into the sea.

nicolaslamoureux: Some black and white pictures I took with my...

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 21:45:31 -0400

nicolaslamoureux:

Some black and white pictures I took with my ‘Blackbird, Fly’ in London, Ontario.

Taken with Instagram

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 22:09:04 -0400

Taken with Instagram

Non-art for artists.

Tue, 22 May 2012 19:45:38 -0400

http://soundcloud.com/astudyinexperiments/tracks

Sandwich.

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 01:30:40 -0500

A sandwich is a sacred art form. It should not be dictated by any recipe or adhere to any set type. It’s a child of necessity and desire, born of what you have and what you want. Yesterday I made a sandwich out of a piece of baguette, peri peri chicken cold cuts, provolone, tomato, and mayo and sriracha. It was perfect. But tomorrow it may not be perfect. Tomorrow it might need lettuce. It might need bacon, tuna, or egg. It might need none of the above. There is no best sandwich. There are infinite best sandwiches. Adapted and created to the infinite possible states of the universe at any given time. The perfect sandwich is a quantum state of every possible sandwich; the wave function only collapsing into a single sandwich when observed at the particular moment in time it is needed. Sandwich.

Short interlude-type thing I made. There’s no mixing or...

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 20:58:00 -0500

Short interlude-type thing I made. There’s no mixing or effects on this yet whatsoever, but I’m not really sure what I’d want to change. Maybe turn the bass up a touch.

Music. Although I can’t really call it more than a demo,...

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:10:00 -0400

Music. Although I can’t really call it more than a demo, I think I’ve finally stumbled across the sound I’ve been wanting to make. It’s long, tedious, and not a whole lot actually happens. It kind of threatens to go places, but never really does. There’s a bit of a surprise in the middle, but then that doesn’t go much of anywhere either. I know a lot of people find that kind of thing boring in a song, but I find it fascinating.

This one was kind of born out of a number of musical influences, along with the fact that I recycled instruments from that other song I did so I didn’t have to worry about making new sounds. Aside from the more obvious Boards of Canada and various Mono-esque post-rock bands, there were a few random influences, including a song I heard on CBC2 by a present-day classical composer named Arvo Pärt, the music of my friends Brenden, who I’ve also made my de facto producer by sending him my tracks in various stages of completeness for advice, and Chris (Billions and Billions), as well as a few surprise ambient/minimalistic tunes by another friend, Jeremy Vancaulart. Although all of them are miles ahead of me in terms of writing and making music, I think I’ve finally made something in the right direction. Check out the music in the links I posted if you’re into music that sounds better than the song I just posted.

If you like it, let me know; or if not, let me know how you think I can make it better. Also if you have any ideas for a title, let me know, because I still suck at that.

P.S. If you listen closely at the end, you can hear a few notes which are a product of my cat stepping on the keyboard as I was recording the glockenspiel/bell type thing. Since my cat’s name is Snoop Dogg, I can officially say this song is by me, featuring Snoop Dogg.

geneticist: Scientist-turned-artist Iori Tomita, has used his...

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 03:28:45 -0400

geneticist:

Scientist-turned-artist Iori Tomita, has used his scientific knowledge to create beautiful works of art. He begins by dissolving the specimen’s flesh. After that, he injects dye into the specimen.

your star: AP Bands

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 22:58:06 -0400

your star: AP Bands:

heyyda:

I’ve started to think about my end of the year list, and what kind of lists I plan to include this year. I have now decided that I want to have a list for absolutepunk.net bands — the bands that users of the forums are a part of that I really love.

My current list:

Billions and Billions (obvs)

So if I remember correctly, my last post on here had something...

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 02:08:00 -0400

So if I remember correctly, my last post on here had something to do with not having made music and being upset about it. Well recently I’ve been trying again, and I’m pretty happy about it. I’ve only really attempted one or two songs so far, but I think this one sounds better than I was expecting anything I had made to sound. I’m still debating whether I’ll keep it like this or do a little more with it, but I have historically had a tendency to put too much into things so I may try to practice restraint this time and leave it how it is. Regardless, I don’t really feel ready to unleash this to everyone, which makes tumblr, where I believe I have no more than ten followers, the perfect place.

At any rate, if you like hearing things that aren’t silence, go ahead and press the play button. It has no name yet. I’m terrible at things involving words. Probably why this is the fifth post I’ve made in two years or however long I’ve had this.

