Category: Uncategorized

my bloody valentine :: loveless

You’ re hereby strongly encouraged to get one ping down & pull up LOVELESS on Rhapsody. Listen to it only once.

Note the polyaural textures of fuzzy tremolo and crisp chord progressions.

Pay attention to the meandering on SOMETIMES.

And the reverse low altitude fly-bys on TO HERE KNOWS WHERE.

The mock intro to which is really the outro to TOUCHED, and how the mock intro to LOOMER which is really the outro to ONLY SHALLOW, thus tying their strong structure (for me anyway) to The Beatles’ song-strings on ABBEY ROAD. Fuck you ALL they CANT be played out of sequence.

And keep in mind the bridge on SOON is what dragged me into the old ROUGH TRADE on Haight that stony summers day in 1992 whereupon, it could be said, my mind was blown and nothing was ever to be the same.

For soon thereafter, it was the MBV sound that introduced me to the EXCURSIONS IN AMBIENCE series, which in effect was an acid-fueled mental mosh-shove into THE ORB, which coincided with my move to Venice & subsequent envelopment into PORK.

It all started with LOVELESS.

Nothing short of a SMITHS reunion could loft this anticipation higher.

watershed

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7440658.stm

I recall roughly around 1997 when i first attempted to get my Flight Simulator logged on & fly with other people around the world.  Somehow the real-time aspect held more gravity when flying around faithful renderings of landscapes & somewhat accurate reproductions of meatspace urban centers.  I banged right then onto a prescient posibility.

If my Flight Simulator could receive so many packets of data representing the other guy’s actions in HIS Flight Simulator, then why couldnt it tap into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or any other National Weather data warehouse and get all that information?

Think of damn-near real-time hops to circle whatever hurricane is sweeping the south.  Or a tornado.  What about a volcano?  Or any damned weather pattern or earth based phenomenon of interest. 

Even something as mundane as trans-oceanic shipping lanes could be compelling in their own way when you realize the digital ship your buzzing 1242 south-southwest of Honolulu could very well be within 30m of its actual location in meatspace.

Sure the locations of these artifacts could be parsed in real-time, but all these in-world objects would need to be rendered in real-time.  But i’m figgering that if the data warehouse has the position of the ship, it knows the name, owner, size, etc.  From that, its simply an additional call to ?? database to obtain rudimentary schematics based on the class or manufacturer or year-built.

Why stop there?  And why limit this to flying around within a game? 

When everyone & every thing they have is fitted with a GPS signal, then therefore the locations of these in-world items is ubiquitiously known.  Some genius out there is going to found the company that wrote the code that renders all of that data into a display.  Slap a silly avatar on all your friends.  Obtain 3D models of every building in the city they’re walking around.  Gather data (anonymously of course) from every vehicle that passes them, and render them doing so.  Throw in the aforementioned HD doplar weather data.  Throw in the exact time of day to generate proper shadow casts and ray tracing (for known surfaces).  Throw that all into an intuitive UI and let users put the camera where ever they want

Over ten years on, this door hasnt begun to close.

my JPL hum

I read this about the TAOS HUM.  Got me recalling something from my past which is very much like these hums heard/felt thru-out the Earth.

It was Spring 1995, my first as a resident of Los Angeles, and i was eager to pit my Tucson-bred penchant for stoney hikes with the urban-nature wonderland of the Santa Monica Mountains.  It was only a month earlier that Phil had introduced me to a mine-shaft set a 1000 feet or so at the back of a mountainside cave.  It was drip-filled with Evian-clear water, and i was deeply fascinated.  Like a boy discovering anything patently dangerous, all i could think about thereafter was to return to it & play with it.

So the next moment i had free was a Friday off early.  Parking the old green Jetta at the top of Altadena @ the gates of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, i spindelled my way up a fireroad.  My topo’s told me this road would drop my into the canyon where Phil had shown me the cave.  i had a backpack full of rope, my scuba lights, and a fair amount of weed.

