More music chat.

Sep. 24th, 2025 03:55 pm
aj: (music)
[personal profile] aj
I've been forcefully reminded lately how listening to music keeps fundamentally changing. Prior to ~120 years ago, you had to listen to live music if you listened to it at all. Then came phonographs and radio and *waves at evolution of recorded music*.

I mention this because I dabble in listening to music reviewers on YouTube. I tried keeping up with a few for a bit, but Todd in the Shadows is basically my speed when it comes to engaging with modern music. However, micthesnare on YT is someone who does what he calls a 'deep discog dive', which basically means he sits and listens to an artist or band's extant discography and talks about it. He also does the occasional experiment where he doesn't listen to anything via streaming and checks out a different/older way of engaging with music. He's done cd's only and radio only, so far, and it's pushed me to engage with the remains of my once-insane CD collection. (Luckily, I still have a CD player in my car.)

But! His most recent discography review was for Madonna. Which, full disclosure, I was a huge Madonna fan as a kid? Legitimately, I think her True Blue and Like a Prayer albums are ones that I owned on tape and played on repeat for several years.

And this is kind of what I mean about how listening to music - for me - has evolved? Because I was so limited in what I had access to - I saved my birthday and Xmas $$ to buy tapes, then CD's at the mall - I ended up spending a whole lot of time with the albums I ended up buying. I know that's similar to how my parents engaged with music too, although for them it was predominantly on vinyl.

Streaming/online music spaces really were a huge game changer for how people listen to/engage with music and I'm not going to finger wag about that. I know that there are some artists that I would never have even heard of if it hadn't been for how digital music opened things up. Artists with work that have helped me emotionally in ways that I can't really parse because their work is so fundamental to my emotional development.

That said, I'm enjoying forcing myself to slow down and engage in another way with music.

Por ejemplo, back at the end of 2014 I had the large and mildly upsetting realization that I couldn't remember the last time I'd read a published book. I'd been pretty exclusively reading fanfic at that point and I made an active choice to force myself to read published books along side my lovely fanfic. This was also when I started tracking my reading (as a tool!) to keep myself accountable. And I am very, very glad I pushed myself to prioritize reading published books. (Reading is a skill and I got a lot better at it by pushing myself out of my comfort zone.)

So, yeah! I love dumping stuff on the busted iPod (TM) and hitting shuffle, but I think it will be good for me to slow down and engage with specific albums too.
aj: (art)
[personal profile] aj
Maybe I should start sketching. That way I'll need a pencil and a sketch pad and go about my life. (LBR, lol.)

I lament this only because I decided to Invest in a punch cradle for signatures. I have weird texture issues with my metal ruler (which I've been using to mark signatures for punching) and I don't love having to flatten the bent signature so I can poke it. I've been wanting to get one since pretty much day one, but the only ones I could find were, like, $40 3d printed ones on Etsy. Which, that's a weasel farm I did not want to touch.

Anyway, I made my bi-annual order from azn (I don't love it, but there are things I'm too poor for morals about) and found one for $13. I also bought some shampoo (Neutrogena, why are you being dodgy about T-Gel again? I need you to ctfo), paper, and Swedish dish towels. Apparently they're compostable?

BUT. I've managed to put together ~5 new projects to work on. Some are multiple volumes! Well, kinda. I respect the hell out of people who write 400K+ stories, but that usually means splitting the work into multiples. The one I'm currently working on (FF.net is tougher to harvest stuff from, dammit!) is a 400K (unfinished) beast and it's set at three volumes. Luckily, the formatting's mostly fine, I just need to tab the paragraphs and do minor spelling corrections. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but each chapter has ~300-700 paragraphs that I need to find and hit the 'tab' button for each. Glad I found the way to strip out the formatting so I don't have to hit 'backspace' to eliminate the extra formatting space. I'm relearning so much about Microsoft Word hot keys and formatting rules.

Maybe I should go back to doing fic recommendation posts somewhere. There's so much good (and long) stuff out there that I don't know that anyone knows about! TBF, libraries and archives are always bad at marketing and are much more based around the X person wants to find a thing, we'll hold it until they come looking! model. It is what it is.

I do really need to work on getting better at covering books though. The endpages always come out wonky and I just don't know what to do to work on that? Especially as glueing the end papers to the cover has a bunch of variables happening while you're trying to get it done. Is the glue too much? Not enough? Can I get the bone folder at the right angle so the pressing doesn't rip? Is the spine spacing adequate or should it be bigger? WHY IS THE CURVED SPINE NOT CURVING FFS. And it's hard to practice THIS BIT a lot to get better at it because it's all time sensitive and to practice I'd have to cut a bunch of stuff a part and that feels wasteful and annoying on my end. BLAH. Also, I need to find the damn scoring thing [personal profile] annieeats gave me last year that I "put somewhere for safekeeping" so I "wouldn't lose it". UGH, exacto knives are out for my fingers.

All that said, having a book press has made my life better by a factor of ten when it comes to binding. Especially with the post-bind pressing. Bleeeeeeesssssssss.

Snacks!

Sep. 15th, 2025 09:47 am
aj: (hungry)
[personal profile] aj
I met [personal profile] havocthecat for a lovely lunch on Saturday and was introduced to a delicious dish that involved cabbage and Chinese sesame paste. I need to make it immediately. It is reminiscent but different (and delightfully so!) from my peanut lime slaw. I was also delighted by everything else we tried.

That said, I want to be better about eating food I prepare and bring to work rather than my new normal a.) not eating at all or b.) buying food from places around my job. Neither are healthy or sustainable. BUT. I'm also In No Mood to make a lot of things that involve fire or cooking meat. Now, I have happily gone vegetarian in the past and am happy to do it again, but I'm also really tired of grocery shopping atm. SO. I decided to make up mini cheese/meat snack packs for lunch this week and buy a bunch of dried fruit, nuts, grapes and apples to cart along with. I did spend entirely too much $$ on cheese, but here we are.

UPDATE: Snack lunch was delicious and I am v. happy.

Hopefully this will tide me over until I'm able to swing by an Asian grocery for Chinese sesame paste. I already have the black sesame seeds and the right vinegar at home along with some cabbage slaw. Non traditional, but unless I get the overwhelming desire to make dumplings, I'm not buying a whole ass napa cabbage. Honestly, I should invite some friends over to make dumplings this fall. That would be pretty cool.

Look.

Sep. 12th, 2025 09:14 am
aj: (school)
[personal profile] aj
I have a whole lot of complex feelings about my alma mater re: my master's degree. I am proud of the work I did and adore some of my former instructors. HOWEVER, I was very poorly treated by the school from well before I even got accepted all the way passed my graduation.

Highlights:

Cut for bitching and light discussion of current events, so pass if you are In No Mood )

Anyway, I'm just going to sit over here and give a sensible chuckle.

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