Author: Charles Céleste Hutchins

Supercolliding since 2003

Live-Blogging Dorkbot #1

Sarah Angliss wrote an opera. She did composition and sound design. She had to learn to write for other people and make everything reliable.

Fifteen years ago she went to the Hunter Museum in London, including a skeleton of Charles Burn, who did not want his skeleton exhibited. His body was stolen after his death by Hunter. Her opera was about Burn. She spent seven years writing the opera, during which time the Hunter museum responded to pressure and removed the display.

Some of the instruments in the opera are her robots, including a carillon. She also used theremin. But mostly 18th century instruments used in weird ways.

Theatre uses some software called Q Lab.

She’s got a live looping device that does subtle weird stretching. There are several loop points on the phrase.

She got really into 1969s spectralism. Her stuff is based on the nightingale. The problem with mapping an FFT to a violin is that violins also have spectrums. She wrote software to take into account the violin’s spectrum. IRCAM’s software OrkIdea does this well.

Changes

When my mother died, it was just as the dot com bubble was bursting. I was between jobs. Tech was pivoting to spyware and I felt burned out by Silicon Valley. I decided to move to music full time. I applied for Masters programmes and started playing in a flute-fronted rock band.

My dad died in June and I’ve realised how burned out I feel from my teaching job. Years of Tory cuts are hitting British higher education hard. Kent decided to stop offering music and I decided not to participate in the teach out. My other university Goldsmiths, is also doing major cuts. I haven’t asked if my job there will exist next year, but I’d bet that it won’t. I saw an advert for a band and answered it. They’re a flute-fronted rock band.

(Honestly not sure how I feel about that.)

What’s next? I don’t know. I went back to uni to get better at writing music and instead I threw all my energy at teaching. I want to write music.

A friend of mine, only a few years older than me, just died of cancer. Her funeral is the day after tomorrow.

And I keep thinking of the composer of my favourite string quartet. Ruth Crawford Seeger got diverted into musicology for several years, due to her association with Charles Seeger. And at some point, she had enough of it and decided to return to composing. She felt her best music was still ahead of her. Then she got cancer and died. No music was ahead of her.

I feel like I’m stepping off a cliff into an unknown, with death nipping at my heels. Will I survive this change? Probably. Probably. Probably.

Book me for a gig. I need to stay busy.

Obituary for Edward Hutchins

Edward Hutchins passed away on June 19th at the age of 83 in McKinney, TX, after a short illness.

Ed was born to Esther and Bert in St Louis, MO, in 1939, but the family soon relocated to Phoenix, AZ. After a brief stint at Arizona State, Ed joined the Army and was stationed in Alaska and then San Francisco. After being discharged, he earned a Bachelor and Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University. In 1974, he married Eileen Forge and they raised two children in Cupertino, CA.

Ed worked as a chip designer at several Silicon Valley companies, including AMI, Chips and Technologies, IDT and SST. After retiring, he travelled the country on a motorcycle for two years with his tour ending in Vancouver, WA, where he became an avid square dancer with partner Elsie Bartling. He moved to Texas during the pandemic to be closer to his son and grandson.

Ed is predeceased by his parents and his wife Eileen. He is survived by his sons Charles and Edward Paul Jr and grandson William.

Funeral services were be held at St Joseph of Cupertino on August 14 at 1pm. Interment was the following day at Gate of Heaven Cemetery at 10am.

Teen Idols

Once upon a time, 33 years ago, I was clearly a troubled youth. I was 14. My parents wanted to help. Could I just tell them what was going on?

In a terrible miscalculation, I told them. I came out as questioning.

My mum panicked and sought out advice. She turned to her mother’s Catholic friends who suggested a hard line approach. My mum could push me towards heterosexuality by the strategic use of homophobic harassment. Her contacts further urged her to use “tough love” and throw me out of the house.

