Motregen, een hagelbui en zon, (meestal tegelijk). 3 graden, flinke noordwestenwind, maar zo blij dat de sneeuw weg is, zo blij om lekker een stukje te rijden. (Het stukje door Amstelveen is overigens best aardig, als alternatief, goed fietspad met bomen).

Marcusstraat – Amstel – Nesserlaan – blokje Amstelveen – Amstel – Marcusstraat

Net boven nul en smerige motregen. Maar er valt tenminste te rijden, dus ik ga voor een uurtje. De Nesciobrug over – maar het fietspad door het Diemerpark ligt onder een laag sneeuw en ijs. Langs het kanaal naar Driemond – maar voorbij de spoorbrug ligt het fietspad onder sneeuw en ijs. Omgekeerd en langs de Diem en door Diemen terug. Toch beter dan een half uurtje op de Tacx – dat vind ik echt te saai.

Marcusstraat – Ringdijk – Nesciobrug v.v. – kanaal v.v. – Diem – Diemen – Marcusstraat

Drie graden en een heel klein beetje motregen. Blij om eindelijk weer een rondje te kunnen fietsen, na beroerd weer (sneeuw, gladheid) en veel werk (sonic acts).

Marcusstraat – Amstel – Ouderkerk – Ronde Hoep – Botsholsedwarsweg – Ronde Hoep – Ouderkerk – Amstel – Marcusstraat

The act of writing depends on an immediacy of brain to fingers on keyboard to screen (of brain to fingers on pen to paper). I need to see immediately on screen what my fingers are doing to the keyboard.

That is why I always use a simple editors. TextEdit, Writeroom, BBEdit – oh even WordPress – are functioning fine.

But Word and OpenOffice on a Mac drive me crazy. They are great programs for many reasons (the track changes for instance), but I do not understand how anybody who writes can really work with them. In any case, I cannot deal with the latency between my fingerstrokes and what is shown on screen. It is way to slow. My fingers make corrections while typing based on what I see happening on screen. Why have I never read (or heard) anybody complaining about this? (I imagine the problem does not exist with Word on Windows).

Yes, it is often just a question of a quarter second, but that’s way too much.

I mean – uh – I’m just amazed how such fundamental ‘faults’ are just taken for granted. Believe me Word 4 on a MacSE from 1990 did NOT have this problem. (Same thing with the shiny screen on modern laptops which under most light situations are utterly horrible on the eyes).

Keep yr browsers pointed here: Sonic Acts XIII The Poetics of Space. The programme will be online, finally, in a few days – or sooner. The book will be for sale from the 25th of February on.

And yes, I have been busy working on all this, together with the others (Nicky, Annette, Lucas, Gideon, Martijn etc.)

Therefore there were no updates here.

And btw, due to all the snow and the freezing I haven’t been able to get out on the bike for weeks now. I have even installed the old Tacx, for the first time in 5 years, to do a bit of riding inside. (I find that completely boring but my legs begin to ache from not riding).

Maandagmiddag, 15.45 – 16.45. Zon, nauwelijks wind. Toch nog een rondje (laatste van het jaar) ondanks veel werk. Kenmerkend voor dit jaar: een rondje van nauwelijks een uur.

Marcusstraat – Amstel – Ouderkerk – Holendrechterweg – Ouderkerkerplas – langs snelweg – Amstel – Marcusstraat

Ik weet bijna zeker dat ik al 156 ritjes had gemaakt, ik ben een ritje vergeten tussen de 13e en de 26e. Ik heb lang genoeg niet kunnen rijden door het weer (veel sneeuw). Op Tweede Kerstdag scheen de zon en reed ik in de middag het meest klassieke rondje: de Ronde Hoep.

Marcusstraat – Amstel – Ouderkerk – Ronde Hoep – Ouderkerk – Amstel – Marcusstraat

This is of course what should happen:

“The most ambitious solution would transform Google’s digital database into a truly public library. That, of course, would require an act of Congress, one that would make a decisive break with the American habit of determining public issues by private lawsuit.”

See Robert Darnton’s article in the NYRB: Google and the New Digital Future

I’m afraid it won’t happen. Never.

Think about his too, having it done in another way:

“… with none of the missing pages, botched images, faulty editions, omitted artwork, censoring, and misconceived cataloging that mar Google’s enterprise. Bibliographers—who appear to play little or no part in Google’s enterprise—would direct operations along with computer engineers. Librarians would cooperate with both in order to assure the preservation of the books, another weak point in GBS, because Google is not committed to maintaining its corpus, and digitized texts easily degrade or become inaccessible.”

I had just read a new text by Douglas Kahn in which he refers to works by Gordon Mumma, so the programming of a tape piece by Mumma at DNK came at exactly the right time. It was a cold night, and at 22.00 there were still only about 7 people: exceptionally quiet for a DNK concert. It might have been the cold, it might have been the promise of a tape piece. Martijn Tellinga did a short eloquent introduction and played Mumma’s Megaton for William Burroughs. I do not know why he chose that particular piece, but it was nice. Sometimes harsh sounds, also very beautiful spatializations over two speakers. And then something strange happened in the sound, a soft knock, a sound that sounded like a very cautious footstep. I had my eyes closed so I didn’t see anything. It happened a few times more. When after a while I opened my eyes I saw that the light behind the curtains had come on. After the piece was over – it ends with a recording of a drummer playing a steady rhythm on cymbals – it turned out that about nine people had been let in, through the entrance behind the curtains, to not disturb. Seamus Cater wasn’t amused, and it did destroy some of the enjoyment of the piece, but in a sense, it was quite funny – most of the nine behind the curtains were regular DNK-visitors, and I couldn’t be mad at them.

After the break it was Robin Haywards, solo on tuba. I’ve hear him a few times before – never solo – and you know you’re in for very quiet, intens music. I love the sound of the tuba, and sometimes I find myself craving for ‘some real tuba’ by Hayward (I can image that he can produce beautifull conventional tones on the tuba too). Hayward focusses exclusively on the ‘other’ sounds of the tuba, the breath, air through the tube without producing a note, flurries, noises, using circular breathing. He played 4 pieces (or imporvisations), in the first two he focussed on the noises and breathing, in the third one he did make a tone, or almost. He produced amongst others flurries of notes that sounded like, yeah what, the membrane of a loudspeaker moving physically, flabbing, producing both a tone, external noises and some overtones (?), all at the same time, and he build a pulse from that. I was impressed more than ever before by his playing. There are vast unexplored worlds in very soft sounds. The fourth piece – he was already playing for quite a long time, much longer than I’d anticipated – was cut off by someone leaving. He took that as the call to stop. It was late already.

Koud, vond ik het. Noordoostenwind en een zonnetje. 3 graden. Klein rondje, want ik was moe.

Marcusstraat – Ringdijk – Nesciobrug – Diemerzeedijk – Durgerdam – Holysloot – Ransdorp – Schellingwouderburg – Marcusstraat