More Lost Highway

Still largely deaf and lacking in energy, but could hear well enough in my right ear to complete watching Lost Highway, with apologies for committing the sin of seeing this film in two halves.

It is a film that, like the excellent Videodrome, is a whole. Now I've seen it I can read about it and I am somewhat amazed that people found it incoherent, when the narrative is straightforward to (admittedly surreal) me. The story and concept are the highlights of the film, but it lacks the emotional highs and imagination generally of Lynch's other work and some elements felt too similar to, yet worse than, Blue Velvet. Loggia, as very much a Frank Booth character, was far inferior to Hopper. Too much of the character dynamics were too unrealistic to be engaging... sometimes frustratingly unrealistic. There are moments that are so bad that they emulate Ed Wood. I make this criticism out of sadness, because I see so many good seeds in it and things in it I wish I could, with a magic wand, change to make it wonderful.

Of course, it's still more interesting than 99% of Hollywood's output. Good quality films are hard to come by. It's nice to dream of making a film (The Johnstown Project?) but it takes 100 people, 100 million dollars, 100 tons of equipment, and one year, and 99.99% of the time the film remains unseen and, if seen, forgotten in 100 minutes.

Perhaps my deafness and head pain has made me think visually today. I feel enthused and able to create, although when I'll be able to sequence music is up to the gods. Of course, this music will probably remain unlistened to, too, but I must still do my best each time, and give it every chance and hope, such that when I am dead, someone may find it. Such is art.

Deafness, Lost Highway

Awoke completely deaf in my left ear and semi-deaf in my right and with a general and persistent headache due to some sort of sinus pressure. I think this is an allergic reaction, as my hayfever was unexpectedly bad yesterday, with an itchy throat whenever I went out for a few minutes. Combined with yet another day of constant stomach pain, these ailments are an annoyance. Still, I've started sequencing work on a new audio piece tentatively called The Fingers Of Evil.

I watched an interview with David Lynch yesterday talking about the making of The Elephant Man, which was interesting. I love his work, and wish he would make more. I read the Ronnie Rocket script years ago and the images still remain with me. The interview also reminded me how abnormal I am compared to other humans. I grew up believing that my so-called parents were evil androids determined to kill and torture me with their strange punishments. In engaged emotionally only with my first computer and by the time I left school at 16 I had largely stopped communicating or socialising with other people and didn't speak to anyone until I joined my first art club at the age of 34. I've grown to understand other people more but never felt like them or part of society in any way, more like a completely different species.

I started to watch Lost Highway last night. I knew nothing about it before watching, which I prefer. It was unexpected because the story was surrealistic somehow, but not the visuals or actions or interpretations. After watching a lot of Lynch's work recently, it contrasted sharply with earlier and brilliant works such as The Grandmother. Art should be emotionally arresting, ideally amazing, wondrous. Bill Pullman seems miscast, as did Nicolas Cage in Wild At Heart. Perhaps Jack Nance should have been his leading man in everything, like Max von Sydow or Erland Josephson for Bergman. Jack's single scene in Wild At Heart was one of the most memorable.

I have re-imagined a new start of Lost Highway; the scene opens with the Pullman character awoken by a buzzer at the door (as in the film), he is lyin next to his wife in their silk bed but we see only her dark hair, she could be a dummy for all we know. Octopus tentacles are coming from under the sheets on her side onto the floor. We see this from above as he rises, a very short shot. He answers the buzzer, a voice says the line about the death, which bemuses him, he quickly sees if anyone is outside; there is not. He writes down the message, which changes as the film moves on. Well I haven't the space here to write it all out, but I found the film inspiring, but, sadly, perhaps for the wrong reasons for the first time in a David Lynch film, that I thought it could have been done better. The first act seemed too slow. Everything looked too clean too, I felt it needed to flicker or be grainy. The best shots were the exteriors from low angles.

Today I feel Beethovenish, due to the deafness. Let us see what the day brings.