She tended to agree with the bigots, but she balked at making me homeless. I look back and know now that it’s possible to love and hate at the same time, in the same breath, as the same gesture. I spent four years in a perfect synthesis of maternal Catholic love and hate.

Things improved dramatically after I left home. My mother eventually, mostly came around. And then, with little warning, in 2002, she died.

My dad, who had virtually no speaking part in this drama, never talked about this. I don’t even know if he knew what was going on. I’ll never know. He died in June.

According to Kiddushin 17b, there is a Rabbinic law that allows a Jewish convert to inherit from his gentile father. He splits the inheritance with his brother so that the gentile gets the religious items and the convert gets money.

We delayed my dad’s funeral for a few weeks due to travel difficulties. My brother proposed stretching this out to at least five months. Instead, I took over planning. I booked a Catholic church, a priest, an organist, a florist, and a caterer and made arrangements with the cemetery. The priest asked which readings to use. The organist asked what hymns to play. My brother did not respond to these questions, so I did. I listened to hymns on YouTube and read gospel verses, searching for something at least inoffensive.

My dad was Catholic. His friends were Catholic. I stayed close to the community norms of what he would have expected and presumably wanted.

The sages say, in the case of ‘a convert and a gentile who inherited the property of their father, a gentile: the convert can say to his gentile brother: “You take the idols and I will take the money.”’ But I took the idols and placed them for the funeral. I wrote a check to the Catholic church, whose schools educated but harmed me. Whose followers tormented me and loved me. Whose hospitals are allegedly right now gambling that they can safely but illegally deny every kind of healthcare to trans people, because they have deep pockets and trans people don’t.

I didn’t want the idols, but I couldn’t escape them while also doing right by my dad. I tried to pass them off to my brother, but didn’t. Kiddushin says, ‘Once idols have come into the convert’s possession, it is prohibited for him to exchange these objects with his brother, as he would thereby be benefiting from idolatry.’ They’re mine now, but any benefit is counterbalanced by harm. I could atone for this on Yom Kippur, but I feel I shouldn’t have to. This is the opposite of what I felt when actually doing the planning. It had to be done, so I did it.

The end of a difficult relationship brings intense focus to the difficulty. Here is a murky not-knowing. But the missed conversation about my teen years feels like a relief. It’s better not to know. There were no good answers. I took only those idols that I had to take.

Shiva

My dad’s funeral is delayed for a few weeks due to logistics reasons. So, going out of order, I’ll be sitting shiva in London Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Please email, text or signal for my address. I have very recently moved house.

A friend suggested I also do an online session. I am considering logistics and will post further details if I go ahead with that.

Graphic Notation Teaching Tool

This is designed for students with no experience of improvising. The idea is to start with just having one note and dots. Then dots and flat lines. Then gradually adding more notes.

It’s meant to fir the window width, so you may need to scroll sideways if you’re looking at this page with a sidebar.

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#CVQCon2022

I blinked at the flash of light as the roar of white noise receded. I was standing in a lobby.

A man said my name and handed me a badge and some papers. “Your talk is at four tomorrow”.

The room swam and shimmied.

Another man steadied me. “Feeling a bit woozy? That should pass soon.”

I blinked and nodded, but he looked concerned. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

I nodded and he lead me to a folding chair.

“Do you have any shellfish allergies?”

“No, but I’m vegan.”

“Oh, well, we’ll get you a glass of water then. Do you have any friends here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe you’d like to check into your hotel room? Are you staying at the Hilbert?” Without waiting he looked at my welcome pack. “Yes, you’re in room 1024. Why don’t you drop off your bags there now?”

An hour later, I stood much more steadily in the main convention hall. I was still blank on most details about arriving or even deciding to come, but I knew I was at CVQ Con. A legendary mix of academics, arts, industry, and cosplayers. Fans compared it to Burning Man and Comic Con mashed up with Coachella. I’d never been to any of those, but now I was in exhibit hall B, next to the Prion Disease booth! I surveyed the crowd excitedly. A queue snaked up to the prion booth, who were giving away free lobster slushies.

