ReGrove

.

Another sound piece up: “ReGrove,” a one-minute remix of material digitally extracted from a five-second segment of Laurie Spiegel’s Appalachian Grove (from the OHM Electronic Music compilation). The piece isn’t really music so much as it is ambient noise, and while I’d prefer to have been more tonal in my interpretation, this will have to suffice for a quickly approaching deadline.

(Just as I finished saving this piece last night in the MA Digital Lab, the lights went out all over the block, and I was stuck in a dark building without power for about two hours. A bit freaky, but that didn’t stop me from flopping onto the couch to sleep till sunrise.)

Tonight, a lecture by new media artist Perry Hoberman. (Don’t you just love that reactionary-liberal “Impeach Bush” link?) I’ve previously linked some of my favorite work of his: the “Accept” series, a whimsical set of tongue-in-cheek exhibits about GUIs and OS culture.

I haven’t blogged much because I’ve been busy; and when not busy, the outside has been far too blissful for one to stay cooped up indoors. Sunday afternoon after church was spent atop the park at Federal Hill with Amy, working on my thesis under the trees while she did watercolors. Then, this morning, I skated to school. Lovely. (But thanks for caring, Stephen. ;)

Spring Day

.

Today was a wonderful springtime afternoon; with the sun out, the sky blue, a cool breeze blowing, temps hovering around the mid-70’s, and people out by the hundreds to stroll along Inner Harbor. A fine day to rollerblade around the Harbor, Fells Point, and of course, Little Italy, to avidly engage in rampant, expensive consumerism.

Piedigrotta

.

Every Satuday morning, I cross the road to buy a loaf of bread from Piedigrotta, a quaint little bakery on the outskirts of Little Italy. The baker Antonio and his wife Bruna are wonderful people; and just standing in that little shop, smelling the heady scent of freshly baked bread, it brings a smile to the rest of my day. Antonio’s sourdough bread is definitely one of Baltimore’s finest attractions.

jEdit fix

.

Via jEdit Community, I’ve found a fix for the jEdit OS X package’s interface problems with the Java 1.4.1 update, but I think you need Apple Devtools installed: Go to the jEdit folder, Show Package Contents for the jEdit application, and change the Java version used to “1.3*” (not 1.3+). This will force jEdit to use the older JVM. Whatever that means, it worked; the icon is displaying properly again, and syntax formatting is back.

Typogaphic Resignificator?

.

I’m facing a significant artistic challenge in trying to conceptualize WhyBlog.org as a digital art project for my thesis — which has to be finished this month. See the blog for details.

Toppling Idols

.

Looks like today was a happy day at Fardus Square. Right now I’m still gathering thoughts on the war and the liberation, but for now, I’ll leave you a thought linked from blogs4God: “Beware consequentialist thinking.” I’m happy for the freed people of Iraq, and I’m glad to see an oppressive dictator being toppled, but that doesn’t automatically render valid the policies of preemption and regime change. But more on that some other time. I’m too sleepy.