Author: Charles Céleste Hutchins

I just signed up for 10 weeks of intensive french at UC berkeley, which will probably eat 45 hours a week. 50 if you count bike commuting time. So no summer job for me, it seems.

I’ve been thinking about what my first year at Wesleyan would have been like without Xena. Disaster! Woe! Despair! And my second year? Lonelier, but with more trips to New York. I haven’t been since Thanksgiving. Alas. Maybe it would have been the same, I don’t know. She is sleeping at my feet right now. I love my dog. I don’t know if taking her to Paris would be best for her or for me. It’s a selfish love. What would best for Xena would be sending her to live on Angela’s parents farm, where she has ducks to chase and dogs to play with and a pond to swim in, but I’m not going to do that because then she would no longer be my dog. I think that the best plan is probably, alas, to board her with Cola’s parents for the year. If, for some reason, I’m in Europe for longer, I can get her shipped out. A school year is kind of a long time. It’s 6 dog years. Will she even remember me when I return? Will I remember her? About half way through my 90 day excursion to Europe in 2001, I told Christi that I wanted to get a dog when we got back. She said, “we have a dog.” I said “really?” So we went to an internet cafe and looked at online pictures of my dog. “She’s cute.” I said, my memory stirring. When we returned, the dog was so excited to see me that she accidentally peed on my foot. (She’s never done that before or since, thank goodness.) So I guess it’s my memory that I worry about. The trip would be very strenuous. My living quarters are likely to be tiny (especially if they contain a tuba and a tuba shipping case too). The best thing to do might be to leave her behind. Alas and woe.
What happens if you get caught in France without a valid visa? Under what circumstances does anyone ask to see your visa?
Tag: Celesteh

my program is telling me that i don’t need a visa. considering that automatic tourist visas only last for 3 months and this program is 8 months, that seems a little sketch. also, a few days ago taking dog seemed like a reasonable plan. right now, not so much. on the one hand, french folks love dogs and there’s not much red tape getting her in. on the other hand, long flight, probably tiny apartment, desire to do weekend trips. I really like her, but I don’t think you can actually bring dogs in supermarkets and cafes, can you? Also, Cola’s parents could put her up. She’d have an acre to run (vs studio apt) and three other dogs. but . . . but . . . but . . . oy, i really like having a dog.

Tag: Celesteh

The people who listen to pundits such as Limbaugh are their choir. A recent study by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that, “Rush Limbaugh’s radio show attracts a disproportionately conservative audience: 77% of Limbaugh’s regular listeners describe themselves as conservative.” (http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=834) Similarly, the most popular TV news commentator draws an equally biased audience, “On television, the O’Reilly Factor draws a similar audience: 72% of O’Reilly’s regular viewers are self-described conservatives.” (Ibid.) As Media Matters has extensively documented, the “facts” reported by these two individuals are often incorrect. Limbaugh and O’Reilly mislead their own base.
Many people, such as Al Franken, accuse right wing pundits of lying. However, something more insidious may be at work. Professor Frankfurt notes in his essay On Bullshit that liars presume to know the truth but choose to misrepresent it. By contrast, bullshitters have “a lack of connection to a concern with truth.” (p 33) He constructs a binary opposition, not between truth and lies, which he sees as having a concern for the truth in common, but between liars and bullshitters.

The liar is inescapably concerned with truth-values. In order to invent a lie at all, he must think he knows what is true. And in order to invent an effective falsehood me must design his falsehood under the guidance of that truth.
On the other hand, a person who undertakes to bullshit his way through has much more freedom. His focus is panoramic rather than particular. He does not limit himself to inserting a certain falsehood at a specific point, and thus he is not constrained by the truths surrounding that point or intersecting it. He is prepared, so far as required, to fake the context as well. (p 51-2)

The fog of distortion surrounding pundits such as Limbaugh and O’Reilly is so thick that it seems more correct to label them as bullshitters rather than liars.
Those who trust Limbaugh and O’Reilly must necessarily distrust media outlets that report conflicting truths. This creates a lack of confidence in the media. Sometimes there exists a lack of confidence in reality itself. Ron Suskind of the New York Times reported in October 2004 on a conversation he had with an unnamed Bush aide,

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” . . . “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’” he continued.
(“Without a Doubt” emphasis added)

