it's a loaner

so, i'm on a loaner of a laptop. i miss my programs and my processing speed, and my happy little tire swing of a piratical desktop. but, hey, at least i can check email and get in my online gaming addiction, so we must be thankful, mustn't we?

also, digging on the new mini-disc player/recorder. captured some cool sounds out in the desert this weekend. keeping it in el backpacko just in case something catches my ear.

oh, and i'm whittling down the reading list slowly. very slowly. have two books sitting in my car so i can read at lunch, but wow... i've really taken on a bit of a research project with this book thing. enjoying it... just trying not to take too many steps back to see how large the project is... just trying to work through the details a step at a time so i don't get mentall overwhelmed.

look up dr h.h. holmes if you get a chance on the internet. or better yet, read 'the devil in the white city,' for yourself. a chilling little chapter of u.s. history that you don't read about in any of the textbooks that i can recall, though you do read about the world's fair that it took place at.

oh, and also look up the election of 1876. scary stuff. am knee-deep in research about that and also the building of the transcontinental railroad and am just starting to crack open the prison writings of leonard peltier. all this while trying to piece together some kinda tenuous connections between them all, though some are more philosophical links.

anywho... back to cleaning the room.

in search of

sounds. am getting some ideas of different sounds to use on the cd, and discovered a few things that i'll need. if you have one, or know somebody that does, um... let me know:

a manual typewriter
a screen door, wood (aluminum has a much different sound when closing)
an old set of heating vents (preferably those huge metal boxes that used to sit in a living room floor)
an old (50's-60's era) car with those loud clicky turn signals
a field full of crows (yeah... um... if you happen to see one... ahem)

will add more as i think of 'em.

recording

so the mini-disc player has arrived. yay!

experimented with it a bit the past few days and i'm pretty confident that it'll do what i'm hoping it will, which is record clean and clear audio in most situations (espeically with the electret condenser microphone that i ordered specifically for that purpose).

also have enlisted a very talented and cool cast of characters to make music for me. surprising how many people have talents you never even knew about once you start asking around.

and i was introduced to the dresden dolls (not in person, but close enough... check out their cds... available at your local amazon.com screen). thanks to beth for that... incredible sounds. gonna be immersing myself in their punk cabaret goodness as well as the old faves like tom waits and new faves like madeleine peyroux. acoustic chocolate.