|| default || § ¶Online Magazines
Here's an example of some of the incredible things that can be done on the web. Click on the picture and it will take you to the current issue of the CBC Radio 3 magazine. It requires Flash. Navigation is definitely post-modern, meaning its hard to figure out. Click around. The upper right corner gets you to the next page. There's a link to an archive of past issues at the bottom of the page.Another online magazine to watch is mooncruise. Its a photo magazine. A new issue every two weeks.
Both magazines feature background music, something a print magazine could never do.
|| General || § ¶Rainy Day
Woke up to a rainy, dreamy day. Here's the view from nearby Berkeley. A good day to contemplate.
Watch the weather change in the little box in the left column on this page, brought to you in real time by the Lawrence Hall of Science. The view is due West from the Berkeley Hills across the bay to the Golden Gate Bridge and beyond.
|| General || § ¶Cage and Feldman Conversation
Other Minds has uploaded yet another incredible program from the KPFA-FM archives. Here are five conversations between John Cage and Morton Feldman, recorded in 1967 at WBAI in New York City.You can hear each one on the Internet Archive:
Radio Happenings (Conversations) I II III IV V
These conversations were transcribed and published as Radio Happenings I-V by MusikTexte (Cologne) in 1993.
Thanks to the Estate of Morton Feldman and the John Cage Trust for permission to share these historic conversations.
They cover a lot of ground and are extremely interesting. What is it to be a composer? How does the world outside interrupt a composer "deep in thought"? Two old friends, now both deceased, talking and smoking.
|| General || § ¶Music Meets the Computer
This should prove to be very interesting to anyone working with or curious about computers and music. Three of the major personalities in the history of computer music will be at the Computer History Museum on Tuesday, December 14th in Mountain View, CA.: John Chowning, Max Mathews, and Curtis Rhodes.Most people are not aware of the extent to which computers are now an integral part of all aspects of music production, for both pop music and concert music. And it all started in the early 60's at Bell Labs with Max Mathews and the Music IV program.
Photo: Max Mathews GROOVE (Generated Real-time Output Operations on Voltage-controlled Equipment) Music System, 1970, based on a HoneywellDDP-224. Click on photo for more information.
|| General || § ¶Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman (1926-1987) was one of the most intriguing and interesting composers of his generation. A great example of his humor and intelligence is now available online. In 1986, Charles Amirkhanian interviewed Feldman as part of the Speaking of Music series at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. This is a wonderful interview, and it came at a time when Feldman's music was just beginning to be heard by a wider audience. He died a year later, and much too soon. He probably had much more music yet to write. Luckily since his death there has been a steady stream of recordings, as well as texts about him and by him. Much is available about Feldman and his music on the web.
This interview is part of an ongoing effort at Other Minds to digitize and make available online the vastly important music archives from KPFA-FM in Berkeley, now hosted at the Internet Archive.
Photo: NY Times 1985
|| General || § ¶TWINS!
My step-son and daughter-in-law gave birth to twins today! As of yet still unnamed, a boy (on the left) and a girl (on the right).What an amazing thing to do! Just amazing!
More new pictures are here.
|| General || § ¶Premier Success!
Last night's premier of Threads was a success! Everything went nearly perfectly. And judging from the audience reaction and the buzz afterward, it really worked! Even though I may have destroyed the speakers at ODC with my music, I didn't hear any problems that I wasn't already aware of. I do hope we get a chance to do this again somewhere with a better sound system. I was talking to a friend in the audience afterwards about the last piece I did for dancers. It was in 1970 with Anna Halprin for the opening of the University Art Museum at UC Berkeley. For that performance I had produced an hour-long tape at the Mills College electronic music studio using a Buchla 100 synthesizer, and various tape loops and other recordings (e.g. Tibetan monks, etc.) And I remember that I borrowed some large speakers from Mills and used my own (tube) 100w amplifier. I lugged all this equipment over to the Art Museum and it took me hours to set up. During the performance, I had to crank the volume up to the very max. The museum is a concrete chasm with very bad acoustics and lots of places for the sound to get lost. I could have used 2 or 3 more amplifiers and speaker systems. I do remember looking at my amplifier during the performance and seeing the tubes glowing bright orange! I almost had a meltdown, literally. Interestingly, I cannot find that tape anymore. And even if I could, after 34 years I probably wouldn't be able to play it... it would self-destruct on playback. Then again, who has a reel-to-reel tape machine these days? I don't.
