wrapping up

The next album is now just short of 63 minutes long, so I’m declaring the recording process done. I’m pretty happy with the sound and feel of it overall, and there are some moments that I happen to think are particularly excellent. Time for mastering, art, and notes.

…and picking a title. I have 10 song titles and a general theme but I still don’t know what I’m going to call the thing overall. Petition to Launch Donald J. Trump Into the Sun With a Giant Trebuchet has a certain ring to it, except I don’t want that fucker’s name associated with my music. 😉

Silhouette has been great for me — it’s on 6 of the 7 tracks I recorded since getting it. Multimod is also amazing, used on the final two tracks, once for audio processing and once as a modulation source to swoop through several related sounds as well as using its Index output to sequence pitch. These modules are good companions for each other, and they both were designed with an open-ended, non-prescriptive creative vision.

With Silhouette, you can kind of see an obvious connection to other Whimsical Raps modules, particularly Just Friends (six outs from JF -> six ins on Silhouette). Multimod is a bit more of an outlier for Make Noise. Many of their modules do have a fair number of targets for modulation, but they’re not particularly parallel ones like, for instance, Silhouette’s multiple inputs or the level controls of a harmonic oscillator or a fixed filterbank or a polyphonic bank of VCOs. But then, the heart of the design for the module was to do something with many, many uses but no clearly obvious intention, to encourage the musician toward creative uses. Having 8 related outputs is almost like calling Marty McFly chicken, just to see what he’ll do.

That said, I’m thinking about that parallelism. And about granular synthesis — because if you run audio through Multimod, it becomes almost a kind of granular processor where each grain is a separate output. Merging them together in Silhouette is satisfying, but so is merely mixing them back together but perhaps in different places in the stereo field, or branching out to different processing. And if you have this rolling cascade of the same signal with different phases, a natural thing to want to do (if you’re me) is use them to open different VCA channels with related audio signals. The notes of a chord or harmonic series, for instance.

I can do that with the gear I have, but it’s awkward. Stereo is one thing, but if I have an octopus-load of audio signals to route into the DAW, that’s every input on my OptX used up. That leaves me with a mere 4 analog inputs that are easy to get to, plus the dedicated channels normally reserved for the Minibrute, bass-or-whatever, and stereo pair for Hypnosis. If I want to do the VCA thing in Bitwig, it also requires 8 channels of my Sweet Sixteen to convert those to MIDI CC. Which I did, but it was like the time I shoved a queen-sized futon mattress into the backseat of a Mitsubishi Lancer — there wasn’t a lot of room left for air.

I’m thinking about two things here. One is Nearness, a very simple, 2HP wide module with 9 jacks on it. The top and bottom are “left” and “right” outputs, and the 7 in the middle are panned L/R based entirely on proximity. (Of course you don’t have to use it for stereo, that’s just the obvious thing. You could pass it 7 gate patterns and get two complementary CV sequences from it.)

The other is the Doepfer A-130-8, which miraculously packs 8 VCAs (with no knobs) and three mix outputs (1-4, 5-8, and 1-8) into a single 6HP module.

My thinking earlier today was to replace my Xaoc Tallin and Mystic Circuits Ana 2 with these two — leaving a small space to be considered later. But after today’s recording, I realized that leaves me with almost zero utility VCAs for other purposes. I need to tread carefully and not rush anything. Meanwhile, I can rise to the McFly challenge and find less-parallel ways to work with the module (and continue to sacrifice much I/O the DAW when I choose that path).

Yesterday I got a notification from the State Department that my passport application was accepted and the card was being printed, and then shipped. Today I got a second notification that it was accepted, oddly enough. I don’t know if it never went on hold and was just slow, nor if it’s going through with “Gender = X” or “Sex = M” on it, or what. I hope not to have to use it regardless.

I’m reading Ink Blood Sister Scribe now, and was thrown off for a bit. It’s nearly set in our world, it’s just that there is a particularly difficult and rare and dangerous form of magic that requires writing books in ink made of one’s own blood. There’s a kind of conspiracy against people with this power. I’m sort of into it and sort of not; I don’t mind a good “hidden society of occultists in a familiar modern world” setting but this feels somehow like it was written by someone who’s not a fantasy author. I don’t especially love the writing style but I’m also intrigued enough to keep reading.

The shirts I bought from Geek Tropical arrived, and they’re great:

They look even better in person. That butterfly one is by Episodic Drawing, who has a lot of really gorgeous designs on the site. There are all kinds of other neat designs as well, it’s just that I really don’t need to collect a ton of button-up shirts. I do have two more I have reserved to put on a wishlist someday or wait for another sale, though.

real talk

Remember kids:

(From the instructions on a car/electronics vacuum I bought.)

I ordered cookies from a trans Girl Scout. Apparently the organization has been supporting trans girls and nonbinary kids for years now. It’s great to see this list and be able to support them as well as give a message of encouragement, while keeping them safe from harassment.

