July 15ths

January 15ths

 7/15/2006

Architecture, especially in older cities like Chicago, compress into “geological” layers. One can look down various streets, such as Adams looking west, and see these strata: late 19th century (Marquette Building), Art Deco (135 S. LaSalle, FDR), Postmodernism (190 S. LaSalle, Reagan/Bush), then modernist 80s green-glassed towers with zero personality (Reagan/Bush)—until viewed from 40 years into the future, when it gains “coolness”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7/15/2010

One of the primary objectives of good songwriting is to create a good structure that can generate new arrangements and variations. You should never get tired of playing it. 

“Last month’s combined global land and ocean surface temperature made it the warmest June on record and the warmest on record averaged for any April-June and January-June periods, according to NOAA. Worldwide average land surface temperature was the warmest on record for June and the April-June period, and the second warmest on record for the year-to-date (January-June) period, behind 2007.”

[Compare global CO2 levels for 2006, 2016, and 2026] 

7/15/2021

This is an interesting week for AI music because the results from the AI song contest have been released. What we should want from music is an interaction with something either pre-existing or something happening simultaneously....It’s the general anonymity of the sound not the individual artist that’s doing these. Music can be a team like an art studio can be a team. Back in the days of the Old Masters there was the Master Artist and then they had the Artisans. It was a team, it was a studio, and the paintings weren’t signed by the Master. The paintings were signed in the studio name. It wasn’t until relatively recently in our history that artists started to sign their work. I think we’re going back to a period where it’s becoming more anonymous. The whole Banksy idea and even Satoshi with blockchain, there is a team effort and there’s no individual that we have to ascribe to or follow. Satoshi doesn’t sign his name on everything and we don’t call it the “Satoshichain”.

[7/15/2025: We evolved from the studio as a team producing art to the Artiste who paints the important elements and the Artisans do everything else, then signs it, to artists signing readymades in someone else's name (R. Mutt) to fake AI artists doing all the work].        

7/15/2024

Extreme Heat, drawn from two entries, 20 and 15 years ago, the latter of which alludes to its cause. BP was working to stop a leak to avoid the destruction of an ecosystem, but had been all along, even without the break in the well. We have been breaking summer heat records ever since.

AI interpretation as metal:

 

If you approach original music as a producer instead of an artist you’re more likely to write music in many different genres. You are the only producer and artist for your record label.