“But the mechanics understood each other. At the end of the summer, it would be these hardheaded tinkers with their lopsided-healed fractures, scars, and singed-off eyebrows, chronically short-tempered before Creation’s irreducible cussedness, who’d come out of these time-traveler’s clambakes with any practical kind of momentum, and when the professors had all gone back to their bookshelves and protégés and intriguings after this or that Latinate token of prestige, it’d be the engineers who’d figure out how to keep in touch, what telegraphers and motor expressmen to trust, not to mention sheriffs who wouldn’t ask too many questions, Italian firework artists who’d come in and cover for them when the townsfolk grew suspicious of night horizons, where to find the discontinued part, the exotic ore, the local utility somewhere on Earth able to generate them current with the exact phase or frequency or sometimes simple purity that would meet their increasingly inscrutable needs.” (ATD, p. 457/8)

[Roswell & Merle in front of a blackboard full of mathematical equations]

“Way I figure, all’s we need to do’s translate this here into hardware, then solder it all up, and we’re in business.”
“Or in trouble”
“By the way, who’s the practical one here and who’s the crazy dreamer, again? I keep forgetting.” (ATD 459)

Not to be missed if you’re living in or around Amsterdam — well worth the travel if you come from a bit further away — next monday, 29th of january a DNK – PSWAR co-production at OT301 a concert with the incredible line-up of:

1
Yoshihide Otomo – turntables
Sachiko M – electronics
Martin Brandlmayr – drums
Axel D̦rner Рtrumpet

(They’re touring Europe & this is their only peformance in the Netherlands).

2.
Phô
(Bjornar Habbestadt, Morten Olsen, Nicholas Fields)

I’m looking forward to a packed OT301. 4 euro’s, 21.30, Overtoom 301.
Check http://www.dnk-amsterdam.com/?dept=AGENDA&article=20.

Blogging at a very low pace – too many things on my head (Dutch: “te veel andere dingen aan mn kop”).

For instance, another Oorbeek-appearance at the Stedelijk – saturday 27th, 16.00 – 18.00 at Radio Rietveld. This is our third Stedelijk-gig: 1. “illegal” roof concert organized by Mediamatic. 2. Mark van Tongeren concert in the (now defunct???) series of modern music. 3. Radio Rietveld. Funny.

http://www.rrsmcs.nl/new.html
http://www.radiorietveld.nl/
http://www.oorbeek.net

Writing takes time. Blogging takes time. My time is taken by packing, unpacking and moving stuff around. Boxes with books, boxes with papers, boxes with stuff. (The paper trail of one’s life). My time is taken by getting used to new things – I started working at V2_ last week. I will be moving house over the next few weeks. Blogging is not on my mind these days.

And then I’m part of the Offline – Online Publishing event at De Balie on the 19th of January: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?articleid=92553&podiumid=media. With Alessandro Ludovico, Simon Worthington and Georg Schollhammer of resp. Neural:http://www.neural.it, Mute: http://www.metamute.org/ and Documenta 12 Magazines.

I will be speaking about Ubiscribe: http://www.ubiscribe.net, the POD we made, and about different time-regimes of editing. (Maybe I’ll use a different term in a weeks time – have to check on the exact significance of ‘regime’ in English, but for now the term is stuck in my mind.)

My ears aren’t used to a ‘bass’ anymore. A whole long year long I’ve been listening to music & barely been able to hear a good low bass sound. I’ve been listening to loads of mp3s through either little headphones or the tiny speakers of my powerbook. There’s no bass there.

I just connected my powerbook to ‘real’ speakers – Tannoy MX1’s – that have quite a heavy bass-sound. I do not believe my ears. I do not understand anymore what I am hearing. My ears have to adapt. The sound is so much richer, and it is so ‘low’…

It makes you wonder – again – what the iPod-craze is doing to our perception of sound and our perception of music.

(Not that I am a stereo-freak. Far from it. I think one’s ears do adapt, fill in, filter, imagine what is missing. Maybe when listening one always imagines what the music should sound like?)

The days pass by quiet. A bit like the weather: quiet and grey. I am waiting more than anything else. Waiting to move. First back to Amsterdam. Then start a new job. Then move on to a new appartment in Amsterdam. In the meantime I am writing. (F. is also finishing work – so I’m not much of a spoiler of Xmas-festivities).

I am writing in a strange way, working on the same article now since 2 weeks? It’s a round-up of my research at the Jan van Eyck; the story is the one I’ve been telling in the public lectures earlier this month.

The framework was already there (in my head, in the powerpoints that I used in the lectures). I basically wrote everything down and added all the necessary or nice quotes and references. I could only get it ‘out’ by not being totally involved with the sentences that I typed out – by simulating that I was not wholly present while writing. Simply too much material. maybe afraid to finish? And although I consciously threw out quite a few subjects (like a comparision of blogging and notebooks, of blogs and commonplace books; and the whole public – private issue), I still ended up with over 20.000 words.

That was 4 days ago.

So it feels almost as if I’m trying to write a thesis.

I’m used to write texts of 1000 – 2000 words. Sometimes, sometimes I may write 4000 words.

I spent the past days making a first edit. Not working too hard – a few hours a day. Cleaning up, deleting doublures (there are still a lots – I tend to state everything five times in the same text), shifting whole paragraphs. Again doing that while feeling not totally involved.

The first edit is done. It still is 20.000 words long.

And I am afraid it still is too much of a simple description of the history, present and possible future of blogging – zooming in on issues of authorship and software – mostly software. (Well, I know what Latour says about descriptions, but I’m not so sure that my description fits his criteria…)

But, well, I hope I now have all the ‘material’ – to get fully involved with the ‘sentences’. I know I’ll be able to throw out at least 10.000 words.

Peet http://sneaker.nl/articles/2006/12/20/wil-je-ook-eens-een-keertje-minder/ tells me about this software: http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/product/writeroom – and hmm, although I’m quite often doing the apple-tab thing (swithing quickly between programs), I might like this.

Just text text text!

Alas, it’s only for 10.4 & I’m still using 10.3.9 – maybe this will make me upgrade (when I find the time — …)

Laatste ritje. Waarschijnlijk. 11 – 13.30. Vise en het dal van de Berwinne en van de Voer. Klassiek dus.Dikke mist, soms niet meer dan 25 meter zicht – dus ook nergens uitzicht. Kletsnatte weg. 5 graden. Misschien wel het beste weer om mee af te sluiten.

Kanne – kanaal – Vise – Lorette – Dalhem – Mortroux – Val Dieu – St. Jean de Sart – St. Pietersvoeren – St. Martensvoeren – Gravensvoeren – Moelingen – Lixhe – Lanaye – Kanne

Eennalaatste ritje. Denk ik. Mistig. 5 graden. 15.00 – 16.20. Raar om te bedenken dat ik niet zo snel meer op de Hauts de Froidmont zal komen. Ik ga het missen, volgend jaar.

Kanne – Eben – Emael – Halembaye – Froidmont – Houtain St. Simeon – Bassenge – Wonck – Eben – Kanne

Am here at the Jan van Eyck, writing. But it feels as if I have already left this place, as if the year is over. (Well, some days left en a few thousand words to write & edit).

2007 has started already. In the sense that 2007-activities have already started.

If this mood continues I think I will not go for any last goodbye-bike-rides. If this mood continues then, it will mean that I will not go for a bike-ride once in December.

To be honest, I can not imagine that will become true.

As I write this, I begin to feel the desire to go for a ride. (But it’s dark and it’s misty now).