Haiku Dante: some previews

I've begun in earnest converting Inferno to Haiku poetry and I think it's time to post a ouple of previews.

Each Canto is written as a series of poems in the Shinru style, each Shinru functions as a stanza condensing the narrative and creating a structure for the abridged text. These are first drafts and hopefully I'll be writing Arguments to go with each Canto and put these together as works which would acompany the Divine Comedy CD's.

Below are individual Shinru from various Cantos I don't want to give away too much here.

From Canto #1
The woods woke me up
A history of fainting
I was middle aged

From Canto #3
We walked into the
Dark Terror and flies and saw
the mob Hell refused

From Canto #4
The sighs of children
sinless souls packed tight
none were born again

From Canto #5
Overcome by grief
and feeling giddy, I faint,
The human storm cries.

From Canto #7
We follow the shore
The stars say it's midnight here
A tall black tower

Tracks by The Empire of Crime

The following three tracks are excerpted from the experimental music project I'm a part of called The Empire of Crime. We have a CD and again I hope to make it available for free online. For anyone interested this is what I mean when I talk about making electronic music.

The Hutchison Effect

12 The Hutchison Effect by Desolation Sound

Take The A Train (Duke Ellington re-mixed and mangled)

05 Take the A Train by Desolation Sound

coming soon:
More Empire of Crime and Desolation Sound tracks

I seem to have reached the limit of my free account I'll have to upload more later. From now on I'd like to upload at least one track every day or so who knows maybe this could be how I make my music available free of charge.

Desolation Sound: From The Fog

06 From the Fog by Desolation Sound

Desolation Sound: Qechua Child

01 Qechuan Child by Desolation Sound

This song is about Ecuador Todd MacDonald from The Winks is playing the percussion and flute

Desolation Sound: The Peace in December

I've taken far too long to get this done but I've finally gotten off my ass and started an account that will let me upload tracks here.

01 Peace in December by Desolation Sound

This is a track from my most recent CD I'm looking for some way to offer the entire album for free online if you want a hard copy along with a booklet and various surprise goodies you can e-mail me at i.am.using.the.internets (at) gmail.com

and for a very reasonable price I'll send you two CD's in numbered batches and lots of great stuff. Or you can wait for the songs to all go up online and download them for free. I'll probably make alternative versions available online so if you bought the album you'd get different stuff.

I just can't do it.

I can't bring myself to get a myspace account. It goes beyond just principle, I chose some years ago to avoid anything like myspace or facebook for personal reasons I won't go into here. But since finishing my second album and talking to people like Sandow Birk I've become very aware of the usefulness of myspace as a promotional tool so I started to think that maybe I could just sgn up for an account and use it to promote my music and nothing else after all I don't have to use it to meet new "friends" or blog there or anything but I just couldn't do it. I've read their terms of sevice and their privacy section is really deplorable. I would have to check a box that states that I am ok with the transfer of my personal information to the US where it would be subject to American (lack of) privacy laws and no matter how useful this site might be I just can't do it. I don't agree with their terms of service because I don't agree with the laws as they stand in the USA and I refuse to voluntarily put myself under them.
ily
This really gets under my skin because myspace is everywhere. If you are a musician and you want to promote yourself it seems these days that it's almost impossible to do it easily without myspace however I've got no choice there's nothing else out there that compares.

I'd like to use this blog in part to promote my music but I've no idea who's reading this or where and I still need to get an account somewhere that will allow me to upload tracks. I'd like to get my previous songs on here and maybe post some of the preliminary Dante work as well.

Haiku is working out well as a poetic medium, it's also solved a couple of problems I've written about here already. Because of the strict economy of language I can't easily succumb to the temptation of placing people in Hell and I don't have to agree with Dante's interpretations because as long as I include the major parts of each canto I can do it my own way. I'm up to Canto 6 now and I'm going to do Canto's 1 and 2 tonight. I'll probably re-record the narrative when I get the computer set up.

