2009 – another new year, another innocently looking child with the future in its hands. For me it began rather miserable – the first cold I caught in nearly seven years. I submitted some of my music to Stillstream, a rather large ambient netradio station, and was surprised to learn just the next day that the founder of the radio himself had downloaded the files and and even confirmed it per email, stating he would probably give it a listen within the week. So apparently it’s under evaluation but I don’t expect Stillstrean to accept it, because I reckon the music is too complicated for their clientele. I’m curious about the rejection message, though. Perhaps they do not get back to me at all to avoid troubleful conversations with deadly offended musicians – in my experience it’s the mediocre poseurs who scream the loudest insisting on their right to entitlement.

Let’s switch to the Dutch John Peel and his NTNS netradio show. Last autumn, two Petcord releases were featured in this show:
Frontal Grid by me and Steven’s Drifts 1-4. Now that the old year’s gone, Mark compiled his traditional “best of” compilation for the last quarter of the past year and surprisingly both Steven and me made it on his compilation. Has it made any impact yet? Not really, according to my server logs. But it would be surprising to see many visitors clicking all the links on the pages ;-).

The weather is not less interesting this year. Having had an unusually long lasting cold spell since Christmas, a thick blanket of snow has been added to the mix since yesterday (and it’s still snowing). As the cold spell will last at least for another week, this means I finally, after years of missed opportunities, will be able to shoot a b/w series of winter pictures. The problem with the region I life in is that you either have a cold spell without snow or a snow blanket that hardly survives the next day. Rarely can you have it both ways and this is the reason why there’s not much snow to be seen on my winter pictures.

What else could happen this year?

I don’t know. Unlike previous years, I haven’t got the slightest idea. The child is irritatedly looking at me, expecting me to react in some kind of a way. I opt for passing by, as too often have I announced things that did or could not take place. Annoucements seem the best way to destroy events, because by the time the word is out, they have to happen. They were simply thrown into this world without any choice given. Sometimes they are superceded by unexpected turns in life one cannot foresee:
I could as well be insane a few months. Rather than completing another composition or project, I could be busy with taking my medicine, staring at a white wall and unconsciously drawing circles and loops on a piece of paper. Fuzzy memories of a past life, blurred faces, voices and smells. I might face a sudden death, one second aware of myself playing the piano and another surrounded by darkness and nothingness. Maybe the other second is like watching my body fall over the keyboard and wondering about the force driving me upwards. Nobody knows.

I cannot confidently say that I reached what I had in mind. Perhaps lack of effort, motivation to reach more. What I learnt though is that it is all about creating an illusion. Were I to revisit the idea of a netlabel today, I would advise to:

quit critical thinking and get used to presenting claims as undisputed facts

get used to considering an audience as helpless masses which eagerly await your instructions

exaggerate an artist’s, label’s or reviewer’s importance when outlining his achievements

emulate images, poses and phrases from today’s top mainstream stars.

find use and content in every submission and instruct people to do so, too

create accounts on every social networking site there is and collect strategically important friends

constantly repeat desired attributes people shall associate with you, your label and your artists

never argue with label owners or artists no matter how justified it appears

be sure to religiously follow the latest trends in music, buzzwords, gadges and web services

enrich Wikipedia with articles about your netlabel and its artists to inflate your importance

How about contacts? Some never get back to me in time, others confuse me with the doctor in ward nr. 6 or expect me to unconditionally admire them. Sometimes none of the former is happening, but in this case you can be sure that the conversation will die once the other side has accomplished its goals. Wear a mask, get used to it. There is no friendship, only different shades of solitude: One that manifests itself with being a stranger amongst many “friends”, another that unexpectedly cuts off conversations or one that never gets started at all.

If there was a change in 2008 then it was an increasing reluctance to write about me or subjects in general. Writing always implies importance of a subject. Thoughtless writing, however, can inadvertingly heighten subjects to an importance they never had. I approached the edge staring in Thanatos’ face and struggled to escape. He poisoned my thoughts, emphasising monotony, hopelessness and ignorance and yet I continued for reasons unknown to me.

I wrote better music and made better photographs, but my output slowed down notably towards the second half of the year. Perhaps the greatest advances were related to design. A mixed year. Things never turn out the way one would like them to see and instead prefer a steady state.

I’ve been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand
Could these sensations make me feel the pleasures of a normal man?
These sensations barely interest me for another day
I’ve got the spirit, lose the feeling, take the shock away

Ian Curtis – Disorder

Perhaps a summary of the past two months:
Some people may appear like helpful or in favour of you, but taken at their words they turn out to be just more professional poseurs with decades of practice in society compliant obedience. Should you ever happen to get too close to the edge of nowhere, they will quickly let you know about their priorities. In line of society means transposing the laws of capitalism to everyday’s life, which of course is nothing else but a political correct form of Darwinism. You are not welcome as a human, but as a human resource to deploy, as a commodity, institution, object or vessel for silly prejudices and hatred. Right is not a matter of the better argument, but merely a matter of dependence and abusing it for one’s own end.

