Unemployment is at the highest rate since 1983. No shit. A friend of mine says it’s because the Republicans are trying to wring all the wage gains of the working classes out of the economy, so as to improve the short term profits of the Republican overlords. He might be right.

Spent the morning writing a response to a jackass on the levList. I haven’t sent it in yet – I’m refining it a bit to make sure it is what I want – a delicate balance between positive explanation and toasty flammage. I detest cynics. It’s fundamentally reactionary and self-serving. Yuck.

Got the application to the Sounds shindig in St John’s NF out the door yeasterday. FedEx’d it and it should get there on time. Was mentioned in Markus Reuters’s web journal which was very kind of him. If you don’t know his music, check it out. It’s really good stuff. Markus is an amazing player of the tap-style guitar (Chapman stick, Warr Guitar, etc.) and makes some very celestial stuff. He’s also a very decent all-around bloke.

Today, in a few minutes, actually, Kim Cascone and his family (wife: Kat, boy: Cage) are coming over for a brunch. They’re bringing some fruit and I will be serving my infamously delicious pancakes, and an egg frittata fry up kind of dealie I make that is also scrumpdili-icious! It’ll be good to see them – they are some of people I have known the longest here in San Francisco – I met them through their old music label days at Silent Records. They are very wonderful people, and I enjoy their company a lot.

I actually gota decent nights sleep last night, for the first time in a week.

Brunch with the Cascones was wonderful. It was good to see them again. Cage and Elizabeth chased the cats around, my pancakes were excellent, and the eggs came out beautifully. They brought a fine collection of fruit, and a splendid time was had by all. We all agree somafm.com has the BEST internet radio stations. Totally brilliant that. We all agree that cliqhop is a Very Good Thing. They’ve been travelling lately, and they told me of a great thing- it plugs into the iPod so you can listen to the iPod on your car radio. Talk about a world of wonderful things! Especially when travelling through the Central Valley of California which is a very right wing and culturally deprived area. Gives me a reason to get an iPod! Now all I need is a job so I can buy the iPod…

I figured out that I should *just* be able to squeeze my CD collection onto an 80gig HD. When laptops get cheap enough, I’ll get one for the Warwick Music Archive.

Beth is in Dallas for a few days at an SAP training thingie for HP. Neither of us are big fans of Dallas, but we have a few friends in the area, and Beth hopes to see them when she gets there, esp. Judie. Already I miss Beth… Elizabeth was a bit of a pill early this morning, but not impossible. I gave her lots of hugs, and everything was fine.

Super busy today – editing video of SEI for performance, and reviewing the entrants for the symposium in September. Got another entrant; VJs from Quebec. Got email from Kim, Raul, and a lovely friend from my wacky old days in DC, Tonya. Stacy from Oz touched base as well. Good to hear from everyone. I wish I had more to say – I do, I just haven’t the time right now to put it into words…

Sometimes I think Beth, Elizabeth and I should be living in Europe.

Didn’t sleep much last night, but I slept well when I did finally doze off.

Getting more response to the Symposium. I developed a simple website for the symposium (SFPCS) and need to fix it up a bit. Get a few more emails out to people interested. So far, it looks like I’ll have people from as far away as Norway to come and speak, and performers from all over the place. It’s very exciting.

Right now, I’m up to my eyeballs editing SEI for a test performance/premiere at Goddard college in early august. Peter Nyboer’s been doing my software development, and he recently sent me the latest rev of our app (FLORENCE). I’ve been so busy I haven’t had a chance to even test it!

Last night I made a yummy dinner of Runner Beans, Soy based sausage, a salad and Juice to drink. Cheap easy eats, and Elizabeth dug it. This morning had breakfast with Jerry (as usual of a Thursday) at All You Knead (as usual) at the middle booth on the right (as usual) and ordered eggs / bacon / pumpernickel toast and garlic potatoes with coffee (As usual) served by the ever delightful Michelle (as usual) who’s birthday it is today. We talked about video (as usual) and the horrific state of the world (as usual). Now, with a monster breakfast and enough coffee to give a bull elephant the jitters, I’m fueled and ready to edit a ton of video.

Political statement for the day: Fuck George Bush and his junta of greedy imperialist thugs.

18 JULY 03

Major Dream Action last night. Hardly slept. Finally faded around 2 AM. Up at 7.30 to get Boo ready for school. Last night had wild vision about understanding the universe as harmonic structures in higher dimensional space – it was if I could see the extra dimensions. Certain resonant harmonies resulted in different kinds of matter or energy. In this way, gravity was a kind of “leading wave” that easily resonated with other similar leading waves. The Cosmo. Constant went in the other “direction” and had its own harmonic structure – it was all these resonating frequencies – matter and energy were just the manifestations of them that I could “normally” percieve.