I’ve now recorded songs 5 days in a row. This feels pretty great after my dry spell. Arranged Coincidences was released on December 1, and then I went 58 days before my next recording. That technical study, the holidays and travel, illness, the allergic reaction to Trump, etc. meant music wasn’t happening. But I’m back. Or rather, as one of the song titles says, “still here.”

Album’s at 48 minutes now. I want to add one or two more tracks. My Make Noise Multimod just showed up, and we’ll see what kind of shenanigans that will drive this evening (haven’t played with it except to turn it on, but the LEDs sure are pretty). Silhouette has definitely led to some inspirations — it’s been in every track since it arrived. I’ve been using it to combine signals, drive motion and rhythm, add dirt and space, and play with feedback.

Things are generally more chaotic on this album (which I think fits with the times). In addition to Silhouette naturally leading to that, I’ve adopted its attitude with other sounds and modulation sources as well. In some ways this is a continuation of what I was doing with Tin Birds, but more so. There’s nothing Berlin School about this one. The opening sounds of the first track sound like a simple sequence, but it’s actually a sample of a 1950s sci-fi spaceship sound resynthesized in Dawesome Myth, with scan speed changes as well as the sample’s contents combining into a spontaneous melody. There are multiple layers of sound — dripping, small animalistic sounds, something bumping clumsily into other objects in the sub-bass range, all before I even bring in additional voices which just blend in with it.

I just want to say again, a lot of this happens spontaneously as I’m patching. My subconscious is doing some work, but it’s overall kind of a psuedo-Taoist “let things take care of themselves” approach. I don’t overthink it until afterward. 🙂

One of the songs is named “The Beginning is Always the Hardest,” which comes from a fortune cookie that started with “Be patient” or “Don’t lose hope” or something like that, which very much applied to the current US administration. For no particular reason, I recalled that in the I Ching there’s a hexagram named “Difficulty at the Beginning” (it’s not like I have all of them memorized…) One might think this name would place it first on the album, but I felt there was one that should be before it. And then the plan changed again, when I recorded the Myth-based one mentioned above, which demanded to be first regardless of name themes or the story of how these came about. So now “Beginning” is the third track. As it turns out, “Difficulty at the Beginning” is Hexagram 3.

Some incense from India and elsewhere is made with cow dung, or uses artificial scents. Dung has been burned as fuel by people for centuries, it’s not particularly weird. But this is unsuitable in my religion, which uses incense (A) to purify the air and (B) as an offering. One doesn’t clean things with poop, nor give poop as a gift.

So, most of us turn to Japanese traditional incense — no dung, mostly natural ingredients, less smoke. Nippon Kodo is one of the best known brands, especially their Morningstar line which is cheap, relatively common worldwide, and still quite good quality. (Their “musk” does use artificial synthesized fragrance but isn’t something I would have chosen anyway.) They also have excellent mid-range incense and pricier luxury stuff as well.

The one that always went over the best in my shrine was this:

It’s lovely and more sharp and spicy than a lot of sandalwood incense tends to be. I have been using it sparingly but finally burned the last stick. I didn’t even know it was discontinued — I can’t even find information on it (at least, not in this packging). There is, confusingly, a store named Tendan which sells Nippon Kodo incense, but not this.

However, I’ve been able to find this package at several places, just not directly from the NK shop:

“Tendan Old Temple Meiko Spicy Sandalwood Incense” — Mysore sandalwood with cinnamon, spikenard and benzoin. That sounds like it could be it! These are boxes of 300 sticks for $29, not bad at all. So even though I have literally thousands of Japanese incense sticks from wanting to try all different kinds, I’m placing an order. Unfortunately the shop I’m buying it from only has ONE box left. There are 300 sticks, but if this turns out to be The One, I might have to find another one elsewhere.

Because the shipping isn’t cheap and I might as well make the most of it, I’m also grabbing some Baeido Kobunboku incense, which is another sandalwood blend that comes highly recommended, as well as a hinoki-mint blend.

I read Imogen Binnie’s novel Nevada in two days. This is “a road trip novel that refuses to go anywhere” and tells the story of a trans woman who’s a loser, going on a road trip either to figure her shit out or to escape it, and meets a guy who’s even more of a loser who she thinks is an “egg” (trans person who hasn’t realized it yet). She tries to talk to him about it. The whole think is awkward, messy, I don’t really want to say “gritty” but kind of like that. And relatable, even though I’m not a stoner, never lived in New York or a horrible little cowtown, am nonbinary rather than a trans woman, and only figured it out later in life.

James, like me, encountered the idea of “autogynephilia” online and kind of went “that’s me” — even though it wasn’t quite! I think that may have been a common pitfall for people who weren’t quite cisgender but also didn’t experience dysphoria, early in this century. As Maria pointed out to him, “autogynephilia” was part of an awful narrative about trans women which (intentionally? ignorantly? both?) confused gender, sexuality, and fetishism.

The book leaves a lot unresolved. Does James actually take anything Maria says to heart? Is James actually trans or was Maria off base?

