STARTHIEF

Well… yes.

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It occurred to me Sunday or Monday that I could shave my beard.

Of course I could — but the idea has been off the table for roughly 35 years. Even when contemplating a more androgynous look, my line of thought has been “well, I have a beard so there’s only so much I can do.” Or I told myself that it was necessary to give my face definition, and I simply didn’t question this assertion which came from… I don’t know where.

But over the weekend I was experimenting a little with face editing apps — retouching, virtual makeup and hairstyle, AI gender changers etc. The results range from silly to horrifying to cute (but totally fake), so it was just a bit of fun. But along the way I saw a hypothetically extrapolated version of my face without the beard… and liked it.

Oddly, even after this revelation I felt like I had to seek approval and then give myself permission. But now that it’s done, I like it! It is not often that I see myself in the mirror and like much of what I see, but this was one of those times. It doesn’t quite give the impression of youth that the software version did, but it is indeed a bit more androgynous. People aren’t suddenly going to look at me and think “they” just because I don’t have chin whiskers, but that’s not really the point of all of this. That “I like it!” is the point.

That first shave wasn’t very close — I didn’t go against the grain and wanted to make sure to take it easy on potentially sensitive skin. And I should probably do stuff like exfoliate and cleanse and moisturize etc. In fact, I did a little reading and apparently some cleaning can actually help with rosacea (which is, I figure, what a lot of my face redness is). So I’ll give that a try.

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I forgot to mention in Wednesday’s post that I’ve set myself up on The StoryGraph (user name Starthief), if you want to follow along.

My list of reads from 2024 is missing some re-reads, and a few paperbacks & hardcovers (mostly bought years ago at library book sales). I certainly remember reading The Big Book of Cyberpunk. But I do have my Kindle data to look at. Nonfiction books are highlighted.

Martha Wells, Witch King
Nino Cipri, Finna
Edward Hallowell & John Ratey: ADHD 2.0
S. L. Huang, The Water Outlaws
John Scalzi, Starter Villain
Nicki Pau Preto, Bonesmith
Neon Yang, The Genesis of Misery
Manuel Gonzales, The Regional Office Is Under Attack!
Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina el-Sirafi
Charlie Jane Anders, Promises Stronger Than Darkness
Elizabeth Bear, Ancestral Night
Linda Nagata, Blade
Jessica Best, Stars, Hide Your Fires
Richad Kadrey & Cassandra Khaw, The Dead Take the A Train
Charles Stross, Season of Skulls
M. R. O’Connor: Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World
Sim Kern, The Free People’s Village
Grant Morrison, Luda: A Novel
John Sarno, Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection (I can’t recommend this)
Hannah Whitten, The Hemlock Queen
Dan Charnas, Dilla Time
Martha Wells, The Book of Ile-Rien
Martha Wells: Between Worlds
Sarah Gailey, River of Teeth
Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Encylopedia of Faeries
Maria Ying: Those Who Break Chains (all 5 books in the series)
Ben Pechey: The Book of Non-Binary Joy

Of these, Finna was probably the quirkiest, and was super fun — a portal fantasy centered around Ikea — although River of Teeth was also bonkers. The Free People’s Village might have been the most thoughtful of them, and Luda perhaps the most twisted. Those Who Break Chains was both sexy and creepy, often at the same time which is quite a feat.

ADHD 2.0 was very helpful to me; though I won’t say that I have ADHD I certainly have those “variable attention stimulus traits.”

I hadn’t mentioned it here yet, but we had Some Weather a couple of weekends ago. A layer of ice — not super thick to ruin trees and power lines, but definitely enough to make roads troublesome — followed by thundersnow, followed by more snow, bitter cold for a couple of days and then some more snow on top. Since then we’ve had a couple of days above freezing but then back down again.

11 days later, most sidewalks are still buried (sometimes with 8+ foot tall mounds). There are several roads where they didn’t quite clear the entire lane. I made zero effort to clear our driveway, aside from digging out my car when I got stuck backing out the first time, and the tire tracks are packed ice.

But I did clear the snow and ice from our steps and front porch, for the safety of delivery folks. In retrospect, this was not a great idea for health reasons. The American Heart Association recommends a lot of caution for folks 45 and older when shoveling snow, or doing anything particularly strenuous in cold weather. Cold temps constrict blood vessels, snow is heavy, and the kind of movements involved tend to be unusual for most people and also cause additional strain on the heart. My heart health is honestly pretty good relative to everything else, but that chore took most of the afternoon (including long breaks to recover) and wiped me out. The exertion sneaks up on you FAST and next thing you know, you’re sweating uncontrollably and want to go without cold weather protection, which will only make it worse. And it takes several hours to feel normal again. I guess I’m just not going to do that anymore.

