Category: Uncategorised

I feel I should share this as I know that at least a couple of people who read this occasionally might want this information. I, for example, am not hungover right now, but there are children in [third world country] who are. Anyway.

If you drink alcohol, you then feel buzzed. This goes away eventually as your body converts booze into something else. This is a good thing or else those few beers would leave you messed up for the rest of your life. Yikes. Anyway, this conversion process uses vitamin B and water. A lot of the converted alcohol ends up excreted to your skin. When you feel crappy the next day, it usually because you’re short of water or vitamin B or because your skin feels like it’s wrapped in bar-flavored saran-wrap.
Therefore, in order to avoid feeling bad, pre-stock what you’ll need. Drink some water before you go to bed and ingest some b-vitamins. One excellent source of vitamin B is yeast (the solution is within the problem!). This is why homebrew drinkers, in addition to being smug and making snarky comments about pabst blue ribbon (a cheap, terrible american beer), almost never get hangovers. Because of the yeast in the bottom of their bottles. However, rather than coming home and having a homebrew nightcap, it may be a good idea to mix nutritional yeast with fruit juice and drink that. Nutritional yeast is also tasty on popcorn. Dont’ worry about drinking too much water, since it’s going to end up on your skin rather than getting you up during the night
In the morning, you’ll want a shower. A hot one. Sweating is good. And you’ll want to drink some water or other fluids. Coffee or tea are good because they contain caffeine, which is good for headaches.
don’t take vitamins when you feel sick, or you’ll be sorry.
also, certain alcohols are worse. Corn liquor is terrible and cheap as hell, which is why off-brand hard lemonade can leave you feeling like hell even if you only drank in moderation.
However, there is no cure for feeling regret the next morning because, say, you were at Seymour’s and fell over a sofa and onto some exchange students. . . . I miss wesleyan.
Tags: Hangover, Celesteh

Please describe your aptitude and motivation for graduate study in your area of specialization, including your preparation for this field of
study, your academic plans or research interests in your chosen area of study, and your future career goals. Please be specific about why UC
Berkeley would be a good intellectual fit for you.

As an undergraduate at Mills College, I studied electronic music with Maggi Payne, who taught synthesis techniques on a large Moog Modular Synthesizer. Its sound and musical possibilities captivated me, and I decided to double-major in music and computer science.
After graduation, I did not compose for a couple of years, but began creating tape music again in 2000. After writing many such, I branched out into acoustic instruments and focused on rhythm. In 2002, I organized a percussion quintet, for whom I wrote music.
That same year, I began volunteering for Other Minds, a New Music nonprofit in San Francisco. I was a driver for their festival and then I helped them catalog their tape archive and worked for them as a volunteer sound engineer. In 2003, I joined the board of directors.
Also in 2003, I composed a piece for a mechanized coin-operated toy piano nonette designed by Trimpin. The odd intonation of toy pianos got me interested in pitch and tuning. I studied Just Intonation techniques with composer Ellen Fullman and took on the Java Just Intonation Calculator project, for which I am now the lead programmer (see http://jjicalc.sf.net). My interest in tuning also led me to the fretless bass guitar, which I played in an improv art rock quartet. We had a few gigs in the spring and summer of 2003.
When I arrived at Wesleyan in the fall of 2003, I decided to focus on things that are not possible with my main instrument, the analog modular synthesizer. Taking advantage of being surrounded by performers, I created several compositions for acoustic instruments; I also played tuba in Anthony Braxton’s Ensemble. I worked with him: studying free improvisation and also helping him debug his SuperCollider patches.
My main focus, however, was studying SuperCollider with Ron Kuivila. I concentrated on tuning and on working with audio files using granular synthesis techniques. For source material, I generally used recordings of the voices of recognizable public political figures such as George Bush and various right wing pundits. Most of the pundits sound very angry, so I also include more meditative just intoned works interspersed with the politics. I’ve applied my homebrewed granular algorithms to process live audio input, as well.
At Wesleyan my music became more rigorously organized and algorithmic, and less intuitive. To some extent, this was because of the tools I was using, but I also began to feel that a purely intuitive approach had its shortcomings. I’ve continued to work on form and computer music techniques since receiving my degree. I thought a year abroad would contribute to my education in many ways: I was accepted into the program at CCMIX in Alfortville, France, in fall of 2005. I’m studying timbre, both how to manipulate it electronically, and how to make use of it within a form. I believe this will complement my interest in tuning.
At UC Berkeley, I hope to work at CNMAT to learn more real-time techniques. Berkeley is my first choice for schools because of its excellent reputation and because it is a leader in developing computer music technologies, such as OSC. With my background as a computer programmer, I hope to be able to help develop the next pieces of audio software and to use them to create art. Berkeley is ideally situated for me both in terms of educational philosophy and physical location. While there, I would be able to continue all of my interests: composing, performing, improvising and programming, and I would be returning to the Bay Area: my home and a place where I have many musical contacts.
After graduation, I hope to teach or even become a professor. There is no better path to that goal than a PhD from UC.

