Yup.
You see, caring, especially about people you don’t know, is one of those terrible things that only leftists do. Even respecting other people enough not to be a total dick to them, is failing to be competitive and assert supposed dominance or the superiority of whatever in-groups you belong to either by accident of birth or by choice. It’s anti-capitalist and unmasculine. So is, apparently, wanting to live in a world that’s not starving and choked by poison… because I guess a Real Man ™, a true patriot, would just power through the smog and the pesticides and microplastics and let the weak die.
I kind of don’t want to go from there to talking about my cat, so let me first talk about GRM Tools Atelier. There has been at least a constant low-key hum of hype around it for several months now, ever since Superbooth at the very least. GRM Tools was once (apparently) an amazing and unique set of spectral effects plugins, from INA GRM, the other French audio research group that wasn’t IRCAM. The world caught up and somewhat passed them by. Then earlier this year they announced a new suite of tools and an apparently well-designed interface that unifies them. No exciting new types of effects really, just a nice wrapper for it. Of course I’ve long said that how creative tools feel to use, and the approaches they encourage, are often the most important factor. But also, I feel like I have things well covered with what I have, so I’m not convinced to spring for it.
As it turns out, the suite of available tools is really quite limited to start. They’re promising to add more modules to their system over the next couple of years (at no additional cost). The development team is apparently two people, so they’re going to have their hands full delivering on promises as well as dealing with support.
The bigger strike against them is… it’s Mac-only, at least until “early 2026.” And that sends up red flags for me. If you’re planning on a multiplatform release, but you don’t develop in a multiplatform way from the start, and plan to catch up later, with your small overworked team? It’s honestly not a great sign.
Look, I love some of what Madrona Labs has done, and the ideas behind most of their synths. And Aalto is certainly among my top favorite softsynths of all time. But with Sumu… it was announced in December 2017, to be released originally in Spring 2018. And then — in between sporadic “coming soon” and “taking longer than expected” updates, early 2019, fall 2021, and then “Early access release lacking a few features” in fall 2023, which actually shipped in May 2024. There have been 1.0 and 1.1 releases since then, but frankly the MPE is still fairly broken and it’s just awkward to use. It was a great concept, but it just did not come together IMHO. Part of that development hell was working on Mac first with a “semi-multiplatform” approach and then trying to port to Windows.
With GRM Atelier, from the reviews it sounds like they have an impressive interface, but again, it’s just Mac-only right now, with a limited number of plugins, and some of the plugins are really not best-in-class. They’ve also had an awkward release with complaints about discounts not applying correctly, PayPal not working, existing accounts not being recognized etc. I just have no confidence in it.
A couple of recent reads:
The Out Side, edited by The Kao. An anthology of short, autobiographical comics from a number of trans and nonbinary authors. Mostly uplifting and heartening, and kind of cozy. More of this feeling, please!
Kate Bornstein’s Gender Outlaw. One of the original books about nonbinary gender identity before it was even called that — in fact the community’s use of terminology has evolved enough that the author updated the edition about 10 years ago to make sure it wasn’t misinterpreted. Of course it was much more radical when it was written than it is now, and I kind of wish I could read the original version and feel how it would have hit people at the time. (I kind of find the history of gender theory over the last 100 years or so interesting, both in terms of the general public’s understanding more so the queer community. In Transit was really good for that.) Overall it was probably one of the better books on the subject, though I skipped over the plays at the end. (Theater is just not my thing for the most part, and I can’t think of much that’s duller than reading the script for a play, unless it’s reading a musical score.)
One thing they did which I thought was very cool, was in the intro to the Chinese translation, included a note that, when she dies, she’d like to be called upon by nonbinary people as an ancestor. My religion also has a tradition of ancestor veneration, and I’ve been unsure about doing that with some other figures from history. But I will be sure to do this (may that day not come too soon).
Okay, the cat. His urinalysis came back normal, which is great (the vet had seemed particularly worried about kidney issues). But in his bloodwork, what jumped out was a test for stress hormones that indicate stress in the walls of the heart, with a normal range of 0-100… his was 1500. I’m waiting on scheduling more diagnostics (EKG, x-ray and ultrasound). Very likely, HCM (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy), which tends not to show any signs until it’s progressed a lot, and about which “the outlook is extremely variable” depending on the cause. Hyperthyroidism is both a common and easier to deal with cause, but I guess there’s not been anything pointing strongly to that. So we’ll see.
He’s 14, so a senior but he may still have a good few more years in him. Whatever time he has, I want him to be comfortable and happy.