Musical Insomnia

The problem with insomnia is that, unlike a cold, I can never feel it coming. It just sort of happens. Stress is probably a factor; wondering when I'll get my money from the last contract and dancing through a confederacy of...emails...to get to the truth, which was about as dehumanizing as getting to the truth. Hopefully I don't have to deal with that further. It's taken some serious restraint for me not to write about it. But that, I believe, was what had me cross the threshold into insomnia. No, I haven't had a cup of coffee all night. I swear.

And so, when in doubt, fire up WinAmp and check *other* email, which I am so far behind on that I've given up on a few things. If it wasn't a personal email of direct interest, it was used to gather data about the Coriolis effect. As I check the email, an interesting article pops up on one of the email lists - 'If Nothing Else Remains of Humanity, Then Let This Be Our Monument…'. It's a well written essay about what is valuable of humanity, and the culmination is The Marriage of Figaro, by Mozart.

Sorry, I like Amadeus, but I'm more of a Carmina Burmana person. There's a history and depth to it; Carl Orff really did a good remix of 13th century poems and songs. Yup. Carmina Burana. An original remix.

And still, if there is one song that I would say should remain, I would have to go with, it would be The Heart Asks Pleasure First by Michael Nyman. The piano can fill any space, if you're down it will pick you up, if you're up it will take you higher. There are piano waves intermingled with raindrops that tap the waves gently; a string wind. While the 'The Piano' CD died of natural causes a while back, I ripped it before it beforehand. There's a poem by Emily Dickinson of the same title -

The Heart Asks Pleasure First

The heart asks pleasure first
And then, excuse from pain-
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.

I bet you didn't know that the KnowProSE.com geek knew stuff like that. Take your nitroglycerin, I've always had that side - I just don't show it very much.

And then I ended up somewhere that had me occupied for a while.
Last.fm.

Now I'd planned to rant social software and the diseases one catches while using it (you start talking like a marketing brochure), but that will have to wait - because I like what Last.fm is trying to do, if not doing. I signed up - no cost - and now you can see the last 10 songs I've listened to. Yup. Nosey people can now not only read what I'm writing, but they can see the music I wrote it to - or what I'm listening to in general. After about 300 tracks of playing, there are supposed to be charts generated. Could be interesting. But the site does more. Based on what you listen to, it finds people of similar audio fetishes and calls them neighbours. I'm interested in what sort of strange people will be 'near' me in this sense. There's open source software involved, Creative Commons licenses on the collected data... and there's a part of me that is simply slapping myself for not thinking of this. It's great, and provides me a service instead of the orgy of Orkut, the lethargy of LinkedIn, the obtrusive Omidyar... they all have their purposes, but none of them are what I really consider 'fun'. Now, a place where I can be passively weird while just doing what I normally do - no additional training - that's cool.

If I have to work hard at social software, I think it removes me from the people. Technology is supposed to be invisible, not .ostentatious. It's supposed to be as light as a feather, not chained to the ground of someone else's thought. Find me a way to do things the way I normally do, and things work out just dandy. I can trot around and do whatever I normally do with no extra weight attached to me. I have enough crap to do. I don't need more, especially if you ain't paying me and are profiting from my slugging around the weight. Make it easy to integrate and transparent to me, and I'll run with it.

Granted, I am a geek and will tinker when I can and tweak what I think needs tweaking - or quit if I can't do either. If I can't change something or the way I use something, they sell large plastic bags with tie-wraps for you to put them in advance. That's where I like to toss them. Then someone comes along and takes them away to where plastic bags go when they are full. Expensive landfill.

So, yeah, these folks are collecting data on my listening habits - fine with me. The aggregate data is supposed to be available as open content. If you're interested, they say you don't have to worry about the RIAA. It's an interesting thing to play with, at least during musical insomnia. 'It doesn't suck yet'. Maybe it's been around a while, maybe not, but it's new to me. last.fm. Right.

I wonder what would happen if I started listening to podcasts in this thing? Oh, I forgot, I don't listen to podcasts, but I imagine that it would be useful to people who do podcast. See what else listeners listen to. Intriguing.

Ahh well. Back to reading some more. Sooner or later my body will decide it needs to shut down for a while.

Image at top courtesy Digiteyesed.com, where Sean McCormick does cool things without film. And some cool things with film.