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” is sort of an informal motto of the USPS, and they used to use it in advertising — but that originally comes from Herodotus, writing about the Persian empire! USPS does not pay people well enough for that kind of dedication. At least locally, they also frequently screw things up big-time. I’ve had two packages (ordered before the new year, shipped shortly after) arrive in STL, immediately get sent to North Carolina, bounce back two days later, and languish in the regional distribution center for a week. This is not at all the first time this happened, and usually there isn’t even bad weather to blame.

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Yesterday I had my passport acceptance appointment at the Brentwood public library. Despite my needless worrying, it went super smooth, and took less than 10 minutes. The librarian who did it was super friendly and professional, had clearly been through the process several times, and didn’t ask at all about my choice of the X gender marker. Bonus: the foyer of that library has a collection bin for clothing donations for trans and queer youth, including adult sizes… so now I know where to drop off the things I’d like to let go of.

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I’m working on that study of Spectraphon, but slowly. It’s a complex module and I don’t want to rush it. But I’ve also still got some lingering ick from the post-Christmas bug we picked up, sapping my energy.

And also… lots of reading. Brandon Sanderson’s Wind And Truth, the fifth novel of the Stormlight Archive series and the end of a major arc, has a word count that exceeds the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. I finished reading it in 9 days.

(My Kindle is kaput. It just won’t hold a charge anymore. But I found that the Kindle app on my phone is actually a better reading experience anyway. Much more responsive, color, can scroll continuously and smoothly, faster download, fits in a pocket and is pretty much always with me. If I do decide I want a bigger screen, I’m gonna go back to the Android tablet route, but this time from some reputable brand. But I don’t think I need that.)

As one might expect, Wind and Truth was a lot. The overall device for the book was excellent — a 10-day countdown to a final confrontation, with battles for several locations presided over by different characters. The end is worlds-changing enough to provide a much-needed reset and consolidation for the back half of the 10-book series: a new conflict, new actors in play, new rules.

But I think in some respects it was almost too ambitious. Few of what should have been the huge glorious moments or the really awful “oh shit” moments hit with the same kind of emotional impact than in the first 3 novels. (There were no points where I just had to put the book down, cry for two minutes either for joy or sorrow for a character, and then continue.) I also feel like some characters got the short end of the stick, in terms of how vital their missions ultimately seemed.

I do feel like I want to read an overall synopsis of the entire series.

This blog got its start when I left Facebook in 2018, with the last straw then being some sort of claim they made about “paid protestors funded by George Soros.” But I stayed on Instagram until now, despite it being owned by the same company, because it felt different.

No more.

I was already feeling like Instagram was starting to suck lately, becoming more and more like Facebook. Looking at my feed, it’s got WAY more ads than ever before. Some of them are very clearly tied to things I have browsed on my phone without interacting with any Meta apps, despite my having set every possible privacy option. Others are wildly irrelevant to me and my interests, including ads for some really questionable supplements and other things that I’ve repeatedly told it not to show me.

And the algorithm is very clearly emphasizing more commercial and influencer-ish accounts over regular people — so even the posts between the ads are more like ads. Even where the subject matter relates to things I’m interested in, a neverending barrage of promotional posts is just boring and tiring.

I miss the pre-2007 Livejournal days so much — where we could read/see posts in chronological order from accounts we followed.

Zuck and Meta have been in some news recently:

• Zuckerberg donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund (a few months after NYT wrote a puff piece about how Zuck is “done with politics”). Apple, Google, Amazon, and OpenAI all followed suit.
• Meta’s “President of Global Affairs” was replaced with W’s former chief of staff.
• It was revealed that Meta had been blocking searches for LGBTQ-related keywords as “sexually suggestive.”
• Meta brought Dana White onto their board — the president of Ultimate Fighting Championship, personal friend of Trump, and assaulter of his own wife. Employees have questioned and protested this decision internally but those posts were deleted, and then posts questioning the deletions were also deleted.
• Meta is abandoning third-party fact checking in favor of “community notes” the way X does, in the name of “free speech.”
• Meta updated its “hateful content” policy with specific examples of what they now consider acceptable: some dehumanizing language specifically targetting women, trans people and LGBTQ people as well as claims about foreigners/immigrants relating to coronavirus. It also removed language that points out that hateful speech online can lead to real-world violence. This effort and list of examples was personally led by Zuckerburg and a few hand-picked consultants.
• This too is being protested by employees of Meta, and the criticism is also being deleted internally.
• Meta is moving their “trust and safety and content moderation teams” (what little they’re actually going to do) from California to Texas to “remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content.”
• Meta terminated its DEI (diversity, equity & inclusivity) program.
• Meta deleted trans and nonbinary pride themes for Messenger (originally added for Pride 2021 with much self-congratulatory language on their part).
• Zuck added in a comment, “Reducing the number of people whose accounts get mistakenly banned is good, people want to be able to discuss civic topics and make arguments that are in the mainstream of political discourse, etc. Some people may leave our platforms for virtue signaling, but I think the vast majority and many new users will find that these changes make our products better.”
• Zuck then went on the Joe Rogan (ugh) show for a softball interview, where he lied blatantly about “just wanting to give people a voice” and about the Biden administration screaming and swearing at him on the phone demanding censorship. He didn’t at all mention the constant pressure from conservatives to stop fact-checking idiotic COVID claims and such. When finished with that, he took off for Mar-A-Lago to personally lick Trump’s boots.

