Nightmares, Effervescent

A disturbed night. I awoke with a nightmare of Kate Bush and Pet Shop Boys singing the latter's song 'Heart'. I felt ill when I woke, as though my blood pressure was very high, flushed, my digestion blocked. This discomfort lasted an hour or so before I drifted back into sleep. Then, a second nightmare. In the latter part I was some sort of warrior or defensive organic robot, battling with a friend in a martial art. The ally, in this training, became more violent, and pinned me down. He hit my left arm in the bicep which hurt a lot, then he pummelled my arms until they were smashed and bloody. I was helpless. Then he bent my head to one side and did the same to my face, his fists rotating in a high-speed blur to smash my mouth and nose to a literal pulp. My body was left a flayed mess. I awoke in this terror to stomach pain, though my feelings of being 'blocked' had thankfully gone.

I slept again and woke more peacefully past 9am. The day started, in this late and slow state, by refining and completing Ponderous Tomes, then started work on Effervescent, which uses mock orchestral strings and flute in a manner like the Infinite Forest album. The tune is only about 90 seconds long. I've largely stuck to the score, the live version we've performed a few times. This dates from the post-Clown-Face era where I began to compose specific melodies for sections of words, rather than play 'general moods' to the whole poem.

The Candle Burns is the only remaining track that has an extant music plan, and that a simple one, coming from the moods period. It's essentially four descending chords, but uses this to dramatic effect by breaking into a solo at the climax.

Sunchild Day 2, Ponderous Tomes

More work on the new Fall in Green recordings today, actually a full and tiring day. First, completing Sunchild (I say 'completing' in the loosest of terms; these new tracks all lack words at the moment, and there are probably many stages of refinement to go). As mentioned in my previous post, Sunchild is largely MIDI driven recordings, so the composition involves tailoring those.

Then work on 'Ponderous Tomes', a poem from the Rattenfanger collection about the book Of Human Bondage, and about Persian rugs, with images of dancing in hotel rooms. The poem is packed with information that echo patterns in patterns, and the complex philosophies of human nature and the universe. We've played this live a few times, and my melody was trivial, too simple. It was a waltz in a dulcimer-like instrument, vaguely Middle Eastern, or harp-like. To echo exotic scales, I made the melody pentatonic and (to make it fun for me) only black notes in chords of G# and F#.

In the live version I play the melody as an introduction, then play it again 4 times in a row while Deb reads the first two verses (though the structure is such that the first 'verse' is actually one line, and the next is effectively 4, 4-line verses). This is too simple, so I've composed a little bit more here. The waltz continues moving from G# and F# but in scales that overlap like knots tying; this references the words about knots and weaves. I don't go so far as a fugue or anything like that, these are simple up and down staircases, harp-like, to retain that exotic quality.

The next part is about thinking (the 'pondering' of the title), so the rhythm breaks here into a thoughtful part. For this I played it live, as trying to sequence something so raw and authentic isn't as efficient as just feeling and playing those feelings. Then, for the finale and epiphanic conclusion, the melody of the intro returns for the first time.

The tune is largely sequenced in Prometheus using samples, but the solo parts are recorded 'live' from the MODX, so I needed to use the exact samples. This isn't too easy, as the MODX sound has lots of layers including strings, so I've stripped those off for my lead instrument, and my strings now follow a separate melody. The Prometheus lead has random panning, so I've programmed that into the MODX too, so that those live solo parts have the same effect. The result is rather a close match. I don't mind that it's not exact - I could make it so, but I like the balance here between controlled and free, and the sound itself reflects the changes between both.

This tune isn't scored at all. I know the melody from memory and confirmed the structure by listening to recordings of our old live events (the first version used an organ lead on the Microkorg). Looking at these events made me rethink how I file such audio, and the audio for use as live backing tracks. Now, live backing tracks are filed with the appropriate album, but there are a few tunes that we've performed live but not recorded (like this one, though this one never had a backing track), so those are filed with the event. Maybe a 'blank' album would be better.