Jean helped me edit that, because Jean is cool. She asked, though, does it answer the question.
so, um, does it?
Tags: UC, Celesteh

Repeated here for your pleasure, the kind of sketchy conversations one has with ferral composers at 2:30 am at Place de Republique:

Sttranger: (french) do you have rolling papers?
Me: (english) he says he wants rolling papers
another drunk composer [adc]: (english) what does he want them for? (hands over papers)
me: porqoui vous demander le papier?
stranger: (french) to roll a joint
me: for a joint
adc: for a cigarette? cigarette?
stranger: (pulls out a pack of cigaretttes offers one to adc who takes it)
adc: why does he want the papers?
me: for marijuana
stranger: oui! marijuana!
adc: i want to smoke mariojuana! does he want to share with us?
me: il voudrais fumer le marijuana avec toi. oh my god, i’m arranging a drug deal.
The stranger is not happy with this idea. I take a short walk away so he and adc can work it out. After some discussion in frenglish, adc stumbles over to where i am waiting.
adc: well, ok, i’m going to see whats up with all this and if he’s for real cuz we’re going to smoke pot.
meanwhile, the stranger has taken advantage of adc turning away and is running down the block away from us.
yet another drunk composer: I don’t think you’re going to get any pot tonight
and now, at 3:30 after being up since 6:30 and having an all-around exciting day which i may tell you about in teh future, i am going to bed.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

And that’s why I got up before 7:00 am, in the dark. To wait.

When I lived in Berkeley, I used to have ants. There are a lot of ants in Berkeley and you can only get rid of them for a little while. So I got used to keep ant food, like honey, in the fridge where the ants couldn’t get it. Fridges are bug proof and they keep things from spoiling. So why not refrigerated garbage cans? You don’t want to keep your trash in your regular fridge because sometimes, it’s already spoiled. But if you had a fridge trashcan, it would prevent bugs and also . . . zzzzzzzzzzzz
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

Here’s what I’m telling UC Berkeley about being diverse: (Thank you to Jean for helping me edit this)

In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include any educational, familial,
cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social
or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree.
When I graduated from college with a dual music/computer science degree, the dot-com boom was in full swing. I worked at a startup, and startups expect 60-80 hour work weeks. I did not write any music at all while I worked there, because the schedule took over all of my time.
A job was offered at Netscape, with more free time and more money, I accepted. I purchased a MOTM Modular synthesizer and started recording tape music. It became clear to me that my music was more important to me than my stock options. I wanted to be an engineer and a composer simultaneously. In 2001, I was laid off.
During the job search, I continued recording tape music and posting it to Mp3.com. I joined a group of noise music composers on the service. We hoped that by working together, we could raise the profile of noise music in general while also advancing our music careers. Despite having made virtually no money from music, when it became clear that the dot com bust really was the end of the party, I decided to switch my focus towards a composition career.
My father, my brother, my uncle, my grandfather and my great grandfather have all been engineers, but no one opposed this decision. For my own part, I felt a bit guilty at first. Instead of helping to solve the problem of the scarcity of women in computer science,, I was jumping ship. Ironically, I think I may have switched to a field even more male-dominated. (As it happens, almost all of my interests are in traditionally male-dominated fields.) I’m frequently the only woman or the only queer person present at lectures and events, or, for example, in the yearlong program at CCMIX this year.
In 2003, in an effort to learn how one might actually make a living as a composer, I attended the Composing a Career Conference sponsored by the Women’s Philharmonic. Almost everyone else there had a masters degree and the presenters all assumed they were speaking to a masters-level audience. Clearly, I needed a degree. I enrolled and completed the master’s program at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. While there, I discovered a fondness for teaching, which will require a doctorate. So here I am.
I think it’s useful and encouraging for women, queers, and other under-represented groups to see people like them teaching college. I hope to be that kind of positive reinforcement when I’m a professor.

