Nearly seven years ago I was writing my last epic fan-fic novel, Borrowed Time. Hashmark Pin, the world’s smallest hacker (though very tall for a Borrower) travels from northern California to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, in search of love and a purpose in life. He finds it all.
I was also re-obsessed with music, having discovered the world of tracking. While Hash was stranded in Topeka, unable to move on for most of a year, I attempted to create a short tone poem that would evoke a sad longing, with images of trains passing by in the night. The piece, called Kansas Nights, turned out well, IMO.
Last night I put together a video using that bit of computer-generated music and a montage of railroad photos and fractals. It’s not too bad, though I would like to have found some better images. I could, but it would be easier to write another 187,000-word novel than get pernission to use dozens of photos that are not in the public domain.
So here it is:
Borrowed Time is no longer available on the web because of a character (who shouldn’t have been in it) whom I do not want exposed in his original incarnation. Fan-fic about Borrowers is a dubious commodity as well. Wottever.
Composed in MODPlug Tracker with original computer-gernerated sounds, Kansas Nights is perhaps not everyone’s cuppa. It depends on what you come expecting. Let the sound flow through your head with the images, let it be what it is. After all these years, I still like it.