Bees, Migraines, Surrealist Music

A good day yesterday, although it always seems that I get too little done. In the morning I noticed a large bee in the garden on the purple starry flowers (Campanula portenschlagiana, I think). It was about twice the size of the other bees, with an orange back and white tip. It seems it was a Tree Bumblebee which is apparently a newcomer to Britain.

It took a while to get music work done. I registered with Keymailer to promote my Steam games there in the morning and probably didn't start work on Fear Of The Thing Itself until 3pm or so. I recorded a new take of the verses and extra layering vocals for the 'with a touch of murderous' line. The timing of the layers isn't as matched as I'd like. For layered vocals the timing needs to match closely. For the chorus this isn't important, that is supposed to sound like many voices, but I'd prefer something more exact for the main layers (I think). I could cheat and play with it digitally, but I don't like doing that; that is easy, when this is a skill that should be mastered, but also I think the emotional quality would be affected. Things should be done in one take of the correct emotion, not toyed with afterwards. In all singing, the emotion is captured, and singing just one line separately tends to disrupt this. There are also physical factors of microphone height and distance when recording in a separate session, and these differences are generally audible, but this is a secondary issue.

It might help to have a click track or lead in for the start, as the timing at the start is often more difficult. In this song the timing is difficult to master anyway because the tempo varies starkly (this is not a dance track) and there is often no percussion as a guide anyway - gaps of silence then boom, the next verse appears. I think the results here are okay, it's certainly far better than the 2015 version; how far I have come in five years. Yes, that is a long time, only the last year has really been one of vocal focus. Better things are to come. I design everything to be a learning exercise.

At 5pm or so, while reading Wikipedia, my vision became strange and I noticed that I couldn't read easily, I had blind spots to the upper right of my vision, and I had a headache, like a lack-of-sleep headache, or eye strain. The blind spots continued for an hour or so, while I cooked tea, and I felt a little dizzy, then the periphery of my vision began to glow, become brightly lit and blurry, with the centre of my vision remaining clearer. It was like the visual experience when out-of-body, so perhaps it was a domination of the internal visual processing as it attempted to process insufficient sensory data.

It was probably a migraine. I experienced something like it once as a teenager, but not since. I had hardly slept yesterday, only two or three hours, and I felt tired and irritable all day, so that may have been a factor.

I've started taking Phosphatidyl Serine, 100mg, every other day, perhaps a month ago. There is evidence that this helps with memory, although it is expensive at about £15 for two months worth. Perhaps my brain is rewiring and I am gaining a form of super-vision.

I'm watching more David Lynch films and his work is on my mind still. I've also watch the first series of The IT Crowd which was repeated this week. Perhaps as a result, last night I dreamt of buying a 1991 Amstrad CPC 464 for £20 from a 'bargain bucket' of old computer bits. There was another machine there, a black box I thought of as a Spectrum, for £20 too, which I wrapped up and someone else then bought at my suggestion, so this persuaded me to buy the Amstrad. The Amstrad though, was a grey cuboid of the size and shape of a Chatwins box of 12 mince pies, although in its grey cube there was a cassette tape drive. I said to the checkout person that it was for historical/museum reasons rather than to use. I spent some time hunting for a video cable for it, which was a short VGA cable, but the device had many more video ports on it of an unusual shape and design, so I had hoped for a better, the ideal, cable in the box of equipment, but we couldn't find any (we, because the manager or man who ran the shop helped me search). I regretted buying the machine, thinking that I'd wasted my money, and that the other black device was a better buy.

Now I have nine songs complete, with vocals for Except For The Hatred to record. I need to write more. I have a few ideas; the guiding principle is for songs that are new and unique and marvelous and startling in subject or style. I feel enthused about the idea of surrealist music, in the hyperrealism sense; not the make-it-up automatic unconscious sense, not improvised jazz, but the fantastical like my paintings. I listened to much of Pawn Hearts by Van Der Graaf Generator last night (while migrained). It often sounds like a tuneless cacophony and it's no surprise that they were one of the least commercially successful of the progressive/psychedelic bands, but they are very inventive and complex and different, and so valuable.

Gender Egality

Gender issues have been in the news a lot so I thought I'd type up these ideas about gender equality.

