- I'll be at San Francisco Zinefest Saturday. If we run into each other, I'll have minicomics of the Disquiet.com Sketches of Sound series. #
- PR emails that begin "Hello %$firstname$%" are my favorite. #
- Turned off a drone MP3 only for the world's drones — a plane, the dryer, the fridge, and on and on — to become all the more apparent. #
- Synaesthesia, quantum physics, secular beatification: more on my Nature piece about the Richard Feynman graphic novel: http://t.co/ogFIULl #
- Current worst trend in email PR: use of false "Re:" in a subject line to suggest existence of prior related communication. #
- This month's free University of Chicago ebook is The Score, one of the great hardboiled Parker novels by Westlake/Stark http://t.co/GxHowPJ #
- The new (9/1) issue of Nature features my interview with the author of the new Richard Feynman graphic novel: http://t.co/WS1Qr0R (paywall) #
- Is there a Mylar app I can use to protect my overpriced "digital day-and-date" e-comics? #
- Today's my wife's first "gave-birth-day." Which is to say, our kid was born a year ago today. The closer one listens, the slower time flies. #
- Learned that the soda drone posted yesterday was from a Sprite Zero bottle. Helpful liner note detail. http://t.co/3rC9oOg #
- Love emails that go: "Here is a drone I made using only the sound of me blowing air through a 20 oz plastic soda bottle" http://t.co/3rC9oOg #
- Tuesday noon siren in San Francisco amid chatter and clatter of Sichuan restaurant. #
- Synthesis is virtual foley. #
- Guessing the amount of battery life gained by experimenting with Ubuntu to my Win7 netbook will equal the time required to master it. #
- Morning sounds: outside fog matches white-noise buzz of desktop computer's fan and hard drive. #
- Typewriter pecked at from neighboring room at SF Public Library. Walls covered by Hamilton/Chamberlain mural made from old catalog cards #
- ResophNotes hasn't been updated since December 2010. Windows needs a more competitive @simplenoteapp environment. #
- Occasional reminder: If you do the Facebook, there's a Disquiet.com "page" you might "Like": http://t.co/ITTLdrf #
- I remember asking circa 1989 why Metallica wasn't on a Willner or Zorn tribute LP. Was told their management didn't think it was a good idea #
- Lou Reed + Metallica + Hal Willner? Very much looking forward to November 1 of this year, which is when their album Lulu is released. #
- RIP, Japanese voice actor Junpei Takiguchi (b. 1931), who was both the Millennium Earl in the D.Gray-Man anime & Grandpa in the Simpsons dub #
- Sure sign you've reached a deep level of phone tech support: there is no hold music, just silence. #
- Five films on sound in Berkeley @BAMPFA this September: http://t.co/ROOH9j1 #
- Thanks to Caesar Meadows of New Orleans (& @jigsawjct) for drawing my current Twitter background, up all month. More at http://t.co/P0BKRHf #
- RIP, music critic and Detroit chronicler Dan Sicko (42), author of Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk #
- Evening sounds: foghorn in impromptu duet with plane buzzing overhead. #
- The next "Sketches of Sound" image for my Twitter background is pretty darn funny. Goes live later today. #
- Potato tacos look like Minecraft http://t.co/GCrNZcy #
- Another great iOS sound app diversifies. RT @NodeBeat: The Android version of NodeBeat is currently in the beta testing phase. #
- Afternoon sounds: phone conversation muffled by wall, the percussion of baby toys, washing-machine rumble. #
- New Christian Marclay exhibit opens at Fraenkel Gallery in SF on Sept 8. Runs through Oct 29. He's also playing at SFMEF this year. #415 #
Current Activities
Upcoming
• February 5, 2020: The first session of the 15-week course I teach at the Academy of Art about the role of sound in the media landscape.
• April 15, 2020: A chapter on the Disquiet Junto ("The Disquiet Junto as an Online Community of Practice," by Ethan Hein) appears in the forthcoming book The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning (Oxford University Press), edited by Stephanie Horsley, Janice Waldron, and Kari Veblen. (Details at oup.com.)
• December 13, 2020: This day marks the 24th anniversary of Disquiet.com.
• January 7, 2021: This day marks the 9th anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community.Dates TBA
• There are entries on the Disquiet Junto in the forthcoming book The Music Production Cookbook: Ready-made Recipes for the Classroom (Oxford University Press), edited by Adam Patrick Bell. Ethan Hein wrote one, and I did, too.
• At least two live group concerts by Disquiet Junto members in the San Francisco Bay Area are in the works for 2020.
• I have liner notes for a musician's solo album and an essay in a book about an art event due out. I'll announce as the release dates come into focus.Ongoing
• The Disquiet Junto series of weekly communal music projects explore constraints as a springboard for creativity and productivity. There is a new project each Thursday afternoon (California time), and it is due the following Monday at 11:59pm: disquiet.com/junto.
• My book on Aphex Twin's landmark 1994 album, Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, was published as part of the 33 1/3 series, an imprint of Bloomsbury. It has been translated into Japanese (2019) and Spanish (2018).
disquiet junto
Background
Since January 2012, the Disquiet Junto has been an ongoing weekly collaborative music-making community that employs creative constraints as a springboard for creativity. Subscribe to the announcement list (each Thursday), listen to tracks by participants from around the world, read the FAQ, and join in.Recent Projects
• 0456 / Line Up / The Assignment: Interpret a painting by Agnes Martin as if it were a graphic score.
• 0455 / Inner Invertebrate / The Assignment: What does a moment (or a day) in the life of a jellyfish sound like to a jellyfish?
• 0454 / Lsoo Vneg / The Assignment: Encode the name of someone you love into a piece of music.
• 0453 / Dial Up / The Assignment: Imagine the technologically mediated First Contact through sound.
• 0452 / Let's Scream / The Assignment: Get cathartic. Be resilient. Turn your scream into music.Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 456 consecutive weeks to date.