I find it disturbing and a bit sad that in every relationship I have, I feel like I must take only what is of utmost importance. This is a historical artifact, for sure. When Marcie first destroyed all of my possessions still in her presence, something broke inside of me. Of course, she may have had just cause for this, but, again, this is something in my mind, a paranoia which springs from deep within the fertile peat of childhood when I was taught that I was to blame for everything.

• Simply
• Everything

So, when I leave Praha, I look at my possessions and the first thing that crosses my mind is whether I’ll ever see them again. It is a disease vomited up from my past.

And I am, too, at fault. I have always been a nomad. Christian would laugh if he read these words: It is in my blood. What an awful cliche. Whatever I leave behind is gone. I believe that is the point.

Whatever I leave behind is gone.

And if some of it turns up later, it is a happy surprise. To view life in this fashion, I have already carved out a hollow in an asteroid floating randomly through uncharted space.

I do not think I have ever listened to this album before, though it has come up often in forums I have read, and even perhaps in one or two conversations. The title is to the point: I Advance Masked. It is, as some may know, by Robert Fripp and Andy Summers, and I am not sure why it is on the hard drive at the moment. It was staring at me from the top part of the Amarok artist listing, sandwiched between Alvin Curran and Bearded Seals. I stared back, so it is now the soundtrack of these words.

I am in the BRIDGE Bar - Eating House in Terminal Three of London Heathrow Aeroport after discovering that they take Euros (17 of which occupied my walled). It is a pleasant enough place and the intertwining guitars block out the dull roar of its ambient noise. I am en-route from Praha to Boston. The final destination is Seaforth. The contrast in level of tranquility will most likely be astonishing.

My original intention was to work on music. Specifically Cycle Parts VI and VII. That will not happen, however, because I do not have Lilypond installed on Mustela-Ermina. Why I neglected this when installing Ardour and the like to pursue my first musicking outings after the reinstallation of the operating system (with Arch Linux) is beyond the feeble computing power of my mind at the moment. (It must be either the lack of sleep or dearth of neural activity in general which has plagued me over the past weeks to blame.)

I suppose I could sketch the idea which is in my mind and in doing so perhaps fill it out a bit more.

Cycle left us at the end of a meandering path which could seemingly wane and wane into a pasture, growing fainter and fainter as it wound further. Part V ends ambiguously, stumbling in 3/4 time, punctured with syncopated bassoon. (It’s not really a bassoon, you know.) Originally, I intended to bring Part II crashing back in with a sort of dissonant majesty. I no longer feel this way. I like the meandering path analogy. It fades.

Part VI shares structure with Part II. It is based on a foundation of three notes: F E Ees. In Part II, the progression added the E again at the end, creating an edginess underpinning a majestic melody. I want the melody to be more subdued this time.

In the spirit of things, I’ll reverse that progression this time, beginning with E. I’ll just check if that’ll work with the end of Part V. One moment, please, whilst I check the sheet music.

Part V ends on an E, with a d e hanging above and gis a beginning the final measure. Then Part VI begins by resting on E, though switching back to our familiar F major. I play with my favourite modal scale here, the A phrygian. First, after this pedal point is established (which will not change as often as in Part II), an ostinato begins. It toys especially with the bes, which is the second of the phrygian scale. Another important point is the ambiguity between F major and Bes major (again). The ostinato, especially when the pedal point shifts to Ees, feels like A locrean. This ostinato repeats for the whole of Part VI. No. Parts of it drop out (the higher registers) to make way for the melody (the same which is in Part II), which subtly blends with it. An intesnifying factor will be the mellotron which builds dissonantly as the E Ees E F foundation begins shifting more rapidly.

Then there is Part VII, a reprise of Part I.

I am happy with what is currently in my mind. I must install Lilypond whilst at John’s this evening, however! (Or in the morning…. oh, meandering mind).

I don’t know what I felt. I wanted to destroy everything around me. I remembered when Zuzana and I were sitting at the park near the Divadlo and she said to me ‘what if someone rapes me?’ i could not answer that question because I really did not care.

Does Prague consume me or berate me?

Christopher: There are lots of intangible benefits to being in one place over others.

Christopher is perhaps stating the obvious, but his statement is nevertheless very poignant to me. The peace I feel in Prague as opposed to anywhere in Texas is tangible. I felt the weight lift when I entered the country (and completely, of course, when I was let through passport control heh). The bulky black shawl which covered me and collected soot over two years and a month has been tossed aside and the crusty soot was, indeed, weighty. It is gone.

Christopher: There are definite benefits to places, though.

Again, he stated the obvious, but aside from employment advantages, how many people do I know who live in a place which has all the benefits which bring about a peaceable and fecund lifestyle?

Not many.

My parents are always a good example of people who do not understand the concept that Christopher is jutting from his forehead. In their opinion, one must live wherever one can get employment, no matter any ills which emenate from the place. They do not consider the depression I lived through whilst growing up in West Texas as anything striking or relevant. They went to Fort Stockton because they found work there (or, more specifically, my father found work there). They stayed eventually so long because of inertia. The ill of a place can poison you into believing its reek is a pleasant fragrance. Their youthful ideals were blanched by the desert.

