I'm losing interest in many activities that fascinated me previously. I just surfed over to youtube to watch the Eric Clapton video so that i could play keyboard along with it. When I logged in to youtube there was a dialog box informing me that a group I had subscribed to a while back had a new lecture video onboard for me to look at. As much as six months ago I might have found the topic of this lecture interesting enough to sit through it, but not today.

Aside from the sheer weight of the increasing numbers that incrementally sneak up on a body, there is this other aspect of aging to consider. Anything that's gonna take ten years to appear on the consumer market bears no interest for me. If I'm not dead from some horribly painful disease or laid up by some debilitating accident or being out and out murdered by premeditation ten years from now, there's a good chance I'll be incapacitated by senility and won't know my ass from a hole in the ground.

I've never considered myself a Michael J. Fox fan, he was after my time, but I like his work as an actor when I've seen it on TV. I don't remember exactly what sort of crippling disease he came down with, but he comes to mind when I listen to the trumpeted news reports that suggests some miraculous cure for whatever disease he's got has been discovered, and then feel humiliation for them when they close the sound bite with some understated, almost confidential comment, that it will be at least ten more years before it can possibly make it through the bureaucracy of the FDA, and then the news reader moves on to the next item on the teleprompter as if no harm was done.

I empathize with anybody who is tempted to false hope by this sort of thoughtlessness. I'm disgusted myself, so It's hard for me to think of the possible response of Fox and other people with this sort of problem watching this kind of news report. I painfully imagine them reflecting on what has happened to their body in the last ten years, and trying to guess what it'll be like in ten more years, if they survive long enough for this "miracle cure" to get through the bureaucratic rigamarole in Washington and help them.

Worse, a lot of this miracle crap is vaporware. It never gets to market after all the hyped up hope it was supposed to offer. That's out and out cruelty, pure and simple. I blame the media, not the researchers or their sponsors. I think being cautious about what gets fobbed off on the public is necessary. Why do the media do that to people? Just to have something interesting to say on the six o'clock? Do they announce it just to assure the people who don't have the disease that if they do get it, down the road, there'll be a cure for whatever it is. Doesn't that consider the people with the disease as throwaways? It's a disgraceful practice. There oughta be a law.

This situation reminded me of one of the more odious duties of politicians. Normally, I cop a fairly sarcastic attitude toward politicians, but I don't envy them one bit. What if it should fail? They're the first ones marched to the guillotine. When I consider what they might have to deal with when the family members of thousands of constituents who have loved ones with fatal diseases come to petition the government to miraculously legislate a cure for whatever ails them, I'm pretty sure my response would be to sarcastically suggest a mercy killing, and reach for the bottle in my bottom desk drawer. It's situations like this that makes it easy for me to ignore the very idea of devoting myself to public service. I'd become a dyed-in-the-wool drunk in a short amount of time.

I choose myself over them. All I have to do to convince myself I took the right path is to imagine myself sitting in some government office all day, listening to people piteously demand the government help them save their loved ones, when it ain't gwine happen. I'm glad I was born in Spring when the path of inwardness dictates a spirit quest instead of offering oneself up as being-for-the-other. I'm not jealous of the Fall and Winter folk who can be naturally obsessed with this socially-oriented behavior as I am with individuation. No blame.

I've finally found an exercise I like to do. It seems silly, but I get fascinated to see if I can actually pull it off. I've been thinking about how I need to learn how to play stuff using the circle of fifths, and I ran across this article that suggested that one could play simple tunes like nursery rhymes, but play them in every key using the circle of fifths as a guide for where to go next. I don't even know the name of the last song I was playing. It was a familiar tune I had on my mind. I played it through with each hand separately until I got pretty good at it in that key, and then counted out to a fifth below the root of what i had just played, and figured out how to play that simple melody in the new key, until I'd gone through all the keys.

I love doing this playing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. There are so many classical songs like Beethoven's Ninth that are grounded in this nursery rhyme ditty. Copland's Appalachian Spring steals from it flagrantly. I read an article yesterday, as a matter of fact it was in that book I downloaded, that people remember what they memorized before they were twenty years old easier than material learned after that. I've found that to be pretty much true.

The idea is to be able to transpose from one key to the other with some degree of ease. Using the songs you learned before you were twenty years old. Fortunately, I had to memorize a lot of songs before I was even out of high school. If I learn enough about music theory to write down the music I've already composed I'll be delighted, but if I'm able to use the music I memorized before I was twenty as a source for going further than I've dreamed, I'll be ecstatic. It doesn't take much.

Earlier I practiced playing the blues pentatonic scales in four different keys. I'm beginning to understand why I can sing the blues, but it's always been difficult to accompany myself instrumentally while i sing the blues. I can easily see why I have to become totally familiar with the pentatonic scales, and probably the other ones too. Other ones? Today I read where at some conservatory a student had to demonstrate familiarity (to whatever degree) with 61 different scale systems. I'm only beginning to learn how ignorant I am about what's what when it comes to music theory.

This new web site I discovered the other day is very helpful in learning how to play the various scales. It has this chart where I click on the specific type of scale and the key I wanna play it in, and it highlights the keys on a keyboard graphic. Not only that, but it has a separate dialog box that spells the notes in the scale by their letter name. It doesn't show the notes on a staff, but that's fine with me. I'll write them all out, and that way I'll become even more familiar with what the notes and spelled out chords look like at a glance.

I don't know which picture I posted. I've never possessed any control over my photos. That's probably why I haven't used my camera very much.

