I'm a fan from Olympia, Washington - I've been a fan of your music-sound ever since I first heard Taking Things Apart - a few years ago. I'm a little embarrassed about writing you this note kind of 'after-the-fact', but after listening to your podcast (love the new tune by the way - I just subscribed), and perusing your website - quite engaging and well-done - I feel a little more comfortable approaching you...

A few days ago Jim (my husband and partner in crime) and I participated in a direct animation workshop called Botanicalistas ! in Olympia, Washington. It involved taking plant leaves and petals etc., mushroom spores, seeds, and a few other things and gluing and then taping them (with very thin tape) on to clear 16mm leader - we also did some scratching, some hole-punching, using of bleach to remove emulsion on black leader, some adding of watercolor drops, and more to create what was essentially handmade film strips which we spliced together and projected through a 16mm projector. (The workshop was about four hours long and was conducted by Caryn Cline, a filmmaker from NYC and participants ranged from a few film and animation teachers from Evergreen State College, one from Portland OR, a few filmmakers, artists, and a couple of students. Some of the resulting footage was too thick or odd-shaped to make it through the projector so we had to pare it down to what would run smoothly. As we were putting this together we talked about what kind of soundtrack would work with this kind of experimental film and we agreed that Decomposure might be just the right thing. As we moved forward we identified your Scrabble piece (and the Matchsticks one as well) as the kind of track we wanted. Jim edited it all together in a pretty quick effort for us - but we still liked it enough to want to share with the other participants. Clearly we are not doing this for profit - but just for the love of it (and the fun too.)

Obviously, i'm thrilled with both the results of their creative labours and the fact that people know my music exists. As i mentioned in my response, the process of the video actually complements one of the primary themes behind Taking Things Apart rather well - taking an established technology (electronic music/filmmaking) and stripping out some of the automation we often take for granted to create something human, imperfect and handcrafted. The images also mesh really well with the pace and texture of the song, and i have to say i'm jealous i didn't think of the idea first, because it's just genius.]]>http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=51Tue, 23 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMTblogsqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2010-11-23T00:00:00Z2010-11-23T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=50
Don't forget to send your questions/comments/ideas/hate/anything to indicate you're paying attention to the funny musician clown to squeak@blanksquirrel.com, or Twitter your piercing insight to @decomposure.]]>http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=50Sat, 23 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMTNowssqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2010-10-23T00:00:00Z2010-10-23T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=491. Dashes
In modern digital text, the horizontal dash has many variants: hyphens, minus signs, em dashes, en dashes, hyphenbullets, 2-em rules, horizontal bars, double/triple hyphenminus signs, with and without spaces. (And that doesn't even include language-specific diacritic marks.) Few realize this. In fact, depending on context, choosing one dash over another can alter the meaning of a sentence in some circles.

The whole collection is actually fairly ridiculous, a holdover from an older time when text was still set with movable type. These days, everyone is essentially given the power of a typesetter, and punctuation is no longer a process centralized in a printing house. The problem is, even while old grammar requires it, standard keyboards do not come with en/em dash keys, which means we must rely on ugly software solutions to guess our intent. Or, we can try to muddle through with special multikey codes, or the supremely ugly double- and triple-minus signs to indicate en and em dashes, with or without buffering spaces.

More to the point, the rules themselves are arcane and absurdly specific. For example, 'blue-green sea' should be hyphenated, while 'Einstein-Rosen bridge' should be en-dashed (no spaces), while 'New York - London flight' should be en-dashed (with spaces). Can you tell me why? And even if you can cite the specific grammatical rules that govern these instances, can you really tell me why on a practical level? Are all these typographic variations fundamentally adding to or clarifying the intent of the text? Should grammar really be tied up in typographical minutiae?

What i'd like to see is a single character - the standard ASCII hyphen and minus sign, available on keyboards everywhere - take over and simplify our needlessly complex set of dashes. To some degree, this has already happened, but our language rules have been slow (or loathe) to catch up, so word processors have tried to cobble together fugly auto-replace solutions to cover the gap, with awful and inconsistent results. It is worth noting that in our increasingly web-centric existence, it just so happens that those very characters the word processors introduce are not all that compatible with web-based text, leading at times to odd question marks or odd collections of symbols resembling censored expletives. Not ideal.

So, here's what i'd like to see. It's a simplified ruleset that i already use and apply regularly:
- In instances implying a range/relationship/connection, no spaces: blue-green sea, Einstein-Rosen bridge, New York-London flight, 10-30 years old
- To indicate a pause/break/suspension, a onespace buffer on either side: 'Dashes - like these ones - work this way.'
- In math, a onespace buffer on either side (equations), or a onespace buffer to the left only (negative numbers):
  3 - 5 = -2
- It is unfortunate that keyboards do not come with a standard 'circle bullet' key, so dashes may also be used with onespace buffer to the right (or a tab if list indentation is possible, so long as it visually approximates a space), as in this list.
- Line hyphenation is fine as it is now: no space, immediate wrap to the next line.
- Reduce overpunctuating with needless hyphens by simply compounding short, common words: email, bluegreen sea, hyphenminus sign. This is a personal stylistic choice, and not a requirement - i view it as an equivalent, though a superior one.

