29 Dec 2020
Hey, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything in this blog. Sometimes life happens and you just don’t allocate time to write. 2020 is no exception for me, even in the circumstances that we are now in.
Many good things happened to me on 2020, nonetheless. One good thing that came out of lockdown was getting online together on Tuesdays with some fine folks and set one hour to make some musical piece based on a theme decided at the beggining. A jam, for those who don’t need extra words. After many years wishing to learn how to make music on the computer, I got Ableton Live and started making these. There were 37 jams, and I participated in 34 of those jams.
As 2020 closes, I would like to share with you my results. All for good fun and having a hobby, in its most essential meaning. I’ve been also playing some stuff over my Instagram @chiguire, just to reach out to friends, acquaintances and curious folks.
I hope you enjoy this, and that your 2021 will be the best possible.
Check out all the music I did in 2020 in the Music section!
08 Feb 2016
I’m a bit shocked on how many people think that today’s world is incapable of producing their own icons, given the amount of recent celebrity death news.
I think this may be related to the amount and quality (specifically production values) of the media we’re exposed to. It’s great we have this quality around, but I believe this creates at the same time an implicit message that you may not ever be able to reach that quality, no matter how much you do. And don’t even think about it if you don’t make it your main trade.
However, I believe in the entertainment oriented to the people that are physically and emotionally close to you. From that point of view, we have in our society hundreds of entertainers that with their talent and charisma are able to touch us beyond what a TV celebrity might reach. If you allow it so. Big screen celebrities will keep existing, but they are not able to dictate your immediate environment, nor your future.
In short: don’t justify yourself with crappy music or bad shows as an excuse to say that yesterday’s things were so much better. Don’t age prematurely.
19 Jan 2016
After 8 years writing short messages on Twitter, I’ve noticed something. It’s not a sudden observation, but rather an accumulation of these years. Maybe what I’m noticing is tiredness. I love Twitter to share information, and with Reddit and other websites these are my link sources; I like also to share back what I read. However, I see that it’s tiring to use Twitter to discuss and create a community.
I’ve always compared my timeline (that comprises more than 2000 accounts) as trying to drink from a fire hose. It’s not in my interest to have a carefully curated timeline, but rather a fountain of serendipity. But this goes against talking to, you know, real people.
I usually encourage anyone, with whom I don’t have a previous relationship and that writes me through a DM or a Facebook chat, to write me to my email (ciro.duran@gmail.com, just so you know). Email as a way to communicate that I can read when I want, with no notifications, with the length I want, and with no restrictions beyond my available time, is still for me the best way to communicate between peers (group conversations are another subject, much more complex). I like to read your email, and I like to answer you, though I confess that sometimes I don’t do it, rather because of distractions (and real life priorities) than because of malice.
On the other hand, Twitter restrictions impede expressing about things that are larger than an SMS. This already happened when we moved from SMSs to mobile instant messaging (i.e. iMessage or Whatsapp). But the perspective of Twitter increasing their limits to 10k characters is ridiculous to me; it’s a huge bait and switch, and Twitter passed that no return point a long time ago. It would change its nature to something completely new, and I’m not sure I’d like it.
I like to keep my writings as mine. If I write on Twitter or in Facebook is because I value more being able to communicate to other people rather than keeping what I write. But companies rise and fall, as it has happened before (e.g. Geocities). And what you write might be in danger of going away with the company. With that in mind, I prefer to make myself responsible of taking care of my writings and have the capacity to copy them and store them where I want to, with data formats that make it easy, and not hidden inside some configuration screen.
Having said this, I’d like to store my impressions in a much more trustworthy place. And then figure out how to communicate it to other people. This is the first writing.
13 Jan 2016
David Bowie died this past Monday 11th of January. It was very sudden, unexpected, as he had released a new record days before, and also he had his birthday just as recently.
I also happen to live in South London, not too far from Bowie’s birthplace, Brixton. I’ve been there a couple of times. It’s a really ethnically diverse place, next to Central London, great food, and markets where to buy plantains, one of my favourite foods I used to eat in Venezuela, for cheap.