Reality itself is imperiled by bullshit. Frankfurter notes that “’antirealist’ doctorines undermine the confidence in the value of disinterested efforts to determine what is true and . . . false and even in the intelligibility of the notion of objective inquiry.” (p 65) In other words, the right wing spin machine, backed by the White House, is destroying the very notion of news gathering and reporting. Frankfurt discusses the consequences of this state. “One response to this loss of confidence has been a retreat from the discipline required by dedication to the idea of correctness to a quite different sort of discipline, which is imposed by pursuit of an alternative ideal of sincerity.” (Ibid. Emphasis in original.) To members of the reality-based community, the substitution of sincerity for reason is alarming. Bill Clinton famously remarked that Democrats win when people think. Bullshit in the form of right wing political discourse seeks to counter this by ridding the world of rational thought. This cannot be good public policy.

Tags: Celesteh, Pundits, Bullshit

I was under the impression that blogger was down for the last several days. It was and is . . . if you use Safari. bah!
I know you that you never doubted why it is important to counter right wing distortion. I think distortion is a better word than lies. Because liars care what the truth is. If you’re going to lie, you have to think you know what the truth is and then misrepresent it. Bullshitters don’t care a tiny bit about what the truth is. They’ll fake any aspect of anything. They are a greater enemy of the truth than liars. Bullshit is a greater worry. According to On Bullshit

A True Story

I went to a party on Saturday. It was loads of fun. I left for it hella late, as I was napping in the afternoon and expected to wake up before 8:00. In stead I woke up at 9:30 and had to skimp on dinner and was feeling a mite bit stressed as I went looking for this place I had never been. The directions I got were confusing me, but I finally go to the right offramp. The directions told me to go down a dead end street until i got to a “creeping” warehouse and then go up the “creaking” stairs. So I went to down to the dead-end road and got to a warehouse. I saw no street number anywhere and certainly no creaking stairs, so I went around back by the loading area and suddenly it was a lot more creeping. Then I saw an external metal staircase, like a cross between outside stairs and a fire escape. Definitely creaking. There was a door open on the third floor. So I climbed the stairs, and as I got halfway up, it became clear that it was a fire escape, no kind of hybrid at all. These were definitely creaking stairs!
I walked in and asked some gamers if I was in the right place. They seemed surprise my entrance, but it was obviously what the directions called for, right? Yes, I am the crazy person who came in via the fire escape. Cola was with me. She warned that I would look insane if I had the wrong location. I did not fully appreciate the implications of the remark. She is subtle. What I really need is someone to look me in the eye and say, “this plan is crazy! Give me those instructions! You are barking up the wrong tree!”
But I did find the right party, so I guess it worked.
(This post perviously appeared on live journal)

Tag: Celesteh

I did not dye my hair blue. But I might yet anyway. People seemed to like my concert. Apparently, my piece with the voice of Fred Phelps upset people, which is good. I think it’s the direction I want to go in. Less “this bad pundit said this” but rather “look at how ALL of our political discourse reflects these attitudes and maybe we’re participating in it.” So if I want to do more pieces on torture, I would start with the ticking time bomb scenario (there’s a ticking bomb in the city of hypotheicolpolis!) and go from there to reality to evil folks defending it.

So there was a moderately sized crowd mostly of friends and grad students. Tuesday night is a rough night for a concert. And afterwards, we went back to my house for cookies and Jagermeister. It is a bad idea to drink Jagermeister out of a wine glass. I have class in 2 minutes and I really dunno if I want to go.
My dad is here till monday and so if my gf. I feel dead right now.
Charles said something to me about webcasting at the Hemlock. Apparently, my gf’s ex-bf is trying to set that up, so I’ll be talking to him about it. The hard part is finding a server. The webcasting itself is really easy.
I cannot play tuba today. I’m going home to nap.
Tag: Celesteh

rtsp://129.133.2.23/celeste.sdp

For those of you at other parties or on other coasts or continents, the above URL will contain a webcast of my concert, which starts tomorrow at 8:00PM EDT (GMT -5) . . . that’s 5:00PM PDT.
It’s a quicktime stream.

