Reading & Writing

This is a good old-fashioned links page.

In early-2000s internet, instead of 3 or 4 major social media hubs we had web pages–thousands of them. And there was mystery around every corner. Consumption was more active, and you would choose to look at things, rather than have it chosen for you by a tailored algorithm. If you had a feed, it was an RSS feed that you curated yourself from different web pages. In the good old days you’d seek out the reading you wanted to do.

This is a page of various links to readings I think are really good. Perhaps you’ll find them stimulating too. With the statement “links are not necessarily reflective of my opinion,” I don’t mean to use the disingenuous trick of situating my provocation in some nether-universe, disembodied from responsibility that sits outside reality: my positions on politics, pedagogy, and art will overlap significantly with what you find here. However, you have to talk to a person to begin to really understand their opinions and politics, so with that in mind, if you find something too provocative, talk to me first before going around telling tales out of school.

YouTube videos are considered “reading” for the purposes of this links page.

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Music

About Me

Ali Berkok composes, designs sound, and plays piano and keyboards. He has produced six albums as a leader for jazz outfit Arkana Music, and later, electro-acoustic ambient improvising group Aurochs. His solo piano album, Never Get Lost for Long, features reinvented jazz standards (“Cheek to Cheek,” Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”) and spontaneous extemporized compositions.

His music for the screen includes a self-produced chamber score for Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, short film Advances, and the comedy series You’re Never Alone (Thought4Food).

Berkok’s sound design and composition credits for theatre include Carol Shields’ 13 Hands (Alumnae), Marina & The Cryptids (Silent Protagonist), What I Call Her (Crows) and Unsafe (Canadian Stage). As well, as a more recent Ottawa mainstay, he has created music and sound for The Unplugging, Benevolence, and Beowulf in Afghanistan (GCTC).

Chief amongst his research interests is polytemporality, the simultaneous presence of two or more asynchronous rhythmic layers, for creative effects such as destabilizing listeners’ sense of pulse. Berkok holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Toronto.

Throughout his career, Berkok has engaged in deeper collaborations or briefer sideperson appearances with Rez Abbasi, Kiran Ahluwalia, Dave Barton, Jane Bunnett, Alex Dean, Yoon Sun Choi, Andrew Downing, Nick Fraser, John Geggie, Kurt Elling, Jamie Holmes, Mike Murley, Don Palmer, Sage Reynolds, Greg Runions, Gerri Trimble, Peter Van Huffel, Pete Woods.

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