So, I’m virtue signalling the hell off of Instagram. I downloaded all of my photos and videos (there’s an option buried in the account settings), made a post about why I’m leaving, deleted the app off my phone, and set a calendar reminder to delete the account.

I guess I’ve gotten used to Discord, and even though I will always prefer message boards overall, there are some advantages to its chatroom-like format. But Reddit? Ugh.

I’ve been following a couple of nonbinary gender subreddits and it is really not suited to the task. There are apparently two kinds of users: the “regulars” who actually read some of the content, and people who just drop in and ask something (or reply to something they found in a search, out of context) without reading previous posts. So there are common questions asked multiple times per day, when what some of these folks need is to both talk and listen.

And the app is kind of buggy and awkward besides.

I would have liked to be helpful and supportive there, and I have replied to quite a few posts in this short time… but it’s honestly too much of an energy drain. So here are some common questions/issues I’ve been seeing:

• “Am I nonbinary?” “How do I know if I’m really nonbinary?”
  
  The “gender binary” is the idea that people are either “woman/girl” or “man/boy.” Most people feel like they’re one of these things and never really doubt it. Many transgender folks also have a binary gender identity, it just doesn’t match their assigned sex at birth.
  
  Please note this is talking only about gender identity here — one’s internal sense of self. This is not one’s presentation, interests, rejection of restrictive or stereotypical gender roles, or sexuality.
  
  A nonbinary person — if they wish to use the label — is someone who doesn’t feel like their gender identity fits completely in either a “man” or “woman” category at all times. There are many different ways this can feel, and many different terms for those specific experiences. “Nonbinary” covers them all without being specific.
  
  The Gender Census has a “Who can take part?” section that basically is the definition of nonbinary.
  
• “Am I nonbinary enough?”
  
  There is no “enough” — either your identity is man, woman, or nonbinary.
  
  This is regardless of your name, pronouns, physical appearance, desired physical appearance, presence or absence of dysphoria, clothing, interests, hobbies, and whether you’re out to other people.
  
  Nobody should be judging “how” nonbinary someone else is.
  
• “My family isn’t supportive.”

I’m sorry. This sucks and is not your fault. I have no advice for dealing with it personally.

For cisgender people it can be hard to even imagine what a nonbinary gender identity is like, so it’s unthinkable to them — without sufficient empathy, they just dismiss our feelings.

Also certain forces in society intentionally spread fear of anything that goes against patriarchal norms, including any ambiguity about gender identity, presentation and roles. Those people are having absolute tantrums right now because they are afraid of losing their cultural relevance.

We live in interesting times but not easy ones. Just 15 years ago nobody said they were nonbinary — we all struggled alone with feelings we couldn’t name. Right now, trans and nonbinary people are facing that backlash. It makes me think about what gay people faced in the Reagan/Thatcher years — just before the 90s brought an amazing shift in mainstream acceptance. Perhaps our victories will come even more quickly.

• “I feel like a fraud/impostor.”
  
  This is unfortunately common. Society has not really made space for nonbinary people, so we’re continually bombarded with the message that we don’t exist and our feelings are wrong.
  
  Some of us are not comfortable being out to everyone, either because of perceived danger, losing family support (or wanting to avoid causing loved ones stress and awkwardness), anxiety, or simply being a private person. This might sometimes also feel like we’re not being honest or cause us to question our validity — something we need to work out. We don’t owe it to the world to declare ourselves.
  
  Some people feel like they have to “look nonbinary” to be valid. This is also something we need to overcome. Society has norms about what a man should look like, and what a woman should look like (and these norms cause harm). There are no such norms for nonbinary people.
  
• Nonbinary appearance
  
  Any issues with “validity” aside, most of us do want to express our identity, whether loud & proud or more subtly. It’d be nice to be recognized and accepted as nonbinary by the general public on sight, but in the present day this is unlikely. Presenting at least some ambiguity can be affirming. Many of us would also like to represent for fellow nonbinary people. But ultimately it is about what makes us feel good.
  
  One option some people like is androgyny, a supposedly neutral middle ground between masculine and feminine. This can be difficult to truly achieve, because society trains everyone to immediately sort everyone we see into the gender binary — even babies — and will hone in on the most subtle of details to make that judgement. (Some people actually get angry if they can’t clock someone’s gender, as if they are entitled to know the gender of every passing stranger that they will never see again.) Absolute androgyny is not the goal of every nonbinary person.
  
  Another option that some go for is a “genderful” presentation, combining appearance traits that are coded as overtly masculine and feminine, intentionally short-circuiting binary expectations. Because of social biases, this is easier if you have features that people will read as masculine (e.g. facial hair). A lot of people aren’t comfortable presenting this way because it’s inherently confrontational.
  
