#bill brauer

[withnailrules]

Harvest Moon by Bill Brauer, 2001

[justineportraits]

Bill Brauer Observed

[cavalheirobr]

Bill Brauer

[1five1two]

'Art Lovers'. Bill Brauer.

[spinmeround]

Bill Brauer

[deepdreamnights]

A Variety of Witches

Shiny in various ways.

The images above in this post were made using an autogenerated prompt and/or have not been modified/iterated extensively. As such, they do not meet the minimum expression threshold, and are in the public domain.

Prompts Involved:

an image of a red haired lady dressed as a witch, by Hajime Sorayama, in the style of vintage-inspired pin-ups, bill brauer, dark white and purple, tony sandoval, high resolution, kathrin longhurst, dark navy

chrome shiny witch cosplay dana scully in the spooky woods, stepping in a jack-o-lantern, painting by Hajime Sorayama, 1988, artstation trending

a beautiful witch is standing in front of pumpkins, by Hajime Sorayama, in the style of vintage-inspired pin-ups, mike mayhew, light navy and dark crimson, lori earley, fawncore, will eisner, animated gifs

[rfsnyder]

Bill Brauer

[schismusic]

THE DISCOGRAPHY PRINCIPLE, Episode 1: Autechre - or, Into Battle with the Art of Noise

The discography principle may be defined as an objective way to determine whether or not you're worthy of calling a band or artist "your favorite" or "one of your favorites". A possible enunciation of it goes as follows:

"Let u ≝ some asshole, B ≝ {b|b is a band}, n ≝ #({x|x is a record by b}); let p = #({y|y is a record by b in u's possession}) = p1 + p2 wherein p1 ≝ number of physical records by b you own in any format and p2 ≝ number of records by b you have downloaded. If p ≥ n ∨ p2 = n (for n → +∞), then ∃b∈B such that b is one of u's favorite bands."

When u = me, this subset of B (which we might call Bf) is comprised of six bands, off the top of my head: Autechre, Godflesh, Shellac, Kraftwerk, Fugazi and Coil, listed in no particular order.

If you want to read the prologue to this series, go here. Otherwise, let's get going.

The concept of usefulness in the context of art criticism is very slippery and, one could argue, absolutely toxic and painful to the development of artistic expressions of all kinds. I have, in the past, been one of the leading proponents of it, but you have to understand: I routinely dealt with people who would add Arctic Monkeys and late-era Caparezza to their end-of-year lists. Drastic measures were in order, I'm sure you guys get it. In virtually all other instances, defining a record "useless" falls into one of the earliest trappings of retrograde art criticism, which is the supposed non-functionality of bad art, or more punctually the quality of non-functionality as inherently bad - wherein I am rather ready to assure you all that most of my favourite records of the past six or seven years fall into the category of absolutely unapproachable crocks of shit OR are records absolutely no one felt the need for except me (and even then, sometimes I didn't even know I'd love them, see Yellow Eyes' recent neofolk foray Master's Murmur).

A similar argument could be made for the concept of incomprehensibility. There are records that are just cryptic for the hell of it - and it would be unfair to label power electronics as such, in that power electronics is usually very direct with what it is about and how it takes it across, but early Brandt Brauer Frick records might very easily fit the bill: who, really, feels the need for live-played techno with classically trained interpreters except for people who like to groove but also have to pretend they know their shit about music and don't want any of that fake computer shit? Or even, why would anyone legitimately give a shit about a Stephen O'Malley record without guitars? - but Autechre I think are simply a different beast. Wherein the vulgata concerning their production essentially revolves around the idea that their first three are the best, then it's all noises and "self-serving experimentation", whatever the fuck that means, and for as many autism jokes people like to make about their music because they simply don't want to even try to give their music a fair chance to stand on its own and just pretend like "wow these guys sure are making computer farts haha", one of the best conversations about music I've had in a while revolves around something that binds Autechre and another dearly-beloved of all obnoxious music people, and later also featured in this series: Coil. And I'm not talking about the (very openly stated) relationship of most-likely-mutual influence between the two groups, but it does stem from that, or more specifically from the aborted collaborative record they toyed with in the early 2000s. This aforementioned collaborative record (which, in the early 2000s, would have probably sold like pre-sliced and pre-Nutella-coated bread to the admittedly very specific audiences the two projects had, regardless of its actual outcome) was shelved, and I quote verbatim, for "not being good enough", which is simply something that you do not do in electronic music unless you are really, really good at what you do - the best at what you do, even. Which would explain why no one ever shuts the fuck up in that particular world and everyone has like a full record and three splits/EPs out every year.