Make no mistake, filing principles can have a marked effect on productivity. Not being able to find old stuff is as bad as not having it at all, and having a nice blank space for a new project is an incentive in itself.

Velvet Gelt, Sunchild, Patrick Stewart

A busy couple of days. Updated Prometheus yesterday with more tweaks to the sample trimmer, and then immediately used it on the Fall in Green tune Velvet Gelt. We have several tracks now that have been performed live a few times but not recorded, so I sequenced that and used the live 'accordion' sound I use, with auto-trim and auto-loop making the sampling process all very quick.

Today, more changes to the program, adding separate fade-in and fade-out times for the auto-trimmer, as musical sounds are generally fast attack and slow decay (sounds that gently fade in and suddenly stop feel somehow odd, disturbing, or just too slow).

I then got working on Sunchild, another track that we've performed live a few times. This one is unusual in that it's all (so far) MIDI sequenced, and done in Prometheus, using the complex parameter modulation effects to make the sound swell and fade, and make the tempo ebb and flow too. This method is slower than 'direct' sequencing because I can't hear the results. I type the notes and parameters, then I have to export it out as a MIDI file and reload it externally to play. It's a rare process for me, but the fading timbre of the superb MODX instrument is vital to this track. After an hour or two, it was broadly working.

I made some tweaks to how the parameter modulation controls worked. I've rarely used them and this track is a good test. I also found and fixed a small bug in the MIDI export-to-tempo routine.

The day has been dark and wet, the weather bleak. I won't see Deborah until Saturday, our Christmas day, or perhaps Friday, our Christmas Eve.

I've started to read Making it So, the memoirs of Patrick Stewart. Being poor and northern, I can relate to several aspects of his childhood, and recalled the unique delight of bread toasted on a coal fire. I noted that Simon today almost lives like Patrick Stewart of the 1940s: a coal fire, no hot running water (but an electric immersion heater, rather than Patrick's gas heater), an outside toilet, and other ancient remnants of the mid-20th century.

Though united by a terror of fathers, Patrick seemed to be more boisterous and out-going than my child self. Or was he? Memories - how they can sometimes trick one. Perhaps my child self was boisterous and out-going, supplanted by a silent, fearful and solitary adult. I had no friends or spoke until my mid-30s, but perhaps as a young child I felt part of humanity in a way I've not felt since. I clearly recall, as a child, thinking my parents were homicidal androids who had kidnapped my 'real parents' (who looked exactly the same), and recall not feeling human myself, but an outsider somehow trapped in a their world; and in truth, I never lost this feeling. My name is ancient Irish for 'otherworldly', and at times I think my ancestors were beings from the Sí, the Celtic Otherworld. At times I feel that part of me lives there in parallel.

An inspiring week.

Christmas 2023

Awake with an unexpectedly severe I.B.S. flare up for most of the night, with constant twitches and stomach pain. I managed two hours of poor sleep, and two nightmares. The first, being chased through a maze by a demonic creature, very like something from the film Pan's Labyrinth. In the second, the back garden was a flooded lake which led to North Korea, to which I tried to secretly escape in a dinghy.

The Christmas Day was calm, nice, if a little empty. A few little gifts were opened and I spoke to Deb on the phone often throughout the day.

I spent an hour or two completely recoding the sample trimming option in Prometheus, simplifying it hugely. It now seeks for the first point above the threshold, then the last point from the end backwards, copying the newly trimmed total, then fading in towards those points. Loop points are adjusted too, and other simple checks, such as for samples which never rise above the threshold. It works much better than yesterdays, which tried to fade from those threshold points rather than towards.

Christmas lunch, cooked by my mother, was at 2pm, and was lovely. Deb's trifle, which I collected from her house yesterday, was a triumph too.

I wrote a few downbeat songs in the night, one about my stomach pain which is rather good, but would need to be part of a series.