  (Of course, one doesn’t have to be nonbinary to appear in these ways; some people just want to challenge social norms or simply feel that this is how they look their best or most interesting.)
  
  The truth is that most nonbinary people, whether by personal preference or not, have an appearance that almost everyone is going to categorize in a binary way. The key is to recognize the flaw is with society, not with ourselves.
  
• “Am I trans?” “Are nonbinary people trans?”
  
  Generally, nonbinary people are considered under the “trans umbrella” but it’s up to each individual whether they think of themselves as trans.
  
  Some nonbinary people seek medical assistance in altering their bodies to some extent (physical transition), while many don’t.
  
  The argument in favor of “all nonbinary people are trans” is that one’s current gender identity doesn’t match assigned sex at birth. Nonbinary people face some of the same discrimination that binary trans people do, and many nonbinary people experience the same or similar dysphoria.
  
  Some may simply prefer a stricter definition for “trans”, or feel that the challenges nonbinary folks face are different enough to not conflate them. Or they may not be personally comfortable with the “trans” label for various reasons. It’s a personal choice though.
  
• “Isn’t this just an internet fad for young people?” “Is the internet indoctrinating kids?”

(This is much less of a question that actual nonbinary people have, of course)

No.

The use of the word “nonbinary” to describe gender is a 21st century phenomenon. But human societies have always had nonbinary people in them. In some cultures this was recognized and they were honored at least as equals. There is written evidence for genders other than “man” and “woman” as far back as Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, as well as the Byzantine empire. There are eight genders outlined in the Talmud, including “both” and “neither” and four that we’d call trans (and Adam was “both” to begin with). In India, hijras are mentioned in the Kama Sutra and still have communities today. Several Native American tribes recognized other genders, now collectively called “Two-Spirit” to override European colonizer terminology. Likewise Hawaii, the Phillipines and other cultures made space for genders other than male and female. Generally, when European colonizers encountered other genders in ancient civilizations they were dismissed as “eunuchs” (despite lack of evidence of castration), and in living cultures they attempted to outlaw them.

Online communities have allowed nonbinary people to come together, share their experiences, find common ground and create terminology that had been missing in our culture, as well as advice and mutual support. This has also increased exposure to the concept, allowing people who have been questioning their gender all along to find a meaningful way to understand their experiences.

(In my case: I was born in the early 70s. I have always felt a disconnect from “boy” as a gender, but simply did not have the conceptual framework to put that in perspective. As a young teen I wrote in my journal about having male and female aspects in my mind. At the time, the only trans narrative was “woman trapped in a man’s body” and it was treated without dignity in the media, so I didn’t make that connection. In my mid 30s I happened to see an internet link that eventually led me to learn about genderqueer, gender-fluid, androgynous and neutrois identities — sort of a fringe in trans communities at the time — and suspect that this was close to solving my puzzle. A few years later the term “nonbinary” came along, unifying these different identities and building better communities, as well as finally showing me a satisfying way to understand myself.)

Nobody is trying to recruit kids to become nonbinary or trans. One should say instead that each generation has been less indoctrinated toward limited and hateful views. Boomers grew up with messages of love from the 60s; Gen X was raised to be less racist and sexist than their parents; Millennials were raised with less internalized homophobia and much stronger concern for the environment; Gen Z tend to be even more inclusive than millennials, and so on. Of course, society still has far to go.

• What’s with pronouns?
  
  “He” and “she” and “they” and “we” and “it” and “you” and “I” are all pronouns — words than stand in for a person’s name. There is nothing sinister about them, and right-wing attempts to “ban pronouns” or claims that “there are no pronouns in the Bible” are patently ridiculous.
  
  Many (but not all) nonbinary people don’t want to be called “she” when they don’t feel like they’re a woman or “he” when they don’t feel like they’re a man. “They” is the most common alternative.
  
  “They” is not difficult or grammatically incorrect. As a singular pronoun, is hardly new — used by Shakespeare and Jane Austen. It’s commonly used instead of the more awkward “he or she” when speaking about some unknown person of unknown gender. It also has precedent in “you.”
  
  We’ve long past moved beyond “thee” and “thou” and “ye”, deciding collectively that “you” works for plural, singular, subject and object. “They” as a singular pronoun works the same way.
  
  “You are nice people but you have to do this yourselves” is plural.
  “You are a nice person but you have to do this yourself” is singular.
  “They are nice people but they have to do it themselves” is plural.
  “They are a nice person but have to do it themself” is singular.
  
  When someone says their pronouns are “he/they” or “she/they” or “he/she/they” that means any of them is fine.
  
  Some prefer no pronouns at all, but their name. Some prefer “it” — it’s not rude or depersonalizing to use it if that’s what they ask for (I’m using “their” in the plural sense here).
  