Now, in every field, there are obsessives, gatekeepers and nerds who will cling to the old guard out of a misplaced sense of duty and devotion to purity ('The em dash is so pretty and elegant, don't take it out of our toolbox!'). And i understand to some degree - i'm uncomfortable with the Prince-ification of our language through continued xposure 2 txting. (Joke!) But English is a mongrel language, always borrowing and barrelling forward, and this dash issue is a comparatively minor one we can afford to compromise on. The hardcore dash-lovers can continue selecting their subtly different line lengths if they'd like, but it's time that they stopped holding up the rest of us.

This concludes my Big Important Statement.]]>http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=49Mon, 06 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMTblogsqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2010-09-06T00:00:00Z2010-09-06T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=48
And if you have been listening, a) thanks! and b) you may have noticed that no new song has been posted this week. Well, because of the complicated-er nature of this week's song, i'm deferring it a week and will be releasing it simultaneously with another song. It's a bit of cheat i know, but whatever, that's what's happening.

Finally, if you have any questions for me, i mean Decomposure, that you'd like him to start answering but then lose his train of thought and move on to something you have no interest in, you can email squeak@blanksquirrel.com and he'll address it on the show.]]>http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=48Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMTNowssqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2010-07-20T00:00:00Z2010-07-20T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=47
There's more to come, of course - a website is never done. Keep your eyes peeled for - uggghhh, no - unpeel your eyes, that's disgusting. In the future, you can expect to see more infodumping, a newly redesigned shopping cart, blog comments, and a lot more podcasts. (Seriously, listen to the 'Introduction' podcast.)]]>http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=47Mon, 31 May 2010 00:00:00 GMTNowssqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2010-05-31T00:00:00Z2010-05-31T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=46
1. Other artists. Blank Squirrel is looking to expand a bit to include musicians with actual talent. There's already a few prospects lined up that we're excited about (more on that as the year continues), and we encourage you to submit your demos and suggestions. See 'about' for more details.

2. Updated website. blanksquirrel.com has been due for a makeover for a while now, but with the eventual arrival of new artists on the horizon, change will finally arrive before summer this year. The new site will likely feature artist blogs, song lyrics, better sharing tools, maybe a podcast, and many more cool new things, so stay tuned.

3. At least one major release by Decomposure. i have a list of potential albums the length of my arm that i'm itching to work on; at least one is bound to happen. Among them is Horizontal Lines B, which was put on hold as 2009 staggered from mess to mess, but which i've recommitted myself to for 2010 in a reimagined framework. i've also felt increasingly comfortable pursuing my own tangents recently, so chances are a small surprise or two will wander out when you least expect it.

4. 'Vertical Lines A' goes free. In case you hadn't noticed, Blank Squirrel likes giving stuff away. We're down to our last 13 copies of VLA, so at some point this year we'll open up the entire 2-disc album as a free download. (Of course, donations are always appreciated. And sometimes even rewarded...)]]>http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=46Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMTNowssqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2010-01-04T00:00:00Z2010-01-04T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=45(Again, not in any particular order.)