A few days ago I biked up to the studio wth a friend and unpacked a lot of the equipment then we jamed it was fun. I also started reading up on poetics and music theory. I'm itching to get my hands on something that will play in Bohlen-Pierce but first I've got to get the rest of my modular built and install the studio software. I'm dying to get this into high gear but so far I've been glad for the extra time it's allowed me to do a lot of reading and learning I had not anticipated.

Something never done before.

I've found an original way to solve my abridgment problem.

Originally I was simply paraphrasing. I took the texts from the Mark Musa and Birk, Sanders translations and put them in my own words. It's been a very long time since I've written any poetry (about five years) and I wasn't sure how to begin so I just used some flowery prose, and while I'm happy with my prose interpretation so far it's not short. In fact in some canto's it's actually longer than the poem. The problem or rather the greatest temptation has been to just take the narrative and run with it and Dante's Hell is so rich with imagery and for some reason it's so easy for me to conjure up the macabre while it's been intense and unsettling it's also not been an exercise in restraint.

I went out yesterday looking for more research materials. I bought a copy of The Aeneid by Virgil, and a couple of books on poetics including the famous treatise by Aristotle because I've always meant to read it. While I was at a friend's bookstore I was talking about my project and the thought occurred to me, what about Haiku?

Nobody has ever done The Comedy as Haiku and it would certainly solve my narrative problems. I spent some time last night and today thinking about it then I re-wrote Canto 3 as five successive poems in the Shinru form. It works!

Not only did it considerably abridge the work but it still carried some of the effect. I have also been finding the challenge of syllable and word choice to be really engaging, so tonight I re-wrote Canto 4 as well. I'm not certain if I'll be posting any of my Shinru here. Not yet anyway. I think I'll have to re-work them still. I like Jack Kerouac's approach to haiku, while it's creation is spontaenious it's perfection is not.

The biggest possible downside to this is that it detatches me from the narrative. When I wrote the prose paraphrase I was really emotionally involved, I felt like I could put myself in the shoes of Dante the Pilgrim while the economy of language in Japanese poetry forces the narrative into a more objective shape... This might not be a bad thing though... we'll see how things bear themselves out.

a blast from the past and other news.

My wife and I were cleaning out our craft room today because with the help of an old friend I finally got the desk over to the studio!!!

Anyway we were cleaning up in there and I was putting my zine library in order when I came across my very first copy of Inferno. It had been my mom's when she'd been in college it's a very beat up Sayers translation and it had a ten year old bus transfer in the first page. This was a treat to find and it's gone in with the rest of my Dante books, if only I had a way of being able to read my mom's hand writing. She uses this cursive that really brings the curse out in me :) anyway this thing is so beat up it's impossible to see the cover art any more and the binding is two thirds electrical tape. I don't know if I'll be able to use it much, maybe for the commentary if I'm very careful, but it was a nice thing to find.

I'm also really getting into reading about the Bohlen Pierce scale. I think that I'm going to have to get a small microtonal keyboard eventually and find a way of working it into this project. I heard from someone at the Tonal Plexus website and they said their keyboards can do Bohlen-Pierce in 13 different ways! Playing the Virus TI has been a lot of fun and very easy to program now that I'm becoming familliar with it.

I talked my wife into doing a musical experiment with me where I played guitar into the Virus on Atomizer mode and she pressed keys, this thing's got some wonderful possibilities. I can play into it and the atomizer slices up the audio and processes it in such a way that even though the keyboard isn't programmed to emit an audio signal of it's own it can harmonically effect the guitar signal. Perhaps this is hard to explain but it sounded really cool. I just wish my wife was musically inclined I think between the two of us and the instruments I've got at my disposal we could probably take on the universe.

So What Else have you done tonight?