I had the news of Bowie’s death in my head all day. So, after my working day finished, I travelled to Brixton to see what was going to happen there. To be honest, I had no idea if something was going to happen. I did not check the news. No one really had a central voice that said “let’s all gather here.”
I personally have not listened to more than three or four songs from Bowie, but I thought it was a unique opportunity to see history in the making. To see part of something bigger than anyone. Gathering around to celebrate a man that had just become his songs. A man that now will live in the guitars and musical instruments of all those who play him. That’s his level of influence.
I got down in Brixton railway station and the first thing I did was to look for something for dinner. Meanwhile, I began to think what the hell was I doing there. I had only learned of Bowie’s birthplace two hours before. I had no idea where to go or what to do. So I looked on Twitter to see what was happening around. I found out about Bowie’s mural next to Morleys Department Store, and the Ritzy Cinema, which had put a big sign honouring Bowie.
So I went to the mural, which was nearest, to see what people were doing, It was surreal. There was a big crowd around the mural, with lots of people raising their hands with their phones, probably attempting to capture the mural and the front row of people putting flowers. But from my point of view, it was just half of the mural, with lots of little screens around. Were they trying to capture just the lower half of the mural? The heads and phones of all the people piled up there, like I was? Some people were really happy showing off their pictures between their groups.
There was another big crowd nearby. The crowd was not gathered around anything in particular, and after they left there was nothing, just an empty seat. I could hardly listen to a guitar playing, but that was enough for people to sing Bowie’s songs spontaneously. Some people went as groups, but in general, no one knew each other, except that they were there out of their love for David Bowie.
My wife and a friend joined me right after, and I showed them the place I had arrived just 10 minutes before. I considered all of this like a theme park that was in development, with attractions that come and go. You were an attraction if you brought your musical instrument, or came dressed as your favorite Bowie era. And very soon, all these places will become shrines to come and feel a connection with the artist.
Not long after we were standing there some guy comes next to us and asks us what do we think about John Lennon. He said it in a very convincing voice, as he was really attending John Lennon’s memorial. After a very awkward minute, he started laughing and began to tell us his story.
He started listening to Bowie when he was fifteen, that it had touched his heart, that John Lennon, Roger Waters, and David Bowie were his favourite musicians. That England had so much good music to show up. That it was the musicians the soul and the face of the country, not the politicians.
It was these guys that really communicated the values of our society, and that that made him very, very proud of being an Englishman. In London’s everyday, it’s very rare that someone will come out of the blue and pour their heart on to strangers, but right there, right now, it was the correct moment.
Before he left us he jokingly invited us to his place to eat. Probably our face was a clear sign of declining his invitation. Nevertheless, I asked him his name before he left. “Amon”, he said. He said he was really Irish, but that he had been living many years around London.
We continued walking to the nearby square in Brixton. The Ritzy Cinema had a huge sign honouring Bowie, and the square in front was full of people. Young and old. Everyone remembering him and his songs. Some with musical instruments, and others with speakers that were too weak for the vast public space around. But the weakness of the speakers was aided by the people around, who started chanting the songs and thus everyone that was a bit farther started singing.
The center of the square was particularly packed with people. I could not what everyone was gathering around there. But I could see that a building next to the square had all their lights on, with people next to their window celebrating the musician as well. One of the windows had a projector showing mute music videos.
There was a bust that suddenly fell into the attention of everyone, as one guy hopped into the bust, embracing his legs around it, and started putting some masked tape to the face of the bust. After putting the tape, it was obvious what was going to happen next, with a fucsia spray one part of the eye and the forehead was now painted with a thunder in Ziggy Stardust’s fashion.
This was it, there was no other objective in this gathering, more than to share the feeling of having enjoyed his music, celebrate it, and be happy for it. It was not a mourning, it was a reaffirmation of what he represented and the legacy that he left.
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