These were caused by a massive harmonic resonance – a huge number of giant waves all coalesced in one place as several harmonic forces all met at once. There was someone playing a singing bowl, and it grew so loud, it cracked. When it cracked, there was a shower of light, and it all spun off into all directions, even ones that haven’t the same dimensionality. Intense dream.

Today, I edit more video, and work on some music soudtracking, and pick up Beth at the Airport. Then it’s off to Elizabeth’s swimming lessons. A full day ahead. Yesterday I worked on the credits – they came out really well – and the cafe scene, which is going to be a lot tighter than I first expected…

20 JULY 03

Today is a VERY busy day. LOTS of editing to do. Got a note from Dennis Young – wants some more ideas for his CD cover, so I’ll get to that later this week, once I sort out a minor technology situation on my end. Got a lot of editing done last night, lost a bunch of it, but will simply have to re-render it. I’ll probably save that for tonight and re-render the whole thing at once, rather than in bits and pieces and waste my day with it.

Lately I’ve been listening to Kim Cascone’s blackCube( ). It’s very uncompromising sound. Very smart, rather dissonant and distilled. I approve.

Elizabeth had a sleep over at her friend Gabby’s house. There were six little six year olds there. Gabby’s parents get a medal. In honour of the evening, Beth and I did something we *never* get to do: go out for a spicy dinner and watch a movie that isn’t something cooked up by Disney or Pixar.

We went to Guymas in Tiburon. It was very good, and the view of Angel Island and SF is fantastic. I had a seafood mix (squid, octopus, coho salmon, mussels, and an assortment of veggies in some kind of spicy butter sauce) and Beth had skewers of lamb and chicken with various veggies. And Margaritas!!! Yum. We did some window shopping, bought a very nice bottle of Wine (Windsor Merlot, 1999 signature series…oOOoOOoo. We tasted it first – it’s very good) then went on to see a movie: Northfork by Bros. Polish.

It was very good, but not great. I’d give it 3.5 stars out of 5. I liked the magical elliptical plot that keeps you dangling and wondering. I loved the idea of the story – that a boy might actually be a de-winged angel, now dying, and soon to accompany other angels who have come to find him. I wondered if the boy was actually the angel of the town that was about to be submerged, and that as the town died so did he; and as the town entered the world of forms in history, so too, the boy ascended to his rightful place as an angel. I liked some of the acting – I thought Darryl Hannah and Nick Nolte were very good. They seemed to care about what they were doing. Some of the performances I thought were a bit flat, but sometimes it was hard to tell, given the exigencies of the characters. The worst part of the movie was the music. It was continuous, obtrusive, and never ending. As soundtrack, it was OK, nothing special in terms of composition, and could have been used very effectively. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. It was used VERY badly, and it bothered me. A lot. However, given the utter shite that normally gets pumped out of Hollywood to dull and distract the masses, this is well worth watching.

We got home, and basically passed out. We slept in till about 8 when the cats wouldn’t let Beth sleep any longer and insisted on being fed. We went out for breakfast – something else we don’t get to do very often. We went to All you Knead, in Haight Ashbury. We stuffed ourselves (their portions are large and very reasonabley priced) and we basically skipped lunch. Elizabeth is now out with her “godmother”, Bree, feeding kitties. Bree said she’d feed E. so Beth and I get a dinner to ourselves tonight… Yippie! I think I’ll cook something spicy… I have some tilapia defrosted in the fridge…

This afternoon, I’ve been editing sections for SEI. Sometimes I look at this and think : I’ll never get this done. Ever. I’m doomed. But then I start working on it, and little by little each shot transforms into a clip, and everything slowly clicks into place. I’ll be up most of the night and for the rest of the week working on this. It’s one of the linch pins of my thesis work.

Saturday, a few more submissions rolled in for the Symposium. Gotta work on that too, this week. Woof.

I also watched the interviews with Brakhage on the retrospective DVD I bought. He’s one of my heroes. That DVD is amazing and wonderful. Truly a remarkable document, and a must have.

Political Statement of the Day: Fuck Ann Coulter and her skanky fascist lunacy. People like her make me wanna clear my throat.

21 JULY 03

Well, the submissions deadline for the San Francisco Performance Cinema Symposium has finally passed and I am now BURIED in submissions that all arrived in the past 3 or 4 days. Ug. Some of them look Excellent, some look pretty cool, some are dreck. I am very excited by the prospect of this coming off in Spetember. I need to start focussing on the promotion and getting an audience. I’ve asked about a dozen corporations for money, all have either said no or have simply not responded to my request. Life is tough right now for everybody, I suppose.

Today I do more editing of SEI, and then start exporting clips into Florence. Florence is software I designed that was developed by Peter Nyboer. Florence is my mother’s name. I’m dedicating SEI to her memory.

