Today an unexpected rain gave us much-needed relief from the heat. We went to church, and then went to the Market Street grocery, where we dined on bbq pulled-pork sandwiches in the pleasant eating area maintained by this market.
Recently I browsed KVR Audio, the website which discusses commercial-ware, shareware and freeware software synthesizers. I found a new release called Adonis-2, a "pay what you wish" bit of "donationware". I downloaded it and found that it offered really good sounds for ambient music. I paypaled the creator, a fellow named Benoit Serrano from France, the princely donation of 14 Euros, which came out to about 20 dollars. Then I settled in with the simple Tunafish sequencer and Adonis-2 to make two pieces. One is for a netlabel submission call a fellow kindly mentioned to me on Stillstream last night. That piece, "rough green snake" mixes simple ambience and darker material. I created a piece to eventually post on CCmixter called "Glow". I term that piece "chill" or "downtempo" rather than ambient. I mixed in four percussion samples, one of which originally was not a percussion sample but the sound of a huge light bulb burning out. I'll hold "Glow" for a few days. I can give it a few more listens, perhaps add in another sample or two. This will also let me space out my postings, as I recently posted two tracks at that site.
In my hobby life, I have the mild worries that others may also have. My more unconventional piece for the netlabel call may be too conventional in that netlabel's setting, while my ccmixter piece, quite melodic, may be a bit outre' for that setting. These are things not worth any worry. At least no paradises are being paved, no big yellow taxis are taking anyone away, and the weather is as fine as an Alabama night in Sweet Home.
Tonight I took my binoculars and camera to Glendover Park. I saw two immature scissortail flycatchers
sitting on the chain link fence by the school. They looked so cute! My heart went out to them as I could see their trepidation--they flew from their nest in a small tree nearby--but what to do now? Flying back is so frightening! I assume they are scissor-tailed flycatchers because that part of the park has lots of them, and the head-coloring and little simple song/noise they make sounds right. But they did remind me of this western kingbird fellow at the other end of the park:
Hidden within this tree I saw this mockingbird:
After I got back from my walk, I took our dogs for a walk largely on the same path. They loved the cool weather. They noticed the rabbits and birds, but they did not make the faux pas of another canine in the park, a large curly-haired citizen who got away from its owner and chased a female duck into the pond.
Its owner expressed outrage in human terms of "what were you thinking?" to the dog, but I suspect she already knew what the dog was thinking.
I got an e-mail from Benoit that he has already released a bugfix 2.01 of Adonis-2. I like shareware because people send one e-mails about bug fixes upon initial release of the software. I am excited to integrate the Tunafish sequencer into my music composition hobby.
I am deeply saddened by reports from Iran of harsh treatment, and perhaps executions, of protesters. I am pleased that in my day I got to see planets around other stars be discovered, but I long also to see peace on earth, good will towards people.