spring

Remembering Paul Davis, DS ’77, d. January 2014. Jacob and I took a walk in Alviso the other day—that’s where the pictures here were taken—and got talking about this letter, briefly. We walked and watched as little squalls came up over the hills from the coast, most passing a few miles to the north, heading […]
my T Rex dreams

…in which our our grasp exceeds our natural reach. In our last installment, my quarry escaped because my arms were too short. Thanks to safety railings and other impediments placed to ensure public well-being by well-meaning civil engineers, the objects of our auditory desire are often out of reach. The long—and short—of it is we […]
Bay Bridge Assay 1

2015-11-05: Bay Bridge Assay 1, our first visit to the new span with mic and camera. My friend Martin and I conducted wikiGong’s first recording of the new eastern span of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in November 2015. I’d wondered about the Bay Bridge for a while: after the Golden Gate, it seemed like […]
formal occasions

…in which we contemplate the circumstances calling for neckties. I nearly never sit down to write a poem about “crossing over.” It was more on my mind over a decade ago, when I still smoked, but even then it wasn’t something I felt I needed to express. That’s come and gone over the years—the urge […]
blown away

…in which I try out the “Ultimate 545.” “Vintage” is an odd adjective, no longer just the year of a wine pressing, but the quality of an old thing, purported by age to be somehow valuable. This value inheres typically to things organic, be they edible or playable. Vintage musical instruments are much sought-after, and […]
Big Data, Brother

Can’t shake the feeling…. Yesterday, I attended a conference up in San Mateo entitled “Data Alchemy—Emerging Trends of Predictive Analytics for Business Leaders.” On almost any given day, the Bay Area has one or more such events going on: seminars, conferences, and workshops—both paid and free to attend—where ambitious small companies strut their inventions, services, […]
collectors’ items

…in which I contemplate broken dolls and the sequencer of my dreams. I had the joy of a delayed childhood with regard to electronic music, which I discovered as a real thing sometime around 1985. I had no protracted formal music education nor did I dive into the mean street scene of late 1970’s New […]
dear diary

…in which our reach once again exceeds our patience. This is a preview. What was intended as a single—and already way overdue—blog post up and got too long. I’ve managed some sound and song postings since October—all elsewhere, naturally—but day-to-day life has seemed a series of nested interruptions. By now the list of topics I’ve […]
a blood moon

…in which a lunatic project comes to fruition. My current working method does not lend itself to any industrial definition of “quality”: I don’t seem to be able to do anything twice. But I do sometimes manage to compose a durable artifact from otherwise ephemeral sources. Blood Moon for Bankers is one of those pieces […]