Other than working on Canto 4 and being angry with Augustine of Hippo I spent some time reading about The Bohlen-Pierce Scale

The Bohlen Pierce Scale is an alternative to the standard 12 notes per octave scale that we are all used to. The videos below are not in Bohlen-Pierce but if you click here you can listen to lots of examples of music composed in this scale. I like the tracks The Stick Men, and Pam Pi Pom on that site.

This scale was discovered in the 1970's by two different Microwave Engineers, Heinz Bohlen and John Pierce, who each discovered it independently of one another about six years apart. the wikipedia article on Bohlen-Pierce is a really good starting point for anyone interested in learning more. I'm hoping to save some money and maybe get a microtonal keyboard as a compliment to my modular system, I think the strange almost alien chords in this scale could be very good for Dante's Comedy.

I WANT ONE!

Augustine, Dante and Original Guilt

In every translation of Inferno that I am aware of Dante describes the crowd of limbo as being a place full of the sighs of those who died without Baptism an in his account he includes the sounds of infants.

What sort of person might confine babies to Hell is the question you might ask as you read that passage. It's a good question to ask and the answer as best as I can tell you is that it all comes back to Augustine of Hippo.

Augustine was a North African Bishop and one of the people responsible for converting Ciccero's teaching on "Just Wars" into the framework of Christian Theology. Before Augustine and for a time afterward the official teaching of the Church on war was that Christians can not participate, no exceptions. There were strict rules determining the ability of Christians who did fight to return to the worship life of their faith and many people were ex-communicated who left their faith to fight in battle.

By Dante's time this had totally changed and the official position of the Church was (as it is today) one of Just War. There are conditions which make a war "just" as opposed to "unjust" but as history and the teachings of bishops have shown they are flexible to put it charitably.

Anyway that's a tangent, another Augustinian Gem is the theory of Original Guilt

Original Guilt proposes that we not only share in the outcome of the Fall but we share the guilt of Adam and Eve right from our births and therfore if we are not baptised we are not absolved of this guilt and thus saved from damnation. One of the truly obscene outcomes of holding this belief is that anyone including unborn and newborn babies are guilty of the sin of Adam and if they die before they're baptised they would go to Hell.

Dante tries to reconcile this horrible idea with the notion of Limbo. Since an infant couldn't have sinned in any way other than the Augustinian way there's no punishment but Limbo.

Personally I think that the Eastern Orthodox churches had the right idea to declare that Augustine is not a Saint. Yes he's a Doctor of the church, his theology is widely read and mostly accepted, it forms a base of all the Christian denominations including the mainline Protestant ones (Martin Luther was an Augustinian Monk) but he's not a Saint. He's considered Blessed which has it's own signifficance and is sor of like being almost a Saint but not quite. The Western Churches never really jived with this and When the Pope declared Augustine to be a fully fledged Saint it sort of stuck on this end of the Schism.

I wish more thinking Christians would read Augustine and make their own decisions.

Despite all of the bile I could spit at his philosophy and his, at times, perverse theologies I do have an affection for his book Confessions. It's a really good and inspiring read and as far as spiritual autobiographies go I think it's a classic for a reason.

Music to listen to in Limbo

I just finished writing Canto 4 listening to Sea Change by Beck. It's a good album for the Canto of Limbo.

I've been fighting with myself about this chapter because it flies in the face of my own faith as a Christian and it breaks my heart to write Dante's Canto but it's not my story to tell only to interpret.

I want to say a few things about what I believe relative to the concept of Limbo. First of all I am unaware of any official church teachings about such a place either in the Roman or Orthodox traditions.

When I was catechised I was taught that there is Heaven Purgatory and Hell and that God's Judgement determines where one goes after death. My teachers in the faith and the Gospels themselves also talk about Christ's descent into Hell after his crucifixion and death. No one ever speculates on what it was that he did while he was there though Dante makes a guess in Inferno.