I frowned and decided to go to the most famous CVQ Con standby, the “bottomless” ball pit. The signs for the pit meandered around the hall like traversing an Ikea. I looked for a shortcut, but my printed map and the posted maps seemed to be mirror images of each other. I walked, following the signs, until I was again in front of the prion booth. Damn it. But, wait, didn’t the booth have a sign with black letters on a white background? This one had white letters on a black background. How many prion booths does one con need? I kept following the ball pit signs.

As I walked I looked at my phone. Social media revealed that I did have friends there, but mostly not people I knew in real life. “I’m on the grass, come find me,” Agatha posted. But where was the grass? Not only had I not seen any outdoor space since arriving, I hadn’t even seen anything that resembled an exterior wall. The centre seemed improbably huge.

I turned left and found myself in the food hall and suddenly realised I was starving. The first vendor sold lobster bisque. The second sold fried lobster sticks. The third, lobster cakes. Lobster burgers. Lobster dogs. A large banner proclaimed that the food was “Proudly Sponsored by International Lobster.” My head started to hurt.

I went to the nearest stall. “Can I just get a cup of black coffee?” I asked.

“Sure!” The barista started up the grinder.

“No lobster!” I joked.

The grinding stopped. “Oh, sorry.” she said. “We can’t do lobster-free coffee.”

“What?? Do you have tea?”

She looked apologetic, “Yes, but -”

“What in the hell?”

“International Lobster sponsored all the food this year. All of it. Even the vending machines.”

“Oh no.”

“There’s a food truck outside. Over the road by the grass.”

“Where is that?”

Another customer pushed in front of me. “If you’re not helping him, can I have a grande lobstercinno?”

“Coming right up!” said the barista cheerfully. The grinder started again, at least 5 times louder than before. A queue had formed behind me. Giving up, I turned to walk away and nearly crashed into somebody several centimetres shorter than I.

“Excuse me, are you Charles?” he said.

“Yes . . .”

“I recognise you from your profile picture on the fediverse! It’s nice to meet you in real life.”

“Oh, yeah, amazing! Sorry, who did you say you were?”

“@BeatCruelEatcha@squid.party!”

“Oh, uh, great.”

“Isn’t this incredible!!” he enthused.

“Yeah, it’s super cool. I’m kind of a bit hungry, though.”

“The lobster dogs are fantastic!”

“Yeah. I’m vegan. I don’t even know where to get a cup of tea.”

“Ohhhhh” he thought “I actually came for the lobster tea. It’s really good. If you like lobster, I mean.”

“Uh, ok.”

“Say, have you been to the bottomless ball pit? I heard it was closed because somebody peed in it. But then somebody else said it was filling up with lobster.”

“What?”

“Not food!” he clarified. “Apparently the basement of the centre is International Lobster’s main processing facility. All the pipes running everywhere are pneumatic lobster tubes.”

I looked at a nearby pillar which did have some large pipes attached to it.

“If you put your ear to them, you can hear the lobsters whizzing by.” He placed his ear on the pipe and, unsure what to think, I also had a listen. After a moment, there came a rattling zing, as if something had quickly swept by. “Did you hear that?” He exclaimed. “It’s their pressurised lobster system! It’s revolutionised the shellfish industry!”

“Wow.” I laughed nervously.

“Anyway, I heard that one of the pipes under the ball pit ruptured and it’s been filling up with lobsters.”

“That sounds bad.”

“If it keeps up, they’ll have to evacuate the centre!”

As he spoke, a klaxon rang out overhead. “Would guests please proceed to the nearest exit” said a posh, pre-recorded voice.

“What did I tell you!” BeatCruelEatcha said proudly. “Are you staying at the Hilbert? The monorail station to the hotel is just to the left there.”

