I do this manually each Saturday, usually in the morning over coffee: collating most of the little comments I’ve made on social media during the preceding week. I tend to think of social media — Twitter especially, though I’m taking a break, and Facebook to a degree, and increasingly Mastodon — as my public scratch pad. It’s informative to revisit a week of thinking out loud in public. Also, knowing you’ll revisit what you say pulls in the reins a bit, in a good way.
▰ The car’s heater sounds like speed metal is being played on the other side of a concrete wall.
▰ Any favorite recent video games with particularly good environmental sound (that is: ambient world sound, not score or narrative-based effects)?
▰ Such a busy, strange day that only after sending out my This Week in Sound email did I recall that it’s the 26th anniversary of when I founded Disquiet.com. Double 13s on the 13th.
▰ Me in 1993: the “glitch” aesthetic provides a trenchant analysis of digital fragility
Me in 2022: wow, the Spider-Verse sequel trailer is so cool I watched it three times in a row
▰ Didn’t have “the goofy guy from Supergirl plays the founder of Casablanca Records” on my 2023 bingo card
▰ Just noticed that the Los Angeles Philharmonic has revived The Tristan Project, a collaboration between Esa-Pekka Salonen, Peter Sellars, and Bill Viola. I saw it in 2007 (or maybe 2004?) because I’m a Viola nut (in contrast, I suppose, with a viola nut). I’m now reminded that some people walked out during the performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall because — OMG! — some of Viola’s projected video images displayed nude human bodies. (This struck me as especially ridiculous at the time because the tickets were so expensive.)
When the SF Symphony played Messiaen’s Turangalila-Symphony a while back, I saw a whole group of people in the first few rows get up and walk out after five minutes. I assumed they were season ticket holders, but still, why come to something you know you’re going to hate?