Autechre is something you have to want to waste a lot of time (and money, if you're an obsessive like me) into. There's a number of very cute cheat codes to getting Autechre but the gist of it is that just about nobody I know actually followed the advice literally everyone hands out - i.e. to start with Incunabula. I know I absolutely didn't. The first Autechre record I listened to was Confield, which I later purchased at a certain particularly well-known record shop in my city: my first thought was I really didn't know what to make of it. In retrospect, it's no surprise: literally any other Autechre record would have been better. There are more accessible ones and more inaccessible ones, but either of these options probably would have given me a different shock that would probably have hit me harder. Had I picked up a record like Amber, or Tri Repetae, I probably would have been like "damn this is very '90s but at the same time it still sounds very futuristic in terms of approach and arrangement choices, there's like a billion albums-of-the-month on Pitchfork that sound exactly like any one of these tracks but stretched to forty minutes to one hour" and maybe give it another listen, and then two, and then before I know it Rsdio becomes my most played track of the year (unfortunately, as you might have guessed, this isn't autobiographical, but that's because I ultimately got Tri Repetae on vinyl and mostly play it from there - it's "incomplete without surface noise", after all). If I had picked elseq, or - God forbid - the NTS Sessions, which at that point had been out for like a year or something, you know for a fact I would have tried to get absolutely fucked up by listening to the full four-hour thing while doing something really stupid, like taking a walk around in a blizzard or while in sleep deprivation or while studying linear algebra hoping that my brain would increase in mass all of a sudden. I would not have gotten it, obviously, because I was and to a massive extent still am an idiot who got lucky. Anyway, the point is that Confield felt and in part still feels to me like it's unexpressed potential, but not in the way a record like Radioactivity by Kraftwerk is: Confield looks at you, the listener, and goes "there's a whole other world where we already are. Too bad you can't see any of this shit, because we most definitely do!". Its second half gets noticeably more focused if you listen to the whole thing in sequence, though.

My second attempt was with Oversteps, bought on the same day as Confield, and again - at that point I was already kind of expecting Autechre to just fucking smoke me right then and there. Of course it did not happen, because Oversteps is a fundamentally easier record to approach than Confield is - and in buying it, I also missed the chance to buy Exai, which promptly disappeared from the record shop the very second I managed to go back there, and which would have probably gotten me in a whole ass elseq loop, but let's not dwell on the past, what the fuck did I know then? It's not like anyone has the idea to start with a two-hour-and-a-half impenetrable wall of glitching after all. Whatever. Oversteps is pretty cool though, because it gave me a pretty neat access into a number of other Autechre factory-seals like their stark sense of melody and a style of compositionl development recalling more the idea of a place than it would an actual track (and not even in the Ambient 4: On Land way, where it's "music that describes environments" inspired by the anything-goes bombastic mnemonic approach of Federico Fellini's Amarcord, but rather in its own way of "music that is the environment it describes": spatially organized arrangements, something meant for you to explore, and as such something that you need to spend time in, perhaps repeatedly). Obviously articulating this train of thought was absolutely out of the question and I therefore kept saying "damn, I need to get to this record and listen to it in full", which I later found out doesn't fly more often than not. Autechre is something you want to get back to and waste a shit ton of time on, every track approached like a little world or some sort of escape room even, where all the clues are there and everything you need to do is look (listen) more intently than you did before. I like to think of Autechre as a challenge and I'm assuming that Sean Booth and Rob Brown kinda see it like that too, but not as a challenge to the listener as much as they do it to challenge themselves.

