this is a review of the bummer/buildings show at ufo on feb 24, 2020.
what do you do when you plan around going to two concerts within a few days, under the expectation that the weather won't be so bad for either, and then come up against the fact that the weather is actually going to be absolutely awful for the second, at the last minute?
you made sacrifices for the first show, so you don't want to cut your losses if you can avoid it. maybe you skipped a beer. maybe you came home an hour early. whatever it was, you want to tough it out, if you can, so that the sacrifices you made were not in vain.
i woke up on this day to a blizzard warning, which is not much of a challenge for an ottawan, with the important caveat that finding a way home at the end of the night was truly essential, and the border was consequently somewhat of an unwanted and annoying barrier. canadians don't fear the cold, but we do respect it; we know when to push it, but we also are very conscious of when not to, because we've all been in those situations, where we're teetering on the brink of hypothermia; unless, of course, that we were foolish enough to die of exposure, in which case we don't have to worry about making that mistake again. the benefit of hindsight is 20/20, right? glib humour aside, i would not have wanted to wander too far from the tunnel on this night and risk being found in a snow bank and, thankfully, i didn't need to - the venue is walking distance from the tunnel, something i wish i could take advantage of more often, nowadays. detroit isn't detroit anymore, everything has been exported to the suburbs....
that said, i realized pretty quickly that the weather was about as brutal as i could tolerate in the attire i left the house in. it's not like i was really a big fan of either of these acts, i really just wanted to get out of the house for a few beers and a loud, boneheaded rock show in what i thought would be acceptable weather after being couped up since december, but the wisdom of the excursion was admittedly somewhat questionable; in hindsight, though, given that the rest of 2020 is more or less cancelled, i'm actually glad that i managed to get out. it could be a while before i get another chance.....if i even survive the boredom...
it's not that the temperature, itself, was even that bad; in truth, it actually really wasn't. the issue on this night was more about the wind, and the brutality of walking through it. standing in one spot for a while actually really wasn't that bad. it was moving through the -20 windchills and the blowing, blinding snow....
there were no pancake breakfasts on this night, though, once i succeeded in trudging my way through the snow to the venue.
i was expecting a late show, so i didn't miss anything by showing up late, thankfully.
the first band was from kansas (why is kansas in missouri, anyways?), and i'm more or less just going to post the video. while they have a more melodic component to them, they fundamentally exist in the same space as a goofy, boneheaded band like the melvins, meaning i can only really truly enjoy this from a bit of a distance, but sometimes that's good enough for the night. sometimes that's all you want, and all you need to enjoy a few hours of escape....
the second act was called buildings, and are a little more elaborate, a little more developed in their sound, and a little less boneheaded, over all. i had not heard of this act before, but, looking into it, learned that they're on their fourth record, after some lengthy down periods. they're still fundamentally a northwestern punk band, but, and i suppose this was always true of the best northwestern punk bands, they're pulling in influences from a collection of related genres - shoegaze, no wave, noise rock and a little bit of psychedelic rock, or doom metal, as well. i wouldn't quite say it sounds contemporary, but it could be mistaken for it, if that makes sense.
as mentioned, i was kind of keen to get out of the house; this was my third trip out this year, but my first at a show like this, which is also in a genre that is demonstrating increasing scarcity amidst an aging core audience. i'm not giving up on new music any time soon, especially new electronic music, but you do have to expect me to act my age sometimes, too. this is the kind of music i grew up with....
a local act called teener closed the show, as they frequently do whenever bands of this style come through town. i guess they're just kind of the go-to to fill out the bill, for right now. i've consequently seen them a couple of times. on this night, they played as a three-piece because their singer had strep-throat.
this is marble bar in detroit, which is more often a dance club; i was catching fly pan am in windsor, on this night.
i was out in plenty of time to catch the bus, and eventually got home to canada after what was a somewhat lengthy wait at the bus stop with some very cold kids coming back from an edm party at the magic stick that cost them each $50 to get in. they had just missed the previous bus, and were consequently seriously considering calling a cab, somewhat naive at the cost - i had to talk them out of it, although there was almost enough of them there to justify the $60 fee up-front, if they hadn't already bought tickets.
it actually didn't feel that bad at this point, as the wind had died down. or, so i thought, anyways.
i did try villain's a second time, but i didn't recognize the bartender. somebody outside recognized me, though. i bummed a smoke, but i didn't stay; i was starting to feel the cold, and knew i had to get in. that respect for the cold became a dominant concern, and when that happens it is sudden and it is absolute - you get home, and you don't fuck around...
i need to reiterate that, if you were to check the forecast, you wouldn't be led to believe it was a particularly cold night. further, i had a toque and gloves, in addition to a sweater, with my overcoat. i was actually dressed relatively well. but, the fact that i had at that point been outside for well over an hour in subfreezing high humidity, coupled with the wind, which had picked back up again, was the kind of thing that can shut you down for good, as the icicles start building up on your hair, and the frost begins to claim you as it's own.
as i was walking, i suddenly started to become cognizant of the reality that i was in a dangerous place, temperature wise. my face was experiencing mild frostbite. worse, i found myself fighting a sudden urge to sit down, which is very bad news, in that situation.
i went to an unusual elementary school on an army base that had a very small number of students and found myself in a split 5/6 class, twice - in grade 5 and then again in grade 6, and in fact with the same teacher both years. the instruction was often scattered, anachronistic or outright absent. as such, one thing that i found myself doing was watching a tv series called the voyage of the mimi, and doing what was essentially english-class style reading comprehension in place of actual science instruction.
in hindsight, i think some heavy criticism of the curriculum is well-warranted, but it did teach me valuable life lessons about hypothermia; you don't want to experience a sensation of warmth when you know you should be cold, and you don't want to sit down. so, i dragged myself, i pushed myself - i talked out loud, i counted, i did everything i could to make sure that i strenuously avoided any thoughts about stopping.
and, i did get home.
and, i warmed myself up in a warm blanket.
and, i ate some nachos.
and, i took a hot shower.
and, i watched the debates.
and i got some sleep...
this is a review of the man or astroman show at el club on feb 24, 2020.
this is another show that i instantly realized i had to get to, whether the weather was going to cooperate or not, and then almost missed, this time due to the need to sleep a little bit before the show.
i can't claim it was much of an exciting night outside of the show, though; there were no adventures to report, no conversations of particular interest. my attention was largely focused on trying to get to the venue before the rain started (which i failed at.), and then in getting myself home in the rain after the show. it was an early night, and i arrived late, missing both opening acts.
they did play some newer material, and i noted in a previous post that it's leaning towards a riffier, dirtier, almost grungier kind of sound that is maybe a little less campy and more evocative of the rougher edges of the american southwest. they also brought out a dot matrix printer and performed a reinterpreted piece from eeviac to give the guitarist time to change a string; it reminded me a little of autechre's gantz graf, but i doubt that meant much to the crowd. they were, overall, though, exactly what would be expected, and i think that's what most people wanted.
there was some talk about the venue in the smoking section, and i'm going to repost my initial analysis to that question. it's not that i'm unsympathetic to the concern, it's that i'm not sure how substantive it actually is.
