Scratch Pad: Games, Glitch, Viola

I do this manually each Saturday, usually in the morning over coffee: collating most of the little comments I’ve made on social media during the preceding week. I tend to think of social media — Twitter especially, though I’m taking a break, and Facebook to a degree, and increasingly Mastodon — as my public scratch pad. It’s informative to revisit a week of thinking out loud in public. Also, knowing you’ll revisit what you say pulls in the reins a bit, in a good way.

▰ The car’s heater sounds like speed metal is being played on the other side of a concrete wall.

▰ Any favorite recent video games with particularly good environmental sound (that is: ambient world sound, not score or narrative-based effects)?

▰ Such a busy, strange day that only after sending out my This Week in Sound email did I recall that it’s the 26th anniversary of when I founded Disquiet.com. Double 13s on the 13th.

▰ Me in 1993: the “glitch” aesthetic provides a trenchant analysis of digital fragility

Me in 2022: wow, the Spider-Verse sequel trailer is so cool I watched it three times in a row

▰ Didn’t have “the goofy guy from Supergirl plays the founder of Casablanca Records” on my 2023 bingo card

▰ Just noticed that the Los Angeles Philharmonic has revived The Tristan Project, a collaboration between Esa-Pekka Salonen, Peter Sellars, and Bill Viola. I saw it in 2007 (or maybe 2004?) because I’m a Viola nut (in contrast, I suppose, with a viola nut). I’m now reminded that some people walked out during the performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall because — OMG! — some of Viola’s projected video images displayed nude human bodies. (This struck me as especially ridiculous at the time because the tickets were so expensive.)