Christmas Cancelled, Prometheus v3.26

Sigh. Last Christmas Eve (or was it Christmas morning?) I had a call from Deborah from her work, to say that her client had tested positive for Covid, meaning she had to remain at work, her client and herself 'isolating'. We had to spend Christmas apart. We exchanged gifts and celebrated on New Year's Day instead.

Today I had a call that exactly the same thing has occurred, so our Christmas is cancelled again, and we won't see each other until Saturday at the earliest, assuming that she remains well. I met her and the infected person yesterday for a brief visit in a café, so there is also a chance, though remote I think, that I have contracted Covid too. I feel well enough, much stronger in fact than yesterday.

This means that the holiday week will be a normal work week for me.

I've spent today updating Prometheus to version 3.26. This started with a change (and an unexpected fix) to the MIDI importer, then adding a new feature to automatically trim samples.

The latter has proven to be stubbornly difficult! I first shoot forwards until the threshold is reached, and do the same from the end backwards, to calculate the final trimmed size, then I trim the sample and fade the edges. It works, but it seems to not detect when a sample has already been faded, and so tries to re-trim. There are a lot of complex tests to do on this, as I can trim start, end, or both. A start trim must be identical to an end trim on a reversed sample. These all seem correct, yet the 'already faded' test is proving stubborn. I'll keep trying. It's taken many hours so far. All of this distracts me from what would be Christmas.

Amp Maintenance

A day of tiredness and persistent stomach pain, which has continued for about 24 hours now.

few jobs done, but I managed to service my two Behringer 150W amplifiers. The main volume knob has crackled for some years, so I finally bought some contact cleaner and sprayed them, which seems to have fixed this. The main inputs crackle hugely when touching the cables even slightly, so I cleaned the input sockets and tested everything. It seems that the 3M mic cable was at fault, so I've replaced this, and shored up the connections to the main 5M cables with Polymorph. This may help or not, but these cables are probably the problem as the violent crackling when moving the cable doesn't seem to occur when I use a mixer (or other cables!). The Polymorph fix appears to be solid, though ugly looking.

I generally feel to tired and ill to work. Onwards we march towards Christmas Eve.

Macc Art Lounge, Paul, and Recovery

A full day yesterday at the Macc Art Lounge, my last day in the shop. Ché insists that I avoid that term, and instead say 'gallery', but the place feels like a shop to me, and I much prefer the idea of it being a shop. A gallery is a place for art, mostly non-commercial, and a shop is a place for buying and selling things; and the Macc Lounge is much closer to the latter than the former, and I'm there to sell my paintings, not showcase my latest concepts or anything like that. The space is not artistic, or edgy, exciting, modern. The art, as it is in 2023, rarely shows emotion, or personality. The word I would apply is 'sterile'. The examples (and artists) that I like are in a small minority and sidelined. To be as polite as possible, it is not to my taste.

The experience has, of course however, reconnected me with the visual arts, which was a key aim. It was genuinely lovely to meet Ché and the other artists again, to connect with new artists, and the ordinary people who came and went on the days I was there. For me, I enjoyed hearing about them, and the general chatter. I'm rarely social due to my busy and solitary circumstances, so this aspect was a delight.

Deb has had a very busy week, despite her technically being on holiday. Her heating system is now leaking, and the idiot maintenance man removed a cracked pipe, then left leaving it leaking more, so she has no hot water over Christmas, and little prospect of a repair before the new year. She's done so much for me this month and this year, and I love her more than ever.

She drove me home yesterday and I arrived to see my brother Paul, looking somewhat gaunt. Together we watched the hilariously abysmal film Beyond The Universe (I could write a essay on this film - certainly a case of being so bad it's good).