Billions & Billions: The difference between your profession and an artistic profession

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 19:39:02 -0400

Billions & Billions: The difference between your profession and an artistic profession:

billionsandbillionsandbillions:

Not enough people believe art is a professional skill that deserves payment, unlike other professions. Providing art for people to enjoy isn’t looked at as a service, but instead as a privilege. To be creative is a privilege, but to share that creativity should be a service. How this service…

billionsandbillionsandbillions: As a way for me to promote my...

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 00:45:45 -0500

billionsandbillionsandbillions:

As a way for me to promote my Kickstarter project, I am debuting a demo here on Tumblr. It is a song called “Lueda”, named after, and written for one my closest friends.

The song is unfinished, just like the rest of the demos I have, because my laptop is too out-of-date to run the software correctly. You’ll notice in this demo how there is some crackling and popping, because the software could barely render this simple 2:30 track.

I’d really love to continue to write and record my own music; it is my love and passion. In order for me to do this, I need to get people to pledge on my Kickstarter project. Please, pledge anything if you can, and pass this along to whomever you think would be interested. Reblogging this would help spread the word enormously. Thanks for your time, lovelies. I hope you enjoy the weekend!

http://kck.st/gdxbsc

Read xkcd.

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 01:09:00 -0500

Read xkcd.

billionsandbillionsmusic: The album is finally done, and have...

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:17:45 -0400

billionsandbillionsmusic:

The album is finally done, and have decided to not reveal a release date at all. It will soon find its way onto the internet.

I am giving away 100 uniquely designed cd’s away, along with a 17” poster, to whomever wants one. Just send me your name and address to oldwirehands@gmail.com.

Resolutions.

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:20:00 -0400

So it has come to pass that nearly every trivial point I have addressed so far on here has been resolved. I say nearly, because my first pseudo-issue concerning the lack of an ‘e’ has not resolved itself in any appreciable manner. So more accurately, three of the four points have been resolved, but the first point being little more than a sentence long and concerning only the spelling decisions of this site’s creators, I feel comfortable in stating that nearly every point has been answered satisfactorily.

Concerning the order of presentation of these resolutions, I have decided on a chronological approach, addressing each point in the order they were resolved. After a short internal debate, this option appealed to me more than either addressing the issues in order of the chronology of the original postings, or in the reverse of that, which would allow the paragraphs presented below to appear in the same vertical order as the posts-to-be-addressed.

Firstly, Subway. I have had one or two sandwiches from Subway since my first discussion of cheese tessellation. Both of these sandwiches had tessellated cheese, which prompted me to search to see if there was a reason for this shift in policy. It appears that it was recommended by Subway to their employees that they revise their “Cheese Placement Operations”. It appears that from now on most Subway sandwiches should have the cheese placed in this more agreeable way. Both an image of the original comic* mentioned in the original discussion and one of the new instructions† will be included at the end of this entry.

Next, the issue of Zelda games and the broken television input. Interestingly, I followed none of the three options mentioned before, opting in their stead to buy an entirely new forty inch Samsung 1080p 120Hz LCD television. This works well as it is both substantially larger and higher quality than the set which it replaces, and there is a fully functioning composite input on the side which makes it easy to plug in any of the systems mentioned. Additionally, I found a component cable for the Wii online for not an exorbitant price, but for eight dollars including shipping. Once that arrives the set up will be as follows: Cable, Wii, and DVD player all permanently attached to the back of the set and the side input open for the Playstation 2 and Nintendo 64 when needed. Interestingly, the television has several USB ports, one of which is easily accessible on the side, which can be used for several purposes. The most immediately useful being the fact that one can put downloaded high-definition movies on a USB flash drive and play them on the television without having to deal with burning Blu-ray discs or with purchasing a Blu-ray player. Also, if purchased separately, a Samsung device can be plugged into a USB slot to allow the television access to wireless internet, which would make putting movies on a flash drive unnecessary. That piece of equipment, however, is quite expensive, and will not be purchased by me for some time, if ever.

Finally, to the issue of music, which has not been, in its truest sense ‘resolved’, but has been addressed to an extent. Several nights ago, while somewhat inebriated, I used Ableton Live to make eight bars of electronic dance music to be looped. While it is not by any definition good, it is a start and hopefully can be the beginning of something interesting.

†

Zelda.

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:41:32 -0400

I’ve been loving the Zelda games for a while now despite having never played them when I was young, apart from Ocarina of Time. This is excellent for me, as I’ve been able to play a plethora of the above, in a row, for the first time. I’ve done Ocarina of Time, A Link to the Past, and Twilight princess so far. Several months ago I bought Majora’s Mask from the Wii shop download store to play on the Wii. By my reckoning I am approximately three quarters of the way through. I played it pretty much every moment I had free, until somewhat recently.

