A special shoutout to Anna for her sweet announcement to her subscribers about my newsletter! It was a really nice surprise and I’m flattered by every sign up alert I get.
Welcome to Quantum Heap!
I haven’t been able to take out much time to write this newsletter since I put out the last one. To say this has been a busy time would be an understatement. Other than some fears around being laid off from my day job, I am thankful to report that overall it has been time well spent.
In just the past Thursday-to-Monday, I went to Radio City Music Hall for a concert, Atlantic City for my friend Alex’s bachelor party, and then capping it all off Monday night, my friend Alan and I planned a surprise 30th birthday laser tag party for our pal Matt. I am definitely tired, but also feeling energized from the pre-pandemic levels of busyness and the promise of summer.
Onward.
Musical Moment
Jai Paul (4/25)
Well, for starters, I went to the Jai Paul concert in Brooklyn. After being a fan of the enigmatic singer for a decade now, it was amazing to see him perform live at his first ever headlining show (suck it, Coachella). I hope this means there’s more coming soon from Paul, but I could see it being just as likely that he stays out of the limelight still. Jia Tolentino’s review of the concert in The New Yorker is stellar and gives a lot of context about the mystery shrouding Paul. It’s been two weeks since the show and I am still listening to BTSTU and Str8 Outta Mumbai on a near daily basis.
SUGA (4/26)
I went to my second-ever K-pop concert (the first was Stray Kids)! This time for Agust D (Suga from BTS under his solo project alias). Check him out performing his song “Haegum” on one of the Late Night Jim Shows.
I’m “Army-adjacent” at best, but holy shit was the show amazing. Suga performs with a really tight live band which added a lot of depth to the sound compared to other pop shows where you’re really just seeing the artist perform over a track a lot of the concert.
The stage design was also superb. It was comprised of many smaller squares making up a grid and pieces of the stage would lift up and out of view, until only one small platform remained at the end of the night. The choreography, lighting and filmed elements all created a wonderfully cohesive show that moved with so much confidence and purpose. I knew I would have a good time, but I really did end up loving it. I swear Anna isn’t writing any of this either.
Kali Uchis (5/4)
I have been a fan of Kali Uchis since, like many, I first heard her featured on what is arguably Tyler, The Creator’s most popular song, See You Again. Shortly after that, she put out her fantastic debut, Isolation, and has followed it up with two more phenomenal albums, Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios) and most recently, Red Moon in Venus.
I saw her perform live for the first time opening for Tyler at Madison Square Garden last year when he was touring in support of Call Me If You Get Lost. The noise in the arena was deafening when a huge red velvet dropped to the floor revealing Uchis’ tied to a post surrounded by her dancers. My friend Connor and I looked at each other and knew she would have no problem selling out venues the size of MSG as a headliner.
Cut to last week when Anna and I went to see her at Radio City. While the start of the concert wasn’t quite as risqué, Uchis’ sultry voice combined with her relaxed choreography immediately transported the audience into her world for the rest of the night.
Speaking of her choreography, she said on Instagram it was still too much for her and she will not be doing the rest of the tour. Kali Uchis is the purest embodiment of the internet phrase (dial-up-lect?) , “Yes queen, give us nothing!” To be clear, that is a joke and not a complaint.
The atmosphere of a Kali Uchis’ concert is not lazy or sluggish. It is languorous. I think it is one of her best qualities. There was a moment when she paused the concert to speak to the crowd about how she didn’t start singing really until she was an adult and how things like dancing have been even more recent. She is acutely aware of her current limitations as a performer which I really respect. None of those limitations detract from her being one of the most engaging performers and steadily delivering standout Latin R&B music.
LF(O)TOWN Feat. Chris Kirkpatrick of NSYNYC (5/6)
Unlike my effusive praise for Miss Uchis, this concert (Atlantic City club night) was incredible for so many different reasons. I see no need to talk about it when the videos I took should suffice. But in summary, OTOWN + Brad Fischetti began performing for the crowd and not. a. single. mic. worked.
The band walked off, without any indication of them coming back. The nightclub management practically made the DJ sprint back on stage to start playing music again. Amazingly the song queued up (intentionally or not) was NSYNC’s Bye, Bye, Bye.
About 20 minutes after the first attempt, the band came back up on stage. And let me tell you, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that vocals were live, baby!
You can watch some of the video I took at the end of the newsletter, if you’d like.
ChatApp-Assisted App Development
It hasn’t been all fun, lately. There have also been games!
TL;DR:
I’ve made good progress on my iPhone game which, as you may have read last time, is called fingle.club. It’s just me and a chatbot building it which means writing, testing, debugging every little nugget of the project code and that takes a lot of time, even with the automated assistance. Hopefully I will be able send a beta version to anyone interested in the next few days/weeks.
Nitty-gritty details:
At this stage, users can sign up and sign in to the App which was my first goal. I also have got storage for photos/finger tagging/player stats/etc set up & connected.
As of last night:
Players can sign up for an account & log-in
Players can capture a photo and tag what fingers they are holding up— all of the data gets stored so that the app can access it when it needs the data to display.
I have a simple news feed that shows the selfie, username & what fingers are being held up.
Still to come:
Adding/managing friend lists
push notifications for the “Daily Fingle” round where everyone will simultaneously be asked to submit their play for the day.
Players will have to play Fingle in order to unlock the photo view. Think of it as being similar to BeReal, but where you have to guess how many fingers the other player is holding up in the photo before you are able to view it.
Open thoughts:
Right now my plan is to have a different league each month from the 1st until the 28th.
I’ll set rules to manage people who sign up part way into their first month playing so that they can still do so, but aren’t necessarily tracked on the official season leaderboard.
I also plan to create a more “On Demand” play feature where you can play against any of your added friends hand-to-hand.
I’d love some help with the overall design eventually if I have any friends who are good at that sort of thing!
That’s all I’ve got for now. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the attached videos/pictures below. See you next time.