'im worried.' 'why?' i asked. 'i don't want to have to eat the cats'. apparently she had been reading up about the apocalypse and began mentally preparing herself for the day when push comes to shove. 'obviously, within six months there will be no cow meat left. what am i gonna do, hunt?' i assured her she wouldn't have to eat the cats.
'i'm gonna have to learn how to garden.' a disaster-related conclusion as well. 'on what land?' i asked. then she changed her mind. her paranoia surrounding an apocalypse extended itself to the takeover of zombies. 'i'd probably just let a zombie eat my brains. i don't want to learn how to garden.'
'don't die for the next ten years.' an AI specialist had gone on a podcast to inform everyone that AI predicted the emergence of life-extending technology ten years from now. 'if you're alive in ten years, you'll live to be a hundred and fifty.' i asked her if she wanted to live to be a hundred and fifty. she said no.
at the beginning of february my macbook turned off for good. i took it to the apple store and was met with the bad news that the laptop would not turn on again unless i sent it in for an expensive repairment, and even that wouldn't guarantee me a permanent fix. something wrong with the circut board-- some dust and junk on it. regardless, if i paid for this, the computer would come back completely wiped, and i hadn't saved anything on my drive. so, a new laptop it was. that first week of february shaped up to be the most expensive week of my life, the purchases of a shiny new macbook and a new (no longer pirated! we made it out mom's house y'all) ableton live authorization adding up to a stressful two thousand dollars.
at the time, i didn't own an external hard drive. NONE of my music was backed up, apart from whatever i had already sent to myself and saved in my files app. these were mostly demos that i already had publicly uploaded. anything i worked on secretly or for shits and gigs in my four years of producing, regardless of whether or not i saved it into a compressed wav file, was lost. and fyi- data recovery in the bay area can cost up to 7k. screw these tech moguls. do i want five months rent or my 2021 demos back?
the funny thing, though, is that all of my old garageband files were saved to my google drive. having nothing, pockets so empty of digital ableton lore, i revisited these files, some of which dated back to as far as 2018 when i was just a sixteen year old stereolab fan with a ton of free time (classic). this was pre-midi controller, pre-sound card, pre-mic, pre-LAPTOP-- my setup isn't impressive in any way now, but the lack thereof back then was real. garageband iphone app and wired headphones, babe.
curious to hear? yeah, so am i every six months. i recently watched poor things (i promise it's relevant), a film where the protagonist bella baxter begins as physically an adult woman, but mentally a rapidly growing infant. producing for fun, i kinned bella in that my garageband app period was, essentially, my own infancy. i keyboard mashed and slapped in-app effects on youtube-mp3 samples of songs i liked (not too far off from what i do now sometimes, the key distinction being deliberation and routine).
i made this demo when i was seventeen and the concept of a demo didn't really exist to me yet. a secret: there are lyrics to this demo that i still remember perfectly. that's the thing about writing music. it sticks because it's yours. once there are real lyrics attached, it's suddenly tangible until you have the capacity to forget (muscle memory, probably. speech muscle memory. i'm referencing my own lyrics like they're primate calls).
i miss this approach to music. now, when i write a song, i know exactly how i'll structure its demo in ableton. before 2022, NONE of my vocals were doubled. within a single vocal take is probably the margin where an artists' humility exposes itself. and i'm geriatric now. i'm stuck in my ways-- i'll take a short stack of vocal stacks.
in reference to this post's title- recently i needed the stems for a song of mine called my bell rings but was reminded they exist on a laptop that has since croaked. so i youtube-mp3'ed my own master, which exists in its mastered state only due to a youtube-mp3 transaction of the song's samples in 2022. you either die a sampler or live long enough to sample the sampler. i guess there's a moral here that i had to be the guinea pig for, that being back up your shit to an external hard drive of course.
to the demos from 2021-2023 that i lost (you know who you are, files) i miss you. to my releases under different artist projects (warren peace exists solely on bandcamp. imagine i buy my own music back for a quick five) i miss you, less so.
i will leave you with every moniker i've released music under:
die hipster scum -- warren peace --nelly name -- vloggystyle -- operelly
p.s. elliot started a blogger chain and it's like the new ice bucket challenge. my friends are starting blogs left and right! i love it. !!!BLOG CHALLENGE!!! i nominate walker price and erik yoo.
(this post is dedicated to my friend lily, in honor of their new blog!)
the transients of a waveform is measured in three chronological parts: its attack phase, steady state, and decay phase. attack measures the amount of time a wave takes to get from zero to its maximum amplitude—steady state stays there— decay measures the amount of time a wave goes from its maximum to zero.
like this:
what else can be measured with these three components?
more recently i've been obsessed with the transients of a back-and-forth. an interaction between two. i'll see people and i'll be thinking 'ok, how am i going to greet them?' alternatively, i've spoken to people and during the interaction i'm thinking 'ok, how the hell am i going to kill this?'
i know i'm not the only person who's thought about interactions in this way because my mom is a grade-A decay-er. she'll be plotting an out to 99% of her work interactions the moment they begin. social against her will, she calls it. every now and then i can clock someone actively trying to kill a conversation with me. this has me wondering how obvious i am when i do it. one of these days i just want someone to keep it a buck and say 'well, that was that.'