Any time left over, I will work on Dennis Young’s CD covers. I’ll focus more on that towards the end of the week.

Political Statement of the Day:

There’s a piece circulating the web right now – about Bush’s trip to Senegal was completely insulting to the Senegalese and a bit of a disaster on the ground. It pretty much rakes him over the coals. Some of it is a bit over reactive (like whinging about Bush having his own meals – sorry, but poisoning is too easy, and given the violent evil things Bush has done since his usurpation of power, he’d be a fool NOT to bring his own food along…) but some of it is pretty spot on target about how Bush is basically filth. Pure and simple.

while I find such emailings informative, I also find them irritating, because there’s no DATE on the thing, the author’s name was taken off, so there’s no way to verify the authenticity of the claims made. So: a word to the wise on the left – IF you’re going to pass stuff around like that, INCLUDE the SOURCE and THE DATE. Otherwise, you’re just passing a likely story along. And likely stories, while entertaining, are not useful in building an historical case against the Bush legacy.

2004 can’t come soon enough…

22 JULY 03

I wrote the following letter to a fellow who runs a site on PNAC, the Republican/Fascist conspiracy that is dedicated to a ruinous unipolar geopolitic. My response to his site follows, and it outlines my ideas on the subject.

Interesting site on pnac.

What’s even more interesting is the link below. It was written during the
clinton era pre-9/11. I believe it still holds, as the real game in this
world is economic. I see the mid-east troubles as a side show to the real
issue: The madness of American Unipolarity, and the necessity of a
multipolar future.

The link below discusses issues inside the Chinese Military from the 1990s,
but, again, since the fundamental structures still stand, the problem hasn’t
changed – 9/11 and the idiotic war on terror I see as (murderous, stupid,
and tragic, of course) but basically a sideshow.

the biggest problem with multipolarity is the formation of superstates,
similar to, but not exactly congruent to those predicted by Orwell. Oceania
(NAFTA), EUrasia (esp. when the russians finally join), and EastAsia (esp.
when Japan, vietnam, Philipines etc. and China complete their own
semispheric trade accords. Look for that in the mid – late 20teens)
Look for proxy wars between India (Oceania / Eurasia client) and a Chinese
client.

I also think there is the possibility of the development of an Islamic pole
or pseudoPole. East Asia, it’s own trouble with Islamic fundies aside, would
be more happy with this than Oceania and Eurasia. Follow the guns – I think
you’ll find China pouring a lot of ordnance into Islamic states. The Islamic
Pole or pseudoPole would be enough to temporarily stagger Oceania and
Eurasia with proxy wars, and even strain any alliance they might have
against EastAsia. The goal being to buy time while EastAsia develops into an
equal pole.

The present administration is too stupid and reactionary to plan like this -
they see a unipolar situation and will simple seek to maintain that at all
costs. VERY short sighted, indeed.

The next empire will be the EU when Russia comes on board, and NATO is put
to pasture note – NEVER disbanded, just made irrelevant and more of a joint military
tool for “peace keeping” and other crypto-colonial efforts. I would expect
Russia to join later this decade or early next. With Russia on board, it
will be a unified economy from Portugal to Alaska. A massive consumer state
in the west, and vast resources in the east, including one of the largest
oil and gas reserves on the planet. Oceania won’t be able to compete, and
its power will fade.

If the present hegemons are running the show then, expect a great deal of
misery. If intelligent foresighted people are in power, expect Oceania to
actually prosper: with a reduced military budget, a progressive tax
structure, and a balanced federal budget, there will be plenty of capital
for expansion and innovation. With (as what presently obtains) a bloated
military and deficits, the USgov will suck up all available cash, driving up
real interest rates (even as the fed sinks to zero) and propel the US into a
depression.

that’s how I see it playing out. What do you think?

best,

HW

the link I discussed earlier – a real MUST READ for policy wonks:

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/doctrine/pills2/

24 JULY 03

Still getting submissions for the symposium. Got email from Ian Wallace – another chapter in our ongoing discussion about jazz and the audience. I got another rev of Florence from Peter. It fixes a number of things. I actually got it to crash the other day. I need to send Peter the log file. Today I set up SEI into Florence, and then rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

After I rehearse a few times, I will work on Dennis Young’s CD cover. Elizabeth is on an over-night camping trip, so Beth and I are going to have a lovely evening. It’s so nice to go on a date with the woman I love so very very much. Woo Hoo! Tommorrow I will work on more of Dennis’s covers, email pdfs of them to him, and then do more rehearsals. Next week, I have to prepare for going to Vermont, which means having to ship my CS2x to the school for performance and rehearse on one of my cranky old DSS1’s! I hope this comes off well.