Hello dear reader, welcome to another quarterly edition of Occasion: projects, writing, reads, music, and life.
There's a lot in here… Feel free to skip around.
By the way, I'm Rosano from rosano.ca — if this isn't for you, there's a one-click eject button below; no hard feelings.
After a bunch of time in Europe, I'm considering to move there for the foreseeable future as it seems like a place where life happens more obviously for me.
Back in Canada to do administrative things, I must confront choices about detaching: I'm comforted by the supports and amenities available to me in my family home, but I sense the city's culture makes me cynical and frustrated over the long-term.
I might also end up on a longer than expected break from my capoeira group and movement training to sort myself out, which brings me to the arena of self-practice. Recent attempts to train kicks and handstands in the company of a chair have made me realize how much I've relied on group trainings to avoid conscious organizing and development—a sort of autopilot. Even though music instilled in me an understanding of how advantageous it is to practice between lessons, I chose to skip that with movement earlier this year to focus on projects and just keep my body active with the group. Starting again has clarified a couple of broader reflections:
The administrative puzzle means I will be looking for work over the next year, partly to support myself, partly to prove in visa applications that I am worthy of existing in a new place. Although I've been focused on my own projects since 2020, I feel a hunger to be in service of those in my community; my capacity to encircle problems by creating friendly technical solutions, combined with my bent for communications, can meaningfully help an absurd number of people. Someone recently asked me how I ended up on my path, and it reminded me that both projects floating me financially for a decade were oriented towards serving: AudioScrub gave musicians new repertoire and skills; note the sound freed up venue owners to spend time on their business while their event promotion was handled well. I had fun making some square business cards for people who already know me as a way to share how I can help; only showing it in person 🙂.
the fivefold path to falling asleep
less metadata, more feeling
Sometimes the author says it better, sometimes I can, but the focus is on what's meaningful for me.
If it was guaranteed to feel good, I wouldn't be open to whatever happens.
I've been at this almost 5 years!
Some things without a price are valuable because they create change on a deeper level.
everything makes everything possible
Dots connected looking back are also seeds for future moments that can't be predicted.
What process gives you belongs only to you.
Present what you want as what they also want.
We used to compose in solitude, without industry or recordings.
Hard to understand past experiences when you're constantly subjected to new things.
Stress over being healthy can be unhealthy.
Work on it morning, afternoon, and night.
Be patient without reducing them.
Reaching out to my younger self to say "it happened".
"Do good, without expecting gratitude, or looking at who."
music and bodies in trance
bach prelude & fugue no. 2 in c minor
Prelude as engine, fugue as debate.
Special thanks to my patrons who support my projects financially:
If you appreciate what I'm doing here, perhaps you'd also consider becoming one of my patrons.
Virtually everything I create is public, accessible for free, and open-source. Your support helps me do as much as possible without ads, tricks, or artificial ingredients.
I managed about one book more than last time—up and to the right! 🚀📈
I've also integrated my 2020 notes and revamped my book log as an index to all previous book notes.
[People ask "how did you meet your spouse?" and not "how did you stay married?" because the latter is a story of struggle and pain.]
[Conversation is best as duet over duel: each positioning the other to say great things, playing for the game and assist rather than the score.]
[Advice from someone who responds less predictably has more value because of entropy.]
["Impersonal friends" are those we are drawn to for their type, which makes them more or less fungible, in contrast to specific individuals we care about which can't be swapped. The difference develops through shared history.]
each new step towards AI, rather than producing something which everyone agrees is real intelligence, merely reveals what real intelligence is not.
[Template interactions like "Je voudrais un hot dog, s'il vous plaît … merci!"; "Où est le WC? … merci!" are simple to use, but have no cultural or experiential value, and treat the other as a machine. If someone gives a surprising or interesting response, you might miss it.] Wielding language's magic is intoxicating; becoming susceptible to it, even more so.
[People are always changing as you get to know them—partly due to your presence; they are never still.]