My personal belief is that when Christ descended to the dead he did so with the same message and mission that He had on Earth. I've had a lot of time to think about this recently as I prepared for writing Canto 4 and when I ask myself what is Good News about Christ's descent after death the answer I come up with is the Gospel. That salvation is possible with Faith and Grace demonstrated by a changed life.

I want to believe that when Christ went down there he took all those who embraced him not simply those people central to the Old Testament narrative as Dante thinks.

I believe that Salvation could even be possible in Hell because I refuse to believe that God's judgment is the same as ours and because I refuse to believe that God's love is the same as ours. While we have a sense for love and justice ours are imperfect frought with conditions and bias and favouritism while the Love of God is perfect and beyond our ability to imagine it and His Judgment is deeper and so fair that the word pales in describing it.

I have a hard time Concieving of a Hell at all and when I do personally I could imagine it as a place set aside for the rebel Angels and the Devil, a place for the corrupting powers that hold over the earth but not for human souls.

I'm not a Biblical scholar and I don't presume to base this on solid evidence of any kind it's just my feelings on the matter.

I had a hard time writing Canto 4, maybe harder than I imagine I'll have writing anything except perhaps the Suicides (but that's for a future post). One thing that made it easier was listening to my wife's copy of Sea Change by Beck it's a beautiful album which is full of sorrow and like the illustrations in my favourite copy of Inferno it reminds me of Los Angeles.

I need to find a way to chill out after I'm done writing.

I just finished paraphrasing Canto 3 and it's really intense. I've got to find a way to relax a bit before I go to bed I don't want to just go lay down like this. damn.

Stuff I'm listening to these days

I'm going through the tutorial that came with my Virus TI and in the section dealing with filters and filter saturation they mention Jan Hammer and his work on an album called Birds of Fire I was curious what do the people who made my instrument like to listen to and after a little googling I came across this video, this is litterally the very first song I've ever heard by this band, I'd never even heard of them as a group before but I think I'm in love. I went to a torrent site and got their complete discography and so far as I've heard this album is their best easily.

here's another track I really like the guitar and the piano both are just so haunting, One day I'd like to play stuff this good.

getting back to work

So two days ago I took my portable copy of Dante's Inferno out with me, it's a habit even if I never crack it I have to leave the house with something to read and lately I've been really enjoying the biographical information and commentary on Inferno by Mark Musa. I got his translation cheap at a used book store, I now have two sets of The Comedy, one which is the Birk/Sanders translation and another cobbled together from bookstores, I've got Sayer's Paradiso, Musa's Inferno, and Chiardi's Purgatorio all in pocket book form and bought mainly for the additional material.

Anyway I took my pocketbook Inferno out on some errands and when I came home I was horrified to discover that I had lost it. It fell out of my jacket pocket somewhere along the way and I had no idea where. I did a lot of errands and it could have been anyplace. This really upset me because I had just bought it and the previous owner had gone to pains to laminate the cover, something I really like because I read in the bathroom and sink water ruins paperbacks.

Anyway I had to resign myself to it being gone and started thinking about how much time I've been spending lately just doing background research on Dante the writer instead of paraphrasing Dante the Character and I started to regret all the time lost on writing. Sure my studio isn't set up yet and I'm still getting me head around my latest synth (Virus TI W00t!) but that doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't get as far into the paraphrase as I can, really I ought to have struck more of a balance between research and writing and if I don't start trying harder to do that I'll fuck myself.

I had a dream last night that I had mistakenly put it in a different pocket of my jacket, this morning I half seriously cheked my jacket once again but no luck it was totally gone.

I spent today working on my blog and writing e-mails and then on my way out to class I decided that since I was going back to two of the places I could have lost my book I'd at least ask there who knows right? maybe it turned up.

Sure enough the first place I went (the last place my errands had taken me the day before) there was my copy of Inferno! bookmark and all!

I'm really relieved to have it back and needless to say I'm going to have to find more secure places for it when it comes traveling with me in the future.

