2006

Mon, Jan 23

<02:41 EEST> Some recent theatre/movie experiences:

• Kullervo monologue, energetic and exciting but somewhat messy. It would probably have been helpful to know the story beforehand.
• Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley, presented at Vakiopaine (like Kullervo) by Pahnanpohjimmaiset. The story was nice and somewhat like a SF short story, but it wasn't particularly effective as a stage play IMHO.
• THX-1138 was a nice interpretation of the 1984 story, but a little too unoriginal, plus the ending was dull. What's fun about this early George Lucas flick are the visual and auditory ideas that are readily identified in slightly more developed forms in his later Star Wars movies.
• Paha maa was dismal and a little depressing as expected. The story wasn't particularly good as such; the idea was adapted, uncredited, from a short story by Tolstoy, and it could have been a little more subtle. But this is more than compensated by the excellent style in which it is delivered. It's so well made IMHO that it detracts somewhat from the thorough sadness of the story, which is probably intentional.
• Matti, another Solar Film, was not quite so well made, but still fascinating and thought-provoking.
• Total Recall, while at risk of being yet another 80s style dumb action movie, this was good solid Cyberpunk. As expected from PKD.

Then onto some more personal issues. First of all, this Wednesday my sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy, making me an uncle. It's all really weird and wonderful :)

Apart from that, I've felt like shit both physically and mentally for the past two weeks or so. I've suddenly got a skin condition that I believe to be atopic dermatitis. In fact I've experienced a very minor form of it every winter for the past few years. It's probably been due to dry air and lack of sunlight, and I've only had something like a few cm² of the rash so that it hasn't been a particular problem. This time it has exploded over to new, larger areas and I find it constantly irritating.

The dermatitis is making it hard for me to focus on things, and I find myself unable and unmotivated to do physics. The causal direction is unclear though, as the condition may have a psychosomatic basis.

In fact, I'm starting to feel that my current position as a graduate student isn't the right job for me. It may be just the project, or what's worse, the entire physics department, in which I don't feel at home.

I'm trying to analyze what has been so nice about most of my previous jobs and voluntary positions, such as teaching, industrial R&D and the student theatre. One thing that they have in common is that I've always been in a kind of specialist position; perhaps not quite a star, but someone doing something unique that is respected for just that. I feel like the world of high energy physics is an established mainstream industry where I would have to do years of standard work that anyone there could do. The interesting, unique stuff would come along much later, and even then it would be hard to gain a respected position.

One problem is also my desire to do new things, and I feel like I've seen enough of particle physics already. I'm currently excited about making music, even if the prospects of making a living that way are slim. A recent favourable review of Paskakaparee, along with the positive comments from lots viewers, have convinced me that I have a knack for composing, and I keep having new song ideas all the time. The point is that my lack of motivation for physics isn't simply depression in general, as I'm still passionate about a number of things.

Of course many people make music, but it's a lot easier to make something unique in that field — or pretty much any artform — which is what I seem to want. My desire for novelty is a whole other problem, considering that one should generally concentrate on a given field in order to master it. Or maybe that's just the current society talking, with its insistence to define a person according to a single main profession.

Mon, Jan 9

<07:04 EEST>

I saw you walking down across the street
with your mindful gait, and you waved at me
And though you warm up this day of a season white
chilly tremors I felt going down my spine.

Here goes another song. I wanted to make a track less assertive than my usual stuff, a chillout synth-funk that just borders on being danceable. I think it's still a little too complex and punchy at times, but I like it as it is and I wanted something finished. In fact, it's opened a whole new world of funky sounds that I'll probably keep exploring further.

<08:54 EEST> Just noticed I've released a total of 23 songs for download. This could be a good time for a break.

Tue, Jan 3

<19:33 EEST> Two new music releases!-) Both of these were waiting in an almost-finished state and I didn't quite know where to go with them, so I decided to publicize them in the current form. As they say in the opensource community, release early and release often ;)

• Juice of Gabber is a hardcore pun on the English Country Dance. The gabber is in the sounds and general feeling, while the tempo and structure match the original. It got started during my recent gabber craze, when I noticed a similarity between the original dance tune and some pieces by Rotterdam Terror Corps. Both are basically marches in 12/8.
• Talvisuru — Piano Improvisation was conceived in the lonely freezing darkness between Xmas and New Year. I had an idea for quite a different piece, but as I experimented on the melodies with an acoustic piano sound, I decided it should stay that way.

  It's improvisational in the sense that I found a few nice passages from which I could play a slightly different whole each time. Thus it's great starting material for a live ambient gig, or perhaps something to elaborate on with a full band. There's also a strong association with movie soundtracks, which may not be surprising considering my recent theatrical works.

  Its sources of inspiration are harder to pin down, and they appear to stem more subconsciously from a larger set of past listening. I've identified similar themes in Apocalyptica's Forever (from the Reflections album) and Waltari's 4000 Years (from Radium Round).

Mon, Jan 2

<22:33 EEST> Watched the movie Aeon Flux. I recommend you to watch something else. It was a kind of MTV Generation's SF movie with a paper-thin plot and character development and an anticlimactic final revelation.

I got interested in the film as someone compared it favourably to The Matrix, but IMHO they only share some slight aesthetic ideas. Even those are much lower quality in this movie.

Sun, Jan 1

<09:45 EEST> \\//_ 1984 from this new vaguely more CSS-aware nillion euro homepage!

In the early hours of this new year, I got the inspiration to finally migrate this site away from frames. A good part of the fun was writing scripts for the transfer; while I did a lot of the stuff manually, the diary pages were too numerous for that kind of thing. Fortunately they are all script-generated themselves. With the CSS layout I've had to do some unplanned modularization, which will hopefully turn out useful.

Naturally, expect some glitches early on, notably with the look and layout. My only remaining problems are with the one or two tables of contents, but it's all layout level stuff which doesn't feel too critical.