i haven't turned the laptop back on yet. i've been dreading it. it should come up out of hibernation, but if it doesn't then i'll have to reimage. let's hope that i can get the clean-up finished before i crash for a few hours this morning. i am planning on hitting the grunge show tonight. the damage last night wasn't that bad, because i was able to use the balance on the debit card, and i just avoided buying beer. so, i didn't spend nearly what i said - it was $23 usd for the ticket, $10 usd at the 7/11 and $10 cdn for the bus. yes, it costs me $5 to cross the border and $5 to get back. and, yes, it adds up. it's still cheaper to live here, though. essentially, my choice to avoid buying expensive beer at el club last night means i'm good to go for cheap beer at ufo tonight. yeah, i didn't set the fucking prices, don't look at me. if it was reasonable, i would have bought at least one.. i'm waiting until i can order last sunday before i do these february reviews all at once. but, there is still a lot of lingering concern regarding the fiasco at el club, with people worrying about crossing boycott lines. personally? i'm a free thinker, i'm not interested in being told what to do by the central committee on ethical consumption in late capitalism, and they can rule on the issue all they want, i don't give a fuck. but, i have to be honest - i didn't find the arguments i heard to be convincing. and, you can browbeat me on it if you want, i don't really care. what i want is a convincing argument, not a demand that i follow your moral code, which i may or may not agree with. but, i'll be equally clear that i wouldn't go to a place that i thought was actually horribly sexist or horribly racist. for a bastion of white supremacism, the bar seems to have a lot of black employees (they always did. it's detroit.) and seems to cater disproportionately to the black community. if there was a problem, they made a legitimate attempt to adjust to it. that said, i don't go there on random nights, either, for the reason that they've largely exited my sphere of interest; this has largely not been much of an issue for me for the reason that the bar no longer caters to my tastes, anyways. so, i haven't been finding myself in this conflicted space, where i'm trying to figure out if i should go or not because i haven't had any interest in what they're booking, anyways. the bar has a great sound system. it's not likely that random touring acts have any idea what happened, so i'm not going to tar them by association for something they don't know about, whatever the merits of it. so, if a band i like does play the space, i don't see any logical reason why i wouldn't go. man or astroman formed in the early 90s and have been one of my favourite acts for a very long time. getting to see them was a kind of a bucket list thing. while the sound system at el club really is great, and the band does legitimately have substantive latin influences, i'll also acknowledge that it would have been a lot easier had they played the magic stick, or perhaps delux fluxx. but, for whatever reason, they didn't and i had to make a choice between missing out on a band i've been listening to for most of my life or an empty statement of solidarity with something that i'm not really convinced of the value of. that's not a hard choice, for me. i'm sorry if you find that upsetting, but i think you're wrong.
this is a more accurate representation of the set than the previous video i posted:
i walked right back to the tunnel after the show, took the bus back to canada and tried to stop to talk to somebody at villain's on the way home, but they were closed - as they always are on monday nights.
there were nachos, there was a shower & there was some sleep.
Monday, March 23, 2020
this is a review of the debussy/ravel concert at the dso on feb 16, 2020.
when i saw la mer come up, i knew i'd be prioritizing it fairly heavily, even amidst the cold detroit winter. as it is, this day almost didn't happen - and then turned into somewhat of a catastrophe, in the end.
the dso usually does three performances of each show over the course of a weekend, sometimes starting as early as thursday but usually ending on sunday. i was hoping to make a night out of it by catching the symphony early and hitting something afterwards. initially, it seemed as though the saturday presented the best opportunity, as i would have been able to hit a local act called paint thinner after the set. i've had lukewarm reviews of the disc, but i would still like to see them live to produce a final analysis. unfortunately, paint thinner was replaced at the last minute by something that was much less interesting to me, a local punk band that i think is more or less terrible, and i ended up deciding to take advantage of a turn in the weather to hit the show on a sunny sunday afternoon instead of on a blustery saturday night. you can check out paint thinner's bandcamp site, but i suspect they're probably better live: https://paint-thinner.com/
unfortunately, this meant i had no after show plans.
did i sleep before i went? well enough - i got a few hours, although i wonder how much i'd slept in the weeks leading up to it. i'd been complaining about strange odours from upstairs for weeks, and i'd been dealing with migraines over the previous few months, as well as complaining about feeling like i'd been drugged against my will. i was clearly dealing with some kind of environmental issue. i can, however, clarify that i was in bed after 3:00 and up around 10:00, a sufficient amount of sleep for most applications.
i made a decision to myself - i'd go to the show if i could finish the liner note package for inri022, which i got done at around 11:00. was that enough time to get to the show for 15:00? i decided i needed to get out of the house and i'd might as well try. i'd need to catch the 14:00 bus....
i was able to get out of the house just before 14:00. barely. could i catch the 14:30 bus and just make it?
moments before i left, i opened a fresh 710 ml bottle of mountain dew (for the caffeine content) and took a couple of shots of vodka, which is my normal predrink on the way out. i hit the bank machine, got some bus tickets, just caught the 14:30 bus and was in detroit around 14:45 - on track to make it worthwhile, but clearly going to miss the first set. so, i got a mike's and a pack of smokes (it's the latter i regret.) at the 7/11 and walked down to the dso to catch the performance of la mer.
i was there about 15:05, got a corona at the bar (hold the virus.) and had to catch the stravinsky set from outside, something that did not bother me much. stravinsky is something that influenced a number of artists that i deeply respect and enjoy, so i don't want to suggest that i don't realize his historical importance, even as i find a lot of the claims about the political significance of his work to be borderline comical. but, i find his work to be ugly, disjointed, obtuse, crass and broadly not very enjoyable to listen to. you're allowed to disagree with me, but i don't find this compelling. at all.
i didn't skip it on purpose, i was just late due to kind of wavering on going at all. but, i don't expect that i would have enjoyed it much. sorry.
the first piece i caught was by ravel, which seemed a little less aimless than normal. this is a lush piece, which makes it more up my alley than the wanton, aimless dissonance of stravinsky. there's a march that kicks in about halfway through that is particularly satisfying when it does. note that "ring around the roses", which is referenced shortly after the march, is actually about the plague. while i've previously criticized it for being a little bit indulgent near the end, it didn't feel that way on this day, for some reason. so, i enjoyed this, even if it wasn't the reason i showed up there on this day.
i went out for a few smokes after that, and ended up grabbing a heineken on the way back.
the first piece after the break was by poulenc, a composer i'm not familiar with, and it just kind of struck me as debussy-light. that's not to say it was awful. really, the thing about this piece is that i'm finding that i don't have much of any reaction to it at all, still. hey, i tried. it happens, sometimes.
i missed the introductory talk so i'm not going to post it here, but it is up at the dso's youtube site and the person they had come out to do it mentioned that poulenc is generally seen as being "lightweight". so, i'm perhaps not falling too far from orthodoxy in my lack of reaction to this piece, actually.
and, then there is la mer, which is one of the most widely analyzed and most important pieces in the history of western civilization, and i will reiterate that i'm not certain i have much to say about this that is important or hasn't been said; i could paraphrase some musicologist, but what's the point? you'd might as well just go to the source.
but, you should probably start by listening to it:
after the show, i had $4.00 left of the $40.00 that i brought with me and most of a pack of cigarettes, which i wanted to get rid of before i made my way home. so, i found myself walking vaguely towards the tunnel, looking for a spot to finish a beer at on my home back to canada. i think i was intending to get something at deluxx fluxx, but they weren't open yet, so i stopped at the skip instead and got a tall hamm's to sip on for a bit, as i worked through that pack of smokes that i wish i hadn't bought. i'm kind of looking around the bar for somewhere to sit...
wow man...you know, i really thought you were a girl, at first.
i decided to sit down and have a chat.
"you know, there's scenarios where gendering somebody isn't appropriate. i don't want to police your speech. but, i'd ask you to think about that in the future. you can see how i identify, clearly. so, was that necessary? what's the point? why do it?"
he seemed to react as though he'd been scolded by his mother, and it wasn't fair, because he really didn't do anything wrong. bro, listen, i actually really did think you were a girl. seriously.
