high rise by kenneth gregory

I have been quietly thinking about performing as a solo artist again in this new year. The last few weeks have been spent “performing” for myself: selecting an effective pair of instruments and using looping devices and echo machines to improvise long-form pieces of music in the way I plan to later, in front of people in a room. Today I went through this exercise, and recorded some of what happened to a (rather old and hissy) cassette.

I am also nearly finished with J. G. Ballard’s High Rise, which has been an engaging but troubling read. I am horrified by how the people living in that building treated their neighbors, and I am not of the conviction that it is an accurate portrayal of how people would behave under such circumstances. After all, there are real high rise apartment buildings just like the one in the story, and to my knowledge no such environment has developed within any of them. The last few chapters of the book are in position to be filled with all the most twisted and cruel actions the author could think of, and I have been putting off trudging that. I don’t like the thought of not finishing the story either.

The photo is of a NYC police helicopter that I photographed in August of 2023 while in Manhattan with some friends. A famous twitch streamer had announced that he would give away thirty play stations to whoever managed to arrive in Union Square in time to receive one. As one could imagine, a mob of salivating gamers descended upon the square. The police were not impressed. They rarely are.

I hope this music finds you sitting on a smooth rock somewhere on the north shore of Lake Superior, looking out over the cold, majestic gloom and wondering what might lurk beneath the waves.