There are absolutely going to be Autechre records you like more than others, some are not gonna speak to you at all, some might be more approachable or just more stylistically in line with what you do (and the best part is that you're gonna find it changes from person to person), but the best part is that there is never an Autechre record that feels thrown out for a quick buck or rushed or forced to develop old ideas and intuitions - for better or for worse, that is. At the same time there definitely is a form of continuity that makes it especially rewarding to listen to Autechre sequentially, the way some people like to watch and rank a director's filmography.

After the pandemic ended, and as people were beginning to go out again albeit maybe wearing masks and gloves, I dropped out of Mathematics and started watching a ton of movies. I fell in love with Nicolas Winding Refn, a director that makes it really easy to put on a movie and let it slide over your skin bathing you in thrills and aesthetics, but is pretentious enough to make that stuff at least try to have something to say (some people argue that it's detrimental to Refn's work, and to an extent I agree; I, for one, simply can't help but appreciate a man who very gleefully declares that the female experience is a mystery to him and at the same time that there's a sixteen-year-old girl within him and that he plays dolls with his daughters and that he never had a girlfriend until he met his current wife Lia Corfixen. The Neon Demon feels like it'd be just one step away from being a male-gaze-glorifying flick if it wasn't for its inherent absurdity and absolute lack of understanding of human relationships that makes it that bit less relatable and more forcefully estranging). Anyway as I was fixating on Refn's movies and downloaded all of them to watch and rewatch them, I also found myself back onto Autechre and decided to take a step back. This time I picked Amber - Incunabula being described as their masterpiece still sort of intimidated me. In retrospect, if I had heard Incunabula without a clear picture of what Autechre would evolve into, I'd have had a hearty laugh and thought something like "man, this aged horribly". Amber has a bit of an edge to it, despite what Booth & Brown say about it, and the elements left over from Incunabula are turned into a less rigid, more impalpable version of themselves that isn't afraid to, for instance, remove all drums and toy with the listener's sense of rhythm in a way something like Kalpol Introl never really did (see: Nine) or face a horrifying creeping darkness that Incunabula's more clearly urban/cyberpunk sensitivities more swiftly dealt with, for instance on tracks like Teartear.

Not one to be easily discouraged (at least when I feel like it), at the first opportunity I decided to buy a record I didn't already know: the choice fell on Tri Repetae, in that it was the next step in the Autechre canon (EPs notwithstanding) and I knew it'd be a step closer to Confield. I wanted to see what the story went like, on its own terms, because the key to this whole ordeal was that I needed to let the record do the talking before I had an opinion on it. And Tri Repetae really did talk to me, because it was exactly what I expected: it had the more discernible elements of early Autechre but also, again, an edge. It's that edge for me: that's the point of interest I end up into, the sort of liminal in-fieri elements that all Autechre releases imply to an extent, and the fact that something as fundamentally ungraspable as C/Pach or Rsdio feeling like it got back home after a whole sleepless night out walking in the cold could coexist with a veritable banger like Eutow (still the one track from Tri Repetae that elicits the most powerful emotional/elated reactions from me) simply blew my mind. Dancing to Eutow in my room and immediately finding myself bobbing my head to, of course, C/Pach and then Gnit led to the next realization in a long series: after everything that's been said about them, the being a four-dimensional object, the being famously impenetrable to all but the most dedicated nerds, the truth about Autechre is that they are a band about rhythm.

I don't exactly expect anyone to be surprised by this, really, but the conscious realization that what I had read on Wikipedia in passing (that Sean and Rob actually met up in the '80s while in the tagging/hip-hop/electro scene in London) actually had bearing on the duo's production was the key to unlocking the rest of their music. Every single thing Autechre have ever done has a form of pulse in it and it takes movement for it to be fully tapped into. Some hacks have recommended listening to Autechre on headphones (deep cuts on YouTube, I see you!) but as for me, I recommend speakers, possibly big, possibly hi-fi, possibly equalized for techno/dance music, and I recommend listening to them with a lot of free space around you. The inherent exploration of space that dancing entails very easily translates into an exploration of the underlying structures in Autechre's (whatchamacallit) songwriting, and from there the rest follows. Even Incunabula, which I finally tackled in summer 2023 and appreciated for what it is: provided you can deal with outdated sound palettes, an excellent record that stands as a true high mark in the exploration of analog instrumentation possibilities, a true forward-looking and forward-pushing debut outing on whose shoulders all future Autechre releases stand, even the most radical.