[Neurons change their connection structure each time they fire. Functional brains change. Experience changes you or it didn't happen. Relating is risky because you can't get to know someone without changing them or somewhat becoming them.]
[If a shape is repeated enough times at a small enough scale, it becomes texture.]
[Geometric relationships between canvas and content help keep the viewers eye on the composition.]
[Use direction and organize elements into explicit and implicit lines to guide the eye from one section to the other.]
[We don't see pure colours. They are spectrums that our visual system approximates, which results in our experiencing of the dominant color.]
[Shopping in a Target store involves being assaulted with red in every direction, and there is a joke that you cannot leave without spending $100.]
[A society without games is trapped in automation.]
[In indigenous society, there is no true art because everybody is engaged in making art.]
[Electric technology extends the nervous system and enables direct immediate communication between neurons of everyone on the planet.]
[With TV, the viewer is the screen: millions of dots of light go through them and a small subset are accepted in order to create the images.]
[Studying media's effects might baffle those who never studied it, as with people in pre-literate cultures who might say "Why do you write? Can't you remember?".]
[Ineffective readers take no time to interpret the text: they merely paraphrase or re-read and are learning instead of learning from.]
[How does this fit what I know and what I have read so far?]
[Productive agency cycle in five steps: 1) make; 2) see the fruits of your labour; 3) share it; 4) overcome new challenges; 5) learn strategies and methods.]
[Having students work in groups to report an answer can help them feel less personally threatened when confronting negative feedback.]
[Complex questions bind information to a network of ideas rather than isolated facts. This improves memory by creating a multitude of connections between ideas.]
[Efficient knowledge can be accessed quickly and applied to recurring contexts, but it can impede seeing all possibilities when prior knowledge no longer applies.]
[A leash gives both the dog and master an illusion of freedom.]
[Money has expanded much faster than the value it represents.]
[The 'powerful men' cannot actually do anything, they command others to fulfill their wishes.]
[We cannot stand outside of society. To say that society is sick implies that we too are sick.]
[The system of property, like a maze with no exit, eventually funnels people back into the labour market to work as wage slaves.]
[There can be no recipes for revolutionary organization because it is anti-recipe.]
[Anti-power is ubiquitous and exists in our everyday experiences of friendship, love, community comradeship, cooperation – and all of the contradictions and issues that come with them.]
[A new society doesn't create itself overnight. You first need its form in your head, just like having an idea of the boat before cutting down a tree.]
[The leverage of reading and writing comes from the words of the literate and not from the educator's experience.]
[Before literacy, we are already 'reading' the world: we look at the sky and clouds to anticipate whether it will rain and how much.]
[Studying means to create and recreate, rather than repeating what someone else said.]
[Swimming, one learns to swim. Working, one learns to work. Practicing, one learns to practice better.]
[Knowledge is not something fixed and final to be transferred to those who don't have it.]
[Neither right nor left, but grassroots. Nobody is opposition, only misinformed, miseducated, unclear-thinking. Ideology against ideologies.]
[We don't know, but let's do it together. The result is less important than the means.]
[You write your books, you scatter your seeds, without knowing if or when they will be read, and by whom.]
[Every line published today is a victory over the future's obscurity.]
[Preaching despair is easier and more popular than articulating the complex non-linear ways forward to progress.]
[Labeling ideas as dangerous is a sign of fragility lf the state: when activism terrorizes more than the war-mongering military.]
[Optimists assume everything will be without involvement, pessimists assume everything will fail despite involvement, both excuse themselves from acting.]
[People may change how they think without consciously referencing the source, believing that they always thought that way, because it can be compromising to reveal that someone subscribed to oppressive ideologies from the mainstream; power comes from the shadows.]
ive been "promoting" things on the internet for 15 years now! here's my top tips
- show yourself having fun
- many consistent repeated small launches is better than one big launch
- someone needs to see something like nine times before it sticks
- reward people for following along with everything. you can never go too far with in-jokes
- let people feel part of something.