I think this could be a sign that I need to get off my ass and start writing again. I read Musa's version of Canto 3 today on the bus and I like his use of blank verse though I still preffer the Birk/Sanders translation for it's use of modern vernacular. But technical observations aside there's something that struck me as I finished reading the commentary.

I have to create the sounds of the dead, the damned and those in eternal torment.

That is a really scary kind of thing. Canto 3 is the first introduction to Hell, it's the one with the famous line "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here" and that's a kind of summation of the environment.

Maybe if you are really into black metal or something you'd think this would be awesome but if you think of it to do it properly will make it a very difficult and unsettling project. I'm still trying to figure it out though I've got a few ideas, and I really really need to finish moving and setting up I need a proper workspace and I'm itching to get this going properly. Canto's 1 and 2 need to be mixed properly and I need to spend more time recording sounds to layer over them.

Ok off to write and then to sleep.

This is one of my favourite Coil Songs.

John Balance RIP

setbacks and delays

I'm waiting to move the last of my equipment to the studio. I recorded Canto's 1 and 2 to fourtrack and dismantled the patch and I'm pretty much just passing time. I want to get my hands on that Virus TI I bought and just throw myself into it and I'm itching to unpack everything. Listening to Coil on Youtube and I'm beat tired but I've had to stay up late doing some work.

I don't really think I've got anything new to say I'm in a kind of limbo, which is appropriate because that's Canto 4.

One thing that I have noticed, Dante got personal with the figures of his day placing people in hell whom he thought deserved to be there. I suppose this is far from a groundbreaking observation but it's interesting to me, I'm reading a bunch of biographical info on Dante and it's placing his work in a better context, I find it's making for an interesting read when I can identify figures like Beatrice and some of those he chose to be damned as people central to his own life.

I'm not really sure that I am in agreement on his theology but then again perhaps that's a given he was writing in the 14th century and he had very different ideas about the relationship between church and empire and what exactly the role of the church should be. I think that the temptation would have been great for anyone to insert their own people into the inferno, purgatorio, and paradiso. After all who wouldn't like to put someone in hell or heaven even if only fictionally although it raises some questions for me about propriety after all who am I to presume on the state of another person's soul. And still the temptation remains... I think I should be hard pressed not to insert people like Dick Cheney or Joseph Ratzinger into Hell if only because of the things they've done (or failed to do) Just as I'd want to put Dorothy Day or Oscar Romero into Heaven and beloved family members into paradaise and purgatory but if I do I think it will be after a great deal of introspection and prayer on the matter.

my eyes are heavy I'm going to go to bed soon.

Variation on Pachelbel's Canon on Modular Synthesizer

I've always loved the way classical music sounds on synthesizers. I found this youtube video on Matrixsynth

Dante update Canto's 1 and 2 finished... for now

I just finished writing the paraphrase of Canto 2 and recording them both onto an old tape fourtrack I have on hand for emergencies. Emergencies like my DAW not being set up or having any of my good microphones but having the patch ready and needing to get started. I took a cigarette pack amp and used it as a rough mic preamp into the fourtrack and read both cantos in turn then played the patches I had made. It's actually the same patch only the second canto has midi sequencing so there's notes being played while in Canto number 1 it's all ambient. I'll record these into cubase one I have it set up and I am going to have to think about what it's missing because it's missing something. But it's good. The fourtrack is not so bad as a backup device and now that I've got the patch recorded to tape and ready to be put into the computer I can take it apart and do something new. I'll be doing that tomorrow I want DJ to take a picture of it all the wires are red and black and yellow and grey and the way they're tangled in wild a vertical mess it's a little bit like a sculptor's rendition of fire in the form of patch cables.