As i headed up though, my attention was repeatedly taken by the vantage of a Los Angeles basin in late afternoon.  It was the magic hour, and from that altitude, i saw the whole of downtown unfold & twinkle into west side & the coast.  Stopping repeatedly to gawk at this, it was with some prescient wisdom that i decided to cancel the remainder of the trek, which was almost certainly going to have me hiking down & into a new canyon by night, perhaps sleeping there.

So after collapsing on a ridge & finishing dinner opposite the sunset, i witnessed something down below in the sprawling JPL complex; something so profound to me at the time, that i’m not sure merely explaining it does it justice.

There were these massive round structures, 2 of them, tight next to each other, with some metal infrastructure & piping in the center between them.  Slightly rounded at their tops, they looked easily to be the size of any of the big petro tanks in Point Richmond, but only about 10-15 feet tall.  I thought they were water storage tanks.

It all started when rotating saftey lights lit up on top of and all around the structures.  The faintest sound of a human voice over multiple PA.  Then, at the center of the structures, an abnormally bright set of lights started on, then off.  On, then off.  With a slow & even rhythm, these lights were steady for 10 beats, faster for 10, quite rapid for another 10, then solid on.  This cadence of lights was the visual warning cue of an approaching event, not unlike the self-timers on our cameras.  Then the lights went out.

Then the hum.  It was a frequency far lower then anything i’d heard before or since.  It was felt far more then it was heard.  It was coming from the earth.  It was coming from deep within.  And its proximity to the rhythmic sequence of warning lights down @ JPL was undeniable.  Barely audible; one of those sounds you think you hear, but somehow only confirmed by cocking your head or shifting & freezing your body for a few moments.    

But it was there; This was happening.  It was unmistakable once i allowed myself to accept that it was a concrete & constant hum.  And within about 30 seconds, the low rumble began to fade.  Once gone & confirmed silent, i was at once struck with the realization that this was clearly an experiment being conducted by the geeks down at JPL. 

But what?

Are the hums people hear thru-out the world also the result of deep-earth experiments?

music picks from 2007

Best of 2007, summed up solely upon Play Count, yet in no particular sort…

ALBUMS

BAND OF HORSES :: Cease to Begin
I will not apologize for how naturally well these hicks perfectly fit the notches in my musical tastes.  Nor will I apologize for my low-grade addiction to adverbs.

RADIOHEAD :: InRainbows
Only thing more beautiful then my surprise with how traditional and accessible this release sounded, was how I frak’d up the $/£ conversion and paid double.  Deserved.

FIEST :: The Reminder
Sucker for the woman with the lungs.  Double word score for the Canadian thing.  Slight demerit for shilling for Jobs.  Demerit cancelled out by that damn Busby Berkeley video.

TEMPO NO TEMPO :: The Get Down
Solid reminder that you should see as much live music in as small a venue as possible as often as possible.

SILVERSUN PICKUPS :: Carnavas
Yea, from 2006.  But I discovered this in 2007 and I loved this. So frakin’ keep sneering at me and my low-rise Chucks.

ROGUE WAVE :: Asleep at Heavens Gate
Regardless of what you think of them now, reminds me of the good-vibe repeat-playability of when I first heard Shins.

PANDA BEAR :: Person Pitch
Far and away the most original clutch of new songs all year.  Even if it did sound like a long weekend locked in Brian Wilsons bathroom with 4 parts Roland, 5 parts blotter.

GABRIEL YARED & UNDERWORLD :: Breaking & Entering soundtrack
Best most elegant pairing since Holmes and Soderbergh.

DARJEELING LIMITED :: Soundtrack
Andersons’ prowess with music patched & mapped to edits & slowmo is undeniable, regardless of how the film sat with you.  The album is by itself wonderful, and at times, a nice blend of plucky old-world and culturally grating.

ULRICH SCHNAUSS :: Goodbye
What My Bloody Valentine might have sounded like if they did heroin.  Oh, wait… Nevermind.

KILN :: Dusker
On Repeat, best music to which you should read No Country for Old Men during a 5-day jaunt from Houston to Austin to San Antonio then back to Houston.