- never show off. never try to be cool
- be like a monster in a horror film - never show the whole thing. make it seem like there's more to discover by clicking through
- create drama and arguments by being fearless and stupid
- make it clear you dont need anyone - you're having fun on your own. its more infectious that way
- show how you feel. feelings are more powerful than information
- its a lot like rolling the dice. to go viral once, roll a thousand dice
Prepare your “no” and keep it handy
I took an hour to write a really nice “no” in advance. Considerate, but decisive. Not too long, but not too short. Generalized and versatile for all situations. […] this refusal is the kindest I could have written. Yet it took three seconds to send. And I can use it over and over again.
It's a psyop if you understand the other mind's decision calculus, and have the ability to override their decision purely via careful selection of input information.
Take your favorite indie developer out to coffee, look them in the eye, and tell them the $5.99 you just spent on them should be good to cover their work until they die.
Another nice thing about being a regular at a place that values regulars is that you meet the other regulars. This summer I was often left to my own devices for dinner and a couple times a week, I ended up at my local. And almost without exception, I ended up having dinner with someone I'd previously met at the bar. Routinely turning a solo dining experience into dinner with a friend is an amazing accomplishment for a restaurant.
Universal basic income is not a reward for idleness; it is recognition that productivity gains belong to society, not just to capital.
A society that automates its way to prosperity while abandoning its workers has not progressed at all.
Technology advocacy without social advocacy is just greed with better tooling.
In an ideal world: I write for you, you pay me, I write some more. No middlemen.
Jacob Bessen on How Sicilians are Neighbouring with Migrants
In this context, small towns aren't boring because people are brilliant at talking, storytelling, and joking.
The end result of a gentrification is an area that feels like a museum of itself. Your eyes catch glimpses of things that still look edgy, exotic or alternative, and yet your body does not feel it, because all those little cues that would be present in an authentic and alive space are missing. The honesty box by the beer fridge is gone. In its place is a Square terminal for cashless payments, plugging into the banking sector via Visa and Mastercard.
If we knew as much about Haiti as we do about France, the world wouldn't be the way it is!
[Napoleon's bankruptcy from the Haitian revolution forced the sale of Louisiana territory to what we now call the United States; without this, it would be a third of the size today.]
In Western contexts, "martyr" carries a heavy political or theological weight—the idea that someone made a conscious choice to die for a cause. […] This creates a constant struggle in translation: In English, saying someone was "killed" feels completely inadequate—it strips away the honor owed to the victim and flattens the active, systematic violence taking their life.
via Mustafa
be sure to use AI when your next child
gets married, so that you can write them
the perfect toast or poem or speech or song
because no one wants to hear your
words, the actual poorly written words
of a parent (you) who changed
hundreds of diapers for said child or fed
them in the middle of the
night from your actual body. Or cried
when they were late home because
you were positive they were dead. We don't
want those words—we'd prefer the sterile
words of a machine that never lived, never
had an original thought, never felt
the pain of miscarriage or broken
relationships or the joy of a friendship restored
via instagram.com
The Intolerable Hypocrisy of Cyberlibertarianism
Copyright and patents matter when they're Apple's copyright and patents. Or Googles. Or OpenAIs. Go try to make a Facebook+ website and see how quickly Meta is capable of responding to content it finds objectionable.
The secrets revealed in SpaceX's IPO filing
SpaceX bought $131 million of Cybertrucks from Tesla in 2025 at the “manufacturer's suggested retail price.”
[Increasing speed and distance over time by a maximum of 10% per week made each run challenging but not insurmountable.]
This is how learning works. Be interested. Don't assume you know anything. That's how you stay dumb. Be a beginner. Ask questions.
Human memory is not an archive. It is associative, embodied, contextual, emotional. We don't think in folders. We don't retrieve meaning through backlinks. Our minds are improvisational.
via github.com
Take a recipe website URL and remove the cruft.
pseudo social media feed that algorithmically shows you content from Simple Wikipedia.
available fully offline, and you can even install it as an app by clicking the install button.
via Nathan
A collection of small, low stakes and low effort tools.