"you're still gendering me masculinely, even as you acknowledge interpreting me femininely. why?"
(his girlfriend fidgets)
it's what you are, bro.
"listen, like i say, i'm not here to police your language. you're going to say what you're going to say. i can and will react with my feet. i'd just ask you to think about it before you do it, because your oppression here is unnecessary and could be ended with a little bit of self-reflection. if it's not necessary to gender somebody, maybe you should refrain from doing it."
whatever...bro.
"indeed. whatever..."
i moved to the other side of the bar and left a few minutes later to catch the bus.
when i got over the border, i found myself with too many cigarettes to want to go home and enough money left for two drinks, so i stopped up the strip in windsor that i stop at and noticed somebody smoking a joint outside villain's. it's 19:20, tops. he passes me his joint, and i got to ranting a little about the symphony, i'm really very chatty in general at this point due to the pot, before i found my way back in and ordered a james ready, which is the cheapest beer available at this bar.
i have about ten smokes left, and i'm really just passing the time until i get through most of them and am ready to get home. i figure i won't be there late.
i look around the bar, and it's pretty empty. there's the guy that smoked me, on the other side of the physical bar, and two dark skinned males sitting directly in front of me, speaking an african language. so, i found myself sitting quietly, sipping my beer, and i'm wondering - what language is that?
when one of the africans goes away from the bar, i got to chatting up the other one as to what language he's speaking. he vaguely states that it's east african, but i want something more specific than that. it's not semitic, not nilotic, and as i ask him more and more questions, trying to narrow down the area (so, it's a great lakes language?), he becomes more and more impressed with my knowledge of east african geography. i guess he doesn't meet a lot of white people that know that much about east africa, which is when i have to explain to him that i suspect i have african lineage, potentially from madagascar - but that i have a pretty good understanding of the correct geographic spread of the various indigenous african language groups from when i did a human origins project in the early-mid 00s, which had me sorting through all kinds of genetics, linguistics, biology...
he then decides he will buy me a beer, and motions to the bartender, who pauses. am i sure about that?
"well, i'm going to finish the one i've got, first. after."
and, the one i had had about 75% to go, still. she wasn't wrong to pause.
i went in and out for a few cigarettes, and when i did i left my beer on the side, but i'd say it was at least an hour before i asked for a second beer, which was indeed purchased by the person offering to purchase it. at the time, i thought nothing of this.
she asked me a second time if i was sure and i drew attention to how slowly i was drinking; she seemed to agree with my argument and handed me the second beer. if anything, i would have argued that i felt more sober when i bought the second beer than when i bought the first, because i was drinking so slowly....i would have described myself as sobering up, rather than getting more drunk.
i left my drink out several more times as i went out to finish a few more smokes, and found myself talking about such topics as exes having children with friends and how bruce lee died on set...and, then i found myself in the position i expected to eventually be in - done my second beer and without any more smokes. i did, however, have enough cash on me for a third drink and decided i'd might as well get another one before i left, although i was considering maybe seeing what was happening at phog, as i realized there may be a band there. i legitimately did not feel drunk at all at this point.
so, i went outside to see if i could bum a smoke before i ordered a third beer, and there's some kids smoking a joint around the corner. i pulled out my canned line for such situations -
"you know, i was going to ask to bum a smoke, but...."
....and, i was then handed a cigarette and the joint. i guess i'm cute or something, i don't know. trans privilege? it came with a warning though - it was strong.
and we got to talking, and they kept passing it to me. and, then they didn't want any more. so, i smoked a lot of this joint, of which i was warned was quite strong.
when i came back in after that second joint, i was no doubt quite visibly stoned, and i consequently didn't react negatively when i was denied access to a third drink. i decided instantly in my mind that, yes, i could wait to come down a little off the pot, or maybe i'd just leave and go home. so, we agreed i'd come back in a bit, although i was pretty much planning on leaving. what's next, then?
i intended to go to an empty spot of the bar and sit down and think it through, but looked up before i got there and noticed there was somebody setting up near the stage. was there somebody playing there? so i
walked toward the stage and asked her if there was a band playing.
"karaoke".
of course. and, i believe that would put the time close to 22:00.
i then sat down in that empty spot for a second to think it through. did i want to stay there for a few minutes? get some change from the machine to bum smokes? buy smokes? how much cash did i have in the bank? should i go to phog?
i'm told that the next thing that happened is that i fell off the stool, but i don't remember that happening. what i remember is sitting in a different seat not far from where i sat down temporarily, and being unable to move while a woman that i don't recognize (she wasn't the bartender) hovered over me, forcing me to drink orange juice, and telling me that i look lovely - i remember her making that trip several times, and essentially being unable to do anything. i'm not sure if the orange juice helped or hindered; i know that i could not move. at all. if you had helped me up, i would have fallen down. i also distinctly recall not responding to questions, although i'm not sure if i'd have been able to or not.
eventually the woman that i don't recognize came back one last time (this was maybe the fifth time) and told me that she was going to call the police because she was worried that i was going to get raped. i remember her telling me that, and under normal circumstances that would have cleared me out pretty quickly, but i couldn't move. i had to sit there and wait.
whether it was due to the imminent threat the police posed when they arrived or due to the effects of whatever had knocked me out easing up, i was able to get up when the cops got there, but they wouldn't let me walk home. i argued the point as strongly as i could, to what was really no avail. i had no cash for a cab, i insisted (technically false). i had nobody to call (that was true, at least). i insisted i'd be fine if i just walked, and i even tried to run off, but they were having none of it. one of the bartenders had to drive me home, instead, and they got me close enough that it was a short walk back.
she couldn't believe i was 39 years old.
"you don't look it."
but, i am...
when i got inside, i was so exhausted that i couldn't even make it to bed, at first; i passed out at the bottom of the stairs for hours, before eventually crawling into bed. so, i don't know what time i got into the car at and i don't know what time i got home at, either. i wasn't able to check the time until about 7:00 am - meaning that, excluding the time it took to get me out of the bar and home, i was passed out nearly cold for roughly nine hours.
so, what happened? did i pass out from the alcohol?
well, this is what i had to drink:
- two shots of vodka in my montain dew, 1:45-2:35.
- one tall mike's hard, 2:45-3:20
- one corona, 3:20-4:00
- one heineken, 4:00-5:00
- one tall hamm's, 6:00-7:00
- two james ready, 7:30-10-ish
on an average day, this would barely be enough to get me drunk. further, let's note the type of alcohol that i was drinking - beer since after 15:00.
i suppose it's not impossible that it was the alcohol, but i'd suggest that that doesn't add up - i'm not likely to pass out for nine hours after drinking a few beers on a sunday afternoon.
is it possible that it was the marijuana, rather than the alcohol?
those that have been following this blog, or have met me in detroit, are well aware of the fact that i can sometimes experience something akin to a panic attack as a result of marijuana. after smoking pot, i have had a handful of seizure-like events that have resulted in me needing to sit down for a few minutes, or even in me temporarily losing consciousness. i suspect that i'm experiencing sudden drops in blood pressure, but i don't actually understand this - i just know it happens.
these events, however, are brief - minutes or seconds long. further, i'm good to go for the rest of the night, afterwards. they don't leave me unable to move for extended periods of time like i was on this night.