Gender has both psychological and physiological attributes and nobody is pure male or pure female in either category.

Psychologically, people can feel or act in a more male or more female way, irrespective of physiology. There is a certain amount of socialisation of gender and how each gender is expected to behave.

Physiologically, people have different levels of hormones at different times, and so perhaps the levels of actual physical maleness and femaleness vary in time. Of course people can be literal hermaphrodites, or chemically party male and part female at once.

In pre-industrial societies, these factors aren't important; people can do or act how they like, and treat others how they like. Now, in our society of categorisation and organisation, gender issues can cause problems. If equality is desired the solution is as simple: ignore gender.

In this world, all genders mix and gender is not treated as important. Categorisation by gender is illegal. Companies would not be permitted to ask people's gender and governments must not compile or keep any statistics on gender, including for example on birth certificates and medical records, as well as in more trivial areas such as tax forms.

The current statistics on, for example, the gender pay gap, necessarily increase gender division. As well as a gender pay gap, for example, there is a height pay gap; taller people earn more than shorter people, yet statistics on this are more rarely compiled and not highlighted on the news, so height-ism is far less of an issue than sexism. Height-ism is less of an issue not because it is less important, but because the statistics are not tracked and the differences not focused upon. It is by such analysis that divisions occur and are exacerbated. Having a minister for gender equality will, by this very act, create greater gender division by focusing on gender differences. If we had a Minister for Height Equality and compiled and analysed statistics on height then heightism (see, I've already made it one word) would become an issue as important as gender; all conjured up by merely looking at the statistics. By the same token, reversing this trend would naturally create greater equality because it would not be an issue; people really wouldn't imagine or consider gender differences as existing at all. The same, of course, applies to race.

All toilets would be mixed gender, as would all clothes shops and clothing departments in shops. Clothes sizes would need to be standardised.

All sports are mixed gender and divided by ability. It would be quite usual for a football team to be mixed. Each sport would have to carefully define its categorisation to make matches even between competitors; disability sports does this now to a good extent. The differences between Paralympic athletes are usually greater than the gender differences in 'able bodied' athletes.

Of course, socially, people would be well aware of gender, but this system would remove any legal or systematic prejudices.

This is perhaps the most extreme example. It might be, for example, that keeping gender on medical records would help doctors treat a patient (keeping ones entire genetic structure might help too - although that is a more complex and nuanced set of data and would probably need a computer to utilise). Perhaps, in this case, birth gender could be treated as medically confidential.

Perhaps greater gender mixing would increase the risk of sexual violence, in toilets for example, although perhaps greater gender mixing would reduce the risk by normalising gender mixing. In gender segregated systems, single gender schools for example, do people have better or worse understanding of gender differences?

Religion would be another area of contention, with some religions having dogmatic rules regarding gender.

Fear Of The Thing

Recorded the first vocals to Fear Of The Thing Itself today. The singing was energetic and complex, there are many layers here and the process took an hour even with good preparation. I'm pleased with my singing, but all of my songs before 2019 had one flaw; I paid no attention at all to the vocal range or comfort, and this one is either low or high. I can sing many parts an octave higher but it never quite seems to feel right, it was just not well designed. I could, of course, rework it now and pitch it all up, but I probably won't because I'm used to hearing it as it is. I think this song will take a while to craft.

I'm feeling a little lost, trapped by fate. I am reminded that we ride the rapids of life and any attempt at steering or battling against the flow is merely an illusion of control. We are never in control; our quantum mind can imagine control, and this grants us the illusion. Yet, fight we must pretend to do.

Law and order seems to have broken down, with companies and even local government taking actions based entirely on popular opinion on social media - unregulated social media, the real problem for the world, just as unregulated press were the problem at the start of the 20th century. The two months of social isolation and restrictions, fear of a virus; these things, I think, have caused riots and anger more than any other factor. It seems that the world has become paranoid, vindictive, mad. Britain seems to be undergoing something like the Chinese Cultural Revolution; mobs destroying art in the name of progress.