Paul has, it's an understatement to say, ecological, left wing views of the world and has predicted the doom of capitalism in his lifetime. My views are not like his. For me, economic and political systems reflect biological and universal reality; it is an expression of life, not artificial or malevolent. If poverty, power-games, and inequality are cruel then nature is cruel; and nature works in the most optimal way. Life exists to create order from chaos. He talked about stability, sustainability, how capitalism is not sustainable, but the quality of life is that it strives for what is not sustainable. All animals and plants do; they grasp and steal and hoard. They die off if they go too far, but a 'sustainable' existence is stagnation and also leads to death. The optimum is a middle way, but the only way to find it is to strive; the weak elements die off, those which don't die remain, and so the process continues.

The conversations and ideas were very stimulating. We talked about science fiction too, then played a game of Scrabble with my mum. I just won in a hard game where we both scored about 200. I rarely see Paul, so it was a happy time to be with him, a like-mind in many ways.

I slept badly, probably due to eating badly, the strain of the day and of a busy week. I still feel somewhat exhausted, but have many jobs, and many areas of inspiration to pursue. My economic reality is struggle.

One job today is to clean my Behringer amplifiers. The knobs and cable connections are very crackly, which is something I've never experienced or tried to fix before.

Deb is working until 10am on Christmas morning, and back to work next day. I wish we could be together more over the festive week.

Onwards we strive, to do our best, and for a better world and universe.

Mike At The Mic Stand, 20th Flatspace Year, Strikes

A lovely and memorable performance 'From The Mic Stand' for Artistic Echoes last night. This is a live-streamed video from a small flat, a 'boutique' film studio. I performed 6 We Robot tracks, then had a brief interview with artist and presenter Mike Chisholm:

I really enjoyed it. The live film element reminded me of my radio days, and I loved this more than a normal performance in many ways. I couldn't have done it without Deborah's help, but the night was made more special when Cherie and David rang the buzzer at 8:30 to join us for the broadcast.

The stream is, at time of writing, visible on the Facebook Artistic Echoes page. I write this with a sense of the vastness of time, and perhaps the hope that in the centuries to come, the stream will still be there, but who can say - will these words outlast Facebook? Will Facebook outlast these words?

I've felt really achey and exhausted today; yesterday was hard work. I lost my glove in Macc, and had a disturbing nightmare where a beautiful dawn witnessed by Deborah and myself turned out to be a nuclear explosion which then obliterated us all. I awoke to the sad news that Deb will be working for all of Christmas Eve, with a short break from 10am on Christmas Day, then back to work on Boxing Day.

Today started with a health check, actually part of a survey into the nation's health:

Basic health checks of height, weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, confirmed what I suspected: I am (physically) 'normal', which itself seems to be a little abnormal these days.

Then some festive visits to friends, appropriately initalled J and C.

Today is also the 20th anniversary of the release of the first Flatspace game (I remember that stressful day well, and the two instant sales it unexpectedly generated), and the first day of the Steam Winter Sale, so I announced these facts, and the new sale. This admin took up most of today's computer time.

I was informed that the Snow Business library event has had a story published about it:

And, finally, a reply from Distrokid support about the Spotify 'strikes'. I'm still amazed that the artists are punished for 'fake' streams over which we have no control. I was advised to seek 'Listener' playlists which looked suspicious. My song didn't appear in any Listener playlist, and I don't know what a 'suspicious playlist' looks like, so I asked for clarification, and again for my unjust strike to be revoked.

Video Filed, Argus Updated, Mural Engagement, Plans

A somewhat frustrating day yesterday. I need more, something big to run at, which encourages me to do yet more. I did, however, file and complete the videos, and updated Argus a version with a few small changes. In the evening I had the an idea for a new project in mind, for Fall in Green, and more people besides, but need to think it all through.

Another Snow Business sale today, so the total raised is over £330. I've ordered a proof of the new Lou Salomé book, which will, like the album, be called 'Lou Salomé: Empathy With Daisies', but with the latter phrase an explicit subtitle. At 12pm, David Jewkes and I, accompanied happily with Deborah, had a few hours in Crewe Market Hall at a public engagement event for the Lyceum Square Mural:

Tonight, the last Artistic Echoes event of the year will be my performance of some We Robot songs.