There is not really a good reason to live on like nothing ever happened, because it has alway been around like this. Perhaps one was lucky to be spared, not to come into someone else’s crosshairs, but that alone does not make the world a better place. Nor does it mean that people will think of someone as a useful member of society. You are judged by what you own by people who do not have the authority to judge and not by what you achieved. There is a place, confirmed and assigned, but no matter how hard you try you do not get to change the rules others will apply to you. Should you ever become too careless to forget about it someone will gracefully remind you of it.

I spent some time not writing knowing that I was supposed to do so, because otherwise the value of my blog would be questionable. But what do you do if there is nothing you can write about? Citing “news” which in fact are not really relevant to one’s life? There is a limit to what I can write about in a blog, personal things for example. You would not really want to give anyone the chance of using search engines to learn about your weak spots, especially your enemies and competition. This is paradox somehow, because I can never really use a blog in its original sense, but on the other hand by allowing these sites to be indexed, I do want to be read by the public.

Perception without exhibition. Cowardness? Or careful consideration of the impacts of one’s behaviour? You are held accountable for the way you are describing events, what seems to be important and what is omitted by you. There is no way around it. So essentially my silence over the past weeks was fueled by the feeling of not having anything appropriate to say. I did feel like writing about a great deal of things, but they were not suitable for the public eye. There is no such thing as privacy unless you cease publishing on the Internet by pulling the plug.

My musical creativity is at a record low: Since January I have accumulated nine fragments that do not make much sense. On the other hand I created some good graphical artwork as compensation (used as covers for netlabel releases). I was even fortunate enough to publish an artist on the netlabel who even became part of the latter. I should resume my writing and hope for the best, but much like Antoine Roquentin, I loathe listening to other’s music and review it. Why would I want to play an useful idiot for them and help them promote their releases? How many of them would bother to listen to my music? What are my motives? Am I doing this because I want to do it?

He had finally reached the end point: Where everything he said, wrote or broke would vanish unnoticed, because there was nobody left to care about it anymore. Freedom he was granted, but the peace of mind was traded for dead calm. Once deprived of the recognition as a human being, he was free to sever the last bindings to civilisation: Erostratus clouds cover hanging over the city, Paul Hilbert for just one day, spinning drums and bullet’s nothingness.

He was aware about what was happening to him, but he had not the power to stop it.

The white room. People staring at me, a blank stare, blanket of stars around my neck. Wide stairs, black room. I was asked to leave but could not find the exit. And now I am not here, not sitting on a chair and not trying to lift my left hand to reach out for the right. Top bottom left right cornered and well shielded from the silent world. All I asked for was freedom, but instead the death was served me well. Little did the wishing wall to save me from the paint.

One of the key passages in Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death came to my mind recently, when I got tired of all the marketing drivel you have to bear as a musician:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

I confess, it is my personal problem: I should not care about it, but somehow I cannot join the crowd anymore and pretend there is nothing wrong with wasting my time with dishonest posing and trivialities.

Whenever I do my archaeological digs in Youtube to learn more about past music and how it spawned future music, I stumble across these entries by fanatic zealots, which read like being written by some seven year old kid. It is irritating to see seemingly adult persons even wage religious wars about “their” idol, once someone doubts the devine power and keeps him/her for an ordinary person. Who are these people? I am asking because it seems to me like a strange phenonmenom that I cannot seem to understand. Or maybe I can?

I remember some time back in my teen days (a few centuries ago) when I had the silly notion of becoming and being treated like someone I admired just by imitating this person. Of course this is a logical fallacy, as it bases on the idiotic assertion that there are objective criteria for admiration that equally apply to all people. However, what I find impressive may not automatically mean anything to someone else. Consequently it did not take that long for me to figure out that it makes you look rather silly, when all you do, say and practice is a mere quotation of someone else, you expect people to behave predictably to any stimulus you provide to them and deny the possibility they might disagree with your views.

I wonder why these fanatics at places like Youtube cannot seem to find out about this simple fact? Someone had a lucky day and wrote a good piece of music. That is marvellous, sometimes it even happens to me, but that alone is nothing special. What about performance artists who take the poses their audience want to see from them? I guess that qualifies as giving in or start believing the own hype. A fatal combination? You have the artist who wants to be recognised as an accepted member of society. A zealot’s idolatry, however, has nothing to do with the outside world but merely with him/herself, reducing the artist to a fetish and making him irrelevant as a person. Hmm, I sense a conflict here that boils down to the artist feeling misunderstood and abused.