Speaking of China, yesterday I signed my first international book deal, licencing the exclusive Chinese rights to my book 21st Century Surrealism. It is by far my most popular book, and, now I think of it, my most popular creation of any sort except for Flatspace, selling more, to date, than any other game, book or music album.

The rapids await. I will work more on the song tomorrow, then on the rest of the album, then on more albums, more films, more paintings, more expressions of humanity, more observation, introspection, creation, more of the best things I can.

Pyjama My... Manifesto for Music

Eight songs down now on my new Pyjama album and, for the first time, it seems to be coming together and sounding good, a definite step in the right direction. Despite the mix of strange and more pop-orientated songs, everything feels like it holds together. The older Norman Bates song is rather long, and perhaps owes more to Kate Bush, Hammer Horror perhaps. I've added strings to it today which certainly helps the lead.

The most surreal and experimental song, The Escape Angels, is sounding normal and beautiful to me now; this is the sort of direction I want to move towards, something completely new. One other purpose of album is to release a few older songs that deserve to get out there, to rework Fear Of The Thing Itself, for example, and Warm Comfy Sofa.

It's been a generally slow day. I've recorded new vocals Two Parents Of A Child, which I'll include here too. I wrote a song in the night which I might add to the collection called Beat Me Tender. The theme is dark enough.

It appears that my computer should support a 64-bit OS, so I'm considering the anxious and arduous task of reformatting the drive and installing a new operating system.

Next steps; to record new 'Fear' vocals. I've recorded some but they were ill prepared rushed and not good. I also need to record complete vocals for Except For The Hatred. That finishes off the planned songs so far. I will write more, and discard the weakest. I might work on a Christmas one too which was originally called What Have You Done To The F***ing Turkey Marjorie! but I'll not explete it! In style it's like a Splodgenessabounds song. How blessed I am to have such a wide range of bonkers influences!

I feel a manifesto for free music coming on, inspired by Lars von Trier's Dogme 95. Some of his manifesto was silly (films must be in colour! ridiculous - all of the best films I've seen have been in black and white - I'm increasingly thinking that all films should be in black and white). Music desperately needs an artistic revival though. Modern music feels like it is in crisis and even the experts and enthusiasts are divided and lost. Among the points:

1. No auto-tune, on vocals or anything else, and no auto-harmonies. Because this harms expression. Music is about human to human communication, and malforming it should never be done. Some audio effects are destructive, some not. It's important to know the difference and which.
2. No digital regularity in rhythm (no drum machines) or volume (no identical notes). This isn't a hard rule, but generally, all regularity will harm expression, so should be used with great care if at all. All of my recent music might sound digital and regular, but, when examined closely, nothing is, and the ear does pick this naturalism up.
3. No compression applied to a whole track - this has killed more emotion in music than anything, this quite for 'loudness'. Compression should be used very sparingly everywhere, I think.
4. No single effect of any sort, including EQ, applied to an entire track. Again, this will inevitably muddy dramatic contrast. Needing to apply EQ to a track is a sign of bad production or composition.
5. No digital-only releases. All music must be released on and designed for a physical medium of some sort.

That's all I can think of for now, but something on album/symphonic unity (the album or EP as an artform) would be nice. Do we need new definitions for 'album' and 'EP' now? Perhaps. New words... those words are historical.

Fragments

I awoke from a dream where I worked in an office of some sort as a secretary or junior. A forty-something David Bowie was there in a meeting with my boss and a girl who was somewhat awed by the musician. I was asked to do various silly jobs that seemed like pointless time fillers; my boos seemed like an idiot who didn't really want me to do anything. Such is a lot of 'work' in the 'real world', so I believe.

I did little in the morning, a little tired after a full yesterday. I sang at 2pm, as my parents went out, giving me a welcome time slot. I sang the new overlay vocals for 'Since You Kicked Me Out'. Now I feel used to knowing which volcas need doing and layering. I also recorded a full set for 'Fear of the Thing Itself', lots of one-takes as there are necessarily lots of layers here. I feel dissatisfied with the music today, all of it.