Program

Rush to Excuse

2004

 
Uses the voice of Rush Limbaugh

Coulter Shock

2004

 
Uses the voice of Ann Coulter with Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes and others

Tunings

2004

Lock up your Children

2005

 
Uses the voices of PBS correspondent Terence Smith, Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly, preacher Fred Phelps and others

Intermission

Bell Tolls

2004

Savage Beasts

2005

 
Uses the voices of Michael Savage and Imus in the Morning speaking about Iraq and Palestine, respectively

Beep

2005

Scitilopolitics

2003

 
Movement 1 uses the voice of George W. Bush

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Movement 2 uses the voice of Jessica Feldman reading from a book by Jeffner Allen, Lesbian Philosophy: Explorations (Palo Alto: Institute of Lesbian Studies, 1987)

Meditations for Women

2005

 
Uses the voice of Jean Sirius reading her text “Meditations for Women,” copyright 1981

Tag: Celesteh

Today, I

• bought groceries
• bought beer
• did some sweeping
• went to class
• got car started (it’s idling now, after it has idled for an hour, i’m going to turn it off for half an hour. if it doesn’t restart, then i won’t take it to the airport)

Tomorrow, I must

• Get up at 8:00
• Print programs at 9:00 and get in the paperwork that was due friday but that I got an extension until today for and then forgot
• go to headshop at 10:00 and buy stuff to make hair blue (my classmates say this is a good idea)
• start loading in chapel between 11:00 – noon
• start setting levels as soon as setup happens
• do run through at 4:00
• break from 6:00 – 7:00 ( i hope)
• concert at 8:00
• post concert cookies, snacks, beer and jagermeister (yes, really) at my abode

I just got contact by somebody who wants to use a piece of mine in a documentary. I’m wondering how to respond. Of course I want to, but what questions should I ask and how many coins should I demand (in Braxton’s manner of asking)?

Tag: Celesteh

I just spent a lot of time with angela trying to get my car to start. no good. yes, i know it’s the battery. my car’s electrical system just seems to be incompatible with some other systems. the first time i tried to use my car to start somebody else’s it didn’t work either. yes, i know what i’m doing. so let’s have a car jumping contest. winner gets a ride to wild oats market and a bunch of cookies.

Tag: Celesteh

done

• timing: concert is one hour and 12 minutes is i go through the pieces one after another with as little pause as possible. muahahaha
• Program is written

to do

• today’s small stab at house keeping was not nearly enough. i threw away a bridal bouquet and felt nothing, but a loss of motivation to continue
• must buy blue hair dye and dye hair blue (must dye on monday, cuz i washed my hair today)
• buy groceries for the week and party food
• buy beer (must wait to monday because beer is immoral on sundays)
• get car jumped
• email grad list about concert
• talk to david about webcast

tuesday

• load in at noon, start running through pieces asap to get levels set for speakers and house system. i have major level differences from piece to piece, but i didn’t want to fix them until i’m on the real system – that must get done by 4:00
• cookies must be made. the world needs cookies

thank you list redux

Thank you to Ron Kuivila, Anthony Braxton, Neely Bruce, Alvin Lucier, Ellen Fullman, Jeffner Allen, Jean Sirius, Jessica Feldman, Aaron Siegel, Jascha Narveson, David Jensenius, Ed Hutchins, Media Matters for America, Sandy Brough, Hope McNeil, Deb Shore, Nicole Wilkins, Ed Chiburis, Nancy Albert, the Apple repair guy in the campus computer store, Phillip Schulze, Matt Lagoy, and Xena.

random

I was walking to the lab today and heard all the bells ringing at the catholic church and wondered why. It was for the death of the pope. wow.
Apparently Mercury is in retrograde right now. who knew? everybody is being really nice to me, so i just assumed it wasn’t
Tag: Celesteh

writing my program. Am I missing anybody?

Thank you to Ron Kuivila, Anthony Braxton, Neely Bruce, Alvin Lucier, Ellen Fullman, Jeffner Allen, Jean Sirius, Jessica Feldman, Aaron Sigel, Jascha Narveson, David Jensenius, Ed Hutchins, Media Matters for America, Sandy Burroughs, Hope McNeil, Deb Shore, Nicole Wilkins, the Apple repair guy in the campus computer store, Phillip Schulze, Matt Lagoy

advisor, thesis committee, other professor, tuning teacher, sources of additional text, vocal talent, housemate, concert recording guy, web streaming guy, dad, source for most audio, department secretaries, gf, people who offered advice and or help fixing my hard drive. (need to find out that one guy’s name)
hm, i could add indie media, westboro baptist church (godhatesfags.com) and the white house cuz i also downloaded audio from them . . ..
if you notice a missing name, please inform asap.
Tag: Celesteh