Category: field notes

News, essays, reviews, surveillance

Scratch Pad: Obsidian, RSS, llllllll

From the past week

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

At the end of each week, I usually collate a lightly edited collection of recent comments I’ve made on social media, which I think of as my public scratch pad. I find knowing I’ll revisit my posts to be a positive and mellowing influence on my social media activity. I mostly hang out on Mastodon (at post.lurk.org/@disquiet), and I’m also trying out a few others. And I generally take weekends off social media.

▰ The wind made it difficult to sort out from which direction the ice cream truck’s bell was coming.

▰ Happy 10th birthday to Lines, or llllllll.co, the online community I spend the most time on (it’s mostly about the making of electronic music, and especially about the making of the things that in turn are tools for making electronic music).

▰ Tired: AI, AI, AI

Wired: text-file databases in Obsidian

▰ As of Wednesday, May 21, at 11:20am, SoundCloud seems to be having technical issues. I hope this situation is cleared up soon and doesn’t mess up the Disquiet Junto project due to start in a little over half a day. (It cleared up.)

▰ From the trailer to the new Darren Aronofsky movie, Caught Stealing. How did this joke never occur to me before, and how was this not the natural successor to Google Reader?

▰ Anyone know if you can install the beta of Obsidian alongside the latest stable release? (Apparently the answer is no.)

▰ Read a bunch, finished reading nothing. Also wrote a bunch, which got in the way of reading, which certainly is ironic.

Three Stages

Of trio collaborations

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

We’re just a week from the milestone 700th consecutive weekly project in the Disquiet Junto, but right now all my attention is focused on the closing phase of the (semi)annual three-part “trios” sequence, in which, over the course of three consecutive weeks, musicians around the globe collaboratively, and asynchronously, create trios one third at a time. I have fun each year sorting out a new way to use a simple image to depict this process, and I’m happy wiht how 2025’s turned out.

More on the Upcoming Junto Talk

At Mission Synths on May 22

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

I’m looking forward to my little presentation I’m giving at Mission Synths in San Francisco about the Disquiet Junto on Thursday, the 22nd. I’ve done a bunch of Junto talks over the years. To date, the majority of them have been overarching descriptions of the now long-running music community. The main distinction among the talks I’ve given in the past is whether they were intended for audiences that are deeply into electronic and experimental music/art, or if they were for more general audiences, like when I spoke at SETI years back, just for one example. In contrast, the talk that’s coming up is more tightly focused, looking at particular Junto projects as a microcosm of Junto compositional prompts over the years, and emphasizing what these specific projects have to say about collegial online artistic communities — how one might foster and maintain them, how one might contribute thoughtfully as a participant in them, and what the artistic activity and online communications have in common.

The timing is especially good in that the event occurs at the start of the 699th consecutive weekly Disquiet Junto project, just one week from the milestone 700th project. The 699th will also be the final of the three-part trios project that’s currently underway. And this week marks the 10th anniversary of Lines, or llllllll.co, the message board where much Junto activity has been centered for many years.

Below are two slides from the deck I’m putting together for the talk.

I’ll decipher these on Thursday. I’ll also be playing music from various Junto projects.

The event starts at 7pm on May 22. Mission Synths is at 3026 24th Street in San Francisco. It costs $15, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. I’m pleased to share the bill with three other presenters: Naomi Seyfer (@sixolet), Jonathan Snyder (@iasekenighter), and Thadeus Reed (@creativecontrol).