Recent Posts

Die weiße Rose/ The White Rose

On this anniversary of their murder by guillotine at the hands of the Nazi Volksgerichthof (22 February 1943), we reflect on the need for resistance to tyranny taking place in the US right now. It behooves us to read about “die weiße Rose” (The White Rose) and their efforts at resistance to the Nazis.

The US military (and many of the civilian public servants) swear an oath to uphold and protect the US Constitution, not to any other entities or personalities. It is one of the unique aspects of the operations of the US military.
Firing the people who make the judgements of what constitutes a “legal” order (the JAG, or Judge Advocate General’s Corps, basically high level lawyers for all the US military) is a step towards martial law, or worse. Such an actions allow all manner abuse by redefining what constitutes a legal order. After all, one of the unsuccessful defenses used by the Nazis in the Nuremberg trials was that they were simply following orders.

When an individual is running around claiming that “they are the law” and also happen to be the Commander-in-Chief of the entire US military (yep, got the finger on the nuclear button), one feels a certain amount of alarm concerning what is happening next — especially when it’s done on a Friday evening, at the end of the news cycle so it gets buried over the weekend. Mondays are a feint, designed to distract by presenting new crises to discuss over the rest of the week.

And that’s where we are. The mainstream media are systematically being overwhelmed by the actions of the coup leaders (yes, it’s a coup — no other way to talk about what has been happening since 20 January 2025), with the aim of frustrating any attempt at an organized resistance against them. But we must resist, even if it is only with the smallest gestures. We must not allow this to continue. It must not come to this:
A color-coded chart explaining the symbols used by the concentration camps by the Nazis in WWII

There are many ways in which to resist. I hope to be able to share more in the coming days and weeks. Let us hope that it will not be an exercise of months or years.

A clenched fist with the text "Resist"

More Resources

The link below provides a “recipe” for how to disentangle from, and reduce your data exposure to, All Things Meta.

Of course, for many, this means Instagram or Facebook in particular, but there are a few other suspects in the crowd. Hopefully, these steps will help.

https://buttondown.com/practicaltips/archive/how-to-grey-rock-meta/

Here’s an image to amuse you along the way —

Un bouquet de morceaux…

Just finished uploading a few audio morsels that you may enjoy. Do check out the link to the Bandcamp website and give a listen. Individual tracks are available as well as, of course, the album.

For the nerds who might want more context:

The tracks were recorded entirely in “software” using the Wotja Generative Music System with zero audio output, using only the MIDI output to drive either/or software synths or hardware. Currently, the hardware synths environment consists of a MODAL Argon8M, an Arturia MicroFreak, three Empress Effects Zoias, a norn shields, and a Behringer Crave are available for use. Due to my current geopolitical situation, no guitars were harmed in this recording session and only software synths were utilized.

On the software side of things, I used Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack to collect the audio output of Arturia Pigment 6 and ROLI Equator 2 softsynths. That output was recorded in WAV format, edited in Audacity to apply compression, fades, reverses, and panning before outputting to FLAC format for upload to Bandcamp.

If you are curious about the equal length of each track, this was a result of having set Audio Hijack to only record files of 254MB in size, creating roughly 5 minute long tracks. The actual timing worked out to 5 minutes, 49 seconds. Both Wotja and Audio Hijack can be set with timers and Audio Hijack has the ability to record to specific file sizes. It’s a handy aspect of both these tools and I use it from time to time.

Is this AI music? Well…

A simple answer is that “it’s complicated”. In effect I have used the software to generate a MIDI skeleton, that drives a software synth, which I am manipulating in real time and then doing a fair bit of post-processing, making decisions about panning, combining raw tracks (there are at least two tracks here that comprise multiple original WAV files), or applying reversals. So I hesitate to just call it “AI” music; rather, I have used the generative nature of Wotja to perform as an ensemble member wherein I am both fellow performer and conductor (as well as editor in the end).

Enjoy!

festive red and gold decorations hung across a pedestrian "passage", shot at night

Alternatives For EVERYONE

Heh, call it my anti-fascist response, the AfE! Here is a link to a Mastodon account that shares alternatives to the Meta/TwitX/Google nonsense we have been living with for too long. You will have to run a quick search on the names of the platforms, as it is just an image/screenshot of the platforms, but that’s the easy part.

Good luck and see you over there!

https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/113929735581212964

Walking with Janus…

This is more of an announcement than reflections on the beginning of a new year. Where once when I was young the “holidays” held excitement, I have grown less and less sanguine about them and my noting of their passing has become increasingly less celebratory. So this is more about the “how” of the passing of 2024 last night and the release of the fruits of the efforts thus spent.

I took part in the electro-music.com 2024-2025 New Year’s Eve live stream and here, in the link that follows is the result of my performance there. No guitars were harmed (my two favs are in Houston, Texas being cared for until my arrival there, sometime in the coming months), but a couple of synths were definitely involved!

As always, any day is a good day to support the efforts of living artists, especially those you may follow on social media such as here —

“Walking with Janus, Ever Forwards, Ever Backwards“

Enjoy and share!

They Thought They Were Safe

Lots of comparisons being made between the current situation and emerging oligarchy in the US and what happened to Germany in the 1930’s. Some people are claiming that the Germans didn’t know what was happening. Consider, though, that Adolf was LEGALLY appointed as Chancellor in 1933. It is hard to claim that some didn’t know. What is troubling is that there were so many who thought it wasn’t a problem, since it was legal.

I encourage you to take a look at the link below… it’s a very slippery slope we are on.

https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.htm

Remember, those events didn’t happen in a vacuum: Mussolini as legally elected in 1923 and by 1925 had declared himself dictator in what he called a fascist government…

Enough With the Substack!

Seriously — you should know better. And yes, there are alternatives that will allow you to monetize your content without financially supporting a publication platform that supports racism and fascism. Don’t believe me or know how to do it? Start by reading the following linked article:

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/substack-announcement-bari-weiss-free-press

“I hadn’t planned to write about Substack again, but part of me knew there was a rake somewhere just waiting to be stepped on. Despite the United Nations-worth of red flags, respected journalists, historians, creative writers, and others remain on Substack, sharing 10% of every paid subscription with the company—and now with a share for Bari Weiss. Subscribers can be easily exported to another platform, and people who monetize their newsletters will get a larger share of the revenue elsewhere. But Substack has managed to convince some that there is no life for a newsletter beyond them. This is simply untrue.

Since I left Substack for beehiiv in January, I went from making a little bit of money to actually making a living as an independent journalist with my own publication. I didn’t need Substack’s Twitter-esque Notes feature or its recommendation network to grow; I used social networks—mostly Bluesky—to successfully promote my work. That personal engagement created, I believe, deeper relationships with my readers than passive subscriptions via an algorithm. Most importantly, I’ve remained committed to producing work that I’m proud of, and publishing it via a platform that doesn’t force me to compromise my values.”


In the immortal words of Bob: STOP IT!
https://youtu.be/aAhA7KfbJgg?si=J2iK31Ldhs3li-4