  A small number of nonbinary people prefer neopronouns — much more recently invented words. There are a lot of these, and personally I feel like this is a tougher thing to expect from people. Some of them are more common than others, and perhaps as English evolves some of them will become normalized.
  
  What about titles? Mx. is a possible substitute for Mr./Ms./Mrs. but most nonbinary people prefer no title at all. “Sir/Ma’am” has no equivalent although many alternatives have been proposed with varying levels of seriousness (Captain, Friend, Citizen, Comrade, Your Excellence…) and again, most nonbinary people would prefer no such honorific.
  

I was listening this morning to Disheveled’s Phantom Touch, which is some very abstract music but the creator’s description says it was about using VRChat to help overcome “personal struggles with Sexual Identity, Gender Dysphoria, CPTSD, Anxiety, and Depression.” A listener wouldn’t pick this up from the music itself, although track titles and cover art do hint at it. The description gives enough context to really put it all together. This is completely valid in art IMHO — no work is required to explain itself, and context is almost always important in understanding and appreciating art.)

Of course my own music is quite abstract as well. Sometimes it’s consciously about something — and some of those times I am perfectly happy to leave the subject as a mystery for the hearer.

Because of Phantom Touch‘s context, my mind made the jump from self-expression through music, to the challenge of expressing a nonbinary gender identity through appearance/fashion.

Clothing, like architecture, is both functional and decorative. More so than any other art form, it plays an extremely important social role, and different styles of clothing express and affirm gender, class, sexuality, racial identity, political affinity, religious beliefs, subculture, hobbies and interests, education, personality/attitude, and more, and of course one’s own body, personal preferences, comfort and practicality all weigh in. Some cues are easily readable to almost everyone; others are more exclusive, subtle, obscure, or cryptic.

The strongest cues in clothing tend to relate to binary gender, and society puts a wall (sometimes literally) between women’s and men’s garments. Unisex clothes really say nothing about the wearer’s gender — there’s no nonbinary department. (Ironically enough, if looking for clothing with nonbinary pride colors and slogans, they are often divided between women’s and men’s.)

So if you want to affirm a nonbinary gender identity through clothing, you’re going to either transgress mainstream standards, or you’re going to be obscure.

But wait… my music is obscure and I am proud of that. And it does transgress mainstream standards, although not in a particularly radical way. So, no problem?

I’m still happy with my style reboot, regardless of whether anyone gets it, and I’ll keep exploring it.

I did manage to snag a Whimsical Raps Silhouette in the first minute of its becoming available (and an hour later it’s still not sold out, which is no doubt a record for them). Also I grabbed the Neutral Labs “Nuts” cards for the Elmyra’s distortion section. Whether those should count as the final purchase of 2024 or first of 2025 given when they’ll ship/arrive doesn’t much matter.

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It is ALMOST the new year and I guess it’s time to come up with some goals.

Looking over 2024, I didn’t really commit to much, and given that I didn’t disappoint myself. As I saw someone say recently “I’m not making any resolutions, it’s time for the years to be better.”

But I do have a few things.

• I want to get through 2025 with my head held high and my joy intact. The politics and news are likely to be one shit-tsunami after another but I’ll just keep remembering the “you have no power here” Glinda quote.
• Once again… people are wrong on the internet but it’s not my job to fix it.
• On gear trades/purchases:
  – I really do not need more little desktop synths, so, no more.
  – I need no more controllers, what I have now is awesome.
  – I love my Eurorack setup. If I decide Planar is redundant with Silhouette, I’ll allow myself to trade that if I think of something worthy. And there’s always the “Spectraphon Factor” (something new and too obviously awesome not to make room for). But otherwise I’d like to just leave the module selection alone.
  – The software is abundant and great. I have no objections to picking up something else small and cool, but really… I absolutely don’t need more synths, and I’m flush with effects too. Instead of thinking twice before adding anything, I’ll think three or four times. Instead of spending money on more music gear, it’s going to wardrobe updates and to some home repair stuff. Which brings me to:
• Get the unsafe backyard deck taken care of.
• Clean up and organize stuff a bit around the house.
• Keep trying to get those walks in at Mallard Lake, and maybe other forms of exercise. We are looking into getting a membership somewhere to swim, for instance.

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The Christmas trip went… okay.

The car rental was super smooth this time. We wound up with a Nissan Rogue, considerably smaller than the Hyundai Palisade we rented for our second honeymoon trip. That made it considerably more fuel-efficient and generally easier to drive, but it was packed quite full with 4 people, luggage and gifts, especially on the the return trip. In terms of fancy tech, the Rogue isn’t as luxury but was still more than fine, with a less obtrusive driver assistance thing, blind spot cameras, Android Auto etc. And not trying to book through Expedia but using the Enterprise site directly worked much better.