And so when I put the book down, I had to have a good think. Again: am I really nonbinary? Or a trans woman in denial/fear of transition (the process, the stigma, not getting the results I want, etc.)? I went to shrine contemplating this, figuring I’d be writing several pen-and-paper journal pages but I had my answer before I even started writing — the same answer I got in shrine 13 years ago. My gender is “a thing of borders”, I was made that way on purpose, and I am whole and complete. But also some of the way I have been thinking of it has been an oversimplification and I owe myself a bit more contemplation at some point.

hey AshurbaniPAL…

I finished that book on Inanna. It is, basically, a beautiful translation of the myth of Inanna and the Huluppu-tree, Inanana and Enki, the Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi, Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld, and seven hymns. A little bit of commentary about Sumerian and Akkadian culture. But there’s actually nothing at all about the potentially trans/nonbinary people in her priesthood.

In the Descent myth, Enki (the god of wisdom) fashions two “creatures of no gender”, kurgarra and galatur, from the dirt beneath his fingernails, and sent them to sympathize with Ereshkigal’s pains to convince her to give up the captured body of Inanna. That’s in the book. But not in the book: these were the names of priestly callings. Galatur were composers and singers of mourning songs, dressing in feminine clothing, taking feminine names and singing/speaking in a feminine dialect; there’s a line about Inanna having changed them from men into women to strike awe into the people. Kurgarra were leaders of processionals and specialists in protective magics, apparently holding both masculine weapons and symbols of a feminine role, and the either An or Inanna had transformed them as well.

Again, I’m not going to attempt to hold up Sumer as a utopia for trans and nonbinary people. Simply that the oldest recorded human history does in fact include people whose gender doesn’t fit in one of two tidy little boxes. That “radical gender ideology” as a certain felon called it, is at least two millennia older than the Bible (and least four millennia if you’re looking at the cult of Inanna in general during the Uruk period, rather than the date of this particular writing).

I finished watching season two of Arcane. While they stopped leaning quite so heavily on music videos, the story — already a tangled mess of conspiracies, murders, terrorism, family bonds, romantic bonds, betrayal of both of those, illusion and magic — just got increasingly, cosmically, “we’re going to do five minutes of psychedelic special effects instead of explaining any of this and then have entire episodes in alternate timelines” weird. There were certainly some very emotionally stirring episodes and moments, and like I said before, the show consistently looks gorgeous. But overall, I just don’t know. No regrets in having watched it, but I can’t really call it a masterpiece either.

To prevent myself from maxing out my vacation days, I took Friday and Monday off work. I recorded songs on both Thursday and Friday, and will probably do some more today. That’s 31 minutes of music so far.

My spouse had the idea of taking my parents to the St. Louis Aquarium and a nice meal on one of these days, when they’d be less likely to be crowded. But Valentine’s Day isn’t great for restaurants — in fact we tried to go to Mimi’s last night, thinking about how it’s rarely got more than a handful of customers when it’s not Sunday brunch, and there was a waiting list. People with reservations were waiting quite some time, mainly in parties of two, so after maybe an hour’s wait we gave up. Old Spaghetti Factory nearby was also packed full. We went to Culver’s instead.

The forecast for Monday is 11-22 degrees F (about -11 to -5 C) and some very light snow showers in the morning. Not the weather I’d have chosen for an outing, but we might go anyway.

That newest character I started in Guild Wars 2 is doing really well. I’ve soloed several Champions now, including some I had serious trouble with on previous characters. I did eat dirt a couple of times, through a combination of bad luck and overconfidence. But I’m convinced that high sustain condition builds are the way to go for a solo character. Between the poison/burning/torment etc. ticking away on enemies, and a couple of necromantic pets distracting them, I can keep the pressure on even while dodging or getting out of range to heal up. (Normally if you get outside an enemy’s range they immediately heal up to full so you can’t repeatedly hit-and-fade. They do the same if you attack enemies from positions where they can’t get to you — no sniping from an overhang or killing underwater creatures from dry land.)

(The camera in GW2 is totally reasonable for exploration and combat but not great for portraits.)

MAK NOS

Today’s new module announcement from Make Noise has me making a second change to my modular rack already.

The Multimod is a mere 10HP wide, meaning it can replace the Xaoc Koszalin that I just haven’t been using much (and which has pretty decent software equivalents, aside from the FM capabilities… and I have so much FM stuff in my rack it’s really not needed).

As for what it does? A couple of things.

It’s an 8-channel LFO (including stepped or smooth random), where all the channels share a common shape and can be synchronized or offset at different phases and rates. A bit similar in concept to Just Friends or Tides 2018.

But it can also capture incoming signals, record them into a buffer, and then play that buffer back using those shapes (forward, backwards, ping-pong, steppy, randomly rearranged, etc.) Again, with different rates and phases per output, synchronized or not, and with a variable buffer size. And the buffer input can be frozen so it just holds what’s already been recorded. Those signals can be from another LFO, sequencer, envelope, gates, controllers…

…or even audio. Meaning that you can use it as a multitap delay, pitch shifter, and looper, albeit a slightly crude lo-fi-ish one.

