Mar 26 2009

Parallels

Category: Musings — Bill Mason @ 7:07 pm

Does anyone else ever wake up feeling like they’re in the wrong universe or something?

Earlier this week, the commute to work was really free of traffic. I take a couple of freeways to work, and pretty much never do I do the speed limit on both of them for the length of the trip. So that was weird.

Then when I was actually at work, I didn’t see anyone else arrive in my department for an hour and a half. Normally if someone hasn’t beaten me there, they arrive soon after. So that was weirder. So weird as the time crept by that I became convinced I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yes, I checked the calendar to make sure it wasn’t a holiday I forgot. Twice.

The end of this story is anticlimactic. People did turn up. One had actually been there but was off on another floor out of sight.

Or maybe I’m still in the wrong universe and I haven’t figured it out yet…. Maybe any minute now some big difference between this world and mine will rear its head. Y’know, George Bush will turn out to be Mitochondrial Adam. Windows will be the better but niche OS. Something.

It’s all so Twilight Zone, if I’m right. Or Star Trek.

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Mar 20 2009

Community and “Tidal”

Category: Music — Bill Mason @ 1:46 am

It’s about 1:30 in the morning now, and everyone is at last in bed. Like many evenings, this one went on longer than we originally planned. Sometimes, those are the nights I fret that the day never seems to come to an end. But for tonight anyway, not so much fret (although I did fall asleep earlier on the floor watching Barack Obama on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno).

My nerves were having one of those phases where I feel jumpy for no logical reason. It kind of felt like there was someone inside poking me with a live electrical wire. It’s not pleasant. Similarly as it turned out, Imogen Heap was having a struggle of her own with "Tidal", a song from her forthcoming 2009 album.

What followed was a lot of fun. Imogen posted snippets of five progressive revisions to the song and there, of course, was a lot of feedback from people on which version(s) they preferred. I was part of that chorus, as was Mim.

By the end, I think, Imogen felt better for the conversation and bouncing the song’s iterations off of the community’s ears. I felt better for having been part of the community and the experience; almost a sense, for a short time, of peace. So it was a lovely win-win.

And that is another reason why I enjoy Twitter. One of these nights, I’ll compile the whole list to date of reasons. But for now, good night.

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