What have I been up to? I always feel like it is nothing, but it is clearly something I guess. Beyond the usual of doing the shopping, cleaning the house, and other trivialities of life, this has been another month of small things, especially during the school holidays. Some such small things included playing rummy with my grandfather, exploring the ruins of Rockbank Inn and a whirlwind visit to Adelaide, staying in Henley Beach. Can I just say, I am always amazed at the different pace of life in Adelaide, especially the proximity of everything.

At work, the next part of the project I am a part of was announced. This review has been years in the making. It has highlighted the future of where we are heading, but it has also shed light on the present problems that often get lost in the everyday work. (They will just disappear if we pretend they are not there, right?) I wonder if with any sort of change, it takes two to tango, that is the past practice and the future state? Or maybe it is better considered a game of snakes and ladders?

Even with all the reviews on current and future states, I still find so much of my work is still trial and error, finding the best solution based on the situation served up. I wonder if this is simply reality? Or a failure of our rollout of the agile methodology? So much of our learning associated with agile is focused on the technology, however I wonder what matters more, the what or the why? I am often left wondering how we form better habits beyond the clicks and whistles?

Here is a list of books that I read this month:

Other than Damian Cowell’s new single, no new music this month. Spent a lot of time listening to the holiday playlist curated by my daughter. This actually led to me writing a post wondering about the stages associated with listening to music

Podcasts that stood out this month:

In this episode, Nico shares the story behind ‘Moon Safari‘, sharing how each track came to life, the creative choices that shaped the album, and the instruments and techniques that defined the iconic Air sound.

Tracks discussed: Sexy Boy, La Femme d’argent, Talisman, Kelly Watch the Stars

TN:156 AIR – Tape Notes (mp3)

I was amazed at how much of Moon Safari was recorded in a home studio. After talking about writing timeless music, Nicolas Godin’s provided the following recommendations:

You need a Prophet 5 to have the American sound, you need a Roland Juno or Jupitar 8 to have the Japanese sound, you need a Minimoog because this is the basis, this is what Kraftwerk used, it is a mono synth, and then you need a modular synth like the ARP 2600.

This reminded me of Mark Ronson’s bag of tricks that he likes to have.

Godin closes with the following advice:

When you don’t know what to do, let the music decide

This reminded me of Jon Hopkins discussion of creating what the body allows.

Super happy to have Mark on the show!

Modern legend with the hefty pedigree and the skills to move with the times

What a crazy road he’s had working alongside some of the biggest and brightest in the biz

We chew the cud in a comfy part of his new studio zone at the sound factory in Hollywood

Where many a badass record has been made and where WHATS GOING ON was mixed…

no biggie.

What’s so cool is Mark keeps that spirit going so well with a great crew around him and a revolving door of top talent

We chat about his new record label and the uber talented KING PRINCESS, we chat AMY WINEHOUSE we chat about inspiration

And beyond

EP 21:  MARK RONSON — Jamie Lidell by EP 21:  MARK RONSON — Jamie Lidell (mp3)

In this meandering conversation between Jamie Lidell and Mark Ronson, they dive into the egoless life of the producer, learning through and from others, what to take to a writing / recording session, the use of technology in the studio (particular the laptop), the way the industry is trying to figure things out, copyright and creativity, the joy of music (and the piano), and life in Los Angeles.

Some things that really stood out to me were Ronson’s point about being kind:

Be careful who you are a dick with when you are on your way up because you will bump into them on your way down.

How big Mark Ronson’s ‘bag’ is when he turns up:

I’d love to think that I could just sit at the piano and pull melodies and chords from god, but also know I’m not Stevie Wonder, John Lennon or Elton John

The place of Spotify and playlists (circa 2018) in regards t success. He released King Princess’ track ‘1950’ and it got picked up, having 12 million in three weeks. Ronson wonders if Spotify playlists are replacing the radio? After reading Liz Pelly’s book, Mood Machine I wonder what is lost with the death of the radio?

In this episode, Jamie reflects on the years-long journey of creating ‘In Waves’. As well as discussing where his initial moments of inspiration came from, he talks through his approach to sampling, how he balances analog synths with a Logic-based workflow, and the plugins that have become essential to crafting his distinctive sound.

TN:157 Jamie xx – Tape Notes by TN:157 Jamie xx – Tape Notes

Jamie XX unpacks ‘Breather’, Dafodil’ and ‘Life’ from In Waves with John Kennedy as a part of the Tapenotes podcast (mp3).

Jamie makes some interesting comments on creativity:

Jamie XX: Usually I have an idea about something and it turns out that the realisation of the idea is incredibly boring, but the journey that I go on leads somewhere different.

