Forgery League

I’ve been messing about with Flash and Actionscript lately, and one of my big motivations was was wanting to finish the Presonance site.

Some months ago, I started trading files with Rezo Largul, and we decided to use the name “Presonance” for our collaboration, and “Mycestene” as a name for an eventual CD. So far we’ve completed four tracks and have a couple of others in the works. The finished ones are now up, along with some pretty little visualizations (yup, there’s the Flash programming coming into play). Spacy analogue waltzes, mysterious orchestral arrangements colliding with mad electronic rhythms, a dose of Casseiopean free jazz…

Have a listen! You can download the tracks there too.

And in the acoustic world, another Toronto lamppost has been graced with its own built-in bass. Now that I’ve got a new digital audio recorder I’ll have to pay the new “Garrison Creek” bass a visit. All hail RGB for bringing more music to our parks and sidewalks!

Rediscovering a bit of my electronic/ambient side lately. We caught part of the night’s set at the Ambient Ping the other night and snagged a copy of their latest comp.

Also, there is new I Am Robot And Proud. Yay!

All this, and the work I’ve done so far for the play has reminded me I really want to do more Geometerish music. Gotta get over this whole “I’ll get to it as soon as I finish this project for somebody else” thing. Make time for the music!

Sean and I just got back this evening from spending a weekend with our officemates - the five of us trekked up to a cottage about three hours north of town, and hung out, ate lots, strolled around, had a bonfire, and talked big crazy talk about the company. They’re a cool bunch (two partners plus three freelancers, the latter including me), and I’m really glad we’re all working together.

I’m such a city kid now. I hadn’t been looking forward to the trip at all. But in all, it was a lovely time.

On a little hike through the woods, it struck me that I’m especially fascinated with fungi, ferns, lichens, mosses… non-plants, proto-plants, primitive things. Things that can survive on bare rock. Beautiful things that grow out of dead trees. Things that might have around when the dinosaurs ruled. I was filled with glee when I found a boulder maybe the size of a chest freezer, which was covered in several sorts of moss and lichen, and a unique species of fern. Everywhere else, a more complex-looking fern had out-competed it, but this one had found a niche in the thin soil atop this rock.

And the fall leaves were quite gorgeous, too. As the years go by, I’m slowly starting to appreciate autumn.

I’ve finally decided on a new moniker, and done a quick redesign of the web site to match.

Presenting Geometer.

Named for these critters. I liked the connotations it had, too - ‘earth-measurer’, geography, geology, the world; an inchworm, patient and humble. I’d pondered something about Sphinx moths originally, but there’s already a few “Sphinx” bands, and besides, that name comes from the same root as “asphyxiate”, and I’d be constantly thinking about that…

That reminds me - I want to spend more time next year looking at the cool bugs that come to the back door light. I’m such a night owl anyway.

We took in several documentaries at Hot Docs, ranging from wonderful to appalling. Among the better pictures: a double bill of Terminal Bar (trailer and info at Tourist Pictures, the story of a seedy bar opposite the Port Authority Terminal in NYC that gradually became a gay hangout, all told through photographs taken by the owner… marvelous; and Rockets Redglare! - a biography of a somewhat obscure character actor who lived one hell of a roller-coaster life (frightful childhood, much drug use and self-destructive behaviour). Gave new meaning to the term ‘unflinching’, and also made me feel good that a human being who can go through so much utter shit can still be warm and open-hearted to the end. Saturday we saw one called Tishe! or Hush!, a somewhat experimental film in which the director spent a year taping scenes from his window in St Petersburg… I can’t really summarize it beyond that, but: marvelous.

In between, we’ve been working on a half-minute web video for a project an old friend of Sean’s. We taped the footage for it at M’s place (she and her roommate are the stars). Possibly the Scariest Taxi Ride Ever while taking our equipment there: The driver looked just like the Orchid Thief in Adaptation, sweartogod, and turned out in fact to be a Nascar racer. Any time more than seven feet of lane opened up ahead of us, he floored it. We all thought we were gonna die. Interesting guy - we had a great conversation as we roared up the Bayview extension about how screwed up the infrastructure is in this town, and generally agreed that private automobile ownership in the city is dumb (he, like us, is carless - “and I live to drive, man!” he says) but we were all very very glad to be out of that car and unharmed.

Mn. What else? Went dancing for the first time in ages - twice, in fact. Sean always laughs when I do my eighties robo-spasm routine (when, for example, Gary Numan comes on). I don’t know why. And J and I played at the open stage at the Free Times last night, yay. New song of Julian’s called “To The Nines”, which is mighty fine.

I should have sat down to play bass, though… my ribcage isn’t quite up to the task yet, and so is Not Happy. See, I’m going to a new chiropractor, who is amazing; in the space of two weeks he’s made great strides in curing my chronic slouch, a feat I’d thought would take years. (Holy crap, I have shoulders now.) The down side is that the muscles between my ribs, which have been squished to bits all this time, are protesting something fierce. Until I regain some strength, namely by learning to use the muscles I should have been using all this time, I’m a little off my stride.

And that’s the news, or as much as I can remember. Back to Pro Tools…

Oh! And I finished a new song: “Nog Chomper”. (It’s a sort o’ incense, innit?)