#symbol systems

[worldbuilding-tomfoolery]

Single-letter abbreviations for months

For, reasons, I want to be able to express dates as pairs of letters representing the day of the month and the month of the year. (Still working on how to letterize dates after 26.)

Half the months are easy: just give them their first letter. But for months that share initials, I've derived a "script" to give each one a unique associated letter. Like amino acids!

Here are the abbreviations and associated rationales.

January = J

February = F

March = R (has "R" pronounced in it; M is actually going to someone unusual)

April = L (has "L" pronounced at the end)

May = A

June = U (has a U, less awkward than Q)

July = Y (has a Y, partially pronounced)

August = M (the one place where I get clever) This one's a biology joke. In RNA translation, AUG is the "start making amino acids here" codon. It also codes for methionine. Methionine is abbreviated Met

or M.

The rest of these are what you'd expect:

September = S

October = O

November = N

December = D

[trixclibrarian]

as long as we are

interpreting the meme

{studying our maps}

we can avoid

living

the life {travels} it represents

[flnr]

Writing has been “invented” four times in history: Egyptian, Sumerian, Chinese, and Mayan. 

Mayan scribes used both icons and letters to express language, sometimes interchangeably in the same composition. In fact, the Mayan word for “writing” is the same word used for “painting.”

[dustedmagazine]

Matthew Shipp - Symbol Systems (hatOLOGY)

Cecil Taylor exited this plane of existence on April 5th and the internet opened up in the aftermath with widespread reactions to his absence from peers and admirers who hold his extensive body of work in thrall. Matthew Shipp was predictably among that measure and his words posted on Facebook proved particularly candid and considered. Somewhat surprisingly, Shipp copped to harboring something of fraught stance toward Taylor’s music, particularly early in his career when the elder pianist’s shadow proved difficult to distance. As a dynamic improviser working in the same region idiomatically and geographically Shipp was regularly encumbered by comparisons both erroneous and reductive alike. Originally released on the No More label in 1996 and now accorded a fresh CD mastering, Symbol Systems signaled an early attempt to reconcile the perceived relationship while simultaneously pursuing a boldly independent path.

Fourteen originals sum to just over an hour of music in a ratio that immediately runs contrary to any sort of inferable Taylor correlation. Shipp constructs the majority of his edifices with economy and swiftly evolving logic in mind. Where the elder pianist would often execute lengthy longitudinal and aggressively percussive flights through his solo recitals, Shipp deviates through a program geared instead to the diversity of numerous discrete statements. “Clocks” investigates intervallic differentials of varying lengths in a dance between fingers and hands that places space and the judicious insertion of delicate melody in a position of paramount prominence. “Harmonic Oscillator”, “Self-Regulated Motion” and “Nerve Signals” offer titular clues to other of Shipp’s thematic and process-derived concerns, each pulling in repetition, dissonance and grandly deployed gestures that stand confidently apart in their originality and sustained exigency.

“Temperate Zone” is the first piece to integrate under-the-hood and pedal enhancements in the manipulation of strings to establish stark timbral variances while the disc’s title piece is rife with rapid displays of digital dexterity along tightly constrained trajectories. “The Highway”, “Bop Abyss” and “Algebraic Boogie” contain the kernels of conventionally-mapped structures. Across each, Shipp never wavers in his concentration or resolve in bringing an idea to fruition. That degree of consistency is one of the discernible areas that Taylor and he do have in common. It’s rooted in the studied ability to give oneself completely over to the instrument while remaining steadfastly true to the self in the contract. That balance of mind, body, spirit and conduit suffuses this set and while it was but the first entry to a corner of his catalog that now numbers eleven with the release of Zero last month on the ESP label his distinctness from Taylor and the underlying respect it implies has never wavered.

Derek Taylor