One of the inputs on my television has ceased to function. Specifically, the easily-accesible front input. More specifically, the yellow video jack. At first it worked if the cable was pulled taught in a downward and rightward direction, however that remedy soon lost its effectiveness. This is interesting (regardless of whether it is relevant) in that my bass amp required a similar situating of the instrument cable in order to produce sound properly, albeit in a downward and leftward fashion.

This presents a problem as there is only one available input in the back of the television to be divided among the Wii, which is used almost exclusively by me; the DVD player, which is used by Eda, her mom, and I, as well as anyone present in our home while movie-watching it to take place; the Playstation 2, which is often in use for inebriated Mortal Kombat sessions; and the Nintendo 64, which is quite central in most instances of consuming alcoholic beverages in our home with guests, be it to play Mario Kart 64 as a drinking game, Super Smash Bros., Goldeneye 007, or any of many other games. Presently, the DVD player is occupying the input.

To be fair, the television has three rearward inputs, however one is constantly occupied by the connection to cable for normal television viewing, and another is a component (three video and two audio jacks) input which is quite useless when all of your devices have composite cables (one video jack and two audio jacks, the typical yellow/red/white cables). So effectively, there is one available port for all four other devices. Seeing as our television is in a large, semi-enclosed piece of furniture designed for the purpose, it makes access to the rear of the television awkward at best.

This situation has resulted in me not playing the game in the past few weeks, and compounded by the fact that I had been quite busy before that, I have not played Majora’s Mask in approximately two months. This had been mainly removed from my thoughts for some time, until I became bored tonight and happened to walk past the television.

I find myself with three options: the first, being the least labour-intensive, would be to simply continue the course of action I have been on and not play the game. This is not optimal, as I enjoy playing the game. The second course of action would be to buy a component cable for the Wii, which is the only one of the four devices which supports component video, so the Wii could be constantly connected while the other devices could be switched out on the quasi-frequent basis on which they are used, the main issue with this option being the exorbitant cost of the component cables for the Wii. The third option is to simply go into the living room, drag the television out, and plug the Wii cables in the DVD player’s stead. While this option would be by far the most reasonable, as it would take at most one minute of reorganizing the setup, I repeatedly find myself deciding that this amount of manual labour is unacceptable.

I remain undecided and continue to ponder the issue.

Sunny Day Real Estate - Song About an Angel This song has been...

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:20:58 -0400

Sunny Day Real Estate - Song About an Angel

This song has been knocking me on my ass over and over today.

Music.

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:18:00 -0400

While this summer has been great on the listening front, including many great new albums; greatly expanding my collection of older music which I’ve been wanting for a long time; and seeing many great shows, of both bands I’ve loved for ages and have never heard before, it has been a categorical failure on the creative side.

I definitely wanted to try my hand at writing a few more songs this summer or, failing that, to record any of several covers I’ve had floating around my head for a while now. Instead, I’ve recorded and written exactly nothing. Although I can try to blame part of it on the fact that I haven’t been home alone hardly at all which makes it impossible for me to record anything that requires a microphone, which in turn rules out all of the covers I’ve wanted to do, that still doesn’t account for why I haven’t been able to try to write anything instrumental, electronic, or both, which is what I really wanted to try writing anyway.

I haven’t used my interface in so long that I don’t even know if it works with this computer anymore. I’m going to try to figure it out, and try my best to get something pretty and instrumental recorded before school starts up again.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-8-8)

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:17:00 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-8-8):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Subway.

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:32:00 -0400

I remember seeing a comic somewhere on the web complaining about how Subway doesn’t tessellate the cheese in their sandwiches, opting instead to put it side-by-side, with the largest angle facing up, resulting in overlaps and spots with no cheese whatsoever.

But I’ve been to several Subway locations and have had multiple sandwich makers prepare my sandwich at each one, and I’ve found that on occasion they do tessellate the cheese, which results in even cheese coverage and is generally superior in my opinion. I’ve also had one employee tessellate the cheese once, and then not on a separate occasion. So I’ve come to the conclusion that either a) Subway has no rules or guidelines for cheese placement other than those pertaining to quantity and it’s entirely up to the particular sandwich artist’s personal preference or mood, or b) they do have rules, but a fair amount of their workers don’t care to follow them.

A new website to play with.

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 01:38:17 -0400

I wonder if I’ll ever get over the fact that it’s spelled without the ‘e’. Now off to figure this out, I suppose.