a transients example (allow me to set this scene for you): you pass a buddy while you're both on the way to a compulsory event. the attack phase is very short, since you're both pleasantly surprised to run into each other. you exchange quick pleasantries in the steady state of your conversation-- where you headed? are you busy this week? the decay is short as well because you both understand that you are expected somewhere else. you say goodbye and you're on your merry way.
the transients of your interaction is similar to that of a note on a piano (when the sustain pedal is untouched)
another example: you think you recognize a celebrity at an event. you get the courage to start a conversation. this celebrity is used to fans, but has nowhere to escape to, so you both continue talking. you are too excited to notice that this celebrity is humoring you all the while trying to find an out in this interaction. after far too long, they excuse themselves. short attack, short steady state, long decay.
the transients of your interaction is similar to that of a bell
another: you and your roommate are cleaning the house. you both exchange an occasional 'excuse me' and 'i'll take care of this'. immediate attack, short steady state, immediate decay. repetition.
the transients of your repeated interactions are similar to that of a square pulse wave
let's play a game: can you guess which instrument shares the transients of this interaction?
your lover has been shot in your kitchen. the attacker has fled. after hearing the gunshot from the bedroom, you race downstairs and call 911. they are bleeding out, and you must distract them so they maintain their consciousness. you remind them of your fondest memories together-- you know their chances of survival are slim, as you live at the top of a mountain. your lover suffers for hours, before passing away. the last thing they hear is the sound of your voice.
a) a kick drum
b) a gong
c) a horn
d) a violin
if you answered b) a gong, you're correct. a gong has the longest decay phase of any (non-manipulated) instrument
i guess transients exists across several mediums-- there are so many things with a beginning, middle, and end, after all. a movie, a record (stereolab released an album titled transient random noise-bursts with announcements. calling song lyrics 'announcements' is too clever), a game, a lifespan (the decay phase starts when your body literally begins decaying. ouch) reminds me of the time kurt vonnegut mapped out the shapes of different stories on a graph.
more on this as it develops, actually probably not, etc.
i hate when a motherfucker acts like they don't have a guilty pleasure. in tenth grade i had such a huge crush on my math partner-- i asked him what his guilty pleasure was and he told me he doesn't consume media he feels guilty in consuming. it was funny because he was wearing a foster the people shirt and Torches was definitely one of my guilty pleasure albums at the time. like it's good, but is it Good?
a pretty consistent guilty pleasure of mine since its rise during the lockdown has been jubilee youtube videos. these videos are fucking huge on the internet, to the point where i'm seeing them clipped aside sensory videos, or better yet, reaction videos to these jubilee videos clipped aside sensory videos above another sensory video (free us!). in particular i tune into the ones where shit's being ranked, ex. 'can strangers rank themselves by IQ,' or by physical strength, wealth, etc. i'm obsessed with the breakdown and justification of strangers' perceptions OF themselves TO other strangers AND an entire audience of anons. when the theme is impossible to accurately measure the video gets real interesting-- awhile back strangers ranked themselves in order by attractiveness and then a group of people of the opposite sex also ranked these same strangers in order (something we have all taken part in the comfort of our own external circles through some form of smash or pass, or fuck marry kill, coming to a decision we would never disclose to the subjects' faces. don't act like you're above it). this wasn't, at least to my knowledge, widely critiqued as a concept. since the participants were all depicted as having their own preferences, noticing different physical features to stand out, the audience of anons and myself probably disagreed with some conclusions in the final ranking. in watching, i feel like a secret participant. i recall having the fleeting thought that this was a somewhat degrading video, but it's not like the whole world weighed in on the ranking.
CUT TO: the whole world weighing in on the ranking. uh oh! a few days ago (on international national women's day, might i add) jubilee uploaded a video as part of their series 'the one' in which one hundred female participants uploaded a bikini photo for a panel of thousands of viewers to rank, placing them as a number on a 1-100 scale measuring ideal to least ideal body type. then, these women were placed in a circle where they were given the autonomy to stay in the circle if they thought their rankings were high on this scale. eventually the circle was narrowed down to one person-- if she was ranked number one by the voters, the circle would turn green. spoiler alert: the circle turned red, and the woman ranked as having the 'true' ideal body was revealed.
videos like these don't trigger me now, but they remind me of how lucky i am to engage with media through a critical lens that wasn't always present. i'm twenty one years old and my relationship with my body is as complicated as the next, to the point where the idea of submitting a bikini photo of myself to be surveyed by thousands is one of the more terrifying things i can imagine subjecting myself to. these videos are gigantic (my guilty pleasure is not niche in any way), therefore when i watch a video like this i think of the wide age range of people watching. when i was sixteen i know i would have started this video bright eyed and bushy tailed and ended it not feeling miserable, but rather envious, fantasizing about participating and discovering my number rank. in my fantasy i would have ranked high, but i control all of my own fantasies, of course. the idea of any children watching and wanting to figure out their body rank makes me want to throw up.
