Christine Lemmer-Webber
I've talked about it before but Attention K-Mart Shoppers is such an incredible thing, a collection of overhead department store music from a forgotten era https://archive.org/details/attentionkmartshoppers
My favorite thing is still the opening track from the October 1989 tape. The synths! The distortion! The yearning calls of the instruments! The piano! https://archive.org/details/KmartOctober1989
There are so many good tapes though
Christine Lemmer-Webber
A lot of the ActivityPub spec was edited to that tape. I was selected for the Stripe Open Source Retreat; basically they gave a stipend and a space to work out of in San Francisco. It was kind of a neat program, an "open source artist in residence" program. I originally got the position to work on MediaGoblin, but ended up spending the time working on the ActivityPub spec and packaging MediaGoblin's dependencies for Guix instead
On weekends I would blast these tapes in the empty office and work
Christine Lemmer-Webber
That office was really nice, pretty posh and comfortable to work in, and in San Francisco's Mission district.
It was a weird time. I couldn't find a place to live so I stayed in one of those cursed "hacker house" places, on the bottom bunk in a room with 4 people and an apartment with 12 or so people in it. And I'd just head in every day to hack things. During the weekdays the actual staff would be there, but on weekends it was mostly just me and the security guard, who I liked talking to
Christine Lemmer-Webber
On the weekdays, they were one of those places that had chefs that would literally feed you for breakfast/lunch/dinner, and holy shit it was amazing food. But on the weekend, they left open a "sandwich bar", so I would buy a can of Amy's Vegetable Lentil Soup with generous amounts of hot sauce and make a cheese and vegetable sandwich.
And echoing around my desk, the sounds of distorted cheery consumerism from another era. It was odd and comforting
Christine Lemmer-Webber
It was a weird and liminal time in my life. I probably should have been more social, but pre-transition, I wasn't a very social person. I had a few friends I would visit in the area. But mostly I just worked, nearly every day. I think I only didn't work maybe one day on that retreat. It was refreshing to have a space where I could just focus on FOSS/spec dev without any other concerns or worries.
But also, it was hard to not notice the class distinction of it all...
Christine Lemmer-Webber
Every day I'd leave my exploitative shared apartment full of people desperate to make it rich on VC money. They'd beg me to review their ideas or become co-founder, many didn't know how to code. I wasn't interested but I'd respond politely. That was already a curious enough thing, the desperate desire to become part of the rich when living in honestly awful conditions all in favor of the Silicon Valley dream.
Then I'd take the train to the Stripe office...
Christine Lemmer-Webber
Then I'd take the train to the Stripe office, and there's just so much *suffering* of poverty in San Francisco. Homelessness exists everywhere, but in 2016 San Francisco it really broke my heart walking through town and seeing the conditions people were struggling in. And having noplace to relieve themselves but on the street.
And then, the contrast of it! To enter the Stripe office. Tech Disneyland! It was so comfortable.
But look out the window, and you'd see the disparity.
Christine Lemmer-Webber
I talked about this with a friend when she came to visit me one day. She remarked how she had a conversation with someone who had a posh job in SF and was complaining, "Look at how much I have to pay for my tiny apartment. And then! All that money! For this!" and pointing at the homelessness in the street.
And she said, "You understand that's *because* you pay so much for your apartment right? These are all interconnected." And the person was just baffled.
SF is a place of extremes.
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@chrislowles It's still actively under US copyright law, but there's a good chance nobody would enforce it or come looking for it. It might be considered fair use but I can't really say. I think nobody would care unless your show got hugely popular and you were obviously making money from it, then if someone realized they could get that money too, they might. But who's to know?
You're probably fine, but not sure to be :)
Chris Lowles
@cwebber Do you think I'd get in trouble if I used that first bit from the tape for a show intro? I feel like statute of limitations or lack of copyright enforcement would've kicked in for it a while ago.
Christine Lemmer-Webber
And so, wandering my way through the poverty, and then showing up to my artist-in-residence in this incredibly posh environment (I'm not complaining! It was a great experience! And it helped fund AP's development!), I think there was something comforting to me about putting on decades-old tapes as I sat alone on weekends, blasting decades old muzak (which I honestly like) and distorted appeals to consumerism. It just added to the liminality of it all.
Kevin Granade
@cwebber that piano really fits go unreasonably hard given the setting.
Reminds me of when I worked at a dollar tree that had a Muzac system, after hours when we were cleaning up the manager would flip it to an alternative rock channel that was actually really good, but DT corporate wouldn't let the managers play it while the store was open.
Christine Lemmer-Webber
Also, nostalgia is nostalgia. It's easy to wipe out all the awful things in the process, or turn them into something you find charming.
One thing about the Attention K-Mart Shoppers tapes is the GOD-AWFUL new sitcoms they'd announce. They're so terrible! And partly because they're terrible but *distant*, they're kind of fun now.
But I would have groaned so hard suffering through them back when they originally came out, of course.
Christine Lemmer-Webber
Here's one:
It's the CBS K-Mart get-ready giveaway! And get ready for Snoops! He's a college professor, and she's a diplomatic liaison, and they're having the time of their lives... while others are losing theirs! Get ready for Tim Reed and Daphne Maxwell-Reed, the most stylish twosome to ever solve a crime! Get ready for Snoops! Friday on CBS!
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@aeva Don't worry, I got what you mean 💜
aeva
@cwebber and it's all so tacky and covered in stupid meme ads and the self-important tech workers are spending all their income living in cramped spaces and it's like why are you horrible people all holding up this horrible farce? it smells like shit here because you all have your heads up your own assholes (I'm using the confusing voicing here where "you" is absolutely not the person I'm talking to, and I'm still kinda half asleep so sorry if that reads otherwise)
aeva
@cwebber the homeless people don't bother me (it's not their fault) their unnecessary suffering bothers me, and the sheer amount of money flowing through the city bothers me because the monied people could at any moment if anyone just fucking cared could house and feed everyone, and the self-important tech workers who think they live in the center of the universe as they build a worse tomorrow for everyone *really* bother me
aeva
@cwebber it's been a while since I've had to visit SF for business. Our CC visits weren't too bad mostly, because we were only ever in SF to hang out with Greg and friends, but it was the one time after that that really drove home that I don't like SF very much (and maybe a few other things), because I was staying in the city for a few days and the client had their office in the city.
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@b0rk Didn't we meet there at one point? My name face blindness is so bad that later I was wondering if I remembered right and that was you, but I seem to recall sitting outside and having a lovely conversation once!
Julia Evans
@cwebber i never lived in SF but I worked at stripe at that time and going to the Mission office was really like visiting another universe.
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@b0rk Also I will never forget when Asheesh Laroia came to hang out one day, and then we hung out with his girlfriend, I think maybe she came by the office or something too. And she was like, Asheesh, I just don't understand, why is Stripe's office so incredibly extravagant?
And in classic Asheesh style, he responded, "Well you see, Stripe is *literally* made of money."
katco
@cwebber I love doing stuff like this! I used to put on https://otcs.minuspoint.com/ and some 80s vaporwave and vibe. But I think old department store muzak goes harder.
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@katco holy shit this rules
Indieterminacy
@cwebber Big fan of #StereoSampler records myself, its a perfect intersection of new technology; progressive engineering and musicians who were used to working lots of gigs.
Decca and RCA Camden are the better labels for that type Im describing.
Track B3 from this innocuous one may be the best Beetles cover ever:
https://www.discogs.com/release/5518303-The-Stereo-Action-Orchestra-Stereo-Spectacular-Vol-3
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