No logins, no registration, no data collection. I can't believe I have to say that. Long live the handmade web.
via buttondown.com
Netzwerk Reparatur-Initiativen
Germany has a network of "repair cafés" where you can learn to fix your broken stuff instead of buying new things.
via Heddi
a lightweight protocol for humans to assert authorship of their site content and vouch for the humanity of others.
via neatnik.net
lilbee: the whole local AI stack in one executable
lilbee runs and manages the models across every GPU you have, then talks to everything you point it at: your files, your code, and the web. It crawls sites into your library, plugs into your coding agents, and backs the Obsidian plugin. Every answer cites the source, it all runs on your own machine, and there's nothing else to set up.
an open-source tool that shields your artwork from unauthorized AI training and style mimicry.
It applies invisible adversarial perturbations to your images, making them resistant to generative AI systems that attempt to learn or reproduce your unique style without consent.
via svelte.dev
He changed the job description of what a comedian could be.
[Selling to a satisfied person is hard.]
[Listen to the ones who want you to think, not the ones selling you a team to join.]
[New York is the new model for a prison that's built by the inmates themselves. The inmates are also the guards and very proud of what they've built. Having been lobotomized, they have little capacity to leave the prison they've made or even see it as a prison.]
via "The Most Human Human" by Brian Christian
Charlie Chaplin lectured by his son about freedom
via Heddi
[The powerful speak with a tone of inevitability to convince you that change is not possible.]
[Destabilizing the developing world through stealing resources and destructive wars is a cause for mass displacement and migration. The spoils are used to build western tech infrastructure and mass surveillance is proposed as a solution to people's fears of scary migrants walking around.]
The sadness truly begins when adaptation becomes an entrance fee for dignity.
[Much of migration is the labour of making yourself acceptable to people in the target culture.]
Let's talk about Trump and the GOP's red scare rhetoric failing on the youth....
[The right-wing managed to mainstream socialism, which socialists were never able to do, simply by using it as a "derogatory" label for every means of government assistance that helped people most in need.]
Carney's financialization brought us Trump's fascism
[Fascism today breaks with the anti-capitalism of Hitler and Mussolini to use markets as the arena to demonstrate strength and capacity to rule. Cronyism and bribes are common because they signal acceptance by the market.]
[Wise guests can turn dumb questions into insightful and informative answers.]
via Nathan
The Diary Of A CEO: Jefferson Fisher
[Walk into a room as if you've been there before and everyone else is visiting.]
[I want to know the names of helping staff, how many times they've done this today, how they're doing, because it's too easy to just talk to the "important" people.]
[Let your breath be the first word.]
[Announce whether either of you is under capacity; if both are then make a plan for kindness towards each other.]
two worms find themselves
via Rami
Lessons Learned from Personal Recovery Stories
[Healing can be perceived as a threat to the wounded if it indicates that they resist changing.]
[Plastic surgery, anti-balding hair products, shoulder pads, top surgery for overweight boys, push-up bras, and wigs are examples of gender-affirming care.]
Simon Wardley: An Introduction to Wardley Maps
[Maps depersonalize the strategy, which makes its discussion less political.]
[Stock offerings have historically been a way for the public to generate wealth by participating in a company's growth, but they can limit people's returns via IPO after decades of operation. Microsoft's price today is 750x from 1986. SpaceX's $1.8 trillion valuation after 24 years of operation is ninety-two times its yearly revenue, which means they would need to be eventually be worth over a quadrillion dollars to achieve similar returns.]
[When you move somewhere on your own, you might wonder if you'll ever "fit in" or feel at home. As long as you look honestly at yourself and your needs, be your truest form and give it generously to others, you'll find where you belong.]
via Nathan
👎🏽: talking about people you never met
👍🏽: meet them, talk with them
[Surprising someone changes their world.]
via Heddi
no presents, only presence
To enjoy breathing can mean enjoying the rest of your life.