I dare not think what would happen to me (or to Christopher, for that matter) were I to remain in such an atmosphere for an extended time.

Christopher: You probably know this feeling - of being an alien in a world where what other people take very seriously seems absurd to you.

This is the story of most jobs I have had in my lifetime. When I worked for/with Andrew and Rob at E-Dult, I believe it reached a pinnacle of dichotomy. Half of me loved it. Half of me loathed it. I believe Jenicek felt the same as I did. The environment was fantastic. I was free to create in my own way the development cycle and to smoke as much hash as I wanted whilst in the office. Rob provided us occasionally with wine. They sent me to Amsterdam twice with a pocket full of money and a free hotel room.

But looking back, Andrew, surely, found our product absurd. His credo was In 5 years, I want to be sitting on a beach on some island all day doing nothing at all. So it was a means to an end. For Rob, it was another way to do business. It was a money-making prospect and I believe to him the manner did not matter, only the result. The journey to that result interested him to an extent, but was not his main concern, if I recall correctly.

The girls working there, however, took it supremely seriously. It was their livelihood. What’s more, it was a better prospect for them than dancing in a club or prostituting themselves. The dichotomy! They had nothing else. We laughed at our development process. They struggled to make a living from our architected absurdity. For us it was merely an experiment.

Most other working environments (such as 12snap) were different. Oh, my point of view was the same - it was an experiment - but the owners and managers and especially the marketing goats took every step cautiously, carefully and seriously. Jenicek, Viking and I snickered at their earnestness. The fakery of creating a useless product for the bored masses to help line your billfold with cash still appalls me.

I suppose that when I discern that any one or group is taking something too seriously, I do yearn to make fun of it and to point out their useless earnestness. I, at times, use mockery. Probably this is not the best method.

For a week now, Praha has been a welcoming force. I sit in the office which was once mine and is mine once again. There is an air of greetings in everything I encounter. Yes, a portion of this is nostalgia, but my uplifted spirits (perpetually) have not fluttered yet even close to the dusty floor. I trust they will at some point, but again waft upwards, for there is always that which brings simpers to my lips in the city I call home.

And now for some stochastic composition.

w a v e c a s o m o r p h i n s o r b o d y t h e
t a n s s i m p l i c i u s u n c h a i n e d u p
t h e c i t y y o u r t i m e s t a r t s n o w c
o l l i d e r h e a v e n h e a t h c r o w h m z
e l e c t r i c c o u n t e r p o i n t t w o s l
o w o n t h e r o a d t o j o l i e t f a l l i n
g s n o w s h e s g o t a b o y f r i e n d c o r
p o r a l c l e g g p a t c h e n p o l y k a c k
a n o z u h i g h l y s t r u n g r u i d o s o k
a z u i f i t s i n y o u c s i d e l i t t l e r
e d b o x d a n t h e w i n g g i v e u p t h e g
h o s t s h e a i n t m y g i r l l e s u p e r v
i l a i n u p t h e c i t y a s a u c e r f u l o
f s e c r e t s o u r f o r t r e s s i s b u r n
i n g t h r e e t h e g r a i n h u n g a r i a n
h o l i d a y e x u d u s t e a w i t h t h e s u
n h a b i t o f t h e b r o k e n h e a r t l e c
r i l o t u s f l o w e r m e c h a n i c a l b i
r d s m a r i a n a s a v e y o u r m o n e y s p
e c t r a l m o r n i n g s m a t h e m a t i c s
d r e a m s w i d e a w a k e l e m u s i c i e n
m e d u s a s l e h a c k a f i r e a b o v e i c
e b e l o w t h e w a l t z o f t h e s k y s c r
a p e r g o n e m u s i c f o r m a l l e t i n s
t r u m e n t s v o i c e a n d o r g a n i n a d
e s e r t s e v e n d r a p e r i e s p a r t t h
r e e o n w a x i n g l a m o r t d e t r i s t a
n m e s s a n g e r b i r d s m i s t e r s a n d
s t h e s i l k r o a d n i c k e l m o u n t a i
n a s t e r i s k s u n d a y a f t e r n o o n i
n t h e p a r k j u l i a d r e a m g h o s t o f
a c h a n c e f a r a n d w e e c e l l o c o u n
t e r p o i n t r e v e r e n d s i s t e r s w o
r l d o f m a d e s e p a r a t o r a p e r f e c
t b o t t l e c o n s c i e n c e t h e c o m p a
n i o n s t e r r a p i n t h e c r e a t u r e l
o n g g o n e e a s t w i n d o w 0 3 1 e c l y p

wane vested campy scat den crave toll swell ploy mere loon noon slick tanks delves girls trait

The Dorian Spanky Mode is the normal Dorian with an added flat 6th. Therefore:

d e f g a bes b c

It is, obviously an eight note scale. Now, it is your task to write a melody using it. Ready? GO.

