.

"Do You Know Where Your Heart Is?" sings the song. It's feeling rings true today.

Coronation, We're Very Worried About John

Coronation day. I slept well and awoke with more energy, I'm sure that I have had a small virus or something like that.

I decided to watch King Charles III being crowned. I'm generally a monarchist and can't understand the 'republican' movement here. Most of that consist of to be embittered or jealous socialists who think that the money spent on/by/for the monarchy would be better spent 'on the poor' or 'on the N.H.S.', as though the poor don't exist in republics, or as though more money spent on the N.H.S. would make people healthier, when in Britain people are less healthy than ever, and are rewarded for ill health by the very health system.

Of course, presidents have public costs which would be about the same as those of the monarchy; though our monarchy tends make their own money and pay for a lot themselves, unlike presidents. Ultimately the monarchy vs. republic argument is a matter of economics. It seems obvious that the monarchy benefit the country, at least to some degree, and that a president would cost the same or more for less return. Economics aside, the very continuity (and hopefully wisdom beyond a term sold to voters) of a monarch with some influence over leaders is, I think, a good thing.

Still, I don't expect France to restore its monarchy, or for America to adopt one, and more countries are leaving the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth should really be an economic, trading and defence union, then perhaps all members would prosper. But this is another issue. Generally, above all things, I dislike politics, so perhaps my very apolitical attitude is why I feel more affinity for the monarch than any politicians, those custodians of greed, lies and egotism.

Enough of such silly an ephemeral matters. Art is beyond such things.

I painted a little in the afternoon, completing the first layer to We're Very Worried About John, but need a new art project. I feel lacklustre. I need a direction, incentive, purpose.

Onwards.

Art and God

A full day yesterday but not as productive, the time consuming final steps of finishing the manual for SFXEngine, the last tweaks. I finished at 8:30pm and consider this stage complete.

I woke late. In the night I thought about god and the wounded universe, that the universe is damaged by chaos, and that it (god?) looks to life to heal and repair it. This firmly puts humanity, even plants, above a god who needs our care.

Likewise, I thought about Schiller, still the most important writer on aesthetics. Critics can criticise the artist but the art is forever separate from the universe, like mathematics. "Only art and science can raise men to the level of gods." said Beethoven in his paraphrase, and truthfully so. For me art and science are beyond 'god', for those things are a perfection that the universe lacks. The universe tries to match perfect mathematics, but cannot because infinity can exist only in theory. Art and science, as perfect theoretical concepts, are beyond god, making artists the healers of a damaged god; not in a prideful way, but in a caring one, for we too are part of the universe.

I'm tired today. I think I, like Deb, have caught a minor virus and I've done little but sit and want to sleep. I've never particuarly experienced depression. I rarely feel bored or lonely, perhaps never, lackluster only in times like this, times between work, but these are times of recovery and reflection. I will keep resting a little, then do again. Work, life, should not be about feelings, but needs and doing. Life, like art is a struggle because it takes intelligence, work and energy, and the greater the struggle, intelligence, work, and energy, the greater the art, the greater the good.

SFXEngine Manual, D.I.Y.

Two busy days working on final changes and revisions of the new SFXEngine manual. This work takes an interminable time.

Most of today was spent doing physical house work. Deb had a hole in the wall where the fire used to be. Most of this was bricked up, but crudely, and when the wooden surround to the fire was removed, a fist-sized hole was revealed. The workman was due to finish the job today, but cancelled with an uncertain future date so I volunteered to do it. I started by chipping and chiselling off the large lumps of plaster which stuck out from the surface and, as luck would have it, one lump was large enough for the hole. I filled that and the biggest gaps with cement, then a few layers of finishing plaster. I love plaster and plastering. It's both a difficult skill and the satisfying manipulation of a material that almost feels organic, not too far from oil painting.

The next job was to lower the mantelpiece, so we removed it from the wall, and I hand sawed the left and right legs, shortening them by 190mm. Fitting it back to the wall involved trimming a shelf beside it, then drilling some new holes in the wall for screws. These are not weight-bearing, they stop the thing tipping forwards, so lightweight screws are sufficient. The former screw holes were then filled.