1. Manic Street Preachers - Jackie Collins Existential Question Time (Journal for Plague Lovers)
2. Themselves - TheMark (Crownsdown)
3. Milanese - Mr. Bad News (Clark Remix) (Adapt)
4. Beach Boys - I'm So Young (Today)
5. David Bazan - Harmless Sparks/Fewer Broken Pieces (Live at Sasquatch)
6. Deer Tick - Song About a Man (Born on Flag Day)
7. Fake Cops - Two Mutes, Two Not (Absolutely Your Credit is Perfect...)
8. Pedro the Lion - Priests and Paramedics (Control)
9. Soulfood76 - Vortex (Original Soundtrack)
10. Spoon - Execution (A Series of Sneaks)
11. Darkleaf - Eclectic Storm (Fuck the People)
12. fbcfabric&reindeer - One Inch Brook
13. Kanye West - Street Lights (808s and Heartbreaks)
14. Movits! - Swing for Hyresgastforeningen (Appelknyckarjazz)
15. Mr. Lif - I Heard it Today (I Heard it Today)
16. Bon Iver - Flume (For Emma, Forever Ago)
17. John Mellencamp - A Ride Back Home (Life, Death, Love and Freedom)
18. Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts II-13 (Ghosts I-IV)
19. Fletcher and Maga Bo with Neon Don - Alleyways (Cape of Good Dope 2)
20. Animal Collective - My Girls (Merriweather Post Pavilion)
21. Burial - Fostercare (5 Years of Hyperdub)
22. Wale - TV in the Radio (Attention Deficit)
23. Myka Nyne - Viles (Citrus Sessions)
24. Busdriver - Least Favorite Rapper (Jhelli Beam)
25. Themselves - Take It To The King (African JAG)
26. Why - This Blackest Purse (Eskimo Purse)
27. Themselves - Long Time Coming (The Free Houdini)
28. Jon Brion - Piano One/Two/Three (Synecdoche, NY Soundtrack)
29. Damien Jurado - Gillian Was a Horse (Caught in the Trees)
30. B. Fleischmann - Phones, Machines and King Kong (Angst is not a Weltanschauung)
31. Clint Mansell - Together We Will Live Forever (The Fountain Soundtrack)
32. Telefon Tel Aviv - The Birds (Immolate Yourself)
33. Bibio - Steal the Lamp (The Apple and the Tooth)
34. Yea Big and Kid Static - The Nameless (The Future's Looking Grim)
35. Antipop Consortium - Capricorn One (Fluorescent Black)
36. Edan - Echo Party (Echo Party)
37. Damien Jurado - Tonight I Will Retire (Ghost of David)
38. Noah23 - Hungry (Rock Paper Scissors)
39. Boxcutter - Spacebass (Arecibo Message)
40. Sol.iLLaquists of Sound - Solilliquy: The 4 Telling (No More Heroes)
41. Sole - Bring It On Remix (The Secret History of Underground Rap)
42. Mos Def - Quiet Dog Bite Hard (The Ecstatic)
43. Hayden - Living Grows on You (The Place Where We Lived)
44. Modeselektor - The White Flash (Happy Birthday!)
45. The Tallest Man on Earth - Where Do My Bluebird Fly (Shallow Grave)
46. Bob Dylan - Tombstone Blues (Highway 61 Revisited)
47. Cadence Weapon/Shuttle - Rotten Guts (Tunnel)
48. Alexis Gideon - Clement Mason (Video Musics)
49. Beach Boys - 'Til I Die (Surf's Up)
50. Dirty Projectors - Two Doves (Bitte Orca)

Honorable Mentions: Buck 65 - Dirtbike 1; Brothers Backword - Stupid Intelligent Continuous Mix; Milanese - Mr. Ion (Extend); Dose One and DJ Baku - Void It Out (Dharma Dance); Chad VanGaalen - Stuffed Animal (Soft Airplane B-Sides)]]>http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=45Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMTblogsqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2010-01-03T00:00:00Z2010-01-03T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=44(Not in order, of course.)

ALBUMS FROM 2009
1. David Bazan - Curse Your Branches
2. Sole and the Skyrider Band - Plastique
3. Sol.iLLaquists of Sound - No More Heroes
4. Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself
5. Maria Bamford - Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome
6. Themselves - The Free Houdini
7. Roddy Bailey - Edge of Town
8. Kill the Vultures - Ecce Beast
9. Why - Eskimo Snow
10. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Honorable Mentions: DM Stith - Heavy Ghost; Dalek - Gutter Tactics; 10-20 - 10-20; Mark DeNardo - Lion, Tiger, Bear; Metermaids - Nightlife in Illinoise; Paza Rahm - Megatac 2; Hayden - The Place Where We Lived; Edan - Echo Party

ALBUMS FROM OTHER YEARS
1. Damien Jurado - Ghost of David
2. Talking Heads - Remain in Light
3. Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
4. Ohmega Watts - The Find
5. Pedro the Lion - Control
6. Everything the Beach Boys did before Holland
7. Mark Heard - Second Hand
8. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?
9. The Tallest Man on Earth - Shallow Grave
10. Neil Young - Time Fades Away

Honorable Mentions: De La Soul - De La Soul is Dead; Soulfood76 - Original Soundtrack; Bud Melvin - The Return Of; DJ Olive - Sleep; Idaho - Alas]]>http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=44Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMTblogsqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2010-01-03T00:00:00Z2010-01-03T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=43http://www.blanksquirrel.com/sfoh]]>http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=43Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMTNowssqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2009-12-29T00:00:00Z2009-12-29T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=42http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=42Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMTNowssqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2009-12-13T00:00:00Z2009-12-13T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=41read more.]]>http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=41Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMTNowssqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2009-12-11T00:00:00Z2009-12-11T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=40Twitter, Facebook or Myspace likely have no idea that Decomposure/Blank Squirrel just released an album of sketch comedy entitled 'The Velvet Rain' just now, which means they're part of the majority! Woooo! The unsurprised minority can continue on to www.blanksquirrel.com/tvr and snag the album for free. Free, i said! It's an hour long and comes with artwork made from other inspiring albums, released just in time for Oscar season.]]>http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=40Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMTNowssqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2009-12-05T00:00:00Z2009-12-05T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=39http://www.blanksquirrel.com/nc.]]>http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=39Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMTNowssqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2009-08-29T00:00:00Z2009-08-29T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrelhttp://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=38http://www.blanksquirrel.com/blog.php?p=38Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMTNowssqueak@blanksquirrel.com (Blank Squirrel)2009-08-28T00:00:00Z2009-08-28T00:00:00ZBlank Squirrel