This is the sort of “time travel” thing I thought was awesome about the Red Panda Tensor pedal back when I had one, but way cooler and more capable. I’m excited!

just the outline

Whimsical Raps Silhouette arrived yesterday while I was at work, and I spent about 90 minutes playing with it. And then about 3 hours this morning while waiting for stuff to finish building at work.

The module consists of:

  • an input crossfader/selector (the big Spot knob) that scans through 6 inputs, and outputs them on the Light output. The LED display below Spot shows the actual position. The selected signal goes to the Light output (unaffected by any other controls)
  • The little grey knob, if you don’t patch anything to its input, is a built-in modulation source with a sort of “pause” in it. Unfortunately, it has a minimum speed faster than one might like, so you’ll have to patch an external source into the Spot CV input to go more slowly. And then you have to use a ramp at exactly the expected voltage range if you want it to travel in a continuous circle.
  • The All input goes into any unpatched inputs, but with alternating polarity. So as you sweep through Spot, the signal is cancelled and un-cancelled.
  • the selected signal also goes through a filtered BBD (controlled by the Focus knob) to the Shadow output. There’s no built-in feedback, you’re expected to patch that if you want it.
  • The Left/Right outputs also optionally include a reverb (the Blur knob).
  • With the output switch at Split, Spot rotates inputs around the stereo field in a circular manner, and silences them when it points directly at that input. The delayed signal isn’t present on the L/R inputs in this mode (without feedback patching).
  • With output set to Mix, it *also* mixes the Light and Shadow signals directly into the output — which covers that silent gap in the circle.
  • The Atmos switch controls different VCA behavior:
    – Level: the reverb is always present, and Lens controls the main signal level
    – Chain: dry and reverbed signals are sidechained by other input signals (affected by Spot)
    – Expand: the reverbed signal is ducked by the dry signal
  • All of this works with CV signals too, not just audio. So you can mix and distribute different modulation sources, and even (if you’re a bit crazy) affect them with delay/reverb.

The implications of all this are… quite a lot. You can use it for some basic mixing or an end-of-chain effect, or get very weird with feedback patches and make surprising sounds with only a couple of other modules (or just by itself really).

This is replacing Bunker Archeology in my case and I will have absolutely no regrets. In fact the kind of stuttering and reverb that BA did? This can also do that. Not exactly the same way of course, but still.

not by the hair of…

When I decided to shave off my beard, I had no idea how much more effort it would be, every day, to shave the chin, around the mouth and upper lip, compared to all the rest of the face. That area is complicated and not very flat, and spiky stubble can poke unpleasantly. Plus I have a lot more bluish beard shadow there than anywhere else.

I’ve tried multiple things so far to improve shaving. I’ve had some half-decent results but nothing super great, and it’s a bigger time commitment. So I’ve been considering alternatives.

None of those alternatives is growing the beard back though.

I actually bought some wax strips. But apparently they need 1/4 inch of hair to work, and that’s a long time to leave a lot of stubble. I just tried it after a mere 4 days of stubble (which I quite dislike) and it had basically zero effect other than making my face sticky until I cleaned it off with the provided wipes, and then it just smelled weird. 0/10 would not do again.

So I’m getting myself an at-home IPL device. There’s some up-front cost but considering how much razor cartridges (*) cost, in the long term it’s cheaper. IPL isn’t permanent but is pretty long-term, and you can always touch it up. I have the requisite light skin, and the beard hair I’m concerned with is dark enough that it should work well. Certainly it seems like a better choice for relatively sensitive skin than using an epilator (think: small combine harvester made of tweezers), or even shaving really.

(*) double-edged safety razor blades are cheaper, but they don’t *actually* shave closer than multi-blade cartridges. They just encourage people to slow down and learn better technique by necessity. And some people prefer the more old-fashioned methods.

I watched the first season of the Netflix series Arcane when it was pretty new. I don’t play League of Legends, but I don’t think I really missed anything important by coming into that universe cold. It was enjoyable, but it didn’t occur to me to catch up on season 2 until just yesterday when I found it too awkward to eat hot soup and read a paperback in a recliner at the same time.

One thing I didn’t like about the first season was… Imagine Dragons. I don’t actively dislike them, I just am not into them. They did the opening credits song, which I always skipped after the first episode… and then I was chagrined when one of the episodes basically had a music video for that song in its entirety. Feh.

Well, I’ve watched three episodes of season 2 and all three of them had music videos. Plus action scenes that were almost a second music video per episode (the music being mixed well above any other sounds and the action more or less synchronized to it). Some of these are better than others, in terms of how abstracted the storytelling is and how much it feels like a proper part of the episode rather than a kind of interruption. I’d really just rather they didn’t, though.

The visual styles (for there are a few, and they shift with context) are gorgeous and awesome — even though some of the weapons, clothing and equipment are videogame-level silly and impractical, and some of the intelligent races of people are very Jim Henson silly and feel out of place. Some of the characters are extremely cool though, and despite the punching and shooting and exploding and magical weirdness it’s still a very character-driven show. I’m enjoying it overall. I just groan when the music videos start.