TEGAN & SARA :: The Con
Again with the singer songwriting chicks from O Canadia.  And identical twins?  With sleeve tattoos?  [scurries off to bathroom]

UNDERWORLD :: Oblivion with Bells
Not as solid a post-Emerson release as 100 Days Off, but an incredible package of songs.  There’s a low-fi theme album in here somewhere.  I just haven’t yet sussed it out.

KINGS OF LEON :: Because of the Times
Made me want to throw a half-emptied jar of moonshine out the speeding window of a maroon Caprice with a black door.  Had me revisiting in-car volumes not heard since TURN ON THE BRIGHT LIGHTS.

RICHARD BUTLER :: Self titled
Old pipes & general homely-dood from Psych Furs/LSL.  You grew up to this mans voice.  Listen to what the man does with a home studio and all the free time those royalty checks must provide.

SINGLES

FUJIYA & MIYAGI :: Conductor 71

INTERPOL :: Rest my Chemistry (anyone else get those distinct traits of Pixies Where is my Mind?)

AMY WHOREHOUSE :: Valerie (insert however much credit to Ronson you wish)

 Some disappointments:

BLONDE REDHEAD :: 23

THANKSGIVING 2008 :: a manifesto. a declaration. a venting.

I hereby declare that for Turkey 2008, we kindle a new tradition in a far more intimate setting. You’ll never hear me  deny the credo of “More is Merrier”  However, when it comes to what i still feel is my favourite holiday around which to gather family, Thanksgiving ought to be a bit more traditional in terms of density.

I need to dive right in and say that it was completely unacceptable that i could barely comprehend the Rounds of Thankfulls at our table what with all the noise and commotion and 20+ minutes between servings.  I’m glad the other Kids Table got to blast around and do theirs.  I cant say i’m not jealous.  But for the record, i didnt even hear one from Jan, so its like my plate was missing my stuffing.  Unacceptable at best.

Yes we have small children.  But i dont know if i can assign but 10% of this to them.  My beef /(or, turkey meat as it were)/ is with the atrocious signal to noise ratio this year.  How the actual meal went down is simply one of the rankest cans on the curb.  I could also cite that i barely got to speak & commune and be present with the very people i came out there for.  The people who define it. The OG Kids Table.  Word.

We kids, we have opinions.  They – and you know who they are – they have positions.  Talking points from which to spout and vocalise under the false pretense of educating those they deem inexperienced, those who still listen only out of lingering respect.  But in retrospect, it was simply them talking to state their station in life and their purchase in America.

When engaged on their position /(really, anything other then passively listening and nodding)/, was to invite an acrid form of debate.  At times, i felt i had to say /something:/ As a vodka-soaked chalk-line was drawn around their positions such that you’d have to be a corpse to not be offended.  And still, against my better judgment, yet with respect and tempered forethought, i spoke-up.  If for nothing else then to state that i held a different opinion. Not to engage, but to notify this elder that, at that moment, the kitchen wasn’t exactly homogeneous.  This either clicked the Rage button in the particular Bull, or caused them to retreat behind the shield of opinion.

So, whats the difference between an Opinion and a Position?  Perhaps one – the Opinion – is a belief you share with others whilst enjoying the broad stroke of /civility/, where debate is both welcome and healthy, where mutual respect is implicit. Increasingly, the other – the Position – is a slow-moving landmass claimed as their own, an ancient pitched battle rendering them apathetic towards and therefore disrespectful of anothers point of view.  Its the difference between a conversation beginning with /”I feel that…”/ versus one that ends with /”You know what? Let me tell you something…”/  One usually is accompanied by comments that can clear a room.  The other, perhaps, might open a mind.

For the benefit of the doubt, its foolish of me to rail against the lack of logic & reason at an event so steeped in the consumption of so much alcohol. As well, perhaps it’s not necessarily a mutual lack of respect.  However, based on the delta between our age groups, the respect simply isnt 1:1 respect. And as we Kids grow older, we’re less willing to simply nod our heads and take it.  I’m growing hungry for healthy, debate-rich conversations that dont snowball into tension-filled kitchens and total contact-avoidance all weekend.