The motel sucked, there is no getting around that. The office was being renovated and they were temporarily using a laptop on a desk in a storage room surrounded by piles of random supplies and junk. They were surprised we wanted two rooms (even though I reserved them) and they weren’t adjacent, but at least one was on the first floor so my parents didn’t have to deal with stairs. The concrete treads of those stairs were literally crumbling. Nearly every piece of furniture in both rooms was damaged in some way, and that is no exaggeration. Paint was chipped off the walls in several places. The carpet, where it went up the baseboard, was really badly frayed. The bathroom door in our room was also cracked all around the door handle like someone had tried to bash it open or slammed it super hard into the wall or something, and there were cracks in the ceiling. We had throw pillows instead of proper bed pillows, and no hand towels or wash cloths for the first night/morning. In my parents’ room, the shower had no hot water and the phone didn’t work. The bed itself wasn’t awful, but still a mediocre hotel bed (we’re very used to our hybrid foam/spring mattress). The two good things we could say: it was relatively cheap, and they kept the rooms clean (if still ugly).

My mom was sick the second night, so she and dad stayed in their room for the next day. And there were heavy rains for much of the visit, threatening to flood my in-laws’ house as has happened on prior Christmases (but not quite managing to do so). My dad was having some not-so-great days in terms of memory/cognitive function and was confused about where we were a few times.

Still, I think everyone generally had a good time (when not sick), the drive was mostly fine, our hosts were gracious and I think it’s good to get my parents out of the house once in a while. They told me a couple of days later that yes, they had a good time and thanks for bringing them along. 🙂

Whimsical Raps, makers of such fine but initially mysterious things as Just Friends, Mangrove, Three Sisters and Cold Mac, has announced a new one.

It scans/mixes smoothly through six inputs using the Spot knob (an endless analog pot) to the Light output, and runs that through an analog BBD for the Shadow output. That’s the “foreground.” The Spot CV input is normalled to a “magnetic attractor” modulation source for some interesting varieties of animation.

The remaining inputs that don’t appear in the foreground become the background, and are rotated through the left/right outputs. Lens controls its level, and can sidechain the background to the foreground or expand its dynamics. Blur seems to be some kind of low-fi filtered reverb. Then you can mix the foreground into the L/R outputs, or leave them solely on the Light and Shadow outputs.

There are no feedback paths built in, but it’s made for self-patching and feedback exploration, and seems like it could be quite powerful.

The inputs are DC-coupled, so it should also be able to combine and transform modulation sources. Or reverse the sense of things and modulate Spot with an audio rate signal while the inputs are changing much more slowly.

This goes on sales Dec 30, and if it doesn’t sell out first I plan to get one. If it does, hopefully the next round of production won’t take too long — WR has been better in the last year or so at keeping their always-in-demand stuff in stock.

I’m thinking this can replace Bunker Archeology. But also, scanning/crossfading between outputs from Just Friends, Zorlon Cannon etc. is 90% of what I use my Planar for, so it could pull that out instead.

Xaoc Devices posted a video yesterday that said most of what I was going to say about Odessa. So rather than continuing to work on that, I’ll just link to it here:

Additional comments:

1. TILT applies according to how many partials there are… changing the number of partials changes where the peak is. So with TILT high, modulating PARTIALS sounds a bit like a resonant filter sweep.
2. I don’t have the Hel expander, but one can get certain kinds of chords/clusters by turning down PARTIALS to just a few and using TENSION.
3. Not mentioned in the video, but trying to suppress the fundamental by mixing the fundamental output inversely with the main outs isn’t perfect because the relative levels can shift as you modulate certain parameters. Some other ways to suppress it:
   – External filtering. I usually do this in the DAW when I’m droning with Odessa.
   – Tune so the fundamental is below audio rate, turn up Harmonic Factor to multiply other partials, patch to something that is AC-coupled to filter out the inaudible fundamental.
   – Very carefully tuned comb settings can do it, but that limits your timbre possibilities even more than the above option.
4. The best input for self-patching is, IMHO, Tension. A much more lush “supersaw” style sound than the unison detune.
5. Another self-patch option is Bank (with Harmonic Factor not at noon). It can be reminiscent of those rough engine-like sounds from an Atari 2600.
6. Absolutely do try running Odessa through some distortion. With a few partials, and especially with Tension, it can do some amazing things.
7. An obvious one but sometimes overlooked: you can still use external filters, you’re not limited to Odessa’s own Comb/Partials and Tilt for shaping the spectrum. Sometimes I get something I really like with Comb settings except for one little extra bit at the high end of the spectrum, so an LPF can make that perfect.

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We’re going to my parents’ Sunday for Early Christmas, then on Monday renting a car and taking them to Louisiana where my in-laws live, for an actual Christmas visit. This’ll be the most the two families have seen of each other, and I’m a bit worried they will start talking politics — they’re not in the same corner and my dad has no tact. I’m stressing about that possibility, so I think I’m going to have to say something in advance (as well as warning them about the large and bouncy dog, who we’re going to try to run interference on).