It’s just tweeking, years of tweeking, that is why my project is such a mess

[Talking about the Korg Delta] I never quite understand what it is doing, but it does something beautiful

Sometimes music works better when it is not mathematical

[On ‘Breather’] The initial idea took two days, the minutia of digging into each bar took four years.

I have a very messy library in my brain of all the records I want to sample … a jumble of ideas that make their way to the surface when they are right

While talking about ‘Life’, Jamie touches on the choice of sounds and devices and the way in which this can be attached to a particular moment:

I side-chained it to the kick, which I don’t really do these days, because it is kind of done.

Associated with the choice of sound, including a sample from ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ by Cerrone and Revelacion, Jamie discusses referencing French House and that period of music:

I was going for sort of those early 2000’s Ibiza sort of French House things, but it felt too retro to be doing that again

One of the interesting things that stood out throughout the conversation were the ‘happy accidents’ that seemed to be at the heart of so much of Jamie XX’s music. There are many references to other ideas that are made new through the addition of a plugin or some other treatment.

Jamie finishes the conversation with two points of advice: it is not always fun and do lots of gigs.

It’s a difficult job and it’s not meant to be fun all the time, and its not, … its hard work.

I wonder if some months are longer than others, both mentally and literally? School wise, it has been a long term. With illness associated with the colder season, the focus has become about survival. This includes limited opportunities to get back into jogging.

With that said, we did manage to get away for a mini-getaway over the King’s Birthday Long Weekend down to the Bellarine Peninsula. This involved exploring Point Lonsdale, Fort Queenscliff, going to the Great Ocean Road Chocolataire and Ice-Creamery, and eating out at Jack Rabbit Winery, going to Bells Beach and visiting the Australian National Surfing Museum. Although it was wet, we still managed to have a nice time away.

The big focus at work feels like ‘process’. There is an attempt to double down on who is doing what, especially as we move into a new phase. The dilemma is that processes can be too rigid, therefore preventing movement, or too open, therefore creating inconsistencies. I wonder if the glue within all of this are the relationships between teams.

Associated with this, there has been a push to foster the sharing of skills and knowledge within the organisation. Although I agree with this to a point, as I often benefit from talking through my technical problems with colleagues, the the question I am left with is whether there is a limit to formalising the informal in-lieu of more formal and deliberate training?

Here is a list of books that I read this month:

No new music purchases this month, but I have been listening to the new unapologetic albums from TFS, Montaige and Lorde. I also attended Twinkle Digitz Album Launch Extravaganza.

With regards to my writing, I wrote a post wondering When is Getting Things Done Is Not Actually About Getting Things Done

Podcasts that stood out this month:

Lady Chatterley’s Lover is the final novel by English author D. H. Lawrence, which was first published privately in 1928, in Florence, Italy, and in 1929, in Paris, France.[2] An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960, when it was the subject of a watershed obscenity trial against the publisher Penguin Books, which won the case and quickly sold three million copies.[2] The book was also banned for obscenity in the United States, Canada, Australia, India and Japan. The book soon became notorious for its story of the physical (and emotional) relationship between a working-class man and an upper-class woman, its explicit descriptions of sex and its use of then-unprintable profane words.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover – Wikipedia by Lady Chatterley’s Lover – Wikipedia

I remember reading D.H. Lawrence’s short story ’Odour of Chrysanthemums’ at university, however I had never actually read any more of Lawrence’s other stories or novels. I therefore decided to listen to John Lee’s reading of Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence on Audible.

The novel explores the dichotomy between mind and body. We are taken beyond Lady Constance Chatterley’s marriage with Sir Clifford Chatterley, which is fruitful on paper as he is a successful writer and businessman, but far from fulling from the perspective of emotions and desire. The story explores the affair with Oliver Mellors, the gamekeeper, the growing relationship between the two and the social complexities associated with following such paths in life.

It was interesting reading this 100 years later and think about the shock associated with it.

Lawrence’s novels are considered important for many other reasons, including their depictions of everyday, working-class life. Stories from this point of view were considered radical compared to works by other authors who wrote about the elite class in England.

Source: 10 Banned Literary Classics You Might Not Know by Alex “Cosmo” Lutz

Another self was alive in her, burning molten and soft in her womb and bowels, and with this self she adored him. She adored him till her knees were weak as she walked. In her womb and bowels she was flowing and alive now and vulnerable, and helpless in adoration of him as the most naïve woman. It feels like a child, she said to herself it feels like a child in me. And so it did, as if her womb, that had always been shut, had opened and filled with new life, almost a burden, yet lovely.

