I should be clear that I don’t claim the above statement as my ethos. What it is is a peculiar sign that someone took great effort to attach fairly high up a telephone pole on the main drag in my neighborhood. I marvel at the effort that went into it all: the production of the sign, its placement in a high traffic area, the professional grade installation. It truly hides in plain sight.
As a constant notetaker, I can say that I am neither immune to nor unfamiliar with the concept that a writing implement might feel transformative in some manner — a fine tip that balances ink flow with durability, a mechanical pencil with a stiletto point that retracts fully, an upgraded digital stylus that allows you to flip between modes with a gesture — but even then, I was struck by the promises made for this item at the hardware store.
I do this manually each Saturday, collating most of the tweets I made the past week at [twitter.com/disquiet](https://twitter.com/disquiet), which I think of as my public notebook. Some tweets pop up [in expanded form](https://disquiet.com/2021/12/14/firmware-party/) or [otherwise](https://disquiet.com/2021/12/17/six-strings-five-footnotes/) on Disquiet.com sooner. It’s personally informative to revisit the previous week of thinking out loud.
▰ Spent too much time after the first *And Just Like That…* episode wondering what LPs Big doesn’t own if his collection jumps from Rondstadt to Rundgren. … Also: at the end of the episode, when the thing happens, is the score a super slow take on the Rundgren song played earlier?
▰ “Physicists Discover a Remarkable New Type of Sound Wave” is my kinda clickbait (via Karl Fousek), even if I’m still trying to sort out what the scientists’ findings mean: [scitechdaily.com](https://scitechdaily.com/physicists-discover-a-remarkable-new-type-of-sound-wave/).
▰ Me: Oh, cool, this new laptop has a standard SD slot built in. No more dongles or adapters!
My synthesizer module: Time to update the firmware, so just plug in this microSD card.
▰ Shoutout to whoever crafted the Find My alert for iOS. Sometimes I play it just to hear it.
▰ [pensive instrumental music]
Oh, *The Expanse*, how I’ve missed you, and how I’ll miss you when these final episodes have run their pan-galactic course.
▰ Hum a few bars and AI’ll transcribe it: “This notebook is an interactive demo of a few music transcription models created by Google’s Magenta team. You can upload audio and have one of our models automatically transcribe it” ([colab.research.google.com](https://colab.research.google.com/github/magenta/mt3/blob/main/mt3/colab/music_transcription_with_transformers.ipynb)).
▰ Afternoon trio for light rain, chimney wind, and passing truck with ancient breaks.
▰ I don’t miss the sound of a computer’s fan. I remember with early laptops and physical hard drives, how you could just tell, from the sound of things, when you should wait an extra split second before doing something, ’cause otherwise the whole contraption was gonna blow a gasket. (That’s both metaphorical and accurate.) As for the new laptop, I maybe shouldn’t have waited until the previous one was almost dead to level up, but so it goes.
▰ *The Expanse* may be my favorite recent-ish (space) science fiction show, if not of all time. (*Fringe*, *Travelers*, *Counterpart*, and *Person of Interest*, among others, would rank, high, too. They’re just not in space, except to the extent that, you know, Earth is in space.) (And yes, I’ve read all the books, except the ninth/final one. Gonna wait until the season is over, even though the season seems like it’s essentially the sixth book.)
▰ I love the moment in the first episode of the final season of *The Expanse* when Chrisjen Avasarala, Earther to the core, floats in her room. It’s a beautiful callback to the moment in season four when Naomi Nagata, belter extraordinaire, takes her first steps on an actual planet.(Also, I’m gonna finish Fonda Lee’s new, and final, Jade book before I start the new Expanse one. Both books end their respective series.)
▰ If you spent too much time consuming YouTube videos of neighborhoods in cities around the world, as I do, and loitering in video games to experience virtual approximations, sometimes the bus going by your home in the afternoon can sound like a cue triggered by in-game variables.
▰ Waiting for the *Star Wars: Biomes* second unit animation director’s cut where they remove the music so it’s actually, you know, the biome. Unless planets in the Star Wars universe actually have music playing naturally all the time. Which, well, would be an interesting environment.