A new USB audio interface arrived but doesn't work, it seems it will only work on 64-bit operating systems. They don't say this anywhere; the box itself simply says 'PC Compatible'. I've contacted their customer support, which itself was a frustrating experience because I had to unpack everything and register the device with them just to contact them.

Saddening. This might be the first thing I'll ever have to return to Amazon. This is made more difficult as it's expensive and from a third-party seller. A saddening day. A frustrating day. Everything feels annoying.

I updated Taskforce a bit, and this tiny update introduced a bug. I don't mind tracking down some bugs; this one proved to be a fundamental one with my game engine, a crash when trying to delete a sprite which doesn't exist. My code is normally so efficient that I've never before, in 18 years, tried to delete a sprite which doesn't exist; I literally keep track of all of them and delete only when needed. In this case, the sprite was part of a menu system, and the menu in question was unnaturally triplicated - one option appearing on three pages. Naturally, all three pages need updating when any one is cycled. It's a bit messy but I've fixed the bug.

I have seven finished songs now. They very quite a lot in style and balancing. I would prefer if the latter were unified. I like the idea of an album as an artform, unity. I generally dislike collections, but this is an experiment, not serious, so it's fine to mix up songs old and new, strange and catchy. Perhaps, for the sake of unity, I could link parts somehow.

It seems that the CD is a dead format, but this saddens and annoys me too. Downloads have silly restrictions. The law about a track not being able to change name, like 'Cephalopoda' on Animalia, is one such silly rule. I'm still tempted to make the CD version show the correct title of 'Gastropoda'. Another is track length; on Burn of God I wanted a few very short tracks, a few seconds, as headers. This is not allowed in downloads. Downloads are pop-music-only. That is all. And the sound quality is poor. Books don't seem to be dying, so why would CDs? Perhaps because CD players are not being made or sold, and removed from cars. Must we resort to vinyl? Music, a ubiquitous artform, is being devalued everywhere. Made only for backgrounds, the mindless, brainless, soulless. I must continue to steer away from silly trends and aim at only the best. I will make works of album-size and scope, even if alone.

David Lynch has given up making films it seems. I used to meditate in my twenties, almost for the whole decade, but it seems a selfish act, to do nothing for the world. I fear and hate the idea contentment or happiness, what pointless and selfish aims. The romantic must fight, every day. Create, scream. The measure of an artist is creating when there is no need for it. Creating when there is a need is not art, it is work, commerce, 'graphics', 'craft' and other such insults. I have only death awaiting so no time to waste pandering to commerce or chasing other's ideas.

I must break the next tasks into rational steps, and get this album finished this month at least. I need to complete Fear, and some artwork for it all, but also add new tracks... unification, smoothing, joining. This is all an experiment, I must remember that. A study, as van Gogh says. A final work is one whole, a unity. Beethoven, Sulzer, Neefe; they knew this.

New Paths

A good day, managed to record 'The Arm' completely, and feel a new path in music. I've also recorded lots of new vocals for 'Since You Kicked Me Out'. The contrast of works is strong; 'Since...' is a very standard rock song which could be a chart hit, while 'The Escape Angels' is surrealistic. I'm unsure about combining such extremes, but this alone is exciting, different. I feel most excited about the experimental and surrealistic works, but 'Since...' remains a great song filled with positive energy too.

I can see a new and clear path in music. In my paintings, I like polish and finesse, it is the subject that is key. What is said is always more important than how. I'm not interested in shock tactics or extreme effects, the message should define the content; raw when needed, not when not, so it will be with music. I've listened to a lot of so-called avant-garde and strange music but not much of it seems particularly strange or cutting edge to me. I can almost see a whole new world, untouched to explore. This feels exciting, and my goals of learning more about the technical skills of vocal audio production are making great progress. I feel ready to focus on different songs and soundscapes, but all must be of the best quality.

I have more vocal layers to record for Since You Kicked Me Out, and everything for Fear of the Thing Itself, too. I have some other song ideas about biological matters. I feel able to create tens or hundreds of albums. Onward we march. I may be obscure at the moment, but I know the value of my work. I must always focus on quality, learning, scrutinising, comparing with the best, pushing for the best, and the better.