READIN: as of March 31, 2020

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READIN started out as a place for me to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly) how to design a web site.

There has been some mission drift here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of the main things I write about here are reading books, listening to (and playing) music, and watching the movies. Also I write about the work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.

The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.

See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.

READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.

Monday, March 30th, 2020

🦋 Lady Waters & the Hooded One

Will you dance?

posted morning of March 30th, 2020: Respond
➳ More posts about Music

Sunday, March 29th, 2020

🦋 Now

here, now
here, now
here, now
here, now
here, now
here

posted afternoon of March 29th, 2020: Respond
➳ More posts about Poetry

Reread. Go back. The letters,
Static, swerve, collide;
Shatter.
Your mental notes,
Your scribbled annotations
Useless now, incomprehensible;
Crystal edifice of abstraction brought low.

posted morning of March 29th, 2020: Respond
➳ More posts about Rereading

Saturday, March 21st, 2020

🦋 Herriman on the pandemic

posted morning of March 21st, 2020: Respond

Friday, March 13th, 2020

🦋 Years

YEARS from Bartholomäus Traubeck on Vimeo.

posted evening of March 13th, 2020: Respond

Tuesday, March third, 2020

🦋 worn away

I am not making much headway with understanding the rest of the poem, but this image from Ernesto Mejía Sánchez' "Long Play/Boleros" leaps off the page at me:

TU ROSTRO se borra como el de la moneda en las yemas
del avaro

YOUR FEATURES worn away like those of the face of a coin
in a miser's fist

posted evening of March third, 2020: Respond
➳ More posts about Readings

Sunday, February 9th, 2020

🦋 Broad Street Sunset

a demo recording of my latest song--

↷read the rest...

posted afternoon of February 9th, 2020: Respond
➳ More posts about Pretty Pictures

Saturday, February first, 2020

🦋 viola d'ottone: soundboard under tension

In my post below on dowel vs. bolts I've been working through a couple of different designs for the brass viola. A dowel will absorb most of the tension of the strings, so that the tension on the soundboard is primarily from the bridge pressing down towards the dowel. If instead of a through dowel, I use blocks and tenons at either side of the pan, then it seems clear there will be a lot more tension on the pan, and in different directions. The question in my mind is whether this extra tension will enhance the sound or detract from it.

My guess is that the extra tension across the soundboard will be a good thing, is why I'm leaning toward the latter solution. You need tension for the soundboard to resonate; so why not add more tension? As I visualize the instrument strung up, the strings would tend to pull the endpin upwards, which would in turn pull the tail block against the pan, this would have the effect of making the pan quite taut along its length. If the instrument were constructed with a dowel. the pan would be under tension along its center line from the bridge to the neck and tail, but the sides of the pan would be less responsive.