Balmorhea: Traditional Instruments making Ambient Music

Balmorhea is another gem of a band I stumbled upon thanks to that massive torrent of music made available by the South by Southwest folks. I like playing minimalist/ambient music when I’m working on other things. Unique harmonies can set a mood and simple melodies can enhance it; without too much to distract and especially without words, music can be one of the best mind-altering cognitive enhancers there is.

Often I fill this need with electronic music, provided the beat isn’t too heavy and the “instrumentation” too “experimental”. Orchestral stuff can work too—some of Phillip Glass’s less obtrusive stuff is brilliant. And of course keyboards. Glenn Gould playing Bach is about the most exquisite background music there is. But until now I’ve never found this same satisfaction from plucked and bowed strings. But this combination of sparely plucked banjos over haunting strings is brilliant.

Agent Ribbons Reporting Typewriter Sighting

Many thanks to Eclectic Ephemera for the Antique Pop post with the links to some new renditions of vintage music. As a result, The Wife and I have found some new things to enjoy. (And that’s what this whole internet-community-typosphere-vintage-gabfest is all about, isn’t it?)

Here’s another music video, with a typewriter sighting! Agent Ribbons has a great 1960s vintage glam-rock feel to it, and I love the style, energy, and sheer joy of these girls. Plus, did I mention there are typewriters in it (briefly, at 3:10).

I wonder what town this is?

I stumbled across Agent Ribbons in the massive torrent of music made available by the South by Southwest folks, and the sound struck me as intriguing enough to follow it up with a visit to Youtube.

There’s over 45 GB of freely available music behind that link, by the way. Turns out lots of artists want you to share their material via BitTorrent. I can’t say I like every one of the songs I’ve heard, but with 9000 songs to choose from I’m bound to find a decent measure of bliss.

Musicians wanting to be heard, who would have thought of that? Turns out file-sharing isn’t just for pirates and scofflaws after all.

Why not fire up the BitTorrent client of your choice and join me?

Sharpened, Cut, Split, Stacked

I finally got that chainsaw blade sharpened. Turned out it was easier than I expected. A little round file, fits right in the groove, ten or twenty strokes and you can see a new edge shining. The chain for the 16” bar on my Remington Electric Chainsaw had about 20 teeth to sharpen, so I was done in half an hour. And the instructions for doing this were on the back of a package of chainsaw-blade sharpening files, available from Harbor Freight for $6.99.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you read the directions.

Thus armed, I was able to chop up that tree-top that fell during the winter storm. Thank God for that sharp blade. The tree turned out to be about 20” in diameter near the break, so that I had to come at it from one side, roll it over, and then cut again. Locust wood is remarkably hard, but the saw made its way through steady diligence.

Fortunately the wood is as brittle as it is hard, which makes chopping it much easier than I expected. My mother has an electric splitter at her place, but so long as I was having luck it seemed more satisfying to do it the old-fashioned way, swinging a maul.

A few days later (today) I took down a few branches that The Wife has wanted cleared out of the way. Four from a massive maple tree in the back yard, and the bottom branch from another locust out front. This last I was a little nervous about, as the tree is close to the main street’s power lines, and our house service passes through some of the upper branches. But after a great deal of care, inspection, consideration, and planning, I was confident that this one would fall clear of all wires and went ahead, notching the bottom of the branch first so that it could make a clean fall straight down.

Success!

Should have taken more pictures of the process, but I’m awful about taking time out for photography once I’m on a task, so my pictures are usually results-only.

So, there will be a little more sun falling on the garden out front this year, and we’ll have a much brighter back yard as well. Plus, all of this fallen timber has come to well over half a cord so far, which means we’ve saved about $200 on next winter’s heating costs. I got the locust all stacked up for curing (although I understand that it doesn’t require much) and the Maple will follow shortly.

It’s hard work and my back is sore, but there are few tasks out there more satisfying. And I’m sure I’ll be sleeping well tonight.

Hiatus & Effects of Gravity

Surviving Winter Storm Nemo

 

Angry Skies and Best Laid Plans

 

I rather like the look of the IBM Selectric typing across a paper bag. It’s a vibrant contrast of the precise over the rustic. Strangely, I’m finding I get better results from photographing my typecasts than scanning them. The scanner seems to reflect white light around the indentation of the letters, which wreaks havoc on my post-processing efforts to increase the contrast and make them more legible.

There are times when the whole process strikes me as silly. And yet I keep doing it.

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Ha! Just heard that they’re shutting down public transportation in Boston at 3 PM today. I suppose we could have spent the whole storm in the Hilton’s hot tub and swimming pool—but I’d rather save that luxury for a time when we can also go outside and enjoy the city.

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While I was writing this, a ladybug started walking across the top of my monitor. In February!

What a world!

Why I Love My Office

We have a very small house. It’s an antique half-cape that’s 300 years old. There’s not a lot of room. Essentially there’s one big living space downstairs with a chunk taken out for the central chimney, and a kitchen off the back that was added sometime in the 1800s. Upstairs are only two rooms, and you have to walk through one to get to the other—so, if we want to sell it, we can only count it as a one bedroom. There are no dormers, so the second floor could feel a bit like an attic, tight and cramped.

Still, thanks to The Wife’s brilliant design sense, I get to enjoy a spacious second floor office with two desks! Not to mention a giant comfy sofa.

Here’s what you see coming up the stairs. A bit cramped and inauspicious. That big white pillar is the chimney again, taking up space. Not much room behind it for anything but storage. Might as well fill it with typewriters…

Come around the corner, though, and you reach my analog workspace. Lots of room on that big old desk for pipes, typewriters, notebooks, etc. And a previous owner did a nice job installing custom storage along the eaves. (No easy task in a house where absolutely nothing is square, let me tell you.)

Turn to the left and you can see the lounging corner. It’s a simple and masculine hangout spot. I still can hardly believe we got that oversized IKEA sofa to fit up here, but it settles in like it was custom made. It makes a great spot for midday naps, and it’s a comfortable place for guests to sleep.

The IBM Selectric is just the right height for typing comfortably at a coffee table.

Finally, the view from the couch. The electronics get nestled on another desk around the back of that chimney.

That desk was another purchase The Wife made, for my Christmas present back in 1998. It belonged to her boss’ late grandfather, and it was covered in layers of paint. She had it stripped and sanded by Christmas morning, and then we applied stain and a dozen coats of polyurethane. We’ve moved it seven times since then, and it’s the one piece of furniture I’ll insist we take with us if we move again in the future.

The dual monitor setup feels like a strange indulgence. I started with a $130 computer bought from a dump-salvager, and added a budget $40 graphics card. Surprisingly it had a dual head cable, so when a spare second-hand monitor came my way, I couldn’t turn it down. It’s funny how quickly I got used to having the extra screen and how much I miss it when it’s not there. Using a remote-control app on my android handheld to drive my media software, I can watch movies or control my music from the sofa. I may be a cynical luddite but I am becoming a fan of this era’s dirt-cheap electronics.

There’s just 200 square feet in this room, and the way the roof slants in you can’t stand up in about a third of it. But still there’s so much to do up there that I never want to leave.

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How come I get all this lovely space, you ask? Why doesn’t The Wife have some room of her own?

Don’t worry about her. She built an addition off the back of the house, next to the kitchen--almost entirely by herself. And then she built a barn in the backyard.