Conclusio: Do not believe that as a renowned artist your life suddenly changes. Not more or less than for the fanatics waging wars for their idols at Youtube. Do not believe that “fans” are interested in you as a person. Actually they cannot, for if they did they would sacrifice their fetish and had to look for a substitute. Obviously nothing changes, except for the increased awareness of being excluded from those you tried to reach. Which only leaves art itself as a motor to carry on. Doing one’s work whilst waiting for Godot.

The fact that two people happen to speak the same language may not automatically result in these two persons understanding each other. I observed that in some cases a misunderstanding is almost inevitable, if someone tries to talk shop about a subject he/she is actually not familiar with. Depending on the situation this can be amusing, annoying (for the victim) or embarrassing (for the poseur).

Some time ago, I went into a shop for ordering a DSL connection (they were resellers for a large German ISP). The shop assistant handed over some forms to be filled out, including a desired password for a customer login. Being familiar with programming my first thought was to make sure what characters can be used at all and thus asked her, whether only alphanumeric or any printable characters are allowed. Energetically she shook her head and replied: “Nah, you can only use letters and numbers.” That response irritated me, of course. “Uhm, excuse me, but that’s exactly what I’ve been talking about: Alphanumeric means letters and numbers.” Having realised the nonsense she had emitted, the shop assistant opted for a sorry excuse which I cannot remember anymore, but her face expression looked interesting once her authority was undermined by her faux pas. Somehow I was left with an impression that I could not trust this shop and would be better off not to visit it a second time.

I also remember the communication with this woman was weird: Whenever she looked at me it seemed it was not really me but like someone behind or next to me she was talking to. Sometimes her reactions did not seem appropriate to my questions or remarks and suggested a familiarity that did not exist. Apparently I reminded her of someone else and somehow she must have had the funny notion of actually talking to that person instead to a stranger. How the shop assistant was able to look at me without fixating me with her pupils is something I would like to learn. Warped lenses? Or was she just afraid of looking people into the eyes, because that might reveal other aspects of posing?

Like others, I just cannot get around inquiring myself about what I achieved in the past year. I had the courage of finally publishing my music and made the experience that success is not the result of your creations, but the result of having influential acquaintances, who claim to be your friend and – dependent on your degree of submission to their power – constantly repeat their spin about person “x” being an important artist over and over again. These acquaintances may not be the brightest bulbs in the universe, but if there is one thing they learnt in life, then it is how people are opting for what they believe to be the safe majority. The majority does not have to be visible to them, it entirely suffices to have the illusion of it. And this can be accomplished by exposing these people with the same message over and over again until they finally believe it and automatically associate the desired message with person “x”.

Whenever someone is blathering about artist “x”’s significant achievements, it surely is a good idea to have a close look at the person making this assertion. What are the arguments, are there any hints that this person has the expertise to competently judge someone’s creation at all? Mind you, I am not trying to say that people shall not have their opinion, regardless how silly it might be. What I am trying to criticise is someone posing as knowledgable man and selling his own bias and prejudices as proven fact, by stating:
“A” is like that, because I say so
Trying to pose as someone who is authorised to speak for a majority with the goal of artificially inflating his view’s relevance. Let us not forget, everyone speaks about his own opinion in the first place. If you are lucky, you may accidentally speak about something that moves someone else, too. But does that make you the official spokesman of “the majority”? What is “the majority”?

My disappointment lies in trying hard to reach a level of professionalism and expertise that is satisfying my personal needs and then see how other, less gifted and intelligent people come to success just by cheating and posing. Obviously I have something backwards, as my logical fallacy lies in believing that if someone is trying hard enough and truly learns to master something, he will eventually be rewarded. That does not seem to be the case: Perhaps those who I consider dim are the smart ones, as they know they can get to the top because people do not care about their achievements, but the illusion about the latter. You are someone if a bunch of marketeers makes you appear significant to people. Repeat the lie until it becomes true.

So what can I do? Continue with what I am doing and not to care about opinion makers. Speaking up my mind and perhaps meeting people who feel similar about these things. The “great public” as such does not exist anyway. You will always wind up with a small, distorted segment consisting of your own preferences. If some people get together and share their views and can benefit from each other, what is more you could ask for? Thus my ideal achievement for 2008 is to find people sharing similar views and that my netlabel will become a platform for those people and together we could enjoy a good time. And of course I want to shoot better photos, finetune my composition principles, write better articles using the right wording, create better web pages and more appealing designs. But most of all, become wiser and discard some of my silly notions, just to get a better understanding of the world.