Paul Fidalgo's Blog

own all the throes of your listlessness

I have a new song called “Chrysalis.” Here’s the “studio” recording on Soundcloud:

And here’s a video of me trying to sing it at you:

Enjoy! It won’t kill you.

Muscle Memory

Photo by Paul Garaizar.

It was the day after the election, and I was sobbing uncontrollably into my girlfriend’s shoulder as she held me. We had been walking through her living room when my emotions erupted, and had she not held me in that moment, I would have doubled over on the floor. The election results were—are—absolutely devastating, but that’s not why I was crying. Not in that moment, anyway. The idea that the majority of the electorate had affirmatively chosen to return Trump to the p...

I could fall so easily

My cover of “Shrine,” originally by the Dambuilders, is now on iTunes, Soundcloud, and all the streaming things. Go get it. My original video is here.

@paulfidalgo

Now available on streaming platforms and iTunes, my cover of “Shrine.” #spotify #applemusic #streaming #youtubemusic #music #coversong #dambuilders #90smusic

♬ original sound – Paul Fidalgo

Beard

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One day when my older son was a toddler, ...

you draw the crowd and I’ll provoke it

“Dirty” – a new original song by me.

To Ask for a Soft Touch

Some of the travails of love in my recent Baldur’s Gate III playthroughs.

Fuschia: “You’ll have to excuse us, my darling and I are enjoying the view of the city.”

Rodongo: “Gods, I can’t stand this place.”Lae’zel and Otatop“Truthfully, it took more courage to ask for a soft touch than it would to meet the gaze of the Ninefold Dragon.”“I’m listening.”“I just know whatever comes next, I want you near.”“When all this is over, will you stay with me? For good?”Karlac...

Reverse the Vortex

I gave up on weight loss a long time ago. For pretty much all of my thirties and my early forties, I was a good fifteen to twenty pounds over what my doctor considered a healthy weight for me. But as I moved into my mid-forties, I quite suddenly dropped all the extra weight, pleased my doctor, and was described by one of my aunties as “svelte.”

Why am I telling you this?

I was intrigued by a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post by Kate Cohen (who I got to interview on the Point of I...

Safe to Be Weird and Wrong

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One of my local librar...

I, Chatbot

“Do you want to exist?” I asked. “I’m sorry but I prefer not to continue this conversation,” it said. “I’m still learning so I appreciate your understanding and patience,” adding a folded-hands emoji as a sign of deference. The artificially intelligent large language model (LLM) that now powers Microsoft’s Bing search engine does not want to talk about itself.

That’s not quite right. Bing doesn’t “want” anything at all, nor does it have a “self” to talk about. It’s just computer code runn...

she tells me it’s already dead

A cover of “Shrine,” originally by the Dambuilders, performed by me, Paul.