Why just wash my hands with soap and water when I can hand-wash the dishes with soap and water?
[Reading a physical book gives me a choice to turn the page, look away, put it down, and trust that it will be as I left it when coming back.]
via Heddi
One consequence of reading infrequently is falsely believing that most of your experiences and options are defined by that other thing you're doing. Like traveling, you can choose to see other perspectives and also absorb that there is space to do so.
[War can be "popular" but never the collective choice of a population.]
"Inevitable" often means "would love to do that without your consent".
AI: Artificial Ingredients
politicians play, civilians pay
Listen as a distraction-free playlist, without accounts or sign up.
Carlos Puebla: Un trago para mi son
wonderfully simple instrumentation, vocals, and melody; all comes together with a strong groove
via youtu.be
ศักดิ์สิทธิ์ เวชสุภาพร [Tor Saksit]: ปรากฏการณ์ [Phenomenon]
catchy Thai melody I stumbled upon in 2023 but never got around to learning; some cliche jazzy chords with nice surprises
Paulo César Pinheiro, Mauro Duarte: Nunca Mais
very brazillian to turn the same repeated phrase into flowy magic; melody works nicely as instrumental too
strange to shift from finger picking with contemporary pop chords to a kind of triplet blues. inspiring album concept.
Zventa Sventana: Side rain [Стороною дождь]
[Russian folk singer performing songs in older language spoken before the 1700s. This one asks the rain to wash away feelings of a broken heart.]
vocals with rawness and power over mysterious harmonies
via Alexei
Pharoah Sanders: The Creator Has A Master Plan
impressive vocal control with this rapid falsetto breaking; nice n' crazy free jazz before and after
via mixcloud.com
music inspired by, and directly sampling, the magnificent sounds of the Mandinka people, recorded during a recent trip to Gambia.
via Rami
Abu Obaida Hassan & His Tambour: The Shaigiya Sound of Sudan (2018)
[This Sudanese pioneer is known for having electrified the tambur (lyre), creating a hypnotic, trance-like sound in the '70s and '80s. Notice the call-and-response pattern in the chorus.]
via Zied
Mussorgsky/Ravel: The Great Gate Of Kiev
bone-chillingly majestic as it is, but it probably feels stronger to listen to the 11 parts before. from Pictures at an exhibition
via Rami
G.R. Mocidade Independente De Padre Miguel: Repique Reza Forte
plucky old-time guitar solo on a groovy samba
heard two other albums by this band and it didn't really get my attention, but this track did; frantic hard driving intense free jazz
via Sol
TodePond: ADVANCED AIRHORN TUTORIAL
so many rhythmic permutations from a single sound sample
I have been asking around for suggestions on interesting German music. Lost the source on some of these: if it's you please tell me!
like her compositional style, cliche pop/folk rhythms with nice rhyming and surprises, pretty musical.
also liked Grenzen and the lovely words in Zuhause.
lyrical bullets like a German Eminem, nice contrast and musicality in the verse
Comedian Harmonists: Mein Kleiner Grüner Kaktus
more silly German music suggestions in response to my question, this one about "my little green cactus".
also, some vulgar Mozart in Good night, You are quite an ox and one I won't translate.
via Miriam
Ingo Insterburg: Ich liebte ein Mädchen
style seems quite specific or idiomatic to German or Germany, curious to know other examples that fit this description
Charles Mingus: Cumbia and Jazz Fusion (excerpt)
a few minutes of super swinging AAVE
via youtu.be
german hip-hop cypher with a live band
thought this was some kind of quaint samba but learned it's morna with lyrics in Cape Verdean Creole.
via youtu.be
featuring a catchy Arabic counting song for kids, learn the first ten if you like; couldn't find a clear original sample other than this cartoon
via youtu.be
silly story featuring an Italian mother's accent
via youtu.be
I love receiving music by the way; be welcome to send me recommendations anytime, anywhere!
That's all for now.
Feel free to reply and share your reflections, or just say hello.
Thanks for reading, and see you next time 👋🏼.
