It has been observed by many that we seem to be living out the old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times." What seems to have been missed is that, unless you are an essential worker who is out there working face-to-face with the coronavirus, be it by risk of exposure (as in the case of grocery store and other employees) or by direct contact those whom are ill themselves (such as medical workers), this is actually quite tedious.
Such, I imagine, is the flaw of living through history. In twenty years (or sooner, or later), the pandemic can be wrapped into a tidy 600-page narrative, pacy, exciting in its way, dark, and get read in its entirety in the course of some hours.
Here, in the midst of it, even during the happiest moments, there is still a cloud that hovers it all: the knowledge that, while nothing much happens, at the same time, quite a lot is happening. The world has slowed to a crawl, and yet it is moving faster then ever.
This is the central reason I have not posted in almost a month: I would want to record some part of my daily life, some record for posterity, if not for history (as I doubt it will ever glance at me) then for myself, and yet, what is there to say that I have not said? What further description of "grey-day-energy" can be given that has not already been given? The idea of describing "life in the time of the coronavirus" is easy, right up until attempt to do so.
Today is the 50th day of my quarantine. Nothing but sitting at home, reading etc. (you can read more about that below), and the occasional walk 'round the block and cycling 'round the block. If quarantine does indeed end on the 15th, then I will reach sixty-four days of quarantine.
Today is the also the First of May, and in most of the rest of the world, it's Labour Day. (We celebrate it in September over here in America. For some reason. Probably an attempt at disrupting the solidarity of the worldwide working class.) And there is a general strike going on, nationwide! So don't cross the picket line, and if there's something you can do within your power to support them, do so.
My time is occupied in much the same way as it has been for the past weeks. I am composing. I am reading. I am listening to music. I am, occasionally, even writing - I screwed in some courage and submitted a story to F&SF, and I'm currently waiting for their response.
Composing. I managed to solve a latency issue I had been having with Reaper. Turns out I needed to turn anticipative FX processing - it solved just about all of my problems. There are still occasionally hiccups if I have a MIDI item opened up and have the preview(? the little eye cursor on the list of MIDI items) for too many on, but that's hardly the end of the world.
My most recent purchase in the area of music was of Aaron Venture's Infinite Brass and Infinite Woodwinds. These really are incredible virtual instruments - great tone and stunning playability and flexibility. They sound fantastic straight out of the box, and they've completely supplanted all my other brass and winds. Right now, I don't foresee ever needing to purchase a brass or winds library ever again unless I need some truly bizarre aleatoric thing (and, hopefully, by that point I'll be able to hire live players anyway.)
Mainly, as I compose, I am trying to ensure that the brass and winds are balanced with the keyboards, percussions, and strings, which come from different sample libraries. My present work is with a track called "Grand Inquisitor Field," for ExoSpace, and in the course of writing it I've had to eliminate a snare drum line that wasn't working. It wasn't working, rhythmically speaking.
With the snare gone, however, it reveals just how thin the texture of the piece really is. It's almost embarrassing, realizing that the piece was relying on the snare so much - it seems like a cheap trick. But this is, I think, also educational: it forces me to be more inventive, to exercise different compositional muscles, to flesh out the orchestration and to write new, and better, accompaniment.
Reading. It was confirmed a few days ago that a new Daniel Abraham fantasy novel is coming in 2021, the first of a trilogy, and to celebrate this I am re-reading The Long Price Quartet, which is one of my favorite book series' of all time. This is the third time I have read the series, but it has been over two years since the last time I read it. I've become a slower and more attentive reader, and I find myself appreciating the books anew.
I am also reading Kameron Hurley's propulsive The Mirror Empire. I am nearly half-way through and it just. keeps. moving. I'm not wholly convinced by some of the in-universe politicking, and I keep hoping for more detail and play with gender roles, as they are quite different from our own, but these are perhaps simply results of how much is happening at any one time.
Julian Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot is a delightful book. It is, ostensibly, about a scholar pursuing the question of which of two stuffed parrots inspired a parrot in one of Gustave Flaubert's books. You might think that this is somewhat thin to hang a story on, and you'd be correct! It's more a collection of Flaubertiana with thin literary wrappings so that it can pass itself as a novel.
(I just finished reading Again, Dangerous Visions, an anthology edited by Harlan Ellison. Some of it was very good, some of it less so. It was not the most consistent anthology I've ever read, qualitatively.)
Listening. I have been, as is my wont, bouncing from this to that, but for the past couple of days I have been occupying myself with Murray Gold's soundtracks for Doctor Who. And they are exceptional - the equal of any film score. One is left wondering why he is not writing the soundtracks for Marvel movies and other blockbusters. Perhaps it's the melody, perhaps it's the emotion. One can never know.
Writing. Well, I've never been a swift writer, and the procrastination that appears in any pursuit I attempt to take up rears its head more loudly and more prominently here then anywhere else. Even so, I managed to complete something last month and I finally managed to submit it.
I'm also, slowly, working on a story which takes the form of a written-out interview. I don't know if it'll work, but I'm going to try. The story is reasonably solid, I feel, and the central task that lay before me is ensuring that it is readable and does not become dull. I don't know if it'll be successful, and there are a couple other ideas that I'm trying to fit into it which make that an iffier prospect, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.
Meanwhile, the world marches on. Sigh. My friend Chris has just posted his 13th Dispatch from the Coronavirus Days, if you wish to read about that.
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