November 17ths

11/17/2004

Interesting observation/existential moment: A twenty year-old musician dressed in tight black leather, getting off the El with his girlfriend, slinging his bass, getting home from a gig at 7:30 a.m. I felt so old. That was me 25 years ago. 

Converted to lyrics:

That was me
25 years ago
That was me

Tight black leather
Going to a gig
25 years ago
Discovering yourself
As you go along
You set the rules
You’ve written the song

Being alive
And in your body
Struggling in the moment
And getting through

I overheard an actor talking about improvisation in theater—following impulses, making arbitrary choices, discovering characters as you go along, you set the rules and go—like improvisation in music. "The theater became my church", comedic "evangelism" (Convincing people to believe you're funny); Doing comedy is physical work—being alive in your body and in the moment; "Struggling in the moment and getting through." (the audience respects you for it); Learning when to "turn the lights out" (or turn them on). it makes people react.

11/17/2009

On the "Car Kabob" (Spindle) in Berwyn: Interesting: Art can be temporarily disassembled and recreated and gathers historical narrative ("moss"). The red VW is the "cherry".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11/17/2022

There’s already been a shift to being a “Content Creator” rather than just a video artist, audio artist, writer…So the future might be more polymathic and interdisciplinary. The problem is that we might be too focused on The New and forget that we have to continue to archive and migrate 2000-era digital content because very often those are the (only) sources that people might use. They’re less likely to be scanning paper materials, which is also negative because that leaves a huge gap out of history. Also, I recall there was a similar change in labeling back in the late 90s when we replaced music performer with “experience designer”. 

11/17/2024

If domed cities were easy to build, there would be two provincial domes (bubbles) in the US, and very few who lived outside them.

 How is “Christ” defined, if we think we know? I think Marianne Williamson’s “Mythic Jesus” is interesting because it might get people to explore the world outside the domes. This is also interesting to think about living in domes in general, which have been proven to not work, such as the biosphere project, the canary in the coal mine of colonies on Mars.

Black-out lyric:

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Taking a nice break from watching the end of the world to have a bit of fun with music. Took the 11/17/2004 entry and generated a funk groove with an AI generator That Was Me, with an outro fade looping in 20s: 25 years ago, 45 years ago, 65, 85, for maximum irony against the groove. 

[I like what OC said: “All these little pieces of [your creative life} is what makes all this stuff worthwhile. This is evidence of you being in your skin.”]

As I was looking for photos for the video I was thinking that the internet has become a badly curated collage. It’s too easy when you’re on the hunt to look for the perfect content, and fail to do the proper research, so we pick just anything without bothering to think about the people behind it. 
            
There will always be a you you once knew. Make sure you can re-connect with that person as you grow older.

As a lyric:

 

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AI music is getting quite interesting. Songs are easy to generate, but is it really what I want to spend my time on? It’s like I’m having an affair—am I leaving one thing because I’m mindlessly attracted to another thing? A lot of artists seem to be doing this now with AI tools so as to get dopamine hits on TikTok, and it becomes another hamster wheel.