But Autechre could never stand still and simply replicate Incunabula all over n billion times; that's simply not the cloth they're cut from, and if that was the case I'd be very hard-pressed to think they'd feel as relevant as they do with every subsequent release. That they could drop, in sequence, Exai, the whole five records of elseq and the NTS Sessions boxset and still elicit the electrified reactions they did, both positive and negative.

One of the first serious conversations about music that I had with my old band's bassist was about electronic music, which was actually somewhat foundational to my appreciation of this particular art form (I was a die-hard Daft Punk/Justice guy, Waters of Nazareth and Genesis were to me what Metallica or System of a Down to a number of other people I know: a show of force that made me conscious of the physical impact of sound on a human's body, not just pleasant vibrations to the ears). She told me - and I'm willing to bet that was an old idea that she has since discarded - that she really didn't feel like electronic music was alive, and with music being "life" to her that was a true oxymoron that rendered her incapable of objectively judging electronica. At the time I would have never showed her Autechre, if anything because I did not know them if not by name, but my current understanding of them makes them the most serious counterargument to that affirmation. Autechre's music doesn't try to measure up to the feel of live band jamming because it doesn't need to, despite it often being (according to Booth and Brown) the result of lengthy, additive improvisations that the duo trade back and forth. It simply takes a step sideways, making all analysis on those terms essentially unserviceable and useless. And if it wasn't as massively pretentious as it is, this shit simply wouldn't fly: any tension to a conventionally-imaginable sense of humanity would make it clear that the duo aren't into it really, and ironically it ends up feeling less believable; it starts breathing weird, it turns into a captatio benevolentiae to the listener. And Autechre is meant to challenge us, or rather it's meant to challenge me, and Sean Booth and Rob Brown.

Ironically enough, Autechre's records feel more and more rewarding the more you get familiar with them, and therefore it turns into its own peculiar brand of process music, so to speak. And it's a hell of a process, granted, but it definitely has something to say to you as a listener, if you're willing to give it a shot. Autechre's music is incomprehensible and useless, if you don't know what to make of it, but the only way to know what to make of it is engage in it and make up your own mind about it.

[carabasel]

Bill Brauer 🎨🖌

[mxalexgeorge]

Little Sally in Urinetown: The Musical at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, November 2022

Urinetown, The Musical Mark Hollman, Music and Lyrics Greg Kotis, Book and Lyrics

November 3rd- 12th 2022 Colwell Playhouse

Photo credits: Darrell Hoemann

Production Team Director: J.W. Morrissette and Lisa Gaye Dixon Music Director: Justin M. Brauer Choreographers: Joe Bowie and Lisa Gaye Dixon Scenic Designer: Emilia Consalvi ,Katie Owen Costume Designer: Wesley Price Lighting Designer: Yingman Tang Sound Designer: Madison Ferris Dramaturg: Melissa Goldman Technical Director: Capri Agresta Properties Head: Sammy Boyarsky Production Manager: Terri Ciofalo Stage Manager: Kaitlyn N. Meegan Fight Director; Zev Steinrock Vocal Coach: Diane Robinson

