Elsewhere
Assault and battery
Australian media have been discussing alcohol-fueled assaults recently, following on from a number of stories about 'king hit' men -- some dying as a result of one punch.
It makes me think about the time I was assaulted and, unsurprisingly, there are many stories from males about this sort of event because it's so common.
Let me share my story before offering a view on why this is so.
I was heading to get a taxi after celebrating my graduation from university in Canberra, when a stranger walked up and hit me in the head. I picked myself up and got in a cab. The driver sympathised with events and dropped me home before I realised I'd lost my glasses. Sometime I also realised I'd blacked out at the scene of the assault.
I called the police and they were not interested in assisting me. Maybe I sounded drunk but it was a rude shock to realise they wouldn't provide any assistance nor take a statement. They also wouldn't check for my spectacles.
I called my sister and she kindly drove me into town in the early hours. We found my glasses, someone had thoughtfully moved them to the side of the footpath. I woke up later that day with a significant bruise on the side of my face, blackening one eye. I already had stitches in my chin from a mountain-biking accident a day earlier.
As I wrote earlier, many people have similar stories about senseless violence from strangers. I was unprepared for the psychological results. Sometimes I couldn't help but flinch from strangers.
Now I wonder if this has become a rite of passage of sorts but more recently when I heard a friend had been assaulted I wondered if a support group could help address the situation. I still feel like I can't make sense of why I was bashed but I guess the commonness of the crime means I shouldn't have too much difficulty finding people who want to share their stories.
Let me share my story before offering a view on why this is so.
I was heading to get a taxi after celebrating my graduation from university in Canberra, when a stranger walked up and hit me in the head. I picked myself up and got in a cab. The driver sympathised with events and dropped me home before I realised I'd lost my glasses. Sometime I also realised I'd blacked out at the scene of the assault.
I called the police and they were not interested in assisting me. Maybe I sounded drunk but it was a rude shock to realise they wouldn't provide any assistance nor take a statement. They also wouldn't check for my spectacles.
I called my sister and she kindly drove me into town in the early hours. We found my glasses, someone had thoughtfully moved them to the side of the footpath. I woke up later that day with a significant bruise on the side of my face, blackening one eye. I already had stitches in my chin from a mountain-biking accident a day earlier.
As I wrote earlier, many people have similar stories about senseless violence from strangers. I was unprepared for the psychological results. Sometimes I couldn't help but flinch from strangers.
Now I wonder if this has become a rite of passage of sorts but more recently when I heard a friend had been assaulted I wondered if a support group could help address the situation. I still feel like I can't make sense of why I was bashed but I guess the commonness of the crime means I shouldn't have too much difficulty finding people who want to share their stories.
Mother Rhyme
Australia in 2 minutes
Strong language but for good effect. Another funny take on Australia from Neel, see more here.
2013
The year didn't really go to plan on here.
It started with an ambition to keep increasing my blog posts and now, as it ends, I'm realising my Bassling blog may overtake this one for output in 2014.
In part it's because I've been focusing more on producing audio and have spent less time documenting passing interests on here.
Another part might be the demise of blogging, a trend I've resisted but can see that other websites have stolen a lot of the audience.
Why have a one-sided conversation on here when I can get a better response on Facebook? (Well, sometimes I want a one-sided conversation, I guess; and other times I use this site as a way to capture stuff.)
Anyway, this year was a good year for my audio productions. A few tracks came out on US-based releases, as well as a couple of self-produced ones.
Another highlight was remixing an apple for the Art Misadventure #3 exhibition at The Roxy.
Western Riverina Arts commissioned me to create a soundtrack for their Reimagining the Murrumbidgee exhibition and then gave me a part-time job, duties for which included designing the catalogue and promoting the show.
I returned to the playgrounds to produce more material for the Centenary of Leeton although I ditched the idea of screening in The Roxy and organised projections on a couple of water towers, like Metropolis in 2011.
The album WHILE brought together some of the better tracks produced for the first 100 Disquiet Juntos.
And I experimented with producing videos for the Junto but found not every project suited this medium.
At the beginning of the year I also experimented with keeping a sketchbook diary and published a few examples. It was fun but time-consuming, though I'm considering returning to the activity next month.
Experimentation continued with reviews of alcoholic drinks in haiku poetry:
Moonlighting as a small business called Witch Media led me to make a TVC for Bidgee Binge which put my bass-playing on air, a track that resulted from a Junto.
Yeah, it's been a good year. You can find a bit more about my 2013 here and it will explain these 12 five-second sections of audio:
All the best in 2014 :)
In part it's because I've been focusing more on producing audio and have spent less time documenting passing interests on here.
Another part might be the demise of blogging, a trend I've resisted but can see that other websites have stolen a lot of the audience.
Why have a one-sided conversation on here when I can get a better response on Facebook? (Well, sometimes I want a one-sided conversation, I guess; and other times I use this site as a way to capture stuff.)