I woke up the next morning with a hangover that could inspire epic poetry. I don’t normally drink, but there had been mead. Little food. Arguments about Marxism. Furries? I found alka seltzer laid out on my bedside label next to a scrawled note I couldn’t read.

Half an hour later, I saw it said “4pm paper”. Oh god, the paper. What was it about? Had I even written it? I found half a slide presentation on my computer and the details slowly came back to me. I made more slides.

Microsoft teams chimed to life. “Good luck on your paper!” said a message from my boss. The fan on my computer started racing. Oh no! I switched back to my presentation software to hit control-S but the windowing system froze on the Teams alert. The fan reached supersonic speeds. The screen went black, the presentation changes lost forever.

Ninety minutes later, presentation sorted, but feeling very woozy, I bought a faux lobster roll from the takeaway just outside the train station. It seemed to squirm in my hands and wriggled free, falling to the ground and rolling into a storm grate as I heard my train arrive. They only came every half an hour. I ran for the platform, but it pulled away as I cleared the ticket gates.

I went to the station guard. “Can I get out to get a snack while I wait for the next train.”

“You’d have to buy another ticket.”

“What, really?”

“Sorry, company policy.”

I sat and my head spun. I couldn’t do a day of no food with a head like this. I looked up at the sky in despair and it seemed purplish. The banner over the platform said “Welcome to CVQCon2023.”

BeatCruelEatcha, sat down next to me. He’d grown a full beard since I’d seen him the previous night. “You too, eh?”

“What?” I noticed a lobster on the platform. It seemed to glance at a wrist watch. Another lobster came to stand next to it. It was holding a tiny newspaper.

“The fast train that just left – it’s temporal flux adjuster is out of alignment. It’s cast us all into 2023.” He gestured at the large, white blank spot floating in front of me. “It’s why those voids are everywhere. 2023 isn’t built yet.” A train honked in the distance. “That’s our train,” he said standing up. The honking got louder and louder.

I open my eyes to the insistent beeping of my alarm. I don’t normally drink, but I had a hangover that could inspire epic poetry. On my bedside table was some alka seltzer and a note I couldn’t read.

Half an hour later, I was making slides for a presentation, pressing save after every change. Just as I finished, my boss sent a Teams message wishing me luck. The computer crashed and I left my room. I was half way to the train station when I realised I hadn’t brought my ID badge and went back for it.

I bought a faux lobster roll outside the station and dropped it. I heard the train coming, but missed it. I sat down with an overwhelming sense of deja vu.

A woman sat down next to me. “Are you Charles?” She asked. “Actually, I know you’re Charles. I met you last night, but I have a feeling you might not remember.”

I frowned. “I’ve had a totally mundane but entirely peculiar morning.”

“I can imagine. Anyway, last night, you asked me to remind you that there’s vegan food next to the bottomless ball pit, which is next to the room where your paper is.”

“Isn’t the ball pit full of lobsters?”

“What? It’s full of bottoms. Every year, people think this is the funniest joke, too many people pile in and it breaks. Again.”

“I see.”

“Also, your paper time has changed. You should head straight to the room when you arrive.”

“Thank you! You’re very helpful!”

“I the chair of your paper session. I’ve also had an odd morning. I had the most incredible dream about our session topic.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve thrown away all my notes and am going to relay my dream instead!”

The room with the paper session was mostly empty and seemed to throb with hangover. I kept thinking I saw lobsters from the corners of my eyes.

With great enthusiasm, the chair launched into the presentation from her dream. Like everything else that day it seemed familiar. Too familiar. It was the first half of my paper!

I blinked in disbelief, with no idea what to do. Everyone was looking at me. Not because they knew what had happened but because it was now my turn to talk. I panicked. “Um, following on from that . . .” I skipped to my new slides and started from the middle.

“Poppycock!” someone shouted.

I squinted at the audience. There were only about three people there. “Excuse me?”