Something I used to do on Instagram is post a collection of album covers whenever Bandcamp Friday rolled around and I acquired some music. Today they’re donating proceeds to LA fire recovery, so I picked out several things.

This is an album I had in my collection on Google Play Music, which means I never actually owned it and lost access to it when I cancelled my subscription. Basically, a chiptune and piano duo; they did some music for Steven Universe, and the album has a great cover of “Lonely Rolling Star” from the Katamari Damacy soundtrack.

If I remember right, this is someone who posted the link to their album on either the Lines or ModWiggler forums. Generally chill but not super ambient stuff.

Hiroshi Yoshimura was a pioneer of “environmental music” (kankyō ongaku) in Japan — starting before the US went through its brief New Age frenzy. The genre typically included nature recordings, birds and running water and so on, but this particularly album only had it in the US release, and this reissue is a remastered version of the Japanese original, full of FM sounds and a generally optimistic vibe.

Oren Ambarchi got his start with minimal ambient music with electric guitar, but this album moves into percussion (tuned and not), strings and pianos and sine waves and other things.

This is a composer and sound engineer trained in classical violin and Renaissance lute, turning them (plus processing) into something completely new and different.

I’m just going to call it techno. Berlin techno maybe, dark and heavy with an industrialized feel. But then I have trouble differentiating a lot of dance-oriented genres. Anyway, it’s good.

Alma Laprida plays the tromba marina, a medieval stringed instrument that’s four to seven feet long, processed with effects pedals and an overdriven 18-inch subwoofer and feedback. Whatever you imagine that sounds like, you’re probably wrong. It’s oddly delicate at times.

This is Ezra Buchla on the electric viola (with some overdrive and/or echo at times) and a looper. It’s absolutely lovely stuff!

quiet day

My joy and pride continue. The ghouls running the federal government have been doing vile, underhanded things, and my heart absolutely does go out to people who are harmed and threatened by their cowardly and regressive actions. But we don’t owe anyone misery. Joy, staying true to oneself, and being kind are all small victories over fascism.

When I read about some trans peoples’ experiences I realize how much privilege I have. But we don’t own anyone guilt, either. I would gladly give up privileged status if it meant justice and fairness. If the best I can do is donating to causes that try to help, then that’s what I’ll continue to do. (Today’s donations: ACLU and Private Citizen.)

I’m writing this on Wednesday, offline. Aside from any economic effects a day’s absence from the Internet may have (through ad revenue, Amazon AWS usage etc.) for the purposes of the day’s protest, it’s immediately instructive to me about my habits.

Bathroom breaks, or idle time while working, without catching up on forums or Reddit or Discord or playing a puzzle game? Not logging into an online game after work? What is this, the 90s? Poking at some of the links in my bookmarks bar when I start the compiler is almost a reflex!

I’m allowing myself: Remote Desktop and Teams, to work from home. Work email, and personal email if I receive any. Texts and phone. Bitwig and plugins, since any checks for license and updates are minimal. The Alibris ebook app, since the book I started last night is already downloaded anyway.

Doing this feels oddly quiet. Not literally silent, as I’m listening to music as I write this and work. But as in “the world is quiet here,” to quote the Series of Unfortunate Events books. Like I’m at a cabin in the woods, listening to the wind and the birds and the crackling of logs in a fire.

That book I mentioned is The Trans & Non-Binary Heroes’ Journey. Right out of the gate it talked about how The Matrix was a trans allegory — a statement I’ve seen before but didn’t really understand at the time. The Wachowskis were closeted then, and the studio forbade certain things (like Switch having a male body outside the Matrix and female inside it). It was also before I knew much about the trans experience. I haven’t rewatched the movie in recent years to catch up.

The book lays it out pretty well. Agent Smith gives Neo the speech about “leading a double life” and “one of these lives has a future, the other does not” — and he’s right but not about which life ends. Neo isn’t trans, but he does go through a transition that involves drugs and surgery, shedding his old name, dressing differently, becoming more himself and finding freedom.

At least according to the book, the red pill symbol was chosen by the Wachowskis not just for the Alice in Wonderland allegory, but because it looks like spiro, the most-presecribed hormone blocker. This makes it doubly funny that incels and MRAs and QAnon cultists talk about “taking the red pill.” It’s just one self-own after another with those putzes, isn’t it?

(Another thing to add to the list: how many times I end up searching for some bit of info. Photos of spiro. Synonyms for “loser.”)

About halfway through the book, there’s a bit about the sheet joy of the “Alone Together” episode of Steven Universe. Steven and Connie accidentally fuse (through alien superpowers) into the nonbinary Stevonnie temporarily, and Garnet (who is herself a fusion) gives them a pep talk and commands them to “go have fun!”

I have seen some enbies complain that proper representation should be human, not aliens, robots, faerie etc. But in practice, Steven is much more human than alien. He’s living in a human society, albeit with three alien “moms” along with his beach hippie dad. His inherited superpowers do not come naturally to him at first. He is, most of the time, a little boy allowed to be himself, unconcerned with gender norms or performative masculinity. And Stevonnie is arguably even more human than he is.