Cast OFFICER LOCKSTOCK: Grania McKirdie PENELOPE PENNYWISE: Charlotte Howard-Check BOBBY STRONG: David Stasevsky LITTLE SALLY: Alex George DR. BILLEAUX: Noah Smith MR. MCQUEEN: Josh Graff SENATOR FIPP: Josiah Zielke OFFICER BARREL/BOBBY UNDERSTUDY: Anthony Maggio HOPE CLADWELL: Julia Clavadetscher OLD MAN STRONG/HOT BLADES HARRY: Patrick Jackson TINY TOM: Paddy Berger SOUPY SUE: Courtney Mazeika LITTLE BECKY TWO SHOES: Gabrielle DeMarco ROBBY THE STOCKFISH: Jonathan Kaplan CALDWELL B. CLADWELL: Jaylon Muchison BOY COP/UGC EXECUTIVE/OFFICER BARREL UNDERSTUDY: Jimmy Cone GIRL COP/UGC EXECUTIVE/HOPE CLADWELL UNDERSTUDY: Sophia Pucillo JOSEPHINE STRONG: Mary Jane Oken MRS. MILLENNIUM: Guinevere Brown BILLY BOY BILL: Jamal Turner Production Team continued Scenic Charge: Emma Brutman Hair & Makeup Coordinator: Chantel Renee Hair & Makeup Supervisor: Becky Scott Assistant Technical Director: Tara Kisacanin Assistant Costume Designer: Chantel Renee Assistant Lighting Designer: Sarah Goldstein Assistant Sound Designer: Jack Pondelicek Head Electrician : Nicolas Sole Audio Engineer: William Mixter Assistant Stage Manager: Mary Lewis, Shuyu (Tom) Zhang Assistant Dramaturg: Anishi Patel Assistant to the Director: Melissa Goldman, Maci Mitchell, Jacqueline Moren Head Carpenter: Hanna Bowen Production Assistant: Hadas Goldberg, Isabel Wang Costumes Craft Supervisor: Emily N. Brink Costume Crafts Technicians: Katie Greve, Mark Muir Wardrobe Supervisor: Chantel Renee Crew DECK CREW: Felix Crim,Morgan Lin, Avery Luciano, Heraldo Magana ,Jordyn Montgomery PROPS CREW: Mikail Herrera, Ashanti Norals WARDROBE CREW: Kashara Bennett, Gabriel McNabb,Luke Russell, Julia Trenary, Isabel Wang HAIR AND MAKEUP CREW: Fatma Ali ,Kara Howie SWING: Hadas Goldberg A2: Noah McLeod QLAB OPERATOR: Leoni Reilly SPOTLIGHT OPERATOR: Dajion Anderson LIGHT BOARD OPERATOR; Brian Runge AUTOMATION OPERATOR: Bronwyn Garrett STUDENT DRAPER: Carlee Ihde 

[withnailrules]

''In The Eye Of The Beholder'' by Bill Brauer, 2001

[justineportraits]

Bill Brauer Stella Maris

[thekimspoblog]

Notes on Moe "Big Moe" Brauer

Anyway, yes. I want to introduce Moe in Episode 1 of SK, as Jimmy's cellmate played by Ethan Suplee. They are ostensibly friends, but like with many of the inmates, Jimmy's friendship with Moe is heavily conditional on Jimmy being the version of "Saul" that Moe wants him to be, much to Jimmy's chagrin. It's unclear what kind of emotional issues Moe has - maybe borderline personality, definitely some abandonment issues - but Moe can be quick to anger, and with such a hulking frame, Jimmy is left walking on eggshells around him. He can be very sweet and sensitive, and that gentle giant is the side he shows most of the time. But it's also strongly implied he is in prison because he killed his girlfriend. Jimmy has known a lot of criminals who are "good people who have done one bad thing" but that bad thing is usually some flavor of property crime or at worst some involuntary manslaughter. This is the first time he's been this intimately acquainted with someone who seems like a good person just in need of help, but has done something so dark.

Moe is the one who initially talks Jimmy out of languishing in prison. He says that if he can get a second chance and make something of it, it would be an inspiration to everyone else, that they hadn't just been thrown away by society. Which is why, when Jimmy is released, against his better judgement he vouches for Moe with Dawson. And a few weeks later Dawson is able to further manipulate the parole board and Moe is welcomed into the RUIC community, where he will continue his court-mandated group therapy. Now depending on the audience's opinion of religion, either Kim and Jimmy have helped Moe by pacifying his need for unconditional love with membership into a loving community, or Wexler-McGill have derailed the progress Moe was making in a secular therapy group by introducing a vulnerable person to a cult which will prey on his loneliness. Either way, Moe works as a bodyguard for the pair for most of the time he knows them.