This is history. One England blots out another. The mines had made the halls wealthy. Now they were blotting them out, as they had already blotted out the cottages. The industrial England blots out the agricultural England. One meaning blots out another. The new England blots out the old England. And the continuity is not Organic, but mechanical.

Note: The idea of one time replacing another reminds me of Hartley’s The Go-Between

At work, I have spent time trying to get on top of duplicate records. This has included diving deeper into SQL to come up with a clearer solution for identifying issues. At the same time, I have found myself revisiting old solutions and finding new more efficient means of achieving them, like I did with an attendance check I had originally created with Google Sheets. I fear though that I am still slave to ‘busyness’, even as the place I work tries to implement and improve its agile practices:

Busy is not your job. Busy doesn’t get you what you seek. Busy isn’t the point. Value creation is.

You only get today once. Your team does too. How will you spend it?

Source: Business/busyness by Seth Godin

On the home front, We got out and about this month, including going to Woodend, playing games at the library. I also spent time with my grandfather going through things after consolidating his life into one room. It was a reminder of the important of lifelong decluttering – Swedish Death Cleaning – and digital spring cleaning.

On the digital, I have been tinkering with Readwise’s Reader app after Pocket announced it is closing down, as well as Micro.Blog’s Epilogue app for recording my books.

Our youngest daughter went on her first school camp, while the camp planned for our eldest was cancelled. Whether it be COVID or time-in-lieu, I feel that camps are a missed opportunity.

Jogging was put on pause. Something happened with my leg. Last time I pushed through it only for it to get much worse. I have however instead appreciated walking and returned to noticing different things, such as the different houses in Keilor or exploring Little Lonsdale St.

Here is a list of books that I read this month:

In support of Bandcamp Friday and revolt against streaming, I purchased the following (digital) albums:

With regards to my writing, I wrote the following long pieces:

Podcasts that stood out this month:

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the second book and first novel of Irish writer James Joyce, published in 1916. A Künstlerroman written in a modernist style, it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s fictional alter ego, whose surname alludes to Daedalus, Greek mythology’s consummate craftsman. Stephen questions and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown, culminating in his self-exile from Ireland to Europe.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – Wikipedia by A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – Wikipedia

James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel that documents development of Stephen Dedalus. It could be summarised as: “There’s Joyce in the corner, losing his religion.”

It was interesting thinking about A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in comparison with Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time as a means of capturing life.

I found a reading on Audible by Colin Farrell, so I thought I’d give it a listen. I did read the book many years ago, but had forgotten much of it. I did remember that I liked the book and was intrigued therefore to revisit it and my past self.

In Our Time: Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Episode webpage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nyxvr

Media file: http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss/proto/http/vpid/p02r5scq.mp3

Overdue: Ep 653 – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce

Episode webpage: https://headgum.com/overdue

Media file: https://mgln.ai/e/209/s.gum.fm/s-5a592688b73aeb30532c6b5d/prfx.byspotify.com/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/rss.art19.com/episodes/8febfd13-3a8c-44f4-acf8-97b4746975c2.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIg9BbnRlbm5hUG9kBjoGRVQ%3D–bba5bdd77df5f5806138bf3e7d4615ea7f8e6a75

King Solomon’s Mines is an 1885 popular novel[1] by the English Victorian adventure writer and fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. Published by Cassell and Company, it tells of an expedition through an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain, searching for the missing brother of one of the party. It is one of the first English adventure novels set in Africa and is considered to be the genesis of the lost world literary genre. It is the first of fourteen novels and four short stories by Haggard about Allan Quatermain. Haggard dedicated this book to his childhood idol Sir Humphry Davy.

King Solomon’s Mines – Wikipedia

I decided to read H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mine after it was discussed in commentary of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The novel takes us on a journey in search of a lost mine in the heart of Africa based on a map. In the process, the travelers engage with local culture, undermining the ruling party.

I had not realised that I had already experienced so much of the ‘lost world’ legacy associated with the novel with things like Indiana Jones and various quest games. It was interesting that it was written in response to a wager associated with Treasure Island.

Haggard wrote the novel as a result of a five-shilling wager with his brother, who said that he could not write a novel half as good as Robert Louis Stevenson‘s Treasure Island (1883).[16][17] He wrote it in a short time, somewhere between six[16] and sixteen[15] weeks between January and 21 April 1885. However, the book was a complete novelty and was rejected by one publisher after another. After six months, King Solomon’s Mines was published, and the book became the year’s best seller, with printers struggling to print copies fast enough.[17]

Source: King Solomon’s Mines – Wikipedia

I felt that the speed of writing comes through with “Sheba’s Breasts” and going deep into the mine. Something discussed in the The Rest is History podcast.