Plus: there’s Lars. We know he is attracted to women, but his palette of pinks and purples and his hairstyle always read to me as queer-coded. He is discontent with his life in Beach City, but embraces his role as a space pirate among his found family of misfit aliens, striking poses in a fabulous cape. Hmm. There’s also an episode where Steven’s consciousness ends up stuck in Lars’ body and there’s a definite sense of dysphoria there. There’s also an episode where Pearl courts a human lesbian side character (“Mystery Girl” or “S.”), and late in the series we’re introduced to a human kid named Shep who uses they/them pronouns (although we never see Shep again).

The other complaint is about the Gems being nonbinary but not obvious about it — “the Gems are nonbinary like Dumbledore is gay” as someone put it. And, well… kinda? They do almost all use she/her pronouns aside from a few he/him later on. Many of them appear feminine… although some are definitely more masculine or androgynous in appearance.

But let me remind people (A) “nonbinary people don’t owe you androgyny” and (B) this was a children’s TV show that began in 2015 when most LGBTQIA+ people hadn’t even heard the word “nonbinary” yet. There was corporate oversight. Rebecca Sugar wasn’t out as nonbinary, and might not have had it all figured out at the time the show began. There were a ton of not exactly subtle queer themes in the show — enough to get it banned, or at least certain plotlines banned, from several countries. So maybe cut the show a little slack?

…and now, just before the end of my work shift, I’ve finished the book. I did skim a little bit where it was talking about TV shows I wasn’t interested in, especially when it was getting heavy with people dealing with transphobia.)

I also wrote all of this up to here, and had a quite productive day while doing it, so yes, one can multitask!

So I cracked open my non-boxed set of Moomin books, and found they’re not numbered, not arranged in order in the package, and not in order on the little card that came with them. I had to look at the copyright dates to determine the correct order:

  • The Moomins and the Great Flood (not included in this set! sigh)
  • Comet in Moominland
  • Finn Family Moomintroll
  • The Exploits of Moominpapa
  • Moominsummer Madness
  • Moominland Midwinter
  • Tales from Moominvalley
  • Moominpapa At Sea
  • Moominvalley In November

While these are “for kids”, small books with big print and illustrations and cute fantasy creatures, they’re also clever and involve some adult concerns and have some emotional depth and subtlety one might not expect. And that’s why I wanted to read them again now.

I recorded a track today. A couple of drones, a part played on the Linnstrument where I’m making Aalto act more like an Oberheim or something than my usual West Coast stuff.

This album is definitely going to be about how I am relating to current events. Sonically, the two finished songs have certain filter shenanigans in common and I think I may continue to run with that for the rest of the project. Fala Versio and QPAS, but also playing with moving resonances and phase shifts in software filters.

I’ll get back to the Spectraphon study or not, depending on how I feel about it. That’s not what I need to do right now.

contra vermes

My spouse and I were talking about gender Sunday night when something in the conversation — I don’t know what — miraculously flipped my anxiety switch to the off position with an almost tangible click. I’m not going to overthink it, I’m just going to be glad!

I still entirely reject and deplore MAGA’s attacks on trans and nonbinary people as harmful, scientifically and morally bankrupt, fascistic, and beneficial to absolutely nobody. Likewise the anti-“DEI” garbage. And the anti-immigrant stuff, though to be fair, Obama and Biden were doing a lot of that too, just crowing about it a lot less. (And I am still deeply disappointed in the hapless, spineless complicity of the Democratic party as a whole.)

But I am serene. Neither panic nor rage disturb my personal joy now.

Tomorrow, Feb 5, is the 50501 protest against Project 2025. Unfortunately the web presence for this action is a mess. It’s “officially” being discussed on Reddit, which is a horrible platform for finding basic information quickly, and Bluesky. Some key things:

  • the organizers are urging that this must be a 100% peaceful and nonviolent protest
  • info for each state is here. Some of it is not great either (location but not time, QR codes that simply go to the general subreddit…
  • this info (including “team 2” protesting at home and “team 3” wherever you have to be that day). I’ll be working from home, but I will do my best to otherwise stay off the internet (and my phone, unless I get calls/texts).

In GW2 I deleted the new warrior and started a necromancer… probably my fifth one at this point! Going for a high-sustain Condition Scourge build variant, using a pistol from weaponmaster training and a couple of disposable pets to tank a little. It plays a bit differently, so it feels relatively fresh. A real survivor; I did get downed once while soloing a Champion — but downed isn’t dead, and the fight was close enough that Life Leech won the fight for me, and I got back up.

While some areas in GW2 got a refresh over the years, almost all of the truly new content has been level 80 areas that combine a longish set of story quests and open world areas. As many times as I’ve been through the various leveling ares, I’d really appreciate some new ones for the variety. I have stopped the bandits from blowing up the water supply pipes for Divinity’s Reach, bowed to the Dignified Cow, and gathered the $#!@%#ing rabbit food so many times now. I’d really like some new things to do when leveling a character. But I also don’t want to just use the “skip to level 80” items that the game throws like Mardi Gras beads. There’s something satisfying about hitting 100% exploration in a zone.