When we’re back from that trip I still have a few more days before returning to work, and will probably start in on that study of Spectraphon. Unless Make Noise wants to release some very detailed videos with a lot more technical digging than they tend to 🙂

Twice now I’ve written up posts with mini-reviews and how I feel about the various clothes I’m trying. But it seemed like a weird turn for a blog that’s been mostly about music stuff. I’ll try to keep it brief (even though I didn’t buy any briefs):

• My spouse suggested I try no-pierce earrings to see what I thought. That was never something I really considered before… but I tried some magnetic ones and kinda like them. I’m willing to try more and maybe get my ears pierced.
• All the shoes are good. The black/white Chuck hi-tops are classic; the black/purple/yellow CX EXP2 chucks are super comfy and 3/4 of a nonbinary pride flag. The Thursday Harness boots are a little dressy but I could wear them to work with black jeans, no problem. And I kind of love the Chuck 70 De Luxe heeled leather boots, the wildest thing I have — too rock-and-roll for the office or to go visit my parents, but I don’t feel too self-conscious in them. This is quite the confidence boost.
  (Do NOT listen to Converse’s advice to size down 1/2 size, I didn’t. I do wish both the hi-tops were a little wider, but every time I put on the CXs I think “these are too narrow” for about 2 minutes and then “these are amazing” when I walk in them. And I have some stretchy laces on the way to make them easier to put on, especially the boots.)
• My “oversized” hoodie isn’t, but fits fine. The various tank tops range from amazingly comfy and perfect (tomboyx modal muscle tank) to too snug, to too low in the neck (but can be worn backwards since I’m layering it anyway). Clothes shopping online without being able to try stuff on is a bit of a challenge, but I feel lucky not to have wound up with anything that needed to be returned. Certainly the selection, ability to compare and find deals, and not feel self-conscious browsing every part of the store for inspiration are an advantage. (For contrast: Kohl’s used to have a formidable big & tall section with a ton of jeans and button-up shirts, and now it’s literally only sweatpants because they put a Sephora in that store and needed room.)

There are some nonbinary fashionistas… no, fashion captains… really rocking a genderful mix-and-match look, or fluidly and nearly flawlessly moving between masculine and feminine and stopping wherever they want on the way. And then there’s neutral androgyny, which is closer to what I’m aiming at but not really specifically my goal, either. My main thought is that I neither want to be too overt, nor covert. Just… true.

Wearing a men’s button-up shirt with men’s blue jeans and men’s Crocs is… okay I guess. It doesn’t give me dysphoric vibes, but sometimes does feel like I’m disguising myself as a man, taking the coward’s way out. If I wear that exact same shirt half-buttoned or unbuttoned over a t-shirt or tank-top, suddenly it’s right. Switching to (men’s) black jeans, cooler (men’s/unisex) shoes, maybe some (men’s/unisex) jewelry and maybe my (men’s) hat all help a bit more. None of that has much to do with gender — but as those fabulous captains say, no piece of clothing has a gender.

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That was me being brief. Huh.

Okay, year in review. Stuff that happened:

• I thought I was going to get heavily into Legos. Instead I have a bunch of Legos in nice organizer cases taking up space.
• My parents moved to the St. Louis area and we’ve been visiting them a lot more. Taking them out to eat, going on Trader Joe’s runs, etc.
• At work we FINALLY released our long-awaited new version, after the Air Force’s cybersecurity certification dragged on for months and I had to personally straighten out compatibility problems between third-party libraries.
• I did more walking around Mallard Lake than in previous years. (This is a combination of weather-dependent and personal energy level.)
• We saw the total eclipse in Perryville, MO. Utterly awe-inspiring, everyone with a heart should get to see one at least once in their lives.
• We’ve had more deer in our yard this year than ever.
• We finally got to go on a “real” vacation, for our 20th honeymoon. We loved Gatlinburg, we really enjoyed Myrtle Beach but we got sick.
• She kind of accidentally got me into Heilung, and I quickly went nuts for them. I am not particularly a Norse culture buff but it’s interesting. I read the translations, and in some of the music I really felt like I was hearing the expression of the kind of love that flows both ways between people and gods, and also the goodwill of good people toward humankind in general. And that led to the urge to get back into some of my religious practices, and that led to rejoining the church where we had first met.
• And that, plus a backlash against increasingly transphobic politics, led to my feeling more my nonbinary self and wanting to express it to be more true to myself, and thus this style reboot.
• I released 6 albums, and I did studies in Unfiltered Audio SpecOps, a wide range of effects plugins, ALM Akemie’s Castle, Xaoc Drezno, and Rossum Morpheus.
• I raged and cried a lot about politics and have come to this: I refuse to let it ruin my emotional life. I refuse to obey in advance. I won’t try to be the kind of fighter that I am not, but I can donate money to the right causes.
• I started to really hate on AI.
• I read up about ADHD and VAST, and yeah… it me. Knowing that is enough for me, I don’t really need an official diagnosis or treatment.
• Everything Everywhere All At Once. Cicadas. DuoLingo.