Ooh one piece of new gear I'm really keen on is this box I got out of the bargain bin at Tom Lee Music today it's a three channel signal switch. Basically it's just a metal box with a big knob on the top and four pairs of 1/4inch jacks on the front, six on them are audio in's and two of them are stereo out's and the idea is that you plug in three different stereo channels which you can select with the knob. I havn't had a chance to really try it out yet but I think this could be another way of controlling some aspects of the modular. The best part is it consumes no power! I'm not sure if I've written here about my love for all things electrically passive but seriously gear that doesn't need electricity to operate is a real godsend. I have eight channels of passive mixing goodness thanks to some discount and vintage microphone mixers and now this big switch! eeeee! (and various other sounds of excitement!)

Gear Update

It's official. I've got what I need to start setting up the studio. I was waiting on a synth module called a Virus Snow but ended up buying the floor model of the keyboard version for an amazing price. I also bought an external firewire/soundcard and another keyboard stand. I believe this is the lot for now. Barring a larger modular rig which will come in due time and a few other amenities which aren't really that important and which I can pick up when and if I can afford them I think I'm looked after as far as studio equipment. I watched the animated version of Dante's Inferno tonight. It was actually made with paper cutouts so not exactly animated but I don't think the word puppet is exactly right either. Anyway it was fun. It's certainly in a different vein than my take will be but it was neat to see and it was illustrated by Sandow Birk.

I'm waiting for my wife to come home so I'm not interrupted in the middle of recording. I wrote the paraphrase for Canto 1 a couple of nights ago and have put some finishing touches on the patch I made for it. I've wanted to record this since I wrote it but I've lacked the energy.

There's an apartment being re-done on my floor and every morning it's sawing and drilling from 10 or 11 am until evening. And then today there was some kind of construction going on outside where they were ripping out cement in the alley and so there was a nice chorus of jackhammers as well. I feel sorry for everyone who woke up today with a hangover. Other than that and the complete lack of work I've done today I'd have to say it's not bad for a Friday the 13th.

and because I can't get enough of Morton

Morton Subotnick Interview - IMR Software



Morton Subotnick at NAMM 2009 I really wish I could embed this

And some of his music:

late night/early morning Dante update

I've just put some of the finishing tweaks on the first patch I hope to use in Inferno, this will be the electronic component to the music in Canto #1. Still haven't written a paraphrase as yet I hope to get that done tomorrow night then, because I'm oldschool and kind of impatient and also due to the complexity of this patch I'll be recording it to my tape fourtrack recorder. I have to get help moving the last of the studio furniture to its new home and get together with Jeremy to get the space set up. He's not going to be coming onboard for the project but has offered to square away a favour he owes me by helping me get it all set up and crash coursing me in cubase.

I would still really really really like to find someone who would be willing and able to collaborate with in realizing this project but I don't know who to ask. All my friends in bands are too busy and their services expensive. Meh, this is my baby if it's meant to be a collaborative piece I've no doubt that God will provide, and if it's not then I've just got to trust that I'll get it done good enough and learn a lot on the way.

I'm waiting n a delivery from Analogue Haven of a ring modulator it should be here tomorrow, I'm very excited I just hope I'm here when the package is delivered I hate missing these things it's such a hassle.

in gear-related news My birthday is coming up and I'm really looking forward to birthday cash so I can build my modular up. It's always frustrating to discover that you've run out of things to modulate or when you just find the limits of what your instrument can currently do, it's a nice challenge to work within them and I've certainly made some great compositions with less than what I've got now but every time a new set of modules come in the mail and I patch them all up to the system my sound just seems to increase it's so amazing to make a piece of music which in it's own way is a little analogous to a tiny orchestra, each piece of equipment working together with every other to create something very dynamic and multifaceted. I really love my modular.

you should read this post buy a guy who put it in better words than I have

I was thinking about the above linked article tonight and thought I should share it.

busy night for blogging

So I just got off the phone with Dr. Lorne Wilkinson, he's the Dante Scholar that my friend Barrett suggested I get in touch with. We had a good talk about this and his suggestion was that I make my own paraphrase of the Comedy based on the multiple translations I have access to and he also suggested that I include the original Italian into the pieces somehow. I have some ideas abut how I'd want to do that but first I'll need to find an Italian text I can draw from.

