Negative

I no longer have Covid. I am released from isolation.

Alas, my negative diagnosis came too late for me to make it to UX London. But that’s okay—by the third and final day of the event, everything was running smooth like buttah! Had I shown up, I would’ve just got in the way. The Clearleft crew ran the event like a well-oiled machine.

I am in the coronaclear just in time to go away for a week. My original thinking was this would be my post-UX-London break to rest up for a while, but it turns out I’ve been getting plenty of rest during UX London.

I’m heading to the west coast of Ireland for The Willie Clancy Summer School, a trad music pilgrimage.

Jessica and I last went to Willie Week in 2019. We had a great time and I distinctly remember thinking “I’m definitely coming back next year!”

Well, a global pandemic put paid to that. The event ran online for the past two years. But now that it’s back for real, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

My mandolin and I are bound for Miltown Malbay!

2021 is when lockdown will stop mattering (Interconnected)

First you cope and then you adapt. The kicker: once you adapt, you may not want to go back.

It’s OK.

This is for everyone at Clearleft, but I’m sharing it here for you too.

Playlist J (part 2) – The Irish Mandolin – a website from Aidan Crossey

I had fun coming up five trad music tracks related to the letter J.

• Jenny’s Welcome To Charlie
• Jayne Pomplas
• Jig of Life
• Julia Delaney’s
• Jim Donoghue’s

Fairweather Fiddlers @ Brighton Acoustic Club Aug 2019 - YouTube

Myself and Jessica joining in some reels and jigs.

Banjos and Discrete Technologies | stevebenford

An examination of how sites like The Session are meshing with older ideas of traditional Irish music:

There is a very interesting tension at play here – one that speaks directly to the design of new technologies. On the one hand, Irish musicians appear to be enthusiastically adopting digital media to establish a common repertoire of tunes, while on the other the actual performance of these tunes in a live session is governed by a strong etiquette that emphasizes the importance of playing by ear.

There’s an accompanying paper called Supporting Traditional Music-Making: Designing for Situated Discretion (PDF).