And now for the musical gear part. Just the highlights:

I actually spent 4 months without changing anything in my Eurorack setup. I kind of plan to do that again in 2025, probably for longer than that, but I am not going to bother making that an official pledge or anything.

• Auza Wave Packets, for taking a relatively vanilla oscillator but elevating it with phrasing/gesture possibilities I wouldn’t otherwise have landed on.
• Noise Engineering Alia, giving me access to the NE oscillators that I like but don’t necessarily want to always keep. And then kind of a rug pull because I love the new Toros Iteritas Alia so much, I won’t want to switch the firmware. 🙂
• RYK Algo replaced my beloved Shapeshifter, and it’s more on target for what I was using Shapeshifter for. All hail FM synthesis! This means I have no more “complex oscillators” in the classic sense. This is fine.
• I had a run with Rossum Morpheus, ultimately deciding it wasn’t for me. But I returned to Make Noise QPAS, this time allowing it to shine at the things it does best, and loving it.
• I let go of my Monome Teletype. It served me well for years, but I found myself using Bitwig Grid or VCV Rack to cover basically everything it was doing for me.

• Neutral Labs Elmyra 2 is pretty great, making my kind of noise and being fun to play. It’s almost up there with the Strega/Minibrute combo.
• Decadebridge Sn is a fun little FM drone synth. Probably a little redundant (especially with Toros now) but it’s an inspiring toy for sure.

• Dawesome MYTH is practically a modular environment on its own and deserves much deeper exploration than I’ve given it so far.
• Madrona Sumu landed at about the same time. It’s mostly found a role as an occasional drone synth for me, but that might be greatly expanded once it finally gets MPE support.
• I went for Arturia V Collection finally, thanks to a stacked discount. This gives me a crapton more software synths to play with. I tried most of them and have a few installed.
• In the effects world there were a few fun ones, but what stands out is Toneboosters Equalizer Pro. The “ambience” setting especially makes it not just an equalizer, and the dynamics work better for me than any other tools I’ve tried. So I’m doing all kinds of tone shaping with it.

• I got the three Nektar expression pedals and MIDI Expression Quatro to convert them to USB Midi, and that has been wonderful.
• I also switched from Roli Seaboard to a Linnstrument 128 and have found my bliss.

These just got announced: Noise Engineering Ampla Legio (a multimode filter/gate with envelope), Fala Versio (formant filter with folding & distortion), and Toros Iteritas Alia (FM oscillator with unique algorithms and control, especially great for drones). I had the pleasure of beta testing them and I have to say, Toros quickly became my favorite Noise Engineering oscillator of all time. I like it so much that it threatens the flexible status of my Alia, so at some point I may have to grab another one for Manis and Cursus and the other things. This is how they getcha…

Toros and Fala are the redacted modules that I used on Arranged Coincidences (I have made a note to update my notes).

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I’ve started working on a study of Xaoc Odessa. It’s designed to make additive synthesis simpler to work with, and it succeeds at that admirably. The manual explains the theory well, too. So I’m just going to concentrate on a few observations and tricks, and combining it with other modules. It’ll probably be a pretty short article.

The one for Spectraphon will be much more involved — possibly more so than the Shapeshifter or Synchrodyne studies were. (What is it with modules that begin with S?) Make Noise manuals are generally quite good, but I have a bit more of an explanation of how it works technically. SAM and SAO modes are pretty complicated, and array creation for SAO is itself kind of an art (which I need to study again). Chaos and Noise modes are simpler but there’s still a bit to say about those too.

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The quest for better personal nonbinary expression is going well so far — it’s already brought me some confidence and happiness and a little bit of gender euphoria. And so far it’s simply come from a little research into style and raiding my own closet. Everything I’ve been wearing comes from the mens’ aisle — I’ve just been more thoughtful and deliberate and slightly educated with it. For instance, I’ve discovered layering. (I like my loose/oversized button-up shirts — putting one either unbuttoned or half-buttoned over a t-shirt or tank changes everything.) I’ve been dressing at home just about like I’d dress to go out, which makes me feel less slobby and is good practice. Means doing more laundry, but okay.

I do have a few new things on the way — some staples to cover basic wardrobe gaps, but also slightly funky boots (mens’ but could lean either way), seriously funky boots (theoretically unisex, definitely an experiment), a couple of shirts designed for nonbinary people (masculine cut but slightly more feminine in colors/pattern), even some leggings (experimental; if they are terrible for my body type they can probably go under jeans on cold days). Some of my old clothes in good condition, and the boots if they are just too much, will get donated to a local trans charity.

There’s also a couple pieces of sort of subtle nonbinary pride jewelry on the way from Etsy stores, and a pair of small magnetic clip-on earrings (another experiment, I’m really uncertain but curious).

Perhaps my confidence will build over time and I’ll get more adventurous, perhaps not. But this is already a win, especially compared to my much more awkward efforts years ago.