Anyway, this year was a good year for my audio productions. A few tracks came out on US-based releases, as well as a couple of self-produced ones.
Another highlight was remixing an apple for the Art Misadventure #3 exhibition at The Roxy.
Western Riverina Arts commissioned me to create a soundtrack for their Reimagining the Murrumbidgee exhibition and then gave me a part-time job, duties for which included designing the catalogue and promoting the show.
I returned to the playgrounds to produce more material for the Centenary of Leeton although I ditched the idea of screening in The Roxy and organised projections on a couple of water towers, like Metropolis in 2011.
The album WHILE brought together some of the better tracks produced for the first 100 Disquiet Juntos.
And I experimented with producing videos for the Junto but found not every project suited this medium.
At the beginning of the year I also experimented with keeping a sketchbook diary and published a few examples. It was fun but time-consuming, though I'm considering returning to the activity next month.
Experimentation continued with reviews of alcoholic drinks in haiku poetry:
The pop and the fizz
illustrate detonating
deeply tanned berries
Moonlighting as a small business called Witch Media led me to make a TVC for Bidgee Binge which put my bass-playing on air, a track that resulted from a Junto.
Yeah, it's been a good year. You can find a bit more about my 2013 here and it will explain these 12 five-second sections of audio:
All the best in 2014 :)
Nils Frahm on toilet brushes
Read a lot of rave reviews about this guy's performances and this video gives some idea why. Thanks to Schemawound for drawing my attention to it. He's good to know if you want atuff put in your ear.Remixed one of Nils' tunes earlier this year.
And I remixed some of Schemawound's work too
Murrumbidgee view NOT
Just noticed this not-so-local image on the website of my local state-based member
While responding to the Disquiet Junto
The Disquiet Junto is an online group of musicians who respond to weekly directions, sharing their work on Soundcloud. It had its 100th consecutive project this week and it was my 36th track.
I've said the Disquiet Junto is giving me an education and that is a deliberate choice of words because it's a great model for learning. Each week I explore a new creative constraint, learning through my own practise and then comparing and contrasting my experinces with my peers.
It has been a really good activity for me, both for learning and for practice. There are some months in the year where I feel less productive, you can see the pattern in my blog posts. The Junto encourages me to make music and produce audio at times when I need encouragement.
This weekend I made a really good track from the sound of boiling water. It's the sort of thing I might try but not finish, so settting a deadline is another benefit for me. Duke Ellington is attributed with saying "I don't need time, I need a deadline."
This weekend I also finished compiling and remastering 20 tracks for an album of my favourite Junto pieces. I'll post it in the coming week but for now I've created a playlist of the first drafts and listed below are the blog posts about each Junto, including both the Disquiet.com instruction and the discussion at Bassling.com
In a few places there's additional content, including video and one sketchbook diary. Enjoy!
Heading out - Disquiet Junto Project 0089: V’Ger
http://disquiet.com/2013/09/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Accoster (Featuring Jared Brickman's Every Day We Are Dying and Outer Space Does Not Give One Single Fuck)- Disquiet Junto Project 0065: Piano Overlay
http://disquiet.com/2013/03/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
No Nofi (Featuring Lee Rosevere) - Disquiet Junto Project 0066: Communing with Nofi
http://disquiet.com/2013/04/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Having a Barney - Disquiet Junto Project 0095: Discuss Amongst
http://disquiet.com/2013/10/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/2013/07/more-dinosaur-park.html
Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?
5 + 5 - Disquiet Junto Project 0074: Applause Rousing
http://disquiet.com/2013/05/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Dubbed step - Disquiet Junto Project 0091: Walking Music
http://disquiet.com/2013/09/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Race you to the house - Disquiet Junto Project 0064: Composing from Memory
http://disquiet.com/2013/03/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Sense the wind - Disquiet Junto Project 0071: Wind Music
http://disquiet.com/2013/05/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
http://disquiet.com/2013/05/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Dubbed step - Disquiet Junto Project 0091: Walking Music
http://disquiet.com/2013/09/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Race you to the house - Disquiet Junto Project 0064: Composing from Memory
http://disquiet.com/2013/03/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Sense the wind - Disquiet Junto Project 0071: Wind Music
http://disquiet.com/2013/05/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
One totem to another - Disquiet Junto Project 0094: Naturalist Trio
http://disquiet.com/2013/10/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Solitary - Disquiet Junto Project 0053: Ice for 2013
http://disquiet.com/2013/01/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Comic http://showcasejase.blogspot.
Sundaze - Disquiet Junto Project 0099: In the Key of X
http://disquiet.com/2013/11/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Tanku (Remix of Xesus Valle's Tanku) - Disquiet Junto Project 0028: Netlabel Net
http://disquiet.com/2012/07/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Red beards - Disquiet Junto Project 0061: Textinstagr/am/bient
http://disquiet.com/2013/02/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Borrowed dream - Disquiet Junto Project 0076: Dream Sound Dream
http://disquiet.com/2013/06/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
100ºC - Disquiet Junto Project 0100: Vapor Wave
http://disquiet.com/2013/11/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Gudyiwagagi - Disquiet Junto Project 0085: 3 Parts
http://disquiet.com/2013/08/
http://bassling.blogspot.com.