I now want to get lots finished. I've compiled a basic list of some of the live Fall in Green music we've performed but not recorded, so must target those first. The tracks are: The Cabinet of Dr Eckelmann, Ponderous Tomes, The Candle Burns, Sunchild, Effervescent, and Velvet Gelt. The Candle Burns in particular is one we've performed for many years; I distinctly recall performing that at our Tom's Tap event in October 2019. We'll also record our version of Mr Tambourine Man, as a single (cover versions must be paid for annually, so it's not cost effective to include this in an album).

Videos Complete

A short work day today, managed to complete the Cycles videos. I could spend longer on these, as ever. There is always a trade-off between time and quality, a limit when it must be called finished. So, six Spotify Canvases have been completed, and a main video for Cycles III. One last change was adding a film of a candle being lit at the start, this was inspired by the album artwork. I removed the moon design, and added a new 'golden ring' object for the brass instruments.

During this, I contacted Spotify about my erroneous 'strike'. The operator said that these strikes were an aspect of my distributor, Distrokid, not Spotify:

"Distrokid chose to present you with this material explaining their 'three strike' policy against artificial streams. Spotify did not produce these materials, nor do we require you to engage with them."

Of course, I have no control on how my music was or is streamed. I have never paid for streams (and never would, it's a stupid idea on every level, who would want 'fake' fame!?), never authorised any streaming artificial or otherwise, and never requested music promotion of any sort with anyone. It's odd that I, the artist, would be punished for my music being streamed by third parties that I have no influence or control over. Well, the efficient and helpful Spotify customer service agent made a note of my case. This is the best I can do.

Most of the day was spent on social Christmas trips. My big day of the week is Wednesday with a 'forum' about my mural design in the Market Hall from 12 to 3pm, then the Artistic Echoes music performance at 20:30 in Macclefield.

I need to start a new project, a new album, new paintings, a new book.

Cycles III Video, Completely Wrong Spotify Strike

A nice gamer night last night with Simon, H, and Aff. Our third of the year.

Today, steady work on the Cycles videos, completing the small Spotify canvases. Most of the productive day was spent working on the Cycles III video. Initially it involved simple lights, but I wanted to add more and looked at the old butterfly footage I filmed a few years ago for this. It didn't look clean enough, and I wondered if I should use digital butterflies instead. After some experiments, I simply swapped the glowing blue lights of the lead piano melody for butterflies, and the results looked pretty good:

Now, however, I am annoyed! I've received an extremely patronising message from Distrokid, more of a dressing down, for a 'Spotify strike' because one of my songs (one of the old songs recorded with Tor) has been detected on an 'artificial' stream or some such nonsense, and implies that I've paid for this! This is ridiculous! I have never and will never pay for streams on a streaming service. I know, of course, the stupidity of fake streams, and didn't need telling about this even before there was a policy about it. Rather than allowing any sort of appeals process, the messages simply imply guilt and give no recourse to respond, or permit any action. All I can do is click some sort of stupid 'I did it' button (a forced lie!). This is so unjust! Nothing to do with me or anything I've done. My only act is to message my distributor's customer support and state that this is a mistake.

After months of relentless SFXEngine attacks, I'm now faced with attacks on my music. What can I do? I must sigh and try my best.

Cycles Videos

A first day of steady work in some time. I started on the Spotify Canvases for Cycles. These are simple animated videos. Pretty, and perhaps too simple for full length videos in a loop. They are inspired by the cover artwork.

I also started on a full-length version for the new Cycles III track, where the sparkly light objects correspond to the notes. This is essentially a reworking of the painstaking Challenger video, but now happily done using Argus. Much faster to create, and better looking most of the time because I can move the camera and do all sorts of fancy effects. It needs, ideally, more reality, more chaos and less of the cold perfection of computer graphics.

