I haven’t gotten back to music-making mode yet or in-depth exploration of the new stuff. I did try out a couple of plugins, haven’t committed to anything yet though.
Audiority released free Pyros Versio firmware, based on its Pyros plugin. I was all excited to give it a try, thinking it might be competition for Lacrima Versio. But then I checked out the original plugin, which is an older one that escaped my notice, and… it’s quite good. I like the additional options and potential subtlety/control of the plugin more than the idea of heavier modulation or hardware location (*) in the firmware. But I think I might wait for a sale and to see if I change my mind.
Node Audio has a new microtuning plugin, Pitch Grid. More structured than Entonal Studio, it’s all about the 2D lattice, which is a part of the theory I still don’t quite grasp but it’s helping me appreciate it a bit more. You can stretch the octave/equave with one knob, and skew the tuning with another, using it to align your scale with markers on a pitch ruler that are calibrated to JI, the harmonic series or an EDO scale. There’s a button to optimize the stretch and skew to make selected intervals as in tune as possible, which quickly generates compromises such as meantone scales, perfect triads but stretched octaves, etc. It’s also helping me understand how limits work in Just Intonation on a more practical level. It emphasizes mapping a piano keyboard (or arbitrary number of notes per octave/equave) to a tuning, with a knob for a mode offset. Very nice. But there’s a bug where it destroys MPE pressure data, which is super important to me… so I’m holding out for that to be fixed.
The other stuff I’ve tried has been easy to say “meh” to.
My mother-in-law had a serious health issue last week and had to spend a few days in the hospital. Now her mother in a tiny town in northern Missouri is in the hospital, with a heart issue and complications, and she’s in no condition to drive up from Louisiana for a visit. My spouse might go down and pick her up, but is waiting for the word. (Update: she’s been discharged and is at home now.)
We got the official diagnosis on my dad. He’s got frontotemporal dementia (FTD), from a buildup of the tau protein in the brain. Like Alzheimer’s and most kinds of dementia, there is not currently any cure, though there are meds that may slow the progression, and he’s on one.
FTD is more of a group of diseases, rather than a specific one with a single fixed set of symptoms. Information about it often talks about trouble with language, behavior changes, lack of empathy, and inappropriate behavior. But the main symptoms my dad has is trouble with memory (both failure to remember, and “remembering” events that never happened), general confusion, and making even simple decisions. He also has trouble with writing, though reading is okay and speaking/understanding people is fine. He seems generally happy and makes goofy jokes just like he always did, and if he’s had any change in his personality, he’s mellowed a bit and gotten a bit less inappropriate. He does sometimes notice some detail and then fixate on it, and sometimes false memories form around them — like a recent story about “black blobs of tar” left on a neighbor’s roof from some dispute between two roofing companies, which were just normal attic vents. He’s definitely reliant on my mom for a lot of daily life stuff, and that does put a lot of pressure on her.
As for my own health recently… blood sugar is going okay, with some days where all three pre-meal readings are below 100 or at least below 120, and some days where a couple of them might reach the low 130s. Taking less insulin makes my appetite easier to manage. Also, small quantities of nuts (peanuts, walnuts, occasionally pistachios) are a good, satisfying snack, as are small tomatoes or boiled eggs. Belvita cookies (not to be confused with Velveeta) for breakfast don’t spike blood sugar and do tend to be satisfying, although homemade bread seems OK too in moderation.
On the mental side, my calm certainly has been challenged by Trump and his threats of war crimes and genocide that hinted at a nuclear strike. It was another TACO Tuesday (Trump Always Chickens Out)… or was it all meant to manipulate the market, so he and his cronies could buy low during a bullshit panic and then sell after the stock market recovered on the news of a bullshit ceasefire? Regardless, I’m at least glad the doomsday devices are still sitting in their silos. But there isn’t exactly peace or stability either.
Trump started a needless, useless war with no goals, then seemed to set the goal of fixing the trouble that he started and he isn’t even getting that right. He’s succeeded in bombing a girl’s school, a “double-tap” strike on a bridge to kill the rescue crews who came to aid wounded civilians, the deaths of several US soldiers and severe damage to US military bases and allied bases, losing a whole bunch of aircraft, depleting US munitions, withdrawing some of the watch on North Korea, destroying a whole bunch of oil and infrastructure, disrupting global trade, ending sanctions on Russia, Iran charging new fees on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and showing everyone (who didn’t realize it already) just how low he is willing to go and how crazy he is. There are Republicans calling for his impeachment… although of course not the ones currently in office. A lot of former MAGA types and right-wing talking anuses have turned against him over this. There are articles of impeachment out for Hegseth too.
Maybe this will finally be the thing that ends his career and that of his flunkies. One can only hope it does so before even worse war crimes, tragedies and self-owns happen. He still has the nuclear codes. But how often have we heard “Republicans in disarray!” and “Trump is losing his support” and “rats fleeing the sinking ship” and all of that, and yet they’re back kissing his ass, covering for his crimes and blunders, and supporting his lies 48 hours later?
Anyway, this was supposed to be about my anxiety… I held on. I was worried but didn’t panic, I was a bit stressed but didn’t lose it, I got mad but I didn’t freak out. I’d really rather not face real-world existential threats as a test of my coping skills though.