as i have a history of panic attack type green-outs, and i had just smoked a lot of marijuana before i passed out, i initially put the pieces together. it must have been the pot, obviously; i've been through this before, i was fine. i consequently got rather frustrated by the turn of events, because i know i green out, and i know i'm fine after. upon some reflection, however, that actually doesn't add up very well, either - i wasn't immediately aware of how zonked out i actually was, but piecing it together as best i can indicates the low likelihood of marijuana being the culprit.
i've held off on writing this review because i wanted to get more information about time frames in order to be absolutely certain, and i haven't been able to receive any of it quite yet. i'm going ahead with this now because this bar is....depending on how long the covid-19 fiasco goes on for, this is a bar that may not reopen at all. i may never get the answer i want.
however, i've thought it through carefully enough to rule out both
alcohol and marijuana due to just how passed out i really was - nine
hours! no green out is nine hours, and i'd need to be chugging a 40 of
vodka to get that kind of reaction from alcohol.
regardless - how long was i out for? what time did the police show up at? what time did i get in the car at? when did i get home? these are the questions i need some help in understanding the answers to.
you have to understand that i was rather confused, and i wasn't really paying attention, but i do suspect that the bar was closed when the police showed up. i don't remember there being people around. i don't remember karoake being on. this would indicate the police probably arrived around or after 2:00 - and that, if i passed out around 22:00, that i was unable to move for around four hours.
having ruled out alcohol and marijuana, what would do that to a person?
(1) what exactly did i smoke? i was told it was "strong marijuana". i have no idea. i know i smoked a fair bit of it.
(2) you'll recall that somebody bought me a drink, and i left that drink out a few times, perhaps foolishly. the woman that was hovering over me told me she thought i was going to get raped - is that because she had concluded i'd been drugged?
(3) i have no history of diabetes, but that doesn't necessarily mean much. i get tested yearly. i'll be tested next in the first week of may.
(4) could i have had a stroke or heart attack? i have very low blood pressure. but, i'd just smoked a pack of cigarettes quite quickly, after having barely smoked at all for two months. some kind of attack due to low blood pressure is more likely than one due to high blood pressure, but something cardio-vascular related is not impossible.
i was able to get some nachos in the morning with the five dollar bill that never made it's way to a third drink.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
i was probably not going to actually make it to tchaikovsky's fifth, as they scheduled it pretty deep out in the suburbs. that's a shame, as this is truly a pretty raucous piece.
according to wiki, this piece was literally playing during the start of the siege of leningrad and gave solace to the russians as they found themselves in a truly existential and increasingly dire crisis. the russians are in a perpetual existential crisis, really. maybe that's why they've given us the tolstoy's and the dostoevsky's. but, did tchaikovsky's fifth provide the russians with the inspiration required to regroup and defeat the nazis? it's probably more the thing of legend than the thing of fact, and maybe more of a twist on the 1812 overture, but if you're going to build a legend up around a piece of this nature, i couldn't imagine a better thing to build it up around. i'm sure there have been plenty of films made about the siege of leningrad, and this should be the soundtrack for at least one of them. perhaps that is even the source of the legend?
but, separating fact from fiction, and the music from any contrived notions about it, you get a piece that has enough energy to keep me engaged, even if it kind of drags a little in the down points. i keep wanting to criticize it for slowing down, but then it picks back up.
which isn't to deny the thing of it's dynamics - the last thing i saw at the dso was beethoven's fifth piano concerto, which is all about the dynamics, and which i enjoyed because of it. but, when this piece slows down, it loses focus. i think what i want to say is that i wish the slower sections were a little deeper, a little more intense, or a little more something, rather than just kind of being rather forgettable connecting passages to allow for the development of the faster moving parts. but, i might be missing the context of some inherently russian cultural thing; i might just not understand russian peasant music, or something. it's plausible. whatever the truth of it, i don't find these sections compelling, i just find myself waiting patiently for it to pick back up again.
when it does pick up, it picks up, though, and that's the draw of the piece, from my perspective.
it doesn't matter much. it's canceled. next time, maybe - if they schedule it somewhere downtown.
the last few weeks have been unfocused.
i'm about to hunker down and try to get myself back into a normal focus on rebuilding the blog in the face of weeks of canceled shows, so i guess i'll be reviewing things that i wish didn't get canceled.
i have one more month left...
i'm not happy about this, and strongly disagree with the authoritarian response. the closest thing to a science-literate response that i've seen up to now has been from the united kingdom, which got pummeled by the hysteria of it's own voters, and had to relent in the face of public ignorance.
but, there are mandatory event closures on both sides of the border, and the border itself is closed. i can complain, and i can offer rational critiques in the face of irrational policies, but i can't do anything about this but sit inside and cry about it.
so, get ready for some bittersweet reviews for what was left of march and probably for most of april.
april was stacked, too.
this legit sucks :(.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
ugh.
no.
you don't want to close the american border. you want to undo the previous restrictions.
the virus is everywhere. it's not coming from out of the country. it's not coming from foreign lands. it's right here.
your neighbours and friends and family members are far more likely to get you sick than random people from out of the country. you have to mentally undo this media framing and figure out how to deal with reality....
it turns out he has footage; i'm on camera when i come in and out. fancy that. i didn't know that...
i'm not particularly upset about it.
but, he checked it and said nobody came up to the door when i was gone. and, yet - clearly, somebody was in here.
i haven't seen the footage, myself.
so, what we learn from this is:
(1) there's footage. supposedly.
(2) the landlord is probably a cop. which i already knew.
i think he was legit gone. it was the stinky female upstairs that must have snuck down and swigged on my vodka.
as was the case with the smoking (which he also denied), let's hope that saying something is enough to change things. let's hope that's all i had to do...
if not, the next step is setting up a webcam in here.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
so, i had to get some things today and while my bed at least isn't gross today, i have noticed a number of weird things.
- it seems like somebody was rifling through my cupboards
- my 26er has decreased in volume
- the power bar for the modem, which i turned off before i left, has twisted sideways
- somebody turned my fridge off, oddly
- somebody was sorting through some items
- i think somebody took some of my coffee, too.
again - they're clearly looking for something, and i don't know what it is.
are they looking for drugs? i don't do drugs...
i'm going to send my landlord an email.
in the meantime, stopping events that are populated by young people is just reducing immunity. what we need to do is:
1) keep the old folks locked up.
2) let the young 'uns fuck each other on the street like it's saturnalia.
i know this contradicts your instincts towards the need to control.
but, you're wrong...
this study is backing up my point about the futility of mitigation. but, if mitigation is futile, surely suppression is even less likely.
i keep saying this, but you know what i actually get out of reading this? it's that capacity is way, way, way too low.
these studies are all about how to reduce the case load to align with existing resources. they started with "flattening the curve", which was obviously naive, and which this study debunks. but, then they go back to suppression - having apparently forgotten that the whole reasoning behind mitigation was that suppression was seen as unrealistic.
i guess you need to let them work it out, because the bean counters are vicious, they really are. but, i'm telling you right now that the only way to deal with this is to get that red line up by increasing the system's capacity, and they're just wasting time trying to fuck with the curve.
you know what i'm reminded of? chamberlin trying to argue with hitler. you know what flattening the curve is? it's giving hitler austria, hoping that's enough. but, this virus won't stop at the sudentenland, and it won't stop in poland - it wants lebensraum, and it will keep coming.
we need to ramp up spending. and we need to stop wasting time arguing about it.
like i say: if i owned a bar or restaurant, i would keep it open and take the government to trial over it.
if you want to stay home, that's your choice. you do't have to come in.
and, if you're in a vulnerable group, you probably should.
but, the majority shouldn't have to put their lives on hold to protect a minority of seniors and smokers.
all hail reverend ford!
hallelujah!
banning bars and leaving grocery stores open?
not coherent. not evidence-based.
you're far more likely to bump into a vulnerable person in line at costco than you are at an edm show.
rather, that's a right-wing government targeting scapegoats and blaming sinners for the spread of disease in old testament fire and brimstone fashion, whether it's conscious or not.
so, an old person catches the virus in a hospital as a consequence of a sick person coming into contact with them - a situation we know is a problem.
and, instead of announcing measures to segregate and isolate old people, we announced a ban on the sinful behaviour that occurs in bars and restaurants.
i got a lot of sleep this morning. maybe i did catch this thing, after all.
i don't feel sick enough to call anybody...
i want to be clear about what i'm saying about these border closures and bans on events.
these actions are not driven by the science. the science suggests that this disease is harmless for the vast majority of people, and any authoritarian action should be restricted to very specific groups. history also tells us that when you try to take broad actions like this to protect special interest groups like seniors and smokers, it always backfires.
so, we're not closing borders on the advice of science; the scientists would tell us to avoid doing that.
what the border closures are is a statement of nationalism, under the direction of donald trump, who sees the world with an us vs them mentality. we close the border to the asians and the europeans, because they're not like us; we keep them open to the americans and british because we're allies. this allows the president to blame the problem on foreigners, rather than on the inefficiencies of capitalism. our government is unfortunately towing the line on this, and what we've learned over the last few years is that this is what we should expect from the liberals, moving forward - they'll do everything right, until dipshit donald calls and ruins everything, at which point they will immediately fall in line and do what they're told. sadly, demands from the white house, no matter how stupid, seem to trump virtually everything.
likewise, the focus on bars is the kind of thing you'd expect from a fundamentalist government. it's the kind of logic you'd expect from somebody like mike pence. we're sick because of the sinners, and god is punishing us for it, so let's shut down all of this debauchery and go to church, instead. but, there's no actual evidence that bars or restaurants are spreading this at all - and quite a bit of reason to think that organized religion has already been a major problem, and will become an even bigger problem moving forward, due to it's tendency to coerce vulnerable populations in to giving away their money.
the science says we should be doing very specific, targeted things; we're not basing our reaction on the science, we're taking broad and often irrational steps, because we're basing it on concepts of ethnic nationalism and self-righteous religious retribution.
and, most of us seem to be too stupid to realize it.
if we continue to ignore the science and give in to kneejerk authoritarianism that deludes us into feeling safe, or makes us feel like we made correct "moral" decisions, this is going to run out of control very quickly.
and, we will have the hamfisted authoritarians, who tried to take control of the situation and merely made it worse by doing so, to blame.
people are going to die because of this.
this isn't trivial. it's not patting dipshit donald on the head. it's not smiling and nodding. this is bad fucking policy, and it's going to have some bad fucking consequences.
you know what probably happened?
you've probably got dipshit donald calling trudeau up in a dejected rage, unable to even get boris johnson on the phone, and falling back on the only country that cannot and will not reject him, looking for some kind of ally in his attempt to blame the problem on foreigners.
and, we caved.
because we had to.
because nafta.
i can imagine it. trump looking for some kind of reassurance, somebody, anybody that will align in policy - trying to create a fortress north america, to wall itself off.
and, it no doubt came with a threat. because that's how you treat your friends, when you're america - you threaten them. canada can find itself in or out.
so, we end up locked in the room with this contagious, dying patient that's running his mouth off and won't stop, because we know our finances depend on it....
how did we get ourselves into this?
and, canada?
how do we get ourselves out of it?
for canada to ban everybody except americans is basically equivalent to a healthy person locking themselves in a room full of sick people.
and, we no doubt had to do it to save the economy from a narcissistic idiot that destroys everything he goes near.
can we get a quadrupling of that spending on ventilators? if we're stuck with this...
i'm not calling for a ban on travel from the united states. i've been clear: i oppose travel restrictions as a means to slow the spread of viruses, because it's anti-science and it makes things worse. if you ban travel from america, they'll start sneaking in through the forests, instead. they'll drive to mexico and fly in. you laugh. but, if they need to get in, they will.
but, i'm fully cognizant of where the problem is right now, and it's inside of the united states, not outside of it.
you couldn't write a worse policy if you tried.
if we were going to ban anybody at all right now, about the only country it would make any sense to ban from entry would be citizens of the united states.
we may find out in the end that the countries that trump banned kind of fluked out. they're the lucky ones....
we have no sovereignty.
clearly.
should donald trump be charged with crimes against humanity for interfering in other countries' responses to this?
wait.
so, we're banning everybody except americans, where the spread of the virus is probably worse than anywhere else in the world?
now, i know why there's such a quick, irrational, anti-science, boneheaded u-turn.
our policies are no longer being written by one of the best science teams in the world, but are being written by one of the biggest idiots that's ever held public office.
if we see a spike in cases, we should blame it on donald trump.
what can we do in the face of this kind of unwanted foreign meddling? we'd better buy a lot of gear. we're going to need it....
it's still way too high.
but, why is canada tipping into nonsense when the rest of the world is waking itself up from it?
it's the churches and mosques that are going to end up being the problem and that are going to need to get shut down by force, not the concerts and bars.
we're stupid.
it's that simple.
what they're doing is scapegoating young people, with irreligious lifestyles. it's bizarre.
it's like something they'd do in iran.
it's like public shaming.
i've got my hands full. i hope that a few bars around town stay open in protest, and i hope there are civil rights groups pushing back on the fines.
if i had a bar, i'd stay open, get fined and take the government to court over it.
if they were logical, the very first thing they would have done was put a total ban on all religious gatherings, period. that's where this is living.
but, they shut down the bars, full of healthy young people, instead.
because they're stupid.
'cause you know where all the lonely people (where do they all come from?) are going right now, don't you?
i shouldn't complain. good riddance to them. maybe this is the final nail in the coffin of the church, so to speak.
enjoy your diseased wafers; your magic water won't save you.
they should shut down every church, chapel, mosque, temple and synagogue in the country under the threat of heavy fines, until further notice.
listen, i can make you a promise.
i've got 90% of a 26er of vodka in my cupboard, and i won't touch until the bars open. i won't smoke, either.
you can be pretty sure i'll be pretty straight edge for as long as this goes on, because i hate being fucked up alone, and i only really enjoy marijuana in the presence of live music. if i get back to work soon, i'll be recording, and i am pristinely sober, then.
but, i really don't want to miss a 4/20 weekend that includes squarepusher and rachmaninov. that was fucking amazing.
again: if they wanted to cancel something, they should have canceled religious services. that's what happened in south korea, it was a church at the centre of the outbreak. that would have actually made sense...
but, we live in a supremely backwards culture that blames alcohol (a mild disinfectant) and provides exceptions for organized religion (the root of the problem).
we are, collectively, incredibly stupid.
and, we're about to pay for it....
yeah, i'm pissed off.
there's no logic underlying this, at all.
it's just panic-stricken, hysterical backwardsness.
welcome to the fucking third world, guys. it's here.
sorry. i meant to say...
let's just hope they fucking die fast so we can get on with this.
you have to have faith in something, right?
shutting down bars will have no effect.
let's just they fucking die fast so we can get on with this.
bizarrely, somebody seems to have come in here and stolen documents that were sent to me from the divisional court.
i know exactly where i put them.
as mentioned: i don't understand what they're looking for. that's a clue, at least.
i'm going to have to file a complaint against the judge, next.
it is deeply disappointing to see this government abandon science in favour of an embrace of mass panic and backwards thinking. we were doing well on this. really.
but, we should expect this terrible decision to be followed by an increase in cases, as people seek ways around the restrictions, and evade the authorities in doing so.
when will we learn that banning things never works, but always makes things worse?
when will we learn that authoritative action and strong leadership is always ham-fisted, and always backfires?
when will we learn to stop buying into panic and listen to the science?
i want the next "coronavirus myths busted" article that google tries to force me to read to include "flattening the curve", travel bans and "social distancing" as debunked concepts that won't work.
every moment spent distracting from the need to ramp up hospital capacity is a lost opportunity. and, when all of these hokey attempts at containment fail, these public officials are going to have to take responsibility for their refusal to properly look at the evidence and prepare when they had the chance.
and every moment spent talking about solidarity and sticking together is a moment distracting from the need to look at specific types of patients, and create policies that are properly targeted at the people that require them.
but, you can't convert a population of scientific illiterates on such short notice. and, ignorance and bad policy is likely to be the norm, moving forwards.
i'm not suggesting that canada is immune to anything.
i'm pointing out that, because we didn't restrict travel, and we offer easy access to free medical care, we probably have many fewer untraceable cases.
they are saying that there is some local transmission happening.
but, there is not currently any evidence of the kinds of things that are happening in the united states.
so, washington state and new york state just put a ban on congregating in bars. i need to present my own backlash - this is the kind of conservative scapegoating that makes me mad. no, boomers, the kids drinking at the bar didn't infect the people at the old folks home. this is a low impact, evidence-free step that makes conservatives feel safe, and has unfortunately become the norm as to how the democratic party acts and legislates, from outlandish conspiracy theories about russian election interference to anti-science, authoritarian reactions to pandemics.
but, is that going to work? no.
i would simply expect an increase in the number of house parties, or perhaps some gatherings in outdoor spaces. and, if the cops want to show up and shut them down, i'm actually in solidarity with the drinkers - because there's not any actual science underlying the dictate that they go home. it's panic. it's hysteria. it's control. and, it will backfire.
if people start drinking at houses or underground venues instead, they're going to end up drinking higher potency alcohol. nobody is going to refuse them service. and, they might end up driving home in situations where bartenders would have insisted otherwise. you're also likely to end up with people in closer contacts, people smoking indoors, people congregating in dirty basements and other various behaviours that will increase the spread of the virus, not decrease it.
you're releasing a string of expletives at the screen. you're shocked. why won't they stay home?
you're angry. but, there's no science underlying your anger - it's irrational panic that's been pushed down to you by the media.
so, how do you stop young people from socializing?
lol.
there is a long history in this world of governments fucking things up with boneheaded authoritarian responses that make things worse via micromanagement.
and, there's usually a smart analyst around that explains why they're morons.
shows are indeed cancelling in michigan, but i had cleared out the month, anyways. i'm not missing anything. worse, i may find myself with an uncrossable border within a few weeks and find myself without any choice but to stay in.
but, a large percentage of the cancelled shows are just moving to underground venues. and, i'll keep an eye out for that, as it happens.
i like house shows. they're cheaper...
Sunday, March 15, 2020
i also watched evan solomon question trudeau before i left, and noticed the disconnect pretty staunchly.
trudeau has clearly been surrounding himself with supremely qualified people recently, and been fed a line that actually makes sense. evan solomon, less so.
i'm not trying to attack evan solomon's intelligence, exactly. i've sen enough of him to know that he's a moderately intelligent journalist that tries to follow the facts as best he can. he's not a demagogue; he's at least honest, whatever his defects. but, he probably never took a science course past grade 10, because the curriculum didn't force him to....and, he consequently has no ability to understand what he's talking about. like most people in his situation, he gets his information from cnn & cbc and takes it at face value. because what else do you do? you read what you understand.
so, he's legitimately concerned about the border, because he gets his information from shitty sources that tell him that you deal with this by shutting borders. why isn't canada shutting borders?
trudeau's response was surprisingly accurate, actually. we have to remember that trudeau, himself, isn't exactly a rhodes scholar....but he's got good people around him and it really does show. so, trudeau calmly explained that when the united states and italy clamped down on travel early (which is true.), it didn't work in stopping the spread. rather, people found ways around the barriers. in canada, we adopted a policy of accepting and documenting travel from hotspots, which allowed us to understand what was actually happening. as such, we think there's been much less random transmission.
so, the reason we're not shutting borders is that the science actually says that this makes things worse.
but, evan solomon kept pushing the point, because he didn't get it. and, trudeau started to get visibly frustrated - evan, why don't you fucking get it? it doesn't fucking work. lay the fuck off with the travel restrictions, k.
i just want to remind the government of something it knows - it has to stand firm on the science. it's going to run into a thousand evan solomons that want it to flex it's muscles and do something drastic, and they might even get a short term poll bounce if they give in, because people don't know, and don't care and don't want to learn - they want to follow their gut, they want to assert their male instincts to control, they want to take charge.
don't listen to them. hold your ground...
and, in the end, there will be data, and we can all hope the evan solomon's of the world learn the right lessons from it. most of them want to. really. they just don't have the tools to do it...
bernie seemed to be expecting an honest, gentlemanly debate on the issues.
it just demonstrates the point.
bernie's platform slays. i've never denied that. but, he's a dope.
so, i got a pizza and tried to watch the debate, but cnn has made that somewhat difficult, unless you tuned in live (and i did not - i tuned in about 9:30).
i'm feeling fine.
the youtube streams were incomplete and shoddy, dropping audio, etc. but it's enough to get the point across.
it's virtually impossible for bernie to win a debate against somebody that successfully markets himself as a "decent guy" and yet is actually a pathological liar. biden would be absolutely devastated by a basic fact check, but the media won't bother with it.
so, biden's tactic is just to look you in the eye and lie his face off, which includes parroting certain positions that bernie has taken that he knows are popular. when trump & clinton did that, nobody believed them. biden seems to be more convincing for some reason. maybe it's because he's so "decent".
but, it's the same lies, and you're still stupid to fall for them.
bernie had to rip biden to shreds to have a chance. instead, he seemed perplexed by his dishonesty, and ultimately came off a little unprepared - he seems to have expected biden to show up and defend his record, rather than deflect or obfuscate it.
biden also seemed more in control of himself than we've generally seen recently.
i'm sorry, but i think joe won the match. and, bernie's about to get routed.
he'll probably win arizona, though.
actually, i'd like to see a random sample of people polled for testing for covid-19.
randomly generate 5000 numbers. make sure they haven't traveled. make sure they don't have symptoms, and make sure they don't have a history with the virus.
mail the tests out.
and crunch the numbers.
i'm curious.
i can't find an atheist urologist in southwestern ontario.
that's the sad reality of it.
the problem here isn't access in the universal system. this is covered, and there's plenty of doctors that can do it.
the problem is that the doctors won't do it, because they're all a bunch of fucking christians or muslims.
i should be able to walk into a urologist's office and have this dealt with in a couple of hours. it's a simple, routine practice - especially considering that i consider myself too old to see any purpose in final reassignment. i don't want to have sex, regardless.
but, they think it's "immoral". that's fucking bullshit...
what's immoral is to tell me i can't do this, or put me on a five year waiting list for something that's almost not going to matter anymore by the time i get off of it.
i have not had consensual sex since 2006ish and have no intent to ever have consensual sex ever again.
i've been to specialists, regionally, that claim they have some kind of bullshit religious problem with it.
so, i had to put in an application for a centre in toronto, despite that centre pleading with doctors to handle it locally.
i've been trying to do this for years and i'm not getting any kind of useful response. worse, i think my doctor actually thinks i'm sexually active with women and am denying it, and is trying to avoid me from making a mistake.
the mistake i made was not getting this done with when i was young.
i hate sex. i want them out. and, i'm getting fed up with this.
i don't want them. i haven't wanted them for years. and, if i don't get a useful response when i see my doctor in may, i may have to consider finding some other means of chopping them out, myself.
i am taking the right kind of estrogen for what i want. i don't have any qualms about that.
but, i'd like to completely eliminate my ability to produce testosterone by surgically removing my testicles. this will allow me to reduce my reliance on anti-androgens, which should increase the effectiveness of the estrogen.
these trans people that you see on tv don't look the way they do due to hormones.
they've had millions of dollars worth of plastic surgery. that's why they look how they do.
i haven't had any. at all. and, i don't want any - except to cut my testicles out, which i'm still waiting for a response on.
i can't bring back the past, but i didn't go back into transition until i was a little older and there are consequences of that that i can't undo.
they're claiming it's on "back order" and they'll have to call around.
i think they're lying and trying to avoid ordering it.
so, i'll need to get an answer tomorrow, and if it's not what i want then i'll need to switch pharmacies.
i do not want sharp spikes and mood swings.
i want stability and constancy.
and, i want to maximize the feminizing effects, which is done by maintaining consistently high levels in the bloodstream, which is achieved by allowing the liver to regulate it.
i'm 40 years old.
i looked better when i was 30, didn't i?
they're trying to push the generic estrogen on me at the pharmacy, again. i think they have some kind of deal with a distributor in india.
it's not the same drug.
the brand name estradiol attaches the active estrogen agent to a salt that gets metabolized by your liver, which results in stable levels of estrogen that get released through your endocrine system. this is the most natural way to do this, which isn't necessarily the best, but the stability ensures that the mood swings are kept to a minimum.
the generic estradiol encases the active estrogen agent to a water molecule that is meant to enter your blood stream directly (and should probably be taken on your tongue rather than swallowed), which produces immediate spikes and sharp trails. this is more akin to popping estrogen as a drug. while it will lead to mood swings, the feminizing effects will be less effective.
if they were the same thing, i'd take the generic. but, i actually think that the hemihydrate forms of this should be banned, along with injections.
they should build a wall to keep americans out, and then make americans pay for it.
wait. that's....
do i have to find somebody with this and fuck them?
is that it?
do i have to reverse my no-sex policy to get infected with this?
i was totally reckless, too.
some things i did on thursday:
- smoked a pack of cigarettes
- bummed or purchased cigarettes from multiple people
- passed two joints, with two different groups of strangers.
- took drinks from bar staff at two separate bars
- used several public washrooms
- close-talked with several different groups, without a passing thought to social distancing, including with several off-duty bar staff (who were concerned about their finances)
- ate a blt at a diner
- took the bus into detroit and then took it back out
what the fuck else can i do to catch this thing?
i got some sleep.
i've been tired recently anyways. i didn't get that hot shower yesterday, though. i think that's a good idea....after i eat my daily bowl of fruit.
i had a little bit of a sore throat this morning. it seems to have cleared up. something else though: the dry cough has loosened up.
a test would be necessary to figure this out for certain, of course. but my understanding of the disease is that a loosening cough suggests that i probably just caught a cold.
so, it seems like i'm going to have to risk exposure for a while longer, still. drats. foiled....
and, i'd like to hear the united states make a similar announcement.
this may all be a process of trying to set an example. and, i'm not one for leadership, and don't tend to do what i'm told. but, people are sheep, and this is probably useful.
there was also a request by the prime minister's mother - who was married to the prime minister's father, who was also the prime minister from 1967-1984 - to be mindful of spending time with older relatives, and for older folks to be conscious of reality, which is very useful.
again: i've had little criticism of our government's response, here. i just hope the execution doesn't get botched by the provinces.
i might have just picked up a head cold, i don't even know. i know i don't feel sick enough to go to a clinic, whether it's the new virus or not. but, i hope it is. i want the antibodies...
i'm not going to go cough all over the retirement home. and, if i see an older person, i'll keep my distance - that's a fair request. but, if i need to go shopping, i'm going to go, as i would if i had a minor head cold.
i'm just making the point that i don't feel i have the burden, here. i'm not disrupting my life over something that has almost no chance of even making me noticeably sick.
i'll be fine. i'm strong. the virus stands no chance against me. i have confidence in my phagocytes to win this battle and annihilate the invading proteins.
vitamin c and water. and rest, if you feel the urge.
i'm not advocating denying service or anything. i'm an advocate of universality. the system should do everything it can.
i'm just pointing out that my empathy is somewhat reduced, and i'm perfectly content to shift responsibility to them to alter their behaviour, rather than place the onus on myself to alter mine.
it's really kind of not my problem. it's really kind of their problem...
who voted for trump?
so, they kind of made their own bed.
or, as it would be, reduced the number of them.
who voted to cut the health care system in countries like italy and canada?
the boomers did.
it's harsh. sure. but, if i woke up tomorrow and there were 15% less people over the age of 65, i would see the net social benefit in that pretty quickly. i'm not going to list the ways, but there's a lot of them.
we could, honestly, solve a multitude of social problems by thinning their ranks a little. we're sitting on a demographic bulge that's kind of a problem, and is kind of largely their fault.
i don't see any use in pretending otherwise.
but, honestly?
do i really care about old people?
i don't generally get the impression that they care much about me. this is the "me generation", we're talking about - the generation that shuffled their own parents into homes, and refused to share their wealth with their kids. in a way, they kind of deserve it.
that's not fair. i'm not saying it is. not all old people are entitled, bourgeois pieces of shit.
but, enough of them are that i don't feel any particular impetus to protect them.
if you're old, adjust your lifestyle. i don't feel the urge to adjust mine...
ok, yeah - i've picked up a dry cough. good. let's hope it's covid-19 and i get the thing beat nice and quickly over what was a down period in the scheduling so i'm immune for the rest of the summer.
i'm going to need to go to the store this week, but i tend to spend these periods between shows inside anyways, and i actually wanted to get some work done. i can promise to avoid old folks, at least.
to be clear: i don't know whether it's coronavirus or not. but i'm not worried about it enough to get treatment. i'm hoping i just beat it easily and move on.
"it is better to burn out than to fade away"
this, i would propose, is a better way to understand the debate between herd immunity and "flattening the curve".
i hope that ends up big enough.
this isn't a prediction, it's a model. please realize that.
but, the argument is supposed to be that the same number of people will get the virus anyways, so you'd might as well slow it down. one of the key points i'm trying to get across here is that if you slow the virus down then you reduce the speed of immunity, thereby increasing transmission - and you actually get twice as many cases because it takes twice as long to get to herd immunity. that sounds like it doesn't make sense, but there's a difference between developing antibodies and getting sick.
you can tweak this. maybe it takes 1.5x as long. it's a model, it's not a prediction.
the other thing i'm doing here is arguing that you can't really flatten the curve, exactly, but can rather shift it. and, maybe that shift is valuable if it buys time for a vaccine. but, it's going to come with a slow increase in cases over time until immunity is reached.
don't get lost in this in nitpicking the numbers - it's a model, it's a conceptual thing, it's an idea. and, it's a valid critique.
i think boris johnson was (accidentally.) correct. you want to protect the old and weak, yes. but you want to let this thing run it's course quickly and burn out, rather than draw it out and pick people off over months.
so, i made a choice to wait until i got back from the concert on thursday night before i reimaged the machine, because i figured i'd have to do it again anyways.
i have eaten well since i got back, in case i picked anything up. i'm mildly hungover, and have produced some watery bowel movements, but i'm willing to blame it on the alcohol; i don't feel sick.
i did communicate with the divisional court, and they've informed me that the motion has moved to an administrative judge due to my complaint. they didn't send me anything regarding this. but i was instructed to call back on monday.
i don't expect to leave the house at all for the next 6 or 7 days, so let's hope i can get some work done this week.
and, let's get started on the reimage.
my bios looks clean, at least.
i'm going to start a petition to cancel 3/17 in favour of 3/14.
i suspect that most pi day events will attract at least 3 people.
but, due to the coronavirus, i'd expect there to be much less than 4, on average.
meaning you're looking at roughly 3.1415 people per event.
no, i'm not sorry. but, you're welcome.
and, i don't care about st. patrick's day. at all.
this is a chart for the 1917 and 1918 (there were two viruses, not one) pandemics:
so, there's a lot of differences.
but, these pandemics are thought to have had a total mortality rate of ~0.6%, which is a strong flu.
the total mortality rate in south korea right now is 0.8%.
i think that, in the end, the numbers will prove the claim that it's on par with a strong flu correct. that's what i've said from the start.
and, it is very clear that you want to keep old people locked up right now, even if it's just as clear that it's more or less harmless for people under 50 - in contrast to the 1918 flu, which killed a lot of young people in the midst of world war one.
the numbers coming out of south korea are the ones you want to take more seriously, as they are an oecd country that has tested sufficiently well and has already been through the bulk of this.
this is probably mostly over in south korea. and, what are the mortality rates?
it's interesting to see these numbers pull themselves out, as 7% and 4.5% and 1.5% are numbers that i'm frequently pulling out of calculations - which, i'll be quick to catch myself, doesn't actually mean anything, but just is kind of consistent...
so, the reported death rate in italy right now is around 7%, and almost all of the cases are very old people.
the mortality rate in the united states was initially around 7%, and is still about that in washington state, where the deaths are largely linked to nursing homes.
and, the (published.) mortality rate in iran has fallen from 7% to 4.5% as the number of cases has increased, perhaps reflecting the fact that the average lifespan in iran is almost ten years less than that in italy - which makes sense.
on the other hand, the death rates in france and spain have hovered closer to 1.5%, making me wonder how old the people that are dying are.
you need more subtle ways to analyze this than just dividing the deaths by the number of cases. and, for now, south korea is the best place to get the data. in a month or two, you'll probably want to be looking at data for northern europe, but they're that much behind, for now.
7% is 1/15. roughly. are you going to give your grandparents such low odds?
Friday, March 13, 2020
no, you can't get "reinfected" by a virus. this is basic science.
a virus is a protein, an enzyme, which means it's a string of amino acids with a bunch of open electrons hanging off of it. the protein has a certain chemistry to it, and that chemistry creates a geometry. i did projects on viruses in grades 12 and 13 bio (i took bio 101 & 102 at carleton, but it didn't touch on this topic), but, like so many other things, this is actually fundamentally a math problem.
so, a virus is a protein with a specific geometry to it. what it does is it floats through your tissue like a spaceship and latch on to cells like a lander. once it's connected itself to the cell, it releases genetic material into it through the cell membrane (i almost said cell wall. it has been a while.). this genetic material then takes control of the nucleus of the cell, and turns the cell into a virus producing factory. once your cell is literally full of copies of the virus, it explodes like the obese man in se7ven, thereby releasing thousands of more copies of the virus, and then it all starts over again - thousands of times over. a powerful virus like ebola will turn you into mush, as your billions of cells explode one at a time.
the virus itself has no purpose other than to destroy.
how do you defeat that? what your immune system is going to do is produce something called antibodies that rely on finding the right chemical combination to create the right geometry to disassemble the virus in the intercellular spaces. and, in fact, it works by trial and error. but, once it gets the right geometry, it remembers it. forever.
forever.
so, why do you need flu shots, then? i guess some people deduce that you "lose immunity", but that is not true. what happens is that the virus changes it's geometry enough that your body no longer recognizes it, and needs to produce new antibodies for it.
so, nobody is getting "reinfected" with coronavirus. what is happening, then?
1) it might be that testing was incomplete and they weren't cured in the first place.
2) the virus might be evolving very quickly; these people would have been infected by two different coronaviruses, rather than the same one.
british press: 60% of britons will need to be infected to allow for herd immunity? this is irresponsible!
british scientists: 70% of british people will become infected. deal with it.
people just don't listen to science. they insist on magical thinking. it's distressing.
it looks like i spoke too soon, and the british tories are going to overreact like everybody else. but, i'll post my graphic anyways. soon.
i actually agree with the british tories. that's pretty rare....
the error that's being made in the underlying discussion around this is that we have a choice, and that choosing herd immunity is irresponsible when they could be taking more proactive measures to stop the spread of the disease. but, the empirical evidence makes it abundantly clear that there is, in fact, absolutely nothing at all that can be done to stop the spread of this disease.
i mean, if you can figure out how to stop this, then you'll have figured out how to stop the flu and the common cold, as well. i applaud you on your upcoming nobel prize. congratulations to you.
that boris johnson of all people is getting this right is no doubt an accident of history; the truth is probably closer to the reality that he's just lazy, and this is the easiest possible choice. but, sometimes fate can be cruel - and in this scenario, the easiest choice is the most correct one.
i need to repeat the importance of getting it into the heads of old people that this virus might kill them. and, it's important to keep gathering data, even if there's not much of an effort to contain. but, outside of those very targeted actions, attempting to stop the spread of this could actually backfire, if it just results in slowing down the rate of natural immunity and allows for carriers to linger on for months to come.
i'm going to post a slightly different graph. just let me get my laptop back up, first.
thank you for making the point that the focus should be on buying gear, not on "flattening the curve".
single payer health care does have a fatal flaw - it can put the system at the whim of fiscally conservative governments, who can devastate it in the form of budget cuts. if you want this system to work, you have to fund it, and the onset of neo-liberalism has led to massive cuts in much of the developed world. i don't know exactly what silvio berlusconi or his successors did to the italian health care system, but i doubt it was beneficial.
it seems like they got swamped. i'm not denying that, and it could happen anywhere.
but, it's also exposing the consequences of a lack of funding, and what happens when you slash health care to balance budgets.
science is an authority, and i will listen to science.
but, the only authority that the state has over me is the threat of violence.
it follows that statist dictates that are not backed by science are invalid and should be ignored.
this puny, weakling virus will be annihilated by my superior immune system!
ahahahahaha!
i'm an anarchist. you're probably not. but, you need to know when to step away from your need to control things, and this is one of those situations.
the science does not support bans on travel, or bans on large gatherings, right now. i will not be heeding these restrictions, myself - and i fully expect to get this virus, and defeat it. i don't want to cower in fear of one another, i want to take this on headfirst, and develop the antibodies. bring it on!
i hope that i can lead by example.
but, i will strenuously avoid old people, and i will state this clearly - if you are in an at-risk category, you need to take responsibility for your own safety, which means staying inside, even if you're not sick. if you're going to ban anything, it should be the movement of retired people. stay home, granny.
i know you want to help, and that's natural, but if you want to help then you should follow the science.
the only worthwhile thing you can do is avoid old people.
Canada's Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam confirmed that Canada is now advising against all international travel to limit the spread of the virus. She warned that travellers could be subject to another country's travel or quarantine restrictions, and if they become sick, they could find themselves in a health care system inferior to Canada's system.
this is admittedly worth considering carefully; that's a good point, and something to think about.
