I've completed the backing track I was working on for a possible 'Orchestra Futura' piece at the 'Plectronica' concert. I've titled it 'The Antiquarian Futurist'. Still not convinced I've got the right kind of piece for our 'mystery guest' to play on yet though. I may well try to create yet another track, (or at least start one,) tonight before retiring to bed.
A cold day, today, with sleet this morning. Weather has shifted from the unusually mild days we've experienced recently to something more wintery. Feeling the chill.
Drove to Wakefield to visit my mum, as usual at weekends. Took her to the 'Ridings' shopping centre in Wakefield and then to the supermarket. She has difficulty walking but is still focused and alert. Had a good conversation back at her house about her childhood and our family's, (somewhat mysterious,) past. I think she's so brave living alone at 90 years of age and managing to cope without professional carers, despite her physical infirmities.
More terrible events unfolded in the USA today with a gunman shooting and killing people attending a baby naming ceremony in a Synagogue in the Pittsburgh area. And this just after a right-wing fanatic had mailed 13 bombs to people who had expressed various criticisms of so called 'President' Trump. This hate-filled gunman apparently drove a van with anti-liberal slogans and pro-Trump pictures plastered across its windows. Isn't it obvious? If you live in a country where the gun laws are lax enough to allow fanatics and madmen to access them, you're going to inherit a barrel load of trouble.
Aside from the tragedy of this, what I find difficult to grasp is the sheer ignorance and hate that drives these kinds of people to such brutal acts. It seems that, even in the 21st Century, a time that we once imagined would herald a utopian, egalitarian society, the primitive, reactionary, and downright ugly side of human nature still oozes out like poisonous puss from a canker.
It's hard not to despair but, for those of us who would never stoop to such behaviour, we must keep faith in our finer instincts and not allow ourselves to sink down into the gutter alongside those who act in this way. It's a very sad and deeply shameful state of affairs...
All we can hope for is that the current mess that affects, not only America, but the UK too and the world in general, will gradually abate to be replaced by a more tolerant, progressive, open and kinder understanding. Easy words, not easily put into action, I fear. Apologies for attempting...