It is very pretty though, and reminds me of my old computer graphics from 20 years ago, images like Embrace and Conch. Not a coincidence, as the root images for those images and this animation are the same light flares. Those renders from the early 2000s have served me well over the years. This is, exactly how imagined the music. A circle of piano notes, but I had also planned (and filmed at one point) butterflies; and perhaps myself playing the piano would improve it. Each choice is tested and kept or eliminated. Creation is always a slow process.

Life and the Fate of the Universe

Predictions about the ultimate fate of the universe tend to assume a cold and lifeless universe, calculated and observed as a system separate from the observer, when life is a crucial aspect of the universe. Life reduces entropy because it has evolved via a system where too much entropy is destructive. Natural selection best preserves that is which has the lowest entropy. Life supports order and order supports life.

Life not only reduces entropy, but supports and multiplies systems that also reduce entropy. Perhaps, over time, this will increase, and grow to oppose any increase of entropy in the universe by natural means.

Live at Macc Art Lounge

A tiring and busy few days. Another performance yesterday at the Macc Art Lounge, performing Christmas Smells and Christmas is to Go, but also several tracks from We Robot, then several Fall in Green tracks. This was probably my longest performance of songs so date; and certainly the longest since the two Marius Fate performances at All Saints' Church and Wistaston Memorial Hall.

After that, a lovely evening with Deborah. Today, filing all of these events, and more preparations for the revamped SFXEngine. My next public events are the Crewe mural 'forum' at the Market Hall on the 20th, and that evening a repeat performance of We Robot songs for Artistic Echoes in Macclesfield.

I'm now somewhat weak and weary. These dots of events and tasks are more draining than focus on one single activity. The year is nearly over, so preparations for 2024 must be made. What will the year hold? I feel nothing but optimism. Optimism about the future is a universally good thing. The future is the only place where perfection exists.

Crewe Library Party

A good day at the Crewe Library Winter Party event. Lovely to see many friends, and we had a quick pre-show photograph from the press photographer Peter Robinson who was kind enough to take lots of photos:

Deb opened with readings from Tolstoy:

Then the open mic poetry followed by the music performances. David Fray, the Poacher's mandolin player, injured his finger a day or two ago so was unable to play (as bandaged in the top photo!).

We rounded the afternoon off with a group rendition of Feast of Stephen by Mike Heron, performed by Mike, A.K.A. Mick Dick of the Forrest Dick band.

It was a lovely day, but tiring, with lots of carrying and lifting, and perhaps insufficient food. I felt weak at the end of it all. One of my amps was very volatile, with violent cracking when just touching a cable. One of these (probably this one, I didn't risk it) is also very noisy when turning the volume knob. I need to get it serviced when I can afford to - or I may try myself. We raised over £100, with 4 sales of Deb's book going to the LATH total. Exact total to follow.

The Book of Lou Salome

Two busy days. Much of today was spent working on a new book of the Lou Salomé poems and sheet music. This will be in a square format of 21.59cm, so about the size of an old 45 RPM single. Several new illustrations have been created for it, here is Entwined in Infinity:

I'm also rehearsing the music for tomorrow's show in the library. The month of work on Snow Business is easily distracting from the important art I must make. I need to focus on the future and the next project, the great unknown. One thing I must do is rephotograph my recent paintings with my new lighting.

Help I Cry

I wrote a new poem (or song lyrics) last night and completed it today.

Help I Cry

Help I cry to the no-one in my head
to God, the man who died
as a dream of you, of me,
of a calm summer sea
when reality is rain and dread.

Help I think to my sinking cells
and my cells say sorry
to you, for I cannot,
I must wait for the rain of self
to stop its helpless pelt.

For there is no help.
There is no help.
There is no help.

Macc Art Lounge 2023 Day 4

A 4th day in the Macc Art Lounge today, this time rather warm and cosy. The opening times are 10:30am to 5pm, but today I left at 3pm. I delivered a new painting, Flesh Vase With Stone Flowers:

Home to find two more copies of Snow Business sold, and 67 views of my Christmas Smells Lyric Video. We are about one sale away from the mark of £200 raised.

