This week's written snapshots.

Music Notes

The first week of the commute music project started well. I listened to Aceyalone twice before slogging through a lot of guitar noise.

Aceyalone, A Book of Human Language

• I don’t know enough about hiphop to judge the rapping.
• Clearly catered to art school nerds who want deep subjects and big words over late 90’s gangsta bling.
• Love the sonic landscape, especially the bass riff in “the Hunt” (sampled Coltrane’s Ole).

Aerosmith, Classics Live!

• Following the complexity of Aceyalone, this was a wall of noise.
• Lots of electric guitars and distortion. Is this rock? I’m listening to too much jazz.
• Thoughts of youth culture, what will my daughter think of the pop characters of her childhood when she’s in her mid-40’s?

Al and the Transamericans, Analog

• Plenty of electric guitar, but not as frenetic.
• More melodic and borrows from old tunes and instruments. Very Americana, the banjo makes an appearance.
• Slightly awkward, in a likable way.

Elevate, The Architect
When writing this post, I found I had swapped the band and the album title. Oops, but I like having it on the first page of the binder.

• More noise. I’m not built for rock.
• I do buy things for the cover. In this case, the cover and the title. I’d do it again, even though this will be my one and only listen through this album.
• Google image search led me to the Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan. When it works, the internet is amazing. Fun fact, the Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper took 21 years to restore (1978-1999).

Bonus (?)
Last February, I shared Ruthie Foster’s rendition of “War Pigs” to mark the first year of Russia’s latest invasion into Ukraine. October brought further horrors with Israel-Palestine. Let’s hope for better in 2024.

24 Feb 2024

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Keep making mistakes!

I’ve mentioned it before but thought this is worth repeating. I’m no fan of AI, but it’s appearance has unlocked my acceptance of imperfection.

It wasn’t a coincidence that I started drawing after two dormant decades after Dall-E and Midjourney hit the mainstream in 2022.

Before this happened, I would have guessed that generative AI images would finally smothered the last embers of my interest in drawing.

Instead, I was freed from the self induced constipation of accuracy. I picked up the pen and started laying ink on paper again.

They’re rough. There’s no undo button. No edit function. All you can do is start over, again. Try not to mess it all up with the last few lines on the page.

These aren’t perfect, but I can vouch for their provenance. My hand was there when each molecule of dye nestled into the fibers of these pages.

Here’s to many experiments in this year of the Dragon!
 

20 Feb 2024

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Thanks for reading!
Justus