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  7. Found this nice ISMLP category page while starting research for a new project, containing enough baroque French gurdy scores to keep anyone busy for a while imslp.org/wiki/Category:Scores_featuring_the_vielle

    There’s all sorts of interesting stuff if you poke around a bit — for example, in Bordet’s Méthode raisonnée pour apprendre la musique there’s a summary of the hurdy gurdy which suggests that extended keyboards beyond the usual two-octaves-minus-high-F# existed, but were “extraordinaire, et peu usité:”

  9. Talking of [filterview] (gh), here’s the abstraction I made for it, incorporating stereo smooth filters and a nice mode switching UI made of a [hslider] hidden behind a bunch of canvases.

    Each canvas has a receive ID of $0- plus the symbol for the relevant filter mode, making the message sending for changing the colours easy.

  11. New singing goal: be able to sing all of Moondog 2, which just blew my mind

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwBGtgoVPLs

    I couldn’t find the lyrics for all of the tracks collected together in one place, so here are as many as I can find or figure out.

    00:00
    Bells are ringing dinga linga linga linga ling-a linga linga linga ling
    dinga linga linga linga ling-a linga linga linga ling
    dig all the kids who carry bells, merry bells
    who are they?
    why they're the
    hippies

    01:21
    Voices of spring were in chorus
    each voice was singing a song
    I could not sing in that chorus until I wrote me a song
    I wrote my song and joined the throng (source)

    03:10
    What’s the most exciting thing about life?
    tell me or I’ll tell you
    come on come on
    I know you know what I know it’s in your eyes
    I’ll have to tell you, I can’t wait
    it’s L O V E it’s love
    and I’m in love; I’m so happy
    it’s L O V E it’s love
    I’m incoherent my dear
    oh happy happiness
    in love
    in love
    in love
    oh happy happiness, happiness
    Darling the answer is love (source)

    05:43
    All is loneliness before me
    loneliness before me
    loneliness

    07:12
    My tiny butterfly butters my bread
    my briny flutterby keeps me well fed
    why should I mutter?

    08:26
    Why spend a dark night with you?
    what a fearful price to pay
    other nights nights would but be
    lonely dark ages for me

    09:37
    Coffee beans make the finest coffee of all
    it’s time to take
    a coffee break
    to sit a while and savour
    the rarest coffee flavor
    of bean coffee
    I make with bottled spring water
    is my day (source)

    11:50
    Down is up and so up is down because the earth is round
    there is no such thing as up or down

    12:58
    Be a hobo and go with me
    from Hoboken to the sea

    14:08
    Remember, remember, remember, memeber
    to vote the way
    the way we say
    or else
    or else what
    I won’t

    16:03
    I love you
    for your lovely still small voice
    I will love your still small voice
    till my voice
    is still

    17:14
    Nero’s expedition up the Nile
    failed
    because the water hyacinth
    had blocked the river
    denying Nero’s vessels passage through
    the Sud of Nubia

    19:08
    No, the wheel was never invented.
    no, no, no, no
    your legs are spokes of a two legged wheel
    and your hips are knobbly axles
    the world was always on wheels

    20:28
    With my wealth I wish I had lived when great genius lived
    what I would not have done
    Fool, the writings of your dying beggar reveal that he is
    by far the greatest one

    22:05
    This student of life
    has enrolled
    as that student for life
    his Alma Mater
    is all the world
    with father time as mentor

    23:31
    Some trust all
    some trust some, ho
    some trust one
    I trust none, ho
    not even myself

    25:01
    Wine, woman and song are too, too much for me
    I am contented with the latter two
    for
    woman and my song are simply
    wine enough you see

    27:25
    Sadness was so mixed with gladness
    that she wept with joy
    she was so sad
    tears filled but enhanced the smile on her face
    she was so glad

    28:48
    Maybe, maybe, maybe someday
    I’ll be recognised for what I am
    before I’m dead and gone
    or if not before then after it all

    30:53
    Each today is yesterday’s tomorrow which is now
    now is all I have
    now is all I need
    now is all I want
    now

    32:32
    Imagine what it's like to have a long suffering
    night walker walking on you
    I’m standing there barefoot, facing the meadow
    oh, oh, something is crawling on my muddy foot
    what the, it's a wet worm
    I tell you I started walking, too
    I mean we parted company
    maybe we think it safe enough to say,
    we had quite enough of us that night

    34:51
    You, the vandal
    plunder the village as you will
    the earthworm will pillage you
    the vandal
    when you are under

    37:01
    Trees against the sky
    fields of plenty
    rivers to the sea
    this
    and more
    spreads before me

    38:22
    Behold the willow bows before me
    but not the oak I’m uprooting
    remarked the wind

    39:51
    Sparrows wake me in the morning in Gotham where I live
    except when I’m up to Tioga
    other birds wake me there
    so fair their singing

  12. From “Millennials and the Ruins of Romance” (@ztsamudzi being amazing, as always):

    ”Romance—as dictated by dominant ideas and driven by the desires to peddle consumer goods like household appliances on carefully constructed family units—is an impossible-to-redeem mode of understanding love and intimacy and human interaction taught to us by capitalism.”

