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Archive for March, 2024

/sectionb: CLEARANCE

Posted on March 29th, 2024 – Be the first to comment

… in which Brock has his first experience with the pod and a mysterious encounter with the agency.

You might not know it by the dearth of posts in the last few months but Toronto City Life officially passed it’s 15th year this January. I also turned 50 round about this time. Perhaps I was supposed to make a big hullabaloo about it, maybe produce some fireworks effect for the front page, throw together some cheesy and self-congratulatory retrospective, but that all seemed like a waste of time.

I was too busy living to reminisce for more than the few seconds it took to re-post some old photos and pithy one-liners on Twitter (or “X”, or whatever). Most of the pictures and paragraphs that I’ve produced lately are being put into a printed publication. The aim is to produce something that I’d want to hang on my walls — and that takes time.

I’ve also been putting a bunch of effort into /sectionb. While I hope that the story comes across as a fast and effortless narrative, producing it is often none of those things. I can safely say that I’ve put at least a few years’ worth of research and practice into the endeavour. The arcs are purposeful, the details are planned with care, and there’s substantive background material holding it all together. Even the tense and style needed some time to be worked out. I have to feel that I’ve done my due diligence.

There was also the added complication of moving beyond the keyboard in order to “write what you know”. It’s the foundational ethos of TCL and I’m hoping that the modest yet convincing success of this philosophy will translate into this project.

Granted, although I have an affinity for Cabo Verde (did you know that their unofficial national instrument is the electronic synth?) I’ve never actually been there. That’s a big part of the reason why Rebekah and Brock spend so little time there — but I try to keep such second-hand writing to a minimum.

I’m still making music and there are a number of /sectionb themes on the go, possibly for use in the next video. In previous episodes the music tracks were well synchronized but subtitle timing was a bit wonky so I had rethink my approach. Then I had to code it. Now I have to produce the actual episode.

On the same note, I still write software but these days it’s mostly for personal / agency use. As with the crypto stuff, I dabble deeply enough to (hopefully) add some authenticity to the Section’s modus operandi, especially as regards Dmitri’s home-made tech.

And, of course, the research and digging for the project never really stop; they just lead deeper underground.

The tl;dr to all of this is: I’m rarely bored, sometimes in up to my neck

Speaking from the safety of hindsight I can say that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the ride so far and if there’s another decade and a half of this sort of thing lined up then I’m game. I’m sure it’ll get my blood pressure up at some points but if I can just remember that it’s all a part of the experience then I should be okay.