News, essays, reviews, surveillance
Stoked to be part of this latest series of Hilobrow essays, all about “analyzing and celebrating our favorite… Seventies (1974–83) sci-fi novels and comics.” I wrote about Rudy Rucker’s foundational cyberpunk classic Software (1982), the first of his four-novel (“tetralogy”) Ware series. These Hilobrow essays are being posted one at a time. Mine will be up down the road. What great company to be in. Deb Chachra, Douglas Wolk, Seth, and so many more. Details and the first few at hilobrow.com.
A tableau on my walk
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 tag on what books I may have finished reading. Knowing I’ll revisit my social media posts, I’ve found, serves as a positive and mellowing influence on my online 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.
▰ It’s a good sign when you arrive at a jazz club for a concert and the pre-show music playing on the house stereo is un-Shazam-able.
▰ I think there was a break of about two years between when I stopped capitalizing the internet and started occasionally capitalizing the Algorithm.
▰ Not a single “Avril 14th” video was uploaded to Vimeo in the seven days leading up to and including (as of 5:45pm Pacific) April 14th?
▰ Read a bunch, finished nothing, but wrote a lot, and so that’s OK.
LJ Holoman (organ), Joe Warner (piano), Michael “Tiny” Lindsey (bass), and Dante Robertson (drums) killed it on April 15th at the Black Cat basement club in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. It was a packed house for a jazz/r&b session on a Wednesday at 7pm, a two-hour set. Holoman, who was sitting in as part of a residency called the Soul Sessions (presented by the JaZzLine Institute), is a marvel, and the band was tight as heck.
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions.
Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align.
Tracks are added to the SoundCloud playlist for the duration of the project. Additional (non-SoundCloud) tracks also generally appear in the llllllll.co discussion thread.
Disquiet Junto Project 0746: Music for Takeoff
The Assignment: Help airplane passengers get off the ground.
Record a piece of music intended to be listened to in preparation for and as a plane begins its takeoff and initial ascent.
Tasks Upon Completion:
Label: Include “disquiet0746” (no spaces/quotes) in the name of your track.
Upload: A person participating in the Disquiet Junto should post only one track per weekly project (SoundCloud account preferred but not required). If on occasion you feel inspired to post more than one track (whether to a single account or across multiple accounts), you should clarify which is the “main” rendition for consideration by fellow members and (if on SoundCloud) for inclusion in the SoundCloud playlist.
Share: Post your track and a description/explanation at https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0746-music-for-takeoff/
Discuss: Listen to and comment on the other tracks.
Additional Details:
Length: The length is up to you. How long do you taxi?
Deadline: Monday, April 20, 2026, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.
About: https://disquiet.com/junto/
Newsletter: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/
License: It’s preferred (but not required) to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., an attribution Creative Commons license).
Please Include When Posting Your Track:
More on the 746th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Music for Takeoff — The Assignment: Help airplane passengers get off the ground — disquiet.com/0746.