A blogger that just started up recently wrote a post on Monday about 3D movies. Here’s my thought:

I have to wear glasses, and almost universally, 3D glasses work poorly with them. I have a vague memory of one 3D movie that worked well; I was thinking it was either Tron: Legacy or Coraline. But my spouse, who would have been there and also wears glasses, doesn’t remember any good experiences with 3D, so it’s possible I just saw Tron and thought “yes, this should work well in 3D.”

Avatar, for all that people hyped how great it looked, was the worst of these. I could not even see characters’ faces! I had to look them up online afterward to figure out who people looked like. But this was only my third-worst movie experience.

The second-worst was Cloverfield. I don’t like shaky-cam ever, and here we were near the front row. (We hadn’t even been planning to go, but happened to randomly bump into folks from work at a restaurant who invited us along.) I spent a lot of the movie looking at the floor and occasionally glancing up.

The absolute worst experience was Blair Witch Project: shaky-cam plus bad hot dogs. The friend I’d gone with threw up in a trash can halfway through the movie, and then was okay. I didn’t and was desperately ill for the next three days.

We saw 5 movies in theaters in 2023, but none at all in 2024. Not Furiosa, not Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, not even War of the Rohirrim, because the reviews of them were all pretty meh.

This year, I’ll probably want to see Thunderbolts mostly for Florence Pugh and David Harbour and their fun MCU characters. The Cap movies have generally been pretty entertaining but I could wait for reviews unless my spouse particularly wants to go, or we happen to be dining out and decide to go. I’m not nearly as familiar with Fantastic Four as X-Men or Avengers, so that could also be a “wait for reviews” thing. …wait, I just saw the teaser trailer and the retro style looks really fun, so I do kinda want to see it just for that. Yes I am easily amused, why do you ask?

books and melting

There was a water main break Friday morning and we were under a 48-hour precautionary boil water advisory. They said it was safe for bathing but it’s hard not to feel at least a little bit possibly icky. This has been the second break in about 2-3 months, though the previous one didn’t come with the advisory.

I found and ordered an inexpensive set of the Moomin books. But while I wait for shipping from the UK, I still needed something else to read.

For reasons one might guess, I put a book on my wishlist two or three few years ago titled The Star Thief (by Jamie Grey; there are others with that title). My sister-in-law gave me it for Christmas. Unfortunately, it’s really not very good. Not-quite-cyberpunk in a generic SF setting with a few gizmos borrowed from well-known properties and at least one very stereotypical Star Wars moment. The protagonist is a “smart”-sexy-athletic woman — but she never does anything actually smart, she’s just good at hacking as well as fighting, running, hiding, and seduction… except she is absolutely unsubtle about the latter because (according to her) men are all dumb and horny, even though the first three guys she tries this with are completely unfazed by her attempt. She meets an ex who she thought was dead but actually betrayed her crew, he’s a musclebound asshole with anger issues and resents her, and of course she’s attracted to him. You just know at some point he’s going to forcefully grab her to be intimidating but instead they’ll kiss and ugh barf. So I’m kind of reading it now out of spite, I guess?

StoryGraph’s to-read list is pretty short. Here’s what I have on deck:

  • Tove Jansson: the 8 Moomin books
  • Emma Torzs: Ink, Blood, Sister, Scribe (novel)
  • Diane Wolkstein & Samuel Noah Kramer: Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth
  • Imogen Binnie: Nevada (novel)
  • Ariana Serpentine: Sacred Gender (I’m not expecting too much but we’ll see)
  • Jessi Kneeland: Body Neutral (also not expecting too much)
  • Valerie Estelle Frankel & Dean Leetal: The Trans & Non-Binary Hero’s Journey

I’m not planning to add Sumerian stuff to my religious practices, but I’m curious, and I’m told there’s interesting myths/ideas about gender in Inanna’s priesthood. (Given the thing about hijra I just learned, I’m going to take any claims with a grain of salt; it’s not like we can just ask some Sumerians to verify.) Also a previous reader of this copy must have thought the book needed at least one supplemental illustration:

We now have plans and reservations for a road trip to visit my brother and his wife this summer. Once again renting a car and bringing my parents. Each way, it’s two 10-hour days of driving in a row (plus breaks and unexpected traffic), but with three drivers that’s not too bad. We haven’t seen them since… probably Christmas 2022? And they have a new house and plenty of space.

Aside from that one track, I haven’t been making music that much. Some more testing of Elmyra led to recording a drone that I might incorporate into something though.

Having finished out my elementalist’s planned build, I started yet another new GW2 character. A warrior this time, super straightforward to play. But I kind of don’t like how little ranged potential they have. Axes are their highest-damage melee weapon, but they have no good movement skill and one weak short-range throw (compared to axes for necromancers or thieves which are 100% short-range skills) and warriors don’t run particularly fast either. Also one of the axe skills has a really goofy animation. So I might not bother to stick with it. I might instead go back to my dual-mace Soulbeast and finally go through the Cantha story.