Annnnd, I’m not sure this essay answers the question posed at all. Hm. Man, I hate this crap.
Tags: UC, Celesteh

I get to celebrate on Saturday. But today, I’ve got to go to the store and the post office and class and I can because everything is open. Maybe the patisserie wil have tarte de potiron. It’s the only thing I’m missing. Well, that may not be entirely true, but it would be better for me not to reflect on this.

Tags: Paris, Celesteh

From the Washington Post:

But Vatican officials say those rules have been loosely enforced, and some have blamed homosexuality for a worldwide scandal over sexual abuse of minors by priests. Other Catholics say there is no connection between homosexuality and pedophilia.

Indeed. Some catholics say there’s no connection between pedophilia and homosexuality. As does the DSM and every major professional organization of psychiatrists and psychologists in the united sates. Some shrinks point out that 98% of child abusers are not gay or bisexual. Some victims rights groups point out that the majority of victims of sexual abuse by the clergy are girls and oppose this plan. Some newspapers occasionally do a bit of research rather than presenting things that are verifiable as a difference of opinion. Or, you know, maybe they could “teach the controversy.” Oh, no, that’s another debate over a verifiable phenomenon.
If American culture is going to be relentlessly dedicated to positivism, could we please actually make an effort at doing even a smidgen of research. We have google. We have the internet. Reporters have Lexis Nexis. Heck, they could just call up an “expert” and ask for some information. They could open a book. There are so many ways to get information now. It boggles the mind to have to think about it. I remember the old days when libraries had card catalogs. Now you can find out about almost anything without having to leave your desk. It’s so much easier now to do research, yet it seems fewer and fewer news organizations ever bother.
Some catholics believe that the world is round. Some people actually earn their paychecks by doing their jobs.
Tags: Catholic, Gay, Celesteh

I woke up very early yesterday morning and my back hurt. a lot. I think I slept on it wrong. It hurt all day yesterday. a lot. It still hurts today, thank goodness less. I want a chiropractor.

Nicole has gone home to the Inland Empire for a food-based holiday. Ha ha. Alas. I have class on thursday night, even. I don’t think I can figure out how to make a pumpkin pie.
My house is cold. I’m out of rice and vegetables. I have lab hours tonight, but the software we just learned isn’t installed on the mac yet, so I don’t want to go. Anyway, I need to do my UC Application essays, which are too long and very annoying. I wrote some music and it got played. Then I wrote some more music and it got played. Then I wrote a different kind of music. Yawn.
It’s going to rain down slushy muck on friday.
Last week (the week that Cola was here), I had class everyday from 10 am – 7pm, which ran late sometimes. This week, I have two hours of class on thursday night. My school has had toilet paper two days out of the last three weeks. That’s not counting the day one other student got upset and begged some off a neighboring studio. He went and complained. He was informed that it will take two weeks for new toilet paper to arrive. What happened to the old toilet paper? He suspects students may have stolen it. He has suspects in mind. We’re a suspicious lot. There are rumors going around about people stealing each other’s work and each other’s samples. Improbable, strange theories wherein the stolen samples were only heard when the informant was outside the studio, thus highlighting the sneakiness of the thieves. (I’m being deliberately vague here, but I’m not making these rumors up, just causing inadvisable drama by repeating them.) The tweeters on the main speakers are definitely out. The mixing board has dirty faders (smoking in the studio doesn’t help). The patchbay’s normalizations are going out. I have serious hatred for frustration with one individual (if you’re reading this, it’s not you.)
I want to get a job. My visa allows me to work 20 hours per week. If I had a job: 1. I could afford to buy more blazers. 2. I would know more people. 3. My french would likely improve. 4. I would have more than 2 hours a week of things I was supposed to do with other people.
Or I could go awol. Nobody at school is French. I don’t have any connections to the french performance scene. If I went to Berlin, I could make connections there through wesleyan people who did the german exchange. But I have a lease on my Paris apartment.
Nothing makes me feel more female-identified than sexism. Where is Hothead Paisan when you need her?
I need: a conversation partner, a transformer for my mixer, to finish my stupid application, to find out if I can fax it in or find somebody in the us to print and mail it for me, to request transcripts from previous schools, (It is such a pain in the ass to do these things from another continent.) to figure out how the hell to get gigs, to go buy some rice and vegetables and toilet paper and baugette and cheese. I’m thinking emmental and st nectaire, although i haven’t tried the latter.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