Snow Business Launch Day, MODX Audio

A somewhat slow day of administration of the launch of Snow Business, which was officially released at 9am. Social media posts were made to promote it and an email sent to those on my list. Short videos of Christmas Smells were posted on various sites and the premiere of the Lyric Video went live at 7pm.

I also discovered that I can stream separate Audio waves on the MODX as part of the Live Set option. This is a great feature, as I play to backing tracks quite often. The feature is useful, but almost seems like an afterthought, it isn't possible to vary the volume of that track, only all tracks, and then the settings are forgotten when the unit is switched off. Still, this is a huge help, as it now avoids the need for using the Zoom H4 as an external playback device. Increasing amounts of all live play are done on this one keyboard - which is fantastic.

The SFXEngine upgrades are as complete as they can be from my part, I now need to wait for Valve/Steam to approve and make the appropriate changes.

Tomorrow I'm on duty in the Macc Art Lounge, then must prepare for the two live music events of the week.

SFXEngine Updates

This year's Christmas tree procured and named Fingerbobs. The day was spent finalising the technical parts of the SFXEngine update. I need Valve's help for the key parts, so everything is now dependent on them.

Lots of jobs to do and others to contact. Snow Business launches tomorrow! The day is set aside for that, and I have to rehearse for the 3 live shows coming up over the next fortnight.

Onwards!

SFXEngine Work

A full day preparing to update SFXEngine with a new sales system. It's quite complex and involves a lot of pre-planning and setting up. A change to the program's default plug-ins means that I need to change the manual, and the tutorial and example sounds, which is time consuming, as well as create 10 new sets of downloadable content (DLC), which requires lots of new graphics and descriptions.

I've not done something like this to an existing piece of software, so the uncertainty of it all slows me down a bit. It will require getting everything in the correct order... assuming it can be done.

Well, I created the 40x new sets of art today, and performed most of the tedious but simple parts. The more complex aspects come tomorrow.

Christmas Preparations, Circle8 Jingles, Salomé Book Scores

Another non-stop day. Completed the spoken word scores for the Book of Lou Salomé (we need a title). Arranged and finalised the last of my main Christmas gifts. Recorded spoken word intros for the Christmas Smells single for Circl8 radio. I created a new 'Buy Me A Coffee' channel - which is a gift giving page for artists.

This doesn't sound like much, but today has been a constant rush. Finishing many tiny jobs is time consuming. There is a certain amount of time and energy needed to change direction. I note that copying lots of tiny files in Windows is about 1000 times slower than copying one large file of the same size; perhaps the law of 'changing into a different track requiring extra energy' is a universal one. Most of the day, was spent on the Christmas preparations, an annual essential for most people.

Perhaps tomorrow I can start on the SFXEngine changes, though today is already so late and rushed that I may need a few hours to rest and get into that mode too.

We Robot CDs, CD Images, More Snow Business

An amazingly busy couple of days of computer admin, but I took time out with Deb to do some (also essential) Christmas shopping yesterday.

First! The We Robot CDs have arrived and look amazing. These are some of the best looking albums I've had made so far, and y first song albums with full lyrics in the booklet:

These will be launched on Bandcamp shortly, this week. This inspired me to look at CD images, and I decided to scan and display all of my current CDs in a fixed format, so for We Robot, these look like this:

I did this yesterday and today for most of the CDs in my collection. It's a bit of overkill to do it for the obscure ones that I (probably) have the only copies for, but I will probably do that too one day. Here, for example, is the original Arcangel CD cover, and the first (2000-era) edition of Synaesthesia, which only ever existed on self-burned Verbatim CD-R discs:

This reminded me how my CDs have evolved over the years. The Spiral Staircase had 3 different CD editions. At some recent point I re-catalogued and documented these versions, so at least that part is done.

After that job, I started to burn a few copies of Snow Business for friends and family. My mother has ordered five copies but needs them on CD. This job is quite time consuming in itself, and took me all morning. I then compiled artists' packs of the album, so that the other artists can do this too, should they want or need to.