    I would respond to

    “We generally want to feel lovable, desirable, worthy, and seen, and we are taught that our ability to be any of these things comes, most importantly, from romantic partners. So why wouldn’t young people, in a period of increasingly relentless demands made by late capitalism, use the resources they have at their disposal to feel these intimacies and desirabilities as frequently as possible?”

    with: yes, most of us are taught that, constantly, from all directions. That we are taught, however, is the point: it is a learned behaviour which can be unlearned.

    Using the resources given to us by late capitalism to fulfill the needs bought about by late capitalism is all well and good, and I agree that for people to complain that the result is “millennials ruining romance” is ridiculous. But at least for me, the beginning of a constructive solution is to step outside of this system. Start to purposefully unlearn these associations, disassociate self-worth from romantic/sexual relationships, and consciously relate in ways not based on insecurity and love scarcity.

  13. “I take off my glasses & there it is: absolute beauty, surrounded by a sea of lovely analogue blur… and that proximity to something, or more importantly; someone, carries with it an intimacy, the instinct of which is far more important & emotionally valuable than any premeditated intent”

    Tim Prebble on lenses and myopia, Lens vs Microphone (& why i love myopia)

  15. Words are souls.

    They are ourselves, extracted from our bodies, and they live forever.

    After death we speak through words. It is the only way — but a potent way. Words live. They are real things in the world, and readers are not a passive audience, they are champions who take these words, our clues and promises, and with them shape the world. It is this, more than anything else, that Ghostwriter illuminates.

    Words can touch you — physically alter your body — raise hairs at the nape, hollow the gut, send shivers shoulder to toe — and does this not change our understanding of presence and absence?

    I have written these things and you have read them, you have felt my touch, and there is no distance between us at all.

    From Abbey Fenbert’s The Pitch Meeting for Ghostwriter. I love The Toast.

  17. SVG of the week eternity: English Unit Lengths:

    MARVEL AT OUR CULTURE

    Edit: more information about Ramsden’s Chains and Gunter’s chains on ramsden.info, “the gateway to all things Ramsden”

    Edits! Iceland-specific info about Ells and hand measurement diagram

    1. Shaftment (palm and extended thumb) about 2 palms or 6 inches
    2. Hand (In English, a “Hand” or “Handbreadth” is commonly used to represent the width of the palm, sometimes including the thumb when closed against the palm.) about 4 inches
    3. Palm (In English, a "Palm" is commonly used to represent four fingers held together, which is slightly less than the true width of the palm at the knuckles.) about 3 inches or 4 fingers
    4. Span (from little finger tip to thumb tip) about 3 palms, 9 inches or 12 fingers
    5. Finger (or fingerbreadth) about 3/4 inch or 1/16 foot
    6. Digit (In English, “digit” and “finger” are used to represent the width of a finger. However, the value of the digit is slightly less than the value of the finger.)
    7. Thumb (not indicated) about 1 inch or 1/12 foot

  18. about Rat Park addiction research via Jules Porter and this comic by Stuart Mcmillen.

    “What if the difference between not being addicted and being addicted was the difference between seeing the world as your park and seeing the world as your cage?”

    I can’t help but think this applies to so many more issues than just substance addiction — depression, for example. Perhaps understanding other things which fit this pattern as forms of addiction is a good world-understanding lens.

  19. Book of Life praising hugs sums up very nicely what I enjoy about true following in dance — the opportunity to, for a few minutes, let someone else take care of everything.

    Leading and following are things people can choose to do in the moment, not roles to be forced into, integrate into personal identity, or assume because of gender. Leading is to communicate “I have this idea about a thing to do”. Following is to communicate “I understand this idea. I accept or reject it.”.

    Dancing with one person very clearly leading and the other very clearly following can be just as valuable an experience as a completely balanced dance with both(+) people leading and following each other. Each option is valid because the other exists. Awareness that the other option exists means that the people involved have chosen to act as they do.

    That both people know that they could choose freely to lead or follow allows for the most authentic interactions between dancers.

    I have had wonderful experiences completely following, completely leading, swapping with clear boundaries or dancing blurred, balanced and boundary-free. The common element is that what everyone involved wanted from the experience was communicated, and a consensus reached, whether verbally or not.

    The predominating assumption in traditional dance is still that men lead and women follow (or even that men and women dance together), and as such consensus to dance differently must usually be reached verbally (try it! It’s incredible). With people who share my philosophy it’s sometimes possible to reach consensus without words, and hopefully that will become easier the more dance is danced like this.