French food! What exactly is crème fraîche? Wikipedia says that it’s “a heavy cream slightly soured with bacterial culture, but not as sour or as thick as sour cream. Originally a French product, today it is available throughout Europe.” I don’t know if it’s available world-wide or not, but it’s a very useful thing to have. You can add it to soups and sauces to make them extra tasty. Here are a couple of recipes, one very easy, one harder. For those of you who are vegan, you can substitute cashew nut butter and a drop of vinegar to get a similar effect.

Grad student cream of broccoli soup

Optionally sauté onions, optional garlic and optional pepper in some butter or olive oil. If you choose not to sauté, then just put some olive oil or butter in a pan.
Add some dry rice, too much water and some bullion. Optionally add herbs de provence or other spices. Cook the rice until it is nearly done, then add a head of chopped broccoli. Cook the broccoli in the water and rice. After three minutes you have watery cooked rice and broccoli. Then add a spoonful or so of crème fraîche. You now have cream of broccoli and rice soup! This might go well with baked chicken.
There are many options in the above directions, because graduate school is an exploration in options, boundaries and the like. Also, it’s cheap, easy and fast.

Soup of Potimarron

Take one small or medium potimarron (a pumpkin or butternut squash may be substituted) and bake it around 175 degrees C (or 350 F) for 40 minutes to an hour. You can tell it’s done when you can easily pierce it with a fork (the same is true of the other squashes). At the same time, also bake, in the same oven, a handfull of chestnuts. You can tell their done when around half of them have cracks in the shell. They will take less time than the squash.
Peel and dice the chestnuts and set them aside. Put a lump of butter in a pan and sauté in it an onion, two or more cloves of garlic and a hot pepper. When the onions are getting translucent, add a small amount of rice (a handful) and broth or water + bullion. Also add a tablespoon of herbs de Provence or other european soup spices, two centimeters of ginger root, a pinch of dried red pepper flakes (to taste), and a teaspoon of cinnamon. Cover and let simmer.
Cut the squash in half and remove the seeds, which you should save too cook later. Scoop the squash insides into the soup. Then add the chestnuts. Let simmer until the rice is cooked and the squash is breaking apart. Then add a head of chopped brocoli. Cook that for 3 – 5 minutes. Then ladle the soup into a blender and blend it. Return the blended soup to the pot and put it over low heat. Add 0.5 – 1 cup of soy milk and a few spoonfuls of crème fraîche, until the soup tastes really rich. Salt and pepper to taste. Your soup is done.
Beware if you try to cook the chestnuts in a frying pan or something instead of in the oven. Take them off the heat after most of them crack. The ones that don’t crack can explode, which is extremely messy and probably hazardous.

Squash seeds

Now take the seeds that you saved from the squash and wash most of the squash goop off of them. Put then in a frying pan with oil that takes high heat (like canola or corn or whatever) and some soy sauce. You can add black pepper and your other favorite spices, like curry powder or herbs de Provence or anything else. Cook them until the soy sauce evaporates away and the bits of squash goop burn to the bottom of the pan. This differs for different seeds. Potimarron seeds take a long time because they’re so thick. When you’re done, the seeds are a nice browned color and crunchy when you sample them. If they start to explode like popcorn (watch out for butternut squash, esp), they’re definitely done. Eat them with salt.
Tags: Food, Crème fraîche, Paris, Celesteh