Fast forward to today and compare that with what I did for Threads. Working entirely at home on my 1GHz G4 Mac using a handful of computer music software, I created a 57 minute soundtrack and presented it on a CD. The sound quality (dynamic range, sonic range, crispness of the sound) was extraordinary. And I was able to deliver draft after draft to the choreographer and adjust the material on demand. Had I a laptop, I could have made adjustments at the rehearsals as well! None of this was possible in 1970.
The best part is that my musical intuition seems to have survived. The music for Threads fits the choreography and vice versa. I was able to tailor the music to fit the timing and gesture of the dancing, and see the dancing fit into the gestures of the music.
The audience seemed to be blown over by Kate's surreal and graceful choreography and the amazing skill of these dancers. A very enjoyable evening, indeed. And now we get to do it again tonight. Wonderful!
|| General || § ¶Threads Tonight!
Tonight is opening night! Yikes.Article in the Oakland Tribune today.
|| General || § ¶Dress Rehearsal
Dress rehearsal of Threads was tonight. And it was a trip. I will admit to have been worried up to now, can we pull it off? So many things could go wrong. But I was stunned in amazement tonight. It worked! Of course there were some minor glitches, as expected. And they'll get ironed out. So I'm looking forward to tomorrow and Saturday night! This has been a very exciting journey, indeed.
Photo by Susana Millman
|| default || § ¶A Plea, from 52 years ago
A friend passed this on to me. Seems very appropriate and timely.Justice Learned Hand, in 1952 during the time of the McCarthy witch-hunts:
Risk for risk, for myself I had rather take my chance that some traitors will escape detention than spread abroad a spirit of general suspicion and distrust, which accepts rumour and gossip in place of undismayed and unintimidated inquiry. I believe that community is already in process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbour as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose. Such fears as these are a solvent which can eat out the cement that binds the stones together; they may in the end subject us to a despotism as evil as any that we dread; and they can be allayed only in so far as we refuse to proceed on suspicion, and trust one another until we have tangible ground for misgiving. The mutual confidence on which all else depends can be maintained only by an open mind and brave reliance upon free discussion.
Learned Hand [American Jurist 1872-1961; a judge of the US District Court: (New York’s Southern District), and of the Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Extract from “A Plea for the Open Mind and Free Discussion” Address to University of the State of New York: 24.10.1952.
Which reminds me of what Miss Stein once said: "History teaches history teaches"
|| General || § ¶Bush vs Kerry: A Usability Issue?
Was usability the tie-breaking issue in this election?See what usability guru Jakob Nielsen has to say.
"Both candidates for president of the United States offer email newsletters with much good content to excite supporters, but miserable subscription interfaces and several other usability problems undermine these newsletters."
|| General || § ¶In Rehearsal
We start rehearsals for THREADS at the ODC Theater on Tuesday. Premier performances are Friday and Saturday. It will be good to get away from the news and politics. It's all been too too depressing.So the music is all done. I now have a complete performance CD, 57 minutes. It took 7 drafts to get to this point, but we're all pretty happy with the result. There are only two transitions in the 9 sections that could be a bit dicey. But we'll work that out during the week's rehearsals.
The only other thing I'm worried about is the sound system at the theater. The sound track is pretty rich in highs and lows, and has quite a wide dynamic range. But at this point, we'll have to just hope everything works. I will admit, I'm nervous. I haven't had my music performed anywhere in 30 years. What if the CD player craps out midway? What if the music vibrates the speakers into a cloud of dust? What if it makes people run screaming from the hall, covering their ears? What if nobody notices the music at all? Do I have enough Valium to last the weekend?
|| default || § ¶17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists...by Michael Moore
From Michael Moore:Friday, November 5th, 2004: 17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists...by Michael Moore
Dear Friends,
Ok, it sucks. Really sucks. But before you go and cash it all in, let's, in the words of Monty Python, “always look on the bright side of life!” There IS some good news from Tuesday's election.
Here are 17 reasons not to slit your wrists:
1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again.
2. Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916.
3. The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving once again that your parents are always wrong and you should never listen to them.
