GEMINILOGGBOOKOBERDADAISTICUS

Another month off the internet

Complicated changes of circumstances have resulted from a process I'm in little control over. I have been moving or, I might almost say, displaced.

A few years ago I experienced an unexpected, involuntary internet outage which lasted a month. Now I've experienced it again. After several attempts to reach the internet provider, I finally got a phone number to their technical services and, after having waited a few hours in the queue, at last, I got some helpful advice. It turned out there was no wifi router installed, as there should have been, but I was able to connect the old way via wire. So much better, anyway, except that the cable is too short to allow for much appreciated flexibility.

Just before this disconnect, there was an interesting discussion on an online forum about how to reduce your screen time. Of course it's not about staring at a screen as such, it's about being online or not. The trick is to engage in other activities, such as going for a walk, reading, hobbies of any kind. (As a full time artist I only have spare time, everything I do counts as my hobby. Or the other way around: everything counts as work.) The unsuspected problem is, with so much time to work on things, productivity increases far beyond what is reasonable. There is no taker for the products – writings, at the moment. People spend their time online and skim fragments, they don't read long arguing books very much anymore. Except the geminaut community and similar constituencies, I suppose.

This time the absence of internet has only been mildly annoying, perhaps because it is a minor nuisance compared to some other things. The first four days at the new place I had to live without tea because, it turned out, the modern induction stove was incompatible with the old kettles. Permanent foggy drowsiness and mental dullness resulted. There are worse problems, but I'll save them for another day of bitter complaints.

As I first moved in, I brought a box of books so I had something to read. I have been working in a most disciplined way on my art theory/history book, mainly because there's nothing much else to do. Before the disconnect I contacted a publisher and filled in their contact form for writers. Then I got a package of new literature sent to the post office, including a book from the publisher I proposed my manuscript to. It was a "timely" book, a hot topic precisely the moment it was published, with almost exclusively online references to newspapers, art journals, and direct messages on Instagram. Simply reading the References reveals what kind of always-connected person the author must be. There is almost no printed books in the references, and the discussion somehow bears witness to that. I don't know how representative this book is of the publisher in question, but its world view isn't necessarily fully compatible with the one of my book. Indeed, as I discovered when I could read my email again, the publisher had promptly replied with a rejection. "I'm afraid your manuscript doesn't fit our profile" they wrote. I fully agree.

I've also written a review of two other art books I've read during these days, and quickly posted it online when I had an opportunity to visit the old place where there's a working internet connection. It's the principle of offline typewriter, I guess.

New album

Since my last post here I've released a new album. I had to make two of the songs hidden bonus tracks in order to protect the innocent. If you like this kind of music you must be a muckety-muck weirdo hipster. I'm sure you are.

But these days I mostly play Scriabin on a seriously out-of-tune piano.