So therefore, again, i propose for 2008 that we do Turkey in a more intimate setting.  This will be tough to NOT do in Arizona because of where the pending Alexander Girlie Creature will be with regards to Grandma’s heart by this time next year. But it *is* possible.  We did it last year in Carp. The balls it took us, and the heat we endured to pull that off is *precisely* how traditions get forged.  I’d be willing to entertain keeping it in Arizona if we can do the actual DINNER amongst ourselves, then join up with the revelers.  Yet this too presents its own deck of challenges.

This wont be easy.  But then again, nothing worth while ever is.

I only wish to start the conversations NOW rather then LATER.

I welcome each of your inputs.

Until then, i remain your loyal Kids Table Historian.

Sean Hamilton Alexander

alien egg photoshop tutorial

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to create these glowing blobular Alien Eggs in Photoshop

01 :: First, create a new file with a good canvas size & large dpi:

02 :: Next, create a new layer, fill it with a dark colour, and name it:

03 :: Then, to give our Alien Eggs a translucent appearance, wherein their cell walls are visible, we need to modify the properties of the Paint Brush Tool:

    – Select the Paint Brush Tool
    – Open the Brushes module & select Wet Edges

04 :: Any Alien Eggs worth their weight will give off an odd glow. So, with Paint Brush Tool still selected:

    – BRUSH SHAPE: Choose a soft round brush (for best immediate results, use a px size at least 1/4 size of canvas)

05 :: Set some other critical Brush properties:

    – OPACITY:  100% (default)
    – FLOW:  100% (default)
    – MODE:  Linear Dodge    

06 :: Lets see what these settings get us on the black canvas. 

    – Create a new layer on top of all others.
    – Select a vibrant colour; I’ve found that bright orange gets fantastic results.
    – Drop & drag out a few circles of your colour
    – Make sure the edges of at least 2 of them overlap a little bit

SUMMARY:
To describe the Photoshop Fu before you, we have blobs of colour that, by themselves, have cell walls and glow. 

However, when they overlap, the Linear Dodge + Wet Edges causes the chosen colour to increase. 

The more you mouse-down over existing blobs, the more saturated & bright the overlap appears. 

The effect is eggs that appear to be connected, as if bubbles in a liquid.  Even when the blobs approach each other, their glow overlaps, creating the appearance of 2 seperate eggs with connected membranes. 

Try out different colours & note how – without editing the Brush Tool settings above – each colour behaves a bit differently. 

For even further Alien Egg effects, create larger eggs shapes, and using darker & different colours, create smaller Alien Embryo shapes within.  All the while, play with Brush Opacity: have the larger earlier Alien Eggs have like a 75% Opacity, with the inner/later Alien Eggs having closer to 100%.

Enjoy!

we’ve got one that can see

WHEN & HOW WILL DAP SHUFFLE BECOME AWARE?

I sometimes feel my ipod might in some unquantifiable way be aware. The math involved with the coincidence seems skewed. At just south of ten k tracks on perpetual shuffle, I often hear artists come up after having had a conversation about them earlier that day. Sometimes sooner.

I know its lunacy. Hell, its impossibe for a stock 4G ipod to carry that feature. But I also know it floors me sometimes.

Somehow parsing from ambient space either beat recognition & identification, or speech recognition. Then using that data as tags within my music library. Any given music library.

Is that gaming the shuffle?
Would there be a throttle?

a fathers lesson lost

The unavoidable pang of regret when a father looks back on the rearing of his son and feels much more could have been done if only the child were less of an individual.

The interests of the mentor subverted by the will of the ward, however unintentional.

There are core values I have planned, and expect to instill in jude. Some of these are values I wish were more surface & documentable in my every day. But all are in my mental agenda for Right & Wrong.

My concern – the WHY in writing this – is that these values will be lost on Jude as he ascends into his own self.

And on the heels of this is the desire to confront my father and at once excuse myself for missing his lessons, as well as request a review (by him) of myself as a man to see which of his lessons stuck… Which if any are visible today.