It's really quiet in here. I laid on the floor for a few hours today and just listened to the sound of the room, sort of thinking. Kept trying to pick up the guitar and say something, but I don't know if I have it in me. Anyway, the guitar sounds like garbage in this place. I tried putting up some of my blankets on the walls which wasn't as bad, but acoustics won't make a bad song sound good. Like Mick says, "you can't polish a turd."

Part of the problem must be that so much is riding on whatever I do down here. It doesn't really matter so much in the grand scheme of things, but I really don't see what the purpose of living would be if I can't even write a song when I want to. I have an idea, though. On the floor i decided I would just record the sound of the room and use that as an instrument. When I looked up the idea, I found that a lot of classical composers had used similar ideas in the 60s and early 70s. I linked my favourite one, from Alvin Lucier. I'm still waiting for the mp3 from ubuweb to download, but I love the idea. I'll probably post again when it finishes.

The idea got me thinking I should take a stab at is electronic music. I never really tried before, and I used to think it was kind of trite. Now it seems like a pretty cool concept. Traditionalism in general is sort of a hindrance. I'm not sure I want to be the fucking guy with the guitar forever... there are plenty of them already, and if John Mayer is the most famous one at the moment, I might just give it up and learn violin or something. The fact is that beautiful music can be anything. Sylvia was really good at showing me that. No matter how hard-headed I was about hating something she liked, she would just play it over and over again... pretty soon I could tell why she thought it was good. Bands I have to thank Sylvia for: The Magnetic Fields, At the Drive-In, Sleater-Kinney, and Hank Williams, among others.

I started making an electronic song, but I'm not sure when it'll be done. I've been really trying to dig into Protools and start sampling some things. Eventually I'll add some guitar but I don't really know what to play yet...

Still like another half hour before Alvin Lucier is finished downloading. Oh yeah, and I've been going crazy with Wikipedia, so forgive me for all the links going to Wiki. People don't just look shit up like they should. If you're reading something and you don't know what the hell the person is talking about, your ass should be looking it up. But I'm weird and look things up for fun...

From the murky depths of boredom,
Michel