ARCHIVE of monodrone.org

Even drones can fly away

The saga of monodrone.org

For a number of years in the mid-2000s I tried to maintain a blog at the site monodrone.org. This was a WordPress website in the early days of WP, around the time that blogging was becoming a thing. I taught myself a lot about web design of this era and built up a weird-but-rad site design theme inspired by the art of people like Mucha and Grandville.

An example of monodrone.org in all its glory
An example of monodrone.org in all its glory

It was a lot of work, and I didn’t always have a lot to say. It slipped away. I left it up on the internet for years with the intent of archiving it and retiring it. That date finally came in late 2016 when I shut down the WordPress site and built an archive here at my eponymous domain.

What’s a monodrone anyway?

“Monodrone” is the name of a song I wrote a long time ago. I was’t too concerned about whether it was a real word or not; I meant for it to convey the background noise of daily life. Years later, when I built out the website, I searched around the web for the word “monodrone” and found that it did have another meaning.

A monodrone, you see, is the name of an odd Dungeons & Dragons monster. It is one of a class of weird semi-sentient creatures called modrons. They look like this:

The original monodrone
The original D&D monodrone

One D&D site describes monodrones as “the faceless, countless hordes of Mechanus. Within the clockwork mazes of this plane of ultimate order, the monodrones perform all of the tedious but vital tasks necessary to keep the gears turning… One will often see monodrones scrubbing gears or otherwise performing maintenance…” etc., etc. Cool! I feel like such a bizarre creature was an okay thing to share my website’s name with.

Besides, I have a soft spot for strange creatures whose names begin with the prefix “mono.” In addition to monodrones I have always been a big fan of Narnian monopods and real-world monotremes.

On archiving this site

In late 2016, I began putting together a new blog called Introspect and a hand-rolled blogging system called spect. Midway through implementation, I thought of a way to integrate my old websites into the new system. This is not 100% finished yet, but all the old pages from the original WordPress installation are now available on this domain. I intend to write up my methodology in a new blog post once I finish compiling some other archives.

Table of Contents

Here is the list of all the published posts on monodrone.org. Some of the content (particularly audio files) still needs to be cleaned up but all the text should be intact. Happy digging!

Date Title Tags
May 23rd, 2010 Don’t let the bastards grind you down audio, computers, music, recording
March 8th, 2010 Requiem æternam (a lengthy tribute to Mark Linkous) mark linkous, music, religion, rip, sparklehorse
September 3rd, 2009 Just a drop of water in an endless sea dust in the wind, history, music, philosophy, politics, stoicism
September 2nd, 2009 Patriotismo ir, mexico, photography, politics
August 16th, 2009 Aging Rock Stars music, poetry, rockstars
August 11th, 2009 Poetica/Poem Jam heinrich heine, literature, metallica, music, pearl jam, poetry, sylvia plath
August 7th, 2009 Q and Not U alphabet, dc, english, etruscans, language, music
June 17th, 2009 It’s been swell, but the swelling’s gone down emusic, mp3s, online music
May 26th, 2009 The persistence of Memorial Day holidays, life, memorial day, music, war
April 15th, 2009 Tempest in a teapot politics, protest
February 12th, 2008 Brave/cold front life, music, winter
February 5th, 2008 Dash 7 vs. Do the Lovers Still Meet at the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial? harmonies, the van pelt, wilco
January 31st, 2008 Soldiering onward
January 31st, 2008 Epicycles physics, sutures
January 28th, 2008 Message in a bottle
December 22nd, 2007 Ho ho ho. christmas, holidays, life, music
November 15th, 2007 4NX¢ ir, politics, public diplomacy, school
November 13th, 2007 Have you any dreams you’d like to sell? fleetwood mac, john lennon, life, music, stevie nicks
September 14th, 2007 A more perfect union constitution, holidays, politics
September 10th, 2007 Swiftly tilting literature, madeleine l'engle, politics, school, science fiction
August 21st, 2007 Iron Man cal ripken, ir, politics, public diplomacy, sports
August 14th, 2007 Just play another chord astrology, life, music, philosophy, stoicism
August 6th, 2007 It’s all about the healing original music, sutures
June 2nd, 2007 Midlife crisis life, tattoos
June 1st, 2007 Somehow the vital connection is made art, maps, nina katchadourian
May 31st, 2007 A borrowed poem life
May 18th, 2007 i was born a long time ago today birthday, drinking, life, music
May 14th, 2007 Tricenarian (I) life, music, tricenarian
April 27th, 2007 I’m all washed out lyrics, music, ween
April 17th, 2007 Too much confusion today death, tragedies
April 12th, 2007 So it goes life, literature, vonnegut
April 5th, 2007 The Death of the Bee bees, death, life, random
March 23rd, 2007 I want to believe inspiration, music, ted leo
March 22nd, 2007 Paradigms humor, random
March 9th, 2007 Ailing life, sickness
February 22nd, 2007 screenshots chimps, random, sleater-kinney
February 15th, 2007 Wide awake in America iraq, politics, war
February 5th, 2007 Solid original music, sutures
January 28th, 2007 Pretend These Are Records original music, pretend these are records, the orcas
January 10th, 2007 Self-portrait with Tesla amusing, power ballad, self-portrait, tesla
January 8th, 2007 Blowing smoke, or, What is this burning in my eye? dc, politics, smoking
January 4th, 2007 The year in rock live music, music
December 29th, 2006 Absolutely nothing’s changed holidays, life, music, new years
December 11th, 2006 Addicted to the sound life, music, online music, the internet
December 5th, 2006 I always wanted to… amusing, original music
December 5th, 2006 Left Behind original music, sutures
December 4th, 2006 Fully Operational audio, life, original music
April 28th, 2006 The awesomeness of art in the age of mechanical reproduction art, websites
April 23rd, 2006 All work and no play makes Jeff something something life, mp3s, music
April 21st, 2006 Speaking as a child of the ’90s bands, music, pearl jam
October 31st, 2005 October All Over vs. Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum halloween, harmonies, holidays, nick cave, unwound
October 17th, 2005 Civil War Correspondent vs. Down There Low harmonies, pj harvey, scianka
September 19th, 2005 Anything with “dark” in the title is guaranteed to be good art, europe, websites
September 16th, 2005 Josef Lada art, jaroslav hasek, josef lada, literature
September 13th, 2005 White Spaces maps
August 29th, 2005 Equus vs. Vertigo blonde redhead, harmonies, u2
August 23rd, 2005 Trying times xword
August 22nd, 2005 A morass xword
August 21st, 2005 Xers xword
August 20th, 2005 Loping and Lopping xword
August 18th, 2005 Beam Weapon xword
July 13th, 2005 Little Electronic Boxes ipods, life, music, science fiction, technology
June 5th, 2005 Welcome to my nightmare life, monodrone.org
May 31st, 2005 Arpeggiator vs. 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong fugazi, harmonies, mogwai
May 31st, 2005 Eurotrash Girl vs. Ballad of the Sin Eater vs. Absinthe Party cracker, harmonies, minus the bear, ted leo