I feel encouraged. Also the Tangerine Dream version of The Inferno is available at the library so my wife will probably be bringing that home with her this week.

excitement!

Damn you Henry Wadsworth Longfellowwwww!

Nah, I don't wish him any harm though I do wish his translation of The Comedy was a lot easier to read and simpler to understand.

He's the man responsible for the translation of Dante at the Gutenberg Project website.

Still, uggh, My previous thought about creating my own interpretation of the text into a modern english feels more like re-inventing the wheel after trying to read Longfellow's translation aloud. Also while the olde english is kind of nice in it's own way I'm still partial to the Birk/Sanders translation.

I wonder what sort of fresh hell would come from getting permission from the publishers to use their text? Maybe it's not as bad as I fear?

Still open to suggestions

home now.

still trying to think my way around the copyright issues. Perhaps what I need to do is make my own interpretations of the canto texts based on Gutenberg Project and inspired by the Birk/Sanders translations.

that seems like it might work but could also be labour intensive.

hey does anyone read this thing anyway? Anyone out there have any suggestions on how to approach this project?

Latest Dante Update.

I've been having problems posting to one of my other blogs all day so let's see if Google lets me post here.

What began as an outing to collect things from storage at my mom's place turned into quarentine as she got stomach flue and then today had me feeling really queasy myself. I did find my copy of Inferno and a couple of other things I've been missing. I'm still grappling with just exactly how to convert Dante's Comedy into music without either geting in trouble with the publishers of the translations I own or being really wankery about it. I'm convinced that the music is in the Cantos themselves and I'd like to use the arguments now as a guide to how each Canto should sound if that makes any sense to the handful of people who I suspect may read this from time to time.

Boy oh Boy. I think I'll have to write to Sandow again this week and tell him what I'm thinking about because if I use the text of his translation then I could ernd up paying out my ass to his publishers and sending him royalties and while that's not so bad it would be very potentially complicated. Perhaps I should just use a Gutenberg project translation of the text and deal with the arcane language... ugh. I really would rather use Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders translation because the language id accessible and I have a sentimental attachment to them. I think that if it's easier to understand the language it would come out less pretentious to listeners and ultimatly more enjoyable for me as well.

I'm still trying to reach a Dante Scholar who was reccomended by a friend I'm hoping that he'll have valuable insight into how I can best do the poet's work justice in the medium I want to work with.

Speaking of the medium I'm really enjoying working with my Evolver as a compositional aid. I've made a couple of really great guitar effects and clearing out the garbage patches I made when I was first learning it. I didn't approach it with any sort of method so there's gems scattered amidst the crap and presets I kind of trashed a bunch of presets and there are so many memory locations (4 banks of 128 each) that it's a bit of a chore trying to clean out the deadwood and then trying to keep track of it all.

That said I've really got to hand it to Dave Smith he's made a solid instrument, after my modular rig I think it's my favourite synth and it's about tied with my guitar as favourite instrument, really the deapth of possibillity just in the effects it can give external audio make it almost an extension to the guitar there's barely any need to buy another guitar pedal with the variety of sounds I can carve from it.

I'd get a second one for sure if I could justify it and recomend it to anyone who wants to get into analog synths. It's a bit headdy to learn straight off and it's not an easy teaching synth but I love it, shit I took it on my honeymoon.

Anyway that's the news. I'm hoping that tomorrow both my mom and I will be feeling better I've gone through most of the boxes here and found a bunch of things though not everything I was hoping for. I'm still missing two important power supplies and all the boxes with electronics have become boxes of horror after three years in a garage: imagine spiders, dead woodbugs, dust and gordion tangles of cable in everyu box. In one of them I found greasy skateboard parts and a bike handle resting ontop of the exposed circuit board of an old nintendo.

I'm really displeased.