Since the snow and ice have melted and been rinsed away by gentle rain, and the temperature is climbing from the mid 40s to low 60s, I’m gonna go walk around Mallard Lake this morning. The only question is whether I’ll listen to Heilung’s Futha or my own Tin Birds, both of which I find pretty good walking music. Probably the latter since I have put on that Heilung album a few times over the last few days, partly for the overall themes of protection and healing, and partly this specific line:

Fjón þvæ ég af mér fjanda minna rán og reiði ríkra manna
(I wash off my enemies’ hatred, and the greed and anger of powerful men)

That’s from the Galdrabók, from around 1600 making it possibly the least old historical source Heilung has used. But still, very much relevant 425 years later.

taking a stab

I’m diabetic and on three different injectables: a once-a-week Ozempic (blood sugar control was the primary purpose of this drug long before it trended for weight loss), once a morning slow-acting insulin, and pre-meal fast-acting insulin.

All of these use pen needles rather than syringes — the medication is in a “pen”, and you screw on a small single-use needle, dial in the dose, poke yourself with it and hit a button. Painless most of the time, but a hassle (in addition to the process and supplies, the pens require refrigeration until first use), and expensive in America even with insurance.

When you’re done, you slip the safety cap(s) back on, unscrew the needle and throw it into a sharps container. But what if you’re not at home? A coin pocket in jeans, if you have it, can hold ONE used needle in its safety cap, but beyond that…

The Good

BD used to make a “SafeClip” device about the size of a thumb. It was great, clipping off the needle and storing hundreds of them safely inside itself, lasting for many months of regularly going out. And they were about $5 each.

A few years ago they were discontinued. Old stock lasted a while, but eventually sold out. Clones appeared on the market at $45 per clipper…

The Bad

I got a box of 5 pocket sharps containers before our TN/SC vacation. All plastic, about the size of 5 SafeClips, it fills a (men’s) jeans pocket and the needles rattle loudly inside. There’s a plastic slide on the top, which has open, closed, and permanently locked positions. It does not hold the safety caps, just the pen needle itself, which means you have to use the serrated teeth at the edge of the hole to help you unscrew it into the container and then awkwardly shove it in.

The first one worked fine, but I didn’t like it. The second one locked itself closed forever in my pocket while on vacation, rendering itself useless with only a few needles in it. The third one opened itself in my pocket more than once — the final time, it dumped out three used needles, which I discovered by jabbing my finger into one of them. The fourth and fifth ones were thrown into the recycle bin that evening.

The Ugly

I found a clipper by MediCool, $15 each. Similar to, but uglier and mechanically more awkward than the SafeClip, it claims to work for both syringes and pen needles. But the clipper is, unnecessarily, recessed deeply behind a narrow plastic hole — 4mm needles don’t even reach it. I grabbed the Dremel and slowly, awkwardly ground off all the plastic that was in the way. This makes the thing even uglier, but it does work. I can’t really say I’m satisfied, but there may not be a better alternative right now. There are 8.4 million people in the US on insulin and this is the best we get? Come on, free market, do that thing you’re theoretically supposed to do.

I’m now almost done with Trans/Rad/Fem. Like I said, the writing is really compelling and it just makes me want to devour the whole book.

One of the narratives about nonbinary gender is that many cultures around the world recognize(d) more than two genders, and in at least some cases, these people were described as “revered” in some way, often with particular socio-religious roles. And then the colonizers came along, attempted to outlaw them, and caused them to be stigmatized.

Missing from this narrative — obvious in hindsight after reading this book — is that these cultures tended to be highly patriarchal anyway and that gender-based roles likely should be seen as a red flag rather than privilege.

The author — a trans lesbian from India — says with authority that a majority of the hijra of India are trans women by identity, not nonbinary. It’s just that their society doesn’t recognize them as “real” women, because the only value women traditionally have in India is reproductive. So it shunts them off to a third gender instead — and does the same with intersex people as well as some cis women who are unable to conceive. They live together in communities in abject poverty, and their “special” roles are dancing at weddings (where this isn’t forbidden because their “barren” state might infect the bride) and sex work. And this was true before the British colonization of India. (This doesn’t absolve the colonizers of anything.)

In other cultures, it’s not necessarily the case that counting trans people as a separate gender is inherently anti-trans — but it’s not necessarily not the case either. So, maybe let’s not use cultures that we don’t understand as a model for how ours should be.

Scythians for example. They had a class of priests, born male, who were treated with estrogen extracted from horse urine and considered a separate gender. There were also apparently trans men who were warriors. But this is also a culture that treated women as property of the king, who loaned them to male warriors to be their wives and servants.

This has been why I don’t use the term “sekhet” from Ancient Egyptian either for myself or any of the nonbinary gods of my religion. We don’t really know what the word implied in Egyptian society. Probably not “eunuch” as early archeologists assumed because there’s no evidence of castration, but that leaves a lot of possibilities and not all of them are good.