I am affected by a grave state of lethargy today. In this state, I wander aimlessly second by second towards my grave. I feel every missed moment is a tragedy, yet I cannot lift a hand to create.

Well, besides this drivel.

My mind stirred a few minutes ago whilst listening to The Only Unforgivable Thing by Marillion and urged me to awaken from my malaise, fire up Ardour and dredge from my right brain at least a sound collage. Instead, for whatever reason, the result is this collage of words, instead. I listened to Incoherence by Peter Hammill in the truck on the way back to Seminole from Andrews and my dinner with Sandy and it struck me (well, mostly the liner notes, to be truthful) as a template for the way I live and create.

I stumble through incoherence and organize bits of it into what I feel is meaningful. By this I mean the soup of my left brain organizes the chaos into a less daunting chaos.

I’m skipping around.

The Only Unforgivable Thing may just be the ability to develop something from only a thought or an intuition and the audacity to just let it sit, then fade to eventual oblivion.

I attempt to keep my ideas and dream of their fruition. It is the rationale for a journal, even a PocketMod. I jot. The jots usually do not become jitters, however. They sit and rot.

Does the river widen so markedly when approaching the delta? The spread courses drearily as opposed to rapid currents of youth. Focus! Focus!! Focus is lost with lethargy and age. It is more and more difficult to funnel all of the stray thoughts into coherence. Out of incoherence.

Do I second guess myself too often?

I used to not.

But, then again, much of my output when I was in my funnelling and focused years was hovno.

I have second guessed myself once again. I shall read.

I’m in bed.

Yes, in bed in Seminole, Texas, at my parents’ place. Austin is no more. It is the ex-Austin. I fled it Sunday – two days prior to now. And now I am in bed.

The snaky feeling which tingles in the backs of the thighs is less tangible during my middle-aged languor. It used to excite to the extent that I had to defecate four times daily. The bowels were very stimulated by that feeling. Now, however, it is fleeting. I wish it were again as strong as it used to be.

I called it Sweet Entropy, and she was my beacon when time drug me from one place to another. Yeah, she lit my way. I suppose she has grown old and haggard alongside me. Well, alongside in a metaphorical sense. Were she a real being, she’d be eternally youthful aesthetically, perhaps like the girl from a dream two nights ago: Dark brown hair framing a face, wispy in the back and on the sides, blowing about and ill-arranged. Walnut eyes which dart and dance in time with a simper playing on her lips. But inside - decrepit.

I leave for Boston on the 19th. I fly from the squalid aeroport which sits flat and repellent between Odessa and Midland. Justin should pick me up. It has been a year and approximately four months since I’ve seen him. A whorlwind has ravaged his life since and delivered him into a new existence. We’ll see how we get on this time. May I find time to write of it.

I have just come across this in the book I am currently reading:

This, I have come to think, is a very American reaction, rewarding eccentric effort with scorn and violence.

The book is one that Christopher got me for Xmas, titled Fresh Air Fiend by Paul Theroux.

I agree with him that it is a typical American reaction. But I’ll go even further. It is the reaction of any peasant to unknown or unintelligible behaviour. I have been greeted, as has many a human I have known, by such upon numerous occasions. I surely have mellowed from my outwardly eccentric ways over the years (and I find this unfortunate, to tell you the truth), but they still broil within at similar temperatures as they did in my youth.

In a village in the Czech Republic, I go swaggering in wearing outlandish clothing, unwashed, with a capacious pack on my back, and I’ll get odd stares, hear peasants muttering behind my back, be passively scorned. Being a peasant is an insular state of being, no matter the outward appearance. In Theroux’s book, the man who arrived after a 2600 mile journey in a rowboat is scored by drunks and ruffians. America being what it is, a parallel in most of Europe would just be passive-agressive scurrility.

The group I fell into in Prague was insular. It was evidenced by the long table they sat at in Hadry. Other such groups existed and interaction between them was limited to the occasional foozball tournament. I fell in and I fell out eventually because I did not conform to their particular set of eccentricities. My own were, as Christian says, out.

Being out is relative to the insular group which drifts in and out of your social patterns the most.

I dare not spill the Sweet Leaf tea onto the blankets where I shall later sleep. I create enough wet spots as it is with my voluminous drooling.

Tonight is the night that I shall attempt to record all of my parts of the piece I have mentioned several times in this blog: Reduction. Instead of the synthesized bassoon, an acoustic guitar shall play the eternal melody first sketched in Intersection, which begins the still unnamed album*****.

The melody is this:

c d bes c g a bes g f

It is playing in a four three 7/4 manner with varying notes taking a whole 7/4 bar.

As long as I have the music in front of me, I have no problem creating it with my new acoustic guitar (appropriately named Aonyx Cinerea). Following that is the strumming of the original chords Tony gave me over two years prior which helped spawn this project (album).

The chords are:

Csus9 Cmaj7 Fmaj Fmaj7

Csus9 Gm Am Am7

Dm Dm7 Besmaj7 C

Wish me luck, oh happy-go-lucky angel, you.