the main issue within the enactment of a ranked survey is the illusion of objectivity. subjectivity turned graded objectivity rejects any disagreements present-- specifically those from the viewer when participants in these videos have faces and speak in full sentences as they rationalize their rankings. presumed objectivity of physical traits does not make any sense when there is a second audience present, which is the multiplied audience of millions engaging in this content. this second audience goes, "are we CUCKS, jubilee? are you CUCKING us? does my opinion mean nothing to you anymore? am i the secret participant no longer?"
oh god, and these poor girls. one girl in the video was adamant she had an elite physical body type, only for the light to turn red on her, revealing her body is in fact 'not elite', i guess-- god forbid a woman expresses any confidence in her body online, ha ha! i've seen the comments. they might as well want her dead, boys and girls alike. jubilee's formatting has always worked this way-- the addition of suspense, relieved by a symbolic red or a green light, is textbook psychology. if the light turns green, the woman is clearly and CORRECTLY gyatted! she must be an elite baddie, or the lights wouldn't have turned green. she's obviously mid, or the lights wouldn't have turned red... the viewer is satisfied when their internal judgements are reinforced. but if the answer is as objective as jubilee makes it out to be, why would there be any skepticism in the first place? the final ten women had voted on who had the best body. the votes were not unanimous.
btw, a very sweet, humble girl was ranked number one. i'm glad, honestly, because i could have seen the video ending two different ways:
a. the girl who was adamant she would be ranked number one was indeed ranked number one, and every single comment would disagree, the internet coming to a general consensus not that the voters represent subjectivity, but that objectivity is incorrect.
b. a girl with a body type that not everyone liked would be ranked number one, and every single comment would disagree, the internet coming to a general consensus not that the voters represent subjectivity, but that objectivity is incorrect.
there is nothing positive to be gained from this video. if you want to watch a video with a positive message, it probably isn't guilty pleasure content anyway.
this post is dedicated to my friend elliot— a dedicated reader and a blogger himself!
in my head exists a four-field political compass-esque chart:
the vertical axis determines a spectrum across the opposites ‘inclusive’ and ‘exclusive’. inclusive means nonjudgemental and secure, in this case. naturally, exclusive would represent the opposite, judgmental and insecure. the horizontal axis separates ‘luddite’ from ‘brainrot’. a luddite strays from modern media and lowbrow pop culture. brainrotted folk (i’ve been hearing the word brainrot everywhere nowadays, hence this choice) consume so much modern media on a daily basis, more specifically through social media platforms.
clear? okay. i have suspicion to believe that pretty much every person i’ve ever met in my adult life occupies a fixed space on this chart. for example, i think i'm somewhere smack dab in the middle, with a slight ‘brainrot’ bias. everyone i meet in berkeley is more of a luddite than i am, and nearly everyone i’ve met by other circumstances is more brainrotted. take my word for it that my immediate family is totally in the inclusive brainrot square. it’s how i was raised. (my mother, especially, is so far lost in the sauce— reclusive internet addiction).
to clarify, luddite does not signify a net positive, and brainrot does not signify a net negative. in fact, what do people say when they’re so overstimulated by the artificial that they’ve become hyper self-aware? that they’re redpilled? based? alternatively, what does any luddite have to say about pop culture and social media that displays any sort of true, nuanced understanding? there are pros and cons to both.
who are the worst types of people on these axes? the exclusive brainrotted group. self explanatory, honestly—self-identifying with a judgement of anything analog is insane. 51/50 yourself if you identify with exclusive brainrot. who are the best? to me, the inclusive luddites take the cake. those people are truly free. they’ve shucked the constraints of social technology just enough to enjoy themselves on their phone or computer, but express no bitterness towards those who have lost their autonomy to it. at this point in my life, i might have a phone addiction. the only thing keeping me from the deep end is the aspiration to one day become a learned, sympathetic, inclusive luddite. (a fallacy i should point out: while inclusive and exclusive are opposites, luddite and brainrotted are not necessarily so. in fact, i cannot in good faith place on this compass a good friend of mine because i believe them to be a brainrotted luddite.)
a good portion of my artistry is dedicated to mixing all four of these concepts in different ratios. the concept of exclusivity is far more appealing than the practice of it, as is the concept of ludditry (is that a word? no. but does it matter? the red dots in my notes app signifying incorrect spelling are sort-of expressing to me an exclusivity of the written word. sometimes i think about my notes app and how much more appealing it would look to me if it were all written on paper— but i can’t organize a notebook by topic into fake folders like i can here. and if i start writing with a pen and decide it’s rubbish, i’ve wasted paper.)
more on this later, maybe, etc. i just got off the train. zzzzzzz
yesterday i fantasized about throwing up in the middle of a crowd at a show venue. random show-goers asked me what’s wrong, provoking me to let them know i was touched to the point of sickness by the beauty of devastating live music.
and then the second part of my fantasy involved a lack of judgment from my peers for enjoying the remainder of the show seated, since i now had an excuse to sit down.
CLICK NOW! songs to throw up, or dryheave at the very least, to:
