Music – An Echo That's Reversing

Barbarella the Smuggler–Losing the thread

My writing has been inconsistent.

This is not unprecedented and not without cause. Many time before I’ve involuntarily, shamefully, paused on an idea I’ve loved, the story, returned, and finished. I’d thought that I would compose more while in Italy but stress and uncertainty from different directions has slowed not the ideas but the manifestation of those. I still have that “voice in my head” that elaborates on the story and the melodies and the structure as they should be, but… don’t act on it.

verse 5, where the people show her their most cherished possession: a map that can tell the future

Le porte di Genova

Updated 26 Feb 2026

I arrived, the second of my three arrivals, and exiting the elevator at my front door I was serendipitously greeted by my elderly neighbor who was, beyond all pre-expectations for the genovese, more friendly than I’d expected in this or in any other city. I was disoriented by his kindness. The reason for my appreciation is obvious but it doesn’t take into consideration the rudderlessness you feel (I feel) in a foreign land etc. And, again, the unfair reputation the Genovese people get for being aggressively aloof with the non-Genovese is now something I will fight against.

The people I’ve met since have been just as piacievole.

The AI

The software industry has become a pretty immoral bunch of assholes, but the software industry married to the new AI revolution has exceeded this baseline immorality.

I’m a Malcolm Gladwell-y maven, or I aspire to be, w/r/t technology and it was a trip to Italy with the family several years back that gave me an opportunity to press to them the importance of what was coming and the importance that they, disregarding their disinterest or disgust, involve themselves with LLMs directly in order to understand how the world was going to change. I knew there was value there but I also understood that there was existential upheaval. Maybe they already knew that; I’m not sure.

For most of the time after that I’ve sworn off ChatGPT (let’s use the Kleenex-ified terms “ChatGPT” for the technical “LLM”). Its harm to the environment and social equality, and the socially inequitable harm that it causes, is horrifying. (Though, admittedly, extreme statements should generally be responded with doubt and verification.)

There’s too much politics to think about

There’s too much politics to think about. And that’s kindof an avoidance because calling waves hands what has just happened and what bleak anniversary just occurred, and the scars almost lining up, politics is not politics. There’s just too much to think about.

Untitled, signed 57/150, from the Grifo Edition of Crepax prints of Valentina

Carmen Consoli and the authentic in art

I am not interested in Carmen Consoli’s new, fantastic, album Amuri Luci.