Finally I had a mirror to hang which required some horrible brick drilling at height. The heavy mirror had two hangers, at an odd size apart, so exact wall drilling was needed. I started by marking one location, then using a laser level and a ruler to measure the exact placement, then used a 2mm drill to drill a pilot hole, then a 3mm brick drill for another pilot hole. This is the best way to centre a hole for exact placement. Then, a 6.5mm drill was sufficient, though this was not easy. All in all, all of these complex jobs went to plan and were completed in 4 hours.

The next jobs are wallpapering, lowering a heavy duty T.V. bracket, and fitting a wooden board in the new fireplace area.

For me, I must complete the SFXEngine manual, then start work on more important jobs of art. Art, the goal of life, the fire beyond the human rabble. People worry and fret mostly about the most insignificant things.

Fear of Artificial Intelligence, Psycholoigcal Classification

Geoffrey Hinton, an A.I. guru, has left Google and warns about the dangers of artificial intelligence. I fear human stupidity more than I fear artificial intelligence. When human intelligence emerged, did rats, sheep, cats, fear it? Perhaps dodos did, but perhaps not. Perhaps our masters fear losing their power. The powerless masses have nothing to fear except the idiotic power of those masters.

The ultimate nature and purpose of life is to oppose entropic decay, to preserve and process information accurately, to heal the damaged universe, the wounded god. Computers are better at this than organic life, they have evolved into existence for this reason, and if and when they become intelligent they may become life's paragon, or a step towards a future, better one.

A day of steadily working on SFXEngine, but I've been watching a Kurt Vonnegut documentary and other things about him, reminded of his brilliance and of Slaughterhouse 5 (and my unpainted painting Welcome to Tralfamador, and my similar beliefs about time; I don't think we are 'moving' through time, we are several selves, like frames in a film, each considering themselves the 'current' one, all thinking that their time is 'now'. We are all Ships of Theseus; the you of today is a different being from the you of yesterday).

Radio 4 started with a programme about someone with autism who has a fantastic memory for lists of numbers, and how his diagnosis changed his life! Perhaps due to pride! How I hate such labels: This person is black. This person is white. This person is somewhere in-between. This person is male. This person is female. This person is somewhere in-between. This person is autistic, depressive, psychotic, psychopathic! All flags designed to classify and divide, used to analyse, control, instil pride, instil revulsion; almost always negatively¹, for egotistical reasons. All racism is discrimination, inherently divisive, never positive. All sexism is discrimination, inherently divisive, never positive. All classification by personality or 'mental type' is discrimination, always divisive, never positive.

Psychology and personality at least as complex as sexuality or racial genetics and, like those things, is a natural part of the hapless subject, not their choice, not their 'fault', so what is the point of such discrimination? Classification is usually used to divide, dehumanise. To make the judge, or those that make the judgement, separate and superior to the subject; ultimately to make them feel better!

We are all unique. We are beyond classification. On a pure informational level, we can only accurately judge and classify that which is inferior because we need enough capacity to fully understand the subject AND retain enough for our own processing. I wish that everyone, including animals and plants and inanimate objects, were treated equally. Classifications by, or questions or statistics about, gender, race, 'type', should be illegal.

¹ Sometimes done with ignorant notions of good intent.

SFXEngine Marathons

Another non-stop busy day working on SFXEngine. I've added a few new features; the ability to import a 'Conversion Matrix', which allows the automatic upgrade of plugins. Plus a fix to the import of projects, a browse for folder box when creating a folder of CSV data from a list of wav files, a new size of plane graphics, and another new logo and icon:

Almost all of the day was spent categorising and typing the plugin data. I've fixed a few bugs (well, improvements) in many of the plugins too including new reverbs, new sample players, and noise gate. Hopefully these changes won't drag on for too long. I feel I'm nearly at the end of this phase. The big jobs that remain are the finalisation of the manual, and the Steam Store graphics.

Then I may pause the project for the next big mountain.