▰ The haiku of lives summarized on Wikipedia’s Deaths in 2021 page:
– Spanish lexicographer
– Italian animation historian
– Australian punk rock guitarist
– Russian microbiologist and politician
▰ Hopeful that an updated Splinter Cell means a remastered Amon Tobin score and a whole new remix album: “A ‘Splinter Cell’ remake is underway” ([engadget.com](https://www.engadget.com/splinter-cell-remake-ubisoft-191516206.html)).
▰ The use of Nokia AI to gauge vehicle noise pollution in Genk is interesting, though it might just punish people who can’t afford electric cars: “Nokia Brings IoT and AI to Bear on Vehicle-Based Noise Pollution in Genk Smart City Trial Program” ([hackster.io](https://www.hackster.io/news/nokia-brings-iot-and-ai-to-bear-on-vehicle-based-noise-pollution-in-genk-smart-city-trial-program-2873d6dcdfc3)).
▰ The Disquiet Junto has been around for 520 weeks. If our planet didn’t wobble around the sun, the Junto would turn 10 years old today (December 16, 2021), but various leap years and related incongruences mean the anniversary will occur on January 6.
▰ The kids are alright. Ethan Hein reports: “For her final project in music tech class, one student did a seamless mashup of all of her projects from the semester. That is a classic Disquiet Junto move, and I didn’t even prompt it! But maybe I should assign everyone to do that.”
▰ “Her pronunciation revealed an accent that would tear itself to shreds on razor wire if the authorities ever found the time to build a fence around Buenos Aires.” from *Savage Theories* by Pola Oloixarac
via Stephen Beachy via Alvin Lu
▰ Two records I’ve listened to for decades are *Bitches Brew* (Miles Davis) and *Money Jungle* (Ellington/Mingus/Roach). I love ’em both. *Bitches Brew* has gotten mellow, even comforting, as time has passed, whereas *Money Jungle* sounds more aggressive and complex with each passing year.
▰ Got a new TV, replacing the one from 2008. Higher rez, thinner, larger screen in same dimensions. Best thing? It makes no sound when turned on. With the old one, it was a challenge to hit the mute button at the right moment so the room wasn’t filled with an egregious *twhmoomp*.
▰ And on that note, have a good weekend.
1. Let your home appliances serenade you.
2. Take a nap in white noise’s embrace.
3. Pay attention to whether that novel you’re reading (or writing?) pays as much attention to sound as it does to sight and touch.
These are my six¹ favorite² guitarists, listed in reverse order of when I first came upon and learned to love their music. Please recommend others.
Ben Monder³
Eivind Aarset³
Ava Mendoza⁴
Michael Brook³
Bill Frisell⁵
Robert Fripp
¹I likely forgot some.
²Ambientish and living
³Never seen live
⁴Used to see often in San Francisco before she left town
⁵Used to see often in New York City before I left town
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. 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. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, December 20, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, December 16, 2021.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0520: On the Clock
The Assignment: Get that thing done before the end of the year.
Step 1: Think of some musical idea you’ve been putting off doing all year. It could be a riff, a new approach to an instrument you use, reworking an existing track. Whatever’s been on your mind.
Step 2: Stop procrastinating and do the thing you focused on in Step 1 above. Record a track that exemplifies the thing from Step 1.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0520” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.
Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0520” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.
Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.
Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:
[https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0520-on-the-clock/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0520-on-the-clock/)
Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #DisquietJunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.
Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Note: Please post one track for this weekly Junto project. If you choose to post more than one, and do so on SoundCloud, please let me know which you’d like added to the playlist. Thanks.
Additional Details:
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, December 20, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, December 16, 2021.
Length: The length of your finished track is up to you.
Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0520” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.
Download: It is always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).
For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:
More on this 520th weekly Disquiet Junto project — On the Clock (The Assignment: Get that thing done before the end of the year) — at: https://disquiet.com/0520/
More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: [https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0520-on-the-clock/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0520-on-the-clock/)
There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to [email protected] for Slack inclusion.