Yesterday was tres manic/depressive. I was sad that I'd bought that cheap plastic thing from Best Buy, and then happy again that I was able to find a BIOS battery locally. I was happiest of all when my brother soldered in the new battery, we turned it on, and my synthesizer cranked right up like it was a brand new machine. I've already run through some of the ear-training exercises this morning. I probably won't do anything any differently than I've been doing it, but I got the right stuff to make what i wanna happen to happen.

When it comes down to it I had troubles with input devices. Both called keyboards. The Apple Bluetooth keyboard just doesn't work as advertised. I liked the feel of the keys, and when I went ahead and bought the new Apple USB keyboard I got reliability. I don't have to deal with the "Connection Lost" dialog boxes 20 times an hour that interrupts my creative flow.

I never realized how sweet the keyboarding action is on my old synthesizer until I went out shopping and touched a lot of different brands of digital keyboards. It ought to. It cost three times as much twenty years ago. I got nothing against the new synthesizers. I'd buy one in a New York minute. I just can't afford one that's at least equivalent to my old one. Not that it matters all that much. I don't use 80% of the features on this old one.

It's the same way with my computer. When push comes to shove, my computer merely replaces my typewriter just like my synthesizer replaces a piano. The digital version is way better and easier to manage than the analog devices, but my first impressions were created around the analog strategies, and it's hard to get past that baggage and use them for what they offer beyond merely replacing an old technology.

It takes too much time to try to get beyond these imprinted behaviors. They are deeply embedded habits that merely date me. They are not any better or worse than other ways of eating wot's sot before me in the specious present. I use all these mechanical/digital devices for the same purpose. To address the external world. A couple of sticks and a hollow log to beat on would accomplish the same purpose.

The older I get the less sense the world makes to me. There is no behavior whatsoever that's gonna change anything or any reason for anything to change. I particularly question whether human wisdom amounts to a hill of beans. Life screwing itself to make more life. Speech is the slime the snail oozes out to crawl on. It has and needs no me-and-thee-ing (meaning) to it. I see what I think is over there where you are, and you see what you think is over here. We both see in each other what we have made ourselves into for the sake of the other, and that's all there is to either of us. Whatta drag, man.

I'm feeling a little smug tonight. I took care of some things today I've let slide a little too long. Ben had to go to Fayetteville to run some errands for his wife, and he asked me if I wanted to ride along. I sure did. I needed to get some things that's a little harder to find in a small town.

The wonderful part of shopping today is that I didn't actually intend to do any of what i accomplished except to buy a wired Apple keyboard to replace the Bluetooth one I've been trying patiently to use. Ain't gwine happen. I've been driving myself batshit crazy about computer keyboards recently. All Apple keyboards. The first one I got was mechanically inferior. The Bluetooth one was esthetically pleasing, but technically inferior. Like with the three bears, I'm hoping this wired replacement keyboard is just right.

I think maybe I expect too much from wireless gadgets. I expect they to perform as promised or at least as well as the wired stuff. Sometimes they do. For a while. If everything is just peachy. Even I perform well under favorable conditions. The unfortunate side of this predicament is that my experiences with wireless devices tell me they are not reliable as I expect reliable to be.

For the last fifteen years I've been keyboarding so much in it's like i think with my fingers. I pretend to use writing to direct or instruct my intention to where I want it to go. I won't swear it works, but my directions to my intent either happens in real time right before my eyes or not at all. If I complete the details and logistical considerations of a strategy and sit back in my chair to reflect on what I've written into or out of my life, it doesn't interrupt my creative flow very much either pro or con. If my creative flow gets interrupted through no fault of my own, or if it miraculously turns out that Chicken Little was right all along, my creative juices can get out of whack, and I feel two bricks short of a load.

If I converse with another person face to face, I deliberately attempt to back off in order to encourage them to have their say. Why would I not? I have everything to gain by listening to what the other believes to be God's own truth. But, once they enter the fray, i expect them to hold their own and do what's right for them. I got my own fish to fry.

Contrarily, when I compose the thoughts drifting through my mind by writing them down, I don't have to consider what other people think at all. They're not there, and can only speak of their own experiences. I'm not trying to tell my own version of truth as much as i am trying to say what I perceive beyond the pale of my subjective vision. i don't have a clue what any objective truth is, except maybe in the specious present, and if I cling to that beyond the pale of it's believability, then I usually end up humilated for letting myself get drawn in to a fool's game.

Another thing I did today that I've meant to do for some time now was to buy a new set of sheets. I live alone. I have to do everything that gets done here, and without anybody to remind or nag me to remember all the little things I need from time to time. I kept forgetting to buy new sheets while I was out and about. That's not so unusual these days. Many times I shop by impulse and at odd opportunities. i go out and about to perform one specific chore, and then decide to stop by some store on the way home. The only shopping list that works for me to write the stuff I need down in the palm of my hand, and that way I don't forget my list when I pop into the store unexpectedly.

The staff notebook I bought a month or so ago has been an irritant to me because the staff lines are drawn too close together I have a difficult time seeing the notes that have to be crammed together to fit inside the staff lines. I went to a nearby music store to see if they had any staff books with wider lines. Fortunately, they had one booklet that had wider lines, and five or six other staff books with the narrow lines. I guess the narrow lined ones are more popular.

The ear training exercises I do are helping a lot, but not necessarily with sight reading. I am going to start spelling out all the chord variations in note form so i'll become familiar with what they look like. I was fairly successful learning the key signatures that way. I wrote them out time and time again until they were easy to remember.