July August September October November - Disquiet Junto Project 0050: -…….–.-..-…-
http://disquiet.com/2012/12/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Enter at own wrist - Disquiet Junto Project 0056: Matter of Time
http://disquiet.com/2013/01/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
I had a sense - Disquiet Junto Project 0098: Woven Audiobiography
http://disquiet.com/2013/11/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
Ballot to the head - Disquiet Junto Project 0088: 3D
http://disquiet.com/2013/09/
http://bassling.blogspot.com/
River views
Via Soundcloud below you can hear excerpts from my soundtrack for the exhibition.
Good one Jamie Boyd
Dreams are weird
I've written elsewhere on the weirdness of dreams but this blogpost will take the discussion to a new level of weirdness.
When I was a kid and I had nightmares and I started training myself to wake before it got too scary. I still seem to do it. So on Saturday morning when I awoke from a dream where I was confronted by a burglar, I woke up feeling a bit agitated.
The dream involved spotting through a window a burglar going through my stuff. I have these internal windows in my house, so I'd assumed it was my current home. I went to the phone and dialed for the police and received an answering machine message with a woman's voice. The burglar discovered me and came rushing over, as if to grab or attack me. He sat on the couch next to me as he did this, seemed to to hear the woman's voice and then turned to leave. I awoke at this point but not before he turned his head, revealing a second face. The face was familiar and male and on the back of his head.
This two-faced figure has resonance with me because as I child I went to London, where I saw an advertisement on the wall in an underground train station of a male with eyes in the back of his head. I remember hiding behind my mother to avoid looking at it. Interestingly, the ad was for insurance -- promoting the idea you could watch out for threats where you wouldn't normally be able to see.
Now the really weird part is that on the Saturday morning I awoke from this dream, my partner's brother Ben was staying the night. In hindsight I think the second face on the burglar may have been his face but I'm not sure.
On Saturday night we got a call from Ben, saying he'd returned home to find he'd been burgled. Ben lives with his parents at present, in a part of the house I've often lived in too and had dreams about in the past. It has a lot of windows. A guitar amp I'd lent Ben was stolen. The burglar had been interrupted by a friend who lives next door, who even spoke to him.
I've had dreams that felt like premonitions before but this one seemed to anticipate news of events that had happened but hadn't yet been discovered. Maybe it's a coincidence but it's an eerie one for me.
My great great grandmother (my mother's mother's mother's mother) was a medium and I've often thought it would be an interesting idea to research. I've also thought I should stop some of my behaviours that reduce the likelihood of dreaming but, frankly, it kinda freaks me out to think about having dreams if they're like this one.
This dream features in my Disquiet Junto piece this week. Have a listen and read more on the Bassling blog.
When I was a kid and I had nightmares and I started training myself to wake before it got too scary. I still seem to do it. So on Saturday morning when I awoke from a dream where I was confronted by a burglar, I woke up feeling a bit agitated.
The dream involved spotting through a window a burglar going through my stuff. I have these internal windows in my house, so I'd assumed it was my current home. I went to the phone and dialed for the police and received an answering machine message with a woman's voice. The burglar discovered me and came rushing over, as if to grab or attack me. He sat on the couch next to me as he did this, seemed to to hear the woman's voice and then turned to leave. I awoke at this point but not before he turned his head, revealing a second face. The face was familiar and male and on the back of his head.
This two-faced figure has resonance with me because as I child I went to London, where I saw an advertisement on the wall in an underground train station of a male with eyes in the back of his head. I remember hiding behind my mother to avoid looking at it. Interestingly, the ad was for insurance -- promoting the idea you could watch out for threats where you wouldn't normally be able to see.
Now the really weird part is that on the Saturday morning I awoke from this dream, my partner's brother Ben was staying the night. In hindsight I think the second face on the burglar may have been his face but I'm not sure.
On Saturday night we got a call from Ben, saying he'd returned home to find he'd been burgled. Ben lives with his parents at present, in a part of the house I've often lived in too and had dreams about in the past. It has a lot of windows. A guitar amp I'd lent Ben was stolen. The burglar had been interrupted by a friend who lives next door, who even spoke to him.
I've had dreams that felt like premonitions before but this one seemed to anticipate news of events that had happened but hadn't yet been discovered. Maybe it's a coincidence but it's an eerie one for me.
My great great grandmother (my mother's mother's mother's mother) was a medium and I've often thought it would be an interesting idea to research. I've also thought I should stop some of my behaviours that reduce the likelihood of dreaming but, frankly, it kinda freaks me out to think about having dreams if they're like this one.
This dream features in my Disquiet Junto piece this week. Have a listen and read more on the Bassling blog.
Oscar Wilde snap
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