4. In spite of Bush's win, the majority of Americans still think the country is headed in the wrong direction (56%), think the war wasn't worth fighting (51%), and don’t approve of the job George W. Bush is doing (52%). (Note to foreigners: Don't try to figure this one out. It's an American thing, like Pop Tarts.)
... read the rest at http://www.michaelmoore.com/
|| General || § ¶What "Mandate"?
This just in from:Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting: Media analysis, critiques and activism
http://www.fair.org/press-releases/bush-mandate.html
MEDIA ADVISORY:
Defining Bush's "Mandate"
November 5, 2004
Winning 51 percent of the popular vote in Tuesday's election, Bush administration officials were quick to declare that the results constitute a "mandate" for Bush's second term. This interpretation of the election caught hold in the mainstream media-- a sign perhaps that White House spin was triumphing over the actual numbers recorded on Election Day.
The Boston Globe (11/4/04) reported that Bush's victory grants him "a clear mandate to advance a conservative agenda over the next four years." The Los Angeles Times (11/4/04) made the somewhat peculiar observation that "Bush can claim a solid mandate of 51 percent of the vote." USA Today (11/4/04) was more definitive, headlining one story "Clear Mandate Will Boost Bush's Authority, Reach," while reporting that Bush "will begin his second term with a clearer and more commanding mandate than he held for the first." The Washington Post (11/4/04) similarly pointed to Bush's "clearer mandate," implying that the election of 2000, in which Bush failed to get even a plurality of the popular vote, was a mandate of sorts, if an unclear one.
Broadcast media also took up the "mandate" theme. MSNBC host Chris Matthews announced at the top of his November 3 broadcast, "President Bush wins the majority of the vote and a mandate for his second term." CNN's Wolf Blitzer (11/3/04) offered his assessment that Bush is "going to say he's got a mandate from the American people, and by all accounts he does." NPR's Renee Montague (11/3/04) also relayed the White House's spin, before quickly agreeing with it: "The president's people are calling this a mandate. By any definition I think you could call this a mandate."
Of course, there are many definitions by which Bush's narrow victory would not be called a "mandate." Columnist Margaret Carlson, writing in the Los Angeles Times (11/4/04), posed the question bluntly: "What kind of mandate does he think he has with a 51 percent win?" More journalists might want to ask the same question.
While White House officials tout the total vote count for Bush as evidence of wide support, the increase in voter turnout and the size of the U.S. population also means that greater than usual numbers of voters opposed the victorious candidate. As Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher put it (11/5/04), "It's true that President Bush got more votes than any winning candidate for president in history. He also had more people voting against him than any winning candidate for president in history."
And Bush's slim majority is not all that impressive for an incumbent; Ronald Reagan, for example, claimed 51 percent of the vote in 1980, while gaining 59 percent four years later. Lyndon Johnson was the choice of 61 percent of voters in 1964, as was Richard Nixon in 1972. In terms of margin of victory, Al Hunt observed in the Wall Street Journal (11/4/04), Bush's victory was "the narrowest win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916."
If a "mandate" is the same as an uncontested victory, then George W. Bush has that-- but so does just about every president, so it's hardly newsworthy. It is understandable that the Bush administration would tout its victory as evidence of a "mandate" for pursuing its second-term agenda. Responsible journalists, however, should refrain from simply amplifying White House spin.
|| General || § ¶What Now?!
While we're all trying to figure out where to turn and what to do, some interesting commentary is starting to make the rounds.For starters, here is Ariana Huffington's assessment of how the Dems lost the race: Anatomy Of A Crushing Political Defeat
Next, are you considering moving to Canada? Ten Reasons Not to Move to Canada
So, is it: A Time To Heal? A "Mandate" from the People?
Or: The election hangover of a lifetime
And here's Kyle Gann talking about how being from the "red" states is to know how they think: Democrats, Give Thyselves a Break
Time to renew my subscription to The Nation.
.....More to come, I'm sure.
|| General || § ¶The NEW North America
The geopolitical map changed overnight.
|| General || § ¶Day After Election Day
Well, it didn't turn out the way 55 million of us (and most of the civilized world) wanted it to. The next four years will be very difficult. But its clear there are two countries here... the red and the blue. I live in the blue country. The red country is a dangerous place.
|| General || § ¶Election Day, 2004
and I'm holding my breath.Vote Vigil
Raw Story
Scorecard