Kim and Jimmy would never say things in such blunt terms, but the truth is they hired Moe to fill the big shoes left by Huell, and while Moe is great and all, he's no Huell. Moe can sense their disinterest, and obviously this kind of rejection hurts deeply, but all things considered, he takes it in stride.

When the happy couple announce they're getting remarried, they call up several old "friends" and try to invite them to the wedding. Francesca just hangs up on them, offended that they would even call. Bill Oakley says he's busy even though he's very clearly lying. Huell simply repeats the words "I just don't know man" until Jimmy is forced to hang up.

But Moe was there for the wedding. The church congregation was there. Ultimately, once Dawson dies, the church membership dwindles due to emotional neglect: Kim does an okay job running it as a business, but her own fans - the people who believed in them most - just made her uncomfortable. It's unclear what becomes of Moe once the church closes and Jimmy and Kim leave, but we're meant to feel like Kim and Jimmy kind of did Moe dirty, regardless of whether Christianity helped him. They gave him a safety net and then let the net rot through. As with many connections, Kim and Jimmy knew they were supposed to give the church love and attention, but that's not the kind of thing you can fake. It was clear their family and their own agenda took priority over building membership.

[a-solitary-sea-rover-backup]

Women’s History Month Round-Up, 11 March 2024

Opening door for women

In the modern America’s Cup, the American sailor Dawn Riley has arguably done more for gender equality than any other. In 1992, she sailed aboard Bill Koch’s America 3 program in the Defender Series and by 1995 was team captain leading the defeated ‘Mighty Mary’ IACC campaign, again backed by Koch, in what was a ground-breaking moment for female athletes in the America’s Cup.

Leslie Egnot, the Olympic silver medalist was appointed as helm with Annie Nelson doing tactics and the ‘Might Mary’ syndicate went deep into the competition taking multiple race wins in the defender selection series.

Throughout the boat, Riley had appointed athletes of the highest caliber bring in Olympic rowers like Amy Baltzell, Marci Porter and Stephanie Maxwell-Pierson, world renowned weight-lifters such as Stephanie Armitage-Johnson and body builders like Shelley Beattie. JJ Fetter, two-time Olympic medalist, came in alongside veterans of Riley’s round the world campaign in 1993-94 such as Merritt Carey.

This was a blueprint being set that proved beyond any doubt that women could compete against the best in the world – and remember these were the days of coffee-grinders and simply enormous rope loads.

The female athletes took it all on, won races and smashed the glass ceiling of the America’s Cup with sponsors ‘proud to be a part of the changing face of sailing’ – one even using that exact phrase in their advertising.

—-

Steps toward Olympic gender parity

The commitment by the International Olympic Committee to gender equality has led to a steady increase in the number of female athletes at the Olympic Games year on year. Starting with just 2.2% in Paris 1900, where women competed at the Olympic Games for the first time, it has risen steadily to reach 48% in Tokyo 2020.

Sailing has been riding that wave, and while gender participation was equal in Tokyo, the medal opportunities still favored men who had five events, the women had four events, and there was one mixed event. For Paris 2024, there will be both equal participation and medal opportunities for men and women.

Overall, the sports program for Paris has 28 out of 32 sports achieving full gender parity, while the distribution of medals has 152 women’s events, 157 men’s events, and 20 mixed-gender events.

—-

Considering the future for Cole Brauer

Success in offshore solo sailing, at the pro elite level, requires a variety of skills combined and I strongly believe Cole ticks all the boxes to allow her to take the giant leap from a Global Solo Challenge to a Vendée Globe.

However, the scale of a Vendée Globe campaign compared to a Global Solo Challenge stands at the very least at a ratio of 10 to 1 in terms of complexity, financial commitment, skill level of the pro elite sailors and competence of the shore team that accompany the skipper during a campaign.

During the Global Solo Challenge 2023, Cole Brauer Ocean Racing was undoubtedly the best prepared and funded project of all the entries in the event. Unlike other participants, she was the only one to have a full shore team, not just a few friends and helpers.

[innervoiceartblog]

Bill Brauer, Musetouch

[spinmeround]

Bill Brauer