This afternoon, I started by repairing Deb's heating system, which turned out to be a technical problem within my capabilities, so that's good. The day is flying by. I had hoped to finish the outstanding jobs before today, but they may take until Wednesday. Next, I must complete the preparations for Cycles & Shadows 2024, then complete the scores for the Salomé book.

Then I need to update SFXEngine with a whole new sales and update system, and hopefully all before Saturday. Onward!

Macc Lounge Saturday

A nice day in the Macc Art Lounge today. I literally awoke before dawn, crisped though the hard frost to the shuddering bus to Macclesfield, arriving at the art lounge shortly after 10, with enough time to open the shop, warm the gallery and prepare for the day. We had a trickle of visitors 20 or 30 before noon, then Ché arrived, soon followed by Bruce Lyons and illustrator Michelle Shore who I'd not met before.

A minor crisis hit in the afternoon when the upper floor was flooded by 2 or 3 litres of water, but a stop-cock and a wet hoover later, and all was restored, albeit damply. I was reminded that personalities are best tested in difficult times, and the already social lounge became more-so when our little team was faced with this small emergency.

I left at 3 and heard that I'd sold a painting, my second sale of this exhibition.

I painted Domination of the Fishes in 2007, and the composition was partly an extension of my 'symphonic painting' idea as used in The Migraine Tree. A single 'theme', a shape, in this case a fish shape, is used and reused in different ways around the picture, to create something like unity in variety.

To take this idea to a next level, I tried (and try) to work out where the viewer first looks at the picture, to see the first fish. This is the start of the story, the next fish is the next line, and so on. Here, the fish starts in the sky; swimming? Then we see the desert landscape below, dry and cracked, and other fish and parts of fish. The sea is dry then. Watery tentacles and other sea-like objects crawl over the strange 'mountains' on the right, and a looming figure has a fish-shaped hole. This is something like the memory of a fish, or its loss. The figure seems to be casting a spell; the title indicates its something like a King Canute figure, dominating, or trying to control, the seas... at what cost? There are other fish parts too. Overall the feeling is somewhat sad, of loss, the loss of something.

Of course, there is more to the painting than this, and even many of my ideas here are speculations. I don't plan the thoughts or feelings of an artwork first - that would be impossible. The point of an artwork is that it can only share its meaning with the viewer (or listener) in itself. It can't be explained. We know instantly and instinctively what a good artwork 'is about' but we can't say it in any way. That information can only be gleaned by looking at the artwork. We can speculate, or gain clues, or make headway in interpretation, meaning, context - but only seeing/hearing/reading/feeling an artwork really conveys it, and it does it instantly and effortlessly.

Unfortunately and annoyingly, from about 2:30 I've been in awful stomach pain, like trapped wind. This is horrible and unusual, and notable because I hardly ever have trapped wind, and also that I had this pain on Sunday after my strange illness. With fate's grace it will pass.

Cycles 2024, Snow Business Filing,

A full day of admin here. First monthly backups, then listing the 2024 remaster of Cycles & Shadows, a process which is only half complete. It's also the technical deadline for Snow Business, so I checked in with the participants and send the CD Artwork for proofing.

Then more work on the Lou Salome book, but not much, a couple of the scores. There are 4 left now, and I need an intro or some more structure to the rest of the book. It would be nice if Deborah wrote that, but I expect she won't have time.

A few other opportunities presented themselves, and it may be that some of the Snow Business tracks will appear on the radio this month.

I'm in the Macc Art Lounge tomorrow. Last week's illness was probably hypothermia or something I ate, or a bit of both. I'll prepare as best I can. I'm unexpectedly looking forward to it, an adventure, but I wish I had warmer clothes. This trip can be a sort of test for next week.

Charge I must. Battle entropy I must. There are many good things I can, could, would like to do. Each day of life is so very precious, and so very short.