1803 Monday September 04 2023
It’s Labor Day. I am outside, hunched over a Weber grill, flipping the hamburger patties and knackwurst.
Mother sits under the sun umbrella at the table. She is also hunched over; opening an Adult “Activity” Book, pencil in hand. She flips through a few pages resentfully before exclaiming that “Somebody has already done some of the puzzles!”
I tell her nobody has used that book but her.
She points to puzzles already completed, as evidence, vigorously litigating her point.
I inform her that that is her handwriting. Don’t you recognize it?
No, that’s not my handwriting., she declares. The period on that sentence pushing up like a brick wall, as if one could conjure up the finality of reality through tone of voice.
She pushes the book away in disgust. The pencil is discarded like trash into the bushes near the table.
I know better than to argue. I can’t help but wonder how terrifying it must be to slowly give in to the mist slowly filling one’s memory palace.
I ask her who she thinks is writing in the Activity book.
She shrugs and says I don’t know, but it’s not me.
I move the burgers to a colder part of the grill, and roll the knackwurst over. The yard is loud with the sound of insects and distant power tools. The air smells like charcoal and cooked meat. The sun feels good on the skin.
2020 Wednesday September 8 2023
I’m watching tv with Charli Sometimes. Behind the tv, windows separate the living room from the sunroom. It’s dark in there, except for the light cast by Mother’s own tv. I can see her backlit form moving around with some urgency.
I watch her, deciding whether she is in distress, or, just restlessly trying to clean up her room.
I shuffle into her dark room and ask her if she is ok.
She replies she is looking for “plastic”, as she lifts unworn, new clothes folded neatly waiting for the dresser. For what? For my sandwich. You need plastic for your sandwich.Yes! she replies impatiently, evidently not finding any “plastic” under her latest shopping extravaganza, delivered courtesy of the USPS.
Clothes she will never wear lay crumpled around her and draped insouciantly over the couch. Why would there be plastic under the clothes? Because I’m looking for the plastic the clothes came in! But why?
To wrap my sandwich so it doesn’t dry out!
She has become an explosion of clothes. A blouse unfurls around her. Sweatpants flop to the side. A towel slides off the window. But no “plastic”.
I’ll get you some Saran Wrap. It’s in the kitchen.
She stops and looks up, surprised. Give me the plate and I’ll wrap it up for later. She hobbles over to her bed and grabs the plate. I walk over and put my arm on her shoulder. I can do this, Mother. Ok.
She collapses on the bed, exhausted.
I grab the plate holding the sandwich and stumble out of the darkness, towards the brightly lit kitchen. My eyes struggle to adjust. My sense of rationality still trying to process the moment.
Between the lintel of her room, and the kitchen, the mist gradually dissipates and shadows softened by its veil gradually harden.
2303 Thursday Sept 07 2023
It’s already past my bedtime. But instead of going to bed, I’m measuring the distance between the patchbay and the desk area to my left. This is the fifth time I’ve measured, and yet, the number looks to be the same. Eight feet if we include some slack. And I need eight cables. So I’m looking at a cable run of 64 feet behind my desk.
In my lap sits a plastic container with a pile of Neutrik cable jacks. I count thirteen of them in the pile. I only need three more. And maybe 2 hours to cut and solder them all.
If only the connection between people were so easy. Instead: para-social mobility as proxy.
If only the connection between what is perceived, and what is experienced could be objectified. Instead: the algorithm in all its forms.
I click the Submit button, purchasing 80 feet of cable, and a few extra TRS cable jacks.
The patchbay has become an emissary for memory and people and thoughts. The patchbay as lifeline.
1258 Saturday September 09 2023
I’m watching a progress bar slowly move towards completion. I’ve bounced the song at least 20 times already. And yet, I keep finding little details to clean up. I’ve called this one `sensory reverie memory trajectory`.
The song heaves under a melodic bassline, threatening to completely fall apart. The rhythm section pushes the song forward like a Honda Civic with aftermarket mods. The melody is slightly out of tune, as if the tape it was recorded on were old and brittle. Occasionally, tape failure cause the melody to spasm. As the piece continues, the failure comes in and out of focus like a director seamlessly swapping lenses during a scene.
A transition sets up the bridge in a new key. The rhythm section changes completely into a down-tempo groove. A piano starts playing a modest solo, fighting through mechanical failure and signal deterioration as its sound occasionally clips frequencies during the emotional peaks. A synth wails through a guitar amplifier in the background, on the edge of breakup, threatening to upend the whole thing in feedback.
After the solo, the bridge resolves back to the original key and transitions into the chorus. The mechanical failure in the melody is less pronounced, controlled: Exhausted. It’s pushing through the chaos of the chorus while the amplified synth stays on the razor’s edge between feedback, noise and music. Mostly succeeding.
The sound eventually resolves in a slow arpeggio to a tonic chord. The wreckage left in its wake, a totem of weariness.
1619 Sunday Sept 10 2023
I’m driving my truck through torrential rain. There is so much water that the wipers can barely keep up.
I start “emergent baseline” on Apple CarPlay while steering through a curve.
Immediately, I notice the song can be divided into two parts: mush and high-frequency content. The sauce has broken. The song doesn’t work.
I’m disappointed, but not surprised.
The truck cuts a wake through floodwaters, throwing up water onto the windshield.
Headphone correction software can only do so much; also, I’m not a great mixer, so there’s that, too.
The downpour continues.
I don’t really need to hear the whole song, but I continue anyway. I make mental notes about what’s wrong. Basically, everything.
I turn on the fog lights to give my truck some more visibility. I’m not sure how much it helps, other than to signal I’m worried. I can feel the water through the truck floorboard, splashing against the steel undercarriage.
I’ll have to rip the mix down to the studs. I might even have to fix the arrangement if the effort doesn’t yield any results. Through the mush, one thing is clear, though — somehow the power and emotion of the song has been bled dry. It’s an imperfect doppelgänger; a Frankenstein’s monster juxtaposing two contradictory modes of being, and yet predictably, what’s left is the spectral shape of the past ossified as the present.
I steer the truck through the flooded neighborhood. The downpour continues. In the cab, I drive in silence with nothing but the sound of rain and a turbo-charged V6 to keep me company.
Between us, a ledge of memory.