“This is completely derivative and utterly mundane.”

I couldn’t tell who was speaking. From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw my dropped breakfast tumble past. The fire alarm went off.

“Oh, this is another dream” I said into the microphone.

“Would guests please proceed to the nearest exit” said a posh pre-recorded voice.

I waited to wake up.

“You need to evacuate” said the paper chair.

“I’m certain I must be dreaming right now.”

“That may be so, but you still need to evacuate.”

We walked single file into a corridor and down the stairs. A faux lobster roll bounced along side me.

“Sorry, I dropped my breakfast” said a man behind me. It was BeatCruelEatcha, clean shaven.

“Is two alarms in two days normal for this event?” I asked him.

“Oh no, not at all.”

“That’s good.”

“It’s normally much higher.”

“I think I’m going home.”

“Oh, but you’ll miss the dancing lobster!”

“I’m too hung over for this.”

“I’m not surprised.”

I thought for a moment. “Lobsters aren’t normally a dancing species, are they? I mean, don’t they usually just scuttle?”

We reached the pavement. I looked up at the convention centre and saw flames coming from the windows.

I arrived home the next morning. “You’re back early!” my spouse said, “How did you paper go?”

“I got heckled by a lobster roll and then the convention centre burned to the ground.”

“I thought you were vegan?”

“It was faux lobster.”

“Oh, that reminds me. A bunch of postcards arrived for you while you were gone. I’m not sure what they’re about.”

On the table there was a stack of at least 20 vintage postcards, mostly bearing the names of towns in Maine. They all had pictures of lobsters. “Poppycock!” they said.

“What the fuck?”

“There’s one more.”

This one had a picture of Dali’s lobster phone. “I found your paper to be very salient and was disappointed when you were interrupted.” Like the others, it was unsigned.

“When did these arrive?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“What? All of them?”

“Oh no. The Dali one arrived earlier.”

“Are you sure?”

She shrugged and went to to answer a knock at the door. “Did you order this?” I heard her call to me.

A delivery driver was at the door with five cases of lobster. I looked at the labels. “These are for next door.”

“As I was just saying, your neighbour asked if you could take them if they’re not in.” said the driver.

“Yeah, fine” I said. The boxes were vented on the sides and I peered into them. The lobsters were alive. One of them was wearing a wrist watch. “What the hell?”

“Keep them in a cool place, out of direct sunlight.”

“It’s wearing a wristwatch!”

The driver gave me a look. “They have rubber bands to keep them from pinching you, but you should still avoid sticking your fingers in the boxes.”

“You don’t seem yourself” said my spouse when we were back at the table.

“I feel like I’m seeing lobster everywhere.”

“It’s just a coincidence.”

“No, I mean out of the corners of my eyes. In the train stations, under our bed, lurking in the dark.”

The lobsters in their boxes all started to move.

“They’re dancing.” I said.

Teshuvah

So this is the time of (the Jewish) year when one is meant to apologise for one’s misdeeds.

As someone raised Catholic, I just have a fee-floating sense of guilt that I’ve probably wronged or at least annoyed everyone in my proximity at least once over the year.

Obviously, one apologises as things arise, so the point of this season is trying to perhaps become aware of ongoing or systemic things I might be doing? I’m not sure. This is why I’m reading so many books, trying to get a sense of the milieu and philosophical underpinnings of Jewish thought.

I feel like teshuvah is an especially good thing for addressing issues in relationships (or in tight-knit communities, which is where many practises arose). Often, my spouse hasn’t told me about weekend plans and I get annoyed, but also I didn’t ask. Forgetting to ask is very much an ongoing thing for me. It’s not just manners, but it also risks creating the impression that I’m not interested. I am interested and I could communicate that better.

So in the coming year, I think I should be a more active listener. Most of my friends just volunteer what they’re up to instead of waiting for the polite question that never comes and I appreciate that, but I could be better on this.